FAQ #7: You were clearly raised in the US, yet you are ignorant of [popular culture feature]!

How can this be?

First off, I was raised in a home on the outskirts of Fairbanks, one of Alaska's larger cities. Note that the population of 82,000 is for the entire large district area, including North Pole and other outlying communities; Fairbanks itself has a population of 30,000.

Only Anchorage is not small-town Alaska or smaller; much of Alaska's land is bush. [1]

So, I was raised in small-town Alaska, by a Registered Geek father, without a TV.

Yep. Without a TV.

That means, I did not grow up on cartoons. I did not grow up watching Mr. Rogers. I did not grow up with the Smurfs, or Sesame Street. I did not grow up watching $NEWS_ANCHOR. (Though I did have NPR...) I did not grow up with $SITCOM.

Much of the US's mass media culture is transmitted via television. I grew up apart from that. It means very little to me when someone comments, "Oh, $AWARD_SHOW is tonight, isn't it."

I was introduced to Star Trek via the books, through a happy accident in the library, where one of Alan Dean Foster's novelizations of the animated series was tossed in with the childrens' paperback chapter books. Only after I grew to love it text-only did I wind up watching it over at my virtual cousin's house.

After I turned 18, good ol' Fuzzy Modem wound up with an extra television set, and gave that to me; River gave me a spare VCR of his. I went off to college at UAF for a year, and discovered MTV and VH1, and was part of the informal "insomniac music video club" in the lounge between the hours of midnight and breakfast. I discovered the sci-fi channel. I got addicted.

There is a fuzzy area between that first attempt at college and my second one. In that, I got engaged to BJ, and discovered what true TV addiction is, in the person of his father.

BJ's father is a type A remote driver. The remote is HIS. If he gets bored, the channel is changed. Socializing, in that house, was sitting in the living room around the TV. Programs I wasn't interested in. I went from interested in specific programs, and indifference to others, to active loathing of TV. When we relocated to Arizona for college, the roommates and BJ were almost just as bad with the TV.

Now, it has become somewhat of a trueism in the household that the way to get me to leave a room is to turn on the TV.

TV use here has gone way down. I would say that we collectively watch, in this household, zero to one hour of TV per week. Sometimes the Little Fayoumis watches cartoons on weekends; more often, these days, he does not. Sometimes marxdarx catches The Simpsons; sometimes he does not.

Do I feel like I'm missing out on something? Honestly, no. I followed a few shows for a while (X-Files, Frasier, Star Trek) but the only one I really was addicted to onscreen was the X-Files; I got into Trek when it was in reruns, and reruns are... something else.


One thing that continually boggles me is that Darkside and I get along as well as we do. I was raised without TV; he was, as an Army brat, raised on it. He can talk nonstop about TV for over two hours; I know that he's rather hooked on it. If we were ever in a permanent relationship and cohabitating, we might have a few issues. However, I have faith that if we ever do get together, we'll be able to work things out, because we always do.


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[1] Darkside had a very bad joke about Shawn and the Alaskan bush, which somehow I wound up being reminded of.

Ahh, spam.

Yes, in fact, I have seen bigger tits. Every morning. In the mirror.

*sigh*

Pathetic.

And, what is spam worth, when I have a kitty myowling at me?

Now, with 10% more 'Ow!'

It just figures that now, with the cold on its way out, that my ears would choose the chance to flare up.

Left ear, again. Leaving the drops in it. Waiting.

The one bottle of eardrops is empty. I have an almost-full bottle remaining. Usually one round kills the little buggers; this looks like a tougher case. I hate Swimmer's Ear. Normal people just have to make sure to dry out their ears. I'm weird, and have to see an actual doctor for meds to kill the bastards.

Gha, Fayoumis woes

He's in trouble.

Baby Loony's Vocabulary

Terry vs. 'Unsanitary'

Reorganization

Reorganization

My closet is a disaster area, and is next up on the list of things scheduled for overhaul. I suppose a crucial stage of that is going to be clearing out the junk in there, and seeing if I can't finish some of the projects.

The big wooden thing in there? Goes. It's only useful as a shelf, and not very at that. I should put the actual shelf in that corner, and pile the boxes in the easternmost side. Then, if I put the high formal stuff on the western side on top of the shelves, they'll be right there where I can kind of get at them, and the rest of the junk'll be also where I can access it.

...

Ow, my back. *cough* Ow, my throat. I suppose the step after this is assembling the dresser, locating wood glue or something like it, and making sure that the drawers stay in one piece as the gods and designers intended them to, instead of pulling that thing that they do with Little Fayoumis's dresser, and falling apart.

*cough*

But, for now, I think I'll just sit here, because I just hauled 1,000,000,003 boxes out of my closet and put them back in again, in addition to shoving around half my wardrobe. The heavier half, mind you.

*looks longingly at box marked "brand new black clothes"* No! Must not! Bad! Wait for the old ones to wear out!

Joy.

Between the Jutting Manhoods of Doom, the cough and the lack of oxygen to my brain, and the Pile of Room to Clean, I have become faint and dizzy.

*swoons*

And shadesong's on vacation, so I'm stuck with keeping up output by myself...

A true measure of my illness

...I forgot, for several hours, that I was logged in as my cat, and posted not once as her, not twice, but three times.

Excuses? I have none, but that I am so dizzy.

Accomplishments:

• Big-ass wooden thing removed from closet.


• Eris's catbox scraped.


• Peppermint tea guzzled.


• Clothes I'll Never Wear (again) removed from closet:




• digitalambience's black velvet dress


• digitalambience's cheerleader uniform


• blue jean jacket, insulated


• Black jean vest, uninsulated




• old magazines tossed


• Photo of Darkside trying to grab my camera admired by Little Fayoumis


• more Dick read


• more beading done on shirt


• Shower


• Hair brushed


• Dressed


• Pretty aurora painting hung up semi-properly

What a household...

Happy cheery pagan .mp3s from the computer in the other room. The knowledge that somewhere, something good is happening.

Me, getting off my lazy ass to light the Happy Household candle, because it's a happy household kind of day.

When votania gets back from the store, there will be pizza, yay!

Later...

Half-skyclad kid running around. Pizza in progress. Dizzy Loony who's just trying to not fall over, banished to her room because she's wobbling so much.

marxdarx is doing instruction in jumping jacks in the living room.

Congratulations!

elance and wibbble are ...

married!

That's right. Married.

Woohoo!


This explains all of my cryptic giggling and dancing, by the way. I almost exploded.

Evening

Had pizza and ice cream. Proceeded to feel much, much better.

Wound up calling shywickedpixie to see how Zoe was getting along. Quite well, it seemed, just a bit of an upset stomach, poor husky. We giggled. I told the story of May 01, 1995. We giggled about this, that, and the other. Pirish and loudsmiths! Zeus is a stinky-cat.

Now, my Pretty is not with the phone on. *spanks Pretty*