I’m going for the Gold Medal in Couch Potato Olympics viewing. Since the opening ceremonies I’ve been planted in my living room recliner watching every televised event, and I’m loving it, and I’m guilt free. I’m not a big sports fan, but I’ve always been a fan of the Olympic Games, and I’ve never got to see enough. What’s different this summer is that I’m retired.
It’s August. Normally I’d be preoccupied with prepping for the start of school. Guilt would eat at me after too much Olympics viewing and I’d drag myself reluctantly away from the colors and trumpets and enter my den to labor over literature and essay timelines. This summer I am free.
Recently I wrote about my diminished desire to read. It has troubled me and filled me with doubt about how I’m spending my down time. Isn’t it existentially better to spend my days of leisure pouring over classical literature than watching reruns of “Dexter”? Does it really matter? I get my exercise each morning walking five miles with Susan.
Watching too much television has always been accompanied with nagging guilt for me. I’m not normally a connoisseur of the couch baked potato. I’m distracted and uneasy with bouts of “shoulda coulda woulda” blues, to steal a phrase from Screamin’ Jay Hawkins.
I’m going with the conviction this year that I’ve earned this special hiatus. I’ve travelled to PA and spent 47 days remodeling my old house. Susan and I have taken the grandkids to San Francisco and Berkeley, and up and down the coast. She and I have been out to dinner and music and movies. We’ve got trips planned for a week in Reno, a week in Portland, a week in Tahoe, and a week living in a tent trying out my new fishing pole. She’s devising a European trip for 2018 because she’s a planner.
However, when the 2016 Olympic Games began, I made a conscious decision to give in to my base desires and flop. Perhaps an unambiguous, uninspired flop on the couch is just the ticket to overcome my fascination with inertia.
Perhaps I’m experimenting with immersion therapy. Perhaps when the torch is at last extinguished, I’ll have newfound inspiration for adventure. Whatever, I’m just digging the Olympics, and I don’t give a damn.
You must know that writing this column for over 30 years has been my motivation to get up and move, have experiences, travel, meet odd people, stretch my boundaries so I’d have curious things to write about. Sitting motionless for a week may have benefits, but it’s hell when I’m hunkered over my keyboard searching for something interesting to say.
I made a pact with myself a year ago not to write about the presidential elections, at least until the final weeks. Where other columnists have found hundreds of political topics, I have none in that arena. I can’t stand to watch political commentary. I skipped all of the RNC and most of the DNC. Oh, I’ve got opinions, but I’m only posting them on Facebook where it matters.
My fridge is stocked with craft beer. My freezer is packed with ready-to-eat meals. My phone is set to accept calls only from my Favorites list. Most warm nights I’m down to skivvies and a t-shirt, curtains closed, feet up. Susan has agreed to give me space, and for once in my life, I’m reclining and indulging in front of my television without the nagging guilt.
Full disclosure: when there is a lull in Olympic coverage, I’m not up painting the garage or fixing the fence. I’m working my way through eight seasons of “Dexter,” one after another, sometimes until 3 a.m. Viewing began during late nights in Pennsylvania after I broke down and bought a small television for our otherwise media-free love loft. Without Susan there to keep me happy, loneliness drove me to find flat-screen companionship. Two months later, I’m at last about to begin the final Season 8. No special reason that I chose “Dexter” except that Netflix gave it five stars, it’s free, and I like revenge movies.
The only activity and interest that has inspired me through 84 of 96 episodes, is that I want to buy guayabera shirts and fedoras like the ones actor David Zayas as Angel Batista wears. I dig them. I bought two shirts and two fedoras already on our trips to Berkeley and San Francisco. They don’t make me look any more Puerto Rican, but they make me happy.
I have three racks of ribs thawing in the fridge. Tomorrow, I will fire up my smoker and invite some friends over for a backyard fire. We will laugh and talk about Donald and Hillary and other topics that won’t find their way into my writings, but when the trumpets sound and the athlete montage begins, we will bring the Wi-Fi television outside and watch the games together. I will most likely wear pants.

Steve Gibbs is a retired Benicia High School teacher who has written a column for The Herald since 1985.

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