Maybe Sally Field was having a bad night. Maybe, after forty-plus years of dumb questions from reporters, her tolerance for us press types is low. But for the entire five minutes that our lives intersected at Sunday's ABC all-star party, I felt like I wanted to jump off the terrace we were on and lie in a fetal position next to the koi pond in the adjacent Japanese garden.

It's not that Field (pictured at the party with ABC president Steve McPherson) didn't answer my questions. It's just that for every question I asked, the Brothers & Sisters star and two-time Oscar winner gave me this look that said, "Can't you think of anything better?" and initially gave me one-word responses (I'm usually good at asking open-ended questions, but after a Sierra Nevada or two those more disciplined journalistic thoughts go out the window). She finally elaborated on those responses, but in a way that made me feel like I was encroaching on her time. Considering she was at an event where the majority of the attendees were reporters, that notion seemed a little strange.