Hazards of Daytime TV

Yesterday was supposed to be the first of three productive writing days. It turned out to be pretty much the opposite. While I'm sure at least some of what happened must be my fault, I'm mostly blaming Mark Henry. Also Dr. Oz, and Oprah since I figure it's her fault Dr. Oz has his own show.

It's mostly Mark's fault because he writes ridiculously good books and gives away awesome schwag. I already have a signed cover flat from his first book, Happy Hour of the Damned.

(Buy it. Chock full o' lots of creepy hilarity.)

I do not (yet) have any goodies from his second book, Road Trip of the Living Dead. (So. Mark. Whassupwiththat?) Which is why when I learned he'd recently received the advance reading copies of Battle of the Network Zombies, which will not be released until February 23, I began plotting ways to get my paws on one.

My initial plan involved breaking and entering. I Tweeted:


But clearly that plan was flawed. Witness the exchange:


Plus, he lives in Seattle and I live in Minnesota. So, curses. Foiled before I even began.

Then yesterday morning I was goofing off getting ready to start editing Make or Break, when I decided to see what was going on with Twitter. I soon discovered that Mark was conducting a contest... and the prize was one of his advance reading copies of Battle of the Network Zombies!

Must. Have.

To win, I had to come up with the most awesome slogan for a zombie strip club. (If you knew Mark, you'd realize that this makes perfect sense.) Naturally, this was all my brain could think about for the rest of the day. I came up with 18 slogans, including such gems as "The only club in town with dancers with interchangeable parts," and "Our dancers are all dropped-dead gorgeous." I won. Of course. The winning slogan? "Totally Nude! If you ignore the staples and duct tape."

I entered way more slogans than anybody else, so it's possible he's giving me the book because he feels sorry for me, or it's like a perfect attendance trophy in second grade, but I don't care. I get to read the book way, way before any of you will! (Which makes me happier than I can tell you.)

At any rate, thinking up zombie strip club slogans makes it really tough to edit a romance. So I got nothing done with that.

From 12:30 to 1:15 I chatted with Curt. 'Long about there I decided to mix a drink. Since I wasn't editing, anyway.

At 2:00, the Dr. Oz show came on television. Normally I would either ignore it or turn it, and get on with wasting time building entertaining and enduring cyber-friendships on Facebook and Twitter. But he was going to talk about exhaustion, and I've noticed feeling an exceptional amount of exhaustion lately.

By this point, I was on my second drink. Dr. Oz was demonstrating how to feel your own thyroid gland, so you could figure out if it was too big or too small. Relatively speaking, I guess. I quickly learned that I should seek out a Certified Thyroid Professional, because I nearly ripped out my own jugular trying to "really get in there" between my trachea and neck muscle so I could swallow and try to feel my thyroid. (Conclusion: I don't have one.)

Which meant it was time for another drink. Or two.

I really should've stopped watching Dr. Oz. The next segment was about a female stand-up comic and her addiction to cigarettes and alcohol. She spends almost every night in clubs, working, and this leads to a lot of free drinks and smoking, and she recently became aware that this has turned into a problem.

Let's think about this. She is on Dr. Oz for an intervention because she has issues with smoking and drinking. I was watching her on Dr. Oz. And smoking. And drinking.

Dr. Oz had performed a number of tests on the woman. He concluded that although she is 33, her physiological age is 39, because of the damage she's doing to her body. This made her cry a little bit. I am 44. And I figure my physiological age would qualify me for social security. (Mental note: See if I could get a doctor's note stating that I am actually 65, and if that would entitle me to retire and begin collecting social security.)

Then Dr. Oz, who is either a saint or a sadist (I'm leaning toward sadist, mainly because my neck still hurt from trying to find my own thyroid) showed her a computer-generated picture of how she'd look in 10 years. She cried a little bit more.

Then he showed pictures of a healthy lung and a diseased lung. And a healthy liver and a diseased liver. Guess which ones mine probably most resemble?

I was starting to be a bit sloshy, so it seemed perfectly logical to freak out and rush over to the computer to email Dr. Oz. My message went something like, "I'm watching your intervention with the woman who is addicted to smoking and drinking. And I'm smoking and drinking. I'm 44, but I'm sure my real age is much older. I've already had gastric bypass surgery, and I know this is just a transfer of addictions. I already don't have any circulation in my feet. Help."

I'm thinking I should pre-emptively block Dr. Oz's email address, because I'm reasonably certain that I don't want to be outed on national television, so there's really no point.

Right before Dr. Oz came on, I had texted Tom and told him I'd give him $10 cash if he'd bring me a pack of cigarettes so I didn't have to go out. Then I sent him 8 more between then and 4:53 PM. Including one that said "I just wrote to Dr. Oz. I hate daytime TV. About smoking and alcohol. His next spot was g-spot. (Note: It was. Very interesting. I did not try to locate mine, however, remembering how the whole thyroid thing turned out.) May be a god. Am drinking. Was bored."

The texts are increasingly less coherent, and mainly focus on whether he was or was not bringing me cigarettes. I also just noticed that one of them got sent to my friend T by accident, because her name is right above Tom's in my address book. (Sorry, T!)

Then I felt the need to get on both Facebook and Twitter and announce that I'd had too much to drink. It should be noted that my spelling and punctuation is always perfect when I post such things, though I seem to like to use the words "drinky" and "drunky" a lot. (I think I'll go delete those posts now.)

The whole point is that I got off track by writing zombie strip club slogans, and the day went downhill from there. But I won the advance reading copy of Mark's new book, so that's awesome.

The second point is that daytime television is dangerous. And just like operating a motor vehicle, you should never mix it with drinking.

The third point is I really need to re-think some things. I'm not sure I'm ready to give up either vice completely, but I sure would like to find a way to moderate. The problem there is that moderation and I don't seem to work well together. Seriously addictive personality. I could become addicted to vitamin water if I decided that was my thing. If it's worth doing, it's worth over-doing, apparently.

Today I hauled my carcass out of bed, got myself together, went to the library, and had lunch with a friend. Life goes on. It just goes a lot better when I use my head, which I'm going to try to do more often.

Now where's my vitamin water, dammit????