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Life is funny

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A friend of mine is getting a PhD in astrophysics and she now plans to pursue a new career in film. She is currently dating a really cool guy who is also a fairly famous director (I really like his movies, no matter which of my friends he dates). We went over to their place for their joint birthday party last night, and we got to talk with a bunch of normal people who also happen to be famous Hollywood insiders. It was a very enjoyable experience, especially given how much time I've been spending around astronomers lately.

We had great food, conversations about casting in St. Louis vs casting in Omaha, talked about the differences between a white dwarf and a brown dwarf, all while the boys splashed in the hot tub.

After saying farewell to the hosts, one of my conversations on the way to the door may or may not have gone like this:

Lady: "Have we met before?"
Me: "Honestly, probably not. I've only hung out with [famous director] once, at an astronomy conference in Seattle of all places."
Lady: "Interesting. I take it you're an astronomer."
Me: "Yup. What do you do?"
Lady: "I'm an actor. My name is Laura."
Me, looking closer: "I'm John. Are you Laura Der..."
Lady: "Yes, I'm Laura Dern."
Me: (awkwardly attempting to come up with a movie of her's other than Jurassic Park.) "Oh, I enjoy your work..."
Lady: "I was in Citizen Ruth."
Me: (not having seen that movie) "Oh...so..."
Lady: ...
Me: "So, in Jurassic Park. They had a dinosaur trainer on set, of course. But did they have a separate trainer for the velociraptors?"
Lady: ...

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mama mia said…
I imagine this may happen to you more than once in your locale :)
did you do Brian's velociraptor impression for Laura?
February 17, 2011 at 7:37 AM
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