Dear Stewart (or "I am Not Marcia Brady"),

Hey, man, not sure if you'll get the Brady Bunch reference above, as you lead a cool, exciting, and purposeful life, and probably weren't sitting around watching crappy sitcom television shows in the 70s and 80s, so I'll give you a quick rundown on what I'm talking about here:

The Brady Bunch was a TV show about a man and a woman, both with three kids (three girls for the lady, three boys for the man) who married (after their previous spouses expired, I guess). Combined, they became a family of 8 (six kids plus two parents; wow, I am good at math), a huge (for the time) number of people to be living in one house (well, there were 9, if you count the housekeeper, as I suspect you are supposed to). Anyway, basically these were some amazingly square people who got into typical 70s TV show scrapes while wearing horrific 70s TV show costumes (lots of brown bell bottoms) and they called themselves a "Bunch." Hence the name of the show. The eldest daughter, Marcia, played by Maureen McCormick, had a crush on Desi Arnaz, Jr. (side note: I was going to avoid consulting Wikipedia for this, but boy am I glad I did. Apparently Desi turned down some crazy movie roles - he could've been Travis Bickle in "Taxi Driver," and he could've been "Clark Kent/Superman"! What a dummy! And, the "Clark Kent" reference is pretty cool, too!), and went through some complex machinations in order to convince him to come to her school or some other ridiculous business. I don't really remember. Or care.

Anyway, she thinks Desi's not going to come, right? And then (and then!), for some reason, after various hilarious mishaps and whatever, the guy shows up at her house (I think she might've been the president of his fan club) and plants a big goofy kiss on her big goofy cheek. (So Desi gave up "Taxi Driver" and "Superman" to kiss Maureen McCormick. That's kind of awesome, if you're Maureen McCormick.)

Dude. I am not 15 years old. A kiss from you would be (wait. What am I saying here?) - let's start over, shall we?

I am not fantasizing about our life together (well, alright, fine, maybe I am having some fantasies about you, but they're totally harmless, I swear. And I am aware of the difference between reality and fantasy. I am). I'm not insane or dangerous or stalking you. I don't know where you live. I'm not ever going to get angry or confrontational or scary. I might blush if we ever see each other again. Chances are I would smile more than someone with the level of not-quite-white teeth that I possess should smile. I might play with my hair and duck my head and say "wow." I might ask somebody to take a photo of me with you in a socially awkward way.

I would love to see you at the theater, but I'm not gonna keep bugging you about it. This blog has turned into something different than I originally planned, and that's okay. I like it. Do you?

Love you,
Irene

P.S. "The Trojan Women" closes Sunday, February 21, 2010.