Back in the year 2000, I started watching a TV show called The West Wing and loved it. That was the good. The bad? I started watching from the second season premiere and we had no Hulu, no Netflix, and no BitTorrent for me to watch the first season. It was the dark times, younglings. (We did have IRC sharing channels, newsgroups and FTP queues, but we also had dial-up*. Oh, dial-up.)

So, what was a girl to do? Well, she got on the interwebs and got a fan to send her ten VHS tapes containing copies of copies of the episodes. Shipping cost at least twenty dollars and thirty seconds of one episode was overridden by a California emergency weather alert, but they were watchable and that’s what we had, so we made do.

But now, now we have DVDs and Netflix streaming and life is good! Life is fantastic! Now entire seasons of television shows are available to watch in binge marathons on the weekends. It has transformed the way I watch TV, no longer parceled out in bite-size pieces every week, but watched as a detailed season-long story arc. You don’t want to read a chapter of a book every week. You want to read the whole book at once, and that’s what is possible now, which is what’s great. And I love it, because I think the televised season-long story arc is one of my favorite forms of storytelling, if not the most favorite. (So says the book author who reminds you to love books and buy books, especially my books!)

A season of a television show gives you more time to meet the characters, tell the stories and flesh things out. When I compare Friday Night Lights the movie and Friday Night Lights the television show’s first season, the TV show wins. Both have excellent production values and great acting, but you can tell so much more story with umpteen hours of TV than you can in two hours of movie. And you can tell it’s good because I do not care an iota about football and still love that show.

It seems like TV is looked down on as inferior to movies, but I don’t think that’s a valid stereotype. The quality of TV shows has gotten so good in the past few decades that they’re just as good if not better than many movies. You’ve got accomplished actors of stage and screen appearing in shows, like Laura Linney in “The C Word” or Anna Paquin in the hit “True Blood.” And now with our smartphones and media players, it is becoming less important where you watch a show. You can watch it almost anywhere.

I love good TV shows. I love that I can watch them in my house and not at a theatre with chatty couples and the distracting light of someone texting in the second row. I love that there is so much more to devour and enjoy than in movies. I love that the characters continue to change and grow more than they typically have space to do in films. I love talking about TV shows with my friends. I love TV!

And I love that TV comes on DVD, so I don’t have to wait through commercials. I love that it’s available online, legally, so I don’t really have to pay for cable if I don’t want to. I particularly love it when I discover a great show after it’s been on the air for five years. Then I get to watch seasons of it back to back, not waiting long summers for the resolution to cliffhangers. So thank you DVD and the Internet. And thank you TV!

* If you don’t know what any of that means, don’t worry. You don’t need to and it probably means you actually interacted with human beings as a teenager.

I was less interested in the tomato soup than the contest advertised on the side where you could win a walk-on role on the TV show American Dreams. If you’re not familiar with American Dreams, that’s probably because IT WAS CANCELED IN 2005.

I’m pretty sure that contest has expired, and looking at the red stamps that say “August 2006″ on the bottom of the cans, I’m pretty sure the soup has expired too. This is one American dream that won’t come true.

ETA: I just discovered when spell-checking this entry that both “canceled” and “cancelled” are considered proper spellings. The former is American, whereas the latter is British, but since this post is about American Dreams, I went all American.

You know what I like about the Olympics (besides the thematically delicious cupcakes)? I just like knowing it’s there. During the two weeks in which the winter games are held in Vancouver, I know that I can turn on my TV, flip to NBC, and there is a 70% chance I can watch someone more athletic than me do something dangerous while wearing an outfit that would look ridiculous at a cocktail party. It’s comforting. It’s reassuring. It’s solid.

I like turning on the Olympics while I’m writing emails, or designing mockups, or coding HTML, or writing blog entries, like right now. It’s non-offensive, uplifting except when it’s devastating, and I can tune in and out without losing the plot. People spin, jump, zoom by. I got it. I like seeing Bob Costas in prime time and wondering what he gave the devil in exchange for never aging. I like listening to Dick Button talk about an ice skater’s artistry and hearing Scott Hamilton get SO EXCITED when someone lands a quadruple jump.

It can get boring and repetitive, especially after you’ve watched 20 people execute the same ski jump. It can be odd and perplexing, like when you watch men run around the snow on skis to shoot targets in a blizzard. (Who made this stuff up?) But it’s there when I need it. It’s like knowing I can always go home. I might not need to go there right now, but that haven is waiting if I need it.

It reminds me of when a radio station in town, WLRS, “The Walrus,” got bought or traded and had to change its programming rather rapidly and unexpectedly. During the week they were making the change, they played “I Am the Walrus” by the Beatles. All week. Every day. 24 hours a day. When I first tuned in I only caught half the song before pulling into my driveway. The next day I heard it again and thought, “What a coincidence! They played that song yesterday.” And then the song repeated and I wondered if the DJ was asleep or in the bathroom or asleep in the bathroom. Then I figured out what was going on and I found myself tuning into WLRS several times during the week to listen to the song over and over. When the DJs came back and the music changed, I kind of missed the song. I missed knowing it was there.

I suppose it’s like seeing a McDonalds in France. Yeah, it’s a rather disturbing sign of the homogeneity of globalization, but there is something comforting about knowing you can get a hamburger and fries in France that tastes like a hamburger and fries back home. I like it when the Olympics is on and I’ll miss it when it’s gone, but until then I’ll be tuning in and ignoring it while I go about doing other things.

I lived without cable television for…five years? I don’t really remember. It was a long time and particularly unexpected because I grew up on television. In 4th grade, we had to track how much TV we watching in a week, and I was in the top 5% of my class, which might also explain the whole morbid obesity thing. However, I found that once I cut the cable cord, it was surprisingly easy to live without cable TV. I could still watch network shows and the nightly news, and I had movies and the Internet and books and always found something to do.

Now that the cable TV is available, I find myself flipping it on and expecting it to entertain me. It’s funny how quickly I’ve become dependent on it. I’ve become addicted to NCIS, a show I avoided because I was sick of shows titled with acronyms, but soon discovered was actually kind of quarky and fun, if formulaic. I spent one day watching a marathon of Cake Boss while working and almost screamed in horror when a bride purposely trashed her wedding cake. I’ve watched so many episodes of Law and Order: Criminal Intent that I can guess what season I’m watching by the size of Vincent D’Onofrio’s pants and how scraggly his beard is.

Yet overall, I feel like it might be better for me if I didn’t have the cable. I might be forced to read more or socialize or something if there wasn’t an NCIS marathon on every evening. I dunno. Oh, gotta’ go! Criminal Intent is coming on!

I tried unplugging the TV and then plugging it back in. This worked a few times, but the magic must have run out because all that does now is make me feel slightly dizzy from all the bending over and getting up. I’ve left the TV unplugged for a whole day and then plugged it in again and I still can’t get it to light up. So I called Philips and they’re sending me a new one, which hopefully is not defective.

The strange thing is, the TV broke two weeks ago and I only called Philips yesterday. One would think I’d have the TV DT’s by now, but I’m doing pretty well without it. My 10-year-old self would recoil in horror at the thought of not having a TV, and even my college self insisted on getting cable in my college dorm room. I was very dependent on the device for entertainment as a child, and can still sing you the theme songs to Ducktails, Rescue Rangers, and Tiny Toons. These days I don’t watch that much TV, and the shows I do watch are available to see on my computer, so the lack of an actual TV has less of an impact on me. Broadband Internet provides enough distractions that weren’t available when I was a child.

The only thing I really miss is being able to wake up on Sunday morning, make a cup of coffee and watch CBS Sunday Morning on the couch. The main advantage of my TV over my computer is that I can watch it on the sofa. That’s about it. If I could rig up a way to use my computer monitor in both my office and my living room, I could save myself a couple hundred bucks on an extra screen.

I also miss watching the nightly news, further proof that I am becoming an old, old woman. When I was a kid I would get angry when my parents insisted on watching the news, and now I find it oddly comforting to hear Charlie Gibson tell me what’s going on in the world today.

That said, I don’t think I’m superior to anyone else for not watching much TV. People who turn up their noses at the tube are just snobs. Just like any medium, there’s some really great stuff and a lot of junk. You have to sort through it to find what you like. I also don’t think there’s anything wrong with watching lots of stupid, junk TV if that’s what you like. There’s nothing wrong with tuning out the world for awhile. Just like anything, do it in moderation and be aware of its impact on your life, for better or worse.

I’ll be happy when I get my TV back. It might not turn me on as much as it used to, but hopefully it will simply turn on.

I may not have cable, but I did receive a screener of the second episode and was able to watch the complete first episode on the show’s web site here in the “Videos” section. (ETA: Looks like they have taken the episode down now. Sorry!) As I watched the show, I found myself muttering, “Oh, yeah,” as I remembered moments from my own period of morbid obesity I’d otherwise forgotten. Ruby has to hold onto the side rails of the treadmill for balance, like I did. She dislikes the chairs with arms at her friend’s house, just like I used to. She wants to take a bubble bath in the tub, a task I never felt worth the effort because I would struggle to get out of the tub. When she looks in the mirror sadly, I remembered all the times I sat in the Lane Bryant dressing room and wondered, “When did that become my reflection?” And while I never wore a mumus or put bricks under my bed to prevent it from collapsing like Ruby does, I did wish I could wear calf-high boots and jeans like she wants to.

Despite her extraordinary problem, Ruby is an ordinary girl. She’s the kind of person you’d have a blast with chatting in the salon, as we see her do in the opening of the second episode. The topic of discussion is an old boyfriend who is coming back to town after he broke her heart years ago because she could not lose weight for him. Amazingly, Ruby is not bitter over her ex and has come to accept that he was not the one for her. Even though she is unhappy with the state of her body, Ruby never exudes self-hate or negativity. Instead she expresses a love for life, a life that she does not want to be cut short by diabetes or sleep apnea.

I admire Ruby for letting cameras into the vulnerable parts of her life as she takes on this enormous task. In the second episode we see a group of people making fun of her size. She plays it off at the time, but later comes near tears as she recalls the moment in a private confessional. Luckily, Ruby is surrounded by friends and family who love and support her, though they too have to change their ways. Particularly ironic is one friend’s musing that it will be hard to do as she stirs a big pot of macaroni and cheese.

If “Ruby” suffers at all, it is from squeezing itself into the traditional trappings of a reality show. There is some repetition as clips from different interviews set up the scenario for this week’s show. The show also skips over some details, like why her nephew is living with her. He says it’s because his parents got a cat which he is allergic to, but I suspect there’s more to that story. The occasional voiceovers by Ruby which connect parts of the story sound somewhat awkward, but also go to show that Ruby is a real person and not a professional actress.

That is what I appreciate most about this show. The main character is a real person (who uses phrases like “I’m going to kick his astronaut” so she won’t have to curse) who also happens to be morbidly obese. People of that size are typically dehumanized and seen as objects to be ridiculed, but “Ruby” makes you see its heroine as a real person who could just as easily live next door as live in your TV set.

If you get the chance, I hope you check it out. “Ruby” airs on Sundays at 8pm EST on the Style Network. “Ruby” is a gem of a show.

ETA: Here’s the video.

“So, you appeared on national television this morning without any anxiety, but it was traveling from the airport to the hotel that stressed you out?” my aunt asked incredulously.

“Um, yeah,” I replied. “I really hate traveling.”

Bizarrely enough, it’s true. I didn’t feel stressed at all during my 3 minute and 43 second stint on The Today Show for the same reason I didn’t feel stressed about running a half-marathon. I’d trained hard, I came prepared, and I knew I could do it. Raaarrr! Even before the book came out, I took every opportunity to do interviews so I could practice talking to people about my experiences. I’ve done so many now that you’d have to ask me a truly bizarre question to throw me.

The airports, though, still freak me out.

My hotel was about a block away from NBC studies in Rockefeller Center and I got there at 8:00pm. I was glad the taxi dropped me off because the hotel entrance is so discreet that I would never have seen it next to the Johnny Utah’s, which according to Lori has a mechanical bull. (Don’t ask her how she knows that.) The room was small, but very nice. They even folded the toilet paper in a triangle. Fancy!

My aunt met me and spent the night so she could be my official photographer the next day. I had to wake up at 6:00am to shower, blow dry my hair and wear my normal makeup as instructed. Of course, I never wear makeup, so I just put on some foundation and concealer and tried not to burn my scalp with the hair dryer. An official NBC page met me in the lobby at 7:30 to walk me to the show. And yes, with his red-hair and fresh-face he did look a lot like Kenneth, the NBC page from 30 Rock

We walked past the windows of The Today Show studio and then inside and downstairs to the makeup and hair room where Joel and Nameless-Hair-Guy made me pretty. This took at least 15 minutes because cute does not come easy.

As I was escorted across the hall to the green room, we passed a big LCD monitor that showed a live feed of host Jenna Wolf getting spritzed and primped two minutes before show time. Then I sat on a black couch underneath framed photos of all the hosts and examined their spread.

For some reason the basket of peaches and apples was exiled far away from the scrumptious mini-muffins and bagels. (See them over my shoulder?) In all fairness, there was also a plate of melon slices on the main table, so they weren’t forcing baked goods down my throat. I did that myself. (Vacation calories don’t count!) According to the listings, Susan Sarandon was scheduled to appear, but I don’t think she did. Scared of being overshadowed, eh, Susan?

Next the producer came in and went over the segment with me. We’d done a pre-interview on the phone a week before where I chatted for 20 minutes about my experiences. I’d also scanned some new photos for the graphics department to show on the screen while I talked. She went over the script and the questions they were going to ask me, which was another reason I wasn’t stressed. After she left I kept going through my answers in my head. I knew I wanted to get four points across:

1) Mention my blog

2) Mention my book

3) Mention my half-marathon

4) Wish my mom a happy mother’s day

I figured if I accomplished those four things without falling off my stool, the interview would be a success.

Soon they were walking me over to the set where we snuck behind a big wooden wall and then quietly weaved through camera equipment. I sat down on one of two stools set on either side of a huge TV monitor that were directly opposite of the couch Lester and Jenna were hosting the show from. They were broadcasting live and if I dared to clear my throat or let out a big fart it would have been heard in millions of households across America. There was a live feed of a reporter covering tornado damage in Oklahoma right behind me and it felt like he was standing over my shoulder even though he was hundreds of miles away.

To the left and ahead of me, a lady stood at a podium and did a short report about…a pelican? I can’t really remember. I just remember watching her and thinking that she was overacting and laying it on thick. Yet, I bet when you watched it on TV it came across as really energetic and animated. TV is weird like that.

Then they went to commercial and Lester walked over and introduced himself with a very firm, politician’s handshake. He checked to make sure he was saying my name right and I told him I was going to try to say hi to my mom. A stage hand tried to steal my fat pants hanging off the back of my stool. No, not without my fat pants! He’d mistaken them for a sweater and put them back on the stool. I can’t remember what else I talked to Lester about if anything because I was distracted by the cameras swinging 180 degrees around to focus on us. The producer had told me to just look at Lester. Otherwise I might get distracted by the teleprompter and the monitors and got a deer-in-the-headlights look when the interview started. So I just focused on Lester’s face as they counted down from 10 and then OH MY GOD we were on national television.

Lester Holt was talking about one woman’s struggle with weight and, holy crap, that one woman was me. I just kept looking at his pretty face, curious about what was being displayed on the monitor but too fearful to look anywhere else. He asked me most of the questions that had been in the script, but in a slightly different order. I dodged and weaved with it, dancing along with him leading. Then suddenly he asked me what I thought of weight loss surgery and, hey now, no one had told me we were going there! I rolled with it though and even worked in a happy mother’s day at the end. He seemed genuinely amused that I couldn’t say “half-assed” on TV and then the interview was over. It was good-bye Lester and I was walking off the set.

It all went amazingly well. For the past month I have been slightly worried about whether people who meet me at book events will think I’m still fat. I think I look fabulous, but I’m not the skinniest chick in the room either. I don’t really care about what other people think of my body under normal circumstances, but I also don’t want to be known as the fat girl who’s promoting a weight-loss memoir. When I watched The Today Show two weeks ago and saw that my full body would be visible on a stool, I did a little freak out dance. Where was the carefully cropped head shot? I’ve always thought I look my fattest sitting down. When I was morbidly obese, I once saw my reflection in the window as I was sitting in my office chair and freaked out like a groundhog who’d just seen his morbidly obese shadow. Thankfully, when I reviewed the tape of my appearance, I looked great in my lavender shirt and the gray pants from Goodwill that my mom hemmed the afternoon before. I sat up straight, I got my four points across (or three and a half since I couldn’t say “half-assed”), and I didn’t fall off the stool. Mission accomplished.

I also have a newfound respect for TV people. It’s amazing all the time and preparation that went into that short little segment. I’m awed by the amount of energy and pizzazz you need to host a show and the ability required to dodge and weave and go with the flow. My segment got moved from the 36 minute mark to the 42 minute mark and I’m sure they were rearranging other things. Right after we were done, I left the building and walked by Lester and Jenna doing a shot outside in the crowd. They were always running around and changing things up, but looking totally calm and collected as they were doing it, like it had all been planned for weeks.

Then I went out to brunch at Sarabeth’s with family and friends and ordered the Fat and Fluffy French Toast. That’s right. I promoted my weight loss book and then I ate a dish with the word “fat” in the title. And it was delicious. Mmmmm.

For the rest of the day, whenever I looked in a mirror I was shocked at my reflection. “I have a face!” I told my aunt Lori. I have never looked cuter in tourist photos than I do in my New York pics. When I got home and read my e-mail someone said they liked how I’d answered a certain question and I thought, “Did we talk about that?” I honestly couldn’t remember. Yet, all together it was one of the most memorable experiences of my life.

“I know!” I exclaimed to my Aunt E. “Isn’t it crazy?” If you’ve got your TiVo remote handy, you can use it to search for The Today Show and set it to record the Sunday morning Mother’s Day show on May 11th. (ETA: Local air times vary. Check your listings.) I’ll be promoting my book and wearing an outfit that hopefully makes me look very slim. I’m set to appear on the same episode as Susan Sarandon. Do you think she’ll sing Rocky Horror songs with me in the green room?

My appearance has been planned for over a week, but I’ve been afraid to mention it for fear that it might not actually happen. God knows I could still get bumped if terrorists blow up the Brooklyn Bridge that day. And there’s still a paranoid part of me that wonders if I’ll get to the studio and they’ll decide I’m too fat to go on TV. TV anchors are such teeny, tiny people in real life that I’m sure I’m going to look huge in comparison. However, now that travel arrangements have been made and I’ve sent them lots of photos, I feel like this might actually be happening. That, and my name is now appearing in common household electronics, as if my spirit is haunting the blender.

I don’t know yet who will be interviewing me, though it will probably be Jenna Wolf or Lester Holt. I wanted to thank everybody who’s been involved in making this happen and scheduling my plans. (They know who they are.) I feel very lucky to get an opportunity for national exposure like this and I’ll try to do you all proud. At the very least I’ll try not to trip over the camera wires.

If you were at my book release party this weekend, I broke the news to you first. Speaking of which, I will try to write a post about the party this week (as soon as I give up sleep and sort through the photos).

The funniest thing though is that when I pulled up the listing on my mom’s TiVo, there was a bit of an optical illusion due to the font selection and how close the letters were together. So instead of looking like “Jennette Fulda” it looks like someone named “Jennette Fukla” is scheduled to appear. I don’t know who this Fukla chick is, but she better not steal my thunder.

Thanks in advance for all your good wishes!

I felt like this show should have been called Fat: What Everyone Is Telling Me because after it aired several people asked me if I’d watched it, only I hadn’t. I felt like I’d skipped doing my homework so I could drink Slurpees down at the 7-11 with my friends. I suppose it is now my unofficial duty as a weight-loss blogger to watch all obesity related programming and comment on it. Thank God I don’t have cable and I’m limited to only reviewing PBS specials. The number of loose skin operations covered on the E! Network alone would put me in a backlog until 2009.

The documentary is well-done and doesn’t oversimplify the issue of obesity. They frequently kept the camera on someone for at least a minute without cutting, letting them talk in-depth, which is not something most late-night new magazines would do. However, if you read a lot of dieting and fitness information and keep up with the weight-loss blogs, you probably won’t learn anything you didn’t already know. The only new thing I learned was the theory that the gastric system has its own “mini-brain.” One doctor theorized that part of the reason gastric bypass surgery is successful is not only because of the reduced size of the stomach but because nerves are severed during the process that help regulate hunger. The show was compelling mostly because you got to hear the stories of several people who are trying to lose weight or keep it off.

One woman who had gained over 50 pounds was upset because she thought her body didn’t reflect who she was. Another guy said he wanted to lose weight so people would see him for who he was. Well, yeah, wouldn’t that be lovely? Too bad that’s never going to happen no matter how thin or fat you are. It’s odd that we think that if we become thin or ripped with muscles people will suddenly be able to look directly into our souls. It’s kind of silly that we think our bodies are going to be reflections of who we are. You can certainly choose what image you project – your clothes, your haircut, your make-up, the way you walk, the way you talk – all that sends a message of who you are. But you’re never really going to know what someone is like just by looking at them. It’s like Wednesday said in The Addams Family when she didn’t dress up for Halloween, “I’m a homicidal maniac, they look just like everyone else.”

So I understand why someone thinks being thinner or fatter will better project the idea of who they are. It changes the image other people see, but ultimately “thin” is just another costume you wear over your bones. It’s not you. If there’s anything I learned from being fat it’s that I was a cool person then and I’m still a cool person now. I certainly prefer being thinner, but even if I got fat again it doesn’t reflect negatively on who I am. It just reflects the lifestyle I’m currently living. People see it as a disguise, but it really shouldn’t be. Yet we’re all still kids playing dress-up out of the costume box in the classroom corner.