over the past few years i’ve developed a tendency to turn down various social opportunities in favor of staying home.  i do this most often when i’m engrossed in a creative project of some sort–when asked if i’d like to come along for x or y, i weigh my options according to how interesting the project is (have i done this one before or am i on the cusp of a new artistic breakthrough?) and how rare the social opportunity might be (could x or y happen any day of the week, or just this one time?).  how much notice i’m given is also a factor: i’m ten times more likely to agree to meet you tomorrow night than to meet you in an hour, since i can plan to not be up to my elbows in fabric or metal or pixels by the time tomorrow night arrives.

this complicated weeding-out system is both good and bad.  i spend less money, waste less gas, get more done, etc.  but i also alienate people i care about, miss out on a lot of great things, and often regret it when i decide to stay home.  i wasn’t always this way, but lately i forget that going out and having fun isn’t just something that takes me away from making stuff.  it’s one of the best things in life.  no.  it is life.

thinking about this the other day led me to have an epiphany of sorts.  see, i think i’m addicted to sewing.  with this new contract job effectively polarizing my schedule (dreaded work time! precious free time!), i spend my off hours frantically sewing and my office hours lamenting the fact that i’m not sewing.  this can’t be healthy, can it?  not going out with friends because i’m sewing?  it doesn’t even make me any money!  (yet.)

once i realized that i’m addicted to sewing, the rest of the epiphany followed.  i’ve always known i have something of an addictive personality.  alcohol, caffeine, anti-depressants, chocolate–you name the legal substance, i’ve probably been on it at one time or another.  this is one of the three reasons i’ve never really done any drugs: why risk becoming addicted?

(the other two reasons are 1) why take drugs when they could mess up the effectiveness of my anti-depressants, and 2) my sober worldview is bizarre enough to begin with, why make it even more bizarre?  also 3) i’m too old, and nobody i know does any drugs, either, so it’d just make me look ridiculous(er).  and 4) if i ever get arrested again it had better be because i’m involved in a really important protest, like getting arrested development put back on the air.  okay, so there are more than three reasons.)

but i’d never really thought about my own capacity for addiction to things that aren’t substances.  i mean, i always knew that non-substance addictions existed, but i hadn’t realized that i’m as vulnerable to them as i am to the other kind.  and i am!  however minor these little epiphanies are, i always remember exactly where i am when i have them: for this one, i was on the overpass from mo-pac south to 183 south, just before the burnet road exit.  it was my lunch hour, and i was on my way home to eat a sandwich, take the dog out, and stare longingly at my singer.

so here’s an incomplete list of my current and past addictions:
sewing
the internet
crossword puzzles
television
darts
playing pool
going out drinking every night (this one was bad)
weboggle
irc
making jewelry

as an avid television watcher, i’m loving this list of great quotes from television shows.  as an avid television watcher, i also think they left a few out.  here are some quotes i’d have added to the list:

“To alcohol! The cause of–and solution to–all of life’s problems.”
homer, simpsons

“Angel: ‘Cause I could see your heart. You held it before you for everyone to see. And I worried that it would be bruised or torn. And more than anything in my life I wanted to keep it safe–to warm it with my own.
Buffy: That’s beautiful. Or taken literally, incredibly gross.
Angel: I was just thinking that, too.”
buffy

“Relationships don’t work the way they do on television and in the movies. Will they? Won’t they? And then they finally do, and they’re happy forever. Gimme a break. Nine out of ten of them end because they weren’t right for each other to begin with, and half of the ones who get married get divorced anyway, and I’m telling you right now, through all this stuff I have not become a cynic. I haven’t. Yes, I do happen to believe that love is mainly about pushing chocolate covered candies and, you know, in some cultures, a chicken. You can call me a sucker, I don’t care, because I do believe in it. Bottom line: couples who are truly right for each other wade through the same crap as everybody else, but the big difference is they don’t let it take them down.”
dr. cox, scrubs

“Blockhead: Twenty-first century genetic engineering will not only eradicate the Siamese twins and the alligator-skinned people, but you’re going to be hard-pressed to find, uh, a slight overbite or a not-so-high cheekbone. You see, I’ve seen the future and the future looks just like him. [points at Mulder] Imagine going through your whole life looking like that. That’s why it’s left up to the self-made freaks like me and the Conundrum to remind people.
Scully: Remind people of what?
Blockhead: Nature abhors normality. It can’t go very long without creating a mutant.”
the x-files

“A few weeks ago you told me that Lane had a crush on me. Well, I have a crush on her, too. Now, I know you have very strict rules about dating and boys, but I just want you to know that I’m a good person. I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, I’ve never gotten a ticket, I’m healthy, I take care of myself, I floss. I never watch more than 30 minutes of television a night partly because I think it’s a waste of time and partly because there’s nothing on. I respect my parents, I do well in school, I never play video games in case they do someday prove that playing them can turn you into a serial killer. I don’t drink coffee. I hate soda because the carbonation freaks me out. I’m happy to give up meat if you feel strongly about it. I don’t mind wearing a tie, I enjoy playing those hymns on my guitar, and I really, really want to take your daughter to the prom.”
dave, gilmore girls

“There is not a thin line between love and hate. There is, in fact, a Great Wall of China with armed sentries posted every twenty feet between love and hate.”
house, house

“Michael: What comes before anything? What have we always said is the most important thing?
George Michael: Breakfast.
Michael: Family.
George Michael: Family, right. I thought you meant of the things you eat.”
arrested development

Brennan: Why are you nice to me?
Booth: Because. Because they think they get away with it.
Brennan: What?
Booth: They burn their victim. They blow him up. They toss him in the ocean. They bury them in the desert. They throw ’em to wood chippers. Sometimes, you know, years go by, they relax. Then they start living their lives like they didn’t do anything wrong. Like they didn’t spend somebody else’s life in order to get what they got. They think they’re safe from retribution. You make those bastards unsafe. That’s why I’m nice to you.
bones

“Well, I didn’t know anything about cereal inventing, either, Carla. And yet if it wasn’t for a certain harshly-worded cease and desist letter, we’d all be eating J.D.’s Bananas & Nuts.”
j.d., scrubs

“You’re not friends. You’ll never be friends. You’ll be in love till it kills you both. You’ll fight, and you’ll shag, and you’ll hate each other till it makes you quiver, but you’ll never be friends. Love isn’t brains, children, it’s blood … blood screaming inside you to work its will. I may be love’s bitch, but at least I’m man enough to admit it.”
spike, buffy

what quotes would you add?

here are the things i didn’t write about while i was without internet access:

1.  a list of products i was boycotting because of their bad tv commercials.  nearly all tv commercials are bad in some form or another, so in this case i focused on the ones that were annoying, hyperbolic, patronizing, or otherwise insulting to my intelligence.  i forgot about the boycott until now, but i don’t think the list had anything on it i ever buy anyway.

2.  a thing about how i went to a ben folds concert by myself a few weeks ago.  when the house lights went down for ben folds to come onstage, the overture from jesus christ, superstar started playing over the loudspeaker.  i thought it a really interesting entrance-music choice for ben folds to make, but since i was alone, there was no one to tell.  so i tapped the guy next to me on the shoulder.

“excuse me.  if i’d come here with someone else i’d be telling them about this, but since i didn’t, you’re it.  did you know this is the overture to jesus christ, superstar?”

he smiled.  “yes, i have it on vinyl at home.”

“don’t you think it’s weird that he picked this?”

“yes, i guess it is.”

“i know!  anyway, thanks for humoring me.”

“glad i could help.”

3a.  a list of the top ten reasons you should watch arrested development.  they included will arnett’s voice, the entertainingly biased narration, and the new things you notice when you watch an episode more than once.  i don’t remember the other seven.

3b.  about what dorks my sister and i are.  a few weeks back we came across teen wolf too while flipping channels.  we talked about how many times we saw the original teen wolf when we were kids; she remembered more of it than i did.  then we started going back and forth between teen wolf too and an arrested development tape i already had in the vcr, trying to decide if jason bateman is so much more attractive now because he had some kind of plastic surgery or because he’s just aged really, really well.  we settled on the latter.

4.  i don’t remember all the other ones.