Fangirl!

For those of you not familiar with the terms "fangirl" or "fanboy,"  they are new words meant to describe the giddy adoring fans of (usually) an actor or singer or similar; my high school kids use this word to describe themselves and also as a verb:  "I was fangirling over [insert handsome young actor] at the Oscars last night!"  Picture the girls swooning over Elvis or the Beatles--frantic disbelief that their idol is within reach.

This morning, as I sipped my snow day coffee and munched on my snow day cinnamon roll, I read my tweets and realized I'd been TWEETED TO by AN AUTHOR who is FAMOUS.  Holy cow!!  There was a bit of hopping about the living room as I frantically screen shotted the tweet to post on Instagram and retweet and generally BRAG TO THE WORLD that Paula Hawkins had noticed my last night's tweet about her!

Here's how it happened:  I watch The Bachelor.  Religiously.  Unashamedly.  And I make my friends watch with me, so I'm not alone in my appalled disbelief at the behavior of the ladies or the gentlemen and my relentless belief that love can be found anywhere--even within the confines of an eight-week game show format.  So I was watching my show and tweeting about it, and when it was over, I typed that I'd be turning off the tv and heading back into my book, and one of my twittering friends asked what book I'm reading.  Currently, it's Us, by David Nicholls, and it's really very good--highly recommend it--but I told my friend to read The Girl on the Train, by Paula Hawkins, as it is GRIPPING and employs fantastic use of unreliable narrator.  I was hooked from the first page and read like a madwoman to get to the end for two days; in the tweet, I tagged the author who is also on Twitter.  AND SHE THANKED ME FOR MY TWEET.  Don't believe me??  See for yourself:

There it IS!!  What a strange new world we live in--this woman is a best-selling author who lives in LONDON, while I am an anonymous English teacher enjoying a snow day in rural southern Illinois.  Now she knows that I have purchased, read, and loved her work!  And she has contacted me through my PHONE.  This phenomenon floors me!  We live in a world with absolutely no boundaries between the famous and the fans.  Just imagine if the Beatles had had Twitter/Instagram/Facebook . . . .  These are the modern-day fan mail and fan clubs, and I'm excited that this is my first contact with an author I admire.  I can tell you that I've greatly enjoyed my fangirling moment, and I'm no more immune to the excitement of a brush with greatness than are my teenaged students.  There are days when age is definitely just a number on my driver's license and has NO bearing on my behavior or heart.  :-)  :-)