Unintended Consequences of Writing # 1: Fangirl

 So, I'm a late bloomer. Or maybe, I like to take my time checking out social phenomena before I decide to risk embarrassment.

Barnabas Collins--I never quite got it.

My first love-Michael Cole

When I was a girl, back in the Dark Ages of the Dark Shadows TV series and the live-action Batman, my peers were gaga for Barnabas Collins (don't know the actor) and Adam West (Batman) and Burt Ward (Robin) and whoever else was the flavor of the month. They bought the teen magazines and tabloids and did the whole teeny-bopper squeal thing. Oh, and the Monkees and Davy Jones, holy cats! Me, not so much. It made me sick. I relented and maybe bought 1 magazine and pulled out a picture of Michael Cole who played Pete on The Mod Squad.

I've always tended to live in my head because I often found reality uninteresting. And the stories I made up usually involved some male TV heroes--Steve McGarrett and Dan-o (Hawaii 5-0), Sam Beckett (Quantum Leap) Mr. Spock (Original Star Trek), Jean Luc Picard (Star Trek TNG). Yes, this even continued into adulthood. I managed to be functional-mostly, maybe. My home was never condemned, my family was fed and I held down a job or two or three and went back to school, plus volunteer stuff.

In my last post, I shared that I had to research filmmaking because the movie director, Charlie, walked into my head to be the love interest of my MC, Lily. He's interesting, all right. But, I digress.

So besides reading books about filmmaking, I also started going to more movies at the theaters, something I never did much of before. I also began watching more movies at home more carefully. They became more than stories made with moving pictures and hopefully a theme.

James Franco

I noticed they had ACTORS. AKA, men. Please note, I was never boy crazy. I had 4 brothers-enough to make a girl not care so much about boys, knowing the true nature of the beasts. So, at my advanced age, noticing actors was like a mini-epiphany, or at least something new to look at and learn about. And I could call it "Research."

The first actor to catch my fancy was James Franco. I hadn't seen anything he was in at that point, but he showed up all the time In Entertainment Weekly. I liked the fact he was studying filmmaking at one school, design somewhere else and English or something somewhere else. Plus he was putting on a show of his artwork and publishing a book of short stories. A Renaissance Man after my own heart. I liked him a lot in 127 Hours. Not as impressed with The Planet of the Apes.

Here's a cutie. Aaron Eckhart

Next, there's Aaron Eckhart who has a large body of work for somebody who's not a household name. Cute, too. I think by now I've managed to see most of his movies and have found a few gems in there like Neverwas, Suspect Zero and Possession. I especially liked him in Rabbit Hole. In his mid-forties, he's the oldest of my "pretend boyfriends," as my sister-in-law calls her favorites.

Michael Fassbender

Finally, Michael Fassbender. He's been hot lately, but I haven't seen it all. I wrote a post about going to see Shame as research for sex addiction (thanks, Charlie). Then I watched him in Hunger, the story about Bobby Sands, who died from the hunger strike he was on to protest the treatment of members of the IRA in the British run prison. Lots of (gasp!) full frontal nudity in those two. Last week, I watched A Bear Named Winnie, a family flick about a Canadian WWI soldier who keep a bear cub that eventually inspired Winnie the Pooh. The way his character loved that bear...mm mm. Sweet!

And I swear I saw Ryan Reynolds at Yosemite last year. Twice. And he waved to me.

Yeah, so, this is all kind of embarrassing to admit, but given the fact nobody forced me, I guess I had to get it out of my system. And knowing there other fangirls of my general age makes it not so scary.

“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.”
― Philip K. Dick, I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon

Coming soon: Unintended Consequences of Writing #2: Baring of the Soul