"She's Read All Your Books."

Now that I've already told the Best Friend about it, I can tell you, too.

Two Saturdays ago, my two absolute favorite authors came to town. Not only that, but their book signing was in conjunction with one of my absolute favorite, locally owned stores, Reading Reptile. Needless to say, I was excited.

That being said, I was kind of in an "end of the week" bad mood, which I have been experiencing a lot recently. So, I woke up sad. Still, I was resolved to go; no sadness would keep me from meeting John Green and Rainbow Rowell.

My mom came with me, and she invited my aunt, who is apparently a pretty experienced book-signing-er. Since I wasn't alone, and since the excitement was building, my bad mood melted away pretty quickly.

We arrived at the KC Public Library an hour before the event would begin. I brought with me Fangirl, Eleanor and Park, Will Grayson Will Grayson, and Looking for Alaska: two for me to get signed, two for mom to get signed, two by each author. While I was there, I bought Paper Towns for myself, it's the only John Green book I didn't own. Then I bought An Abundance of Katherines for my best friend, Alli. And I bought a Rainbow Rowell book for Renee (aka the love of my life), but since I haven't sent it to her yet, I've already said too much.

Upon arrival, we each took a John Green ticket, as was advised by the ticket-handing-out-lady. She told us that we could only get one ticket total, and it would insure we would get our books signed by them. Then she suggested we get a John Green ticket and just wait in the Rainbow Rowell line. We could jump over to the John Green line after getting Rainbow's sign...ing...s(?), and the ticket would allow us to get John Green's too. Best of both worlds, yeah?

So, we spent the next forty-five minutes or so waiting in the front of Rainbow Rowell's line.

Then, my aunt goes, "I think I see her."

And there she was: Rainbow Rowell. 

And she was so, so, pretty.

"IS that her?" My mom asked.

"Ohmygod, she's so pretty," I said. And then I said it again. And again. And again. And finally she was getting to close, and I saw John Green and added, "Ohmygod, that's John Green. He's real."

Rainbow Rowell sat down next to us, started unloading her bag of sharpies. My mom encouraged me, "Okay, Katrina, you should go first." And I, dumbfounded, walked over to Rainbow Rowell.

"Hey!" She said, "It's good to... We've met, right?"

"N-n-n-no," I stammered.

"You look familiar," she explained. 

"That might be because I make a bunch of stupid youtube videos, and a lot of them recently were about you, and I tagged you in them on Twitter, and you might have seen them. Also one time I cosplayed Eleanor from Eleanor and Park. And..." I... thought.

But didn't say. What I said was something along the oh-so-eloquent lines of, "Iuhblarghab, sorasdas..." before saying timidly, "I also have this one for Renee."

Then, we went to hop into the John Green line. I would have just headed to the back of the line. But my mother didn't want to--which makes sense, because the John Green line trailed out of the library, around, down, and along the sidewalk beside the lower level of the library. So she went to find the library personnel and ask if, with our tickets, we could just get into the spot our ticket said in line. To which they said, "Sure," and went to find where that spot in line would be. We were 109 and 110, I think, so she found 107 and 108 and put us right behind them. 

Chagrin tinted me the color of a firetruck. 

"Are you mad at me?" My mom asked.

"Just embarrassed."

"Is it going to ruin meeting John Green?"

"Nope."

It didn't. I got over the embarrassment over the line thing really quick. 

But then we were at the front of the line and I was all nervous and embarrassed again. His signing was more streamlined than the other authors'. We'd hand our books to a lady, who would hand them to John Green one at a time. 

So I was standing there, nervously watching the lady pass John books, when he said, "Hey, thanks for reading my books."

To which I responded with... nothing. I just stood there silently for about a minute before quickly saying, "Yeah, thanks for writing them." Then, I grabbed the books quickly, and started walking--nay, sprinting--away. Behind me I hear my mom say, helpfully, "She's read all your books."

"Oh, great!"

And that was how I met my two favorite authors. 

These are all the books I got signed. Except for the one I got for Renee. Since it's still secret.