I like to read. While I was drinking I still read a lot, but I read the same books over and over. I rarely bought or borrowed anything new. I found my old books comforting, and since I often read at night in bed while drunk, it was handy to already know the story.

Perhaps my most favorite drunken reading was �Post Office� by Charles Bukowski. It�s about the author�s halfhearted attempts to keep his crappy job at the post office while also being a full-time hardcore drunk. I used to read this book probably once a month. I�d call in sick, crawl to the bodega for a couple of six-packs, and cuddle up in bed with �Post Office.� It always cheered me up.

I also used to totally love the TV show �Cops.� I mean I loved it. I�d stock up on drugs and alcohol and sit entranced in front of �Cops� on Saturday evenings. I drove my friends crazy with ridiculous pseudo-Marxist analysis of the shit going down on �Cops.� My favorites were the one where the woman called the cops because her mother wouldn�t stop preaching, and the one where the guy had been shot in the stomach at some earlier point and his friend sewed the guy�s thumb into the hole to plug it up. Dude.

Well, it seems my tastes have changed. I was flipping channels the other day and came upon �Cops.� I winced and changed it. How could I have watched that shit? It�s so sick and sad -- poor people�s lives getting shittier by the second. Same with Bukowski; it�s depressing and he�s an asshole.

Maybe my tastes are just naturally maturing, or I�ve lost my sense of humor. But it�s probably more that I no longer need to bombard myself with images of people more fucked up than me to feel like I�ve got any kind of a grasp on my own life. I even had at least one boyfriend who I (subconsciously) chose to serve as my fucked-up foil and make me look like I had my shit together in comparison. It worked for a while, then he stole my credit cards. I kicked him out on his ass, a few months later.

This is not to say I�m now reading Proust and watching �The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer� every night. But my reading has taken off. I�m all about new books, fiction and nonfiction, new translations. I�m excited about it. As for TV, I�ve already mentioned my devotion to the home and garden channel. �Extreme Homes,� now that�s some crazy shit.

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