I used to kick back, enjoy a cold beverage and some chips, flip through the digital listings, and set reminders for all manner of great viewing: sports! (not just football and hockey, but curiosities like Australian rules football and soccer.) Movies! (not just new movies but movies I'd seen again and again, like Pulp Fiction or Full Metal Jacket. IFC and Sundance, I love you.) A full hour of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert every night. Seinfeld and Simpsons reruns virtually whenever I wanted.
But now things are different. I have a daughter who goes to bed by 9:00 pm, and we still live in a one-bedroom apartment. I won't get into how this particular routine was decided on, but what it means is that we put baby Daphne to bed in the living room, where the TV is, and we go into the bedroom at 9:00. I've never been a TV-in-the-bedroom kind of person, so I don't see any TV that starts after 9:00. Further, when I do watch TV before 9:00, I'm never JUST watching TV. I'm either watching Daphne, which means reading with her, walking around and around the kitchen island with her, keeping her from banging her head into everything... or if I'm not on baby duty, I'm cooking or cleaning.
That means my attention is fragmented, which I don't get all the way into any TV show. Take the Redskins game last week for example. Normally, I'd be watching closely, ready to break into the theme song from Benny Hill as the latest bunch of multi-millionaire underachievers wearing the racist logo fall behind by a couple of touchdowns, then get it together just enough to make a frantic comeback in the second half but still lose. I'd be waiting for that entertaining shot of the latest coach/savior rubbing his face with his hands. (Norv Turner was my favorite--he always looked like he needed a laxative.)
Well, maybe not watching as much TV will make me a better person, less likely to take pleasure in the failure of others.
And...now...what?
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