Nurse Jackie

Going down in flames

Heather Havrilesky — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 03:29:00 PDT

Ah, the many joys of Los Angeles in August! What's more romantic than a freeway of ants running through the kitchen? What's more exhilarating than thick clouds of brown smoke, billowing in the hills and threatening untold tracts of overpriced, overleveraged real estate below?

I Like to Watch

Heather Havrilesky — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 03:45:00 PDT

TV today is very dark. We long ago replaced lovable stepmoms like Abby from "Eight Is Enough" with self-involved, irresponsible, adulterous moms and swapped out tirelessly righteous crime-fighters like Kojak with corrupt cops struggling to keep their atrocities hidden. Almost 40 years after Mary Tyler Moore brought her lovably haphazard but principled schtick to the workplace, our TV offices are populated by elitist corporate bosses, lazy, self-serving underlings, vaguely pathetic managerial chumps and endless variations on the vainglorious jackass.

I Like to Watch

Heather Havrilesky — Sun, 31 May 2009 03:30:00 PDT

Modern life has a frustrating way of setting us up to fail seconds after we wake up. I didn't exercise this morning, and neither did my dogs, who sulked instead. I drank caffeine, which is bad for me, and wrote for a few hours instead of vacuuming the living room floor. I didn't shower. I drove my daughter to daycare and she didn't cry when I left, but I didn't spend the day with her. I walked the dogs but didn't run because I still have a cough, which must mean I'm doing something wrong. I paid some bills but didn't clean off my desk. I watched a screener of "Nurse Jackie" but didn't figure out what its central premise is. I made dinner but my daughter only ate bread. The baby nursed for an hour (good) then spent an hour sleeping in her automatic swing while I ate chocolate and watched "Make Me a Supermodel" (bad). I took my vitamins but didn't floss. I wrote this paragraph, but I'm pretty sure most of you won't like it, since it means waiting longer to find out what time "Jon & Kate Plus 8" is on (9 p.m. Mondays on TLC).