Thursday, August 08, 2002

You ever have one of those weeks where you find out tons of new little tidbits about a friend? It's been that kind of week for me. My buddy Jennifer (not to be confused with the oft-mentioned Jen) has been dropping previously undisclosed facts about her life all over the place the last few days. First off, it turns out that she sleepwalks. I never would have guessed that.

I was also mildly amazed to discover she used to have pretty low expectations about her professional potential. Jennifer's very successful in her field, which is why this revelation took me aback.

Finally, I was really shocked to find out she lovingly considers her husband, who seems like a completely cool and stylish guy, to be a "goofball." In that same conversation, she revealed that they're planning to start a family in the next couple of years. She wants two kids, he wants seven.

The above revelations are just the minutiae of everyday life, the kind of things friends share with each other in an idle moment. There's nothing really newsworthy in them. Problem is, that's just where I found out about this stuff: the sleepwalking, the low career expectations, and the goofball crack were all headline news items this week.

I'm sure you've sussed out by now that Jennifer is not, strictly speaking, a friend of mine. She's much bigger than that. She's Friends with the whole world. She's Jennifer Aniston.

It's not that I'm naïve in the ways of infotainment, but three separate headline stories about such drivel in the span of four days is too egregious even for me. It's also an excellent illustration of a favorite axiom of an actual friend of mine: The world is rapidly turning into a parody of itself.

Posted @ 1:43 PM

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