My friend Ben came back from where he was stationed in Iraq last week. Ben is 25, and already he has thick lines in his forehead and when you look into his eyes, he always seems like he’s looking at you and at something else that you’ll never be able to see.

I met Ben when his sister and my sister were roommates about 10 years ago, and he and I naturally became friends a few years later when we both went to the same college.

I was in the hospital with Ben a couple of years ago on the day before Thanksgiving. He and his sister had started their drive home to Florida, and gotten in a crash on the interstate. He had awakened in the ER with broken bones and cuts, and was screaming for the doctors to take care of his sister first. He fought them off of him, yelling at them that he was stronger than her and he could take it, to please help his sister first. They had to sedate him to set his bones and stitch him up. He didn’t know that it was too late for them to do anything for her.

Then he stopped talking to me. We stopped having lunch together or going to hear bands or have coffee. A couple of times I said something about never seeing him around, and finally, on the third or fourth time I said something, he looked at me and said by way of explanation, "You’re from before."

He turned away because he was choking up and couldn't say anymore.  But I understood. I was our only friend away at college who knew his sister, and she was the reason I knew him, and therefore, he couldn’t bear to talk to me.

So we spent the rest of college with perfunctory hellos in the hall, but not much more.

His mother, on the other hand, attached herself my sister Christina with a ferocity that is sometimes painful and sometimes beautiful. So Ben and I stay updated on each other through his mom, and see each other once in a while at family functions.

I was at his wedding, and heard about his divorce, and got an announcement when he got remarried.

And I heard him talk about coming home last week.

He stepped onto American soil in California. He’s very different than when he left, unnaturally tan for a redhead, although the sun has made his hair more blonde than red. He was tired and hungry and irritated that the plane had been delayed three times.

But he was back.

He and the other boys who had been stationed with him jumped off the plane quietly. They weren’t expecting a crowd, because most of their families live in Alabama.

But gathered on the tarmac, just inside the gate, was a small cluster of old men. Some were standing, a few in wheelchairs, some had walkers or canes. But every one of them was wearing an aged uniform, worn but freshly pressed, or a VFW cap, or something that identified them as a veteran. Every one of them had been waiting for three days, coming back every morning, when the plane was delayed. And every one of them was saluting.

As the boys walked through the gate, these old men surrounded them and started pushing cell phones on them. Cell phone after cell phone came out of every available pocket. And the old men got louder and louder and more insistent: "Call your mama, boy, let her know you’re back in America." "Call your wife and let her know you’re coming home."

So they stood there on the tarmac, these boys who are old before their time, and these old men who were suddenly young soldiers again, and they leaned against each other while holding their breath waiting to hear female voices.

Ben called his mama.  And then his mama called everyone she knows.

I was watching CNN last night and they did a whole story on Paris Hilton’s cell phone debacle. For those of you who (whom? Please don’t write and tell me which one goes here – people who (whom?) know the correct usage make me nervous) have been living under a rock lately, someone (who shall remain nameless – NATHAN) hacked into Paris’s T-Mobile and stole her phone number list. So all these famous people (most of whom would have to be boiled before you could touch them) are getting calls from Joe Blow. I love it.

But really, is it CNN-worthy? Come on. Then I realized that I spend a lot of time listening to trash about silly people. Do I really care that Paris and Britney are having an argument over whose dog is cuter? Do I really care that Jennifer Aniston is on the raw food diet again, thereby distancing herself from the Zone diet-loving Brad (in what other couple would one of them get the diet plan in the divorce?)? Do I really care that Ashlee Simpson’s father caught her in flagrante delicto (one of my favorite phrases from law school) with Ryan Cabrera? I think not. And yet a great portion of my day is taken up with hearing about the lives of these people.

So it occurred to me that there are lots of people I could live without knowing about. I’m NOT saying that I wish these people had never been born, or anything crass like that. I’m simply saying that I could live the rest of my life happily and never hear their names again. So here goes, in no particular order, of course: Maggie’s Top Ten List of PEOPLE I COULD LIVE WITHOUT.

1. Paris Hilton. What has she really done that is worthy of notice? Even her catch phrase ("that’s hot") is totally, well, not hot. I have no patience with useless people.
2. Michael Jackson. I’m not even going to mention the obvious problems that everyone has with him. Allegations of child abuse completely aside, he makes my life worse. I hear the bass line to Billie Jean every time someone mentions his name (which happens to be A LOT right now). I am consistently proclaiming that Billie Jean is not my lover to anyone who will listen. They seem relieved, until I also explain that the kid is not my son.
3. The lady who tells you the number you dialed is busy. When did we do away with the busy signal? When did we stop teaching our kids that sometimes people are already talking on the phone when we call them? When did it become necessary to have someone repeatedly explain that to us? And what the heck is up with this offer to redial the number FOR YOU? When did we as Americans become too lazy to push the redial button?
4. Lindsey Lohan’s trashy family. Seriously. Don’t you think there’s enough trashiness in Alabama without having to import some to report on? Come on, people.
5. My tenth grade math teacher. I still bear a grudge, and will continue to do so until I actually use the Trigonometry which she PROMISED me would be useful some day.
6. Britney Spears. Her pathetic desperation to stay in the spotlight despite a lack of talent depresses me. Let’s go ahead and cut the cord, people. Dragging out her eventual transition to "has-been" status is just cruel.
7. Amy Sherman-Palladino. She is NOT - I repeat, NOT - on this list because I dislike her. Rather, she is on this list because she is a complete freakin’ GENIUS – and because my life would be better if I had not recently acquired the Season 2 DVD of the Gilmore Girls series, of which she is the brilliant creator. Counting the 22 – count ‘em, folks…22 – episodes I will watch AGAIN now, plus the added footage and behind-the-scenes fluff, that’s at least 25 hours of my life which will be spent in the world of Stars Hollow. She has two last names because one would not do her justice.
8. The old boss. ‘Nuff said. By the way, I now have a new job and am back among the employed and solvent. I’m doing bankruptcies, which I hate. But I love my job because the people are actually (get this) PEOPLE. It really does make a difference who (whom? Dang it!) you work with. With whom you work. With you work whom. Whatever.
9. Ronald McDonald. I would be 50 pounds lighter if it were not for his evil Obesity Fries.
10. Soledad O’Brien. I know, she is an odd person to dislike. But she’s perfect and beautiful and a super-mom who is a CNN anchor, for God’s sake. And every morning, she gets to sit across a desk from my super-crush, Bill Hemmer. Okay, also an odd person to crush out on. But he totally has that nerd-chic thing going on. I love to hear him talk about terrorism alerts.

There you go, peeps. You’ll be glad to know that none of you are on this list. Not that it would matter much if you were. But now you can sleep tonight, safe in the knowledge that some chick in Alabama who doesn't know you wouldn't think her life is better if she never heard of you.  It's the small comforts that make life worthwhile, peeps.

So Friday night, the boyfriend and I went shopping for rings. We’ve been doing this for about a week now. Yes, we are that serious.

He went to meet the parents a couple of weeks ago (an event which was pulled off with much mutual admiration among the parties, thank you very much), and since then we’ve been talking about the Four C’s of diamond shopping and the difference between platinum and white gold.

Believe it or not, this is not freaking me out. And that’s how you know it’s love, peeps.

So we’re at the mall going through the jewelry stores so that he can get an idea what I like. We’re walking toward Barnies to get a cup of coffee when we run into Neal and his wife.

For those of you who have not been with this blog since the beginning, first of all, shame on you and secondly, Neal is an old flame. We went through a time in college when the Ross & Rachel similarities were staggering, and played the "will they/won’t they" game for a good two years or so.

Anyway, this was the first time I had seen him since he got married, and the first time he had seen Damian. We did the round of awkward introductions (made less awkward by the fact that Damian has no idea who Neal was).

So I start catching up with Neal and he’s telling me that he’s a math teacher now. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being a math teacher (although for a large part of my high school career my arch nemesis was a Trig teacher), but Neal is not supposed to be one. He’s a writer. He’s supposed to be teaching language arts and revealing to grammar school kids the great wonder that is Roald Dahl, while writing the great American novel at night. The fact that he’s teaching math stabbed an icicle into my heart.

But it’s not my problem. It’s Jana’s. The wife kept breaking in like a buzzing fly to add comments to what he was saying. But to us, for that moment, she was a non-entity. She didn’t matter because we were finishing up something in which she was never involved.

I was letting him know that I’m fine. More than fine. And he was letting me know that he’s happy being something he’s not supposed to be. And I was noticing that he’s shorter than I remembered, and that he’s not quite as cute, and that I never would have been happy with him. He was probably thinking very similar thoughts about me. And we were people who used to make each other’s pulse quicken, standing there in a mall food court with surprisingly calm hearts.

I was looking at him through the contact lens of a new committed relationship, and it made me see his faults and foibles as clearly as I once saw only his gifts.

I hugged him again and walked away with Damian. I looked up at him and suddenly realized that I haven’t realized how tall Damian is. And how handsome, and funny and smart. And how lucky I am to have him. I didn’t tell him that Neal and I had "a thing," or that there was a time when I rearranged my schedule to be with him or planned my whole college world around Neal, or thought that my heart beat sounded like his name. I just, to steal a phrase from the Bible, "pondered these things in my heart," and reached for Damian’s hand.