"I wanna, wanna be where you are/ I gotta be where you are"

Since it was a small brush with fame and I got excited, here is a little story:

I already mentioned Jackson Pearce in a previous post. Refresher: She is a UGA alum and had a book come out last year, another is coming out this summer and she is in various stages with other projects. Basically her life is what I want. So I love/ admire/ hate/ want/ am jealous of her and her life. I still check my UGA mail and a few months ago the English Major director (or something, I don't know her title, I think she made it up) e-mailed the listserv telling us about Jackson and her accomplishments and gave us the address to her blog. Oh my gosh. I became obsessed with that thing. I spent all day reading it. She is so funny and she has already navigated a very scary and confusing path and she really explains what she did and puts it out there as a roadmap for others. So I, you know, became a little obsessed and friended her on Facebook and started following her on Twitter. She has done what I want to do, why wouldn't I hang on her every word?

So somehow, don't ask me how, I got invited through a Facebook event to hear her speak at UGA last month. I e-mailed her and asked if there would be room since it said current english majors got priority. She was super sweet and wrote back saying she was excited I wanted to come and that a lot of kids had signed up for the event in a room that only seated fifty (yeah, way to spring and go all out for a published author UGA English department. You couldn't at least go for the small auditoriums in Park Hall? Methinks some professor was jealous of a 25 year old accomplishing a major feat at a young age). But she said if there was any problem to email her and she would help get me into the room so I could hear her speak. She even signed the email "Jack"! I had a quasi-friendship/ alliance (sure through the internet, but who cares!) with her! I was so so so excited.

And then there was this dreadful post.... where I made it to the event (without an overcrowding problem natch). I even saw her out in the hallway when there was confusion about what room the event was taking place. I almost started to say something to her, something along the lines of "Oh hi I'm Annie. I emailed you about coming from Atlanta and if there'd be room for me? Will you be my friend?" but there was a guy with her and one of the professors whisked her away before I could say anything. Rats. It's okay, I can try to say something to her afterwards. Oh but that didn't happen. Considering the minute she pulled out her second novel to read a selection to the group, I had to bolt out of the room and barf in the bathroom thanks to a 12 hour stomach bug. I felt terrible, stomach bug aside. I got up and rushed out when she was about to start reading from her book. She probably thought I just wanted to hear about how to get published and I didn't care about her book. But I did! I really wanted to hear it! But alas, my stomach had other ideas so I didn't get to. Bummer.

And I felt so terrible that I emailed her and apologized a few days after (when I was no longer on the couch, begging God to take my soul because even the slightest movement made me feel like I was going to upchuck the small volume of Gatorade I was sipping on). Well this was over a month ago and... no response. My internal thoughts: Oh my gosh, she hates me! She thinks I'm lying. She thought I was only hungover or something and not actually sick sick. She is going to curse my name if I ever actually make it into the super secret world of publishing! She cried afterwards thinking about that girl who left before she started reading her book, her words, all of her hard work! Or she just thought I was a rude girl who didn't care about what she had written.

A few times I saw her say on Twitter that she was answering emails. So I would get excited and check my gMail if nothing else to see she doesn't absolutely despise me. But to no avail the first several times this happened. And then today, glorious today, I saw her tweet again. But I've fallen for this before. So I thought huh, she probably forgot about me, whatev. About an hour later, I saw I had an email on my iPhone. Was it an iTunes receipt, an amazon deal of the day, another comment on UGAnnie's blog? NOPE! An email from Jackson! Hooray! * does happy dance * She said she was sorry that I got sick and hoped I was feeling better and to let her know if I had any questions that I didn't get to ask since I had to leave early.

Sigh. I'm a winner. Oh and seriously, check out Jackson's blog. I think she and I could be very good friends in real life so if you like what I say or think I'm a little bit funny, she is a million times better. Seriously, GO!

P.S. This post's lyrics are by Michael Jackson. Get it? You got it!