Culture Shock

Besides not being able to blog due to computer problems, the past month I've been recovering from a nasty flu and allergies.  This has given me way too much time to sit and watch TV shows on Hulu and YouTube.

We got rid of cable last winter.  We were tired of paying for all the channels when we really only wanted Sci-Fi, Fox News, and BBC (for Top Gear and Dr. Who).  I've become a calmer person and my family and I are no longer subjected to the commercialism of what we "need" to buy and what we "should" look like.  I've been watching lots of Sci-Fi, period dramas, and good old fashion cartoons, which is a nice break from Obama's whining speeches.  I get to put in my head what I want to be there and not what the mainstream tries to sell me.

Then last week I felt well enough to go out to dinner.  It was a culture shock.  The staff was nice, but the hostess was sooo skinny.  I just wanted to sit her down next to us to eat something.  Everywhere I looked people were either painfully skinny or overweight.  And not very many people seemed to be happy.

I realized I've given my self a fairly "safe" conservative hide out.  Girls on Sci-Fi shows I watch are a nice healthy weight.  They're pretty with out all the make-up and body parts hanging out of the clothes.  And most of the period dramas I've been watching have been in Victorian and Edwardian England.  You see any shoulders even and the girl is a hussy.  The women were normal women, not crying out and bemoaning their lot in life.  The men, well, it's nice to see real men again; polite, civil, protecting women if needed.

I also noticed while watching the shows, I stopped feeling "fat" or "unattractive".  It doesn't matter how healthy your self image is, if you are daily fed a diet of seeing women that are size two, you're going to feel fat.

So, I may not be living in the "real world".  But this mental break of choosing the programing I want certainly makes it easier to deal with the programming that's being sold to the rest of society.