Jen, I bought you a paperweight {and I’m geeking out}

Last Friday was an exceptionally exciting day for me. If you didn’t know, I love to read – I mean, it could be considered a borderline addiction. I read a little bit of everything, but memoirs and chick lit are by far my favorite genres. I’ll usually finish a book in 3-4 nights, but I’m trying so hard to learn to slow down and enjoy something for at least a couple of weeks. I suffer badly from “can’t put it down” syndrome and it absolutely drives me insane.

I have a group of authors that I follow closely and will blindly read anything and everything they put out. Jen Lancaster has quickly climbed to the top of that list and has become my favorite. author. ever.

Her first memoir, Bitter Is The New Black, was out for a quite a while before I read it. A friend suggested it to me and I recalled seeing the book every time I was perusing the shelves at the bookstore. It was always on my “want” list, but I didn’t grab it until Joanna told me about it.

In fact, I wrote this blog post back when I first picked it up {click} raving about how much I enjoyed it. Since then, I’ve read all but one of her memoirs {which I’m starting next week}, including her most recent My Fair Lazy which released this month. I’m so proud of myself because I actually started this book on May 5th and still have just two chapters left. It’s so great to take the time to really enjoy it for a few weeks without flying through all the words in one weekend. I’m enjoying the book so much, though I still have to say that Such A Pretty Fat is my absolutely favorite memoir EVEEERRR.

So, what made Friday so amazing? I met Jen. Jen Lancaster. THE Jen Lancaster. JEN. LANCASTER. jenlancaster. @altgeldshrugged

Eeek!

She was on tour for My Fair Lazy and stopped here in Charlotte.

I spent $300 on a new outfit to wear to the signing. Is that weird? Has anyone else bought an outfit solely for a signing?? Please??

Oh, and I also took her a gift. A paperweight. Seriously? Dead serious.

Does that not sound like the lamest gift ever??

The story is, I was actually going to buy her a new Coach handbag that I fell in love with {and I’m not usually a Coach fan}, but Designer Husband told me that I’m not allowed to buy my friends. Hmph.

So. when I got the “declined” text back from Designer Husband, I started shopping around the Coach boutique for other pretties. This is where the paperweight comes in. It’s this adorable leather square that’s just preppy and fun. I thought the pink and green looked very “Jen”… or, at least what I had made Jen up to be in my mind.

In addition to the paperweight was a card, a cute bookmark and a small little notebook that said “I’m Not Gossiping; I’m Networking”

No real point to any of it, other than I thought they were cute.

I met my friend Lisa at Barnes & Noble and we hung out in the cafe for some people watching and criticizing of horrible outfits. I mean, hideous outfits. We’re talking 1987 called and they want their jumpsuits back. Oh, and we were also obsessively tweeting Jen to let her know how excited we were. Either she didn’t check her tweets before coming or she is a brave lady, because we probably appeared to be some really spastic, crazed fans awaiting for her arrival.

Jen showed up looking lovely in her blue Lacoste polo and pearls. I saw many other women (and a couple of men) that came wearing “The Jen” {polo & pearls} as well. I contemplated this, but a sleeveless flowy top and linen pants at Banana Republic caught my eye and forced me in to the dressing room…. before I could say “no”, I was wearing them to the signing.

She did a reading, Q&A and, of course, signed books. The turn out was huge!! She was absolutely hilarious. As she read from the book, I couldn’t help but giggle to myself about how much you feel like you “know” a person when you read their books. It’s so strange.

When it was my turn to meet her and have her to sign my books, I went in to complete geek mode. All day I was going over five points that I wanted to make sure I told her:

1. 1. I adore your books and have read all but one
   2. My mom is just as big a fan as I.
   3. Tim Gunn is also in town and I think we should wrap things up here and go stalk him.
   4. My card is in the gift bag – I’m not trying to do business, just trying desperately to get you to stop by my blog.
   5. I love you. Keep writing forever and ever.

Luckily, Lisa went in front of me and she told Jen about Tim Gunn being in town, so I knew I only had 4 things to remember to say now. I can do that. No worries.

Jen & Lisa

I walk up to the table and set the books {two of them – one for me, one for my mother} down while smiling. I’m not sure if I even said anything or not. Finally I exclaimed “I’m on Chapter 8!” – she stops, looks up and says “and what do you think?” in almost an un-sure, hoping you don’t hate it kind of tone. “I love it! Absolutely hilarious and I’m just in love with it! – I’ve read almost all of your books!!” I then stick the gift bag up to her and something like “THISISFORYOU!!” comes out. To my surprise, she starts opening it right then {I just assumed she would take it with her, I didn’t know what book-signing-gift-giving protocol was} and asks what it is. “Probably the lamest gift ever – I bought you a paperweight. Doesn’t that sound horrible?!? But, it’s CUTE… a cuteweight… uh, paperweight.”

She did say that she liked it very much and I’m really hoping she didn’t think it was incredibly lame. Either way, my hope was that by getting her something to sit on her desk she would be able to look at it and say “Oh, that fan in Charlotte gave me that.” Yay!

Lisa, Jen, Myself

OK, so now here comes the best part. As Lisa and I are leaving the table, she mentions to Jen that we’d been tweeting her all day and Jen asks who we are on Twitter. Lisa says “I’m @Daily_Pinch and Lindsay is @DesignerWife“, and Jen looks at me and says “Your the one with the Truth About Diamonds photo for your profile picture!”

O

M

G

!

!!

I start looking around to Lisa and then the whole line of fans while screaming “JEN KNOWS MY TWITTER PICTURE!!! JEN KNOWS ME!!!”… and I’m pretty sure I’m jumping up and down and the same time. Ooops.

Why, yes, I am….

This is my twitter profile pic she was talking about. I’ve had it for a while and was considering changing it soon. Not now. Nope. NEVER.

After that, Lisa and I both were on a complete high and all I could keep thinking about was that Jen actually KNEW my twitter picture. Glorious Day! I knew all of my obsessive tweets would pay off one day!

Thank you, Jen, for letting me twitter stalk you and geek out at the signing and being so polite about it all. You are my hero. I’m going to start you a fan club.