Disaster Date

Last night I went to a speed dating event in Wrigleyville. I went to a couple of these about a year ago with mixed results - so I thought it was worth another shot. As the title of this post would indicate, it did not go well.

Let's begin with the events leading up to the date. I apparently chose not to read the email sent to me 3 times stating the speed dating starts at 7:30, so plan to arrive at 7:00. According to JST (Jewish Standard Time), people should begin strolling in around 7:20 - so the fact that I was running a bit late was not of huge concern to me. I wasn't thrilled that my GPS was telling me the travel time was just over an hour, as the radio said it would be looking more like 30-45 minutes - but I pushed through. I saw that my GPS and Google Maps were leading me in the same direction, so I had faith I was going the right way. I ended up here not so much here. If you bothered to follow the links and do the math, you would see that the distance between the two by car is only about four minutes. Let's remember, however, that this is me. After going the wrong way on Clark St, ending up on Broadway, and making my way through Boystown during what is essentially rush hour - in addition to circling for a good five to ten minutes to find a place to park - I was about 30 minutes late. So I walk run into the bar to find out that the dating only started ten minutes prior (I told you it was JST).

Once I finally settled in, I had my first date who asked me if he missed something during the setup or if I was just late. I explained that I was just late because I had gone to Lakeview instead of Wrigleyville. He told me there are devices that can assist with that. I laughed and made a mental note to circle 'no' on the HurryDate form. We talked for another few minutes before it was time to move on. The next guy came and I made the immediate observation that he was awkward, smelled badly, and seemed kind of out of it. We made marginally idle conversation until his nametag was found and then it went downhill. He asked me how I would describe myself religiously and I told him I most enjoy the music and traditions of Judaism. He told me that he doesn't care about tradition and lives his life directly by the scriptures. Let's jus say that it was an incredibly painful four minutes of my life that I will never get back.

There was a bit of a break so I looked at the rest of the tables and immediately spotted a guy I went on a date with a month or so ago. I neglected to call him back and could tell that an epic fail was imminent if I didn't get out of that bar as quickly as possible. I shielded my face a bit as I walked toward the bathroom, asked the leader if there was anyone worth sticking around for, and hightailed it as quickly as my kitten heels could take me.

Lessons Learned:

• Confirm the time of the event before planning transportation
• Prepare for running into someone I've dated and/or talked to before
• Have an escape route ready
• At some point in the process, consume lots and lots of alcohol (as needed)

It's only procrastinating if there's something else you're *supposed* to be doing

The nature of my job is that I fix things when they break. The beauty of my job is that things don't always break. There may be a phone call here and there asking how to print in color, questioning the accessibility of the network, and wondering if I can declare a computer unusable to facilitate an early weekend. For the record, I'm generally happy to oblige. All of my tickets are currently in an 'Awaiting (something)' status, so I'm left to my own devices.

Which brings us to this post. I was talking to my brother this morning and he put my soon-to-be four year old nephew, Yisroel, on the phone. Yisroel is starting cheder sometime in the near future and is excited about it. Let's be honest, though. Four year olds are not known for articulation and enunciation, so there was some question as to what he actually said. I came into work to discover nothing much was required of me, so I promptly Googled 'Cheder' and followed the Wikipedia link. As I read through this article, I learned a number of fascinating things, and clicked on various links throughout. I'm pretty sure I spent the better part of an hour researching Hebrew education, the origins of Haredi Judaism, and the political climate of Israel. The next chunk of time was spent attempting to find an electronic version of the Jewish Book of Why and I somehow managed to buy the new Jen Lancaster book, I Wish You Were Here, from the iBook store. In case you're curious, there is absolutely no link between the two. And yet, I came upon it simply by clicking on links related to other searches this morning.

I contend that this is not procrastinating. One needs a required/expected task to avoid in order to procrastinate. Mind you, when I go home and continue this search and/or read any of the books I downloaded or e-borrowed, I will, in fact, be procrastinating. This is because my apartment is an unmitigated disaster. It is complete and utter chaos and I am generally too overwhelmed and/or tired to do anything about it. As such, I am rapidly improving my scores in Word Flurry and Know or Go. I'd also be willing to bet I will completely discard my random fascination with Jewish tradition in favor of the House Season 1 DVD by the weekend. Maybe I'm mistaken. Maybe I'll actually clean my apartment and take out the trash. Maybe I'll - dude - did you see this video on YouTube . . .

Ten bucks says you'll be watching the associated videos for the next two hours. You're welcome.

Back off Murphy

So it's been a few weeks since I've updated this blog because, really, I wasn't sure how I could bring a sense of humor to the events in the month of April. As it's May, these events are now in the past and I can laugh at them (or at least that's what I tell people). I will say that I've almost always been a real life example of Murphy's Law, to the extent that people stare at me with their mouths agape when I tell them about any part of my life. So - let's take a look at the last 30 days or so . . .

April 4 - Though I wake up relatively early regardless, I'm none too thrilled when there's a knock on my door at 8:00 AM of the plumber coming to do work on my apartment. Though I knew they were coming that day, I thought they wouldn't be there until 9:00, and thus my kitchen and bathroom were not cleaned out for their arrival. They gave me an extra 30 minutes or so, which I appreciated, though still wasn't thrilled with the fact that I had to lock up my cats and wasn't allowed to be in my apartment while the work was being done. I walked out to the parking lot outside my apartment and approached my car. I saw a little glass on the ground and laughed to myself about the beer bottle that had likely been smashed. I stopped laughing when I looked through the window of my car to see that there was no window. Instead, I was greeted with this:

Nope, that's not a slushee, that's the shattered remnants of the driver-side window. I noticed that my GPS had been taken, but they thankfully left my $10 sunglasses (pictured above). Muttering to myself, I went to the leasing office to see if they could send someone out to help me clean up the mess inside and outside of my car. They asked if I had filed a police report, and I replied, no, I hadn't thought that far ahead. I looked up the non-emergency number and was told to call 911. Awesome, glad I spent the time trying to find the other number. I explained the situation and tried to tell the kind police responder my address. Funny thing: when you're in shock, it can sometimes be hard to pull out seemingly automatic information. I stumbled for a bit, completely blank as to the number of my apartment. I gave them some conglomeration of my last several addresses, until I finally managed to walk up to the post outside of my apartment and blurt - oh yeah, 2165. This was after quite a bit of thought, some prodding on the part of the responding officer, and some confusion as to where on my street I lived. It was significantly easier, however, once I came up with the right number.

Alas, the police came, told me that what happened was pretty common and that it's unfortunate I live so close to a highway, as it's easy for a thief to drive in, grab my stuff, and drive out. Why yes, I'm sure it is. Before I called the police (or maybe after?) I called Gerber to see if I could bring my car to them so they could replace the now-defunct window. There were a number of calls back and forth, an amazing maintenance guy at my complex came and helped me vacuum both the inside and outside of my car, and I finally decided to just drive to work minus the window, as it didn't seem like Gerber would be able to get to me all that quickly. I at least had the presence of mind to avoid the highway, as it seemed errant shards of glass would not stay put at 65 mph. I had taken the alternative route to work previously (oddly enough before my spiffy new GPS came up with a faster way), and proceeded to drive bitterly along the (still large) streets. Have I mentioned my complete lack of a sense of direction before? Like quite literally getting lost on my own street when I was 16? Though the route doesn't actually require any turns, I managed to take the wrong exit and get quite miserably lost on my way to the office. I called my boss and asked for guidance to my building. I told several co-workers about the trials of the last several hours, and had one tell me that I really shouldn't have left anything in my car - it's an invitation for a break-in. I made a mental note to turn off her anti-virus software and went about the rest of my day. The window got fixed, I was out about $200, but I remind myself that it could have been worse - the break-in could have occurred several hours earlier during the torrential downpour.

April 7-17: The plumbers came again (at the end of the week) and left me with a giant bleach stain on my carpet - I wasn't happy. A bit later into the following week, I realized that the work had yet to be finished and Passover would be quite soon. Much as I relished the idea of maintenance people rooting through my kitchen during Passover, I requested (strongly) that the work be finished prior to the holiday. Thankfully, my request was accommodated and I chose not to complain about the fact that they had been in my apartment on a day no one told me work was being done. 

April 18-24: Passover was relatively uneventful (aside from a few minor mishaps with plastic plates and an over-zealous microwave), so I thought I would be home free for the remainder of April. As it turns out, not so much. I took a new medication the last (well . . . only) Thursday of Passover and didn't think much of it, as I rarely have bad reactions to medication. I went to a friend's Seder on Friday (yep - Good Friday), and had a small itch on my back, but I assumed it was a bug bite. The red spot didn't go away on Saturday and seemed to get a little bigger on Sunday. By Saturday night, I figured I was allergic to the medication, so I stopped taking it. I called my doctor and said I thought I was allergic to this medicine, do I need to do anything other than discontinue? She recommended that I go to my Primary Care doctor, just to make sure nothing else was going on. She mentioned shingles and I promptly dismissed it - I only get chronic diseases, nothing serious and/or easily diagnosable. A few of my friends (who know who they are) were quite worried and wanted me to go to the ER, as a rash is a "severe and unexpected side-effect". I compromised and made the appointment with my PCP for later in the day. I figured I had an appointment to take care of my computer later that day and I would just move a few things around.

April 25: After a GPS mishap (did I mention my difficulty with geography earlier?) I made it to my doctor's office, albeit 15 minutes late. I showed her the offending rash, told her I was pretty sure I was allergic to the new medicine and expected her to agree. She didn't. She looked at my back, asked me a few questions, and told me she was pretty sure I had shingles. I believe my exact response was "that is so not funny". Mind you, at the time, I didn't really know much about shingles, so I wasn't sure what to expect. She said, well - you're not allergic to (medication x), told me a little bit about shingles, gave me a prescription for an anti-viral, congratulated me for being generally healthy (and thus, conspicuously absent), and sent me on my way. 

I made it to my (rescheduled) appointment at the store, and told the technician what was wrong with my computer. I gave him a quick history of the repairs it had, told him what was done and what I'd tried, and said (perhaps prematurely) 'let's just skip the middle-man and replace it'. The tech-in-question didn't think the issue warranted a replacement and told me he would like to check it in for a repair. I asked who the manager was (being intimately familiar with the staff), and he said he would see if he could find someone. The manager (who I'd worked with extensively) looked at the notes, said the situation was that it didn't qualify for a replacement, but they'd be happy to repair it. I made several arguments to the contrary, backing my opinion up with technical evidence, and the manager smiled and said there were other components that could be replaced. He mentioned one in particular that doesn't exist in a laptop, quickly corrected himself, and said it had been a long day. I said I would check with my boss, we made some idle chit-chat, and I left (silently fuming). Incidentally, I made an appointment at another location, walked in, explained the issue with my computer, and promptly got it replaced. The other store: Dead to me. 

On the ride over, I talked to a few other friends, many who said that shingles is incredibly serious, I really needed to tell my boss about it, he likely would just send me home anyway, and, by-the-way, shingles is really serious. I tried to call my boss, left a voicemail, and made several other phone calls - as that is my way. I waited to go into work as I didn't want to make the drive and be sent home (particularly with gas prices topping $4/gallon). I was given the go ahead (from both my doctor and my boss) and went to the office.  By 2:00, though, I was starting to feel it and suffered through the remaining hour and a half before collapsing into bed immediately upon getting home. I ended up staying home the next couple of days, just because I was in some degree of pain and really didn't want to prolong the illness. 

April 29: Friday morning, I saw my neurologist (for tremors - unrelated), and he prescribed Lyrica. I got home, took the Lyrica (along with my anti-viral) and settled into my recliner with my laptop. An hour later, I noticed I felt shaky. Really shaky. Like, wait, I can't seem to type a message or check email on my phone shaky. Already well-versed in adverse reactions, I called my neurologist's office and told them I was having uncontrollable tremors. Didn't hear back for a bit and things got worse, so I called a friend in my apartment complex and she took me to the ER.

As far as ER visits go, it wasn't too bad. I was there for three or four hours, but somehow the concept of Fibromyalgia + Shingles= PAIN!!!!! didn't translate well. "Does this hurt?" Why, yes, it does. If you do that again, I'll beat you with the litany of heavy cables attached to my left arm at the moment. They eventually decided everything looked ok (aka: I wasn't dying), and gave me some Ativan to theoretically calm my muscles (and me). The thing is, I was calm. Well, as calm as you can be when you're in an ER, the alarm on the medicine cabinet is going off, and you're in pain. Still - all things considered . . .  I'm sure you can guess that the next part did not go smoothly. Huh, medication for anxiety is giving me the symptoms I have when I get panic attacks. Symptoms I have not experienced IN THE PAST FOUR MONTHS. Wait for it . . . Another adverse reaction. Once they decided to discharge me, I mentioned that I came to the ER with pain and tremors, and was leaving the ER with pain and tremors. At least it wouldn't kill me, though!! A different friend picked me up, took me to Potbelly (after I sent her in the wrong direction quite a few times) and dropped me off at home, where I spent the remainder of the weekend in my pajamas, hoping to be safe from the outside world.

And here I am today, in a fair amount of pain, but at work - thereby proving that anything that can go wrong will happen to me. I'm laughing about it though, and that's got to count for something.

caPiTalIZe ThIS

I will freely admit that I am a grammar snob. I get angry with people for using their when they mean there. Run-on sentences with no discernible punctuation make me want to punch kittens. My biggest pet peeve, however, seems to be the random capitalization people use when referring to technology - particularly Apple products.

Here's a little lesson on the right way to spell something and the way to spell something if you want to get shot by a bunch of elitist creatives:

'iDevices'

This is simple, people. the 'i' is always lower case, the next-letter is upper-case, the remainder of the word is generally lower-case. There are, of course, exceptions, but I promise not to maim you if you write out Macbook instead of MacBook (primarily because I worked for the company for three years and I still get it wrong half the time). For those of you who like examples (class, spell it after me):

• iPad, iPhone, iPod, iMac
• MacBook, MacBook Pro, Mac Pro (again, no one will get hurt for getting this set wrong)

The following are incorrect:

• Iphone, Ipad, IPOD, iPHONE, IPad, or (my personal favorite) iphOne
• iTouch - wait - that doesn't look right, does it? All these other handheld products are spelled i-p-(fill in the blank). It's an iPod Touch people -iTouch is an app used by perverts and massage therapists

The computer and its operating system

1. I am typing this on a Mac, not a MAC. I worked for Apple, not APPLE. 
2. The 'X' in OS X represents a Roman Numeral - not a letter. The proper pronunciation is OS Ten. Get it right or I'm going to start telling people that I admire the writing of Malcolm 10. 
3. If asked what operating system you are running, the answer is pronounced Ten Point (Something). You are not expected to remember which cat goes with which number. It is generally beneficial if you know whether the apple in the top left corner is blue or black - but no one's going to condemn you to the remedial technology closet if you aren't entirely sure. 

The Retail Store

You are trekking to the Apple Store. It is not the Mac Store, it's not the iPod store, it's not the iPhone store. Most of this, I am prepared to let slip. As long as you know how to identify an Apple store (Hint: you will not see the word 'Apple' spelled out anywhere) and you have some level of awareness that several types of devices are sold, I really don't give a damn what you call it. 

Case in point: My childhood best friend and I would go to "The Gum Store" - primarily because the only thing she was allowed to get there when she was very young was gum. When I started going with her - we had graduated well beyond gum to several types of candy and other items - it was still "The Gum Store." Though it is worthy of note that we were 6 years old at the time. 

Perhaps the reason this angers me so much is the overwhelming number of people who couldn't find the store at which I spent great deals of time. A giant stainless-steel structure featuring a seven foot tall white apple tends to stick out in a strip mall of connected stores featuring banners with store names/logos/etc. I could certainly understand the issue on sunny days - a white apple on a silver background tends to blend in. But really people - REALLY? You couldn't find it because you didn't see the word 'Apple' anywhere? You're angry because you searched for 'MAC store' and ended up at the makeup company on the other side of the mall? I'm pretty sure all sympathy went out the window when you blamed me for not telling you that the store opened . . . 3.5 years ago . . . 

Hardware, et al.

Here's the deal - provided you don't yell at me because your memory is full or your computer keeps telling you that you're running out of space - you can learn as much or as little about hardware as you like. I don't expect you to know the difference between RAM (Random Access Memory) and a Hard Drive. I don't expect you to know that your computer's memory has nothing to do with the amount of music you just deleted from your machine. There are a great number of subjects for which I have incredibly limited knowledge (ironically, networking terms are beyond me. I know the functional differences between routers, switches, and modems, but I can't remember them half the time). I suppose a general principle is that you can be willing to learn as much or as little about any of these subjects as you feel compelled to do - but if you yell at me for anything or expect me to fix it just because your cousin's ex-boyfriend talked to my brother once in high school, you're dead to me.

-All thE bEst

beCCa - (I capitalized the wrong part, didn't i?)

Food Preferences- or why my chicken is cuter than yours . . .

*Names have been changed in the interest of confidentiality (and my ability to maintain Facebook friendships)

As we all know my relationship with food leaves much to be desired, I try to reserve judgement about other people's food choices - particularly when I have friends who will do the judging for me. 

I have friends, relatives, and acquaintances with incredibly odd food allergies, preferences, and practices. My friend John* is deathly allergic to milk and dairy products. Additionally, he keeps kosher, so it's always an adventure to find a restaurant that can feed him and avoid killing him (preferably both, though concessions must occasionally be made). I have another friend - Elizabeth*- who is highly allergic to mushrooms. Heidi - whose name I won't change because I believe she will want credit where credit is due - merely finds mushrooms offensive - though she will clarify that this should not discourage others from eating them in her presence. Yet others of my friends are lactose intolerant - some pathologically so.  I also have friends who keep varying degrees of kosher, which is always an interesting thing to figure out when choosing a restaurant. Some of my friends eat no animal products. Others will eat fish, but not chicken or beef. Some simply avoid red meat. I've lost track of who will die eating (fill in the blank) and who wouldn't be caught dead eating (hey - another blank) - so I try to pick neutral locations and figure people will speak up if an issue should arise. Every once in a while, though, needs clash and cause the following situations to unfold.

Last night, Heidi and I went over to Melissa's* house for a girl's night in. After putting our individually made pizzas in the oven, we settled in for some conversation. Melissa shared a story about her trip to Amish country several years prior. A bunch of people went to the general store, but Melissa "didn't want to buy Amish stuff" and chose to entertain herself on the large field adjoining the store. There was a calf roaming through the grass and it came rather close to Melissa, so she pet the calf. At some point, a friend came out and snapped a picture of Melissa petting said calf, much to the dismay of the Amish boy who accidentally ended up in the corner of the picture. It was from this point on, Melissa said, that she could no longer eat hamburgers because she would always feel like she was eating the cute Amish calf. Heidi  - who speaks her mind without provocation - inquired as to whether chickens were an acceptable food choice and Melissa nodded her head as if this were an obvious fact.

We frolicked through a trip down memory lane to an evening when we (I may have been there - who knows) were having dinner with some other friends. Heidi mentioned to Jessica* that the steak was rather tasty. Jessica shook her head, indicating that she did not eat from this section, so Heidi looked at some other dishes. Several people who consider themselves to be vegetarians (myself included) will eat fish - so Heidi pointed out the sea bass. Jessica then looked excitedly at the menu and ordered a chicken dish of some sort. The remainder of the conversation went something like this:

Heidi: But I thought you didn't eat meat?

Jessica: No, I just don't eat beef.

Heidi: But you eat chicken . . 

Jessica: Yes

Heidi: Why?

Jessica: Chickens are ugly.

Heidi: I see. So you're a cute-arian?

Jessica: What?

Heidi: You won't eat animals that are cute.

Jessica: Hmm, I suppose so.

Which brings us back to last night's conversation. Heidi, a mathematician, likes things to be clearly laid out and defined, so she pressed on. 

Heidi: Are lambs cute? 

Melissa: Yes. 

H: Shrimp?

M: So not cute.

H: Ok, are pigs cute? 

M: Yes. 

H: Have you seen a real pig before? You realize Babe is a cartoon, right?

M: Baby pigs are cute.

H: I see. So you won't eat animals that were, at one point, cute?

M: No, I just don't eat animals that are cute.

H: What if there is a particularly ugly cow?

M: What?!

H: An ugly, deformed cow. That's not cute - would you eat that?

M: What? No!

H: Actually, that's probably a good choice. There's probably something wrong with that cow that makes it deformed - so it wouldn't be good to eat it anyway. 

H: But little chicks are cute (hand gestures indicating chirping birds) peep, peep, peep.

M: Chickens are not cute.

H: Again, little furry chicks are cute (hand gestures) peep, peep.

Seeing that this wasn't going anywhere - in addition to the fact that we were all in absolute hysterics - we let that particular topic go - if only for a moment.

Heidi then pointed out another friend she'd met at a dinner (we'll call him 'Frederico') who also had interesting theories about acceptable food choices. This particular friend would not eat anything that walked. Heidi, again, needing clarification, pressed on. 

Heidi: Ok, so chickens?

Frederico: Walk, yes.

H: Ok. What about ducks?

F: No - I won't eat ducks.

H; But they don't really walk, they waddle.

F: Yeah, I still say they walk.

H: Ok, so no crab or lobster?

F: Lobster is ok.

H: But crabs and lobsters walk.

F: No, they sort of scuttle . . .

H: Well then chickens don't really walk either - they kind of bob side to side and veer in odd directions. 

F: (blank stare)

H: Ok, so walking and waddling are cute and scuttling is annoying and punishable by death. I think I get it.

As none of us can leave well enough alone, we (Heidi, Melissa, and I) dug deeper into the realm of weird food practices. I have a second cousin Sarah*, for example, who only eats raw foods. Melissa looked puzzled, so Heidi explained that the theory is that cooking food strips it of all its nutrients, thereby making it useless and disdainful (or something like that). Of course an argument ensued as to whether this theory had any validity, how many nutrients are actually removed during the cooking process, and where one would find a raw-food eating hippy commune in the midwest (Yes - there is such a place). We then spoke about fruitarians - trust me that I'm not making this up. Heidi - the consummate realist - wondered how such a diet was sustainable. Would one need to wait by an apple tree and hope something would fall? What if someone were to run into a tree, thereby causing the fruit to fall off the tree? Would this be murder? How can it truly be determined that fruit fell off the tree and was not pushed, plucked, or otherwise manipulated in some way? Is there a governing body?

Melissa quickly tired of this conversation and made a statement she felt we could all agree on. She declared that she made sure not to buy any makeup or skin care products tested on animals. Taking my cue from Heidi, I prolonged my agony and asked if it was ok if the products were tested on chickens.

And you all thought I was weird.

Paging Dr. Freud . . .

My dreams have officially become bizarre. Not in the trippy/LSD/flying kind of way. In the - I can't believe I actually had a dream about a coffee mug- kind of way. If you know any good dream analysts - have at it - I would definitely like to know the subconscious significance of Q-Tips.

Some highlights:

• I have two polar bear coffee mugs that I got as a housewarming present five years ago. I rather like them, though their shape requires particular positioning in the dishwasher. I had a dream the other night that I had two more of them and was trying to figure out how to fit them in that particular load of dishes. 
• I'm picking up a repair at the Apple Store when I see the top shelves lined with boxes of Q-Tips® (Yes - I did take the time to find the ® symbol). I don't remember the rationale for them, but they were giving them away freely. I noted that I could have used that before buying the box I'd purchased recently.
• When working at Apple, there was a day where I needed a blank CD and we were out of them. I'd requested more from the ICS. That night, I dreamed that the spools had come in and brought them back to the Genius Room to use. The following day, I went to that same spot in the cage and realized the spool of CDs existed only in my dream.  
• The other night, I had a dream that one of my coworkers told me to go to another for tax advice. He's one of the guys who designs Happy Meal Toys. No - he does not moonlight at H&R Block.
• At some point I had a dream that I ran into several of my users while waiting to pick up a car at Enterprise. 

If we go way back in time:

• Every night from the ages of 4-5, I had a dream that a witch killed my father. My father killed the witch at some point when I was 5, thus ending the dreams. There was a notable one, however, that involved a rice cake bridge. The witch ate away at the bridge while I was hanging off of it. I think my dad was dead in a car (also on the rice cake bridge). To the best of my knowledge, no Benadryl was involved.

All that said, my dreams are mundane enough that I often wake up, go about my day, then realize something I've seen, someone I've talked to, or something I've done only occurred in my dream. If I talk to you about something that is completely plausible but didn't happen - I ask that you play along.

None of the Shriers have cable TV . . .

For those of you who know my family (or at least knew us circa 1999) - this is unfathomable. We bonded over TV. We watched TV as a family. Our nightly viewing of Politically Incorrect (at which time we would argue over the inane responses of the guest that evening) was sacrosanct. There's a video of my brother at two years old saying he wants to go over to Nondie's (my grandmother's) house to watch MTV. Any one of us could recite the Primetime lineup of the major networks in our sleep. The advent of TiVo only served to make this addiction worse. For freak's sake - I was paid and got college credit for watching television - How could any of us LIVE without cable??

Though it may be hard to believe, I have not had cable in my apartment for a full year. Perhaps I should rephrase - I have not paid for cable in my apartment for a year. Realistically, I've been without cable since July, and, much like my computer, I don't particularly miss it. Please don't take this as an invitation to take my computer away from me for more than a week - such things will get you shot and killed.

My reliance on television probably ended ten years ago when I went to college and didn't have cable (or television) in my dorm room. Mind you, this changed by sophomore year, but I'd already been weaned off, so it wasn't as dramatic a transition. There were certainly shows that I watched religiously (The West Wing, Will and Grace, Once and Again), and was known to watch Friends in syndication as much as possible, but my life did not revolve around TV. That is, of course, until my Junior year of college. My cushy liberal arts education allowed me to do classes on The Cosby Show and The West Wing, which required reliable access to Nick at Nite and Bravo. I used the cable in the dorms until I lived in off-campus housing senior year, thereby justifying Satellite TV. If only I'd thought to use that as a tax-deductible educational expense at the time . . .

In my lovely post-graduation apartment, I couldn't dream of life without the Boob Tube, so HBO and the 1400 other channels became my haven, yet again. Life continued in a similar manner until I began working retail, thereby destroying my regular schedule and prime-time freedom. By this time, however, there was DVR, so my days off were generally dominated by all-day marathons of Law and Order SVU. And then - last year - I moved to an apartment on my own in an attempt to save money (and my sanity). Cable was most definitively not a necessary expense, and when the move to digital cut off my free (ok - stolen) access, I wasn't going to break down and buy something that would only waste my time. If I'm dying to see something in particular, I can usually go to Hulu and call it good. I still have broadcast TV in my house, but it's only on for the specific shows I watch (don't even think about taking away Glee). I will admit, most weekends are spent playing on my computer or doing something similar with DVDs in the background, but this has seriously reduced the mindless hours I could spend in front of a television on any given weekend. 


How on earth could someone who majored in The Portrayal of American Politics in Television actually live without much of a TV? How could a former Journalism major live in a foreign country without a television in the house? Well, my faithful followers, people can change. Ha! Fooled you! That only happens on television . . .