john green is jealous of me.

(dad and i, waiting for john.) 

I've been clicking back to this page for nearly a week, trying to find a way to formulate my thoughts and excitement into a cohesive blog post. I'm not sure that will happen, but I'll give it my best shot and attempt to capture a little bit of Tuesday.

I drove up to Indy with my parents on Tuesday. My mom had a flight to catch, and I wanted to attend John Green's event at Butler University. My dad and I arrived at Clowes with a little less than an hour and a half before John took the stage. We drove around the neighborhood, grabbed some food, and wandered back to Clowes, an hour before it was scheduled to start. Fourth row seats gave us a great view of the stage, and, ultimately, John.

There's no way that I have enough patience to write out, in detail, (or you enough patience to read it all) everything that happened that night, so I'll just go for the highlights. (However, if you would like it nicely summed up, here you go.)

It was a bit surreal when John walked out on the stage. Besides writing books, he and his brother run a youtube channel that's developed into an online community. Because of this, I've heard John talk many times, and I know what he looks like. I'm not really sure what I was expecting, but it was so weird when he sounded the same in real life as he does on youtube.

After John talked and read from the first chapter of his upcoming book, The Fault in Our Stars, he opened up the mikes for questions. I jumped up, second in line at the right mike. The girl in front of me, Katrina, asked for a high-five from John, which he gave her. He answered another question, and then, ahhh: John Green was looking at me, and making eye contact with me. One of the characters in TFIOS, named Isaac, has eye cancer. I asked John if he intentionally named the character with eye cancer a name that sounds like eye sick. (Isaac = eye sick.) He laughed, (yes, I made John Green laugh) and explained that he named Isaac after the biblical Isaac, who became blind later in life. Gus was sitting directly behind us, and he managed to film a little bit of my question.

I slipped out of the auditorium a minute or two early so we wouldn't have to wait in such a long line to get my copy of Paper Towns signed. Last week, my friend Chris wrote on my facebook telling me that he was a huge fan of John Green. There was no way that I could have the opportunity to get him a signature and not do it (plus, it gave me more time to talk to John!). :) I fished through my purse and found a boarding pass from my trip to France. After John signed my book, I slid the boarding pass over to him.

"This one's for my friend Chris. He lives in South Africa."
"Wow, South Africa!"
"Yeah, we met in the Middle East a few summers ago."
"You're quite the world traveler. I'm jealous."

It was the highlight of my life.

Best wishes,
katie