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2010-03-04 - 4:22 p.m.

All day today, I've been thinking of a fictitious character. About a year ago, I read The Last Picture Show, and the character of Ruth Popper just about knocked me out. She's middle-aged, very sad, very lonely, shy, forgettable. She's described as pretty, in a way. She sort of clumsily seduces the main character, a high school boy. She falls for him, of course, and he grows fond of her. Mainly, though, he likes the sex and eventually a prettier, younger girl lures him away and plays with him for a while until she, too, grows bored and leaves him. Ruth and the boy wind up together and it's very sad and small-town and West-Texas dusty and West-Texas windy. I saw the movie version a week ago, and the image of Cloris Leachman playing Ruth Popper has stuck with me. I'm tired just now and so I can't exactly articulate why, exactly, but I have a hunch that particular character is one of the most realistic and compelling and sad and sympathetic characters I've ever come across in my days of taking in stories. I mean, really, I'm sitting here, thinking of Ruth Popper. Cloris Leachman's face circa 1971, in black and white, who of course is pretty, in a way.

It always comes back to people, doesn't it? Life, the act of breathing, of smiling, all of it screaming at you, punching the air, winking when it can't get at you any other way.

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