The Bloggess Likes Me*

I’ll be honest, I was a quirky kid.

When I was growing up, at a time when “Charlie’s Angels” ruled, I brought a picture of First Lady Rosalyn Carter to show the hairdresser because I wanted her short, sassy** ‘do — not Farrah’s lush waves.

But, as was more apropos of someone my age, I did also love Donny and Marie and the Muppets and Wonder Woman and wasn’t afraid to show it — in letter form. Back before emails or restraining orders existed, I was big on sending fan mail to the people and puppets I loved. Never heard back from the Muppets (not that I’m still bitter or anything), but Donny and Marie let me join their fan club and graciously offered to let me spend my hard-earned allowance on their records and photos and a pillow case with Donny’s face on it and I got a fat envelope of random Lynda Carter stuff, including a Maybelline pamphlet, which wasn’t the autographed picture I’d asked for but I got a response, so that was amazing.

I was one happy kid. Like, this happy.

Well, I haven’t outgrown the letter writing, although these days it’s via email and I do it very, very rarely. The latest object of my obsession, er, admiration is Jenny Lawson, aka The Bloggess. She is amazing and I’m annoyed that autocorrect keeps trying to disrespect her by making her The Bloggers every time I type out her title. Stupid Autocorrect.

So anyway, she’s hilarious and all her books have been bestsellers and they made me not just laugh but snort-laugh (that is high praise) and I really truly think we’d be besties if we met IRL. Since she did the column/blog/book trifecta and is successful, I figured I’d send a fawning email about how she did that thing that I want to do and that perhaps she would find me funny and charming enough to write back or maybe even think, “Awww, I once needed a break and this chick is talented. I’m going to send her my agent’s info.”

I did this about a week or so ago and I swear I wasn’t drunk and that it wasn’t 2 a.m. although it was late in the afternoon that I sent the missive and that tends to be when my judgment is the most impaired because I’ve been up for so freaking long. Is fatigue-impairment a thing? Anyway, I sent the email and forgot all about it until this name showed up in my inbox: Jennifer Lawson. AND I FREAKED OUT because I was all, “JENNIFER LAWRENCE SENT ME AN EMAIL!! WHAT?! SHE TOTALLY WANTS TO START HANGING OUT WITH ME! TAKE THAT, AMY SCHUMER!”

Yup, I reacted exactly like this. Again.

But…..

Then I realized my mistake because I’m not used to seeing Jenny Lawson as full-on Jennifer Lawson. Also, I have not written any fan emails to Jennifer Lawrence although she looked so amazing at the Oscars. And her hair! And the way she walked across those seats in her high heels while holding a wine glass! She might be more of my idol.

I put on my reading glasses, which I should have had on anyway and realized, it was The Bloggess who responded to my afternoon book-y call. She was sweet and kind and generous — but not smitten enough to offer up her agent to me. That’s OK. I’ll take the words of encouragement. Do you want to know what she said? She said, essentially, that I got this and not to give up and that my audience is out there.

I sure hope so — and it would really help if there’s a publisher for me out there, too.

*OK, that’s overstating. She did write me, though….

**Rosalyn Carter’s hair was not the least bit sassy. I am just trying to make myself sound not quite so weird because I did end up with her exact haircut — the one and only time a stylist actually made my hair look like what was in the picture — and yes, I did look every bit like like a 7 year old wearing her grandma’s wig.