Yesterday was my big entrance into fan-girl-dom.
Far, far gone into it...
I got my photo taken with Nichelle Nichols (Uhura!!!).
[photo of the photo, below]
Standing in the line (photo, right), I got talking with Rob and April, old hands at photo ops, even though they're young. (Rob's mom used to take him to cons as a kid.) They were coaching me, because I was all aflutter.
For all the world, it felt like waiting to get my school photo taken, in first grade, which had also thrown me into a tizzy.
So, they kinda calmed me down, told me Nichelle is super nice, and I could see from the people going ahead of me that it was all pretty relaxed. Mostly folks moved through fast, but one woman held Nichelle's hand and talked earnestly for quite a while, and no one moved her along, so it seems if you need to make a heartfelt speech, there's room for that.
I'm thinking I'm going to be all calm and dignified, like Sandra Smith playing Capt. Kirk, you know, but when my time came and I walked toward Nichelle, perched on a director's chair--(a classy lady, in a cream crumpled silk jacket and linen pants)--well, as I walked the dozen feet to her, I broke into a little Snoopy dance of joy, waving my hands in the air, and in a daze of adoration told her,
"I feel just like a kid! You are so great!"
These stars have been dealing with fans for forty years and are unflappable, so Nichelle took it totally in stride, said something nice.
And then as I got settled into a photographable state, she said,
"YOU HAVE BEAUTIFUL HAIR."
(She did not scream it in bold, it just assumes that level of importance in my mind.)
I wrote recently that I could give a hoot about fashion, but I'm sorry, when *Uhura* tells you she likes your hair, well, my interest soars to intergalactic magnitude.
Here's the extra thing--I had actually wondered about dyeing my hair for this con.
I am quite gray for my age (47), and here's a secret, if you didn't know--a ton of women my age dye their hair. It is so normal, one woman told me I was "brave" for NOT dyeing my hair.
In truth, I don't want to dye my hair. It's expensive and futzy and involves evil chemicals in close proximity to your brain. Plus you have to keep on doing it or you get a striped part that makes you look like you've escaped from a mental institution.
Now I have Starfleet's Seal of Approval, I will never doubt my beautiful hair again.
