I continue to come to grips with the term “busy.” I am busy. I know this, but I do not always accept this. My struggles with acceptance, though, sing louder more at this time of year, than any other.
I love fall . . . the air just feels cleaner as the nights start to get colder, but there’s still some warmth in the air. Honeycrisp apples are tasty and abundant. The network sitcoms all debut. And football is in full swing as the best baseball of the year is on.
But, alas, everything seems to be passing me by.
This road to where I am was gradual & inevitable. It started with the original, first generation TiVo, because I was too damn lazy to actually work my VCR for recording. So I started recording the shows that I wanted to watch (catching sports live, always). A general dislike of commercials meant that, even if I happened to be home, I’d watch something else rather than a show as it was broadcast.
Rainy days were spent simply catching up on the TiVo.
The TiVo died as the newfangled cable boxes started to include hard-drives.
Then kids came.
Then Netflix started streaming.
Where it used to be that a night home alone would mean that I’d fall asleep to a west-coast baseball game, a TV turned off is far more effective than anything else in getting my spawn children to sleep (and, well, getting my kids to bed, more often than not, leads to me falling asleep, myself).
I will always say that being busy is better than being bored . . . but, last Sunday, I’ll admit a great deal of jealousy to the Walking Dead crowd. I have gotten rid of cable, but I do try to keep up with shows as I can.
Back, when my workout strategy was “cardio, and then more cardio,” this time of year would also denote the time that I’d start giving up on running outside, and I’d watch an episode of a show, each weekday, from my spinning bike in my basement. There may have been a day or two, at particularly pivotal portions of my following Walter White’s saga that I’d find myself “not feeling so hot” and then catching 8 episodes of Breaking Bad at a time.
But, as my life exists now, I just can’t get into things as I once did. And I honestly miss the draw of a television cliffhanger, where I’d spend the day after a particularly good episode of a show I enjoy wondering what might happen next.
And we won’t talk of beer-fueled nights willing a long-hit ball to hit a foul-pole.
Don’t get me wrong . . . I wouldn’t change what I have now, with televisions that play Justin Time more than the Yankees, for the world. But, I miss getting sucked into the boob tube like I once did.
Oh, I hear you.
Every once in a while, Baguette’s day care will have Late Night Friday Babysitting. If it’s the right teacher, we sign her up so that we can . . . watch TV episodes we can’t watch in front of her.
We talk about going to a movie, in an actual movie theater, but then we check the showtimes, and by the time I get home and we get to the theater and watch the movie, it’s almost 9 p.m. and even with a teacher she likes, Baguette has decided that we’ve abandoned her. She may not be crying, but she is sad. And that doesn’t make for a good evening.
Fortunately, we have family who are, typically, quite happy to take the kids when we need it. Unfortunately, we “need” that most every weekday, so taking advantage to do adult stuff (go out to dinner/see a movie/any number of things that shouldn’t be listed on a family-friendly blog) means the guilt of asking over a weekend is insurmountable.
Fortunately, those nights that we do take advantage, the kids are so used to staying with so & so that, after tears right at the start (and they still happen), there’s never an “abandoned” feeling. And that’s good.
Honestly, I’d rather a crying kid over a sad child.
We gave up cable years ago, so we catch our current shows (The Walking Dead and Mad Men and Downton Abbey for me) on Amazon the next day. Except this week I had something going on Monday night, then Tuesday I had work to do, and we finally got around to watching it on Wednesday. So all in all, no big deal. I just had to stay off Twitter Sunday nights. 🙂
Also, we were more than halfway through season 3 of Breaking Bad when I went out of town, and we just…never picked it back up.
Yeah – Sunday nights on Twitter seem . . . painful, for someone looking to avoid TWD spoilers.
There are two shows that I avoided for the longest time, despite hearing that they were wonderful: The Wire & Breaking Bad. In both cases, I ended up binge-watching episodes right before the last season premiered, and then ended up waiting a relatively short time for the actual end. Something tells me I’m going to do the same with Sons of Anarchy.
I almost didn’t watch the season premier because I have become a serious binge watcher. The only reason I still have cable is because I’m addicted to the news in the morning.
I don’t have time for TV in the morning . . . and, if I did, I fear my kids have taken the television hostage with repeated viewings of Scooby Doo & Justin Time & Batman & Strawberry Shortcake….
I don’t do well when I spend too much time watching the news. Everything seems to make me crankier & crankier.