So is it me or is it me as the audience?

"...'Cause I'm sitting here with your picture and smiling to myself. I'm kinda lost in my own thoughts of you. My heart speaks before my mind thinks through and I blush as I say, 'yes.'"

Before I get into my meaty issue of the day, I will go into a non-meaty issue. A funny but touching and flattering issue. *Deep sigh of contentment* If you read this blog with any frequency, you know that I am a letter writer/autograph haver of the people I like. I'm not exactly like my NYC friend, Hal, because he likes autograph-hounding as a hobby and he doesn't care so much about the person, he's just having fun and getting out of the house for a while. I don't write letters to any old celebrity and then post the shit on Ebay. No, no, no. I am totally opposed to that business. For me, if I write you a letter to say I am a fan, it is personal and sincere. Not just anyone gets a letter-- if I am going to take the time to sit down and write you, it's because I really, truly like you and want you to know it. As a Sagittarian, honesty-- sometimes too much and too blunt-- is what I put out there. When I give you a compliment, know that it's an accurate verbalization of what's going on in my mind. And if I really, really like you and you don't exactly have a fan mail address, I will Sherlock Holmes my ass off and find one, LOL. (Insert Margaret's quotation here of: "There's no telling what that letter had to go through before it reached him.") Anyway, I was goofing around online in the wee small hours last night when I should have been in the bed and I was doing some bargain hunting on Ebay. And I was looking at some merchandise pertaining to one of the members of my Cool Wall. One of the books supposedly signed by this guy had what I would call a very obviously fake signature on it. I can imagine that the seller is relying on most people not knowing what this person's handwriting actually looks like and someone will buy it unknowingly. Tsk, tsk. The only way I would believe it is not a forgery is if the seller pissed this celeb off and he scrawled out a half-assed, crappy signature as a punishment. Another seller was listing a reproduction signature that I think was taken from a magazine article this person had written and then signed at the bottom. And it looked like the authentic one (thank you very much) that I have hanging on the Cool Wall and it made me smile. It's super cool when you encounter someone who is great to his/her fans and rewards fanitude quite often. But it's also super cool and flattering when you encounter someone who has a reputation for being not-so-great but your sincerity and genuine affection reaches through and hits the mark. It's like how I was having the debate about what to wear when meeting your idol and I said that I would like to think I could go dressed in a burlap sack and bad rubber sandals and it wouldn't matter because the love from my heartlight would come pouring out and RGM would know that I am a true fan and not some autograph hunter. Although I did not go dressed in homeless gear, I got my point across and it made him smile. So in thinking about this other person on the Cool Wall, I was like, "Wow. I like him, he knows it and he approved enough to send some swag my way. Cool." I usually (in point of fact now that I think of it: "never write something so openly flirtatious" is more accurate) don't write anything so openly flirtatious when I send off a fan letter but I kinda couldn't help myself. And didn't want to help myself either! I remember back in Austin when I met David Cross and he was perfectly nice to me even though I was all fired up about "where the fuck is Bob." One of my friends goes, "An entire documentary was made about how this guy snubs his fans and acts like an ass and you walk up and he's great. What the hell?" I may not be lucky in other areas-- can't win a fortune at the casino, I have a bizarre freak magnet, I have a weird Frasier Crane party curse, I have to deal with a steady stream of oddballs in the house next door-- but I am very incredibly lucky in life with the people I have been able to meet, talk to and correspond with. It just made me feel good. It's nice to think of someone you like and whose approval you want and to get it.

For the meatier issue of the day, is it me or is it just me as the audience? This is the query going on in the back of my mind because I met someone recently and I just have the feeling that he doesn't really like me for me (one reason for using the Christina quote up top there), he just likes me being there as his captive audience. That's no good. If you are liked simply for being a court jester to give occasional amusement and laugh at the king's jokes and listen to his stories, you are pretty damn interchangeable with anyone else. And that I do not like. I started thinking that this guy hasn't asked much about me-- who I am, what I like, what my interests are, what my full NAME is. He seems to just like having me around to be his entertainment and to laugh at his witticisms. Who wants to do that all day? Not me. He also tends to make these statements that are like, "Ha ha ha, I'm only joking" but you can tell that he isn't. One thing I hate-- as a joke or as a serious statement-- is for someone to say he is giving me permission. It's like, wow, did you really just go there?? Because I am a grown-ass woman, an independent woman no less, and I do not need anyone's permission to live my life the way I choose to. Joke or otherwise. The lyric that popped into my mind when I heard that, appropriately enough, was from Beyonce: "I need no permission, did I mention, don't pay him any attention." I've had a great year. I know it's corny and I've said it a lot, but it's been one of the best years of my life. And 2009 is shaping up to be excellent, too. The last thing I want is to bring someone in the mix who will try to control me and tell me what I can and cannot do. That's a condition most intolerable. Like I told Ron: "Even (person's name here who shall remain nameless) is smart enough to know that you don't separate me from (same person's name here who shall remain nameless)." So why would I let a virtual stranger separate me from getting what I want? I wouldn't and that is that.