According to custom, the weeklong festivities before Ash Wednesday are called "carnival" time because, in Latin, carne levarium means removal of meat. For me it has meant "removal of brains."I have practically lost my mind to and certainly fried my brains with DVDs and viewing stuff online via Netflix, hulu.com, hbo.com, and abc.com. Yes, there's a reason I haven't owned a television or subscribed to cable service for nearly a decade. Periodic binges help me remember this.
In my own defense, I'll note that I did mix a few morsels of spiritual nutrition in with the brain candy. Among them: Journey to the Heart: Henri Nouwen, a documentary about...Henri Nouwen, and Ushpizin, a delightfully quirky Israeli flick about the mitzvah of welcoming strangers during Succot. Absolutely not among them: Thérèse, a movie so jaw-droppingly awful that I ejected the DVD after ten excruciatingly long minutes of watching on screen drivel.
Thanks to the writer's strike, I've been able to wean myself away from watching the prime time soap operas "Brothers & Sisters" and "Grey's Anatomy." Still, last night I was powerless over checking abc.com. I promptly got sucked right back into two hours of "Lost," which I'd successfully quit at the end of its way-too-weird second season. This, mind you, was after watching thirty minutes of "In Treatment" on HBO.
"In Treatment," aired for not even a full analytic hour, features a different client every night. I forget for how many weeks this program is scheduled. Doesn't matter. I'm determined to stop watching after tonight. In tonight's episode, the psychiatrist (protagonist) is supposed to have a session with his own therapist. Sure hope he talks about bungling several sessions this past week. These would be the sessions during which I found myself muttering, "get clinical supervision."
Okay, so maybe I will tune in next week to see if he has learned anything -- but only on Monday and Tuesday. Lent begins Wednesday. Guess what I'll be renouncing.
