When life looks on from the backseat...

I woke up this morning to a ghastly sight – no, not the snow-flakes blanketing my window pane (turning up the heat takes care of that), not the icy wedge that sent me skating on the fire escape (friction from some very brown rust stalls the fall), but snow on my celluloid screen!!!!! Yes, the screen I wake up to every Sunday morning in anticipation of a full two hours of some appetizing political chow-chow.

Chris Matthews followed by Meet the Press is, to me, as mandatory a Sunday morning ritual, as say, brushing my teeth is a daily one. So, nothing is going to take me away from my pot of coffee, the recliner and little Russ at 10:30 am on the last day of the week – a phone call, the fire alarm or a sleeping friend on the couch (had one woken up about a month ago -- he’s still thankful for Tim Russert’s unusually low tones for a newscaster).

So, obviously I was hopping mad at this reporter bundled up in wool and fleece, babbling on about the 12 inches all over Philadelphia. Memo: If I can see it out the window, it’s not news!!!! And why on earth is that more important than the question of whether McCain is ahead of Hillary in the polls?

. .
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No sooner had that thought entered my mind than I began to evaluate my priorities. For regular human beings it is probably important to know how long the blizzard was going to last, if the buses and trolleys were still in service, if the airport was shut down, how many inches it was going to be or if they can get in to work tomorrow.

Ever since college where I spent more time hunched over The Hindu (not the religion) than applying a muddy face-mask, I have prided myself on having the “right” priorities in life. Unfortunately, those right priorities also mean sticking a post-it on the TV or computer to remind me to turn off the heater (you’d think the sweltering heat would be sufficient indication, but that could just as easily be the infuriating Ken Mehlman).

I spent about one unsuccessful hour explaining to a friend just how smart and funny Bill Maher was (while on the subject, why on earth are they re-running I’m Swiss under a different name, and why on earth am I watching it again?) at the end of which he said, “What is the point of criticizing Bush when there is nothing he can do about it?”
My immediate repartee, of course, was it was the same point as a Bruce Springstein concert or a broadway show. Art for the sake of art. Comedy for the sake of comedy. But then I began to wonder...

I spend exactly 30% of my life doing something I don’t necessarily believe is going anywhere – scientific research for the uninitiated, where I marvel at the working of the human heart but don’t necessarily think I can plug a hole in it to save a life. I am awestruck at the job already done and that is satisfying enough. On a typical day (one that does not involve B&N or a bar), I spend the rest watching political debates on TV, a bunch of New Yorkers hover around in a coffee shop or 200-pounders wrestle over a football.

I often forget to pay my phone bill, I always do my taxes on the midnight of the 14th of April, some important cant-live-without-them gadgets are still amiss in the apartment and I always seem to run out of detergent. But not to worry -- Roger Federer won the Australian Open, I have exactly half a dozen varieties of cheese in the fridge, my stack of Atlantics lies unscathed in the cabinet, my huge collection of Friends DVDs occupies a coveted spot on the AV rack and the one life-saving feature that is always available is HBO on demand.

Little wonder then that I decided to evaluate my priorities – I ain’t changing any of them just yet, but they make for a good post ;) So, I am just beginning to question if watching a sitcom is indeed more important than taking the phone call that says you’ve got to pay the bill that allows you to watch it in the first place.

As for my Sunday morning, CNN – my fallback news channel – saved the day, cos at least Blitzer still thought Iran was more important than the blitz [God bless 70°-Atlanta for being oblivious to the havoc that only snow can cause ;)]

Nonetheless, it’s brought me to an important conclusion: when Maher and Clinton become the bills more important to your life than the ominous one from Amex, boy, have you got trouble. But can’t worry about that just now. There’s a weblog I gotta tend to ;)