I think I've figured out how to fix the sequence that was troubling me, so now I'm down to working on each scene as an individual unit.
Previously, on the soap opera that is my imaginary love live (since I totally lack a real one), I confessed to a serious crush on a local reporter/anchorman. This crush has lasted far longer than any real-life relationship I've ever had, and it's even outlasted most celebrity crushes. It exists somewhere in the limbo between a celebrity crush and a real-world crush from afar, as I know of him from seeing him on TV, but he is local, and we went to the same journalism school, just a few years apart. It all started in early 2003 during an ice storm when he'd been reporting from the airport for hours, was delightfully rumpled and five-o-clock shadowed, and he snarked hilariously back at the anchorwoman who asked a stupid question (she asked how the people who'd had to spend the night at the airport because of cancelled flights were feeling). I knew then that it was true love.
Then I discovered that in addition to reporting, he anchored the weekend news, where things seemed to be a bit looser, and he could really be snarky and funny. He picked on the weatherman and sports anchor, teased his co-anchor and made a few hilarious asides. Sometimes they got him to fill in as host of the morning news/talk show they used to have after Good Morning America, where I got to see him do such things as serve as the model for a demo on how to create Halloween costumes with duct tape or prove his nerves of steel by flirting with Chuck Norris's wife -- in front of Chuck Norris (not sleazy flirting, just that sort of courtly southern gentleman way of flattering a woman). On holidays, sometimes he even got the "leading man" 6 & 10 weeknight slot.
For years, I've had a steady Saturday-night date with the love of my life. But now the universe is trying to rip us apart, as he's been moved to co-anchor the "daybreak" news that runs from 5-7 a.m. Are they trying to kill me, or what? I don't even acknowledge that those hours exist. I'd been worried, since he hasn't been on weekends for more than a month, and I'd only caught glimpses of him reporting for the noon news. It wasn't until he anchored the extended morning hurricane coverage this week and he was included in a promo for the morning show that I realized he wasn't just reporting now, and he wasn't just filling in for someone on vacation. I checked the web site, and he's definitely listed as on the morning crew. I suppose it could mean that we'd spend more time together now, as with his new job, I could see him for ten hours a week instead of the two hours I got with him doing two newscasts each day on the weekend. But that's if I got up at 5 in the morning, and I'm not sure my love can survive that.
It's almost like in Ladyhawke, where she was a woman by night and a hawk by day, and he was a man by day and a wolf by night, so they could never be together. But instead, it's a night-owl writer who usually doesn't wake up until after 8 and an anchorman who's already off the air at 7. Our lives will never touch!
Okay, so it's not quite so poignant as the never being human at the same time thing, but still!
It does seem that he's also doing the morning shift as a reporter, so he gets the live shots on the noon news, which usually means he has the lead story from the morning. So I do get to see him some, but his stories are usually edited down to just an anchor reading over video for the evening news. That means I might get to see maybe a minute or two of him at midday.
And, yes, I did e-mail him once and got a nice reply, but he didn't reply to my reply, and he didn't fall madly in love with my photo and contact me when they did an article about me in the paper, so my plan of becoming at least locally famous and catching his eye didn't work. I've now lost my competitive advantage of a flexible schedule that meant I was free during the week while he was working weekends. You know, in case I ever met him. Now he gets weekends off like a normal person, which is nice for him, I guess, but I'm going to miss my Saturday-night dates.
Or maybe I could change for him. I seem to naturally end a sleep cycle and wake up briefly around 5 in the morning, so I could turn on the little TV in my bedroom and lie there watching him, then go back to sleep for an hour or so after his newscast goes off. I caught him shortly after 6 in the morning yesterday when I woke up and turned the TV on to watch until GMA came on, then I went back to sleep. This morning, though, I did wake up around 5 and thought about turning on the TV, but thought apparently didn't make it to action as I promptly fell back asleep and dreamed bizarroland versions of the morning news before waking again at almost 7:30, then falling asleep again and finally getting out of bed at almost 9 (I'd stayed up very late reading, but I can't put a book down with only two chapters to go, and they were very long chapters).
On second thought, it's bad to change for a man, isn't it? Maybe I should transfer my affections to the weekend weatherman. He's kind of cute, and very, very smart. Then again, he also thinks that chasing storms is fun.
Even if I do catch My Anchorman some mornings, it won't be the same. The morning show is a little more serious, so I doubt he's going to get away with picking on his co-anchor and the weatherman or making sarcastic asides, which was what I loved about him. He and the weekend weatherman had apparently worked together before at another station and had a really fun rapport that I enjoyed seeing. I'm not sure I'll get to see the side of him I love most with the new job. Can our imaginary one-sided relationship survive? Stay tuned.
Whatever will I do? (Dramatic hand to forehead pre-swooning gesture.)
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