A Child Of Atom

Walking down the street today I caught myself crying. I'm not sure why, I wasn't particularly depressed, or sad. I wasn't particularly in any mood that I could pin down. It didn't last long, basically once I realized that it was happening it stopped, and afterwards I felt at once relieved and slightly ridiculous for walking down the streets of Manhattan with tears on my face. It's one of the vagaries of human emotion that we often don't know what causes certain reactions. This was certainly one of those times. It's not difficult to make me cry really. I routinely cry at movies, and have been known to catch a lump in my throat from the odd commercial, or even a game show if the winner seems endearing enough. I decided to see if a bit of catharsis was in order, so I went to see "Shopgirl." The book had been one of my favorite reads of that year, and had made me cry quite a bit as I recalled. The movie, while good, and featuring some stunning performances, didn't carry the same emotional impact for me. I left the theater dry eyed. Maybe I had just cried it all out earlier.