"These people, dressed as they are…"

Recently I spoke with an art student who, though only twenty, told me that "one of [her] many regrets in life" is that she never had enough time to herself while growing up; how if it wasn't her nannies or teachers or coaches hovering over her, it was her parents; and how this has contributed to why she is having a hard time making art. Eventually she asked me about my own childhood, if I had enough time to myself, and I wondered aloud if I had too much time, or if indeed the things that occupied my time were in fact more social than I thought they were -- like reading and drawing, practicing the piano, watching TV...

For me, TV was my nanny, my teacher, and I loved coming home after school and watching weird soap operas like Dark Shadows and Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman while my parents were still at work. But if I came home early enough -- if we only had a half day at school -- I would watch the game shows that preceded them. One game show I watched a lot of billed itself as "television's marketplace," Let's Make A Deal.