David Caruso, I Will Miss You, But It's Time

So yeah, despite my fiendish ramble about television the other day, I am, in fact, trying to boycott it for the week. Mostly out of a sense of curiosity.

And strangely, so far, it's been making me aware of how much of an addiction it really is. As in, I've actually felt healthier and clearer and more energetic the last few nights than I have all my tv-watching weeks prior. I think watching television only helps perpetuate my tiredness and laziness. I come home burnt out from the day, and watching television apparently reinforces and excuses me for the rest of the night, allowing me to wallow in and feed this tired laziness.

But these past few nights when I've come home and NOT watched television, well, it's forced me to move around, to be a bit more active (even if just in terms of flipping the pages in a book) and, instead of reinforcing my tired laziness, it seems to be expelling it like a dirty exorcistic poof of stank air. It seems to be infusing the night with an extra burst of energy, even if it doesn't end up being directed towards anything more exciting than washing dishes on a Tuesday when I normally wait for them to build up until Friday.

I mean, so far, over the course of the last few days, I've a) washed my dishes on a Tuesday instead of waiting for my usual Friday Dishwashing Session, b) finished up a Vonnegut book, c) read the majority of The Stranger in less than two nights, d) taken a nice long bath, e) reorganized my cds (and relocated some old ones I thought were lost to the world), f) planted basil, g) whipped up an elaborate sammich at 9 o'clock at night, and h) actually dozed off at 10:30 last night (and subsequently dreamt in my slightly-still-awake state that there was a foreign cat in my house).

I feel a sense of clarity which is nice. And most markedly, I've been surprised at how overwhelming and distinct the quiet can be. I think one of the reasons I like having the tv on is the noise. It's nice to hear busy-ness when you're someone who lives by themselves. But man, is there a lovely heartening purity to that all-consuming quiet that hangs in the air while you're sitting and reading a book or something. I mean, it's so quiet that it's almost loud. I like it. It makes me feel peaceful. It makes my brain feel like a tight-rope walker, focused and balanced. I can hear myself think.

So needless to say, I think I actually may start restricting my tv-viewing, in the hope that perhaps it might even start opening more doors and getting me writing and doing things that make me feel a bit more constructive in order to fill up the time.

And also worth noting: easing off this addiction hasn't resulted in me seeing any dead babies crawling across ceilings or anything.

Thank god.

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