Private Practice

I admit it, I am an addict. I am addicted to television. And every Thursday night I have a binge (damn networks and damn TiVo). In one room we tape Grey's and the Office, Ugly Betty, and Private Practice, in the other room, Grissom's last episode is being taped. If am feeling ornery, I will watch the previous nights Top Chef while the others are recording, then stay up way past my bed time to watch everything that was recorded. Friday, inevitably, I will oversleep and be groggy at work. I'll try to get everything done, but won't. And why, because I needed the fix.

Tonight I type this as I just finished a 3 hour binge. First we watched the Office, absolutely hilarious, as usual, then we caught a new episode of My Big Redneck Wedding, which for a redneck wedding I thought was actually well done (does that make me a redneck). At that point with Top Chef, Ugly Betty, and Grey's recorded and Private Practice being taped, I had quite a selection. Ben wanted nothing to do with ANY of them, so he retied to watch Family Guy, South Park, and the Simpsons in the bedroom. I elected Grey's and indulged in an hour of over hyped medical drama with just the right mix of dysfunctional romance and excitement to keep me coming back for more.

Then, because it was so hyped during the transitions in and out of Grey's I watched Private Practice. Tonight my husband deemed it the worst show on television. Which is fine, all the more for me. People who know me know I am an emotional person. I cry, a lot. Over anything that one might cry over. I have cried at cartoon movies, hallmark commercials, etc. - even when I am not pregnant. And generally the things that make me cry are things that mean a lot to me. Especially relationship things, because they really are the most important things in our lives; husband/wife, parent/child, grandparent/grandchild, etc. Tonight, all by myself, with my family tucked into their beds, I watched Private Practice and I cried. I sobbed. Because in the show a father had to choose to be either with his dying daughter and risk his own life or let his daughter die alone and live for his young son. In the end he couldn't bare the pain of watching his daughter die alone, so he gave his son to the doctors as and asked them to take care of him. And I cried. Yes, it is a made up story for TV to make people like me cry. But to have to choose one child over another, when you love them both with all that you are. In the end you do what's best, and for me, tonight crying was best. Getting the emotion out tonight will help get me through the emotion that is inevitably contained in every day...until next week.