Television Memories

My boyfriend's pack porch faces three large apartment buildings. It's very "Rear Window." When I'm out there smoking, I like to look in all the windows. Sometimes you can see what people are doing. More often you can see what people are watching on television which is ultimately more revealing. Lots of CNN, ESPN, MSNBC, American Idol, Family Guy. A lot of straght men. This is the north side of Chicago. Another geographic location would undoubtedly produce a different back porch-Nielsen sample, obviously.

Someone watching me watch television through my window would probably deduce that I am gay or female. And they would be at least partially correct. The View, Project Runway and Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D List. The boob factor on Big Brother 10 might throw them off from guessing my sexuality. I do not watch pornography. On my TV. So my sexual tastes wouldn't show up on this peeping tom report. If there were to be any pornography displayed in my apartment, the shades would be drawn, volume kept to a minimum. Respectable.

The only window I have to peer in, outside of my apartment belongs to "The Man Who Washes the Dishes." He has been given this title because this is all he does. I have no further information on this one. Sometimes the dishes are done in his boxers, sometimes with the shades completely shut or slightly open. I can see him there showing off how he does his dishes, and that's fine. Some people have that kind of time. Jessie, the cocky bodybuilder on Big Brother, has been nominated for eviction this week and I have just learned that there are rumors fllittering around the internet that despite his hetero jock like demeanor he might be gay. So we're researching that. How this applies to my life, how it enriches my human experience I don't know. I haven't begun that research. I am compelled to go from link to link, being told that there are shocking nude pictures just around the corner of the internet. I certainly can't be bothered with dish scrubbing right now.

TV is sometimes used as a babysitter, and that's sad. For me it was more of a best friend. Best Friends. Forever.

My mother's father was a television critic. So excessive television wasn't something that was looked down upon too harshly in my childhood home. Not that I wasn't encouraged to do other things. But when I did go outside, it was time to reenact the television. Like a fifties child reenacting a cowboy show, when I went outside to play I wanted to make a gameshow. On our sundeck, I was Bob Barker on The Price Is Right pulling products out of my mother's pantry for my very unenthusiastic stuffed animal contestants to guess the price. A new car couldn't bring the stuffed bunny and Garfield out of their wide eyed catatonia. This wasn't of great concern. The focus here was on the host.

Continued