Issue 2 -- That Glow

Der Stuff Innenseite

I Don't Watch Too Much TV

Lately, I've found that I the television show I relate to most is reruns of The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd. I find myself watching it on the Metro Channel some nights and I can't turn it off because I want to know how Molly would handle going to therapy for the first time or an unexpected visit from Mom and Mamie. Just today, I watched an episode where she wanders around Manhattan after midnight looking desperately for a melon baller. Granted, I've never even felt the need for a melon baller, but it is just the type of thing that I would find myself doing.

I never watched the series when it was on the air, mostly because I was 12 at the time and didn't really care about the life of a divorcee in New York City. I was too busy watching "Charles in Charge." But now that I live somewhat close to the city (I can see Manhattan from my apartment on a clear day, if you squint) and I am single again after giving up all hope of ever sleeping blissfully alone again, Molly really makes sense to me. I relate with her struggles to carve out a meaningful life for herself, from all those false idols put before her by her family, her significant other, her friends and the world at large.

That, and I'm a bit nostalgic of the mid-eighties. It was a time of innocence for me, since this was before I hit puberty. So when I see Molly's mostly off-white apartment and nubby coats with colorful scarves, it reminds me of a time when my greatest decision in life was whether to buy pink or gray moonboots and my big excitement on a Friday night was staying up past my usual 9 p.m. bedtime to watch Dallas.

Molly is ten years older than me, but I often don't feel like mere 24 years anyway. I worry about getting enough fiber in my diet and how well my IRA is doing. I'm more comfortable in a Molly's sensible clothes than a backless, python-print, halter-top and leather hip-huggers. I am also living in a former "love nest," a place that the two of us were supposed to live happily ever after. Instead, I ended up furiously redecorating so it doesn't seem like the same place (and so that it no longer looks like it belongs in a trailer park or smell like a pig sty, but that's another story).

This is not at all unusual for me. I often find myself watching kind of odd television. And then the odder thing is that I go to work and tell people about it. My co-workers must thing that I do nothing but sit at home alone and watch television. But the truth of the matter is that I do other things. I do my needlework, I work on this lovely zine. I read other lovely zines. I talk on the phone with my family and friends, but it seems the only thing I ever mention about my life outside of 375 Lexington Avenue is what I watch on television. I try very hard not to watch too much television, because I am convinced that it will rot your brain. Well, maybe not all TV rots your brain. The Learning Channel is pretty good, as is the Independent Film Channel (not that I get it). But the vast majority of television will turn your brain into sticky goo. I've seen it happen.

But yet whenever I want to sound clever, I discuss what I watched on TV last night and why I thought it was clever or like a bad car crash, a terrible thing to witness yet, I couldn't look away.

So my dear reader, take away from this that even though I may discuss my favorite television shows endlessly, such as Sponge Bob Square Pants or the Iron Chef, I really don't watch that much television. But at least I'm thinking about the television that I do watch.