This week, the cable TV went away.
It's not because I renounced its brain-wasting, time-killing properties and ordered the cable company to make it stop. I am not that strong. No, it was simply a red-tapey stupid thing happening (imagine!) on the military base where I live that made the cable company go away before a replacement was found.
So now I am left with a few Japanese channels and AFN channels -- the military's conglomeration of American programming from all networks that claims to carry the most popular shows yet fails to air "Project Runway." What-EVER.
I am not handling this so well, deep inside. Outside, I brag about how much more reading and music-listening I'll get done, and I say this is a good chance for me to scale back my TV watching anyway. But inside, something is missing. When I get up in the morning, I stumble out of bed, pour some cereal, park on the Big Purple Couch, and commence to flipping. But now there are only 10 or so channels, most of them showing crap I hate, so the flipping is horrible. My regular pattern of 39-49-59-30-36* is shattered. Now it's down to 10-5. And 5 is just a blank channel with a radio feed from NPR.
I am trying to stay calm.
* Vh1, Soundtrack Channel, MTV, CNN and Comedy Central.
