Giving Up

It was a landmark year for quitting things.

I quit watching certain TV shows I had watched for years. Reality shows became so shameful, even shows that made fun of them became exasperating, so I quit "The Soup." Also, my new Tivo lost the ability to record the show only once a week, Ten episodes of the same "Soup" was too annoying.

I gave up on "Grey's Anatomy." I was marginally invested in the original group of doctors, but most of them are gone now. Horny doctors and gross medical cases doesn't do it for me anymore. Besides, as a writer, it drove me crazy that every character talked in the same tone of voice with the same phrasing. It was like how the lead character in a Woody Allen film always sounds like Woody Allen, even when it's not. I'm noticing this same acting flaw in "Gilmore Girls," but I am going to hang in there until it ends. Watching five episodes a week, I figure I have about three months to go until Rory graduates Yale. Then never again. I checked "Parenthood" to see if Lauren Graham really talks that way or if she was acting. She really talks that way. Sorry, that's not acting.

I gave up watching television news opinion shows...or television news of any sort. At first it was just because I was so sick of George Bush, I didn't want to see him or hear anything about him. Then I found out I felt the same way about Barack Obama. And I am sick of the opinion-mongers and how they twist everything to fit their predetermined positions. Also, I dislike weather and sports reporters. Here's a partial score, 12. And here's a weather forecast, hot or cold, dry or wet.

But all this year while I was not watching the news, something strange happened. Fat girls are now allowed to be reporters. Fat girls are reporting the news! Well, that's something. Now I am waiting for old women to be news anchors on cable.

I gave up "The View." I survived all through Rosie O'Donnell and the beginning years of Whoopi, but now I find Joy Behar so insufferable, I can't take it anymore.

I gave up being a blonde. I started being a blonde as a result of a well water accident in 2001. We had poured bleach down our well to clean it and flushed it out by running all the faucets in the house for an hour, but that wasn't enough time, or we used too much bleach. In any case, when I took a shower, the bleach fumes were so strong, it was practically a hazmat incident, and when I got out,  the water had stripped all the color out of my hair. I was between jobs at the time, so trying a radically different look as an experiment was not disruptive. I didn't have to endure a day of shocked looks or comments. I just stayed blonde after that. But this year I decided it was making me look tired, so I gradually went back to my brown hair. Didn't the Kardashians bring brunette back anyway? (And who are the Kardashians?)

I gave up the newspaper. First I cut back to just Sunday. Then I got rid of Sunday, too, because it was like homework to have to page through it just to feel like I was getting my money's worth. Then I even stopped looking at the paper at work because there's just not that much that's engaging in it. Local publications need to have a lot of local news, local writers, and local opinions. In fact, that's all they need. Everything else is a waste. I am inundated with what's happening in the rest of the world through the Internet and social media.

Without the Sunday paper, I had fewer coupons. Then no coupons. So I stopped cutting out coupons. Okay,  I pay full price for toilet paper now, but I also don't buy new products I don't really need just because I have a coupon. Besides, I found this website called alice.com that just ships all the basic household supplies to me, free shipping, and if there's any coupon sales, I automatically get them without even having the coupon. How cool is that?

Today I gave up XM Radio. Or I am trying to. I tried giving it up before, but the people who handle the cancellations tend to be incompetent. Either they don't speak English at all, bill your account anyway even though you canceled, or just do nothing. So my resolution is to call every single day and cancel until the cancellation actually goes through. I have this rare XM Skybox I bought in 2004 that is a huge boombox that only Best Buy sold, and I would fall asleep to some inane Fox News channel every night. That's all I ever used XM for, except for a once-a-year pool party where I would play the '50's or '70's channel, depending on who my guests were. Now I fall asleep to Twit tech news podcasts I pick up on my Internet radio.

Internet radio is free, after the initial purchase of the radio which was less than a year's subscription to XM Radio.  XM started charging me a U.S. Music Royalty Fee on top of the annual fee. How come I don't have to pay this fee anywhere else in the world that I hear music? Elevators don't charge me a royalty fee. There's also '50's and '70's channels somewhere on the Internet radio, too. How come I can listen to music on the radio through the Internet without paying a royalty fee, but not via satellite?

I am pretty close to giving up Christmas. This year I finally told my family that I was not buying any of them gifts. They make more money than I do and they have everything they need. I don't enjoy shopping, especially when everyone has to have a gift at the same time, during a season when the stores are crowded, the weather is cold, and it gets dark so early. Why isn't Christmas in April when Jesus was actually born? Also, we did absolutely no decorating this year. None. Not even the little window tree came out. Which is great because this weekend I don't have to pack up any decorations.

There might be other things I gave up for good this year, but these are the big ones. I am at that good age now where I can say with all sincerity that,"I am too old for this crap," and not put up with annoying people, insane coworkers, pointless family traditions, and a host of other things that people do just to be polite. Unlike those gay cowboys in "Brokeback Mountain," I do know how to quit you.