Allow My Distractions to Distract You

 A wise man once said, "One's quality of life is co-dependent upon the quality of their distractions."

Those of you who are familiar with my TV viewing habits, know that I adhere to what I like to call the "Reality TV trinity," which is First 48, Jeopardy and UFC. Excluding those, I rarely use TV as a distraction. But, there are always exceptions, and last night I watched a true crime documentary and a movie, back-to-back, which is almost unheard of for me. Not so much because I'm so anti-TV, but mostly because my ADHD won't allow it.

First up was this rather disturbing documentary on Netflix titled Maternal Instincts:

If you've ever wondered about psychopathy, the woman in this show highlights it to a T. She is a sick, sick individual. She is such a compulsive liar that she comes to believe that she can murder a woman, cut her baby out of her stomach, and pass it off as her own. It's a bizarre story that epitomizes "truth is sometimes stranger than fiction." 

It's easy to watch this kind of stuff and be like, "How in the hell could someone fall for this crap?" But when you watch the show, you can definitely empathize with the fella who got gaslighted by the psychopath. I mean, who thinks someone is going to lie about being pregnant, fake the pregnancy for 10 months, then go kill someone and cut out their baby to save face?

If you have an hour and a half of free time, access to Netflix and like true crime documentaries, then this is a highly recommended distraction for you.

Up next is a movie. 

Now, look, I don't really watch movies at all. Particularly comedy/romance type flicks, but Midnight in Paris is actually worth wasting an hour and a half on if you're just looking to be distracted.

I came across this movie while reading an article about Gertrude Stein, whom I was unfamiliar with. Stein was portrayed in the movie as an eccentric art critic/collector and writer in 1920's Paris. She rubbed shoulders with the likes of Hemmingway, Picasso, Fitzgerald and others.

The movie itself was rather interesting, and quite enjoyable if I'm being honest. The main character, Owen Wilson, is a writer struggling with the golden age fallacy (thinking a different era is better than the current one), and every night at midnight he would travel back to 1920s Paris and interact with many of the greats of the era. 

Wilson is initially is picked up by F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda. They go to a bar and he is introduced to Ernest Hemmingway. Eventually, he meets Stein, and she and Hemmingway reviewed the manuscript for Wilson's book. He also had a brief romance with Picasso's fictitious mistress, Adrian, who ultimately enabled him to see the flaw in his golden age fallacy when they travel back to the late 1800s and she refuses to return to the 1920s after they go to the Moulin Rouge and they meet Toulouse-Lautrec, Gauguin and Degas, even though all three of them agree that the Renaissance age is the best era. 

All-in-all, an excellent distraction that doesn't even require a streaming subscription, as it can be seen for free on Tubi. And, it's only an hour and a half long, so if you have ADHD like me, and hate movies that are longer than 2 hours, this is a good one for you.