Kirk Cameron + Alyssa Milano = Awesome Relations

When I was younger (4th or 5th grade) I loved to write stories. In the stories, I always had a huge family with a lot of older brothers and sisters. And all of them were movie stars, except for a few girls that lived on my block.

Yes, it was the 80s and the hey-day of the family sitcom. The families on TV were people I believed in. In my my stories, Kirk Cameron would be my older brother, and he would be dating Alyssa Milano (from the "Who's the Boss" days when she was sassy and tough in a good way.) And Sarah Jessica Parker from the movie Girls Just Wanna Have Fun would be my older sister, and she'd be dating Scott Baio. And it went on and on like that, except that the only people that weren't in relationships were the youngest kids, which were me and my real-life neighbor "Molly Blane." After 5th or 6th grade, I no longer wrote these fantasy stories.


In high school and especially in college, I was one of those people who didn't watch any TV. I had the theory that I watched so much TV when I was a kid, that I had some "real life" to catch up on. It wasn't until last year that I started enjoying television again. And I don't have cable, so it's all network TV, which can actually be quite captivating.

Last night, I watched two hours of "South Beach" on UPN while I was repairing some jewelry. It was a show that I could love to hate because it was like that same pleasure center that my stories came from was again being stroked.

I mean: An ensemble cast of gorgeous characters get into glamorous trouble - but not too much - and totally date each other make each other jealous. There's even a cool mom played by Vanessa Williams.

The other ensemble cast that tweaked my old fantasies was the movie The Family Stone. Not only did it star my former older sister, Sarah Jessica, but many, many other famous people who are all dating someone or other in the movie. And the parents kind of totally rock and are important in the story and so on.

Watching television, even bad television, can be really emotionally satisfying.