Another Media Monday Without TV? Plus Oscar Thoughts.

Hello from Hollywood, where our neighborhood was still overrun with party rental trucks mid-morning today, long after the last Oscar after-party guests have stumbled into their limos, barefoot with their stilettos in hand.

We live almost exactly two miles from the (formerly known as) Kodak Theater, and this became abundantly clear Sunday morning, while the Goodyear Blimp hovered over our local farmer's market. (Also as we tried to commute home from the market, as they began to shut down all useful streets to non-limo traffic.)

We typically keep our distance from the neon lights of Hollywood and Highland during the days that lead up to the Academy Awards, but one year we had tickets to see something at the nearby Egyptian Theater, so we took the opportunity to walk the just-laid red carpet. It was a total trip.

This year's awards were pretty on the mark, I thought - though I admit I'm sad for Viola Davis. (Not that I don't love Meryl Streep.) I was especially pleased for "Man Or Muppet," though I find it completely disappointing that the songs weren't performed. It's the first time that's ever happened - and I hope it's the last, too.

We watched the awards with a small group at our friends' home, and I was proud to have won yet another consecutive Oscar pool (by default - the host took himself out of the running.) Call it a weird talent (or too many movies watched) but I've been a solid prognosticator since Titanic swept. Next year I'm hoping we can host again, as hosting Oscar is a favorite activity of Tom's and mine. We usually go all-out with themed food and bingo cards and what not. This year, since we weren't hosting, we only came up with our menu concept - we didn't actually cook it. Here's what we came up with:

The Artist: Black-and-White cookies
The Help: Chocolate pie (though a friend actually did bring one!)
Hugo: French baguette
War Horse: roasted turnips
Extremely Loud: bagels & lox
The Descendants: Hawaiian chicken
Moneyball: peanuts and Cracker Jack
Midnight in Paris: French cheeses
Tree of Life: broccoli trees

I'm slated to tell you that Sunday was, as planned, my first TV of the week, but it wasn't. And, actually, I'm glad! We kept the TV completely off from Monday morning until Friday night. On Friday, we discussed how we felt about the TV diet... and it turns out we both really LIKED it! We liked it so much that we wanted to make every work-week a TV-free zone. But in order to do that and still watch TV (as aspiring television writers really must do), we needed to do some watching over the weekend. Which we did - but now it's back to our non-TV dinners!

Man, I was so surprised that it was the case. I expected to grit through the week and then cling to our "TV: teacher, mother, secret lover" (credit: Homer J. Simpson) again, if less than before. Instead, I found myself appreciating how much better I felt without looking forward to TV each night. I created other things to which I could look forward. My productivity AND my creativity increased, as did my mood. And it did interesting things to my appetite. More on that tomorrow.

I didn't manage to blog after the first two days last week, so I'm thinking this week I'll stick to my gradual increase. I'll aim to write 3 days out of 5, and pretty soon I'll be back at my old blogging rate.

I will be back tomorrow, though, and I have special plans for Wednesday's adventure blog, which I'll tell you about tomorrow! Til then, keep taking care of you!