Write the Final Sentence Contest

Every now and then, I write something, save it as a draft and then never get back to it. I was goofing around reading some of those dead posts recently and realized that the reason that I usually don't post them is because I can't think of a great closing sentence. And as you know, a blog entry without a great closing sentence is like a, a, a day without a great sunset. (Oh my GOD! I cannot believe that I just used the sunset analogy! Evidently, like revmother, I am totally doing the stafford right now.)

Anyway, it occurs to me that with all the collective wisdom of the genius readers of this blog, someone might be able to come up with an ending to some of the posts that are otherwise gathering dust in my drafts list. I invite you to complete this blog post. The person who posts the best ending in the comments, as judged by moi, por supuesto, by Monday, January 29 will receive a wonderful prize! (This includes those of you, you know who are, lurking in the dark corners beyond the comments. You are welcome to play too. If you are too shy to comment, you may email me.)

Here is the post I started back in November, than ran out of steam about. What was I trying to say? Something about the fleeting and shallow nature of fame? Something about the awesomeness of independent booksellers and record stores compared to chains? Something about Katie's dress? You probably know better than I.

Like Oprah, I was inexplicably not invited to Tom and Katie's wedding.

But, that doesn't mean that I know nothing about fame. Ever since that Friday Five a couple of months ago about famous people you've met, I can't stop thinking about this. I mean, what did that question MEAN by FAMOUS exactly?

Because, if you mean famous in a theology-geeks-only-need-apply sort of way, then you could count Wes Howard Brook - we were in a house church with him for a couple of years before it imploded.

Or you could count my college roommate and her husband. (Click on the link, scroll down to Raymond Fox. Isn't he a cutie?) When her family kept asking her "Ok, honey, we know you're MAJORING in theater, but what are you really going to BE, though?" she just kept saying "I'm going to be an actress." And now not only is she famous HERSELF, but she really knows really really famous people! (But it would be gauche of me to link to them, so I wont do it. Even though I kind of want to.)

College, in fact, was kind of my glory years as far as meeting famous people. But again, only in the geekiest possible way. I sat at a table for a couple of hours with Tim O'Brien once, I went to a book reading with my pal Rebecca (does she count as famous if she lived out our collective childhood fantasy by actually living in New York City and actually working ON BROADWAY?) who knew Peter Hedges, and she introduced me to him at a book reading on an incredibly snowy night that was us and like three other people and PH just poured his heart out anyway, and ever since then What's Eating Gilbert Grape makes it on my top ten list every time.

Also, since I worked for a while at Red House Records, I got to meet all the musicians. But, really, is Greg Brown actually FAMOUS? Not sure. How about Claudia Schmidt? Kind, yes. Funny, definitely. Famous? Probably not. John Gorka is a little bit famous, I guess. Ferron is not as famous as she should be, but I saw her last year in concert and she's still the kick assingest poet-rocker who ever lived.

After that, I worked in publishing. So I got to know Douglas Wood a little bit. And I went to a booksellers convention where I got to shake hands on the same day with Jamie Farr and Hilary Clinton. They are both most definitely famous, but does shaking hands count as "meeting"?