My life as television

Have you ever tried to make the connection between the story of your life and the stories you watch on TV?  I've been thinking about what it is that makes me love the TV shows that I watch so much. My list is almost exclusively comedies, either sitcoms or funny/quirky dramas, mixed in with a soap opera and my new fascination with the genre of hilarious shows with no audience or laugh track, like The Office and My Name is Earl.  I've come up with a few thoughts in no particular order on the comparison and contrast between my life and the life I watch in my den several nights a week. 

1.  Days of Our Lives.  I began watching this show when I was in kindergarten.  My mom was watching it when I came home from school at lunch time, so it was usually on after we finished lunch together, so it was on while I was napping or playing or doing whatever it is 5-year-olds do when they come home from school.  And so now the Bradys and Hortons are like people I know, people from my hometown, or regular acquaintances whose lives I happen to follow from a fly-on-the-wall set up.  They go through difficult times (like when mothers and daughters are sleeping with the same men, or when people kidnap their own children and go on exotic escapades around the world!), and they have huge payoffs after living with misery and hurt for long periods of time.  The only problem is, they rarely have a long stretch of happy.  And while I enjoy the silliness of the show and the complete distraction it provides for me, I could never take it seriously as a model for how people really live.  THEY ONLY GO TO WORK LIKE ONCE A MONTH!

2.  Frasier.  This has become my must-see lifetime tv guilty pleasure.  It's on in the morning and at night, except it is on after I leave the house in the morning and on after I should be asleep at night.  What I love about Frasier: the hysterical mix up of highfalutin (is that a real word?) opera and sherry lifestyle with the beat up ugly lazy boy in the living room.  While I don't have it that good (apartment-wise), there is something about how Martin and Frasier keep each other grounded that I really like.  And Frasier's insults are so freakin' hilarious!

3.  Everybody Loves Raymond.  This show just makes me pee in my pants.  Well, not really, but it guarantees big laughs every time.  I recently saw a rerun of the first episode of this show I ever saw--the one where Raymond has to get a hakidu card for Ali (can't remember why).  It's just good humor.  It's just really funny.  And one of the things I look for in friends, marriage, family, and most life circumstances is a really good, loud laugh.  Ask anyone who knows me.

4.  The Office.  I should have done this one first because I'm so infatuated with it right now.  I couldn't even get through the first episode because I was so bored by it.  I just didn't get what they were doing.  Then (thank GOD!) some friends watched it with me and I saw them enjoying it and fell in love with Jim and Pam and was hooked.  If there was only one show per week that I could watch, this would be it.  What's it like in real life?  A good reminder of what it's like when you first meet someone--friend or romantic partner--with whom you really click and you want to spend a lot of time with that person.  I haven't made any new friends in a while, and as wonderful as marriage (particularly mine) is, we've been past the infatuation stage for years, and I've been in my job for 3.5 years now with not much challenge there in a while.  Also, some of my fondest memories involve an ensemble cast of my life's characters: like my group of silly friend in high school, the folks I spent a lot of time with in college, or the summer camp where I worked all through college and was surrounded by people all the time.  So this thing I have going with The Office is fun.

5.  The Golden Girls.  It's like the quiz on lifetimetv.com: Which Golden Girl are you?  I've always loved the sharp wit and ridiculous humor on this show.  Dorothy's dry and often cold sense of humor and timing is hilarious to me.  Too many favorite lines to quote, but I just hope that I enjoy retired life as much as they did!

6.  The Class: see comments about The Office and infatuation.

7.  The Daily Show with Jon Stewart & The Colbert Report.  I hate reading and watching the news.  Although I know its fake news, at least I can half-way keep up and enjoy doing it.  My favorite part of the Daily Show: when Jon Stewart shows a video clip--waiting for it to go back to him and see his facial expression in response to what we've just seen!  Also, I love the correspondents.  I miss Rob Cordry!  My favorite part of the Colbert Report: hard to say, but I think its when he cracks himself up with the crazy things he's saying, which he's been doing a lot lately.  I love being around people who try to make life fun for everyone else.  These 2 shows are great releases for taking life too seriously!

8.  Two and a Half Men.  Very funny.  Very weird, but very funny.  I love to laugh.  I don't want my life to end up like any of the lives of those characters.

And speaking of crazy characters, I just started TiVo-ing Boston Legal.  Can't wait to dig in to that one!

Hey--that's a lot of television!  But that's why I love TiVo so much: doesn't take nearly as long to watch all that when you don't watch it in real time. 

What do you watch?  And how does it connect to your real life?  Or how is it totally different?