9 down, 15 to go

I am officially obsessed with the television series "24." I know, I know, I'm a little behind the pop culture curve on this one, considering it first aired in 2001. Let me explain. The concept of spending an entire day of my life watching a TV show--particularly one starring Kiefer Sutherland-- was not immediately an attractive prospect. I subscribe to the "No day but today" philosophy ingrained in my head by a late-nineties obsession with a musical about cracked out East Village "bohemians," and my adherence to this ideology includes making the most out of every day I get.

I try to make my days a balance between productive and pleasurable. That means reading, writing, and teaching (the productive end) and, among other things, reading, cooking, yoga, TV, movies, hanging out with family/friends/boyfriend (the pleasurable end). I often feel concerned that I don't spend more time in less selfish pursuits, but I rationalize that as a teacher I am doing my best to hold up my end of the social contract. I would like to be able to say that I spent those 24 hours volunteering at a battered womens' shelter or something, not watching a mass-produced television show with a built-in addictive agent. But no. Inertia is a powerful thing.

So when I bought my father a copy of the first season of "24" on DVD, I highly doubted that I would watch more than one episode with him, reasoning that those 24 hours would be better spent in more constructive activities. Though I'd heard many stories of addiction, I'd paid them no heed. So the other day, after returning to my parents' house from a week spent at MLA, I figured I had worked hard enough to merit an hour of mindless action-adventure.

Fast forward three days and nine episodes later, and I am enthralled. I seriously feel as if I'm addicted to a new drug. It makes me incredibly tense and fosuced for the duration of time I'm ingesting it, and has an immediate set of withdrawal symptoms the minute I turn it off-- twitching, hand-wringing and hand-flapping, depression.

Wanna know something cool? Jack Bauer majored in English at UCLA.

Wanna know something else? I totally have the hots for Daniel Bess, who plays one of the daughter's abducters.

Ok, gotta go feed my addiction. I am determined to get through the rest of the "day" before I go back to Paris. And I hear there are two more seasons available on DVD...