I want to apologize for the recent lameness of my blog.

I know I haven’t written about anything juicy. That is by choice.

I seem to be over the whole write-about-my-life-for-public-consumption thing. It feels too self-indulgent and unnatural, like I’m the star of a reality show. And I hate reality shows. I don’t watch them.

Which reminds me — despite writing a lot about TV here lately, I really don’t watch much of it. For the most part, I turn on the TV only when I want to watch a particular show. Lately that’s just “Buffy” and “Smallville,” and recently “Angel” as well. I also watch TV during dinner, which is usually FX reruns of “Buffy” anyway, or maybe reruns of “Friends,” and I turn it off when I’m done. I don’t watch TV news; too sensational and fear-inducing and fake. I get my news from the newspaper instead. (This means that I don’t have depressing stories about the state of the world forced upon me. I prefer it that way. In the past year and a half, I’ve been trying not to dwell on such things, since I can’t control them.)

All of this makes me largely pop-culture illiterate, but I’m okay with that. I don’t want to mindlessly consume bits of effluvia just because they’re out there. I prefer to pursue my own interests rather than choose from among the limited Wal-Martish options that are presented to us. I have no desire to see “Kangaroo Jack,” and I’m surprised so many people felt differently.

On top of all this, I think I’m oversensitive to noise. I usually can’t deal with too many different stimuli at once. Some people thrive in a sea of sound; not me. It drives me nuts. I prefer quiet.

I try to live deliberately.

Ain’t I a curmudgeon? Sometimes I think I’m living in the wrong century.

A gay independent short film starring Tom Lenk of “Buffy.”

(via a friend, who found it on Whedonesque)

Fred Rogers, 1928-2003

When I was a little kid, I used to have this routine. At 4:00 p.m. I’d turn on Channel 13, New York’s PBS station, and I’d watch “Sesame Street.” (I’d probably been watching “Sesame Street” from the moment I came out of the womb.) At 5:00 I’d watch “Mister Rogers,” followed by “The Electric Company,” and then “3-2-1 Contact.” Each show was for a slightly older audience than the show before it. And then some boring news program for the adults would come on at 6:30, so I’d go into the kitchen and watch my mom make dinner.

I liked different things about each of those shows, but the one I felt most connected to was “Mister Rogers.” I was a shy, introspective little kid, scared of many of the other kids, but Mr. Rogers just seemed so sweet and friendly. He truly seemed to like me. He wouldn’t yell at me. He wouldn’t try to take soccer balls away from me. He wouldn’t intercept the candy I was supposed to get as a reward for telling a good joke at camp one summer, which is what one of my counselors did once. No — he just sat there, smiling at me, spending time with me, telling me what a wonderful person I was.

I haven’t checked, but I’m sure the news of his death is all over the blogging world today. A disproportionate number of us bloggers are 20somethings and 30somethings, and lots of us grew up watching him. He was a popular college commencement speaker for our generation.

I’m sure there are tons of obituaries out there already, with sentences like “It will always be a beautiful day in Heaven” or “It’s us he liked” or “He was special” or “He was our F-R-I-E-N-D friend” or “He’s gone to Someplace Else.” Perhaps someone will draw a picture of King Friday XIII and Daniel Striped Tiger and even Lady Elaine with tears in their eyes.

Some memories:

– A childhood friend of mine and I once decided that we were going to make the entire Neighborhood of Make-Believe (NOT the Land of Make-Believe — I’ve always hated it when people screwed that up) out of paper, life-size. We got as far as making the door to X the Owl’s tree or something, and then we gave up.

– I used to pretend that my parents’ bedroom was the Neighborhood of Make-Believe. Everything was in the right order: their door could be Grandpère’s tower. Their dresser could be the castle. The first window could be Cornflake S. Pecially’s factory. The armoire could be X and Henrietta’s tree. The radiator could be the Museum-Go-Round. The TV could be the Platypus Mound. And the other door could be Daniel’s clock.

– I used to draw those buildings with colored Magic Markers and cut them out and play with them and rearrange them as I saw fit. (I think there was actually an episode in which someone magically put the buildings in the wrong order.) I did this lots of times.

– One day I wrote a letter to Mr. Rogers. In the letter, I asked him if he could come visit me and bring the models of the Neighborhood of Make-Believe that he had on the shelves of his kitchen. But I also wrote that I knew he was probably busy, so if he couldn’t visit, it would be great “if you could SEND me a COPY” of the buildings. Several weeks later I got a typed form letter, telling me that Mr. Rogers thought I was special and that he thanked me for writing.

No model buildings. I was hurt.

Despite being rejected by Mr. Rogers himself, I continued to feel a deep affection for the man.

I’ve always wondered what he thought about gay people. Would he still like me if I came out to him? Would he still like me if he knew that I lay in bed at night, touching myself and thinking about other boys? I didn’t want to disappoint him.

I can’t believe he’s dead.