My Very True and Accurate (side of the) Famous Tracy Story

When I was a kid, I spent five summers doing musical theater. I was absolutely certain that when I grew up, I was going to be an actress, in theater, preferably on Broadway. The fact that I had no talent in singing, dancing or acting was no deterrent.

At the end of every play, there we’d be, 60 or so heartbroken theater geeks, crying all over each other, reluctant to leave our new friends and go back to our regular schools where nobody could quite get why it was that we spent our entire summer in an auditorium. The production itself was only a little piece of it. The bigger story was how we became kind of a big, crazy family, which we really hated to leave when the curtain closed. We’d spend the whole year looking forward to seeing each other again, either at a winter restaging of the play or the next summer.

One of the reasons behind my deep love for the “Lord of the Rings” movies is the way the cast has spoken about the relationships they developed with each other during production. I remembered that sense of pseudo-family, and I envied them for it.

Without going into detail, I also envy a number of other friends of colleagues who have wound up being, well, famous.

I’m being circuitous here, but bear with me.

So I went on JoCo Cruise Crazy. I expected a nice vacation topped off with entertainment from some of my favorite entertainers. What I got was the closest I’ve been in my adult life to that sensation of community and family that I used to feel after six weeks or so of nonstop theater rehearsals. It's easier to describe if you've been there. I’ve gotten a tiny taste of it from conventions and whatnot over the past few years, but never like this. So, thank you all, and I miss you. I thought I'd hate leaving the perfect weather and the piles of food and the constant access to delicious beverages ... but what I hated leaving most was the rest of you and the nerdy society we established on the ship.

I also, somehow, got to be famous. It’s a funny story. At the risk of ruining the Famous Tracy mythos:

1. I had an ulterior motive when I got up to ask a question during the Q&A panel. That ulterior motive was not to wind up on stage. David Rees was asking people what was on their shirts. Months and months ago, I had gotten a crazy idea that a T-shirt referencing both the Insect Swarm plasmid in “Bioshock” and Eddie Izzard’s "Covered in Bees" bit would be wildly hilarious. I got my friend Sarah to design a shirt for me. Less than a handful of people I've met while wearing the shirt have fully grokked. But Sarah is awesome. I saw an opportunity to show off Sarah’s shirt. Sarah is a huge fan of John Hodgman, and even though she wasn’t there, her shirt was … it just made sense to me at the time. So I thought of a question in the hope that David Rees would ask what was on my shirt. David, I’m sorry for manipulating you in this shallow manner. However, I’m glad you gave me the impetus to think of that question, because I genuinely wanted to know the answer to “Who makes you star-struck, and how do you get over it?”
2. Sadly, I have no idea of who makes anybody other than John Hodgman star-struck, because while everyone else was answering, all I could hear was my brain screaming, “ZOMG I AM ON THE STAGE FOR REAL WTF.” I know someone said my name at one point. I think maybe it was Wil Wheaton (OMG WTF). Other than that, just like Hodgman said, it may as well have been a grown-up talking to Charlie Brown.
3. This is all because, for reasons unknown to me, John Hodgman suggested that I was famous, and someone else (I have no idea who) suggested that, as a famous person, I should be on stage. If you know who that was, feel free to fill me in. I’d like to buy them a cookie or something. 

Nothing else that happened to me during the cruise was planned, at least on my part (including the Scrabble game). I planned to go to shows and play some games, but never expected to be applauded by anybody when I walked into a room. In spite of seeing videos on YouTube, I still feel a little like I dreamed all that.

It’s been two weeks since we all got back, but I still feel like the luckiest person in the world, because not only did I get to relive that sense of family and community that I used to get from being in summer theater, but I also got to be famous for the whole trip. It seems like everybody with a JoCo badge played along, and for that I want to thank everyone. You've lit a fire under me to get moving on some creative pursuits I've had waiting in the wings for far too long now.

And to the real famous people … I’m not sure whether that was polite tolerance or active encouragement on your part, but I have to thank you all, too. You were amazing. I’m still blown away and tremendously grateful. I want you to do this again, and I'm already stockpiling funds for when you do.