Tour de Nerdfighting 2012: some infinities are greater than other infinities
Kat & I at Tour de Nerdfighting 2012/The Fault in Our Stars Book Tour
Planned on less than a full weeks’ notice, Kat (evegryffindor) & I realized we would both be in Austin Saturday night for the The Tour de Nerdfighting (for The Vlog Brothers, John & Hank Green), and obviously this meant the stars had aligned and we had to go together. Through a flurry of facebook comments, texts, and one phone call (last night) we planned what would turn out to be a whirl wind wonder day and night.
We left out mutual non-Austin cities and met up at the location for the show at noon. Where I grab her from the parking lot and drove us to one gas station, and then a nearby Mexican restaurant for food. Herein we started the giddy catch up on the last nine or ten months in both our lives. Boys and girls (both of us), friends (both), new relationships (hers), break ups (mine), parents (ours), school (hers), and, of course, the normal catch up on all hilarious drama-opera things Billy (circa Carly and the Funeral news).
After food, still talking, for the talking of all the topics would last the whole some ten hours, we drove to a second gas station, almost to Victoria Secret, and then returned to the scene of where the show would take place, to wait from two in the afternoon until the doors would open at six. A high school, where three other events were going on. One with a huge theater group, another with mechanized robots, and a third...which I have forgotten. We staked out a spot by the auditorium doors, and started watching this week’s Big Bang Theory, before we were moved.
To the first box office window. Inside. Where we met the girl (and her mother) who'd been there since noon. (Oh, yes, we were totally second and third in line.) We proceeded to watching out show, giggling all the way. And this was where we began several different things. We began collecting Nerdfighters, who you could pick out by their confused expression and truly deeply amazingly nerdy shirts. We began to form the line. And we began to create the collective of nine-ten people we would keep with us the rest of the night.
People geeking out about each other’s shirts. People geeking out about the new The Fault in Our Stars, and all of John Green's other books. About TV Shows. About everything and anything under the sun, even a graphing calculator someone brought to have signed. We found our first furthest away person, who'd gotten up and flown from El Paso at five am. This was when people began leaving things, bags of their stuff, even as they left the grounds to go get meals, trusting fellow Nerdfighters to their stuff.
It was also with the Tour Bus showed up, and we began organizing in groups. Who would watch the stuff as a group would run out to pet take pictures in front of the Tour Bus, that meant our staring men of the night were now inside preparing. Not too long after this we were rounded up and moved outside the hall for the last hour and half wait. Wonderfully, Topher (the man running the show from Book People, in an act of serendipity, is one of Kat's bosses) kept us in the same order, so those there longest were still in front.
The hilarious lines continued onward. We collected people. And Girl #1's Mom and Topher both returned to us often with updates about what was happening inside & what would happen when the doors open. The people there were so amazing, the whole of everyone, all the hundreds starting to gather were so involved, so friendly, so affectionate with everyone everywhere, so trusting, so giddy and geeky.
And there was us, near the front. Kat and I.
Keeping everyone in line and up to date, and directing them where to go. About what the line was for and how everything worked. Starting everyone into cheering and applauding when the people who hadn't pre-bought tickets (of which there were only 55 of 1,000 left), for each person who walked out with tickets headed to the end of the epic line, and into the glory of the night ahead of all of us. Doing The Wave up and down the waiting line. Calling out "Thirty/Twenty/Fifteen/Ten/Five/Three/One minute!" Markers and the whole group cheering in response to us.
Planning with the first ten people, who'd all been there with us the last three-ish hours, how we'd handle it when the doors open. No rushing or pushing or being anything 'but awesome,' but everyone had the same mission. Get your ticket/signed book/wrist band for the signing and get to the front row. Hold nine seats or as many as you can, so that everyone who'd been together the last forever many hours could stay together the next forever many hours. We managed it, too. We sat in the front row, direct center.
But it didn't end there. We moved into phase two of our plan! Wherein smaller groups would run off to merchandise while other held seats, since there was an hour to wait. This took about the first fifteen minutes, and then (on my return from the first merchandising trip) I was given the job of defending the first six rows, who had people doing this same thing, and getting singles into the seats with one person availabilities. All of which i did.
And during this, Kat and I sort of began to take over the audience. I suppose it wasn't such a stretch at first. We'd been talked across the whole first section, talking with Topher personally each time he came down waving his Mister Guy in Charge Light Saber. And then we upped it a notch. We all engaged in getting everyone in the whole auditorium to play "The Rollercoaster" game (when you lift your hands and have to follow the leader, like you're on a roller coaster).
Then we did two different rounds of a group-wide sing-along of Hank Green's Accio Deathly Hallows. The first one was weak, but, after acquiring iphone lyrics for our two leaders, the next round was so loud and so lively. And in the midst of planning out lead-up hilarious thing, from our vantage point, where I was sitting on the front of the stage and two-three people were talking to us Topher came over again.
Kat only got as far as asking him how long it was looking like, before he asked us to come with him. And lead the way up on stage, Kat and I getting suddenly shocked and wide eyed. As he headed us both toward the microphones (John & Hank Green mic's) and told us to keep going. Let me restate that again:
Topher then pulled us on The Main Stage. Just, and only, us.
Where we entertained and directed an audience of 1000 people.
We got seven other people involved and got the entire audience of 1,000 people, once divided into groups to sing Potter Puppet Pals. It was scary and amazing and empowering and so insanely surreal. All of the shouting and cheering, all of them listening, everyone laughing and singing, and having such a great time.
It was truly deeply amazing, but not as truly deeply as the follow up to us -- The Beginning of the Show. We dashed back down the stairs and to our seats, grinning like five year old fools with the biggest stars in our eyes. Listening to them talk about this being the biggest show they'd done and how amazing it all was. There was a reading from The Fault in Our Stars. There were silly wonderful gags. Hank Sock. Hank rolling. Hank songs. The endless questions, filled out previous to this time in. A buzzer with a shocker for either of them who went over their time.
So much love and laughter and amazing. I spent a small portion of it filling out the crossword in their Austin Tour pamphlet in the black ink of one of my newest fountain pens. There was singing and dancing, and so much laughing, crying, shouting, clapping. Such a huge outpouring of love for the hours they were there. I have agree with Kat, it opens your eyes a little wider seeing how big this is. How much these two, a writer and YouTube video blogging duo on the eleventh day of a book tour, get Rock Star Treatment.
We ended with an encore of Walk 500 miles, and then the signing started. For being there so long, in line earliest, and in soonest, we were in the first color grouping. As the ticket to the show came with a hard cover copy of The Fault in Our Stars already signed by both (with angler fish drawing!), I finally enacted something I've been talking about getting favorite authors to do since getting home. Following on the heels of how my college laptop was signed by Terry Moore (one my favorite comic artists), I bring you:
The 1st author signature on my Kindle/Kindle Cover. The beginning of what will be many.
We hugged goodbye our new friends (most of which we'd already exchanged names and twitter sn's with), making sure everyone got off right. We got stopped once by one of the Book People workers (they were showcasing this Tour appearances) thanking us for all that we'd done before the show got started. And then again by other audience members who walked past as us while we were talking at Kat's car in the parking lot, trying to leave, but continue to fangirl and laugh and hug and just ride the day's high.
It was such an amazing night. I cannot even begin to stop smiling. And the best part? Is this is not even a fluke, my entire week, last few weeks have all gone this brilliantly, and I need make a post listing just how amazing a lot of everything has been going. How all the new life and light in my world is exploding in so much beauty and joy everywhere.
DFTBA*, all you lovely people!
* - Don't Forget to Be Awesome