"How will I know/if he really loves me?" sang Whitney Houston at the height of her pop-ularity in the 1980s. We remember her in just that moment: crimped hair, cute hip-hugging dress, pipes that resounded in pristine melodic waves.  Her anthem to that queasy feeling of mutual infatuation and fascination seemed to turn on itself in her first public concert appearance in seven years on ABC's Good Morning America.

A breathless Whitney mustered up her voice to trill along with her latest synth-pop recording, a tune hardly memorable or worthy of a truiumphant return after a near decade absence.  But she seemed more engrossed in exhorting the crowd to celebrate with her, to embrace her, to reflect back the love she seems to desparately reach out for in her drug and famee addiction.  Thanking the crowd profusely; "thank you for coming," she murmured almost shyly, like a little girl surprised to see her aunts and uncles in the first row of her piano recital, and then in a more pronounced voice "I love you New York; I love you Good Morning America."

The second coming of Whitney Houston was part revival and part group therapy session, which left me wondering if this singer has returned to the stage and studio or if she, like so many other celebrities crippled from neediness, simply found another public forum to affirm their own self-worth.  As if Twittering, Vlogging, Blogging, and YouTubing weren't enough for those in the public eye to stay in our public faces, now it seems as if these figures have found a way to drag us all along on their emotional spectacles, to bear witness to their rise and fall as if their success or failure fuels the spinning world .

Or is it that these days, we may all share in Whitney's uncertainty? In a culture that prides itself on full disclosure, the eradication of personal and social boundaries, and more extensive acts of exhibitionism, maybe these moments of unabashed display and public response are the only ways we'll "ever know."  For Whitney, I suppose only time and record sales will tell.