I Lurve John Michael Higgins Even More Now

... because we met him yesterday evening! WOWEEWOWEEWOW!!!

Weston and I went to Art Center to pick up Tim after his class, and on our way home, we stopped at Brookside Park (next to the Rose Bowl) to let Weston play on the playground for a little while. And John Michael Higgins was there with his kids!!! At first I didn't notice who it was; I just saw a dad running around the smaller playground with his children. Then I glimpsed his face, and realized it was him. By that time, Tim and I were pushing Weston on a baby swing, and I kept trying to silently mouth to Tim, "Do you know who that is???", with a muted smile on my face.

Eventually, John (aka Wayne Jarvis) came over and started swinging his little boy in the other baby swing right next to us, and I blurted out, "We're really big fans, by the way. We love Kath & Kim, and all your Christopher Guest movies." (Okay, that was actually a little white lie. While both Tim and I do in fact love all of Christopher Guest's mockumentaries, Tim's not such a big fan of Kath & Kim. But I think it's really funny.)

Anyway, he's like, "Oh, thank you, thank you very much." And then we ended up chatting with him for over a half an hour!! He's really, really friendly, and very talkative. We chatted about Kath & Kim, and his films (he referred to Christopher Guest as "Chris" one time), and film budgets, and CG in films, and Tim's major (entertainment design), and Tim's career interests, and John's love of the stage (during which he said that theater is like "having a conversation with the audience," while film is more editing than acting, like giving a handful of tiny mosaic tiles to the editor and letting him pick out the ones he wants and then throwing the rest away). He actually said he doesn't really like films, which is funny, but that the money in theater just isn't enough. He asked us where we were from, and we chatted about that for awhile. (Apparently he knows a lot of Mormons in La Crescenta, which is a neighboring town. We had mentioned BYU, and I guess he put 2 and 2 together.) We also chatted about Weston and about his kids for awhile too. It was so random!!

By the end, it had gotten totally dark, and our kids were all running around together in the big field next to the playground (Weston getting some help from Mommy and Daddy). John's daughter was obsessed with Weston, and she kept giggling and following him around and hugging him. (She's 4 1/2, I think.) It was adorable. We eventually bid him adieu:

"It was really nice meeting you and chatting with you!"
"Thanks, you too, we'll probably meet again here sometime!"
"Yeah... take care! Good luck with the show!" (It remains to be seen whether Kath & Kim is going to be picked up for another season.)
"Thanks! Keep watching!"

So, that was great. I love that guy -- he seriously cracks me up. I've noticed that as I've gotten bolder with chatting with celebrities, I don't usually skirt around the celebrity issue. While we were pushing our kids on the swings, I told Weston that "this is a famous person," and John laughed and said, "Yeah, you get to see me in my glamorous life!" One of my favorite things about living around here is seeing celebrities, and my favorite thing about THAT is that most of them are living relatively normal lives, at least most of the time, when they're not in front of the cameras.

So, now I can add John Michael Higgins to my celebrity sightings list. And Chris Parnell also needs to be added, because we happened to see at OfficeMax a few months ago, examining an office chair very thoroughly. I did not approach him, as it turns out, because there were other people in the store, and there wasn't any music playing, so it was quiet and would've been very obvious and I would've felt like a fan-dork. :-) However, chatting for so long with John leads me to think that I've found the answer to my age-old question: Do celebrities like being approached/acknowledged, or do they NOT like being approached or acknowledged? He really seemed to like that we recognized him and knew a little about his work. After all, he hung out with us at the park for over 30 minutes, and during about 10 minutes of that, his son was just dangling motionless in his swing because John was apparently so engaged in the conversation (haha). What do you all think about this issue? Acknowledge or don't acknowledge??