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One of the most important rules in my life has always been this: never watch a "girl movie" alone. Up until two weeks ago, that was an easy rule to keep. Sure, I watch movies alone all the time. They're more along the lines of Mulan and Captain America and Megamind. Last week I had a sudden desire to watch Leap Year. I'm guessing that part of the reason was because it had been a bit of a revealing weekend (revealing as in I learned a lot about the way I feel about certain things) and I just wanted to watch someone's love story fall into place. Not to mention Leap Year makes me laugh. I wanted to laugh.

Pretty soon other movies crept their way off the library shelves and into my book bag. Juno, Sydney White, When in Rome, The Prince & Me -- those were last week's films that I watched during my evenings at home alone on the couch. I had only seen When in Rome, so the others were an adventure. Adventures that didn't go as I had planned.

I'll admit it. I teared up a little bit and felt alternately giddy and depressed. I decided that watching those movies had been a horrible idea and that it was back to the rules again: no chick flicks by myself.

Then...well. After a spontaneous girl date with Hannah to The Chocolate and indulging in decadent, delicious, delightful sweeties (hers a large slab [yes, slab, not piece] of dark chocolate cake with inch thick frosting and mine a luscious lemon bar with powdered sugar), I had a hankering for one of my favorite movies of all time: You've Got Mail. Kathleen Kelly is one of my favorite characters in film (not to mention I adore her wardrobe) and I love to hate and then fall in love with Joe Fox (every time).

Now, I often hear girls use the phrase, "Oh my goodness, I bawled during that movie!" I have never been able to apply that to me in regards to a chick flick. I've teared up (as I mentioned before), but the only times I've ever bawled during a movie were when I saw The Fellowship of the Ring for the first time and realized Boromir was going to die, and probably when Pinocchio got swallowed by the whale -- but that was out of fear, which is an entirely different emotion (I got very scared by many movies when I was younger). Tonight, though, I was crying throughout the ENTIRE. MOVIE.

I cried when Kathleen wrote about wanting her mom back. I cried about writing to the void and saying good-night to no one. I cried when Kathleen said, "There's no one else. There's only a dream of someone else." I cried when Joe apologized to Kathleen in the email as himself, and I cried even harder when he said, "Talk to me. I'm here." I cried when the store closed and when Joe visited Kathleen when she was sick. I cried when Joe confessed his wish to Kathleen and she left. And then I sobbed at the end -- and it's not even a sad ending! I literally took a pillow off of the couch and smacked myself in the face with it while screaming in frustration, and then sobbed during all of the credits.

Stupid. Right? So incredibly stupid. I don't cry during movies, especially not during chick flicks. Heck, I don't even cry very much during anything, not even when I really want to.

What is WRONG with me?! First, I confessed all of these dark worries and fears and issues to a friend yesterday. Then I poured my heart out to Hannah at the dessert cafe and told her things I've never told anyone but the air and my journal -- more things that I have wished that I could say to someone but have never dared to. Now I spent two hours bawling my eyes out during one of my favorite happy movies, curled up on the couch holding onto a pillow for dear life.

I'm thinking that a second feature of While You Were Sleeping is a very bad idea. Confessions of a Shopaholic can't be much better. Maybe I'll borrow dad's copy of Silverado or something -- guns, horses, fist fights, saloons, cowboys -- sounds like a better idea to me.