I guess if you watch more than a dozen episodes of the Bammer in a row, you may be struck in your sleep by a terrifying feeling that you're dying and/or failing at life.
How did this debilitating relationship with television begin? Once upon a long, long time ago, I lived alone with my two cats, Scooter and Spanky, and I used to turn on MTV2 (it was one of the only channels my white, Hello Kitty television could get) for hours, so it didn't seem so empty in my apartment. Not only was the constant blaring of a television a bad habit for my half-thinking brain to acquire, it was also a sorrid physical representation of my devastating loneliness. I had a roommate, but she had taken up with my ex-boyfriend, and they had moved into an apartment together. Across the street from my apartment. She just paid rent at my place to store her crap. True story.
This part of the story isn't meant to make you feel bad for me -- I met that guy in high school, when he was my waiter at a fake '50s diner. He was my first real boyfriend, and the only thing we had in common was a grand enjoyment of hot tubs and the fact that we were both ravers (I mean, I lost my virginity to him while a Way Out West album played in the background on a multi-disc CD changer. It was the 90s). Speaking of sex and hot tubs, we used to have sex in his grandma's basement after we utilized her hot tub. She was not home. That is also a true story.
Eventually, I found a new boyfriend, on the Internet -- we'll call him Mr. Eleven -- and I didn't need the television on anymore. The only problem? He loved TV too. Every night, Mr. Eleven and I would cuddle up and watch Blind Date together and pass out. The host of this horrific shit show was Roger Lodge, and he became a third party in our relationship. He may have also led to our downfall, as I think we started to like watching too much TV together, with Roger, more than we liked doing anything else without Roger.
Fast-forward seven years and, minus 2007 to 2008, when I lived in New York and all I watched was Hulu on a stolen Internet connection named Tyrel, I have been hooked on the cable sauce. Living with my mother has allowed me to reap the benefits of such a luxury, while also turning me into a zombie. I can't fall asleep without the idiot box on, and I think it is keeping me from finishing this Tom Robbins' book I was given to read six weeks ago. Or maybe its just that Tom Robbins treats his female protagonists like blow-up dolls with selectively-functioning minds and I can't get with that. Or maybe he's just an author who is, much like me, full of himself. (I may or may not recant those previous sentences about Robbins in a future column.)
Either way, this television has got to go. I've got more important things to do. Like avoid more books and watch more shit on my now streaming-only Netflix account. Even though there are no more episodes of Party Down left, meaning, I'm not sure what is good in the world anymore.