January 08, 2007
He Who Stays in the Middle of the Road Gets Run Down*
One thing I never lacked for as a child was books. There was no parental limit to how many books I could check out of the library at once (although there was a library limit), and I remember marking an infinite number of boxes on the order form in the Scholastic catalog when it was that special book-fair time of year at school. I always had a lot of books in my room, and after numerous binges of purchasing ten books per week during the two years I worked Barnes and Noble, my collection started spilling off of the shelves my parents bought me for graduation, climbing in teetering stacks that reached my knees from the longish carpet on my room floor.
Even though I have a well-defined affinity for books that, though changed, remains strong now that I'm all grown-up and stuff, being around them in quantity has always caused me something of a negative reaction. I remember going to the neighborhood library as an elementary school student and being hit with a wave of jittery nausea the moment I passed through the alarm standards at the front doors. My knees would go weak, my heart would race, and my stomach would flip-flop in a most unpleasant way. I was sick at the sheer volume of literature before me--aisles and aisles holding row upon row of words words words--and even though I was still young at the time, with a whole rich reading life ahead of me, I knew I could never get through them all, and that made me want to crawl in a hole and throw up on myself. Even working at a bookstore ten years later was a challenge because every day was a reminder that I had so much to learn and so little time. Still today, going into a bookstore makes me anxious and twitchy, and my retail experience only added the compulsion to clean up the endcaps and reorganize the displays as I walk by.
When I moved in November, I schlepped about twenty boxes of books to our apartment. When I first moved to Berkeley, there were twenty-six, and two flights of stairs. In the last five and a half years, I've given away more books than I've acquired by about 400 percent, and my collection is getting tighter, more refined, more indicative of what I really love, which is good in every way. And not only have I collected sparingly (mostly by avoiding bookstores as often as possible because if I go in, I will buy, guaranteed), but I've also focused on reading the books I already own; I'd had Gone with the Wind for who knows how long and only finally got into it last month. (I'm still about 200 pages from finishing, but it has already secured a place as one of my favorites forever (below Lolita and Gatsby, but neck-and-neck with Emma).)
All of this is not to describe my complex relationship with literature, however, but to give context to why I barely left the house last weekend. We got cable on Saturday. Hence, I've fallen (in love) and I can't get up.
I LOVE tv. And I really really like crappy tv along the lines of stupid entertainment "news" shows and stupid reality shows and stupid talk shows. I like the vivid colors, slick lighting, and snappy pace of the fluff programs; to me they're sort of like a fully animated trashy magazine--all platitudes and saturated jewel tones and mindless blather about (a) stuff that doesn't matter or (b) stuff that matters and should be treated with more respect and less sensationalistic whoreitude. What I tell myself: "I need crap tv after reading black and white text for six-plus hours, and I won't defend it any further than that. Harrumph." Sadly, just because it's justified doesn't mean I feel good about it, especially when I drown entire evenings in such drivel.
And now that we have about five times as many channels...Hoo boy.
Simon thinks that with more options, the quality will go up. After he made me stop on the Word Arm-Wrestling Championships for fifteen minutes, though, I seriously doubt that. I'm not the first person to say that cable tv doesn't mean "more and different (and better)" but "more of the same old crap." I'm just its newest victim.
Yesterday we turned on the tv first thing in the morning, while still in bed, breaking our rule of never watching tv in the bedroom unless it's a tape (because there's no VCR in the other room) or porn (yes? no!), and for the rest of the day I was unable to pull myself away. We were supposed to spend the day in Napa tasting wines and strolling through vineyards and enjoying the sunshine, and instead I watched eight room renovations, one champion frisbee dog, and the surgical removal of a forty-six-year-old calcified fetus from an Indian woman's abdomen. Then over dinner, Simon and I turned on the tube just to explore our options during the fifteen minutes it would take to eat our salads, and we ended up watching Pretty Woman and an hour-long show about the special challenges of being sixteen-year-old conjoined twins. (Whose record does the traffic ticket go on? How can they type so fast with each brain controlling one hand? Dating? Boyfriends? Sex? *head explodes*) All day and all night I couldn't turn off the tv or stop flipping channels because I was sure I'd miss something. It's a personality flaw, I guess; my mom tells me when I was a baby I never slept in the car because I wanted to be up and alert and looking out the window at the world going by lest I miss something as the earth keeps turning while I have my eyes closed. Now when I think about going home tonight and having an entire evening stretched before me as I stand at the base of a mountain of crappy tv, I get that familiar feeling in my gut of having too many options and not enough fortitude to either tackle it wholeheartedly or turn tail and run.
Moderation, you say?
Says Charles Caleb Colton, English eccentric: "Moderation is the inseparable companion of wisdom, but with it genius has not even a nodding acquaintance."
Says Mark Twain, American eccentric: "Temperate temperance is best; intemperate temperance injures the cause of temperance."
Says Oscar Wilde, Irish eccentric: "Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess."
Then again, I should consider my sources.
*Paraphrase of Aneurin Bevan, Welsh politician and eccentric.
Posted by Leah at January 8, 2007 04:12 PMYou know I was just loading your page and looked into the corner of the screen to see what time it was - damn it's 8:03 and prime time tv is starting without me! I must get a lap top computer so I can read blogs and watch tv at the same time! Then I read your post and stopped to write someone a birthday email. Thanks Leah!
Posted by: Teej at January 8, 2007 05:19 PMFX has some really good programming. Creative and unique but the crap sure is fun. Bravo has some of the best crap reality TV. Have fun and try not to beat yourself up too much :).
Posted by: Leah at January 8, 2007 05:46 PMBy the way, I have been reading your blog for months now and I love it. I feel absolutely ridiculous about delurking to post a comment about TV. I actually don't watch that much of it but I am a little fanatic about the shows I do watch. I much prefer books and get giddy just opening up a new book.
Posted by: Leah at January 8, 2007 05:48 PMI must say that you are wonderfully self-reflective and it's incredible that you can look at the parts of you that maybe need some tweaking (e.g. the previous post) and the parts of you that are fabulous (e.g. current post) and be "at home" with both of them. I also think it's fabulous that you're an Eloise at Christmastime fan. Is there an official Leah fan club?? Sign me up!!
Posted by: Brooke at January 8, 2007 08:00 PMI must say that you are wonderfully self-reflective and it's incredible that you can look at the parts of you that maybe need some tweaking (e.g. the previous post) and the parts of you that are fabulous (e.g. current post) and be "at home" with both of them. I also think it's fabulous that you're an Eloise at Christmastime fan. Is there an official Leah fan club?? Sign me up!!
Posted by: Brooke at January 8, 2007 08:00 PMWhoops...not entirely sure why that posted twice...perhaps my computer felt my post needed extra emphasis!!
Posted by: Brooke at January 8, 2007 08:04 PMTV and I are BFF. I agree with Leah's Bravo programming, and look: do not beat yourself up. Life is for living, and time you enjoy isn't time wasted.
Posted by: jonniker at January 8, 2007 08:16 PMHusband to Be keeps telling me we should get rid of cable, that it'll be obsolete eventually, as we can download/buy almost everything we'd want to watch. But then there'd be no channel surfing! No glazing over in front of Food Network or Travel Channel! Boo!
Posted by: felicity at January 9, 2007 07:48 AMI write about TV for a living, so I get to feel like this every day! Is it bad that I adore The Bad Girls Club, Dirty Dancing: The Series and the Most Extreme Elimination Challenge ? The way I figure it, cable can't be all bad if brings me Felicity reruns.
Posted by: Sarah at January 9, 2007 07:52 AMI won't miss any opportunity to turn on tv when I have a break...in this way 5 minutes of news turn into 2 hours...the thing is that I always lie about this "wasted time in front of the tv"...is like the child's way of separating its world from that of the adults; it establishes your independence, it's how you mark off your own private are of the truth!
Posted by: Momo at January 9, 2007 08:13 AMI felt like I was reading my own thoughts with this post. I'm currently refining my collection of books - because my apartment is no longer livable with overflowing bookcases and teetering stacks of books everywhere. And ... I can sympathize with that anxious feeling of not possibly having the time to read all the books I want to read.
And the tv... aaaaaaaaaah the tv... one of the reasons I've unplugged mine is because I figured that I watched entirely too much of it last year.
Great post! :)
Posted by: Mala at January 9, 2007 08:24 AMI thoroughly enjoyed this post. I have always been a voracious reader devouring stacks upon stack of books until I was consumed by the all-mighty power of DVR. Now rather than worrying about how many unread books there are left in the word, I fret about how many shows that are stacking up that just "need" to be watched.
I am about to move, and I think I am going to have to refrain from getting cable and put my TV away, though the thought of missing Heroes or House or Jericho makes me shrivel up a little. Must. Have. More. Self. Control....
Posted by: Rebecca at January 9, 2007 09:34 AMDe-lurking here to completely agree with this post. I love/fear the bookstore & library for the exact same reasons, and it too me years to finally admit that I love TV - just love it. But I'm cheap and refuse to pay for cable - so boohoo for me.
Posted by: Jennifer at January 9, 2007 09:42 AMI love TV so much that I decided to make a career out of producing it. And did I choose to produce something high-brow or at least news related? Of course not. I chose reality TV and I consider one of the perks of the industry to be that I get to see some of the (crappy, exploitative yet unbelievably watchable) shows before anyone else does.
I am totally sick. And also, I understand.
Posted by: Clink at January 9, 2007 10:27 AM"an hour-long show about the special challenges of being sixteen-year-old conjoined twins..."
I was totally watching that too! I was thinking the exact same thing re: dating, boyfriends, sex - it gives a whole new meaning to 'seeing two girls at once'.
Posted by: Shirley at January 9, 2007 11:27 AMTo Leah and all: Speaking of books, any brilliant thoughts for a fun, savvy book to throw into the pot to be chosen for my book club? I become overwhelmed with the choices, so I will take recommendations.
On the flip side, if anyone needs any recommendation for completely pointless yet enjoyable tv watching, I'm your girl! I flipped from my book, to "I Love NY" on VH1, to "Supernanny" on ABC last night. Such a cultural night.
Posted by: Missy at January 9, 2007 11:48 AMMatthew and I got sucked into the VH1-type shows over the holidays...pure entertainment :)
Posted by: Angella at January 9, 2007 12:30 PMIf we had cable and Tivo I would be completely the same. It's the idea of things stacking up to be watched or read that stress me out. That's why I borrow from the library so rarely...as soon as there are books checked out in my name I get stressed about getting them all read in time...which is weird because my fines for overdue books make up 30% of local library revenue :) As a result I'm making an effort to read through my own bookshelves...I'm great at collecting but slack in the actual reading of them.
Posted by: Tan at January 9, 2007 12:35 PMEveryday I beg Steve for cable and everyday he says no. I am secretly happy about that because I know I would meld into the couch and forget to feed my baby if I had 4,768 channels to choose from.
Posted by: Amanda at January 9, 2007 02:45 PMWow Leah, you toally hit the nail on the head with that post. I completely know and understand the feeling of doom that comes from so many options and so little time! I'm house-sitting next week, and in addition to other cool stuff like a pool (summer in Australia, obvs), they have pay TV. It's going to be an awesome 2 weeks! But I'm with Amanda - I'm secretly glad I don't have it at home because there are too many trashy celebrity shows, and the odd documentary, to see them all without turning into a complete vegetable. I'm the same with DVD's - still haven't seen all of Gilmore Girls and My Name Is Earl (to name 2 of many I want to see) because I can't bring myself to sit down and devote hours to the TV. I have no worries devoting hours to reading books and blogs though. Funny that!
Posted by: Ellie at January 9, 2007 05:03 PMIt is very, very dangerous to get me started on TV watching because I *LOVE* TV. The best channels for crap TV are, in this order: MTV, Bravo, VH1, and E!. I think MTV is the best guilty pleasure ever.
For awesome TV? The more basic channels- FX, if you have HBO, Fox etc.
Oh man. I can kill so much time watching TV. Now we're collecting DVD series of shows we love- so far I have all of Friends and Dawson's Creek, and am working on Party of Five, Gilmore Girls, and 90210.
I am an addict. Really and truly.
