Why do I always seem to get the first summer cold?

I've got a lovely cold right now. Complete with cough and asthma and the works. Just in time for the end of the year. I figure it has to be the stress of the year and the work and the house an my mom's being ill (clearly not your fault, mom!). But fuck! Just when I need to kick it into over drive, I come down with this shitty cold.

So last night instead of going to Richmond with Ricardo and the Kid and some friends to have dinner at a former colleague of Ricardo's house, I lay in bed and watched Bones on TV.

Which brings me to this post.

I have discovered that I am totally enamored of all kinds of truly sick TV watching. All these medical shows and Bones which is all about murders and sick decompositions of bodies and crap like that. When I look for shows on TiVo I inevitably am drawn to such gems as "I am my own Twin" about fetus in fetu (basically a parasitic undeveloped twin). Or I tape things about conjoined twins and their separation.

I am both repulsed by "A New Face for Marlie" and fascinated by it. Every time I look for that miracle of how much better they look when their massive facial tumors are removed and bone is crafted into a new "face." But they don't really look good at the end. And they are still kind of gross.

I can't get enough of shows on Primordial Dwarfs, people so small they rarely are bigger than a couple feet or weigh more than 20 pounds or so. I watch in horrified fascination as these miniature people are shown to be "just like everyone else" except for them a toy tea set is the right size.

And while I am ashamed at my need for these kinds of shows, it makes me feel like there is an audience out there for this or there would A) be no discovery health network and B) not be these shows.

So it all makes me think that this is the modern day sideshow in action. Instead of paying 50¢ a peep, I pay $120/month for cable TV which allows me to TiVo any and all of this kind of shit. It doesn't make me feel better about my viewing, but does at least allow me to view it at home in the privacy of my secluded room where I don't have to admit to others that I want to see this stuff.

Except, I just did.