First Morning

I didn’t set out to remove TV from my life.  It just fell away.  Back in 2006, when I was moving and choosing what to take and what to leave, TV didn’t make the cut.

Sometimes when staying with friends, a wave of curiosity will wash over me and I’ll attempt to turn on a TV.  I always view it as a miracle when, with my two- or three-remote controls in hand, a picture appears.  Especially since that’s only about one-third of the time.  No matter.  Even then, I usually lose interest after surfing just a fraction of the available channels.

It wasn’t always like this with me and TV.  Growing up in a home where TV viewing was highly regulated, I adeptly stretched out my time by watching at my house and then dashing off to my friends’ “unrestricted” homes.

In the last decade, TV, like opera, started putting me to sleep. True, when it started, I was probably sleep-deprived.  However, now that I have the luxury of getting plenty of sleep, I still don’t “feel” the call of TV.  I prefer to DO something — read, take a walk, play Apples to Apples, or visit friends — rather than watch others DOING something particularly things I could never imagine DOING.  Although I do confess to taking Flat Stanley to a sports bar to watch the Seattle Seahawks in the 2013 playoffs, where we spent as much, if not more, time watching the patrons as the game.

For whatever reason, my bliss no longer seems to include TV.  Who knows, perhaps my mother’s admonitions to go outside and play, finally sunk in. Thanks, Mom, and you too, Dad!