fan fare

i recently went to book people to do a little research. i found out an author who i admire worked for GQ magazine and i thought i would see if i could find an address for her. this is not the first time i have wanted to write to someone. in fact, i have twice before. when i was eight i wrote a letter to annie lennox. this was 1983 and some might say telling of my future interests, if you will. several years ago, i wrote a letter to carole maso who wrote a book that i absolutely adored. naturally, i had to write to her to tell her what it meant to me. she never wrote me back. so there i am at the bookstore with my big fat GQ magazine and a cup of coffee. it has honestly been years since i have looked at a fashion magazine. this is probably not a big surprise to anyone who has seen my wardrobe as of late. my magazines of choice tend to either be totally house oriented or pure garbage - neither of which i ever actually indulge in buying (unless of course i'm flying somewhere at which point i proudly display the latest copy of US and people without shame.) sitting there with this magazine last sunday, i felt like i was embarking on uncharted territory. not just a fashion magazine, but a men's fashion magazine. of course, i was looking for some contact information for elizabeth gilbert and i had not lost sight of my mission. naturally, i was looking for the index page, which i thought was at the front. i mean, right? isn't it usually at the front? but i had to go back 4 times because i got so far in i thought FOR SURE i had missed it. page after intoxicating page, i got more and more interested in what was actually in this magazine. and i just couldn't wait to get to the part where they tell me! where could it be? ah ha! forty seven pages in and there it is, the table of contents. damn. no elizabeth gilbert. but what do we have here? zach braff sporting the newest tweeds for fall...in amsterdam? count me in. so i continue on, page after page, aghast at the brazenness of the ads (remember, house magazines advertise countertops. GQ advertises bare-assed women with pokey nipples, sipping on straws, all for an advertisement for tennis shoes except, of course, that the woman is wearing heels.) i digress. i had to find the pictures of zach braff and read about his breakup with the darling of the music industry, mandy moore. i finally get to the pictures and find myself totally wrapped up, just as i expected. skip ahead two hours and guess who's online at zach braff.com? what the ef? where is this coming from? i don't even watch scrubs nor do i follow the moves of famous people. i mean, unless there's something interesting that shows up on the yahoo home page when i check my email. and interesting is of course totally up for interpretation
but i've decided that zach and i have a lot in common and therefor i need to write and let him know. i mean, naturally, once he knows, he'll want to be pen pals and we'll become really tight and have inside jokes and he'll fondly refer to me as the 'other mandie.' (did i mention that i just spent this entire weekend at a meditation retreat? somehow, it seems as though my fanatical interest in zb is related to my insanely quiet and insular experience there.)
several months ago, i concoted a sort of social experiment with a friend of mine. we thought we should write fan letters to b-list celebrities and see if they wrote us back. the caveat - we each had to pick the other persons' 'celebrity' and the letter had to be genuine. we didn't want to be making fun of these people but instead rejoice in our similarities. well, as with a lot of my attempts at social experimentation, it has yet to come to fruition. of course it might be that i am still looking for a way to genuinely connect with oprah's boyfriend. he's a celebrity, right? hey esme. how's your letter to star jones coming along?