TV is the best.

My brother Toby and I don’t talk a lot. He is one of my greatest friends and I love him so much that it makes my eyes water, but we’re just not great at communicating. It doesn’t help that we’re separated by two time zones, he has four children and works an 80 hour week. One would think that those few phone calls each year would consist mostly of talk about our children, careers, weather, hopes and dreams, but what we spend ninety percent of every conversation talking about is, for us, much more bonding: television.

“Yeah, Leah [his wife] thinks I watch too much TV,” Toby once said to me, “but TV is awesome.” I loved how unapologetic he was about loving television. He continued telling me about how there are some great shows on TV right now: “Have you seen…? What about…? I know, such a great show.” My goodness, the laughs we’ve shared about the Bluth family’s chicken dances, Ron Swanson’s Hierarchy of Needs, and the “talking like ‘this’ contest” that never happened between Jack Donaghy and Devon Banks.

Admitting that you watch any TV at all invites some judgment. It seems to be a universal belief that reading is the supreme source of intelligence and television serves no purpose except to "rot" the brain. But I have to agree with Toby on this one. TV is awesome and my brain feels (mostly) fine. I also love to read and have recently rekindled my interest for fiction (previously, the only books on my shelf were about nutrition and babies – it was time for a break), but reading requires two hands, two eyes and complete, consuming attention. I am an attention defecited (not a word, whatever) mother of an eight-month-old baby. And, come on, TV is just so entertaining.

My weekly morning routine starts by waking to my sweet baby’s cries and feeding him and myself to the comedic voices of Conan O’Brien, Seth Meyers and later (when Tyler comes home), Jimmy Fallon. On weekends, we enjoy one or more of several comedies: New Girl, The Mindy Project, Saturday Night Live or, my favorite, Modern Family. I attempted drama in the form of Mad Men, and while the 1960s was certainly the most visually appealing decade, as usual, the absence of a punchline started freaking me out.

Conan O’Brien and his friend Andy Richter once had this conversation:

C: “TV is the best.”

A: “It sure is.”

C: “Better than books!”

 I don’t completely disagree. I love television and I’m not going to be ashamed of it anymore.

I Said I Wanted a Revolution

Writing and sharing “Fired & Hired,” the post about Tyler losing his job and the reasons why it wasn’t exactly the worst thing, proved to be an interesting experiment. I had this opportunity to say everything that was on my mind and I said it. All. After clicking “Publish,” I waited for that satisfying feeling, a sigh of relief and peace. But it never came.

You know that time in 7^th grade when you hear that your friend has said something nasty about you and you decide to stand up for yourself, you tell her what’s what and then you spend the entire bus ride home replaying the conversation, including all the things you should have said? Be grateful you never had a chance to say those mean things, because it wouldn’t have made you feel any better.

I won’t be deleting or changing anything I’ve said because I sincerely hope that things get better and these problems resolve. And, dang it, no one else was doing anything about it! But, in the future, when I’m feeling very “Damn the Man” and want to start a revolution, I think I’ll choose a less belittling forum to express my concerns.