My Crazy Model TV Addiction

I just have to cut in here and talk a little about what it was like for me the first few hours I would move into any models' apartment in any part of the globe. For some reason, I would more often than not, move in and have the entire place be empty. Not empty as in I got the apartment to myself for the entire season...more like, empty because everyone was working or on castings. So, what does a girl do in a foreign country, in a new apartment, and all on her lonesome? TURN ON THE TV.

It didn't matter if I was in Italy, Japan or Taiwan...the first thing I would do upon entering a new home and setting my luggage down, was to turn on the television. It's not like I expected the experience to be anything like turning on my TV at home and having my shows pop up as if my cable services had magically followed me abroad.....but I did want to hear and see something.

That eerie quiet that comes from being alone in a strange new hovel was always disheartening to me. Despite my travel addiction, for those first few seconds in a new and empty place, I would have a flash of homesickness...I would want to grab the phone and pay unreal sums of money just to "connect" with someone. So, instead of a phone call, I would turn on the tube and watch really loud and bright Japanese game shows, or Italian music videos which were often (as in the case of Piero Pelu) too unbelievably bad to look away from....or the VTV music videos in Taipei that played anything from Brittney Spears terribleness to some really cool Korean hip hop. Once in a while, I scored and would find a show in English...some ancient Fresh Prince or Little House on the Prairie episode that was somehow bouncing through space off of a satellite....and that was good. Real good. And then there were the apartments were the TV's sat there covered in dust...like a relic from the Eastern Bloc...some random looking contraption that would not work no matter how much I cursed at it and tried every knob (mind you most never had a remote)...and those were always the creepiest nights. Sitting there in silence until a roomate would finally appear and save me from the quiet.....

This model TV addiction never lasted long. Once in and integrated into my new life and home I barely had time to sit and watch anything on TV. And when I did it was to watch DVD's with friends....When I would return home to the States though I would always make sure that my cable would always be set up and working.....and it always was to my great relief....because after being gone for 3-6 months at a time, coming home to the States and my apartments there was always strange and oddly disheartening as well. I would want to have the company of whatever news anchor or sitcom actor was on at the moment I would walk in the door....

And it's funny for me to even think about all of this now....since at this point in my life I crave nothing more than silence and solitude...and a large chunk of chocolate....but back then, the silence of an empty apartment after being on planes full of people, photoshoots surrounded by crew, and parties embraced by friends...was just not comfortable.....So, yes....I guess in that way I was a typical American, needing my TV and finding it a source of comfort. No wonder some of my Eastern Euro and Brazilian roomies would roll their eyes at me when they first met me...."aha! look at the American! always with the TV on even if she isn't watching it!".