The unwatched TV

There is a distinctly different sound made by a TV being watched and one sitting alone in a room. It's one of my pet hates, a TV left on in a room where nobody is, talking away to itself, lonely. A psychoanalyst would probably put this down to my innate fear of loneliness and give me all sorts of exercises to overcome this fear but, luckily, this is my (self-indulgent) blog, so I have no need to be scared of psychoanalysis and its resultant exercises that I'd hate doing. Besides, I'm perfectly aware of my fear of lonileness, as has just been made obvious here. I don't mind being alone, in fact I like it sometimes. But loneliness - ugh, shudder.

I stray. Watched TVs, be their audience one or a crowd, seem to have a confidently calm kind of sound, like people talking to friends they know are listening. The minute the audience leaves the room, though, leaving the TV on its own in a room, the volume goes up slightly, as if the characters on screen have raised their voices and are peering expectantly around the side of the screen, waiting for someone to come back in and watch, allowing them to carry on with whatever scene was playing out.
Sunday morning ramblings on a Wintery long weekend, getting my writing juices flowing. Again. And I'm a little lazy about writing for a couple of weeks, then come back, and someone's moved all the furniture? This new format? It took me ten minutes (admittedly in a very lazy I'm-still-in-my-pyjamas-at-12 o'clock way) to find what to press to make a new post. Hell man, what's with the symbols for everything? Can't we just use lovely, old-fashioned, words? I can't imagine that anybody illiterate is wanting to write a new blog post, so why the need for little pictures?

Gossip Girl

I watched Season 4 of Gossip Girl. There, I said it. I devoured it as The Big Black Dog devours each of her meals - as if she hasn't been fed for months. Admittedly, I feel slight shame in admitting that. I know it's a load of hogwash about far-too-rich-for-their-own-good kids living a ridiculously glamorous and silly world with little to no regard for anything that's real and true or, for that matter, kind.

But...

Despite all that, I love it. It's unrealistic escapism that requires absolutely no concentration or thought. The scheming and planning and focus on all that is only skin deep is astounding in its excess. I feel myself falling in love with each character, waiting for the kiss that's meant to happen as they carelessly throw each other's hearts around. The drama, the angst, the passion, the ultimate me, me, me-ness.

Last night, though, we were out for dinner and we sat next to a table that had five squealy 14-year olds at it, out for dinner on a Friday night. I don't remember going out with just my friends on a Friday night when I was 14. Sure, we spent hours at each other's houses and went out with each other's parents but alone? Maybe we did and I've forgotten in the mists of time.

It was like watching a real, live, version of Gossip Girl. They were all dressed in similiar outfits - skinny jeans, fresh faces, long hair. All of them. Attached to their cell phones, they took pictures of each other, presumably to upload directly to Stalkbook, so that those who weren't invited knew they hadn't been, a' la Gossip Girl. They spoke of holidays to LA next year. Rich kids. Young kids.

The thing that horrified me, though, was when I watched them order. All of them ordered and ate, except one. She had a water bottle filled with some milky thing, presumably a diet shake which she sipped on throughout the meal. She was tiny, skinny, beautiful. My heart broke when she, literally, asked her friend opposite to smell her food. Smell it. She did, a look of pure pleasure crossing her face as she inhaled the aroma of the food, before passing it back.

Not a thing passed her lips except for the shake. I wanted to hug her, shout at her mother, tell her she's beautiful. And then I realised how dangerous media can be. These were bright young things who are the real audience of Gossip Girl and, I fear, they're not considering it as fun, frivolous, silly entertainment, but as something to aim for. And that is just frightening.

Letters to the Advertisers

I was watching television the other night. This, however, is not news. I do that regularly, because I like TV. Even the schmaltzy, badly scripted soaps amuse me. Whether this makes me an airhead or not is debatable – a debate we can have another day because it’s not what I want to talk about today. And it’s my blog, so I get to choose. It’s the ads. They have prompted a letter writing flurry. I haven’t written any for ages, so here goes:

Dear Self-Squirting Room Air Freshener People,

Firstly, I am amazed that you actually sell enough to pay for such elaborate ads. I cannot fathom why anybody would want their lounge to smell like toilet spray every 10/20/30 minutes. It’s just weird. Even if you are an elephant who has a teenage caterpillar son who plays football and has many, many stinky football shoes. I’d make him store them in the garden shed, but that’s just me.

While we’re on that, though… an elephant with a caterpillar for a child? The logistics of that have kept me awake night after night. It worried me so, that someone in the coupling that resulted in that child was in severe discomfort. It’s okay, though, after eight sleepless nights I finally realised. The child is adopted. Good on you for promoting families other than the nuclear stereotype. My nephews have two mothers. Nuclear families are so yesterday.

I just have one question. Despite my dislike for so-called ‘aromatic’ sprays, I am most tempted to get some, purely to have pretty little flowers float happily out of my house all the time and up into the sky, as they do in the advert. What a lovely thing. I thought I’d get my neighbours to get it too, so we can have an extravaganza of flowers wafting about in our street. I just wanted to check, though, can one choose which flowers?

Love,
Shiny x

Dear Slimming Cereal People,

Just a quick question, please, before I go out and buy your ‘delicious, yet slimming’ cereal. The red carpet that will roll out before me wherever I go once I start eating it… does it come with a person to vacuum the carpet too? I worry that it’ll get dirty, especially when it rolls out along the pavement outside, as I saw it do in your advert.

Love,
Shiny x

Dear Feminine Hygeine Product People,

It’s just plain irritating when you say “Have a happy period.” And no, I’m not pre-menstrual. This is my non-pre-menstrual response. You don’t want to see the pre-menstrual one. I may then use language which could hurt delicate ears/eyes, which you may well have. So stop it, please.

Love,
Shiny x

There are more, but I must stop. Real Work calls.

Soap

I watched an episode of a soap last week. I do this every now and again, well, because, they're just so funny. It's nice sometimes to know that things are all well in the world of soaps - people are still marrying their husband's brothers/cousins/fathers, getting amnesia, becoming paralysed and miraculously recovering, all while dressed as if they're off to a wedding, with hair and make-up to match - you know, average, everyday stuff.

This one, however, was a pearler (when last did you hear that word?) There’s this dude, with an eye patch (remember this, it’s an important detail, the patch). And amnesia. And he’s got some dreaded disease which has necessitated him being kept in quarantine (the nurses come in in space suits, seriously). He’s in this quarantine room, which just happens to have a big glass window through which all the other soapie characters can gape (and speak, through a nifty intercom), not unlike a snake cage at the zoo. Anyway, he’s in there with his wife of old (who he can’t remember). I’m not exactly sure how long-term his amnesia has been, but long enough for him to fall in love with someone other than his wife (who’s unconscious, due to the mystery-very-contagious-bug). She (the lover, not the wife), keeps coming to the glass cage and making whimpering sounds at him, putting her hand up against the glass so he can ‘touch’ her.

Meantime, he seems to be recovering his memory and, along with some other whingey characters whose exact relationship to them all I’m unsure of, have decided that only his love for his wife (and, possibly, the antidote from Canada, which is being fetched by another smoochy couple who are really too old to be smoochy… her eyebrows are just below her hairline from so much plastic surgery and he speaks like, well, he’s in a soap) will save her. Incidentally, there is a huge storm through which smoochy couple must fly, so they may not make it.

And then there’s his daughter, who he seems to be remembering too, who is convincing him that, indeed, the only thing that will save unconscious-mom/wife, is his undying love. They had this amazingly dramatic conversation which ended with his putting his hand up against the glass, and him saying, and I kid you not:

“Look into my eye, sweetheart, I will not let you down!”

Fuck me, who writes this stuff?

The creepies and crawlies

I am very lucky to live in a house with few creepy-crawlies of the "Oh-my-god-get-it-away-from-me" kind. I do have some four-legged, furry versions who are snuggly and sweet and lovely and, well, a bit eccentric, but endearing in their eccentricities.

However, after saying that, I've probably spoken too soon and, as we speak, the Cockroach Circus are trailing their little cockroach-sized trailers down my driveway, setting up their cockroach-sized Big Top in one of my kitchen cupboards, while the bearded cockroach lady chats up the three-armed strongman cockroach behind the popcorn stand... I digress.

I am, however, blessed with mosquitoes. These are not any normal mosquitoes though. They are magnificently enormous mosquitoes. Like in rat-sized. Seriously. These things have been on steroids they bought illicitly at the gym since they were born. In fact, their mother's were on the steroids at the time of conception. They flap around my head (and it's breezy when they flap, being so huge and all - my hair blows around), flexing their little mosquito muscles, and singing. Boy, do these guys like to sing. At the tops of their little mosquito voices.

I think perhaps that they have chosen my bedroom as the perfect spot for choir practice. I can understand that - my room is cool and purple and quiet... Except for a rather disturbing buzz from the TV, when it's off. Hold on. Could that be it? They're not coming to choir practice, they're responding to the mating call of my very-much-off-TV. Good grief. There I was, worrying about the effects that buzz was having on my sleeping psyche (do psyche's sleep?) when, in fact, I should be worrying more about my causing hundreds of monstrously large mosquitoes sexual frustration. Poor things, buzzing around searching frantically for the gorgeous girl mosquito with the beautiful voice. But never finding her.

I wonder if I should switch it off at the wall?