I just bought my first flat screen TV.  It’s a 32” Sharp HD something or other and came recommended from a trusted source.  (I’m not privy to electronics-knowledge but I do know it is flat and the image quality looked pretty. Sold).  I drove to Costco with a friend and within twenty minutes walked the oversized box out to my car.  As I sit here, watching it watch me from my living room, I have to wonder: is this the sign I’ve made it – I mean, on the bigger scale – financially, mentally, careerily – is this the sign that I have my shit together?  I know for some, having a flat screen is a must because they love TV or Movies. They have cable, even.  To them, buying a flat screen would be like, for me, buying two amazing glasses of vino and one appetizer for sixty dollars.  I’d sign the check, bounce out of the fine dining establishment glowing with a happy buzz and a happy tummy.  No one can talk me out of it, not even my boyfriend.  There is something about a night out on the town, it’s the best for me and I’m willing to pay for it.  But TV?  I don’t really watch TV.  I may work in television but trust me, that was just fate’s way of teaching me a lesson until I figure out what that lesson is.  Which I haven’t so I can’t leave.  Like the devil’s trench, I go back day after day to stop the battle between TV, gossip, and my brain, while the lesson lives on, eluding me.  

Truth is I had a perfectly good old box before this 32” TV came to town.  It’s still here in fact.  Staring at me from my living room.  I feel bad for the big guy sitting there, all out of date and everything.  

But the people who have it together enough to buy big TV’s also have savings accounts and some notion as to what they want to do with their lives, right?  Or, am I making this up.  I know these subjects don’t sound linked together.  Those people (the ones who have their sh*t together) buy their flat screens after they’ve figured things out, right?  Or, they at least watch TV. And have cable.  And I haven’t and don’t.  So have I just turned into a consumer whore? You feed me reasons for buying and I will succumb, even if it takes two years to get me in bed with your sales-pitch.   I don’t even have Netflix – ok I lie – I do now as of last Friday, because I just had to rent the last disc of True Blood Season One, (disc five), and all Blockbusters were out so there, now I have Netflix.  But, in terms of adding up reasons why I’m a candidate for a flat screen, why did I buy this TV? 

It wasn’t that expensive, one of the affordable ones at Costco actually.  I am per usual over thinking this purchase because it cost more than the chair I’m sitting on.  And, I can’t wear it or eat it or drink it or even write on it.  Wherever one needs to be in her life to be buying stuff like this, I don’t feel there is the thing.  I may be looking forward to using it, but this adulthood thing has got me by the throat.  I own a flat screen now.  Which should make me proud.  Or excited.  Or, something.  Or maybe healthier would be to not emote at all over an electronic item (thank you very much estrogen for your calm and wiseful-ways) and just consider this a business transaction.  I wanted better movie-watching-experiences and Costco provided me with that (plus a few hundred of my dollars in the middle). 

I still wonder, am I dressing up my apartment to feel like I’ve arrived when on the inside I am very much still boarding?  On the inside, I wander around looking for meaning, art, passion, direction.  On the outside, I buy clothes. Redecorate. Think about places and jobs that could be “a better fit.”  All the while, I remain still. Still.  Watching my musings and dreams swirl around me like a sandstorm.  So I suppose for now, dressing up my living room with a fancy looking TV will just have to do.

Article/blog (blogicle?), by Jenny Davis

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