A Year of Living Cableless...

Day 1
August 28, 2009
The kids started school day before yesterday. It is the time of the year when stay-in-minivan Moms who just moved across the country realize it is A) time to reinvent themselves and B) goal setting time. Not only am I faced with six hours of no kids at home, I am also adjusting to having moved to a new town. On top of that, my brother died this summer. He was 53 and had cancer. Longevity does not run in my family. I fully expect to die doing something physical in my sixties as did my mother and her mother. So now is the time for Lol to prepare to not only meet God, but to leave something interesting behind. I would hate to not leave anything interesting. My biggest fear and avoidance in life is boredom. I am spurred on by my recent discovery of the written word. No, not scripture. Although I found myself unable to read anything but the bible in the weeks before and after Ben died. But since then, I have been just reading. Not even listening to books on cd which is one of the methods my add brain has used to prevent boredom and accomplish something, but actually reading the written word of those industrious souls who have brightened lives and minds with names like S.E. Hinton, Julie Powel and A.J. Jacobs with a little Jane Austen thrown in for culture.
I have a roaring case of Attention Deficit Disorder. I have yet to be diagnosed. It is a wonder to me that anyone with ADD actually can get herself together enough to make, (and keep), an appointment with a mental health care professional, fill out the required 400 pages of information on her past, and go through whatever else is entailed in getting a diagnosis that is deemed legitimate by the neuro typicals of the planet.
My self-diagnosis comes from my own educational experience, personal reading, self observation and of course, watching my kids re-live the travesties of my own childhood. Plus I have hung on my brother’s diagnosis. He was married to the queen of neurotypicals.
But all that is beside the point. Or maybe it IS the point. I feel very under accomplished, frustrated with my lame life and ready to do something more. I decided to record my life without television for the next year. I’m inspired chiefly by Julie Powel, John Bytheway, and A.J. Jacobs. In the next few paragraphs, you will read how each of these souls have touched mine:
Julie Powel
This young little spring chicken of a 29-year-old, (granted I had four children between the ages of 8 and 3 at that age and I was living in East Cleveland, AKA the planet Mars.), decided to cook everything in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking and blog about it. Since then, she has produced a book, a movie and I’m sure she is basking in the glow of fame, fortune and fan clubs. I cried in the movie when the actor portraying Julie tells her husband of her Attention Deficit Disorder. I didn’t even get to see the whole movie. I snuck out of the 3rd Ice Age amid our family celebration of the last day of summer. I only saw about the first half and can’t wait to see the rest. In the meanwhile, I have read and re-read the book and I’m inspired. I’m motivated. I’m sure there are millions of others starting blogs in the name of Julie/Julia inspiration. I’m awed by her determination and self-discipline. An online audience would seem to help with a sense of responsibility to others. I’m a throw-my-hat-over-the-fence kind of girl myself. I didn’t teach aerobics for the love of exercise as much for the benefit of forced fitness.
But I’m not sure I’m brave enough to actually blog. Putting my thoughts out there for real people is much more intimidating than writing to the future like I do in my journal. Besides. It isn’t just me who could be stalked, kidnapped and murdered. I have seven amazing and slightly clueless children in need of protection.
So I may just write here daily. I may publish you on my facebook page. I have several hours to decide since today is the day I begin my year long project, and it’s only 8:59 A.M..
When I say a year of no television, I do NOT mean I don’t get to watch movies. Puleeze. I have to actually survive the upbringing of my children. I am the chief cook, bottle washer, laundry doer, bed maker, vacumer, decorator, disciplinarian, window washer, educator and book reader for my children. I survive, (and excel) in doing these mundane chores with the help of screen distraction. The average day for me over the last year would include getting up with the Today show, watching the news while I get ready for the day, watching more news while I cook breakfast and supervise children, turn on the British Channel for a daily dose of inspiration from “How Clean is Your House” while I clean, (and boy is that an inspiring show!!!), running errands, folding laundry, teaching highschool three days a week and college one night, and collapsing to Jay Lenno at night. So I count it as an act of self-discipline to slip a disk into my portable tv and lug it around the house while I clean, fold, polish, scrub and organize. I limit myself to chickflicks by choice. I don’t watch anything R rated. I freely admit to having lines from You’ve Got Mail, Sense and Sensibility, Miss Potter, Sleepless in Seattle and My Best Friend’s Wedding memorized.
That has been my method of surviving housework for the last few weeks. Before that, we had cable. Then we moved.
John Bytheway
And we listened to John Bytheway’s CD about the horrors of television. I bought the cd and knew that Doug would be more motivated than I to not get cable. We are in a new home and we are yet to hook up a land line, let alone cable tv and the internet. I go to the local coffee shop daily to check my emails, family website and facebook. But I recognize it is good for me to not have the temptations of brain dead fodder. I know it is better for my sons to have less influence of Sponge Bob Square Pants and more of S.E. Hinton. We have been reading The Outsiders out loud at night. S.E. Hinton wrote the first chapter when she was only in high school. I did things like shake my eating-disorderedly small booty with the tridels or donned the bunny costume and trotted around as the school mascot in highschool. I was also nicknamed “Queen of the Space Cadets” by the cute, male, fresh-out-of-college-and-adored-by-all English Teacher.
But I digress.
I actually know John Bytheway. This isn’t to say he knows me. I’ve met him on several occasions. I’ve been the speaker in the room next to his at EFY for sixteen different speeches. I’m his biggest fan. I told the kids in my class to be really quiet and we would just listen to Brother Bytheway.
Of course we didn’t.
I actually taught my prepared material and secretly hoped the kids in John’s class wondered what the laughter was about when our class errupted, (as is the whole point of me teaching EFY.) in spontaneous if not irreverent mirth. Second to laughing myself, my greatest love in life is making others laugh. Being right next to John at EFY was kind of like having a gorgeous roommate in college who attracts guys like flies to honey and you get to take whatever leftovers there are. My room was packed because if the kids couldn’t get in Bro Bytheway’s class, they came to mine.
So I feel this amazing professional connection to the guy. He is who hundreds of us CES peops wanna be when we grow up. I love his cds and love that teens love them. Especially mine.
I really appreciated what he said about turning off the screens. I also admire his amazing self-discipline. I’m not ready to get up at 5 and write, and perhaps that means I will never be a serious author, but I am a mother first. In my culture and in my mind, that makes it almost okay.
Almost
I still feel like a slacker. So I am here. Writing. Doing SOMETHING!!! Dishes are easier. You start with a dirty sink full and end with order. But perhaps all the ideas screaming around in my head need to be put in order too. So here I am.
Thanks John.
A.J. Jacobs
I read his amazing book The Year of Living Biblically when I was teaching the Old Testament in Institute which for you friends of other Faiths is the Mormon University level religious instruction. I sent him a thank you note and he actually wrote back. It was personal and everything.
He had a plan similar to Julia Powel’s, albeit years before. He decided to spend a year of his liberal Jewish life living every law of the bible literally by the book. He established ground rules for himself which included keeping in line with current laws. For example, even though the law of Moses said to stone an adulterer to death he couldn’t actually kill anyone because it is against our laws, (in case you didn’t know.). So when he knew an acquaintance was having an affair he merely tossed a handful of pebbles at them when they weren’t looking.
It was a hilarious book. I loved it. And quite honestly, in many ways I could relate better to his work than to Julie Powel’s likely because I know the bible a whole lot better than I know Julia Child’s cookbooks.
So here I go. To whoever reads this, wish me luck. If nothing else, it will be a learning experience.
I miss my television friends. But I’m amazed by the nature outside my window and I’m hoping to memorize the script of the six hour long A&E version of Pride and Prejudice while I do housework. I plan to listen to several books on CD and who knows what else in my pursuit of doing something more useful with my life than watching advertisements.
Here are the rules:
I have to write something every day about how NOT having cable television is changing my life.
I am NOT allowed to feel guilty for writing as little as one sentence.
I am NOT allowed to worry too much about what other people think. This is an exercise in commitment and accomplishment and if along the way, I offend or don’t impress, that is Okeedokee!
I know. It doesn’t sound like much of a rulebook. But for me, this is a real challenge.
Go me!!!