I'm gonna live forever...

I'm reasonably happy with my life. I have a great family and a happy new baby. I've got wonderful friends. I've been to college and I've been a full-time bartender, both of which impart truckloads of life experiences. I'm never at a loss for what to do with myself.

Still, my life today is rather low key. Gone are the days of going out every night, staying out all night, running off to Montreal for the weekend or deciding to up and move to a different state. And I'm ok with all that. I keep up with a lot of news and what's going on in the world, just from a distance. I know the hottest places to eat in New York...I've just never been to them.

So it's a bit of a shock still when someone you know is famous. Not like Paris Hilton famous, but a real person, only famous. Someone I'm reasonably sure still gets parking tickets and calls his parents of the weekends.

My high school friend Kal got famous. After slogging through high school in a specialized program with the rest of us, he went to college in California, became an actor and disappeared into the L.A. ether. His (well-deserved) fame has built up gradually, so it wasn't so much of a shocker at first.

Kal's been in a lot of movies. You've most likely seen him in National Lampoon's Van Wilder and it's sequel The Rise of Taj (he is Taj). He is ubiquitous as Kumar in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle. Right now he's getting a lot of attention for his role in the movie adaptation of Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake. He starred in a Law & Order episode this spring. I could go on, but you get the idea.

Every once in a while, we'll look through photo albums of high school and we'll come across photos of Kal performing Like a Virgin at my surprise 16th birthday party. I wish I could post these. I really do. They're hilarious and you have no question but this kid is going to be famous someday. But I can't. If I were famous, the last thing I would want is some schmuck posting pictures of me from fifteen years ago on the internet.

So why this long post about fame and friends? Well, because sometimes you come across something that totally makes you reexamine your life and what you do with it. Say, for example when someone you know is featured in an article with a former Vice President of the United States and your (second) favorite author of all time.



Al Gore. Salman Rushdie. And Kal.

He's not just a movie star, he's a college prof too. And what did I do today? Today, I got up, played with a baby, nursed a baby, drove to work, worked on some databases, printed some banners, ate lunch and am preparing to load some new products onto a website. Later, we'll stop at the market, drive home, nurse some more, watch an episode of The Wire and go to bed. These are all good things. They're fine, really. But sometimes I wonder about the way life works out. I'm happy for him. I think he's a really good person. I'm a good person too, but somehow, I just don't think anyone's going to be writing an article about cooking, and decide to feature me, Alton Brown and Anthony Bourdain. Dem's the breaks, I guess!