Toms and Cynthias

A few thoughts:

Mark Ruffalo's appearance on Inside the Actors Studio is one of my favorites ever. It's new, and you should try to catch it if you're interested. His appearance is now up there with Hugh Grant's and Kate Winslet's as the best hours of this show I've ever seen. Oh, and Juliette Binoche's. When she started crying when talking about The English Patient because she said she wished she could always be there, she was so beautiful and it was such a beautiful moment.

Also, I just want to say that the second Bridget Jones movie is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. It is so bad that it's almost shocking. I thought so when I saw it in the theater, and I thought so when I caught parts of it on cable yesterday. It made me embarrassed for everyone involved. I unabashedly loved the original book and hated the second, and I found the first movie very delightful so I guess it just follows that I would hate the second movie, too. It's mortifying. Poor Hugh, Colin, and Renee. Seriously. It's like a big black poop mark on their otherwise pretty decent careers, I think.

I guess that's it for now. I am still not adjusted to Daylight Savings Time. I just ate some whole wheat linguine with a slice of Kraft American "cheese" melted on top. My dogs are zonked out, one on the rug by my feet and one on a chair she is not allowed on. I am excited to see Kymm and Annegrrl soon. I am very sore from my demented exercise class.

Tomorrow is Shelley's birthday and we will be together to celebrate soon, so happy birthday a day early, Shelectra!

When leaving the gym I saw the strangely ageless and dashing father of the little baby boy I babysat for in college. He was a newborn back then who grew into a toddler when I babysat for him and I loved him, I adored him, he was the light that shined on my world. It was amazing to watch him grow from a little baby into a little boy and I have wonderful memories of playing silly games with him and sitting around watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. He hated wearing shirts with tags in them and would make me cut them out, and he loved playing the simplest, silliest games like having me pretend to be asleep so he could "wake me up" and have me pretend to wake up in a dramatic manner and he would guffaw like he was going to bust a gut and then we would switch parts. Soon his little sister was born and I moved away. Anyway, he remains frozen in time for me as a little boy but tonight I saw him as a fully grown I don't even know what. Pre-teen? Tween? I guess he's got to be 10 or 11 now. And then I saw his three siblings, two of whom I've never even laid eyes on, and it was all very weirdly emotional for me. They are the most exquisite and beautiful family -- like those rare people who are as gorgeous on the inside as they are on the outside. I would have given them all hugs, especially the little baby boy who is now fully probably in the double digits now, except that after this class I smell seriously worse than I have ever smelled and I did not want to frighten the children. I doubt that he remembers those days, but I remember them so well. I remember that I was more overweight than I had been in my life and feeling kind of lost and angsty in general, but I was always able to have so much fun babysitting for him and feel like I must be worth something to make a little kid laugh so much. I guess I thought I was kind of like Cynthia to his Tom Terrific. I guess I will always think of us that way. And I felt what Cynthia felt when she said after the first day she ever watched Tom Terrific, something along the lines of: "It sure doesn't take very long to start to love a kid." And I guess even once they grow up and you become strangers, that love never goes away.