Of Late Night Rite Aid Runs and Checkout Lines

"Is Bill Clinton dying?" screams one cheaply printed trash mag from beneath a glaring flourescent light in Rite Aid. I notice it because I am in a line of 57274 people awaiting the mercy of the sloooooooow clerk. My first reaction was that it was just mean. And that Republicans need to be more creative with their propoganda. My second reaction was "We all are." Ha ha, smirk smirk, gotcha. True, though, right? It made me feel better, because no one wants to think of Bill as anything but the healthy and sexually robust guy we all know and love. But it also got me thinking...

The truth is we all only have x amount of time. Not to be neurotic about how I spend my time, but a recent poll presents some unpleasant facts about my Usage of Time Allotted To Live:

1) watching "Strange Love", a spinoff reality show featuring Brigette Nielsen and Flava Flav = 30 minutes
2) checking email. compulsively = total 2.5 hours
3) lying in bikini top on balcony in constant stream of thought re: how much it would suck to live on the east coast = 45 min
4) prerusing magazines like Fitness, convinced that if I reread the exercises, I will be compelled to do them = 20 minutes
5) staring into the cupboard, convinced that something new will appear = 2 minutes
6) listening to Madonna warble "Imagine" on the tsunami telethon = approx. 4 minutes
7) spent bitching on the phone to friend that I had to endure Madonna singing "Imagine" = 1.5 minutes
8) spent bitching in person to friends over coffee that I had to endure Madonna singing "Imagine" = 45 seconds
9) spent reminding myself that 'harakiri' is not the answer to listening to Madonna sing "Imagine" = 10 seconds
10) watching tv show about celebrities and colonics = 20 minutes
11) explaining the mechanics of colonics ("intestinal vacuuming") to a friend via phone = 3 minutes
12) calculating the odds of having Brad Pitt as my operator if I called the tsunami telethon line = 4 minutes

And that was just today.

I'm not proud of these statistics. Although they do make me laugh. Because if you were to tally up the ways I waste my time, I'm not convinced that my more intellectual endeavours would outweigh. But I'm not sure where this great cosmic intelligensia scale is, so I'm not sweating it til I get there. Good thing one of my resolutions was to not be hard on myself or we'd be in some trouble. I guess making the most of your day is in the eye of the beholder. Because while I'd swap out some of the other choices I've made in the last 24, Flava Flav is a keeper...