Having these great cable series is a fabulous part of adult life.  We’ve loved and lost The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, and The Wire.

Just this month, we watched the entire season of Treme before it disappeared from our TV menu.  At first, I didn’t think it would hook me, but then it did.  These long-form series are an amazing way to tell stories.  I am crazy about them, and now that we’ve finished Treme, the new Mad Men is starting at just the right time.

I prefer my TV to be fictional, as opposed to “reality.”  A few days ago I finally caught an episode of Hoarders.  Deeply disturbing!  I had to admire the people providing psychiatric intervention, however.  They were very no nonsense.  One hoarder lady, showing off her stash of empty glass spaghetti sauce jars, explained why she was keeping them.  “Well, once when I was sick, a friend brought me soup in a jar like this.  See how there are little markings for measurements?  That’s so cute.  And someday I will make soup and take it to friends in these jars.”

The shrink listened politely, convinced the lady to recycle all the jars, and then said sotto voce to the camera, “She’s never going to make soup.  A lot of hoarding is dreaming about what you’ll do one day and how you’ll need all this stuff, but that day never comes.”

The show was fascinating, in a train wreck sort of way, but we all know the real world is full of crazy people.  Give me the madness of  Mad Men any day.   Tell me I’m not alone.

Big deal.  I would like to point out that I, a representative of the middle-aged American,  am a target of marketers as well.  Screens are now everywhere in MY life too! 

Let the teenage boys have Fuel TV.  Ha!  I am transfixed by Gas TV’s report on Heidi’s latest burst of surgeries as I fill ‘er up with unleaded.

At the grocery store, my beloved beloved screens are everywhere.  I especially relish Meat TV.

Although Fruit TV is also highly entertaining.  I try to be at Acme every day at 3 PM for some excellent recipe tips.  Whoever is programming Tuber TV has a future at NBC.

At the end of my shopping trip, I begin to go through withdrawal from screenland.  But wait!  There’s more!  Bless you, Check-Out TV.  Thank heavens I don’t have to flip through horoscope booklets or God forbid, talk to another person near me.  I can zone out and watch the cathode rays while I wait to pay.  Sometimes the little snippets about Jennifer Aniston’s latest break-up are so compelling, I buy the latest copy of HELLO!

On to the gym.  This used to be a waste of perfectly good TV-watching time.  Either I had to watch the communal TV that was tuned to sports or Fox, or I had to read a magazine.  Gah! 

Thankfully, the YMCA recently got brand new treadmills.  Now we can all be trudging couch potatos!  Just plug your iPod in for sound while watching your own personal choices.  (When I get my iPod set up, I will do this too.  In the meantime, I watch the clumsy closed captioning).  Since Ian refused to take my photo in this public place, I had to take my own photo.  That’s my hand, switching channels.  Oh look, Tyra!

At around mile two, I got bored and needed a new show.  Flipping to TLC, which used to stand for The Learning Channel, I watched that kooky couple from Arkansas – the husband and wife with 17 kids – as they blundered into a head shop in San Francisco and puzzled over the crazy glassware!

A show called Toddlers and Tiaras, about baby beauty queens, was being hyped.  I believe TLC now stands for The Lowest Class.  And TreadTV calls itself Cardio Theater.  Very culturally enriching.

Thank you, social engineers or evil enemies from outer space, for guaranteeing that we never have to be without a screen again, no matter where we are or what we’re doing.  TVs in cars, bars, trains, planes, restaurants, grocery stores, gas stations, copy shops, gyms and post offices – all we need are more screens in libraries, yoga studios, houses of worship, and hiking trails and in national parks, so you can beam messages into our heads 24/7.

Then ours will truly be a utopian society.

Notice the Guinness Book of World Records. This is like catnip for Malcolm, Mr. Non-Fiction. We are frequently called to see pictures of the world’s smallest monkey, longest fingernails or largest geode as he pores, rapt, over its pages.

So the four of us who were awake watched The Office, and roared with laughter, often of the painful variety. Little known fact: Steve Carrell arrived on the campus of Denison University three months after I graduated, and my little brother Tom arrived three months after Steve graduated. We both missed him – by mere weeks! Apparently he was in lots of the theatre productions. We could have said we knew him when, but in fact we were jinxed by accidents of birth year. Talk about bad comedic timing on Steve’s part!

And now it is Friday. I predict that a great deal of REM sleep will take place in this house over the weekend, as we continue to adjust our circadian rhythms and get into the swing of the school year.