HBO is the new beer

About a month ago I decided that since I had to give up beer and my later-night social life, I could justify getting HBO for the rest of this year. Right around when I found out I was pregnant, I started watching the first season of True Blood on DVD, and I got so hooked that I couldn't deal with the new season starting on HBO without me watching it. And I loved the escape in story that the show provided. 

What's struck me the most, though, is how all of this just makes me feel like I'm in high school. Take any Friday night; it's like everyone else got word of the party and I, for whatever reason, am not involved, so instead I lose myself in a story. And I found that I actually missed that experience--being so wrapped up in great story-telling and getting invested in it and distracted by it. 

This all being said, the finale to season two is on Sunday night, so I'm not sure what I'll turn to after that. Send good book recommendations my way! Or other TV series to put on Netflix. When I first ordered HBO, I also signed up for a free trial month of Showtime for the sole purpose of Anil and I watching the third season of Dexter "on demand." When I started watching Dexter through Netflix, Anil refused to be involved as he knew he'd be instantly hooked and didn't want another TV show to have pull over him. But he relented when I got the second season, and then we were both rabid for the next one. So we burned through those shows in a week. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU CAN'T DRINK BEER OR STAY OUT PAST 8 PM! 

It's been pretty fun though, I have to admit. Lest we all forget, I was an instant English major in college because I love love love stories and characters and great writing. And I'm bringing Anil around to the complicated protagonist--the one that isn't clearly "good" or "bad." I call it the "Tony Soprano complex." Anil always hated watching The Sopranos, not just because you could always hear Tony breathing and chewing (and breathing while chewing), but because Tony was just a bad guy, as Anil saw it. And yes, he was bad--he killed people, etc. But he also had mommy issues and went to therapy. So he wasn't one-sided; he was deliciously complicated and surprisingly interesting. We would talk about how the bookworm in me is used to being curious and observing that kind of twisted protagonist or narrator as opposed to needing to like or respect them. So with Dexter, I worried that Anil would have a problem with the whole protagonist-as-sociopathic-murderer thing. But no! Anil wanted to name our child Dexter if it was a boy. The character is so likable and, well, he only kills bad people, so how turned off by him can you be? And like True Blood, the show has moments of surprising humor, which I think helps lighten the mood and prevents entrenching the viewer in feeling as dirty as the characters are, as I sometimes felt during less savory episodes of The Sopranos (but not that one where Tony and Christopher chased that giant guy into the snowy woods and got lost--that was great). 

I hope our daughter loves books and stories as much as I always have. Who am I kidding though--what chance does she have? My mom read to me throughout my childhood, and I'll absolutely do the same, for my own enjoyment if nothing else. I still vividly remember getting my first hard-cover "chapter book" (as we called them) for my 6th birthday--The Boxcar Children. I don't think I could actually read it myself then, but it was heavy in my hands and felt very important. You can bet that I'll be keeping that tradition with our daughter. I'm already thinking about all the fantastic children's books that we can read together, even the ones that she'll want me to read over, and over, and over, and over again, until I can recite them in my sleep. And I will, because that's what my parents did too (sorry guys--I know you're going to buy her Fox in Sox just so I'll know what it's like to read it to a toddler 28 times a day).

Maybe we'll be reading books before the kids go to sleep, then feverishly catching up on our DVR-ed HBO. Or maybe we'll have more of a social life again by that point; there's always hope.