lessons learned from TV

Way back in '94 I moved down to Greenwich Village to share an apartment with  Howard, my then fiance. We were both in grad school, and our apartment was a fifth floor walk-up in the heart of the Village. 

Such a small space.

With three large windows, and no cross-breeze.

It got so very hot in that apartment. I can appreciate that heat now, sitting in my cold house wrapped in sweater and slippers. But back then walking up the five flights to the apartment was like performing a strip-tease. By the time we reached the door I was down to a tank top and shorts and bare feet, no matter how cold it was outside.

Moving in with my fiance stirred up some issues for me that I didn't even know I had. For instance it was really important to me that the apartment be clean, all the time. Which is really weird, because I'm fairly slovenly and quite lazy. So the end result of this new NEED of mine was that I was a tremendous cranky bitch all the time.

At some point, probably when Howard realized just how enormous a mistake he had made by proposing to me,  he told me that he didn't expect me to keep everything neat and tidy. 

It was one of those "huh" moments for me. Because if I wasn't doing it for him, then where was this maniacal urge coming from?

After years of contemplating, I finally figured it out. It came from my fictitious childhood. You know, the one that involved June Cleavor and Laura Petrie and Mrs. Cunningham? Except that by trying to recreate the calm and clean homes of TV I was acting like my own mother, who also kept a spotlessly clean home, but was never calm or smiling.

I've nearly gotten over my hang-ups about having a clean house.

But in the same way that I had wanted to conform to this TV ideal, I now see myself longing for the same notion of "normalcy" in my son. Taking him to school in the morning, imagining that the other children don't deal with the anxiety or other hang-ups that are part of our routine. Imagining that somehow, their lives are easier because of this.

Except that, just like with June Cleavor, the idea that a child can "act normal" is simply a social construct. There isn't a "normal" person in my whole family.  My husband and I are both odd-balls, so it is only natural for Daniel to be odd as well.

And even though there are things that Daniel does that I would like to change, I think in my heart it is his "odd-ness" that I love the most.

Maybe I just need to start watching some differnt TV shows... or stop watching TV altogether.

Rambling

Thanks for all the ideas and encouragement about Daniel's clothing issues.

I found a stop-gap solution in the sock department, that appears to be working thus far. Joe Boxer socks, if properly stretched before wearing, have been deemed "OK".

I'm still looking into the bike-gear possibility, but the sizing seems to be too big...I'll keep looking.

My husband hasn't mentioned the sewing machine again, but his sister stepped right up and offered to make a pair of pants for Daniel.

I think she's the one person who could make clothing for Daniel that he would actually wear. Those two have a connection that is amazingly deep especially since they don't get to see each other all that often.

____________________

Last night I introduced Daniel to "Everybody Loves Raymond".
It's an interesting show for a kid who doesn't do that well reading social interactions. There are always a few different layers to the interactions, that it can be hard for him to keep it all straight.
I had to keep pausing the show and explaining what was happening. But he likes it because they say hell and ass a lot.

Unfortunately, I can't pause real-life interactions to explain people's motivations or ulterior-motives to him. And the kids are becoming more sophisticated, which puts Daniel at a disadvantage.
I feel like we have to move beyond "Drake and Josh", and start exploring more intricate social shows.
Any suggestions?

I'm pretty sure the hand gestures would give it away

Daniel wants to learn some swear words.

We watched the Discovery Channel today and saw an episode of Extreme Engineering. It was all about the new Oakland Bay Bridge.

They followed around these steel workers as they prepared these massive steel rebar posts that are lowered into the bay.

Daniel loved it, because he has always had a special place in his heart for cofferdams. But about half-way through the show he noticed that every third word was being bleeped.

I had to explain that they were bleeping out swears, so he pushed me to list all the swears I know. I'm not sure I'm ready to divulge my swearing repertoire to a six year old.  He explained that I needed to  tell him all the swears because how else would he know  if someone was saying something bad to him.

I wasn't convinced.

We are off to roll in poison ivy,  stab our eyeballs with fondue forks, bath in boiling oil, visit with my family, so no posts for the next week or so. Although I'm sure I will have much to talk about when I get back.

In honor of TV Turn-off Week

I have a confession.

I am addicted to Animal Planet.

Not Jeff Corwin either.

I can't stop watching Animal Cops/ Animal Precinct. New York, Detroit, San Francisco, Houston - I watch them all. I can't help myself. A good chunk of my Tivo space is taken up by it.

High falutin' television, I know.

It started with the New York Animal Precinct. I've been to the ASPCA building in Manhattan and I have a bit of experience with animals, what with the petting zoo I keep in my house, as well as some more formal exposure. So it felt comfortable at first. I like animals, I like being around animals, I like watching animals on TV.

But this isn't the Westminster Dog Show...

I am unable to stop watching these train wrecks of people and animals. And its always the same thing too. Embedded collars on the dogs. Cat hoarding old ladies. People that didn't realize that you had to actually feed your animals.

I can't watch the blood scenes of House, and I refuse to watch the violent bits of the Sopranos, but this reality TV show that shows exactly how demented and stupid people can be, enraptures me.

There, I said it. I'm not proud of it.

But I'm not going to stop either.

In a family way

I was pregnant with Daniel when my husband and I first started watching the Sopranos.

Truth be told, I was very apprehensive about it.

But my husband was very enthusiastic about it, and so I thought I would give it a try.

This was at a time when I was crying at the drop of a hat,
or crying when our neighbors were grilling goat,
or crying when watching the Travel Channel.

So I knew I was going to have a problem with those highly-publicized violent scenes.

But I came up with a solution...

At any hint of violence I would waddle out of the room and sit on the stairs while putting my fingers in my ears.

When the blood was off the screen my husband would call to me and I would waddle back to the living room.

(We were just discussing, whether or not we taped those initial episodes. While we both remember getting hooked up with Tivo soon after Daniel's birth, neither of us remember this very clearly, because as my husband says " I don't remember life before Tivo, I don't remember life before Daniel, actually, I don't remember life before you".)

I'm thinking about all of this because it took us two nights to watch the season premier of the Sopranos. Last night we watched 31 minutes before Daniel called/ coughed out to us to bring him into our bed, and tonight we watched the rest. Thank you Tivo.

There was one scene that promised to be bloody and violent, and I turned to my husband and said "I don't want to see it".

He dutifully paused the show while I went to the basement stairs and waited. After he had watched that-which-the-show-has-become-infamous-for, he called me back and we watched the rest of the show.

Its funny how some things don't change.

I love the Sopranos for the care the writers take in developing the characters. I love the way they are real people with complex emotional lives. And I love the way that they are not afraid to show us the uneventful-events. The "white space on the page" as it were. The characters rest, and live and breathe just like the rest of us.

And when I watch I feel as complicit as many of the women on the show, supporting the violence by tuning in, but not wanting to be faced with the dirtier aspects of the family.

Yip Yip

It has been a busy day.

The first half of the day was spent being "super-adult" talking about financial responsibilities (and writing checks) and what-not.

And the second half, so far has been Me, pretending to be various characters from Avatar, for the enjoyment, and under the direction of, Daniel.

So if you'll excuse me, I need to be Aang... or Appa, I forget which.

Watching radio

Yesterday I discovered something new (to me, anyway) on my Tivo. Live 365. Radio on my TV. Oh my god, who thought of this?

Now, I realize that the cable companies have had something similar on those 900 channels for a while, but this is actual radio. With people talking. Like on the RADIO. Except it was on my TV.

Clearly I was amazed. And Dumbstruck.

So I decided to listen for awhile. I mean it's not like I have anything else to do right now.

I chose Polynesian Underground. How bad could that be? Hawaiian-themed Reggae-inspired music. And honestly, it was fine, if you like that sort of thing.

The problem was that I left it on while I went out to get Daniel off of the bus. So when he came into the house he noticed the music right away and plopped down in a chair to listen and watch the mostly black TV screen.

OK, that wasn't really a problem.

Here's the problem - I am PHYSICALLY unable to listen to Hawaiian-themed Reggae-inspired music for longer than forty minutes. After that my brain begins to sizzle.  (I could FEEL it!) I have a feeling that if I had a bit of the Ganja I could have made it through, but alas, I did not.

But Daniel. He likes Hawaiian-themed Reggae-inspired music.  Oh yes, he does. It's his new favorite music. Better even than the Transformers Theme Song.

So I did what any mother whose brain is being FRIED by Hawaiian-themed Reggae-inspired music.

I offered to have him help me make popcorn.

We have a hot-air popcorn maker. It's loud. And while he was occupied with the popping I changed the channel to Globe Trekker. (Daniel loves Justine Shapiro!)

There you have it. TV-Radio trumped by, wouldn't you know it, TV (and cable at that).

Not to get all 1982 about it:

Just thinking

It's Sunday.

In my pajamas on the couch, with a kitten at my feet. Our remaining parakeet, Totoro, is flying free - the length of the house and back again.

Daniel went upstairs twenty minutes ago to tell his dad what you see on TV when you watch without the Tivo buffer. ( It's this. Daniel and I both agree we NEED it!)

I am officially jobless now. Unemployed. It's a curious feeling.

Even when I worked full-time, before Daniel was born, I never earned much money. But at least I was contributing. And now I'm not.

So for the short term I'm going to work on my writing and photography. Which means I'll spend more time cleaning the house in an effort to procrastinate.

But for now it's Sunday. And the sun is streaming in. And everything is fine.

I pity the fool!

I just watched an episode of the A-Team. I used to love that show. I was 13 when it started, and I watched it every week, because it was on right before my bedtime. So when I saw it was on TV I got excited. Dirk Benedict! I used to like him on Battlestar Gallactica too!

I stayed excited through the theme song - and then I was confused. Had it always been so bad? And since when was pushing old ladies down the stairs acceptable? I won't  go into the clothes because that's just too easy with a show from 1983. But the gratuitous violence was shocking to me, and I've seen every episode. Somehow it didn't seem so excessive back in the day.

I don't really enjoy shoot 'em up movies, but I've certainly seen my share. Clearly, I grew up in a time when no one gave a crap how much violence children watched. (Have you watched any of the old Saturday morning cartoons that were on in the Seventies lately? It makes you happy to see the Teletubbies.) But the A-Team used to be shown at 8 o'clock, right? There's no way I'd let my kid watch it. And it's not like it's supposed to be a serious show, it's funny between the violent parts.

It really freaked me out when I was watching it. But then I was talking about it to my husband and it occurred to me that a lot has changed in our world since 1983. There was the first "postal massacre" in 1986, the massacre in Tiananmen Square in 1991, the Los Angeles riots of 1992,  the Waco Texas massacre in 1993, the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, the Columbine  High School massacre in 1999, and the attacks at the World Trade Center in 2001. And those are just the highlights.

So have I become more sensitized to violence,(as opposed to de-sensitized)? Is it because I am a mother now? Or is it, (as I think it may be), that when I see the gratuitous violence on the A-Team, it reminds me of the senseless violence going on right now, all over the world, and how America is not blameless in those violent acts?

I really wish I could enjoy the A-Team. It would mean that the violence it portrays is only a thing of the imagination and not to be feared.