Just Drove Six Hours to Say Hi!

There are a few things in the world that are quintessentially American.  These include, but are not limited to, football, copious light beer ingestion, cheeseburgers, cowboys, reality television, New Jersey and Easy Cheese.  Also quintessentially American are State Fairs.  Rides, every fried food imaginable, freaky carnies.  Yup, that's America in a nutshell.  I love every bit of it.

This weekend, I had the amazing luck of performing at our State Fair.  This was most epic as much for the opportunity to perform as it meant that I would be able to enjoy a good footlong corndog.  And as a very healthy eater I look forward to my annual footlong corndog.  Let me just go ahead and say now that it was a culinary dream.  Of course by culinary dream I mean it made a delicious mockery of everything decent in the world of cooking.  But it tasted good so who effing cares.

In addition to clogging my arteries, I also saw Leann Rimes perform.  For free.  That's right, Leann Rimes performed a free concert in Great Falls, Montana.  Think what you will.  Anyway, while I am not a fan of Leann Rimes her voice blew me out of the water.  And she looked really sexy.  And she was wearing a pair of my favorite Guess by Marciano shoes.  And she was cute as a muffin.  It was totally worth free-99.

But I'm done blah-blah-blahing about nothing in particular.  My real story has to do with my performance.  Or rather after my performance.  After finishing my set - which I rocked the crap right out of - I proceeded to sit with my friends and family and contemplate which fried delicacy I would enjoy first.  That's right about when I got that creepy sort of feeling that someone, somewhere is staring at you.  Now as a side note, when I told one of my fellow Hooters Girls about this she said, "working here has totally made me immune to that feeling."  Exactly.  That's just how intently I was being stared at.  I was uber uncomfortable.

Naturally, almost immediately as I felt I was being stared at I turned around to locate the culprit.  And then I spotted him at the top corner of the stands.  If he'd been any further away he'd be falling off and breaking his neck.  There he was, my ex, smiling awkwardly as I met his gaze.  It was one of those moments where you're not sure what to do.  Do you talk to him?  Do you avoid him?  Do you beckon him?  Do you pretend you've mysteriously gone blind and you're not actually noticing him but rather simply accepting being blind?  I settled on talking to him.

The first thing I notice was that he was shaking uncontrollably.  Second, I noticed that he had absolutely no idea what say.  As such the whole thing was incredibly awkward.  So awkward in fact that I couldn't even tell you what we talked about now.  I'm sure it had something to do with music and how awesome I am.  Other than that, I have no effing clue.

After a period of awkward conversation followed by even more awkward silence, I decided to rejoin my friends and family and offered he come with me.  He declined and stared longingly as I sat down and began to explain the situation to my incredibly curious "fans."  The first to look up at him was Ariel and though she tried to not be obvious he was so honed in that he immediately saw her.  And the look of bewildered surprise on her face.  Which he of course mistook for Ariel hating him because drama and assumptions just are so much more fun than real life. 

So off he stormed texting me all sorts of less than flattering things all while I was kindly attempting to invite him to enjoy the fair with my parents - who he'd never met.  It became clear almost immediately why we broke up as the texts rolled into my phone nonstop claiming love and hate and love and hate and a little more love.  I was not impressed.

Now all of this may seem relatively normal until you take into account that my ex drove over six hours to see me play a ten minute set just to turn around and drive right home again.  That is just plain weird.  Especially when you consider that we dated for a whole three months.  Yup, it all sounds way more than weird now.  So thanks for stopping by.  I guess.