LAST NIGHT, I WATCHED FRIENDS OF MINE AND PERFECT STRANGERS AROUND THE COUNTRY FALL APART - in their own individual ways - grieving, sobbing and emotionally distraught over the deaths of their formative icons Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett.

They blogged or tweeted messages of "RIP" and personal sadness in a collective coming-to-terms with the fact that Gen Xers are entering a new life phase - let's call it the Mortality Zone - that proves we're finally skirting the edges of the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

Why I should feel so strangely detached from all the melodrama is such a bafflement to me, I'm blogging right now to figure out WHAT on earth IS WRONG with me.

I was and am a huge fan of MJ, and though I think his personal life was a direct reflection of the irreparable damage celebrity can have on a young, sensitive and good soul, I never believed he was evil. He was not a bad man, and I'm confident he never saw himself that way - no matter how many bad things he was accused (and acquitted) of having done. A tour-de-force talent, the source of many happy memories in my youth, an indelible part of the soundtrack of my life. I will miss him (but as another blogger noted, and intelligently so, Michael has been "dead" to me since the 80s... I've hardly kept up with his actual career, noting only the punctuations of his sad, mysterious and troubling life).

I admired Farrah - whose acting talents and personal reserves of strength are documented in serious works and in her final months of life.

I can't cry about them. It's not that I don't care. I think I'm just burned out on icon grief.

I was a TV news producer for a CBS affiliate in the Northwest the night that Princess Di died.... It was being reported on the satellite feeds, notably through Sky News. I seem to recall it was a weekend, because the weekend anchor, Mike Vogel, was there... and he knew instinctively what a huge story it was going to be. But, whether you recall it or not, the momentum here in the U.S. to cover the story began very slowly... so slowly, in fact, that when it became obvious the public was clamoring for every bit of information on their international Queen of Hearts, mainstream media were literally RUNNING to catch up, RUNNING to cover every aspect. People were bawling in the streets. There wasn't a channel at week's end that didn't cover Princess Di all the time - that's how big the story became.

Back then, I cried. My boyfriend at the time scoffed at me, but I felt it was the end of an era, the end of an innocence (the whole princess thing, maybe - but more - it was GLOBAL grief of the loss of beauty, at least that's what I felt at the time).

To me, that marked the true beginning of the TMZ-soaked world we live in today. So many people are famous now. Celebrity is such a big deal that even little celebrities (small c) get coverage.

When everyone's so important, perhaps no one is.

Or maybe now I reserve my feelings for the people I love and live with in my life.

You know, friends. I think I've hit upon it.

There's nothing wrong with me at all. I'm sad they're gone. I'm a little sad I'm older, more vulnerable, less invincible.

But I'm not crying. And I think that's OK.