Five on Friday: Superstar

As a little child that loved performing and first starting doing so publicly at age four, "superstar" seemed like a perfectly logical career choice.  As a high school Drama Club kid, I still loved the spotlight but didn't know how that could fit in with the things I wanted in life. 

Growing up, I had no idea that traveling to tell a story on stage would even be a possibility.  I'm so grateful for these past few days of feeling pretty much like a superstar. What was it like? Let me tell you all about it:

1. Walking into my beautiful hotel room on Wednesday, I cried a little. Really. I might have twirled also but I can't really confirm nor deny that. And I stood on the balcony overlooking the city and turned back around to the gorgeous room and I thought, "Someone is paying for me to be here and to perform. Hollywood,  Shmollywood."

2. Meeting someone that I consider to be kind of famous (and could at least name drop with my NPR nerd friends!) and pretty much dorking out.

3. Making up for it later by sharing a great number of laughs together and even one semi-semi-serious conversation (I am going to name drop that story so hard one day!)

4. Being totally irritated and distracted by the sounds of phones of people in the audience who somehow, in spite of living in 2016 and have already been reminded to silence their phones,  failed to do so. I'd carry on about how rude this is but something funny happened to one of the storytellers: it was his first time and he started strong but suddenly just stopped. I could tell from the flicker of fear in his eyes that this was no dramatic pause. Silence. Then, from the audience, Siri saying, "I'm sorry, I didn't catch that." A moment of humor got our guy relaxed and back on track.

5. People approach me during intermissions, after shows, once in awhile on the streets (only right after a show though). That I am used to. But this morning at the train station, a woman approached me smiling and saying, "I just had to say hi! I saw you . . . " Ah yes,  yes, I must have a fan from last night! I'm ready to thank her for attending the show but before I can, she continues, "sitting earlier and I noticed we are totally rocking the same hairstyle. I love it, yours looks great!" I realized we actually were hair twins and I did really like hers, too. And then I laughed at myself the rest of the walk to the platform.

Okay maybe I'm not strangers-dorking-out to me level of celebrity but at least I have good hair and crack myself up.