Shameful Confession

Shameful confession: I spent hours last night watching the live coverage of an ongoing police chase. It was kind of like OJ, but in this case some guy hijacked an 18-wheeler and forced the driver to drive all over the area on most of the major highways. It went on for hours, with the police having to try to block off roads ahead of the truck (since the guy didn't seem to have a problem with running into anything that got in his way, and he had an automatic weapon). At times it got to be an incredibly slow chase, and by the end the truck had no rubber left on its tires. The TV station helicopter followed it all the way, though they did back off with the helicopter and return to normal programming once the DPS shot through the engine block to force the truck to stop on an isolated stretch of road, and then it became a hostage stand-off. The hostage was later released safely and the guy was arrested. It turned out this had been his third hijacking of the day. He carjacked a guy, then wrecked that car, and when a doctor came upon the wreck and stopped to make sure he wasn't hurt, the guy carjacked the doctor (that has to be some seriously bad karma to carjack someone who stops to help you) and drove to a truck stop, where he hijacked the 18-wheeler.

Even more shameful confession: I wasn't watching all of this because of any kind of morbid fascination with the breaking news or the action or even to see how it turned out. I watched all of this because I have a serious crush (going back at least four years) on the weekend news anchor, and this was an unprecedented chance to spend hours with him instead of just little 30-minute newscasts. Plus, this guy has a tendency to come out with snarky remarks when he's on live and unscripted (one of the major reasons for the crush), and this was hours of him live and unscripted. He didn't get too snarky, but it was very cute how worked up he got about all the idiots who rushed to line the freeways and stand on the overpasses along the way to watch the chase. He kept saying that they were tracking this as a public safety issue to warn people away from these areas, so it was stupid to go there, and if you did, you were putting yourself in danger and possibly interfering with the police. I actually read while this was on in the background because I didn't much care to see the chase. I was just enjoying listening to him talk and admiring how well he managed to juggle all the input coming in from the various reporters in the field. It was the longest "date" we've had so far.

I'm so very sad and pathetic. I have e-mailed this guy -- to comment on something in the newscast, not to tell him I want to have his babies -- and he responded (yes, I saved the e-mail. See the part about being sad and pathetic), but when I responded to his response, he didn't write back. Alas. The even more sad and pathetic thing is that this crush has gone on longer than any real relationship I've ever had has lasted. It's also outlasted any celebrity crush or crush from afar I've ever had (I'm so terribly fickle in my celebrity crushes -- I may continue to like or admire someone, but usually my crush-like obsession is very short-lived).

I haven't yet decided if this counts as a celebrity crush or a crush from afar. He is on TV, and that's how I "know" him, but he's also local and we even got the same degree from the same program in the same journalism school, just a few years apart (I think he was a freshman when I was a senior), which brings it more to the realm of remote possibility than your typical celebrity crush. Hey, there's even the odd chance that I might one day be interviewed on that station when I become a bestselling famous author. And then our eyes will meet and all that stuff.

So, go out there and buy books and tell everyone you know about them so I can become famous enough to get to meet my anchorman crush. :-)

See, sad and pathetic. But the "get a life" project begins when I get this book totally finalized and turned in (and my editor's revisions on book 3). Then maybe I can meet real-life people who can distract me from my strange obsession with weekend newscasts.