The Time I Met Jenny Lawson
Fun Stuff Parenthood

The Time I Met Jenny Lawson

By Amy Morrison

This has nothing to do with pregnancy but I’m really jazzed about this so bear with me.

So a few weeks ago I find out Jenny Lawson (The Bloggess) is coming to Toronto to promote her book, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir). I love both her and the book.

I’m pretty excited because many authors just stick to the U.S. with their book tours and, yes, I know that Toronto doesn’t count as a Canadian Tour but it met my needs, so whatev.

Then I find out that Penguin Canada is holding a contest to meet her before the signing. So I’m all, “hell yeah, I’m winning this!”, which is what I say when I enter any contest then I’m flabbergasted when I don’t win which makes me both optimistic and stupid.

But this time I won. I actually fucking won!

I get to the bookstore where the event is taking place and there’s already a giant lineup of women holding books. “Okay”, I think. Where am I supposed to go? They told me to check in and say I was here for Penguin Canada but there was nowhere to check in. Did I stand in line? Did I look for a desk or something? What the hell do I do?

Now this is where I usually come off the rails and pull a batsmoke because I feel nervous and vulnerable when I’m tripped up by logistics, but no, I was going to meet her dammit and I didn’t care how stupid I looked. So I go up to an employee setting up and say, “Excuse me, I’m supposed to do a meet and greet thing with Penguin Canada. I was told to check in.”

It is in these situations where I truly string together the most incoherent sentences imaginable. Like the time I said, “Can you help me get to be there?” When I was trying to board a ferry. I think it’s safe to say I don’t do well with transitions.

It comes as no surprise when the employee just looks at me like I’m an idiot and has no idea what I am talking about, when another woman approaches and says, “Are you here for the Penguin Canada Meet and Greet too?” Yes! Thankfully this woman gave some credibility to my story and the employee goes off to find the Penguin people.

They came back and told us they were in the restaurant upstairs.

Whoa. Fancy. Okay.

So upstairs we go and I say another *slightly* less ridiculous sentence to the hostess and we are led to a table with two really awesome women from Penguin Books waiting for us. Jenny wasn’t there yet.

They had ordered a bunch of delicious appetizers but I just knew that if took a bite of bruschetta she’d walk in at that very moment and I’d have basil in my teeth and tomato on my boob, so I didn’t eat much. I was going to order a drink-drink but I didn’t want to look like a lush and I wasn’t sure how my excitement would manifest combined with alcohol, so I just got water.

Then she walked in.

She’s exactly how I pictured her but more awesome. I stood up to shake her hand but instead she opened her arms and said, “I’m a hugger” and gave me a great big Texas hug. She’s just as warm and friendly as I hoped she would be.

We sat around and chatted about her tour, her new stuffed pegasus, her meds, American hamburger restaurant chains, testicle meatballs, the time she blocked Oprah on Twitter as a joke then found out that she was actually trying to follow her, and the time she mentioned Porn For Pregnant Ladies on her blog and how much I appreciated it. She was gracious, witty and lovely.

She also had really nice teeth and lips, but I decided that saying, “You have a real pretty mouth” smacked a little too much of ‘it-puts-the-skin-on-the-lotion’, so kept it to myself.

jenny-lawson

We each got to take a picture with her which was both awesome and awful because I don’t tend to photograph well. I get this really crazy look if I smile too hard, and if I try to curb the smile then I often look like I’m angry. On average, one out of every 400 pictures of me looks good, and the other 399 pictures of me look like I’m either harbouring nine dozen cats in a basement of Mr. Turtle pools filled with kitty litter, or that I’m posing for a passport picture so I can travel the world to cure my tuberculosis.

She even signed my book. She signed it, “You are my best friend! J Lawson” which I thought was very funny and clever seeing she was signing hundreds of books that night. Until I found out that she signed each one differently so, in fact, she is my best friend. Me and Jenny. Best friends! Now she won’t be alarmed when I show up on her front porch in an electric blue unitard holding her book and a box of my toenail clippings.

No, I would never do that to my best friend Jenny. Instead I’ll be here for her, in Canada, with fresh water and cheap meds when the zombie apocolypse hits because that’s what friends do, man. That’s what friends do.

It was time for her book reading so one of the ladies took her down to the book signing while we were guided to our reserved seats in the crowd like rock stars. Suck on that Indigo employee that was no help getting me to my “check, check into Penguin greet thing”!

A local t.v. host interviewed her on stage and asked her a variety of questions, including how she met her husband, which made me cringe because if you had read the book you would know that she met Victor in a book store. Don’t make Canada look bad, Assbadger!

Then she read a chapter from her book about the time she had accidentally mistaken her cat for a rapist after purposely overdosing on laxatives to make her antidepressants work better. It was magical.

Jenny lawson book

Now it was time for the book signing. Oh, what’s that? I already have a signed book? Oh, that’s right from my best friend, Jenny.

I was free to leave and bask in the glow of meeting Jenny Lawson.

It was a great night. I didn’t make an ass of myself. I didn’t try to sniff her hair. I didn’t do that weird “hee ghaw” laugh when I’m nervous. I didn’t start softly singing “Lionel Richie’s “You Are” while stroking her cheek – “You are the sun. You are the rain. That makes my life this foolish game.” In fact, there was no police involvement at all so I’d call that a successful night!

I grabbed my book and headed for the subway, paid my fare, then quickly realized that I had to pee from drinking a bathtub of ice water at the restaurant to quell my “check, check” nerves so I had to use the subway washroom. Gross, I know. It didn’t matter though because nothing was going to ruin my night, not even the large woman sitting on the bathroom floor with a comb suspended in her hair while muttering, “Fuck that.”

Fuck that indeed, my fine friend!

I met Jenny Lawson. She’s a brilliant writer who’s an awesome hugger with a pretty mouth. And she’s my best friend.



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