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There's something very cool about watching an action movie like Tomb Raider. Movies with empowered-women roles always make me drive home feeling cool. I can't quite describe it, but it's like I expect to look in the mirror and see Angelina Jolie, or something. I pretend I can knock a person silly before they know I'm swinging, I pretend I can bring men to their knees with the purse of my lips.

Same goes for when I saw Erin Brockovich. I drove home feeling gorgeous and brilliant, holding my mouth like Julia and combing through witticisms in my head. Or The Fast and the Furious. I didn't drive like a maniac, but I did roll down the windows and just... barely... smile, like I knew the guy in the passing car would stare after me, instead of laugh.

I wish I had a videocamera, so I could play it back and figure exactly whether a change really comes over me, whether I don't just think the sway in my hips and the grace as I walk on the balls of my feet. Whether my shoulders are actually straighter, whether heads really turn when I'm finally not watching for reactions.

But at the same time I'm glad I have no camera, no mirror. Because it would be worse to see me foolish and swaggering, looking confused, not coy, and arrogant, not arch. It would be infinitely worse to look in the mirror and not see movie-hair and deadly perfection, but just silly old me with birdie branches of hair at my temples and the simple t-shirt with overgenerous curves every which way.

Disappearing into someone else is dangerously fun. I wonder if I did it more often, if I let myself play the part and be the actress, whether I could fool even myself into believing I'm one of Charlie's Angels, or the country's last hope, about to save the world in the next 6.35 seconds. Or whether people would look askance at the fa�ade the way they do Charlie Brown's after a time- at first he garners surprise and a whiff of respect, but then over the mellowing of acquaintance people tire of his posturing. Would they also tire of mine? Would playing the actress drive them away or draw them in?

It's enticing, being that person for a time. It's like the feeling when I finish a stomach-punch poem. The rejoicing in my fingers when I nail a furious chord on the piano. The power flowing through me when I've got a high note cresting on a wave of breath support. Only I can playact it for lengths of time, not just moments. I could get drunk on it.

It's rather dangerous. Maybe I should stick with movies like Welcome to the Dollhouse more often. (by the way, watch it: it's wonderful)

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