Living Falling Down

I’ve had a baby blanket since I was…well, a baby. It’s white with red trim and has the remnants of some long-ago washed out image of Raggedy Ann and Andy’s Circus. I no longer need a security blanket to comfort me while I sleep, or protect me from the boogeyman, but I can’t bear to throw it away or pack it into some box to be eaten by moths and slowly disintegrate over time. Today it still sits on my bed, proudly serving the useful function of keeping my head from sliding off of my satin pillowcases into some jarring position in the middle of the night.

Technically, it’s my second baby blanket. When I was born I “inherited” my first blanket from my older sister, by which I mean my parents bought her a new one and convinced her it had super powers that the old one didn’t so she wouldn’t get jealous of the baby having a blanket of her own. That attempt of my parents to assuage my sister’s feelings haunted me for years as my sister would run around the house with her blanket as a cape saying I couldn’t play superhero with her because my blanket “wasn’t special”. Granted, when I received the thing it was tattered and contained a lovely coffee stain on the bottom corner, but as long as I wasn’t being carried off in the middle of the night by those furry things from Where The Wild Things Are I figured it was doing its job just fine.

After a few years, my mother decided that the lovely and familiar piece of fabric that I was dragging merrily behind me had reached the point of being dispensable, and as I think in hindsight about the giant gaping tear in it I think she might have been right. At the time, however, nothing would part me from my blanket. Zeus himself could have thrown lightning bolts at my feet and that frilly-looking man from the fashion network who used to give me nightmares could have chased me in those stiletto boots of his but I would still not have relinquished it. My mother bought me a brand new blanket (which had a strange way of mysteriously walking itself into the freezer or trashcan in the middle of the night), she brought me new stuffed animals in the hopes that I would hug them at night instead (I ended up sleeping in a menagerie of fluff-filled friends, I don’t think my back actually touched mattress for months), and even resorted to stealing my blanket and chucking it into the dumpster outside. Yet every night without fail there it would be by my pillow, waiting to protect me from the dark and smelling slightly of the meatloaf we ate the night before.

For a while, it became routine for my mother to take me out shopping on Saturdays through baby stores and children’s boutiques. It was that time in my life when I was rapidly growing out of every piece of clothing I owned so it wasn’t as if we didn’t have reason to shop, but I’m fairly certain that a main purpose of these trips was to find something that I would accept to replace the blanket which was, by that point, in two distinct and separate halves.

Now I would like to take a moment in this story to note that my mother is infinitely patient with me and truly deserves some sort of velvet-mounted medal for all of the wonderful nonsense I’ve inflicted on her through the years. She tried several times to sit me down and explain that it wasn’t that she didn’t want me to have the blanket, it’s that it simply wasn’t healthy to keep the molding old thing around. As an adult I can look back and admit she was right, but at the time all I heard was “Blah blah blah Heather blah blah throw out the blanket blah blah.” There may or may not have been more blahs. My memory isn’t flawless.

However, on one miserably cold Saturday morning (I remember because I was wearing three layers of coats) mom and I went into this off-the-main-road mom and pop run antique store. My mother insists that the purpose of that outing was to replace parts of the Tiffany-style lamp that our dog had broken for the fifth time by racing through the house at breakneck speed until he slammed headfirst into a wall- the same wall he had hit four times previous - but judging by the fact that I was the only one of her three children she brought in tow I’m thinking she had some mom-sense that we would finally find what we were looking for. The store was really an old Victorian-style house that had been converted, and after dusting snow and damp off of our clothes we moved from the foyer to what was once the dining room. There it was, hanging stretched across two chairs for display, a perfect, brand-new replica of my blanket!

I remember making a noise somewhat like a small pig who’s discovered its curly tail has been set on fire before leaping over an antique coffee table to hug the thing. It was the blanket as I had never had the opportunity to see it: Raggedy Ann’s face still had color, Andy’s face hadn’t been scratched out by a blue crayon, and the Circus performers hadn’t been washed out to the point where they were no longer discernible from the train on which they sat. If my memory is correct, my mother grabbed up me and the blanket with one arm and went marching straight to the cash register where the grinning saleswoman was forced to ring up the item manually because I would not remove my vice-like fingers from it.  We then went home, abandoning the lamp-bits in a fit of jubilant celebration and singing with the radio at the top of our lungs.

When we arrived home, my mother marched up to my bedroom, retrieved the old blanket and, in an epic triumphant fashion, dropped it into the kitchen trash…

…Where it stayed for about five minutes before I sneakily ran it back upstairs. It took her two months to finally throw it away (she found my secret hiding place while I was at school and actually drove it away from the house to find a dumpster) but thankfully by then I had grown sufficiently attached to the new one and I didn’t fight it…too much.

I’ve taken much greater care of the second one, and even now more than a decade later the design can still be seen, which is good considering the design is retired and there won’t be another opportunity to make a switch ever again. To be honest, I would never make another change - my blanket is one of the few things in the world that I know is unequivocally mine, something that no one can ever take from me. It’s a rather comforting thought.

Speaking of comfort, I think I’ll go take a nap.

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I auditioned for American Idol today.

It’s okay, I’ll wait for you to stop laughing at my expense…Are you done now? …How bout now? All righty then.

I managed to get a rare perspective on this year’s auditions, not necessarily from the front lines, but just a enough to the left to get a whole different picture than anything I had heard of thus far. This wasn’t because of any major event, or some Cinderella-esque turn of fate that left me in the limelight, but rather a lot of smaller instances that left me in back row center, giggling insanely at the wonderfulness that humanity can accomplish.

As I’m not currently writing this blog from a Hollywood Studio apartment, you can guess how far I managed to get into the actual competition, but I am thrilled at the experience and would gladly saddle up and drag everyone I know back next year. Is it because I’m a glutton for punishment? I am, but that’s not the case here as the whole process was painless, exciting, fun and an incredible ego-booster, and I didn’t even pass the first round.

Allow me to explain:

Two days ago my family and I showed up at the Amway Arena around 8am to register for the show, along with about 3,000 other hopefuls. There was music playing in the line (courtesy of the contestants), news cameras everywhere, and in a rare Floridian event a wonderful breeze blowing that cooled everyone off and resulted in a crowd of genuinely happy people. I had expected to be waiting in line for several hours (and had brought provisions of sugary snacks and playing cards accordingly) but in reality I was waiting for about ten minutes. Ten minutes. Then an American Idol employee (Hello Patrick, you wonderful man!) struck up a conversation with my party and moved us over to a special shorter ADA line that was out of the sun and where stunningly attractive EMTs were standing by. If you’re wondering why I would need to be in a disability-accessible line, reference back to the previous blog post on POTS. Florida Sun + waiting in line + uncontrolled excitement makes for a rather wobbly and purple-looking Heather. In this line we waited for another ten minutes tops while enjoying the company of afore-mentioned Adonis EMTs before we experienced the glory of American Idol costumer service - a one-woman registration parade who came out and took care of all of our paperwork without requiring us to go inside (I would NOT have made it up all those stairs) or wait in the heat any longer than necessary. I do not know how that woman managed to carry all of those stickers, papers and things without losing any in the wind (I have a sneaking suspicion the wristbands had found a convenient pocket in her bra) but with the utmost courtesy and care she took care of us in a whopping total of two minutes.

Let’s pause and take a look at the math here, folks. 3,000 people standing outside the Arena, I counted 20 employees (maybe more maybe less) working the crowd, and yet those spectacular people managed not only to pick out those in need of help in no time at all, but safely had them on their way in less than twelve minutes. We expected to be there for a minimum of three hours (we arrived at a slow point of the day in terms of contestant traffic) but ended up being there 22 minutes, half an hour if you count driving, parking and staring open-mouthed at the giant American Idol sign while squealing like prepubescent children.

Now, while Registration day was all about efficiency, Audition day was a massive block party with free wandering serenades and the best people-watching known to exist.

Parking was terrible, as expected, and we were forced to walk a long way to the Arena, but when we arrived we were not pushed into the crowd of 18,000 outside who would proceed to do commercial promos and crowd shots with Ryan Seacrest for 2 hours (sad I missed it, but considering all the complaining I heard about the heat it’s hardly a deep sadness). Instead, we were escorted to the ADA entrance where two overworked yet exceedingly cheery Idol employees (Mario and Amanda, King and Queen of Multitasking) were singularly responsible for over a hundred contestants and their families in wheelchairs, on crutches, carrying canes, and in one case sporting a pair of lovely purple feet. Even though there were only two of them for the great mass of us, and contestants could not travel anywhere unescorted, we only waited about five minutes before we were brought into the still-empty arena (and blessed air conditioning) where we were the first in the stadium to be seated and were practically catered to by a butler who looked like the Monopoly man. Our comrades in arms (and one very large cast) quickly became our friends and immediately we began swapping rumors and intel on the auditions, which we were all nervously excited about.

I am not a social person by nature, it is a trait I have had to learn and still struggle with, but apparently if you place people next to each other in a Colosseum-sized arena and tell them that they’ll be allowed to sing publicly social interaction becomes not only natural but enthusiastically pursued. During the two hours it took people to file into the arena and take their assigned seats, I made at least a dozen new friendships and somehow picked up the magical ability to start conversations with total strangers with only a smile. Seriously, you would have to cram 70 hippies into a van with politically-charged folk music and three megatons of weed in order to get the same level of cheer and good will towards others that I saw today.

You might think that this was because everyone knew the cameras were on and thus were presenting their best behavior, however I would like to relate some instances that occurred not only when the cameras were off but no where in sight:

1. I walked through a door and a woman pointed at me dramatically and said “Look at her! That’s the best smile I’ve ever seen!”I don’t know about before, but it was certainly a bright smile after.

2. A rehearsing girl struggling and slaughtering (and I mean ripping apart note by note, stabbing them and leaving them in a ditch to die a horrible, slow death) a Carrie Underwood song in a corner was not only applauded but was then set upon by not one but THREE professional voice instructors who had her singing like Miss Carrie herself in under three minutes.

3. A young man darted through a crowd and dove in prince charming fashion to open a door for an older woman wearing a medical germ-proof mask without being asked, and followed this chivalrous act with a string of compliments. (To this man I would like to say thank you. If you could have seen the smile on her face you would understand why.)

4. The first person to audition and receive a golden ticket was applauded by the crowd. The first person to audition and fail received a standing ovation.

5. In a two minute walk through the concourse, I counted seven times in which I saw a complete stranger walk up to a practicing singer and not only offer their praise, but their help if the singer so desired it. There was no competition, no survival of the fittest. Every person who got through was celebrated as though they were personal friends with everyone in the crowd and the only time I heard a negative word spoken about another contestant was when these words were uttered, “Did you hear that? She was brilliant!…I hate her!” I would like to add that that comment was followed with thunderous applause from the speaker.

Yes, it was a forum of peace, love and happiness the likes of which I have never seen, and in some way it restored my faith in a dwindling humanity. For if we all can come together for a common goal and support each other the way I saw strangers uplifting each other today, then I believe the Cockroach Overlords might have trouble exterminating us after all.

On a final note, in the off chance that someone from a Google search finds this blog and shares it around, I would like to take this opportunity to speak to some people I met today:

1. To the woman who spent the entire day shushing me and complaining that I was making it impossible to hear what was going on (when I was speaking in a normal tone of voice in the back row of an ampitheatre filled with over 18,000 other people) I would like to ask that you take a chill pill. Also, I heard your daughter sing and it was quite lovely.

2. To all those who spent time and effort making signs referring to “Poker Face” only to find out that they had changed the crowd song to “Heartbreaker”, I feel your pain. I spent months dilignetly learning nine different songs only to be allowed to sing four lines of a chorus.

3. To the two producers who were so intent on rushing through my group’s audition so that they could go on their lunch break that they not only didn’t listen to us but actually rested on your hands and sighed: I don’t blame you for being exhausted or dismissive, especially considering how many people you have to hear, and I do not begrudge you your decision to let all of us go home empty handed, it’s your right and I’m no David Cook. However, if you’re going to tell someone that they’re just not good enough for you, common curtesy dictates that you are supposed to look at them when speaking and avoid waving your hand like you’re swatting an annoying fly. I wasn’t hurt (I had successfully completed my goal of auditioning without passing out) but the others in my group seemed offended.

4. To the Girl in the Yellow Dress: As comical as it was watching you grab the butt of your super-short dress with a fist and hold it down whenever you walked up and down the stairs, I would still suggest wearing an outfit that did not suffer the risk of full-backwards panty viewing whenever you take a deep breath.I apologize to whatever fellas might find fault with this plan.

5. Finally, to the girl rehearsing in the bathroom stall next to me who started in with a full-volume belted version of “At Last” right as my cheeks hit the can, I would like to award you the LFD Comedic Timing Seal of Approval. I nearly peed myself laughing. Luckily I was in a venue that could handle such calamity.

Now we just wait and see if I show up on tv. In the meantime, I want a cookie.

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