Limbo

It's the waiting time. I've convinced myself to turn it off for now. I don't need to watch straight-through from 90210 to Studio 60. Watching Deal or No Deal once is educational. Twice, I can still tell myself that I'm still trying to understand it. At three times, I was no longer trying to understand why this show was on the air, but merely shouting 'Take the deal!" at the screen. I do not want to be that guy. I've been that guy too many times before.
The waiting is easier when I give myself tasks. First, I'll do the dishes. Then, I'll wipe the counters. Maybe, I'll skim something mindless like the City Paper. If I leave myself undistracted for too long, the anxiousness kicks in. I'll be looking at the clock: 1 hour 15 minutes until Heroes, 1 hour 5 minutes until Heroes. If I'm in the living room, I'll stare at my reflection in the TV screen and think about turning it on. I'm killing time right now. I've looked at the clock about five or six times since I started writing this five minutes ago. Not all that much longer now. Any chance of cooking dinner is pretty much shot at this point. I don't want to miss a minute of Heroes. I'll just pretend that I have a stomach virus and eat saltines and ginger ale tonight. And definitely something really high in fat and sugar just before I go to bed.
The 90210 finale was disapointing, if it's actually possible to be disappointedin something that I watch because of its stupidity. Of course, I missed the beginning. Last minute phone calls at work prevented me from sneaking out as early as I'd planned. Missing a large chunk left me extremely concerned with every moment that I got to see. Everything was ending so fast after the equivalent of 10 years of dragging it out. So much was wasted on the vows and on the third rate musical guest (Eric Benet, who I guess was appropriate because he makes just that insipid synthetic 90s cheeseball R&B that was the David Silver sound. It was claustrophobic and there were useless dance floor montages montages (no one was even trying to dance well anymore) and not one Walsh showed up (except Brandon via video message). But it was worth it to hear the theme music go super adagio and play up the treble for maximum sentimentality while the image slowed, blurred, pulled back and faded out. I didn't cry (which is notable because I cry at about just about every moment that the screenwriter or the composer tell me to and then some) but it was satisfying to see some sort of end to such a cumbersome, lopsided narrative. Tomorrow of course it begins again with those Minnesota Walshes coming to glitzy Beverly Hills and thus is the beautiful loop structure of syndicated television.
13 minutes now. Just enough time to roll a joint for the opening credits and look in the refrigerator a few times.