Sometimes it’s easy to forget what’s important. I know what’s important, and that should be obvious if you’ve read every single entry I’ve ever written here in the last five and a half years. In all those pages you’ll find that three or four times I’ve let it slip that I know what’s important.

It’s not reality television, although I was mighty upset by what happened on Big Brother 6 tonight. When you’ve been watching a program for almost three months, including the live Internet feeds, and your favorite houseguest gets evicted on the last show before the finale, you’re bound to be bummed. But that’s not what’s important. (Although I am, indeed, bummed. Totally.)

Baseball is important, of course, but it’s not what’s really important. So you can’t get too badly unstrung when the Giants blow a late lead against the Dodgers, and you can’t get too euphoric when they come back to win. You can be sad when the bullpen fails and happy when a slumping rookie gets a clutch hit, but it’s not what’s important. Or so I keep telling myself.

I’ll tell you what’s really not important, although it’s probably the one thing I write about most often. Work. My job. Not important. It keeps food on my TV tray and a roof over my head, but that’s all it’s good for. It doesn’t advance the cause of civilization or satisfy my soul. I like it, but I like a lot of other things more. Is it possible that something is necessary without being important? Obviously, I think it is.

You know what’s important to me. When I got a call from David tonight to come and visit with him and his family, I nearly jumped out of my chair and into the car. (And thank you, job, for putting gas in my car.) That’s what’s important. Kylie is ten days old and beautiful and perfect. Aiden is fifteen and a half months old and full of bubbling personality. That’s what’s important, and I’ve never lost sight of that fact.

Plus, it made the pain of what happened on Big Brother tonight a lot easier to take, watching it with Tammy and David. (Still bummed, though.)