Boob Tubes and Ozone Doosies
It’s National TV Turnoff week, and Americans will play along (in theory). This event seems geared towards getting children off the sofa. We found this month that television is both bad and good for children. What about grown-ups?
And don’ forget Earth Day this week, Thursday. As a resident of Stripmallville, Oregon, I think I’ll adopt sprawl as my personal theme for Earth Day, and maybe I’ll come back with my ideas (aside from dirty bombing) as to how to combat it. In Stripmallville, it’s the first time I haven’t lived in the hub of a city (or even in a city at all). Today in Portland I walked several blocks to use a payphone because my mom doesn’t have a land line. Portland felt like my own livingroom. While on the MAX today, I got nostalgic for the way I was/am able to get around the city so efficiently using public transportation. Sometimes I feel like a monkey swinging through a tree when I’m in Portland. I miss it, and am thinking seriously about trying to get back, and finding a central place where nothing is far. Also related, I got this in my email and it was good: This Green Life’s Dream Car.
That said, I just got home from my friend’s house, where I watched two entire television shows, American Idol and The Swan. Having been television-free for years (except for what I see in my patient’s rooms), I must say I’m shocked and dismayed and quite depressed by new TV. Weird. There won’t be any problem not watching TV for the rest of the week. I might even see what happens if I turn off my patient’s televisions.
The Swan was agonizing to watch, because I had to admit at the end of the show that the women did look better and appear happier. Hm. Midway through the show, there was a PA commercial with a voiceover by Jennifer Lopez, about self-esteem and the nagging voices in our heads. The commercial was geared towards women, but what was interesting was that the nagging voice (“You’re not pretty enough,” “You’re not good enough…”) was a woman’s voice in a woman’s head. One would think that the voice would be an internalized man’s voice, because it is probably more the men who set the standards by which women judge themselves. What was also interesting was the strange time placement of the commercial. Then, the ten o’clock news was doing a feature on the ill side-effects of plastic surgery. Apparently plastic surgery can make you feel depressed afterwards. TV is SO confusing.
My aunt practices Siddha Yoga, and she left out a printout of the weekly meditation as she usually does. I would like the light to fill my eyes. I spent most the day trying to envision what pink and yellow light would look like crossing paths, and imagining myself bathing in thick, syrupy, Paas-colored light. And I tried to relax. It just felt like the thing to do. Then I realized that for the first time – and spontaneously – I was envisioning pink light instead of white and blue healing light like I usually do. This sounds crazy. The pink light thing isn’t random, though. I’m just dabbling in something about light that fascinates me. I think I’ve blogged about PKD and the pink light before. But the other day I pulled a book off my shelf, “Cosmic Consciousness,” and realized that it is a compendium of brief biographies of historical figures who have been touched by pink light (well, it’s invariably described as pink) and gone on to change the world. Mohammed saw pink light. Why pink? I wondered if it was a pseudo-seizure-like activity causing flashes illuminating the blood vessels of the eyelids. Pink. What other physiological process would cause pink light? I want to believe in the pink light as a separate entity, something sci-fi-ish. So I do.
Notes:
The 6ths, Hyacinths and Thistles, “You You You You You”
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