Watch this show I'm not a television watcher. At least, I never paid any attention to the boob tube until Time Warner stepped up to the plate and gave it to me gratis for working for them. Now that I am burdened with 999 channels, there are a few things that I try to watch on a regular basis. Six Feet Under. Watching Ellie. etc. ... But there is one thing I enjoy more than maybe anything else that I've ever seen on television. Prime Time Glick.
I think the best gauge for me on how much I enjoy a show is to try to measure how quickly it zips by me. And Prime Time Glick seems to go by in 5 minutes and leave me salivating for more. Next week, Glick will play host to Meathead and Jon Lovitz. I won't miss it. And -- if you haven't yet fallen victim to the Glick fix -- I suggest you make plans to tune in to Comedy Central at 9 p.m. on Saturday as well.
My friend Jack has been in the hospital recently, and it got me to musing about age and perspective. We're both 42, both grew up in the North East, and both have become increasingly aware that things are happening to us that we used to think happened to "old people." Jack is home doing fine, by the way, after a major surgical procedure last Wednesday.
Even the term "procedure" reminds me of my parents talking about their contemporaries--"Oh Jane is in St. Peter's for a procedure..." I think a "procedure" is surgery done on somebody else. I can recall visiting my grandmother in the hospital regularly, as her 50's and 60's were plagued with a series of intestinal illnesses, and thinking that hospitals were where old people went to rest. Or be very very sick. I remember speaking in hushed tones, the smell of antiseptic, and the incessant department store-like "pinging" of the audio paging system. To this day the smell of Betadine takes me back there.
Mostly I remember how lonely she was there--sometimes 2 weeks at a time. So I visited Jack a few times, when he wasn't sleeping off the pain meds. And we sat and chatted while he was in Seton and pondered the distance I now hold books from my eyes, the cool scar he'll have to show off this Summer, the pair of magnifying specs I bought last week at Walgreens, and the importance of fiber in our diets. I thought at times we sounded like one of those unbelievable commercials on TV, you know where ordinary people suddenly start chatting about things you know they never really would:
"Say Mel, you look great!"
"Well Phil, since I started eating Kellog's All-Bran, I feel 10 years younger! Now how about another set? I'll help you with that serve of yours!"
We are slowly becoming our parents. I feel pretty young most days, see more concerts than the average 20 year-old, manage to have a lot of fun, and stay on top of current events and technology, and really enjoy my life, but after my Dad got sick this summer, I am suddenly way too aware of my own mortality. I am not sure that is a bad thing--I kind of wish I could have glimpsed this at 20, and 30 and 40 though, rather than all at once.
This is not a dress rehearsal folks--it's showtime. Hug a loved one, bury a hatchet, dance like no one's watching, lose a grudge, tickle a kid, call a friend. Smile. "Sometimes you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right..."
Well, following up a post like the previous one feels a little bit precarious. Especially given my unavoidable circumstance of having one of those Y chromosomes, but I really like living on the edge.
My Sunday evenings have traditionally been spent in front of the tube, with my guilty addiction to Jennifer Garner in Alias and over the top plots in The Practice. But tonight, of course, we've been preempted by The Ten Commandments. Normally I wouldn't be so bothered, but given the recent scandal, along with the the waning days of John Paul's papacy, and it really seems that Catholicism is really intruding on my life lately.
Or maybe I'm really just in denial at the awful truth that Charles' mom gave us a St. Francis bird feeder for our yard. *sigh*
