Be Careful What You Wish For.

Ah, that term can be applied to so very many areas of life. More than once I've regretted not following that advice -- but that is a story best saved for a late Saturday night and a good bottle of riesling.

Have you been following the Jon & Kate Plus 8 saga? Man, I have. Their "scandalous behavior" and sensationalism around it has kept me riveted to USWeekly magazine. I mean, the show, which I've been watching since the beginning, is so wholesome. It portrays the lives of Jon and Kate Gosselin and their brood as so happy, so harmonious. Happy and doting parents, normal kids growing up in front of the camera. I understand now that the show is carefully scripted and sculpted to project that image. Behind the scenes, they're all regular folks with all the same problems you and I have...the only difference is that they're in the spotlight.

This Associated Press article really sums it all up nicely.

Seriously -- if you offer yourself up to the public, you can't expect that you will be treated differently.

It's refreshing to see something like this, because I have a tendency to take everything I see at face value. If Jon and Kate say life is groovy, and it appears to me that life is groovy, I accept that they're somehow better at life than I am. But then something like their infidelity scandal hits the press, and I'm shocked to learn that life isn't all that groovy in the Gosselin household. Wait, what? But the show...

Yeah. That's exactly it. The show, although they call it reality TV, doesn't necessarily depict reality. I often forget this.

Celebrity is a risk taken when signing a showbiz contract. And celebrity means you are watched, and you are judged -- and in order to maintain a positive image, you must behave. And you can't take anything you say or do back...once your adoring public makes a judgment, the damage is done. I personally think that would be a sucky way to live. Jon and Kate were fools if they thought they were somehow different. Their marriage may be the casualty in a war within the press, and that would be the ultimate tragedy -- especially with eight children.