"Just think about it. Deeply. Then forget about it. And an idea will jump up in your face." - Don Draper

What I'm Doing when I'm not Writing
(or On Bad Television and Its Manifold Charms)

I haven't been writing. For shame, I know. This admission is fiction. I've put together a terrible essay on Nick Hornby's use of fragmentation in his writing and the theme of death or the fear of it. It has "potential." There will be "revising." One day. Some day. Days. The worst of the potential future days.

I hate revising.

I have been watching a lot of stolen television. I've made some terrific progress through the fascinating life of dr. temperance brennan and her friend and partner seeley booth. (played by angel, an old friend from btvs and an eponymous show of his own) Soon I'll be through the third season and I'll be able to move on. It's worth noting that I think Bones is total crap. They do this thing where the plot of the episode will track alongside some story which is eerily resonant with something you remember from the news, like the blair witch project, or the hurricane katrina fallout and the sorting of bodies, or the pressures from the prolonged iraq war on national guardspeople, or the pregnant corpse that washed ashore and the investigation into her late husband, (et cetera). The first writing workshop I was in, someone did this with what's her name... Terri Schiavo. In first person. (No, I don't think it was biased. Why do you ask?) And sometime they ask questions, apparently rhetorical, like "is she crying because he's dead or because she lost a mansion?" And really I'd like to just be entertained by my stolen TeeVee. And the characters are kinda boring. Everyone has quick solutions for problems with their super-genius intellects and 1 to 2 ratio of multi-millionaire characters to characters making enough money to wear new three piece ensembles hourly.

Oddly enough, I'm comfortable with the 2-d leads. It increases the contrast when the inevitable character arc episodes come along. It's nice. I can do other things.

SO why am I watching this thing I hate?
1) I just like David Boreanaz.
2) Anthropology is part of the background for a short story i'm writing, and I can JSTOR or google anything that sounds weird/interesting.*
3) Rampant love stories. It's like watching the x-files if Mulder and Scully were in a soap opera, and there were less UFOs.**
4) Billy Gibbons cameos.
5) I'm not really sure.

I haven't minded watching Mad Men.
Does anyone have thoughts on the flying car?
Or things that end up being collected unintentionally?

*Re: police procedurals, BONES still has it's go-to gadgets for solving crimes. The maggots, the uv light, the swabby juice for blood, but they have an anthro vocabulary too. I appreciate that.
**There have been two stories that referenced UFOs. One involved a man falling from space (also involved a jealous astronaut) and another involving a pair of kids buried alive in a keg that looked like gray aliens.