Winter break is a wasteland for productivity. It is too short in which to accomplish anything significant and too cold to ever make you want to leave the house. This, of course, means television. A lot of it. "Family Guy," "Law and Order: SVU" or, whatever, "The Price is Right," because the remote is all the way on the other side of the living room and your skin has begun to grow into the fibers of your parents' couch.
Although this practice is commonplace amongst college kids on break, I managed to take this marathoning to brave (read: lame) new heights. Despite the fact that I live 15 miles from New York City-the most exciting, vibrant and all-around-bitchin' place on the continent-I chose to spend nearly all nine of my daily waking hours consumed by situations that are not and never will be real.
My mom would suggest that I, say, check out the Diego Rivera exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art, but my response was something like, "But Robin and Barney may be more than just friends. ZOMG, I cannot possibly stop watching NOW."
Clearly, it was time for an intervention. Not by real people, mind you, but by several of the characters whose made-up lives I was so deeply invested in. In avoiding how problematic it is that I even have such delusions, I will just tell you how it all went down.
SCENE: Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y. The Shapiro living room, 2 p.m. on a Tuesday. Despite the carefully planned decorating, it reeks of uselessness, future unemployment and fermenting Honey Nut Cheerios.
FRED ARMISEN ("Portlandia"): Ariel, do you know why we are here today?
ARIEL (Reality, supposedly): Uuuhh, I dunno.
CARRIE BRADSHAW ("Sex and the City"): Sweetie, we are worried about you. This is getting a little sad.
PRESIDENT JOSIAH "JED" BARTLETT ("The West Wing"): Ms. Shapiro, the first step to fixing the situation is admitting you have a problem.
ARIEL: Okay, first of all, Carrie, your disingenuous terms of endearment are obnoxious. And, Mr. President, I appreciate the thought, but-
BARTLETT: You know I'm not actually the president, right?
ARIEL: Oh. Right. I mean, I knew that...
DR. GAIUS BALTAR ("Battlestar Galactica"): Your problem appears to be quite severe. It seems as though you have completely forsaken the real world for a fictional one.
ARIEL: Oh come on, it is not THAT bad. It is winter break! Everyone does this!
BALTAR: Ariel, it is pathetic, and I am on Battlestar frakking Galactica. You have to come to terms with the fact that none of us are real.
ARIEL: But Fred is real!
FRED: Urban myth. I am really just a state of mind.
ARIEL: Oh.
BARTLETT: Ms. Shapiro, it is your duty as a patriot, as a member of the human species to do something. Anything! Volunteer at a soup kitchen.
FRED: Or put a bird on something.
CARRIE: Or go find love in the big city!
ARIEL: Seriously, Carrie, I will rip out your weave faster than you can say Manolo.
BALTAR: The point is that you must get the hell off that couch and re-enter the real world.
FRED: Word.
These mental projections were, unfortunately, correct. After several weeks of lazing around, it was high time to get off my ass and do something.
With the fall semester officially behind us, I am no longer an editor at this fine publication in my final semester at UW-Madison. I can finally escape the confines of this dungeon called heaven and explore all this dynamic campus has to offer.
So begins Little Shapiro, Big World, a new feature on this here Page Two. With this column I will venture down avenues previously brushed off as outside of my very narrow comfort zone. Maybe I will try religion on for size, or attempt to join the Brotherhood of the LAX bro. Perhaps I will explore campus myths like the ghost on top of Science Hall or Tri-Delt blood sacrifices to Satan. It is a big world out there, filled with endless, potentially horrible decisions: I intend to make every one of them.
Have an avenue of campus life you want Ariel to explore for Little Shapiro, Big World? Let her know at arshapiro@dailycardinal.com.
