There are moments in life when people across the planet come together to celebrate a triumph of the human spirit. To experience the feelings of selfless compassion and true oneness that is all too rare in contemporary society. 

And this week was one such occasion. Like so many American citizens, I sat in awe and gratitude, watching 33 Chilean miners being rescued from their unimaginable hell half a mile inside the earth.

It was enormously heartwarming to see wives and mistresses coming together as one, to celebrate the torture they planned to inflict upon these incredibly brave, slutty men.

It was gratifying beyond words to see jaded journalists tearing up without the aid of a bottle of glycerine and a $500 a day makeup artist, as they turned to their cameramen and marveled that they wouldn’t have to put on their “frowny-faces”.

And what could match the sheer unbridled emotion of a ring of Armani-suited agents, standing just out of camera range, Montblanc pens poised seductively over contracts for book and movie deals?

It’s the kind of thing that really makes me believe in the brotherhood of man.

I was rear-ended in Hollywood a few months back. I call it the Thousand Dollar Sext, because the driver who hit me was too busy sexting with his girlfriend to notice that my car had stopped. 

I thought better of inquiring as to why he was instant messaging naughty photos from a moving vehicle. Or why the photos were so urgent that they couldn’t wait until he hit a stoplight, or a brick wall. Or if they were taken while driving behind me.

I mean, TMI.

This in-car stenography has really gotten out of hand. I saw a documentary piece on texting wherein a fortysomething woman – who claimed that she always put her phone down when coming face to face with clerks in a store, because she felt it was rude to ignore them – stopped dead in the middle of making this statement, while being videotaped, to see who had just texted her.

This same documentary featured a dozen different smartphone owners claiming that they never texted while driving – intercut with harrowing moments of each of them LOL’ing at 70 mph while the cameraman composed a list of bequests.

I will personally admit to answering emails and texts at stoplights. But I draw the line at doing it while roaring down the freeway. I believe in the sanctity of human life.

I treat every person with the respect they…

I have complete and utter reverence for the…

I just got the funniest text. What was I saying?

I spent part of last week at a conference in Washington, D.C., one of those deals where industry executives and underlings come together to share exciting new ideas and make unfortunate personal choices after four free cocktails. 

Prior to 2009, this conference was held in the convention center of whatever the city du jour was – usually somewhere like Dallas or Austin or Philadelphia or Orlando – all perfectly attractive cities, but ones that would not be my first choice when someone else is footing the bill. Apparently, whoever plans these things does not own a map that extends beyond the continental U.S., and assumes that traveling to a treacherous locale like Paris or the Italian coast would risk tumbling over the edge of the world and falling into Hell.

I know, it’s all about travel costs and time, but I personally think that the dissemination of ideas would be greatly enhanced by disseminating them on the balcony of the Hotel Splendido in Portofino, Italy; but apparently I am alone in this notion, and in fact, convention exoticness has been headed in exactly the opposite direction. I expect next year’s to take place at the Comfort Inn in Keokuk, Iowa.

And I’ve already been there.

But I digress.

Starting last year, conferences as a rule were scaled down. To their credit, this year’s was held in a city to which I have not traveled for two decades, and one which, as our nation’s capitol, has a unique glamour and allure that I was able to enjoy for nearly 30 minutes each night. The only problem was that pesky scaling-down process. Instead of the convention center, the entire conference was held at a large convention hotel which was not, according to my math, nearly large enough.

I don’t know whether there were a slew of last minute attendees or the organizers were smoking a fat one with Nancy Pelosi, but it was as if we had been crammed into it like a train bound for Auschwitz.

Typically, meeting rooms for these conferences are plenty large enough, with tons of empty seats that help make the speakers at any given session feel really lousy about themselves; but not this year. Attendees were stacked like participants at a really uncomfortable orgy, and exiting any given session required lube, optimism and a diet plan. Fistfights broke out. Women fell off their heels. Grown men cried.

Every subsequent session became fraught with stress – if I’m late, I’ll have to take my notes standing outside the door. If I stop to make a phone call, I’ll be stuck praying that someone who made it inside is stricken with leprosy or a freakishly tiny bladder.

This is a period in American life where those of us who were not bailed out have to scale back, and I both respect and support that; but really, does it have to start with meeting rooms? I feel kinda bad for having to deck Dr. Laura Schlessinger over a seat.

Kinda.

I recently did a half-hour book-oriented TV show where the host interviews one author per episode, and it was a lovely, in-depth conversation with an interested and personable host who really did her homework. She got several character names wrong, and a number of rather important factual details, but hey, I’m a first time author and it was a half hour all about me, so I shut my fat trap.

Although I work in television, I am new to this kind of above-the-title, in front of the camera stuff.  So when she asked me, in closing, if I would read the last page of the book aloud, I replied with a line that is considered, in live television, to be unforgivable.

“Can we cut?”

The show wasn’t live, but unbeknownst to me, they shoot it as if it is – straight through, without edits. The host looked at me as if I had just asked her what flavor feminine hygiene spray she uses.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to read the last page aloud because it gives away a crucial moment that defines the relationship between my mother and I. It wasn’t even that, without context for what came before, this moment wouldn’t have the resonance I might want it to have.

It was that I didn’t have my glasses on. And I’ve recently hit that age where things close up are starting to blur.

“Can we cut?”

“No,” she said flatly. She handed me the open book.

I held it at arm’s length. I squinted. I crossed my eyes. The cameraman zoomed in for a hilarious close-up. I began to sweat, reading slowly, picking out words I could decipher. I stumbled through the final paragraphs, editing it down inadvertently, trying to give the few sentences I could make out the humor and heart they were meant to have.

Curiously, when I finished the interview, no one present said, “Hey, wow, you really f***ed that up. Why don’t we try a pickup?” No one said, “Oh, don’t worry, you didn’t read that badly.” No one said anything.

Until it began to air. And then my friends began to say a few things.

Things like, “That was priceless. Bet you didn’t see that coming!”

And “Wow, you looked like a moron. That cracked me up!”

And, “Oh, I’m sure that won’t be the only thing people remember. At least, not everybody.”

Maybe I should stick to radio.

On weekdays, I generally arrive at my gym by 6:30a.m. – bleary-eyed, cranky, and eerily resembling a troll doll. Recently, through the slits of my crusty eyelids, I noticed a new employee at the front desk. I noticed her mostly because of her penchant for shrieking “Good morning!” or “Happy Tuesday!” (above the din of my iPod) in an obscenely perky voice. When I turned to politely acknowledge her in hopes of shutting her piehole, I discovered that she’s a beautiful young Latina – who is, apparently, heading straight from Bally’s to the set of Cleopatra.

Every freaking day.

I know she’s like 22, but really, who starts work at 5:30 a.m. (the time the gym opens) in FULL MAKEUP AND HAIR? I consider myself a morning person, but at that hour, the fact that I’ve managed to insert a toothbrush into my mouth without taking out an eye is, for my money, worthy of commendation and a plaque.

The hosts of the Today Show – who get up at a similar hour – lie in a chair asleep while their makeup is troweled on, and they make ten million dollars a year. This girl gets up at the same time, applies just as much (okay, a lot more) makeup and makes ten dollars an hour.

What’s her damage?

Maybe she’s incredibly insecure and believes that her beauty is her only asset.

Maybe she’s convinced that Bally’s is Schwab’s Drugstore in 1952 and she’s gonna be discovered by Swifty Lazar.

Or maybe she’s just one of those annoying overachievers who sleeps four hours a night, collects recyclables for the homeless, and will eventually be running the world.

Just in case, I’d better start being nice to her. And maybe I should comb my hair.