"The level of sexual imagery in modern life is astounding. I knew intuitively this was true, but when you tune into it, you just can't believe it. I click on the Yahoo! finance page, and there's this blond model in a low-cut dress looking at a computer screen and nibbling alluringly on the temple of her glasses, apparently very aroused by the latest S&P 500 report."
~ A.J. Jacobs, The Year of Living Biblically

Years ago, when my husband Mark and I were first married, we went away for the weekend, leaving the little city (or big town) we called home to drive to a bed and breakfast on a ranch in the middle of big rolling fields of nowhere.  At night, we could look up and see a sky, not just dotted with a few twinkling stars against a vast blackness, but absolutely littered with more light than darkness.  But even more than the presence of stars, I remember the silence.

There were no cars rumbling past outside, no neighbors talking or banging doors shut, no fire sirens or televisions, no computer network humming and no cell phone coverage.  It was so quiet, I actually had trouble sleeping; the absence of sound rang audibly in my ears.  I didn't realize I was surrounded by a constant whir of background noise until it wasn't there, but when I went back home I was suddenly both very much aware of it and increasingly bothered by it.  Was it good for me to have so much noise in my life that I heard actual ringing in my ears when it was quiet, the same way I have on leaving a rock concert?  At the same time, that level of background noise was clearly normal in the place and culture in which I was living; could I get away from it?

In a way, moving from addiction to recovery felt the same way, as I began to tune in to the ambient noise of our culture.  Suddenly, that billboard or that song or that TV ad wasn't just part of a constant, and largely ignored, backdrop; it was the trigger that could bring the trauma of addiction rushing to engulf me again.  Being married to a recovering sex addict meant suddenly being faced with the need to avoid gratuitous sexual content in order to protect my own sanity.  And that meant becoming acutely aware of just how soaked in sexuality American culture is: everything from hamburgers to web hosting are sold on overtones of porn.  (And seriously, I can think of few things less inherently erotic than ground beef and Internet domain name registration.)

Recovery has also meant looking at patterns of alcoholism and addiction among our extended friends and family, and becoming similarly aware of the pervasiveness of alcohol, which is an integral, accepted, even expected part of everything from weddings to sporting events to birthday parties.

And once I did begin to tune in, I wondered, much as I did when I came home from those nights on that secluded ranch: had all that cultural noise (unnoticed, but loud enough to leave my ears ringing in its absence) been good for me?  I didn't think so.  So, from ad blocking software to a DVR to changes in my own routines, I've worked to beat back the noise our culture throws off and journey toward the quiet that I now crave.

I rashly went out Halloween costume shopping a few days ago. I'm not sure what I was thinking. Well, I know I needed to pick up a costume for my daughter — Yes, a few days shy of Halloween. I'm totally on top of it as a mom. — but for some reason I thought maybe I could find something cute for myself. You know, something suitable for a 40-year-old mother of two married to a recovering sex addict. There must be tons of costumes to fit the bill, right? At the very least there had to be a nice Hillary Clinton, complete with businesslike pants suit.

Instead, I prowled through the store grimacing, rolling my eyes and blowing exasperated puffs of breath like some kind of crazy person. I wasn't fussing, like most of the other customers, at the cost of the costumes (although, yeah, ouch! Shouldn't those things be marked down with just moments left to go?) but at the sexuality of nearly all the costumes for women and girls, with the exception of those for infants and toddlers. (Boys and men, I noticed, had a variety of different costumes available. Most of these were neutral in terms of sexual content, while even those with a sexual element (I'm thinking the orange "Department of Erections" jumpsuit with penis prosthetic) comfortably covered their bodies.)

The womens' and girls' costumes were a veritable Fredrick's of Halloween catalog.  There were tens of different variations on the same micro-mini barely covering the buttocks matched with the same plunging, cleavage baring neckline; I could choose to be any number of porn star characters: the cop porn star, the nurse porn star, the super-heroine porn star, this hippie porn star, the movie star porn star... It was like looking at Carvel ice cream cakes back in the day; Fudgie the Whale would look like a whale, while Santa would come out sporting a red cap topped by a suspiciously untraditional two tassels. (Apparently, Tom Carvel didn't get to the top of the ice cream game through extravagant purchases like molds that would be used only once a year.)

Needless to say, all those droopy eyes, pouting lips, fishnet clad legs and ample bosoms can be triggering for sex addicts and their partners alike. I can't dress up like that: not after the way it's been mixed up with feelings of trauma and degradation.  My husband can't look at anything like that: not after the way he's used it as a drug, an escape into fantasy.  I found myself wondering if there was a special Halloween store for Mormons and if they'd let me shop there. (You make the costumes yourselves, don't you? Sigh!)

Hanging out with my kids all day, going to their Halloween parties at school, watching them dress up with their friends, I sometimes forget (even having had experience with it in recovery) what a sexual (sexually objectifying?) holiday Halloween can be for adults. I think that I, married to a sex addict, with all of my complicated issues around sexuality, can just pop into a store and pick up a fun little costume for myself, not have it trigger the shit out of me. And I'd be wrong. Halloween is just too scary. Next year, I'll stick to eating cupcakes and shopping for modest pantsuits on the Internet.

It was true love, the moment I saw it.  I was bathed in light and heard angels singing (no, really, that wasn't just the glow for the screen and the background music for the ad).  There it was: The Beatles Rock Band, a video game that lets you be John, Paul, George and Ringo as you sing and play instrument shaped controllers in time with the music.  Breathtaking.  Magic.

I saw that game and I thought about the stash of money that I keep, just in case.  It's like the few bucks I always try to keep in the back of my purse, just in case I get mugged, only it's in my underwear drawer, in case my world gets mugged.  I thought about what an exceptionally bad time it would be to splurge with the economy still weak and my husband's job (our major source of income) on shaky ground. I thought about the huge plastic controllers that will probably end up in a landfill someday and about how I was going to make four families that much richer when so many people have so little.  And I then thought, "Whatever.  It's the Beatles!  In a totally fun video game!  They're bigger than Jesus!  And all those homeless people and the environment needs is love anyway.  Plus, digitally animated Paul McCartney is still so dreamy. How can I not do it?"

So, I did.  I took my stash and spent it, and I stroked my plastic replica of Paul's bass and Ringo's drums lovingly as I removed them from the packaging and set them up with hands trembling with excitement.  I popped the disk into our Wii and heard it whir to life, and sat entranced, with goosebumps prickling on my arms as I watched the intro animation. And oh, it was every bit as good as I thought it would be.

I try to get the kids to let me play at every opportunity.  "Come on, kids!  Let's play a video game.  Please please please please please!"  My daughter Janie doesn't actually like to play -- the instruments are a little too big for her six year old body and the rhythms of the game require a little more dexterity and coordination than she has yet -- but she likes to watch and sing along.  A few days ago, I got her brother on the bus and said, "How about if I play some Beatles Rock Band while you finish your breakfast."  We had about five minutes before I had to get her out the door for school too, but I figured this was enough for one song.

So, I sang one of her favorites: "Yellow Submarine."  When that was over, she said, "Yay!  Do 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,' Mama!"  Well, who am I to resist an encore?  So I did "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds."  Then Mark came downstairs and said, "Oo, Beatles Rock Band!  Do 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds!'"  "Well," I said, "I did just do that one, buuut...  if you insist!"  So I did "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" again.  Eventually, I paused and when I did, I looked at the clock.  Uh oh.  Janie's school started three minutes ago, and because I (inconveniently) lack the ability to travel at the speed of light or reverse time, we were so going to be late.

I thought about telling the truth to the staff at the school, "I got caught up in playing Beatles Rock Band."  Maybe they'd understand.  It's the Beatles!  I couldn't help it!  So I gauged the secretary as I walked Janie to the office.  She refused to look at me for several minutes: a bad sign.  Eventually, she heaved a huge sigh, got up from her desk and walked over to me, glaring.  "Reason for lateness?" she snapped.  "Um, I..." I chickened out. "I lost track of time."  She checked the box for "unexcused" and wrote "mother" on the line for reason.

With Janie safely in school, I headed home giggling at the lesson I'd instilled: "Your education and moral development are important, young lady, but what's more important is rock music and video games."  I told this story to a friend who said, "No, don't you see?  You taught her that special time with her mama is most important."  Ok, that's another way to look at it.  But it's not as funny.

There are times when I am so proud to be an American, it literally brings tears to my eyes. Sometimes that even happens late at night during the commercial breaks when I'm watching reruns on some obscure local channel.

Since the advent of the DVR (and even before it, the VCR), I'll admit, I haven't watched many commercials.  But occasionally, I'm not quick enough with the remote, something catches my eye, and I watch for a moment, enthralled. Like the other night.  I caught a flag waving and heard the distinctive, demanding, urgently enthusiastic tones of a voice-over announcer commanding me to order now...

And oh, what rapture!  I wish I could share it with you in full, but in a way that is both sad and fitting, it is not available on YouTube.  You may not be able share in the heady rush of patriotism directly, but you can temper your disappointment knowing that magical moments like this simply aren't intended to be savored at cold, hard desks, lingering over our shimmering, pixelated screens; they're meant to be experienced ensconced in the plush loving arms of our sofas, recliners and beds, bathed in the glow of our televisions.

On screen, backed by stars and stripes, images of the Statue of Liberty, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama flashed by, each one crowned in vibrant, living greenery.  A pottery replica of Lady Liberty sprouted lush, green tresses before my eyes.  George Washington's bald pate was replaced in moments by a verdant wig, and eerily similar green afros burst from the heads of both Barack Obama and Abraham Lincoln.  Yes, some of our treasured national icons have been transformed into Chia Pets, decorative busts that grow grass for hair.

When the announcer told me that owning one would make me "proud to be an American," I'm ashamed to admit that I experienced a brief moment of skepticism. (Oh, how jaded I've become!)  But then I thought about it.  What could be more American than a Chia Pet?  Can you imagine a Chia pet of any other national symbol?  A Chia Eiffel Tower?  Hardly!  A Chia Big Ben?  Please!  What about ending the Chia Cold War?  You can't even do a Chia Gorbachev, but a Chia Reagan?  Now we're talking.  Ch-ch-ch-Chia Prez!

And what's more American than television, or still more: television advertising?  Seeing the beloved symbols of our nation transformed into a uniquely American product and featured for patriotic consumption on that haloed relic of American television, the commercial, why it's like wrapping the Statue of Liberty in an American flag and baking her into an apple pie.

And that made me so delighted to be an American, that I really did get tears of joy in my eyes and started to hum (softly, giggly to myself) "God Bless America."  If they could only have made Chia Abe Lincoln grow a beard, I think the ecstasy might have killed me.

My daughter's current favorite outfit is a red satin dress with a rhinestone belt and a little velvet jacket with white faux fur cuffs and collar; it's her "Santa outfit" and she always completes it with a Santa hat. She rarely wears clothes in the house, but this outfit remained on her all day; she even insisted on wearing it to preschool, where her giggling non-Christian classmates ran up to her and bemoaned not having worn their Halloween costumes too. And she danced in it tonight, eating Christmas cookies and twirling, bathed in the multi-colored lights of the tree.

Christmas used to be my favorite holiday: the music, the lights, the ornaments, the brightly wrapped presents, the Christmas movies and specials on TV, the parties, the time off school, the (one hoped) snow and Santa, oh boy, Santa. There was no work, just fun, and everything was glittering and shimmering and glowing, including me, to the very core.

Christmas started to take on tarnish when my parents told me there was no real Santa, that they were the ones putting presents under the tree and I now faced conscription into the ranks of the present wrappers. (But shh! Don't tell your brother.) Then it became more difficult to pick out all the obligatory presents for all the countless people I had to buy for, and the number of people I was obliged to buy presents for kept growing. And there was the tree to be purchased and decorated and then undecorated and disposed of. (And all those years of living in apartments, this was a very complicated thing. I'd cut the branches off and sneak them out to the trash dumpster -- which was not to be used for Christmas trees, although no alternative was ever presented -- in large plastic trash bags, like a murderer disposing of the body.)

I wasn't the child, wide eyed, face pressed to a frosty window looking for the glow of Rudolph's nose, I was slave labor in Santa's workshop. I was a cog in the grinding wheels of the enormous commercial juggernaut. How disappointing to find that magic doesn't just come raining down in fairy dust, it's a meticulously created illusion involving countless hours of preparation and planning.

That, you will say, is when one should focus on the true meaning of Christmas: celebrating the birth of Christ. But what Christian faith I ever possessed was gone from my life before even Santa's disappearance from reality. Christmas, for as long as I've celebrated it independently, has been a combination of cultural holiday and family obligation, leaving me in a perpetual state of existential yuletide crisis. Remove from Christmas both Christ and the magic of a man who can visit every Christian household on the globe in one night, add the expectation that the fantastic illusion of magic must be maintained, and what do you have left but perfectionist stress and soulless consumerism?

So, last year, on Christmas Eve, my husband and I were huddled in bed crying (yes, crying!). We were so stressed about the disappointment our children were sure to encounter in the morning. All that excitement, all that hype, all that promise from the culture at large that (in a booming announcer's voice) "ALL WISHES WILL BE FULFILLED ON CHRISTMAS!" We were sure to fail. And when that thought fully sunk in, "we were sure to fail," I felt better. The best I can ever hope to do on Christmas is, through tireless effort, to fall a little less short than usual of a wildly unrealistic set of expectations. Christmas is a fantasy, and like all fantasies, it ends in disappointment.

So, screw it. Screw the big fantasy. Screw mourning for what isn't. Screw the guilt over not being Christian. Why do I do Christmas? Because that tree looks pretty with lights on it. Because I have an ornament that my grandmother brought with her from Europe to her new life in America, and one my mom and I made together, and one my childhood best friend's grandmother handmade out of beads. Because I like Christmas music. Because that crazy ass Heat Miser/Snow Miser special rocks. Because it gives me an excuse to read David Sedaris's essay "Six to Eight Black Men." Because I get to watch my very favorite movie in the world, It's a Wonderful Life on the big screen in the local movie theater. Because my kids have fun ripping wrapping paper. Because I like reading Dickens aloud. Because my daughter likes dancing in her Santa outfit. Because it's fun to see things all glittery, including me, in the winter darkness. And that's all good enough this time around.