The television series "House" interests me because the main character (surprisingly, named Dr. House) is the antithesis of the typical fictional doctor. Instead of being patient (no pun intended), kind, and with a wonderfully nurturing bedside manner, House is crass, rude, completely self-centered and mean; however, he also is a brilliant diagnostician, so somehow he keeps his job season after season.

Another physician on the series is the caring, thoughtful and compassionate type, but it still takes me a while each show to get past him being from "Dead Poet Society" (the actor, not the character). In the show last night (if you are still with me), this Dr. Goodguy discovered that he had misdiagnosed a patient, and had to tell him that he did NOT have cancer (or some certain-to-be-dead-in-three-months disease). The patient, surprisingly, was FURIOUS - he had sold his house for a loss, had tickets to Venice (Italy, I'm certain, not California), and "was happy living in the present. Now (with the newer diagnosed of NOT dying) you've taken that away."

How much of our lives are spent not in the present, but mulling over the past, anticipating/dreading the future, and not enjoying right now right here this moment. And how many of us would change our lives if we knew we only had an X amount of time to live. Places we would travel, old friends we would look up, people we would forgive.

So the extrememly simple question is: why don't we go ahead and do all of that NOW?

I don't think I'd do a lot differently - but I would probably be braver about getting a saddle back on my horse and (finally) riding him. I'd get more of my life history written, and get through the rest of my old photos. And I would probably eat a WHOLE lot more of Preiumn Selection Mint Moose Tracks ice cream.

And a completely different subject altogether, but I saw a Clairol ad in a magazine yesterday, for covering gray hair, that said, "Q: I don't just hate the way I look when my grays are showing, I hate the way I feel! It really does a number on my ego! Help! Clairol A: It's all about control. .. if you feel you are in control of your grays, you'll feel better all around."

HELP!! How about being in control of your emotions, and your self-image!!??!! It is so incredibly JUVENILE (although I freely admit that I do this WAY too often myself) to let your outside environment / circumstances (i.e. gray hair, living in NJ, being 5'3") control your happiness. Yes, yes, I know, I do it too... and way too often for someone who supposedly knows better. And, of course, since I LIKE my gray hairs, and I never got prematurely gray like 85% of the rest of my family, it's easy for me to get on my soap-box.