What got me thinking was something my friend Spencer said to me back when we first saw the promos months ago. “I’ve read so many of these detective novels,” Schwartzman’s character said in the commercial, “that I know what to do.” With such vindication and certainty. And Spencer joked that that would be me one day.

The idea cracked us up because it hit so close to home. Not the detective stuff, but the idea behind it all, the desperation that’s always there when you’re jobless or girlfriendless or purposeless–where you feel it every second, you can feel it in the back of your mouth, that urgent desire for your life to mean something.

And it’s true; boredom changes you. Like the theme song for the show says, “Bored to death, but mad and lonely.” When your girlfriend’s still there, before she’s left you because all the white wine, you never do a lot of stepping back and reevaluating. I mean, you do, but you don’t dwell on it the same way. You don’t care. But after she’s left, things aren’t in place anymore. It’s just you. And you realize you need something.

Maybe the reason I related as much as I did tonight, the reason I’m saying all this, is the amazing amounts of nothing I did all day. I mean, I’m talking vast, sweeping, incredible amounts of nothing. Humbling amounts of nothing. I’m talking watch Firefly, listen to This American Life, go on Facebook, go on Twitter, organize my Netflix, eat lunch, eat dinner, open the fridge 20 times nothing.

I’m talking read a chapter in a book nothing. Check my beyond-repair, in-last-place fantasy team nothing.

I’m talking backup my external and flash drives nothing–get them up to date. You know, just in case.

So it’s interesting to watch a show like this when you’re so ridiculously close to the material, looking everywhere, behind the ketchup, in the pantry, in pixels, for something to occupy your time and make you alive again. And in that way, this is kind of an amazing state to be in, one of complete and utter non-responsibility. Anti-distraction. Almost like being a bystander in your own life, and what that means, what it translates into.

Ok, here’s the thing. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about moving to New York. Here’s my situation:

• I graduated last May w/ a BA in English
• I intern at a publishing co. 3 half-days a week
• I play softball 2 nights a week on a team of mostly 30-somethings
• I’m doing odd-jobs like car washes and paper shredding to hold me over until I can find real work
• and I’m 22, jobless, girlfriendless, and I live with my parents in a city initially meant for retirees

And that’s what I’m talking about. There comes a time when you start resenting whatever it is you do that you were doing right before things got stale. You start to resent school and writing and computers and anything cerebral. You start to crave the opposite: sweat, construction work, swimming. It’s the same idea as people moving after breakups or deaths. It’s dying your hair or changing your style before the first day of high school. A forced and temporary evolution. And it lasts exactly until you’re too busy or distracted to care anymore.

So, it wasn’t just the fact that Kristen Wiig and “Brother Mouzone” from The Wire guest starred in this week’s episode that I dug it. It’s not even that in the past few months I’ve watched or am watching so many TV series that it’s hard to remember them all (Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Bullshit!, Dexter, First Person, Unscripted, Firefly, Hung, True Blood, Entourage, This American Life, Chuck – am I forgetting any?). It’s more that when I think of New York, even though I know it’s childish, I like to think about the romanticized version that you’ve seen in a million movies. The version where stories happen.

It’s the idea that moving there, of living somewhere else, of doing something I’ve never done before, scares the hell out of me. And that’s exactly what makes it fascinating.

After watching these 2 episodes of Bored to Death I honestly can’t say whether I think the show will be great or not, but I think its intentions are spot-on. Like I said, boredom changes you. You could be a quiet neurotic novelist like Johnathan who “doesn’t do well with anger, just goes straight into depression,” but before you know it you’re in a trench coat with slicked back hair, passing up white wine for straight whiskey, then choking and coughing it down in a bar before heading out for a “tail job.”

Point is, we’ve all read so many of these novels, and none of us, ever, knows what to do. And we never really change. All we can do is put ourselves out there and hope that someone answers our ad. Then try not to slip climbing down from the bar stool.

Catch Bored to Death this Sunday @ 9:30 on HBO, after the Seinfeld reunion on Curb Your Enthusiasm

And now, 1o seconds with Senator Clay Davis of The Wire:

Curb Your Enthusiasm: basically the cat’s pajamas, right? More or less the bee’s knees. But finding news on the teased-at Seinfeld cast-included seventh season has been ridiculous. One day we heard that not only was Larry David’s kinda, sorta-autobiographical sitcom not over forever like he said it would be, but its reunion tour would include Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer for a multiple-episode arc (“What’s the Deal with Reunions?”). Pretty great. But getting a date to mark on the calendar for it, a month or year or general ballpark–forget about it. Nothing.

Before the Sunday lineup this week, though, before True Blood and Hung and Entourage, we finally got some confirmation. There were teaser’s earlier, things with just Larry’s forehead and the tip of his glasses poking out from the bottom of the screen and a “He’s baaack” text bubble. But this one was an actual clip, Larry explaining that, despite the robberies in the area, he won’t be joining his neighborhood’s watch simply because, well, he prefers thieves to neighbors. Thieves aren’t imposing, he says. They don’t steal your time.

Oh yeah, I’ve missed this. Curb will be back, Seinfeld cast and all, in September.

Not only that. There’s another comedy coming out on HBO in September and it’s called Bored to Death. It’s starring Jason Schwartzman (Rushmore, Marie Antoinette), Zach Galifinakis (The Hangover), Kristen Wigg (Knocked Up, SNL) and Ted Danson. Check out the promo at the foot.

“I have been reading so many of these detective novels,” Schwartzman’s character says, “that I know what to do!” That line says it all. That and the awesome cast this show’s got behind it.

Maybe it’s because I’m a little too empathetic to the story right now, that I “get” the plight just a little too much, but this one’s speaking to me. It’s about a writer (Schwartzman), a struggling writer with a lot of free time on his hands. And he loves detective stories, so much, in fact, that he decides to take up unlicensed detective work as a hobby–maybe to act out the part of a hero in one of his novels, or maybe just to get out of the house, away from his desk and into the real world, where real things happen and he might feel useful and actually affect people. I mean…um, I don’t know. I’m just guessing.

Bored to Death will be right along Curb in September. It should be a good Autumn.