It just makes me wonder...

By and large the media informs and gives us perspective on the world events and local color that shapes our daily life.

Sometimes, the people delivering the news become the news themselves. I don't know that I like that trend, where the person giving me THEIR slant on what happened drives off the road of objectivity and right into the town of Personal Opinion.

Everyone has an opinion and we will never see every issue the same way. It's part of the endearing quality of being human that makes the journey appealing.

But celebrity news or as I like to call it SENSATIONALIST PROSTITUTION...

Well, that is another realm entirely.

The 'news' about celebrities isn't news in the traditional sense. It is, to be precise, tattle tale material offered up to the salacious and greedy who seek to have a front row view of the rise and fall of someone who doesn't do business at Mae's Quick Mart and Charm School.

Celebrities are only famous because they are rich, do something that the rest of us can't or won't or have been arrested doing something that even they know is wrong, but from which they will seek public absolution because they are playing the 'famous' card.

They are people who burp, pass gas and have armpit stains on their clothing.

They wake up with morning breath or in many cases, morning AFTER breath.

They have crusty eyes, matted hair and a small wad of dried spit on the left corner of their mouth.

They have to go to the bathroom exactly the same way the rest of us do and have to call out to someone to bring them more toilet paper when they sit down and take care of business only to discover that the roll is empty.

They parallel park like baboons.

They cheat on the Times crossword because they only speak erudite words and clever phrases that are written for them.

Chances are, they have paid more for uplifts, updo's, redo's and dental whitening that we pay for our mortgage.

The fact is, they need a team of people to turn them out fabulously and we, the great unwashed, are left to our own devices each day. If we forget mascara on one eye, there isn't a specialist on hand to patch us up before we are seen again in public.

So, it just makes me wonder, why are we fascinated with THEM?

The burden of our daily lives would stagger a celebrity.

They don't have to juggle the appointment with the cable installer, the orthodontist and the vet which are all inexplicably at exactly the same time even though you distinctly remember making them for different days and times.

They seldom have to decide which pair of sweats has few enough holes to still be usable for the trip to the hardware store for a new doorstop after the dog chewed the other one off.

Celebrities don't have the burden of anonymity. To be absent while present and ignored though you are the only one in the store.

The problem is that they mixed up a pitcher of special Kool-Aid and we all took a big old whacking drink of it because they said to.

Now, we hang onto their lives as if they don't have smelly feet or eat the last of the lunch meat and put the empty bag back into the bin for you to find when you are running late and have no cash to spare for lunch out.

We gasp at their happenings as if their world of spin is true. It is nothing like finding a library book in a box of yard sale holdings and making the sickening discovery that it was NOT bought at the library sale that day, but that you had checked it out that day and just mixed it into the pile of 5 cent specials.

I doubt that they would gasp at owing $11.47 in overdue fines. Their accountant would be dispatched to 'deal with it' and a photo op would be arranged of the celebrity reading to children from a closed book that was upside down and backward.

Celebrity news is indeed a respite from our own boring lives, but a dose of perspective is in order.

While we goo and gah over the happenings in the tabloids, we forget that our own lives are awe inspiring from time to time.

Like the day we got the kids to church both on time and still fully dressed! Let's see Paris Hilton try that with 5 kids under the age of 12 and no help because hubby had to be there early for a priesthood meeting.

Or the time that the dinner was so good that everyone was actually sad that there wouldn't be any leftovers for lunch the next day.

Then there is the thrilling moment of finding money we didn't know we had! It's a perpetual feeling of cheer!

Celebrities can't feel these things because they have chose to focus everything in their lives through the brilliant view of themselves.

Even those with families are willing to throw them under the bus for time in the news, be it positive or negative.

We in the ranks of the underwhelmed are not able or willing to throw our loved ones under the bus because we need them and they need us. And frankly, even if we did do that, it would just come back to bite us in the butt because they wouldn't be wearing clean underwear and everyone knows what that means!

I guess the main reason I wonder about celebrity information is to gauge some personal behaviors. If I have remembered to take both my car keys and my undies when I leave the house, then my day will be reasonably successful.

If I have remembered the hugs and kisses which I love to give and most certainly owe to those who help me through life, then I will be missed when I am gone and joyously greeted upon my return but BOTH the family and our slavishly spitty canine who washes us down with her tongue.

We need to see that we are worthy of the front page - not because of our sins and omissions but because of our kindness and fun.

We should be featured in the paper because we remembered the cookies for the party and took them into the classroom in the nick of time.

There should be a tickertape parade because there is clean, fragrant laundry and a bubbling pot of beef stew waiting for tired, hungry and cold family members.

It makes me wonder where our priorities have been.

News and newsmakers should be more in harmony with the 'flyover' portions of America instead of the wacky people who inhabit the coasts of Hollyweird and Broadway.

Take time today to plan to do New Year's a little differently - try this one:

We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives... not looking for flaws, but for potential. ~ Ellen Goodman ~


Happy New Year! And remember to wonder about the famous less and think about the every day moments of wonder a whole lot more...