So it’s possible that, as of this writing, I haven’t left my apartment all weekend. It’s cold and icy and dangerous out there and nice and warm in here. In lieu of snowball fights, my roommates and I may or may not have spent all weekend watching a season of “The West Wing.”
Now I could spend my whole life doing nothing but watching “The West Wing” (and if I did the math, I think the percent of my life I’ve spent doing just that would be embarrassing), but when I do, I always feel the urge to go into politics and run for president and argue about legislation and yell at people who disagree with me. I think this is a healthy manifestation of my sense of civic duty (and my need to be right all the time), but my roommates don’t like it when I yell at them (or the TV), so I have to take a break after awhile. I always know it’s time to stop if I’ve started dreaming about the show.
If I think about it, this is true in other areas of my life, too. What I immerse myself in or surround myself by has more of an effect on me than I usually realize. One of my roommates has an uncanny and enviable ability to mimic accents. If she’s around someone with a different accent for long enough, she just starts imitating it unconsciously — Irish, Chinese, South Dakotan, it doesn’t matter. She can, and will, duplicate it.
I can’t imitate an accent to save my life, but when I have time to read for fun, the style and diction of whatever author I’m reading, whether John Milton or Dorothy Sayers, influences, if not how I speak, at least the running commentary in my head:
“We must make haste to the UC before the clock strikes noon, lest there be no table to be found.”
It may sound like I’m kidding, but I’m not.
I’ll leave to the imagination what effects watching “Say Yes to the Dress,” a fairly benign show on TLC about picking out wedding dresses, and “America’s Next Top Model” can have on me. My susceptibility to external influences is one reason I try not to watch many reality TV shows (though when one is on, I usually can’t look away). I’m catty and self-absorbed enough without having those attitudes further ingrained into my psyche by watching “The Real World” or “Keeping up with the Kardashians.”
Music can sometimes, if not often, have a similar effect on me. If I listen to Coldplay before class, I tend to be mellow, at least for awhile. If I listen to Justin Timberlake, I feel like (but refrain from) dancing all the way to class, and there are certain Johnny Cash songs I can only listen to if I’m in a brightly lit room with no whiskey bottles in sight and at peace with myself and the world.
When I listen to Jay-Z, though, I’m just glad that, despite having 99 problems, a … well, I’ll let you fill that in yourself.
Have a good week, and enjoy the “Lost” season premiere tonight, if you’re so inclined.
