Why Lost May Lose Me

Given the choice of moving forward in my current read, Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett, and watching the newest episode of Lost, I chose Pillars. This decision was made easier for me because the network has been preceding each new episode of Lost with the episode from the previous week. If I catch up next week, I'll continue with the show; if not, it will lose me. As to this week's Project Runway and American Idol. I put Pillars away long enough to watch both of them.

The Pillars of the Earth is more action driven and its characters are less well developed than the type of book that I usually enjoy. At this point, on page 743 of the 983 page book, I am thoroughly immersed in it and ready to move on to the sequel. The setting is England in the early 1100's, a time in which two factions were at war for a disputed monarchical succession. The point of intersection for the many sub-plots involves the building of a grand cathedral on the grounds of a once neglected monastery. Love, jealousy, violence, corruption, depravity, naked ambition, and godly reverence abound. So far, I've needed to skip only two pages because of the way in which they dealt with "bear baiting," one of the many ways that humans have found to amuse themselves at the expense of other animals. (Not the greatest way to end this post, but I'm done.)

TV Shows

In the aftermath of The Recent Event, I find that my television viewing habits have changed. This is not surprising. Matt's health challenges kept him pretty much anchored to the family room couch where I would also sit in order to be with him. The television was usually on and Matt would be watching it or nodding off, sometimes with earphones and sometimes not. When we watched a show together, I'd usually also be doing something else, crossword puzzles for example or ripping out recipes from Sunset magazine.

Since The Recent Event, I've found myself completely uninterested in the make-believe lives of the pretend people whose adventures we used to follow. Dr. House will have to be his brilliant arrogant self without me. Allison Dubois will go on dreaming, Patrick Jane will be insightful, and The Good Wife will be good (or not) and I won't care. But . . .

I have discovered Project Runway. The title alone, and with it the potential for my wonderful hubby's kind ridicule, kept me from discovering this particular guilty pleasure until a week or so ago. I've become a huge fan.

Late bloomer that I am, I have finally joined the hordes who follow the complicated lives of the airplane crash survivors and the Others in the TV series, "Lost." I watched a two hour plot summary last week and saw the two hour first episode of this (its last) season last night. I've just printed out pages showing the main and supporting characters from Lostpedia and the first eleven pages about the show from Wikipedia. I don't want to be lost - sorry I can't help myself -while trying to figure out what's going on. I'm not a huge fan at this point, but seeing the show has become a cultural imperative for me.

I haven't entirely given up on shows that Matt and I used to watch. I'll continue to watch Criminal Minds, a delightful gem about serial killers and the FBI profilers who catch them. I'll also watch Flash Forward and The Vee (sp.?) when they are back on the air. (Flash Forward is truly compelling.)

And I'll enjoy the silence of a blank TV screen and the time that it frees up to do other things.