Addiction, Obsession & Me

Y'all, I have a confession. I'm obsessed...

with television.

Make no mistake about it; I just can't get enough of the ole' box. The electronic babysitter. The eye. The small screen. The goggle box. The tube. The TV. The idiot box. The cultural barbiturate. The glass teat. The boob tube.

The telly.

Before this year, television was something that was marginally present in my life. I might have had one show I hoped to watch every week, but the world still continued to turn on its axis if I missed it. Not this year, though, no way. Since August, I have become one of those people who consciously schedules things around television shows.

I'm ashamed.

The only defense I have is this: when I get home from class/work, I need to just chill out for a minute before I can get going and be productive. Therefore, the glass box in the corner makes for an ever-willing accomplice in helping me delay the inevitable. Further, I need breaks from my school work, and the interlude provided by 30-minute or hour-long programming makes for the perfect revunation period. I know my mother, who fought so hard to make television something of a last resort when I was growing up, would be appalled. Sorry, Mom!

It seems that I now have at least one show I want to watch almost every weeknight. (In a side note, why is it that no good television ever comes on over the weekend? I mean, there's good movies on sometimes, but the weekend lineup is often completely barren.) Some nights there's even more than one show I want to watch on at the (yikes) same time! It gets intense. Take a look at what a normal television week looks like for me:

Note: I am ashamed not only at the volume of television I now watch but also at the silliness of some of the shows I pick. I hope we can still be friends after you see what's coming.

Monday: Dancing with the Stars and my newest obsession CSI: Miami (a subject I will probably be devoting an entire post to in the very near future, FYI). I also like to flip over to Intervention, so this is one of those nights that I'm flipping back and forth during commercials and, honestly, not getting the full gist of either show.

Tuesday: The Biggest Loser and the results show of Dancing with the Stars comes on at the same time, so I'm flipping once again. Sometimes I cruise over to American Idol, but I've managed to keep from allowing myself to get totally sucked into that one this season.

Wednesday: I manage to give my full attention to America's Next Top Model before I have to start flipping between The Gauntlet II and CSI: New York.

Thursday: I try to squeeze in Grey's Anatomy and The Office, but it seems that this night is often the one that my television watching goes haywhire. (Yet another reason I am thankful for TV shows on DVD.)

While this may not seem all that overwhelming, you have to keep in mind the shows I watch that are currently out of season, including: The Bachelor, Secret Life of the American Teenager, America's Best Dance Crew, The Real World, and So You Think You Can Dance.

Is your head spinning?

That makes two of us.

However, this ride is not quite over, for I have yet to mention the sitcoms and fillers that I frequently watch. By these I mean the entire TBS afternoon line-up, from Yes, Dear to Seinfeld. I also mean late-night Will & Grace, Frasier, and sometimes even Golden Girls. I know; it's too much to conceive of, too much to digest.

I promise I really do actually do more than sit on my couch soaking up the gamma rays being emitted by my television set. I manage to make it to work and school; I go for walks; I hang out with friends; I talk on the phone; I read; I listen to music; I check out what's going on in the world around me.

I just make sure that I'm positioned on my couch, remote in hand, in plenty of time to catch the opening credits, of course.