12:30 p.m. Thursday. Used to be: must-see TV. Must see NBC. Now, in these slow summer days at the end of the century, they've replaced Jerry with Jessi, and it's just not the same, you know? But still, old habits die hard, which is what the TV people count on for their very livelihood. It used to be so easy, they lament. In the old days, before remote control, the Today show in the morning grew bigger than its competitors simply because people were too lazy to change the channel. So, if you watched the Tonight show in the evening, before you toddled off, you'd be sure to stick with Barbara Walters while you shaved and showered. (Barbara was Katie before Katie was Jane -- a harsh economic equation for you very young, optimistic ones to ponder.)

Every day of the week there's something to look forward to, when all is going well. Monday is Ally, Tuesday is Will 'n Grace, Wednesday is the Sopranos, Thursday is Friends and Frazier, Friday is sort of a problem these days, Saturday, ditto. Sunday, no question about it: Mulder. Mmmm, mmmm Mulder. And that's just the bare bones. There are lots of extras and the occasional special. Sometimes a movie will command two pleasant hours of the evening, and then we toddle off.

Now, we know these people are not really our friends and neighbors, don't we?

We know all the shady stories behind the sunny smiles, don't we? Don't we?

Then why is it, when we meet up with some of these people, we expect them to act as if they were never really acting, back when we first met them? We expect embodiments when we run into them, not mere bodies. The Professor had better be wise, and Mary Ann pure, or we'll be sooo disappointed. And some of the less-hinged among us might even become angry if Gilligan is not, in real life, the innocent savant he pretended to be there on that far-fetched tropical island.

My own life is so intertwined with these characters that you wouldn't believe it. I have had so many close encounters with people from the other side of the screen, so many weird run-ins and coincidences, that sometimes I believe I'm a resident, rather than a mere visitor of The Twilight Zone. These shows have not only gotten between my ears -- it's worse than that. Much worse. They've laid eggs!!

Of course, you say, you'd expect to run into celebs if you live in Hollywood, right? But what if you live, as I once used to, on an island off an island off an island at the most far-eastern end of the coast of the United States? And who is my next-door neighbor, when there are only say, five doors to the entire sandy beach? Why, it's Conrad Bain, the father from Diff'rent Strokes, and guess what? We have the same birthday. And he's a lovely man, by the way. Do not believe what you read in the glossies.

Sure, a long time ago, I'd gone looking for celebrity, just like everybody else. I wanted to have my birthday dinner once, before I was old enough to know better, at the famous Elaine's on the upper West Side of Manhattan. And we did, in fact, do it. It was terribly exciting, mostly because I wanted so much for it to be wonderful. There was such a frission, you know, in the air. I barely remember much of the evening, because a little wine makes you very very drunk when there's so much fabulous, expensive frission in the air.

I remember Igor telling me that the actor sitting directly behind me (don't turn around) was Roy Scheider, newly come off a big success from playing Bob Fosse in a movie. Let's see. I had to go to the bathroom many times, of course, because that was the only way to discover if Woody and Mia were at their table. They were, I think, but it's been so long ago, the whole idea of it has faded a bit. I vaguely remember that Mia was wearing a white peasant blouse with red embroidery. But it's been so long. Now, looking back, I wish I'd wished for a better memory.

To try to capture the evening and to get something of value from it, I do remember I took a notepad into the bathroom on one of the trips and carefully wrote down this bit of graffiti someone had scrawled inside one of the stalls: "I'm having a fantasy I cannot afford." Well, that could have been written by anybody there, right? Even, and eventually, and especially, Mia.

The worse thing about celebrity, I think, is the way it intrudes into our dreams. There's just no reason on this earth for me to be dreaming about Niles, the forlorn Thursday-at-9:30, perpetually unrequited romantic, as if he were real. Or to have a nightmare that John Lithgow is actually a goo-blooded alien and that the only way to kill him is with an ice pick to the back of the neck. Or that Duchovny will love me. It's just a terrible blurring of the edges, a very uncomfortable mix-up of dream reality and real make-believe.

TV is no more than a two-dimensional representations of shadows on the wall of the cave. We know that in our deepest, darkest bone-rattling moments, don't we? Mere flickering images. Figments. So just try and remind yourself when you turn off the set and you hear that last bewitching crackle of electricity as you go toddling off to your familiar fragrant duvet -- this is only a dream.

Remote control is no control at all.