Prologue

I have a problem. An addiction.

Television.

Internet.

Books.

Movies.

In that order.

I am an unabashed television enthusiast. I post random, unimportant-but-all-too-often-comical Facebook quips on a regular basis. I prowl the aisles of Borders looking for books I can't live without. I am the owner of a Netflix queue so lengthy a person couldn't get through it without a month of solid television-watching.

I am a chronic list-maker and lover of everything. I love every subject. Drama. History. Comedy. Documentary. True Crime. Biography.

It's June of 2010, and my mass media addiction has become so great that I've actually made a list for myself. I call it my "Summer Reading List," and though I know the odds of completing it in a single summer are physically impossible, I still hang on the notion that this addiction is somehow temporary and might fade come fall.

Now, this list is not handwritten on post-it note, I'm talking a Word document, here. In my life a Word document is a list of the utmost importance. I have three categories of list. 1. Post-it or iphone note. Typically, these are items of low importance and can be accomplished with a quick trip to Target 2. The notepad. The notepad is typically where I itemize my day. I do this every day. I try to include everything minus eating and getting dressed. A typical entry might include "water flowers" or "clean upstairs bathrooms." The more I can include on this list, the better. I can lay down at night, look at the list and feel as if I accomplished quite a bit. Last, of course, there's list number 3. The Word Document. The Word Document is reserved for lofty and often unobtainable goals. Long term. Seasonal. Impractical.

Is this all-important list worth of a blog? I'm not sure. I'm certainly not cooking my way through Julia Child's cookbook or chronicling a journey of self-recovery. I suspect I may make a few people laugh along the way. That's worth something, right?

Now, before we begin, I have to address one issue. I know from a lot of personal experience, that when hidden behind the anonymity of a screen name, people can be cruel. If you ever want to know how people are really feeling about things, check out a message board. I have a sneaking suspicion people are going to ask me how, as a mother of two young children, I can possibly find time to cram this much media into my life without being outright neglectful. Or, God forbid, my absolute worse fear, someone my accuse me of being lazy. So, I suppose I'll just go ahead and address those issues upfront so we can all be on the same page. I'd like to address said issues with the following 6-point, list:

1. I'm new in town.
-I recently relocated from the greater Little Rock, AR region to the greater Omaha, NE region. I'm under-friended, under-obligated, and under-committed. Simply put, I haven't had time to overwhelmingly over-commit myself yet.

2. It's summer.
-The weather is nice, there is a park mere feet from my back door, there are about 10 million kids for my kids to play with outside. I am not invited to participate, but I do tend to supervise from the comfort of a park bench. I may as well read a book while keeping one ear tuned in to any elementary aged potty humor and or inappropriate behavior.

3. I am organized.
-If you're imagining me sitting in front of the TV all day long, in messy home, ignoring the laundry and dishes, you're wrong. I have a freakishly clean house. I never, ever pick up a book or turn on the TV until my to do list is complete. If it's laundry that needs tending to, I read or watch between cycles.

4. I take breaks.
-I just took 30 minute break from this blog to play school with my daughter. I received an informative lesson on paper plate painting, along with a select group of My Little Ponies. I took my kids to the pool for almost four hours yesterday, 3.5 of which, I played directly with them. The other .5 I sat on the edge of the pool next to them. You get the point...

5. I'm well prepared.
-I have several computers, some portable, some not. I have an iphone. I keep media ready at all times. I can check Facebook mobile at a moment's notice. I have a backup book on my kindle app. There's usually a book in my purse. I can watch, post, or read from anywhere at any time, whenever the opportunity presents itself.

6. I drink a lot of coffee, I'm an insomniac, and I'm alone a lot.
-I do drink a lot of coffee. That's just a fact. My husband is gone on trips or works night, I'd say... 50% of the time, give or take. I have low sleep needs. Think of this as an equation of sorts, when you put your kids in bed at 8:30- some of you may spend time with your significant others. I don't. He's not here. This frees me up until about 12:30am when inevitably, I am smacked in the face, reminding me that I have one again fallen asleep with a book in my hand. I can accomplish a lot in 4 hours. With the help of a DVR or free online services, a sitcom takes just 22 minutes, a drama, just 43. That's more than ten sitcoms or five dramas. It's two movies or two-hundred pages in a book. And that's just after my kids are asleep! That even include the park bench!

I've been told many times that I should start this blog, but I haven't due to fear that someone would accuse me of being lazy or needing to do something more productive with my time. The fact of the matter is, I do quite a lot of volunteer work, I am heavily involved in community theatre, and I have held part time job for the last 4 years. Generally speaking, none of those things had that much of an effect on how much media I consumed. There's just too much out there that I want to be a part of! If you don't like me after that charming 6-point presentation of why I am not a drain on society, well, I just can't help you.

If you've somehow managed to get through this prologue, I commend you. I will be taking a quick break to work on some laundry, at which point I will return for a recap of last week.