not-so-sticky

I tend to have the tv on in the evening right before I drift off to sleep. I don't recommend this to anyone, and I'm not even sure why I do it. It's kind of like viewing a car accident. It's irrisistible, and yet, there is nothing good about it. We get several hundred channels delivered to our DVR box from TimeWarner. Typically, there isn't one channel that offers anything worth watching. I wish there were only one or two channels to select from that offered quality programming instead of hundreds of nothing. In the 1980's, there used to be a channel dedicated to telling you what was on the channel line-up. There were maybe only thirty or so channels to choose from. The background was a blue screen, and it rolled by at a speed in which you could actually read. In the 1990's, this channel became half-advertisement, half-information. The top half of the screen began to display commercials, or even worse, commercials masquerading as programs. It was irritating....

The past several years I have only participated peripherally in the outside universe. There are a lot of things that have occurred of which I have a vague sense, and of which I have not fully consumed. I also have a sense that I probably didn't miss much... What I mean by this is that when you become a parent, you tend to become very aware time, or specifically, how very little time you have. So, you don't waste time in the same way you did Before Children. Of course, time has not changed. But as a parent, you find yourself on a regimented schedule, much out of the sake of necessity and maintaining mental health. I remember a time in which I did not wear a watch. I wouldn't ask what time it was, but about what hour it was? Now I am scheduled down to the minute from the moment I roll off the air mattress to the moment I collapse into the air mattress. Dana and I decided we would watch a movie after getting the kids into bed. At first, it seemed like everyone would cooperate....