Last night, I fell asleep on the couch around 10pm to the TV, as I usually do, and then woke up at 12:30am or so to find my Spectrum cable out. I tried unplugging and re-setting every box, then finally called the cable number: "Outage in my area." After all of that "trying to get reconnected" activity, it was 2am... how was I supposed to get to sleep??
The first thing I needed was some background noise. Utter silence was too much. (Though I had the air-conditioner.) Back when I moved into this apartment in 2016, Spectrum took 3 or so days to get basic cable turned on (though I'd made an appointment for service transfer well ahead of time). During those non-TV days, I tried listening to NPR for background, but... god, the hours of left-wing propaganda! (I'd never realized it was propaganda before then --- I'd always had that station on in my car. But once I listened for hours at a time... I couldn't take any more personal stories from illegal immigrants or how picnic-ers reacted with kindness to a black ex-con who pulled a gun on them -- I thought someone at the picnic table should have shot the guy.)
So, definitely no NPR.
I have radio stations programmed in my car, but not in my home. I finally found a classical music station for background. And then I read from my recently-ordered book, "A Lifelong Passion: Nicholas and Alexandra" --- letters to/from Russian Tsar Nicholas and wife Alexandra.
The lack of TV screen proved rather soothing. The music was just at the right level, and the book was just at the right level... I fell asleep after about 45 minutes and woke up to the alarm at 6:55 feeling mildly refreshed and wondering: Why don't I do this every night? --- Listen to classical music and read things that make me think rather than try to fall asleep to whatever TV program is least intrusive?
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