Who Am I?

It is the evening of September 14, 1978. A five-year-old girl anxiously awaits the premiere of a new television program. She knows it’s just a contrived spin-off of "Happy Days" (by the way, show of hands if you think Chuck is in the trunk of an El Dorado somewhere in Burbank.) but she doesn’t care (about Chuck either, really) because it’s her show. It’s called "Mork and Mindy", which she takes as a shout-out despite its odd spelling (everyone knows it’s M-Y-N-D-I, geez!) Ever since that fateful night, she has tried her best to live up to her proud TV heritage. While she didn’t become an Oscar-winning recovering coke addict or marry Mark Harmon, she has forged a noble existence rooted in a love of the arts.

What is the point of this story? Well, in case you haven’t yet figured it out due to the clever third-person narration, I am that girl; once mesmerized by TV’s blue glow, now a jaded media buyer who takes great pleasure in ridiculing and overanalyzing the medium that still rules my life and pays my bills. It’s my job to know TV (and why I need a DVR that allows me to record 4 shows at once) and I want to share that knowledge with the world. Seriously, do you know many ten-year-olds that cut out the network program grid and highlight the shows they watch, then post it on a bulletin board? It’s a wonder I had any friends, really.