Fencing Bear at Prayer

I'm so ashamed.  I did it.  I couldn't help it.  I fell off whatever wagon I was trying to ride this week by working in brief, daily sessions, counting carbs, trying everything I could not to fall back into my old patterns of working.  I binged.  Not, thank goodness, on carbs (although there was that third Atkins bar of the day at about 11pm, but I was still only at 25 carbs for the day even then).  And, okay, not on writing , although maybe I should have.  But on television .  Okay, technically, internet-streamed episodes of television on my iPad.  Eleven of them (not counting the one that I watched earlier in the afternoon).   Full confession?  I was up till 2 am watching eleven episodes of New Girl .†  I would have kept going, but the battery on my iPad gave out. And now, predictably enough, I feel like sh*t.  It would have been better if I had just tried to write that stupid sermon in one go.  I don't know why ...

I have been sick since Thursday.  I could tell I was getting sick sometime Thursday afternoon when suddenly I no longer had the will to do anything other than watch every episode of Castle , then Modern Family , then (because I was relatively caught up on those series) Body of Proof that I had not yet seen.  Between Thursday afternoon and mid-afternoon Saturday (with a break on Friday to do a bit of translating and reading for class and on Saturday morning to go pick up a footstool for the living room) I managed to watch the whole of Season 2, all eighteen episodes (and counting). Which was odd because I don't even really like Body of Proof .  At least, I didn't like the first season very much, particularly the relationship between Megan and her daughter.  But they seem to be patching things up better in the second season and, besides, Megan is finally getting a love interest (the former Captain Lee Adama, for those who follow these casting threads).  But so...

I have been so bad this week.  I have had papers to grade, classes to prepare, points to practice, and what have I been doing in the evenings?  Watching television.  Okay, not quite television.  Videos on hulu and Wisevid.  "With limited commercials."  About families.  Okay, specifically one family, the Powells.  " No ordinary family ."  I'm embarrassed.  Not because I like the show, although, okay, maybe I am a little embarrassed about that.  But about how all-consuming the apparent need has been to watch one episode after another.  First the cleanly-streaming ones on hulu (oh, that huluPlus subscription is tempting!); then the pop-up encrusted pirated versions on Watch.Series .  I started at about the middle of the season, first working forwards from the oldest episode available on hulu (actually, I think I started from my abc app on my iPad, but let's not go into all the gory details), then working backwards towards th...