Meeting my favorite celeb

So my friend tells me "you really have this unnatural love for Josh Groban.  He's doing this thing for the NY Philharmonic, why don't you come?  You can't like, touch him, but you can just come look at him from afar." (Side note: "unnatural" means I listen to him and am not over like, 50 years of age.  This is the rule per all my friends.  Not unnatural like I follow him around.  Just to clarify.)

So I take a short day from work, go down to view Josh. I was standing with the photographers waiting for the Philharmonic.  They were nice and we had chatted.  I had to explain to them who Josh Groban was, as mostly they were excited about Alec Baldwin and stuff.

Right before everything is about to start, my camera dies.  Like, dead and never to be revived. I am freaking out, and having my little fit about how I will get a picture of him.  My phone camera was OKAY, but this was my moment to shine! The moment when Josh Groban would look over and realize he loved me!  The group of professional photographers are all looking at my cheap ass camera trying to fix it. No luck.  We can't bring it back to life.

Suddenly my friend shouts "I got eyes on Groban!" or something equally creepy in the context.  She takes off across Lincoln Center towards where he is standing with a gorgeous blonde "friend."

He comes over for the pics and is so nice, my friend asks him if he would take a picture with me.  He was the nicest person ever (sigh) and he was very accommodating and I was finally getting the picture that would hang next to my bed for years to come.  (Yeah, that's not creepy...)
So as he puts his arm around me and we are posing, what slips forth from my mouth?  Nothing cool.  Nothing that I had prethought out.  Someone says you are going to meet your favorite celebrity and wouldn't you, like, I don't know, THINK about what to say?  Well, not this girl.

So as we are standing there and I am grinning so wide I feel like I'm going to hurt my mouth, I say in a fake and extremely exaggerated Southern accent (and yeah, I live in the Bronx): "Oh myyyy.  I shoulda brought my smellin' salts!"

But I think I took him off guard so much he looked down at me and did a half laugh.  Probably as in, "what the hell did I just get myself into?"

The professional photographer ends up snapping the picture, which then had to be purchased from his website (thanks Xander!)... but totally worth it.

Anyway, the moral is, if it is even remotely possible that you may speak with a celebrity you love, maybe think about what to say first.

Naughty Puppets

Lately I have been thinking a lot about people I have met up with, and dated, and past relationships.  I know people say that online dating opens you up to weirdos, but honestly, I meet weirdos constantly in person anyway.

There was one guy I met out, and he seemed like a cool guy.  I gave him my email because he claimed that he was too wordy for texts and his thoughts can't be constrained by a mere 160 characters.  Kind of a douche thing to say in an attempt to sound smart, but okay.  The exchanges were interesting.  He spelled well. Things seemed pretty good.

We decided to meet up one night and I dragged my friend along (I know, kind of not cool on my part, but he wanted to meet way downtown and I didn't want to take the subway home alone and frankly, maybe he was psycho).

We get there and he seems okay.  Clearly it won't go anywhere with us, but maybe he can be a friend.  I like friends. 

He did spit a little when he talked, and as the night went on he kept inching closer and I kept having to retreat away.  But still, it wasn't a heinous night.

He then starts talking about his ex.  I mean, enough with the exs, people.  I am so tired of constantly hearing about it, but whatever.  And he is saying how much they had in common, and how they still ran into each other because they hung out in the same crowds.  He proceeds to tell us then how they bonded over their passion for "adult puppetry."  

I smiled and said, "excuse me?"  

"Yes, it is REALLY a niche group of us who are into that kind of thing.  You'd be surprised.  But we were both pretty intensely into it."

Puppet erotica?  Really?  This is a thing?  And you think I'd be shocked to find that it a small group of you?  Not so much.

I think the shock and horror showed on my face, as the night pretty much ended there.  He walked us outside and said, "Well I'd offer to drive you guys home, but I don't really want to."  Such a gentleman!  I like the fact that he even brought it up... we weren't expecting or requesting a ride.  But hey, at least he pointed out he WOULD if he felt like it.

But I am pretty sure that experience and hearing about this underground group of puppet fanatics made this one of the best dates of my life.