So concludes my second week of four day weekends. Unlike the fairly accomplished weekend I had last week, I spent this weekend getting some much need time with friends. It’s good to recharge the batteries with partying and games. I even reign supreme as the Munchkin of the house. My personal challenge in life is to not allow myself to spend too much time as a hermit, slowing growing more and more mad as the days go on. Now that I have more days to spend at home than at work, the temptation to become a hermit grows even more powerful.

Then, I spent today doing absolutely nothing but watching television.

The Soul-Devouring Truth of Daytime Television

I started off my day telling myself it would be okay to take the day off from doing things like writing and research… or bathing.

It would probably be fair of me to point out that by “start the day” I actually mean, “sometime around noon or one in the afternoon.” I stumbled out of my bedroom, and plopped down on my love-seat. I don’t actually have a couch. I gave my couch away to a good friend of mine, and he covets it as his only piece of furniture. Although, his sleep pattern involves piles of laundry in the floor of a closet. Yes, most of my friends are mutant bird-bear hybrids. I try not to judge them, some of their closet nests are pretty comfortable looking.

For the firs two hours of my television viewing, I exercised my hunter-gatherer instincts and flipped channels mercilessly. When you have well over 300 channels, it can take a long time to get through all of them. Now, a lot of people would say something along the lines of “300 channels and nothing on.” I disagree. There were lots of things on I wanted to watch. Most of them were cartoons or reruns of police procedurals, but there were plenty of shows. Eventually I settled into a routine of flipping back and forth between three different channels; Cartoon Network, TNT, and History. What can I say, I love noodle-arm cartoons,  writer/detectives and “reality shows” about paramilitary Amish thugs.

Several Hours Later

Cotton-mouthed and aching, I realized that I had passed into a fugue state. The world had grown dark and dim outside. My body was heavy and ached. Castle was still playing on the television, I went to the bathroom, drank some water, and set back down to watch some more.

Time travels simultaneously slowly and quickly when you’re marathon watching television. You just keep staring at a screen, flashing pictures making you have feels, but slowly your insides rot away. Eventually all that is left is a sense of unending longing and a deep, overwhelming urge to consume something made entirely of fat.

The downside, my hands don’t taste very great…

I did learn something very important from my day spent watching television, though.

Television Kind Of Sucks

I’m a bad television fan. I love my shows. Don’t get me wrong, I am absolutely a fan boy for the shows I watch. I have a desperate, unhealthy devotion to them. That being said, I’m growing constantly cynical. I think maybe I’ve watched too much television in my life. I get no real joy from it anymore. That makes me sad. It could also mean that the television has finally finished devouring every part of me that it can, leaving behind a broken husk.

Now, it’s a good six hours from the start of my day, and I am no longer able to feel anything but the horrible shame of having sat on a love seat for six hours. I thought about going outside, but the sun has already gone down, and that means the coyotes will be coming soon. So, I lay here on the love seat and I wonder if the world even still exists beyond the walls of my basement dwelling, and from the screen, the tentacles of madness reach deeper into my mind. I am filled with the knowledge of the elder ones… and I weep…