Confessions of a celebrity stalker

Or two. Last night at a dinner party I discovered that one of my friends is perhaps even more obsessed with Angelina Jolie than I am. Bart and I saw Mr. and Mrs. Smith last week, which just cemented my adoration of Ms. Pillow Lips. I had no expectations for the movie and so was pleasantly surprised when it turned out to have some original action sequences as part of a really great postfeminist, kick-ass, woman-takes-no-prisoners-AND-never-has-to-be-rescued (!) plot. It was funny, sexy, and exciting. I can take or leave Brad Pitt: I liked him in Thelma and Louise but aside from bright moments in Snatch and Fight Club I think he's just an adequate actor and generic pretty boy whose attempts to look intelligent and brooding consist of him sticking out his lower lip and looking mildly retarded instead.

My Jolie-jonesing friend Sean is a he (and straight), so his infatuation makes a bit more sense, but he's every bit as enamored with her do-gooding trips to Cambodian refugee camps and her speeches at Davos as I am. We kept gravitating to each other to discuss Brad Pitt ("can't believe she's having a baby with him: whatever happened to adopting 10 more orphans?" and "Brad Pitt is just such a safe choice -- I wasn't a fan of Billy Bob's but at least he could act and could probably not only spell Schopenhauer, but quote him"). Sean and I ascertained that Brad is the controllee in the relationship: she's the lion tamer and he's jumping through her hoops. ("Sure Angie, I'll start visiting refugee camps instead of high-end design showrooms! Sounds awesome!") We would stop talking about her and pretend like it was just a joke so as to placate our eye-rolling significant others, but as soon as they weren't paying attention it was back to: "so did you like Tomb Raider?" "Not really. Gia, though, wow." "See her on the Newshour with Jim Lehrer? She rocked the house!"

I confess I was able to feel a tiny bit superior to Sean because I had never visited any fan sites. Note past tense. This morning I procrastinated getting started on my freelance story by visiting the ones that he'd mentioned. I spent hours looking at pictures of Angelina Jolie from various photo shoots, from her awkward adolescences to her Goth Oscar night brother-loving act to her t-shirted refugee camp look. (Here's the mother lode of all such photos should my dear readers lean the same way.) I don't know what it is about her: she's too skinny and one of those beautiful women whose features by themselves can appear freakish. In interviews she comes across as alternatively brilliant, crazy, down to earth, shy, ballsy, hilarious, and confused -- in short, just like my favorite female friends. The photo-clicking spree began when I ran across this picture of her as a teenager and thought she'd since had a nose job. I have pored over many, many photos and can safely say now that I don't think she has...fortunately, since I would just be so disappointed in her. I think her face just got a lot skinnier and her nose slenderized with it.

So there you have it. An otherwise sane, intelligent woman in her 30s who does not subscribe to People is fascinated with a celebrity. It's because it's a common condition that really galls me. I don't want to be a celebrity stalker! I don't want to imagine bumping into Angelina in some dark corner of Africa and becoming friends, getting late-night phone calls from her about Brad ("He's really not very bright, but god he has a nice ass, and Maddox loves him"). I just realized I don't know the name of the daughter she adopted from Ethiopia. So maybe I'm not that obsessed.