Media Deprivation: The Results

So as of Sunday, I was back to watching television. Had I missed it? Of course I had. I had missed the chaste, yet brooding masculinity of vicar Sidney Chambers on Masterpiece Mystery's Grantchester. The efforts of one fair haired and well muscled young vicar to be a leader in his small English village of 1953? His drive to stand up for true justice, while at the same time losing himself in whiskey and cigarettes, pining away for a woman he can never have?  It scratches an itch I wasn't aware I needed relief from! And yet, while I put away these things that I was using to fill time, I achieved quite a lot.

I did two blog posts. I organized my closet. I attended a tour of historic locations of now closed gay bars. I went to an open-mic night and tried out new material for my upcoming show. I switched phone services (which I had threatened doing for a long time). I applied for countless jobs. I put a dent in David Allen's Getting Things Done, which when complete, will allow me to implement a system to capture all of the tasks I need and want to do in order to complete them when time allows. I met someone new for drinks. I assisted my friend in her cabaret performance. I opened the windows one evening and drank a beer while playing cards with my roommate.

Were some of these things I would have done anyway? Sure. But a couple of them would have been much easier to say "no" to at the last minute if I had known that hanging out and watching television were an option. So, while I don't know that I want to completely get rid of television,  I am planning on alternating weeks in which I turn off the t.v. and find other ways to fill time.