Running with Scissors

I woke up really early this morning - like 4am - after falling asleep on the sofa last night. At first I tried to go upstairs and go to bed but it was useless. I could not sleep. So I came downstairs and decided to watch the movie Running with Scissors that I fell asleep on last night - actually, in the first 2 minutes discovered.

I stayed awake.

I thought the movie was interestingly strange and at times it started to make me and some of my deep thoughts seem very normal. I didn't feel as unique or different or unusual as the characters of the movie and in a way that was comforting.

I was getting deeper and deeper into the movie. I could tell.

I loved the part where "Blinded by the Light" played while Annette Henning (Deirdre) was dancing in the "snow" as it was failing from the ceiling.

The movie finally reached it's ultimate communication to me personally when Augusten asked Agnes to make him some Hamburger Helper. He's come full circle from the center of his biological mother's universe when the movie starts to needing another as she's removed herself from his life.

I wonder if that spoke to anyone else?
If you've seen it , did that speak to you at all?
I wonder if there were "profound" moments in the movie for you?

This is the scene. And the Mr. Blue song is great too!


I remember being 12 (or 13) and I was babysitting my cousin Alan. He was 10 years younger than me so that makes him 2 or 3. He was so little and such a sweet little kid. I would baby sit for my Aunt Peggy and Uncle Bruce when they would go out. It would just be Alan and I for a couple of hours and then he'd go to sleep. I don't remember if we watched tv. I think we did. I don't remember what we watched. What I do remember is more often than not Peggy would fix us Hamburger Helper before they left. We never had it at home so it was something different. It seemed so cheap and easy. And as I watched the movie this morning, that vivid memory of Hamburger Helper on a Saturday night when I was 12 came back in a flood letting me know that she loved us and was telling us that before she left. Or so it seems to mean to me.

She entrusted one of the joys of her life to me and I took the responsibility very seriously. I would often try to keep him awake because I was afraid he'd stop breathing if he went to sleep. I would often wake him just to see if he was still breathing. So crazy I know. I can't count the times I just lay beside him to know he was ok in those short few hours on a Saturday night when I was responsible for his life.

Today, I find that I'm struggling often with all the daily responsibilities of life and work and fatherhood. It's like a big huge ferris wheel that I can't get off of right now and one that I can't stop. And isn't it odd that I got folks to go out to dinner with like last night for great Mexican food and I could fix a t-bone steak on the grill tonight or go out to breakfast at Cracker Barrel or lunch at the Varisty for dogs, onion rings and the best diet coke on earth but what would be really good, what would really be just the best thing ever...
is for someone to fix me some Hamburger Helper!