Watching Charlie Rose over lunch.

Just put my finger on what chafes me so badly about Thomas Friedman. (OK, one of many gross things he does, but a biggie.)

The metaphors. Tom, enough! One metaphor to explain another. Then hammers the same one over and over: "It's like pouring cement down your oil well." And always delivered with his patented smugness.

Particularly irksome from him, because they're such a manifestation of the characteristic I knew bugged the crap out of me, his incredibly pedantic condescension.

Putting everything in terms the little people can understand.

And completely missing the mark in the process. Concrete in my oil well? Lexus and an olive tree? These are touchstones in my daily life I can relate to?

Sure, I can run through the mental process of envisioning that concrete down the oil well, but I have to run through the mental process. And all I get is a mental response, the exact same effect he produced with the explanation pre-metaphor.

I got it Tom, when you explained how China attacking Taiwan could lead to companies like Dell pulling production out of The People's Republic. A good metaphor could have transformed that purely rational conclusion into an emotional response. It could have made it resonate by mapping it onto a profound experience I had already had, transferred the gravity and power of that experience onto the principle he was attempting to illustrate.

Instead, I was left cold with an oil/cement scenario further removed from my experience than the example he was trying to breath life into.

Huh. That's it. I am pretty familiar with wars already. Lived through several. Studied hundreds more. Felt the shudder when the bombing starts, vividly aware the world was about to change, mystified about how. Lived through the consequences.

The original scenario he assumed I couldn't quite comprehend was pretty real. It's the metaphor he picked to explain it that baffles me. (Carefully selected and repeated and repeated; you can bet it's in the book as many times as he repeated it on the show.) Is that something they actually do when it's time to close up a well forever, or was it supposed to serves as an example of a crazy thing one would never do?

The idea that this would resonate with my personal experience . . . Is ludicrous enough to convince me this poor sap has no idea that that's what metaphors are for.

Don't get me wrong. The guy seems to have a great mind for understanding how certain foreign entanglements work. (At least he has when I can bear to read or listen to him.) If only he could figure out how to communicate them.

Or quit trying so hard?

True, actually. Though not as long.

I hate to quit harping on the briefness and shallowness of my response to the popewatch, but it does seem rather insistent at jumping out at me as this preposterously low benchmark.

Truthfully, I can't remember my cheeks ever getting wet for John Paul this weekend, though I did feel kinda weepy half the morning Friday. (Before the anger set back in.)

I only wept for a minute for the surfer dudes, but they did provoke real tears this morning, as I watched them get bonked off The Amazing Race over breakfast.

And I don't find the disparity odd. In the short time I've "known" them, those boys taught me more about joy, kindness--particularly to each other--and zest for life than that sweet-yet-spiteful old man did in 20-plus years in Rome.

Seriously. I know people marveled at the old man's charisma with a crowd, but I never felt it. Nice warm smile, but I never felt his passion. The joi de vivre of these two--God, it was just palpable.

And the contentment. (What a rare combination. The giddiest people I know seem to marry it with bouts of rage and despair. Me, for instance.)

Contentment with each other, their competitors and they people and places they encountered along the way. But especially themselves--each of them with himself. They tried their little hearts out, and when it worked out, they were euphoric, when they failed they were OK with that, too. And we sure saw them bungle enough little tasks during their brief pass through our lives. They didn't blame each other, and they didn't blame themselves. Not for long. They were just happy to have enjoyed the ride.

Never was that more intense than their closing comments. And that's when I started losing it. I wasn't crying because they lost, I was crying at the beauty of the relationship they have with each other. And with themselves. The serenity they exude about their own lives. Did Siddhartha ever reach such tranquility so young? These boys just toss their bo trees onto their backs, carry them around with them everywhere.

And maybe I was crying a little out of envy. It wasn't until at least my mid thirties that I ever let myself get that close to another friend. My two brothers? Not in this lifetime. I can barely exist in the same room with the older one without an explosion. The younger one, infinitely better, but still highly combustible.

And sure, I was crying about losing Greg and Brian, too, not that I ever got their names straight or figured out which one was older. Not about them losing the race, me losing them. I'd love to see them win, it would be great to see such good guys up on the podium, but my mind jumps straight for the picture of their faces as they approach the steps. Could they possibly gush or weep harder than last week, gasping for air and flopping arms and torsos onto each others backs after they flipped the jeep and then beat the wife absuer in a mad dash to the mat? My imagination doesn't spread that wide. But I'd give their million dollars up to see it. (heeheehee.  Is that selfish?)

My own little religious experience each week. Just a brief visit with a pair of walking Buddhas. Without the fat!

Heeheehee.

I love reality TV. What a remarkable pair of souls to behold each week. Have they tried showing highlights in church? Those old chestnuts from the bible offer some great examples, but the immediacy of this footage--how do you match the example of that?

An hour a week with those two shot me up with more inspiration for living divinely than than I ever recall receiving from a pulpit. How many people do you know that gush that kind of exuberance?

I've got one friend that joyful out in Chicago. (Get to see him again this weekend. Yeaaaaa!!!) Lost another last November. (She was past retirement age, had to push an oxygen tank everywhere, but her eyes still sparkled and she never bothered to hold back a giggle.) That's about it.

Maybe I just need better friends. Heeheehee. I don't think so. I know some incredible people, amazing in all sorts of ways, but it's rare on this planet to encounter someone brimming with that kind of ebullience.

Cherish it when you can.