Recovering reality TV junkie

So here is my confession of the day, (well, the beginning of several confessions today) and it will not shock anyone that knows me. I USED to be addicted to horrible, reality television. To save money, we don't have cable, we have a HD antenna, so we get 5 channels which actually cover several of the shows I really like. However, we don't get MTV.  Fortunately, MTV posts everything on their website, so I honestly go to bed the night a show airs like....oh say, Jersey Shore and I'm giddy because I know that when I wake up, MTV will have posted the new episode and I can watch it quite comfortably in my pajamas at 8 a.m.  the following morning. Kraig also bought me a DVI chord for my computer so I can plug my computer into the TV and watch it on our 50" big screen. Now that's love. :) Unfortunately, this also enabled my addiction immensely.

However, my addiction got in the way of a lot of things. When I didn't have a job, I would put off dusting, or vacuuming because I had to watch Grey's Anatomy from the night before. Thursdays are a doozy because so many of my favorite shows are on that night, so Friday morning, I'm not free until at least noon. Luckily on Fridays I don't go to work until 2 p.m. :) It got ridiculous though. Kraig would come home from work and there'd by dishes in the sink, and dirty clothes all over the floor and I'd be sitting in front of my computer, eating or drinking like a zombie. He'd ask, "What'd you do all day?" Very cautiously because he knows, EXACTLY what I've been doing all day. And I'd answer, "Oh, I washed some dishes, and stuff. I don't know." again, cautiously, he'd ask, "What do you mean, you don't know what you've been doing for the last 12 hours?"  "Really, you've been gone for 12 hours?" the reason these questions were asked so cautiously was because I got very sensitive about being unemployed and even though all I was doing was watching TV for an insane amount of time at home, I didn't want to be scolded for it, or called lazy. Even though, that's exactly what I was being. So one day, and one of my friends texted me and asked if I could take care of her dog over Thanksgiving. I said sure, and went over to her house for all the details and to meet her furry child. When I got to her house, I immediately felt ashamed and embarrassed. Her house was spotless. I'm talking, eat off the floor spotless, everything in their "office" was organized, labeled, and put in adorable decorative boxes. Even her fridge was organized.  She even had a "menu board" on her fridge, for that week dinner was planned out for every night. In an odd way, I found it comforting.  So if it's so comforting, why haven't I done it to my house? I started home that day, and as much I tried to justify all the reasons that our house didn't look like hers, I couldn't come up with any good reasons. I immediately went home and started organizing our office with a file cabinet I had bought, and finally cleaned off our dining room table so we could actually eat off of it. And when I was done, and Kraig came home I think his eyes nearly bugged out of his head. I was so proud of myself too, for actually getting organized and labeling things and putting things where they are supposed to go. I didn't watch TV at all that entire day, and for once I didn't miss it.  I was too busy getting our house together.  I started reading again too, and writing. I started blogging and I started getting my creative juices flowing. It felt like I had been lost for a while and finally found my way back to the era of "pre-reality tv." It's like a black hole that sucks you in, and you have no conscious sense of time or energy wasted watching the trash. I was POW to reality television. Over Christmas, M had her teevo full of episodes of Jerseylicious, and as much as I wanted to watch some of them, I knew that this was my test, like putting a shot of Grey Goose in front of an alcoholic and seeing what happens. I passed with flying colors and immediately closed her "recordings" window.

On a random note, and response to Jen's previous post. I also hate cats. At work we have a clinic cat named "Fannie" and she's without a doubt, pure evil. She hisses and bites the clinic workers if you get too close, and one day I went to pet her without really looking at her, (we have several other clinic cats that are very friendly) and she stiffened up and turned and hissed at me, and I immediately was transported back to a sunny day in Shepherd, MT when I was outside with Mara and got bit by a stray cat with rabies.  "Fannie" drew blood on a fellow clinic worker, while she was working on a computer a few weeks ago. We saved her life, and gave her a wonderful place to live and she's so ungrateful. Dogs aren't like that, I've seen stray dogs that have gotten hit by cars and brought in, and they seem to know that you are going to help them, and they cooperate and they're friendly and loving and so grateful.
Have you ever seen the movie "Constantine?" Cats all genetically have some type of soulless internal portal to hell, and if you sit in a chair with your feet in bucket of water and stare into their eyes, you're headed straight into Satan's workshop. And you want that in your house as a pet? So, I salute you Jen and your giant middle finger to Lucifer's furry minions.