why I can't leave britney alone

I have been swallowing my urge to write on here lately, and you know you who I blame for that? Perez Hilton.

I am "off" celebrity gossip sites, off US Weekly, and even trying to wean myself off of my Facebook newfeed. Why would I possibly turn down my habit of ingesting a thrice-daily dose of fragments of other peoples' lives--photos of babies with ridiculous names, pre and post-liposuction pictures, and speculations about the sexuality of teen idols? Quite simple: I overdosed.

I did. I found myself, about a month ago, browsing through one sassy, scathing site or another, my fingers going numb from all the scrolling. What was I doing, exactly? Nothing. I was, myself, doing absolutely nothing. I was creating nothing, I was learning nothing and I was certainly contributing nothing. I was just consuming images and wasting my time.

And I am desperately afraid of waste. I would say waste is my biggest fear. The fear of wasted time, energy, potential, opportunity, resources always haunts me. I always try to ask, "is what I am doing going to produce something of some value, be it friendship, art, food or love?"

My fixation with celebrity gossip was producing nothing but a hunchback from leaning over my laptop, and a creepy savviness about the failures of complete strangers. Being in the know about celebrity gossip can be handy, as a media student, for cultural critiques and inspiration for possible paper topics. My friend Peter told me yesterday that the trainwreck/spectacle that is Britney Spears is becoming one of the fastest-growing thesis topics for grad students. We feast on this stuff! We can't wait to dig our critical theory claws into someone else's disaster.

As tempting and as easy as it is to criticize public failures, I don't want to be a vulture. That's not why, at 24 years old, I'm still a student and that's not why I am alive. I am not the type to circle spectacle, waiting.

But, and here's the thing, I suspect that educated, passionate people don't feel right about just walking by a disaster. We feel a weird, ethical obligation to salvage something from the wreckage, even if it's something as ethereal and self-serving as an academic analysis. Okay, I know the importance of a critical analysis of pop culture (don't even start me on The Hills), but more often lately, I want to just agree to be dismayed, and move on with my life.

Life as a grad student can feel isolated enough without constantly living vicariously in the warped virtual world of Perez.

And yet, admittedly, I still have my fingers crossed for Britney's real comeback, which may be 10 years down the road at the rate she's going now. Maybe it was the fact that I used to be a Britney impersonator, or maybe I have a tendency to get too attached. Either way, I am trying to let go.