Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Brushes with Greatness

In honor of Molly's release of Crazy Thing Called Love, I'm going to blog about celebrities today. In particular, I'm going to blog about my own brushes with celebrities.

First of all, there's my cousin Justin Halpern. You know, the kid who started the Sh!t My Dad Says Twitter feed and went on to have more Twitter followers than Barack Obama and to have his book be on the New York Times Bestseller List for well over 16 weeks.

Now I've had plenty of brushes with Justin. He's my cousin, after all. I remember fondly when he was 3 and tried to pee down the handmade wooden flute my sister had given me as a birthday present. I also fondly remember playing a game of chase with him that ended with me putting my butt through a plate glass window. More recently, Justin and his wife stopped by and we all had dinner at my house. At the end of the evening, we were getting my mother back into her new minivan with the slick new wheelchair ramp. We didn't have much practice with it and damn near drove her off the side of the ramp. Have you seen the end of Waking Ned Devine? Seriously. It was nearly that bad. I turned, horrified, to Justin and whispered, "we're going to kill her." He put his arms around me, gave me a big hug and told me I was doing great and that my sisters and I were the best daughters he'd ever seen. It was just what I needed to hear at that moment.

My second favorite brush with greatness would be the time I accidentally hit Dave Eggers in the crotch. It was the first year I'd been invited to be part of Authors on the Move. Eggers was the Keynote speaker. Authors on the Move is truly Sacramento's premier literary event. It's a big fundraiser for the library and, to be honest, it is a crazy amount of fun. It was the end of the evening and I was walking to my car with another author and talking about what a great time I'd had and swung my arm back hard to illustrate some point and managed to basically punch Mr. Eggers right in the weiner. He was very gracious, but man, did he hightail it to his car after that!

I also nearly knocked Nora Roberts over in my haste to get to Eileen Dreyer and tell her how much I loved her books.

Okay. Those are my brushes with celebrities. What are yours?

5 comments:

Stephanie Doyle said...

I saw Seinfeld in a hotel in Detroit... he caught me staring (not because I knew who he was - but because I just thought he really looked familiar.)

Also as Molly likes to tell it I shook my tata's in Nora Roberts face at a conference once. Before people think I'm crazy... I was in fact dancing at that time.

So was she :)

Eileen said...

It would have been an honor whether you were dancing or not. Your tatas are totally bodacious.

Anonymous said...

I'm really terrible at this stuff... I don't think I have any brushes with greatness. I saw Cate blanchett on stage once. (She is really pale.) and Heath Ledger behind a rope at a festival after party, but I couldn't approach. It felt too much like a zoo animal situation to me.

Molly O'Keefe said...

Those are two incredible brushes. Your nephew sounds like a great guy. And David Eggers - I would swallow my tongue with excitement.

A totally heartbreaking work of staggering genius was one of my favorite books - I had huge thoughts during that book.

My Brother in law in law is Sean Hayes. I've met him a few times and he's really really sweet. So gracious in the face of his fame. The first time, though I was so star struck and tongue tied, all I could say was "you're really good at your job."

And once in an elevator at a state fair I asked Eddie Money if he was that guy from Foreigner.

And Stephanie shaking her tatas in Nora Roberts face was priceless. PRICELESS. Nora shook hers right back, it should be said. There's was a love connection that I cut short because I can't hold my booze.

Eileen said...

You're related to Jack from Will & Grace! Is he super fun at parties? He seems like a guy who could really make a family gathering into a great party.

Do tell what did Eddie Money say back to you?

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