Life without television

First of all, I didn't bring a TV set with me to the islands. Back in the states, every room in my house has a TV set, but here I don't even have one, which is all I would need anyway since the cottage where I live only has one room. I shipped a bunch of videos, though, so I'm shopping for a TV as well as a VCR/DVD combo that I can use to view the exercise tapes and movies I shipped.

In the meantime, because cable TV isn't available in the rainforest where I live, and TV reception would be limited and poor in quality with rabbit ears, I don't watch television anymore. Oh, well, that's not completely true. Once a week, I go by BC's house and watch "Survivor" and "CSI: Las Vegas" with her. Most of the time, however, when I'm home in the evenings or on weekends, I spend my time reading and writing. Occasionally, I work a crossword puzzle or two.

The rest of the time, I'm out and about. I walk the rainforest trails some, but mostly I go to the beach and swim. I also do things with friends, like go to a play or out to dinner. On Sunday afternoons, I sometimes hang out at Rhythms at Rainbow Beach and listen to the music and dance. On the third Friday of every month, I try to make it to Sunset Jazz in Frederiksted. I'm definitely more social here and a lot more active. Moving to St. Croix will probably save my life in the long run as I'm no longer that dreadful couch potato, living vegetable that I was back in B/CS.

The only program I truly miss is the news. It may show how old I'm getting, but I used to really enjoy watching the MacNeil-Lehrer show on Friday nights. Nowadays I rely on the Internet for news, or I read the local paper at the library. However, the STX Avis usually carries fairly skimpy coverage of the national news, so I don't bother much with that rag. I suppose that I could read the NYT front to back, as we have a subscription to it at the library too, but most days I just can't spare the time. It's all bad news anyway ever since You-Know-Who got into office.

A professor I took a class from as an undergraduate told us not to worry about keeping up with the daily news anyway. He said that we should, instead, read about it later in book form when it became history. That made a lot of sense then and it still does today. After all, it's only much later that the "real" truth comes out, if it does even then.