Clear eyes. Full hearts. Can't lose.

I have another confession: I am completely, utterly, embarrassingly addicted to the television show "Friday Night Lights" (FNL).

It all started with our friends Amy and James, who became parents/couch potatoes right as we did. We swap stories of what we are watching, and at our latest dinner playdate they told us that we HAD to start watching FNL. Let me tell you that Amy and James are super-intellectual. They're Ivy-leaguers. They read voraciously and have incredible vocabularies. Their other friends are so smart, they're intimidating.

Then we saw a commercial for FNL and we almost died laughing. THAT'S what they were into? Some dumb Southern high school football show? Sheesh. We figured it was because James grew up in Manhattan and that whole experience was foreign to him. We thoroughly enjoyed teasing them about it for a bit. Shame on us.

A few weeks later, our other friends Diane and Rio told us, "You guys have to start watching FNL." Adam and I were thrown. Them, too? We politely declined their suggestion. They challenged us: If we could watch the first few episodes and NOT fall in love, they'd buy us dinner. It was on. Adam and I were sure we wouldn't like it, rented a dvds, and a mutiny occurred in this apartment. We watched TEN episodes total this weekend alone. We had to institute a television rule that we could only watch FNL on Fridays and Saturdays because we couldn't control ourselves, but then we watch nine hours of it in one weekend. We have problems.

Our Russian guy at the video store understands our addiction. When Adam ran up to get a second dvd in one night, Adam said to him, "What is it about this show?!" and Dimitri replied, "It's good. It's so good, I watch FOOTBALL now. I follow the Giants..." (imagine this said with a thick Russian accent).

A powerful show, indeed. Maybe, as my friend Jason said, it can help unite the Blue and Red states...or a least of few of us in them.