I Declare a Waratorium

I take a break from the news now and then. I call it a "waratorium." My email to y'all last week about the cartoonish and overwhelming media response to the Virginia Tech shootings was pretty hot-blooded. And yet, I couldn't stop thinking, reading and talking about it all week. Along with following the senate proceedings on the war budget bill, the Gonzalez congressional hearing circus, and my usual grab-bag of blood-boiling stories from NPR and op-eds from the Sunday Times, etc. (Plus it's the end of the academic year, and my internship, so I'm pretty burnt to begin with.)

At the same time, I found myself endlessly complaining with friends and colleagues about the state of the world.

And, suprise, surprise: I got a nice big head cold last Friday. Still with me.

Time for a waratorium.

My therapist told me (in a rare moment of self-disclosure) that she started reading a fraction of the news she used to, once Bush got re-elected in '04. "I figure better head-in-the-sand than head-in-the-oven," she said, in typicall pithy style.

OK, I got it. I started with an illustrated history of a famous superhero illustrator's career. Then, I've been reading Douglas Adams' The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, an extremely funny book, for a few days now. I have managed to back my media intake down a lot.

My mood is much better. I might keep this up for a while.

What do you do when the state of the larger world starts to get you down? Who do you read? What movies do you watch? Enquiring minds want to know. Click on "Comments" right below this text, and fire away.