My Best Friend, The Boob Tube

I've just USED television to comfort my loneliness after cleaning, cooking tofu for the first time and drinking a bottle of wine had nothing to offer. The cat and I just watched an hour of Seinfeld, and I swear, I'm going to sleep like a well-milked baby, a well-wine'd youngster. Earlier, I listened to an episode of "This American Life," where David Rakoff attempts to watch 29 hours of television and reveals that people who watch steady episodic television might get the benefits of actual "friends" by staying tuned... well, quite an interesting offer, until you need someone to call the authorities because you've died, alone, in your apartment. Even the cat became calmer when I switched to Seinfeld from public radio, I swear to god. Obviously, every other human being in the country watches television nearly every night (29 hours a week, according to TAL), so who am I to complain? I watch a ton of movies, but as David says, those movies-people are not the same as Elaine, Jerry, George and Kramer, who I've known for years, thanks! The drug-like trance I got tonight reminded me of another needy time in my life.... when I first came to D.C. and I had just left my then-boyfriend in Seattle and thought I was going to die. Were it not for That 70's Show. Sitting in the friend's cousin-who-I'd-never-met-'s apartment, I watched those funny people and wondered what it was like to be happy. No knitting or reading could sooth that sad little girl, and in later retrospect, I wondered--Was that a moment when TV saved me? Well, that sounds stupid... I mean, it's the boob tube. Isn't the real answer for tranquility meditation or writing or volunteering for world peace? Oh god... the Tira Bank's talk show is going to make depressed, un-sexualized couples "touch" each other in the green room with a therapist on hand.... this is so depressing....