No End in Sight, Good.

I cringe when I come to the end of a book because unless it has a sequel, the last page is the end of the story and a good bye. It's hard to invest into characters for such a short period of maybe a couple weeks, or if I'm really lazy, a couple months. It's why I've found myself drawn to the new type of television shows. I used to dig movies way more than shows, because a movie you have at least 30 minutes of characterization, whereas like in the Simpsons-- in old tv, whatever happened yesterday is forgotten and we start fresh each show... I know the amnesia gives the writers the freedom to branch out and write for what a record breaking 20-some seasons? And it also avoids the tangled relationship messes that occur every show around season 3 or 4... but the animated characters of the Simpsons remain, perhaps as they should, 2 Dimensional. I've come to love the long seasons of tv that trounce movie time as each season brings 6, 12, 18 hours of continuous story.... and then a pause before the expected sequal the following year (unless the show gets cancelled).

This all came up because I was trying to figure out why I like reading the news... politics. And I think part of it is that everyday there's more story on the same fascinating people. I'm addicted to hearing more unbelievable things about them, and there's millions of dollars (billions?) put into having reporters find the scoop and interestingly write about it. And it lasts for years and years and years. And while some characters do die... it's never because the actor wanted to move to another show or argued about contracts-- it's as dramatic and traumatic as it can be because it's real. And it's emotionally consuming... like the death of Tim Russert-- a major player in this theater, has stuck with me since I heard. And I felt for his son, and his friends James Carville and Tony Korheiser (who's all the way over on ESPN talking sports)... I felt for them.

I hate calling it a show because it's all real. But the tangled relationships and insane plotlines are too rich not to compare.

The main thing is I never have to say goodbye. There's never an end. I hate the feeling of picking up a book, and knowing that as I read, I'm slowly exhausting the availability of the story I'm consuming. These coming months I'm going to learn to enjoy reading as an escape because I know starting in August I'll need healthy escapes like exercise and reading that can hopefully give me the release I need as I avoid too much tv and dumb online games (as much as I can).

PS-- While reading a book, one of the worst things for me to know is how many pages the book is. Some how that number 432, or 247 (maybe 61) gets lodged into my head, and each time I turn the page my brain does a quick: page 121! oh no, almost half the book is over. It's best for me not to know-- same with movies-- Never want to know the playing time. And it's the achilles heal of tv drama. Well they're about to solve the case... they have to-- it's 9:57!!!