All that glitters...

So, how's that New Years' resolution to blog more going, Katie?

Um, as you can see, not so well. ;)

I woke up like super early this morning, hoping to hear either mine or my fiancée's name called (they were announcing the Oscar noms). Alas, it was not to be. Bummer! But I'm so happy for my old friend Michelle and her fiancée. They both got nominated! How awesome is that?

But don't worry. I'm totally not jealous. I mean, just the other day, Tom and I both got nominated for this other award. A Golden... Something. I wanna say it's some kinda fruit. I've never heard of it before, but hey, it's always an honor just to be nominated! It's especially meaningful to be nominated with Tom. 'Cause it'd be pretty awkward if one of us was nominated and the other one wasn't. Right? Anyways, Michelle and her man weren't nominated for that award, so you see, I've got no reason to be jealous.

Besides, it's not like she was jealous when I was nominated at the Teen Choice Awards five years in a row for D.C. (plus once for Killing Mrs. Tingle!) and she wasn't even nominated once. And, if you add up the lifetime total number of Oscar nods for me and Tom, it's still more than the total for Michelle and her fiancée combined. Also, awards aren't everything. I mean, we make movies for people, not for Academies. And to date, our two movies last year (War of the Worlds and Batman Begins - now on DVD!) have made almost ONE BILLION DOLLAR$ worldwide! Compare that to the $62.3 million their movie has made. Not even close.

But we did finally get around to seeing B.M. (Brokeback Mountain), and I have to say, it was sooo heartbreaking. I just thought it was so sad how Michelle was married to that guy and had his babies and she didn't even realize that he was gay for so long (which was a little unbelievable, but hey, it's a movie). She was really good in that part (of course, she learned from the best (hehe), watching me play out my ill-fated fauxmance with Jack during Season 2). And he was so believable as a gay and so realistic in his love scenes that if I were Michelle, I'd be worried that my fiancée is actually "on the DL"!

I also just wanna say, once again, how amazing and sensitive my own special man is. A lot of guys get uncomfortable watching two men show affection towards one another. My last bf, Chris, couldn't even sit through Master and Commander without cracking up and making insensitive, homophobic jokes. But not my Tom. During the love scenes between the two cowboys, Tom was so intent... so focused... leaning forward, hands in his lap, eyes glued to the screen the entire time. He didn't look away once, even when it got a little too intense for my taste. Now that's a real man, ladies!

So anyway, I'm so, so, so happy for Michelle. And for Ang, too (and I'm not just saying that because he gave me my first job, hehe). But still, I'm rooting for Crash to win. I just thought it was an amazing movie and made me totally rethink the idea of race in America. It's just so the way things really are. So profound. So enlightening. So... amazing! Plus, I met Paul (Haggis) at the Celebrity Centre and he is sooo smart. Go Paul!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Sooo sorry again for the long absence! I swear, one of my New Years' resolutions is going to be to blog more. It's just that I've been sooo busy, what with the baby (!!!) and turning 27 (!!!), not to mention all the usual holiday shopping (luckily I was able to squeeze some in at F.A.O.)! But enough with the excuses...

This is my first Christmas as a Scientologist and at first I wasn't sure if I'd get to do all the Christmas-y things I love to do. I was almost too embarrassed to ask my boyfriendfiancee, but as always, he read my mind and quickly put it at ease. The great thing about being a Scientologist is that you get to celebrate all the Christian holidays and you get all the amazing benefits of being a Scientologist to boot! It's like being a dual-citizen of two really awesome countries!

And I guess if you were Jewish and a Scientologist -- like our good friend Beck (Hansen) -- then you could celebrate Hanukkah and still get all the amazing benefits of being a Scientologist, too! And if you were... I'm not sure what religion it is that celebrates Kwanzaa... but if you were that religion and a Scientologist, then again, you'd get the best of all worlds... and there are a lot of worlds out there. ;)

So in that spirit, my best friend Jessica says that it's perfectly O.K. for me to wish you all a very merry Christmas, a happy Hanukkah and a... whatever greeting it is people use when they want someone to have a nice Kwanzaa!!!

Holiday Hearts,
Katie

P.S. I'm sooo excited, I finally figured out how to work the photo doohickey on my blog. Check it out!

Believe

Sometimes people don't believe that things that are really real are real, even when they really are. I don't know why these suppressive persons are so quick to hop on the doubt wagon. I mean, why can't they just accept that sometimes things are exactly as they appear instead of throwing out words like "fake" or "not real" or "pretend"?

There's an old R.E.M. song that was really popular when I was in the 8th Grade (it was later made into a movie starring Jim (Carrey)) and it was all about how if you don't believe in stuff, then nothing is cool. Or something like that. Or maybe I'm thinking of Peter Pan? Or Finding Neverland? Or Elf? Or The Polar Express? Or The Passion of The Christ? I sometimes get all those confused.

Belief is a good thing. Some things may not seem real and some things you can't even see. That's where faith comes in. I mean, for 26 years, I believed that there was some guy who could turn water into wine and come back from the dead and that his mom got pregnant without having sex (which always scared me - even though I was a virgin, I kept thinking I was pregnant)! Is that really any less preposterous than the idea that 75 million years ago a galactic tyrant attacked Earth's volcanoes sending out body thetans that attached themselves to human beings, contaminating them? Of course not. Beliefs are not meant to be scrutinized. They're meant to be believed, silly!

So next time that somebody tries to tell you that something is not real, take a moment to question whether or not that is real. Huh?

Because I know that I'm real (though there was a time, when I was a preclear, when I couldn't be so sure). My ARC Triangle is in total alignment and I am at one with my as-isness. Take a moment and ask yourself if you can say the same?

It's just more fun to believe in things, isn't it?

Except when it comes to this guy. He is definitely not my fiancée. He even admits it! And that's just sad.

My hero

Sorry it's been so long since my last posting. Tom and I have been trying to lay low now that we have no movies to promote. He's been busy shooting MI:3 and I've been busy... watching him shoot MI:3! And let me tell you, he it looks hott!!! (hehe) For serious, the action in this movie is gonna be so awesome. Watching him do his own stunts, it's hard to believe he's 43 now (ever since his b-day, I've been teasing him that he's 17 years older than me -- at least until December).

At first, I didn't even notice the age difference that much (I'm age blind), but I have to admit that what happened to Maddy (Ciccone) the other day really opened my eyes. Nobody's immortal, not even mega-celebrities (of course, it could just be a sign that her "religion" isn't the right one). Old people's bodies are fragile and their bones break more easily (it's called osteoporosis, I think). I worry about Tom doing his own stunts, but he's the only actor I know who'd rather have a stunt double for his love scenes than his action scenes. He's so macho!

Well, I've gotta cut this short. Keri (Russell) and I are braiding each other's hair and dishing about our WB days. But before I bid you a "toodles", just wanted to let you know that Tom's hard at work planning his next Cruise-sade (hehe) to make the world a better place. If that doesn't make him a hero, I don't know what would. You'll find out what it is soon, I pinkyswear!

Hearts,
Katie

Nodding my head

Ok I don’t know if any of your guys have ever expereinced this, but I’m having kind of a dilema. It reminds me of this one time when I was in sixth grade, I think. I sat next to this guy I totally had a crush on in History. He was this basketball player – really tall for our grade. I would never talk to him and would look away every time he looked at me. But one day our teacher paired everyone up to help each other with their History papers. Of course I was paired with Brad.

That night I had to go over to his house to work on our papers. I was so nervous. But he was really nice to me and his house smelled like cat food. Only problem was he didn’t want to do any work – all he wanted to do was watch Days of Thunder (hehe - I didn’t even realize till I wrote that – weird). Anyway, finally I got him to work – but the only problem was he showed me his paper and it was the worst thing I’d ever read. I didn’t know what to do. I mean the paper was supposed to be about Communist Rusia. And it started really good – like talking about the origins of Communism and talking about how it was set up initialy. But then it’s like he just kind of gave up half way through – it started to just sort of talk about how russians dress funny and it’s really cold over there. It’s like he thought that the teacher wasn’t going to read the whole paper – that she’d just judge it on the first part.

I tried to figure out what to say – I didn’t want to be too mean about it cause I really, really liked this guy. But on the other hand I felt like I had to be honest. I started by telling him that I thought he rushed into writing it – that he didn’t really have all the information or did all of his research. For example – he raised the question of why Communism doesn’t work in his thesis – but by the end he just says that Communism can’t survive in really cold environments – harldy an acceptable answer to the question and it would probably really tick off someone who was reading it.

He seemed to take that OK – but then he dropped the bomb. He told me he “based” this paper on one of his older brother’s assignments from a few years before. I asked what “based” meant... and he told me that his brother wrote this really great paper about the same subject when he was in a different hight school. It won a bunch of awards. And since his family moved towns – and the teachers weren’t the same – he figured he could borrow from it.

I was shocked. The cheating was bad enough – I mean the fact that he had to steal from someone else – but when I thought more about it and realized that the situation was even worse cause he took something that was really good and made it terrible – just because he didn’t want to try.

The whole thing made me so mad. But when he looked at me with those beautiful eyes and asked me if I liked it, I just had to swallow my pride and nod my head. I felt so dirty.

I don't know why I've been thinking about that night ever since I first saw Tom's new movie, but I can't get it out of my head. Funny, huh?

Anyways, uh, go see War of the Worlds! It's really... um, yeah.

Hearts,
Katie

Adulthood

In all the excitement that's been going on in my own personal life, I completely missed that Michelle (Williams) from DC (Dawson's Creek, not Destiny's Child) is having a baby! She must've tried to reach me in mid-April… I was kinda incommunicado for about 16 days then. Her boyfriend's sort of famous, too (though not Tom Cruise famous). I think he was in 10 Things I Hate About You. Congrats, Michelle!

Isn't it funny how we're both going through such big changes at the same time – both of us moving into adulthood? Me getting married and her having a baby (without getting married – not that there's anything wrong with it). Seems like just yesterday we were in fake high school together. But we're like real live grown-ups now. Weird, huh?

As much as I'm enjoying being a grown-up, and as much as I love how mature my fiancée is, sometimes it's nice to hang out with people closer to my own age for a change (well, technically, Connor and Isabella are closer to my own age, but you know what I mean). That's why it was so cool to be back at TRL today and chill with other hip, young people. I mean, Tom didn't even know who Fall Out Boy were (though to be fair, neither did I… they must've become popular during those 16 days in April)!

Anyways, I've gotta sign off. My assistant needs to figure out how to return a Cuisinart. War of the Worlds opens in less than 48 hours… are you as excited as I am?

Hearts,
Katie

Back in the U.S.A.

I love Europe, I do, but it's good to be back in America. It just feels like I've been on this whirlwind tour for the last ten weeks, traveling non-stop across this country and the world. I'm looking forward to when Tom and I can just have some time alone together and settle down for a bit.

So far it's been kinda like when you fall in love at summer camp, and it's wonderful and perfect, but there's a part of you that wonders if it can be the same once you escape that controlled vacuum. And more often than not, it's not the same when you go back to your homes and for a while send letters back and forth and then meet up somewhere in the middle a few months later and it's just awkward and uncomfortable.

It's the same way with relationships that start on TV or movie sets, especially when you're isolated in the middle of nowhere North Carolina. You think you're dating a Dr. Jekyll but then he turns out to really be a Mr. Hyde (or is it the other way around?). Come on girls, you know what I'm talking about.

As somebody once said, "Relationships that start under intense circumstances, they never last." On the other hand, I feel like if we can survive all of this craziness together, then we can make it through anything. Plus, when you spend like 16 days straight secluded with somebody, you really get to know them in a way you wouldn't if you were just casually going out to dinner every weekend for a year. So maybe it's better this way.

I saw War of the Worlds again last night, and it gets even more remarkable every time I see it. Make sure to check it out when it opens on Wednesday, and until then, have a tremendous weekend!

Hearts,
Katie

Meeting the ex

It's always weird when you meet your new fiancée's ex-girlfriend. It's especially weird when you've seen them kissing on the big screen! You just keep thinking about how everyone in the room has seen your fiancée naked… well, with his shirt off. It's like from the start, the two of you have so much in common just by virtue of having been in love with the same man.

You keep trying to pick up signs that she's still in love with him or he's still in love with her, but if there were any, I didn't notice. If I didn't know better, I'd say they were just acquaintances who'd never felt anything for one another before, like they'd just been actors playing lovers a long time ago.

Penelope is nice (though I had trouble understanding a lot of what she was saying). When Tom disappeared for a while with his personal assistant, Penelope and I played six degrees of separation to see what other men we had in common (onscreen anyway). The only ones we could come up with were Christian (Bale), Rob (Downey, Jr.), Bill (Macy), Sam (Elliott) and Giovanni (Ribisi). Can you think of any we missed?

A part of me was hoping she'd give me some inside tips on making things work with Tom, but the other part of me didn't want to think about her knowing him as intimately as me. Plus, what would she know about making things work with him? JK. I'm so bad! I love you, Penelope!

All in all, it wasn't nearly as awkward as I was dreading it to be. But this was just the warm-up. I'm so nervous about meeting his ex-wife. Well, I already met one of them when she did Dawson's Creek, but Nic is the big one… the adopted mother of his children. And she's just so beautiful and poised and talented and… an Oscar winner! I can only hope to be all those things when I'm as old as her.

Hearts,
Katie