My Celebrity Life

With all of the shit going down lately, I am making an effort to remember all of the things I like about me. Because I think I seriously hurt myself (on purpose) the other day, and that's got to stop. Think of the children! Or, at least, my child. Anywho, somehow I started looking through all of the videos and pictures I've posted of me meeting famous people. This stemmed from a cute blog post I read about a girl (woman? I'm still confused where I stand in that arena) who loves Ghost Adventures, but would not have sex with Zak Bagans if she met him (the post isn't as lurid as I made it sound. Ha! I used the word lurid). Bagans, the actual man (dude? Why is being in our thirties so complicated?), retweeted the article, which means he read it, which also got me thinking about how I feel about him. Lord, this sounds stupid. But I've been thinking a lot lately about my obsessive fan past, mainly as a teenager, and revisiting the idea of how to insert that into a novel. I was VERY obsessed with many different people and bands in my teen life (hell, it started back in fourth grade with Noah Hathaway), so obsessed that I remember my freshman year of high school having a "peer counseling" group (TOTAL bullshit). I asked one of the "peer counselors" if it was healthy to be obsessed with people on TV (what kind of a dorky freshman would ask a senior that question? Yeah), and the guy shrugged and was all, "I don't know." Peer counselor my ass! What I know now, of course, is that it is fantastico to be obsessed with people you will never meet because then they can't disappoint you!

Wait, is that healthy?

So here I am as an adult, sort of still an obsessive fan-type person (we all know my feelings for Rupert Grint, right? Like, how many more books can he get mentioned in, Julie? Um, as many as it takes for him to acknowledge me, thank you very much), but what does it mean to be obsessive as a married mother of one? Does it mean I think Rupert Grint will fall in love with me when he meets me, and I will leave my family and start a new one with Rupe? That sounds so hilarious as I type it. What if I were famous, and this blog post was quoted somewhere out of context. Oy. The answer, obviously, is NO, I do not think or want that. So why be obsessive? It's almost as though I'm writing new books in my head when I'm obsessing, but instead of fictional characters, I am the main character, along with random famous people I pretend to actually know. It motivates me to do different things. For instance, I might buy a nice lipstick with the thought, "I wonder what ____ would think of this." Not in a serious way, but in a happy, silly way. Also, Zak Bagans and his in-shape-ness motivate me to exercise. I don't know why a big muscular dude motivates little me to exercise, but I like the idea of being in shape, so whatever it takes, right?

But what happens when obsession and reality collide? I have had numerous opportunities to meet members of the Buffy cast (at various Cons), but I have no interest. I only want them to be their characters. Maybe that is one thing I love about Rupert Grint so much: he essentially has proven and admitted that he is Ron Weasley. I think meeting an obsession works best when I am long over the obsessive period and can reflect on the happy memory. Shall we relive the Atreyu-meeting moment? Lord knows I have.



Perfection. That is how all obsessive fan-meetings should end. Or what about this meeting with Ian Ziering, where he asked me  to dance with him:

See? I am normally a star charmer! That's why it was so weird when I was at Scarefest and actually met Zak Bagans. I pretty much said nothing to him. Even though I watch his show(s) every time I run on the treadmill, every Friday night (and sometimes Saturday, too) and practically planned my trip to Scarefest for the sole purpose of meeting him, I didn't get anything out of meeting him. Perhaps it was nerves. Or maybe it was that I was reeling from the prospect of having a D&C two days later, and I was still dealing with evening sickness because pregnancy hormones hang around even when the baby doesn't. I wasn't charming, I wasn't energetic, and I had no game plan. This is pretty much all I got out of the meeting:

Not bad, but you can't really sense the Atreyu glow from either of us. So was it him, or was it me? Should I be disappointed or be grateful that I at least didn't make a fool out of myself and he seemed like a relatively nice guy (one who didn't look directly at me or remember that he just signed my book when I asked if I could take a picture, but nice enough)? I don't blame Zak. In his book (the one I'm holding) he wrote about his social phobias (which, I think, are maybe long gone), so I'm going to pretend that was it. Or maybe I repelled him with my creepy aura of dead baby. He does have those ghost senses. Whatever. I think I have learned a lesson to stick with celebrities who I liked back in the day, as well as those not in their fame prime. That way, they appreciate my enthusiasm. When I have it. I foresee a horror convention, twenty years from now, when I meet a still buff but wrinklier Bagans, and I charm the pants off of him. Or, at least the shirt. Because that would make a great picture.