NEW BLOG POST: TV is your (child’s) friend

My son has become addicted to television. I am not pleased with this but two weeks ago, with his being home from camp for a week and my still needing to get some work done (I work from home) I used the TV as a time passer as I can work on the computer in front of it and be there with him. There is nothing incredibly intellectual about what he is watching. It’s clever kids stuff and he’s very entertained, he’s learning story telling and has a lot of ideas about what and who he is watching so I can say he’s getting something out of it.

I think at his age, almost 5, watching TV like this is not such a big deal. I mean, everything is a learning experience at this age and he doesn’t start Kindergarten until September. Then the TV is going to be scaled back drastically. A few weeks ago was a special circumstance but I was surprised at his desire to just sit and veg out so I had to be very active in getting him active. Camp is tiring and he needed a break.

The funny thing about this is that when I was growing up I was incredibly addicted to television. I would watch hours and hours a day. I ended up going into the entertainment industry so perhaps I could call it research but at the time my parents put limits on how much I could watch as well. I do remember breaking those limits.

I’m not sure why it bothers me so much. I mean, it’s a godsend for my needing to work so I should be happy, I just want him to be more involved in things, more active and to try different things. The good news is this boy with a supremely active imagination is now even more imaginative, asking questions and showing a lot of insight into these shows (more than is actually possible I think). I think his mind is getting into stories on TV the way it’s clinging to stories we read at bedtime too. He’s learning about different worlds and vocabulary, etc.. Who he likes and who he doesn’t, his memory is unbelievable as well. But do we have to watch the same damn show all the time? Last time it was Jake and the Neverland Pirates on Disney Junior. It’s cute but really, I’ve had more than enough.

I don’t think television is a bad thing in moderation just as everything. Balance in everything. School will start and he’ll be tired. He may have homework or something he needs to do for school by the next day, I want him active in a sport, playing with kids but seriously this TV thing does help. He just never cared so much before and I know that as helpful as all the watching I did when I was young came to be it also isolated me from doing more social things.

Interestingly, because of some tantrums I took TV away from him for this whole week as punishment. There isn’t really time for it after we get back from camp, have dinner, walk the dog and read stories for bedtime But he hasn’t asked for it once or brought it up. And I haven’t missed it at all. Now camp ends tomorrow and it’s another week before the August session begins. Television will be back on the agenda again and it’ll once again be interesting to see how his vocabulary and imagination unfolds. And how much work I can get done!

(I am) Stagnant

stag·nant adj.                                                                                                                Showing little or no sign of activity or advancement; not developing or progressing;            Lacking vitality or briskness; sluggish or dull:

Truly, though I love the picture and the quote above what I really am (besides the above) is  exhausted by how stagnant everything feels in my life right now.

This is a bit of a moany blog so if you’re full of rainbows and sunshine feel free to stop reading. Things will improve but for a while now I’ve been feeling rather crap. Today I ran into a friend who does amazing artistic work creating custom flooring for mansions and creative spaces. She has lived in LA for her entire life (more than 50+) years and she used the word stagnant today to describe the city and how she feels in it. It finally defined my world or at least my perception of it at the moment.

Work is slow. I feel unmotivated (hopefully no clients are reading this). Actually the ones who might be reading this – I don’t feel unmotivated by you but by some other things.  At the beginning of the summer several big projects that were really exciting and gave me gusto fell apart. It happens – they went away for various reasons and I was left with some really good projects and then the second tier. And really, I hate being a second tier kinda gal. So, work has been a bit hard to get up for but it’s going on and it will change and bloom again. That’s one thing to remember about everything – it always changes. That goes for when thing are going well too by the way – life has a way of keeping us on our toes!!!

Because work is slow and in a strange place so is money. Except money isn’t strange, it’s a necessity. Last year was plentiful and then something happened to take it all away and this stagnation is not helping fill the well.  I have asked people for help. Some have been very kind to give it. Others are unable and that’s absolutely 100% fine. It’s the people who can and won’t that I stick pins in a doll over. I’m not trying to be a brat but I have two friends who are multi-multi millionaires and one of them owes me many many many thousands of dollars and I asked her for some of it and she didn’t even respond. I think this is why these people are so rich! They don’t part with a dime. Anyway, I was in a fantasy land to think they would help but seeing as they have children and I have a child and there is a child in some trouble here I thought they’d see a little into their heart but that was, well, that was probably the stupidest idea I’ve ever considered.

Anyway, work, money…what’s left? People. This is my fault really because I’m just so damn blah right now. And honestly, one can only take so much of the blah. My son and I get along famously. He brings me out of the blah about 98% of the time these days, he brightens my life immeasurably.  But few others do at the moment and its making me feel lonely. I work on my own, I am a parent on my own and I am lonely. I feel it lately, not always but right now I need someone. There are no romances on the horizon though I do have a slight crush on someone on Twitter but he is married so off limits. My friends are all very busy with their children and their issues and though Teddy and I see them as well as single friends and male friends I feel only mildly and ‘in the moment’ rejuvenated by them. I guess it’s obvious I’m a little depressed. But I don’t feel terribly depressed inside – I feel that the world is stagnant – the economy is stagnant, traffic is stagnant, the weather is stagnant, peace is stagnant, and we are a world focused on The Bachelor and Kardashians. As someone said to me the other day, which I agreed with – this has been a year of a lot of stress and very little achievement. Not for lack of trying.

I’ll tell you what the positive aspect of this blahness is and this is important. People should pay attention to their negative emotions and not just sit in them and wait for them to pass, but when appropriate, understand that they need what I need and that is this – I need change. I don’t need a job to come along and make things better or more money or a boyfriend. Well, yes, I need all those things, I want all those things and those things would help any negative situation become better and will very likely happen once I get off my ass and do something about what I can control, and let what I cannot happen in it’s own time. What I can do with this knowledge that I am stagnant in this stagnant city is make change for myself.

I have been thinking about making a change for a while. LA is well, it’s just boring now. I’ve been here half my life and it’s a hard city to live in for a woman who is not a MAW (model/actress/whatever) and who is a single mom. It’s a disconnected city. I want weather, not a lot of bad weather but I can take a little change here and there. I want different creative people and to try my creativity in different ways. I want to meet new moms and dads and men and women who can contribute to my and Teddy’s life and commit to a real friendship. It’s always been hard to find people you give you anything in LA. I give a lot and I have always taken less. That’s OK as long as it’s worth it (as they say “giving is good as long as your getting”) but lately the LA crowd has been disappointing. I’m not a stereotypical LA person. I’m a New Yorker, a Londoner. I want a new set of four walls, Teddy is dying for a big beautiful garden to plant in. I cannot make that happen here right now even though we do have a little backyard with two dying plants. And I don’t know that I want to wait for it to happen here. Not as things are. Not in the stagnation. In America? I don’t know? I don’t want to idealize anywhere else and I don’t think that just leaving somewhere makes things better somewhere else, but it can help, especially when the city you’re leaving has so many real stereotypes attached to it.

I love what I do and I don’t want to change it but maybe alter it. I want my son to have everything he wants within reason. I want to feel safe and not scared. I want to be found attractive and desirable. I don’t know that all of that or much of that is available in Los Angeles anymore. I just don’t know.

What I do know is that Teddy starts Kindergarten in the Fall and it’s paid for so that gives me a year to sort out what move I need to make. I have a very small and very odd family so they’re not a necessary part of the scenario for me. Where can I go for a fresh start where I can serve myself and others, live comfortably in or near a nice city, find a handsome gentleman and give my son a proper garden? This is what I’m going to spend the next year thinking about and putting into motion, even as things become less stagnant, because just putting those ideas into motion for real helps loosen things up. It is of course an inside job as they say but it doesn’t mean it can’t be done in a new outside as well.