The ones who entertain & the ones who observe...

Okay, lame, I know. The title of this blog is the second part of a verse in Britney's Circus song... "There are two types of people in this world..." and then the title. The whole verse was too long to be my title.

Anyway, despite my disposition in certain settings that often leads people in party settings to ask if I'm drunk (no) because they're so used to seeing me in my quiet demeanor, I really do like being the center of attention. REALLY like it. For instance, when I karaoked in Memphis, I was scared at first, because I knew my voice wasn't going to be good. But when I got up there and sang and people cheered me on, I didn't want to leave. So I sang again. And if we didn't have to meet our hotel van at a specific time, I honestly think I would have spent the whole night singing, because no one else was that eager. It would have been Meghan's Night at Wet Willie's. That was also the night I was dancing while we had dinner at BB King's Bar and the blues band noticed and called me up to the stage. I felt hesitant at first, but Kevin encouraged me and once I was up there, I drank in the attention. And because these two things happened that same night, when Kevin and I walked down that street to find our hotel van, we were stopped three times. Twice by people who remembered me from karaoke and one by a guy in the blues band who wanted to thank me for being cool about dancing with them.

Honestly, my natural tendency on a day-to-day basis is to be a homebody. Nothing speaks to me like pajamas and my super-cozy blanket, writing or reading or something quiet. But I loved being narcissitic and feeling like that night was all about me.

And that's what I did last night. My job gave us the opportunity to be a part of a huge parade for the university I attended. A Big 10 school that every college sports fan knows the details about, and I was raised to be a fan, though I've backed off since I went to school there. But I wanted to get into the spirit for homecoming. I'm proud of being an alumna, AND my Grampa absolutely LOVED this school and their sports. I wanted to do this for him and knew I'd have a great time.

Seeing as how I work at a library, they chose to make our theme "Read Banned Books" and celebrate the fact that we do have the freedom in our country to read books, like Dr. Seuss's The Lorax or Where's Waldo or 1984 or James and the Giant Peach (the list of surprising titles goes on and on), that certain schools or organizations may try to ban. This meant we got to dress as characters from books that have been banned. I chose to dress as Little Red Riding Hood, which was banned because in one edition, Little Red Riding hood was taking alcohol to her sick grandmother. We also had Where's Waldo, Tom Sawyer, Harry Potter, a witch, and other characters that I'm already forgetting. There were 14 of us, I think.

Being in this parade was such an amazing experience. Even my hometown's biggest parades aren't as big as this. I got to our meeting spot an hour and a half before the parade. We warmed up by eating pizza and stealing candy from our neighbors. Actually, I attempted, with a coworker, to ask for candy, and I just froze when we got to the group. We stood there and stared at them. My coworker tried to say their name, but no one paid attention, so after 3 minutes of awkwardly standing, we ran full speed back to our spot. Everyone threw their hands open, expecting us to have something for them and we explained what happened. Two friends went back and returned with candy. They said that the folks saw us standing there awkwardly and didn't know what our deal was. Embarassing? Yes.

After a while, we practiced our moves for the parade. Ten of us had book carts and are big move was to maneuver around in a single line, like a big snake. It sounded great, but during the first try, my shoe fell off and I screamed the whole time. I was swung every which way and was terrified of the possibilities during the parade. The second maneuver was a mess. We were supposed to criss-cross, but we didn't have the talent for it. Instead, our leader, Where's Waldo, changed it to Freestyle and we would just go crazy and then return to our spots.

Finally, after eating, dancing, having chanting wars with our neighbors, and screaming through the practice of "The Snake," it was time to walk into the parade. I noticed that I was doing my "catwalk." I realized this was probably not the look that Little Red went for. So I changed it to a friendly smile and we were engulfed by hundreds of people. I couldn't hold myself back. My "All About Me" side just had to look into the crowd and point, smile, wave and say "Yeah, hi!" and nod and turn to the other side and do it again. I did this a few times and then found a girl who actually was waving at us and waved and screamed, "HELLO!!" So she would feel cool. Or maybe so I would feel cool.

We did the snake several times and my shoe stayed put. Cameras were everywhere, so I made sure to pose while we snaked JUST in case they wanted to use THIS face in the paper, which I don't think anyone did. I only screamed once during a snake when I felt like one of my arms was going to have to fall out in order for the sequence to work.

Kids would yell, "WE WANT THE CANDY." My coworker cleverly responded, "We've got free books ABOUT candy!" I couldn't think of anything clever to yell... so I kept walking and smiling, sometimes yelling, "Read!" or "Life's a book!" I don't really know what I meant. So I stopped yelling and pretended those hundreds of people showed up just to see me. Me!

When we were done, I still had a high from the attention. Besides the angry kids who wanted candy, we did get claps for our Snake and people shouting, "The Library!!" I would "Woo!" right back to encourage more.

I like being in the middle of it all. Even if I'm dressed in a ridiculous costume and pigtails. It was a fun night.

I wonder what else I can do and, in my head, make it all about me.

Guess I'll go google myself.