December 14

I took Lauren to the studio tonight to visit Daddy at work. On the long drive home through peak hour traffic I pondered my strong negative emotional reaction to being around tv- and movie-making. I'm OK with visiting Josh's prop truck and exchanging banter with the crew, but once I set foot inside a stage I want to shrink into the shadows. I think it's all the "glamour" and "adulation" that accompanies actors and actresses. I am so NOT a groupie, and perhaps I fear that my very presence implies that I'm impressed by them. But it's more than indifference; I feel an actual aversion. Why is that?

Perhaps it's because I am not interested in the end product. Perhaps it's the fakery of the whole business. I see Lauren looking so star-struck and I know that I hurt Josh's feelings a little bit by having the opposite reaction. I try to hide it, but he knows I don't want to be there. Tonight he walked us around Sunset Gower Studios, which used to be Columbia back in the day when his dad was head writer there (late '30s, early '40s). I know it's really special to Josh to walk the same floors as his father, and to see the names of his dad's movies engraved on plaques at the stage doors. Yet I can't even enter into appreciation for the historicity. Why is that?

I know I would I feel differently if I was looking at the room and desk where CS Lewis wrote the Narnia books, for example. There'd be a little "wow" feeling. I know I lack appreciation for the craft of movie-making. Perhaps if I took more of an interest in that side of the business, my aversion would diminish. As it stands now, I'm the only girl Josh ever dated who was underwhelmed by a private tour of the sets and back lots of the various studios around town. At least he knows it's not his job that I love him for ;-)

All of this has nothing to do with the photo above, which is something I made today from finds in the $1 Stocking Stuffers bin at my local craft store. Fun.