Office-aholic

During my freshman year of college, my roommate and I and a few of our friends jokingly started a sorority called Omega Omega Omega. The "rushing" process consisted of creating a poster (we're not talking serious artwork here--our posters were on computer paper) that illustrated your obsessions. We hung them on the wall in our dorm room and that was the extent of our sorority activities. I still have all of the posters in my scrapbook, and my obsessions at the age of 18 were:

• Chapstick. Sadly, nothing has changed. This really falls into the "addiction" category. I am aware that it's an issue, but I have no interest in doing what it would take to wean myself from it. My chapstick addiction doesn't interfere with my life, though it would if I were to go on Survivor. However, my going on Survivor would never happen.
• Blue jeans. No changes here, either. But blue jeans rocked back then, and they always will.
• Brushing my teeth. Yeah. Minimum of 4 times per day. Usually more.
• Savage Garden. Australian musical duo. I wanted to marry Darren Hayes, the lead singer. He was married at the time--to a woman. They eventually split up. A year or so ago, he got married again. This time, his chosen partner was a man. Guess I didn't read that situation very well.
• Duct tape. This obsession has mostly faded away, but I am still a big fan. You can buy it in different colors now. Maybe if a company comes out with a glitter edition, I will resume my obsession and start making clothing and accessories from it.

The moral to be taken from this story is that I am prone to obsessing. And if I were to create an obsessions poster today, I'd have a new item to add to it: The Office--the American version. When it first started a few years ago, I tried watching but didn't like it. I thought it was awkward and offensive and somewhat dull. Then I read an interview with one of the stars, and she was an interesting person, so I decided to give it a try.

I watched occasionally on Thursday nights, usually during commercials for other shows. The show was growing on me, but when it went up against Gray's Anatomy, there was no question about which show I would be watching.

Then a couple weeks ago, I caught a terrible cold and was out of work for a little while. During my recuperation, I was scanning Netflix's rather shabby instant-watch selection and decided that season 1 of The Office was my best bet.

That was less than 2 weeks ago, and since then, watching as many episodes as I could has sort of taken over my life. While B was away this week, I stayed up way past my regular bedtime watching episodes. When each episode is only 21 minutes long, it's so easy to say, "well, just one more..." Then one turns into six and all of a sudden it's midnight and you have to get up in six hours and it's only Tuesday and how on earth are you going to make it to the weekend on this much sleep?

Well, it's time for me to rest easy, or at least rest, period, because I have watched every episode from seasons 1 through 3 as well as all of the season 4 episodes that are on the NBC website. While I am not grateful for the writer strike, at least it meant that I was able to go to bed at 10 o'clock last night after I finished watching the last episode. Had there been more episodes, I don't know what time I would have gone to bed.

I will be able to rest, for a few months anyway. While the writers' strike looks like it's close to a resolution, it could be months before this season's episodes resume filming, if they do at all. It could be September before I see another new episode. Sadly, at this point, I don't think that would be such a bad thing.