Jess' Lack of Social Skills, Lesson #215: Luke Wilson Gets the Brush Off

My friends Dena and Sarah and I were browsing at Generation Records on Thompson Street last night, and we got onto the topic of 80s crying movies Ordinary People and Terms of Endearment. I've never seen Ordinary People, but in my opinion Terms of Endearment plays just about every sad violin in the world, and it's the first movie that ever made me cry openly. We were trying to think of the name of Debra Winger's cheatin' husband (Jeff Daniels, someone later remembered), when a stranger interjected, suggesting that maybe we were thinking about Jack Nicholson's character, Garrett Breedlove, the astronaut.

Well, actually, I think that's what he said because I was pretty distracted by the stranger being LUKE WILSON. Being that Luke Wilson is, as they used to say on SNL, a handsome man, and is in Wes Anderson movies, and he, well, he seemed to like Terms of Endearment... we were all so stunned and goopy that all we could think of to do was to briefly acknowledge his comment and go on chatting. We pretended, in short, that we didn't know who he was. Now Luke Wilson thinks we're too cool for him. But we're really just socially awkward.

The fact is, we never would have treated a normal stranger like that. It's just that, suddenly, you don't know what to say. Normally when famous people are just minding their own business it seems intrusive to talk to them. But when they talk to you first? It makes me depressed to have seemed like the typical aloof New Yorker, ah well. At least I didn't go straight to Gawker Stalker with this information. Anyway, if I had spoken I probably would have said something about O.R. scrubs, and it wouldn't have been funny (O R they?).

Well, anyway, if Luke Wilson ever googles himself and scrolls ten pages down to discover this post, he should know that we're sorry we were so rude but that it's really because we are kind of goofy and awkward. We're really nice people, and one of us lived in Texas, and we even like Bob Dylan, too. Next time, we'll turn on the charm - promise.