The Other Laurel Mills

Every so often, I google myself. (Yes, that means exactly what it sounds like -- I type my own name into Google's search engine to see what pops up.) What can I say? I find myself fascinating. Also, to discuss amongst yourselves: To what degree is an Internet presence today's gauge of how much one matters/how successful one is?

Those of you with dignity and whatnot can pretend that you never engage in such time-wasting, self-indulgent shenanigans, but I still won't believe you. I think, apart from noticing the occasional celebrity or world news event, most of us find ourselves to be our own favorite subject. This explains the number of mirrors in most homes, the joys of scrap booking and the prevalence of ancestry as a hobby. (Feel free to discuss this last concept amongst yourselves as well.)

Unfortunately for my often-flailing self-esteem, it takes many pages of "laurel mills" Google search results to find the Laurel Mills penning this blog post. There is a town in Virginia called Laurel Mills (a place I think I should be official queen of, but that's another story for another day) mills in Laurel, Mississippi and Laurel, Maryland as well as, perhaps worst of all, another, far more successful and acclaimed writer by the name of Laurel Mills.

Sigh.

But, it's not the other writer Laurel MIlls' bigger talent that concerns me the most about this. (I'm always willing to be mistaken for someone more successful and more talented.) It's that the other Laurel Mills is known primarily for lesbian fiction. The tags "lesbian interest" and "lesbian writing" are most commonly associated with her search results. In the words of Jerry Seinfeld, not that there's anything wrong with that, but as a single gal with mostly married friends, I need all the help I can get. And, on the off, off chance that a single, straight man picks up a copy of a magazine called Lipstick and decided to google me, I'd really rather him know that I'm straight, too.

You can find out about the other Laurel Mills (pictured), lauded poet and author of Undercurrents, here.

Hero Worship, Part II

Well, I made it to Atlanta yesterday. I arrived a few hours before the book signing and talk and even managed to navigate my way from highway to bookstore, bookstore to friend's house, friend's house to restaurant and restaurant to theater without incident. (I contend that a u-turn or two does not qualify as an "incident." I did not hit any pedestrians or get a parking ticket and those are big wins in my book when visiting another city.)

Augusten Burroughs' talk was great. He was hysterical and thoughtful (as I knew he would be), and the Q&A session after his reading was more lively and involved than any I have seen in quite awhile.

But, of course, of all events associated with the evening, I was most excited about the book signing after the reading. The last time I was at an Augusten Burroughs signing, Mr. Burroughs was talking a flight out of town that evening, so only signatures were allowed, pictures had to be brief and you were asked to move quickly so that everyone could get through the line before he had to leave.

Imagine my joy this time around when none of those restrictions were in place. You could request for your name to be included in the signed inscription, there was someone to help take photos and, best of all, there was someone on hand to introduce you to Mr. Burroughs by name.

That's right: Augusten Burroughs said, "Hi, Laurel, thanks so much for coming tonight."

Yes, Augusten Burroughs used my name. My actual name -- not Laurel or Laurie or L'Oreal. And there was eye contact!

Of course, that's also when I, being the huge dork that I am, was struck mute and had nothing to say. (Anytime I have nothing to say, it usually comes as a big shock to my friends and family, but it does happen from time to time.) I'd spent nearly 20 minutes in line trying to think of witty and/or complimentary phrases, but when it came down to it, I had nothing. (Would it be funny enough? What if I came off sounding bitchy rather than snarky? Do I even know how to correctly pronounce most of the words in the English language?)

So, this is how the rest of our conversation went:

Laurel: "No, thank you."

Augusten Burrouhgs: "I really appreciate you're coming out to the event."

Laurel: "Thank you."

AB: "And thanks so much for picking up my work."

Laurel: "No, thank you."

AB: "Thanks again."

I stopped myself from uttering "I'm socially awkward" just after that last thank you, but you can see that there would be no way of knowing I have a vocabulary of more than three words based on our exchange. What I take from it all is this: I'm no closer to my dream of crab-picking and show tunes on the coast, but at least Augusten and I are on a first name bases now ... How's that for seeing the glass as half full?

In my excitement, I also forgot a real camera and had to use my camera phone at the event. I'm trying to pretend like that was not at all embarrassing either.

Hero Worship

It's no secret that I am obsessed with celebrity gossip. I follow the minute-by-minute moves of Jessica Simpson, Angelina Jolie and Lauren Conrad like far more successful people track the stock market. But, in addition to my love of all things US Weekly, I'm also entranced by whole other worlds of celebrity that most people don't give a darn about.

When I lived in D.C., I had "celebrity sightings" galore. "Was that Wolf Blitzer?" "Janet Reno!" "Madeline Albright answers the door for the pizza guy herself?!?!"

After all of these brushes with fame, I'll tell you one thing for certain -- people don't care. Unless you see the president, it's useless. Most of the population tunes out when you talk about spotting Tucker Carlson new the Daily Grill. (Although, I can't really blame anyone for that last one, I kind of tuned out even though I was the one talking.)

And, if you thought it couldn't get worse than political celebrity, in the past few years, it has. I'm now into literary celebrity.

I would love to meet Isabel Allende, and I worry I would be struck dumb if I ever found myself in the same room as Alice Sebold. Those most people haven't heard of and others would never recognize (they never look like the photos on their book jackets in my experience), I would throw myself at while droning on and on about their awesomeness.

Prime example of this: On Sunday, I am driving to Atlanta to hear Augusten Burroughs, of Running With Scissors and Dry fame, speak, and I can't wait. I am mildly distraught because there was a mix-up at the bookstore and I won't be able to read his newest, A Wolf at the Table, before the talk, but I'm trying to persevere.

(In my fantasies, Augusten has no idea what great friends we would be until I impress him with my incredibly witty and insightful comments about his work. Then we'll start spending weekends together on Cape Cod were we cook crab, sing show tunes and laugh uproariously at our comments on an America's Next Top Model marathon. Obviously, not being able to read his latest book before we meet puts me at a great disadvantage in achieving this goal.)

I suppose the lessons here are twofold:
A. I am a bit of a freak, and
B. Beware celebrity gossip. It's a gateway gossip, and if you're not careful, you'll end up hooked on the harder, more obscure stuff -- like where Dave Eggers likes to shop and whether he, too, is "just like us."