:: Surprises by Post ::
(aka/The
Best Thank You’s are Handwritten.)
WARNING: Although this
story is
both Patrick
& semi-site related, it’s also personal
& written in my longish, prosy style. So just fair warning; expect
anecdotes & the occasional ramble ahead. Because it is personal, I
wavered
about what to say or whether to say anything at all. But before I met
Patrick,
I was always impressed by stories I heard about him through mutual
friends
& outside sources. I felt they helped me develop a deeper
understanding of
his work & encouraged me in my fanship. So now I have a story to
tell --
& since I received so much from the stories shared with me before,
I feel I’d
be remiss if I didn’t share it with you other fans.
* * *
Friday
was
a lucky day.
Course,
it
didn’t start out so lucky. It started out as an unlucky
day, following an unlucky week, topped by an unlucky month.
In fact, I think August/September has been the hardest part of my year
to date.
Just to give you some perspective of what I’ve been wrestling with
lately -- in
the middle of August I was hit with a very nasty version of strep
throat. I
seem to catch that illness in rounds; every couple of years it hits
again, each
time nastier than the last & I can’t break the cycle. This time,
the
illness
seemed a derived hybrid of two different sicknesses, which made it
vicious to
the point of biblical plague-like proportions. It caused painful mouth
sores so
that besides not being able to eat, drink or talk, even just touching
my mouth
hurt like hell! For two weeks I couldn’t do anything except suffer high
fevers,
gag down meds & try to live with the pain. And as proof that things
can
always get worse, right in the middle of this my bank decides to change
some
things on my account without my authorization -- so that I was left
stranded
without funds for those little indulgences like doctor bills, gasoline
& car
insurance. I had to resort to living off a credit card while this was
being
sorted out.
And
if you
think that was as bad as things could get, you’re quite mistaken. While
I was
sick, our internet went down for a straight week, I hit that peak of
lovely
womanhood which makes one want to pull out raw trees by the roots,
&
let’s
not even discuss the run-in I had with a live scorpion in the shower!
(Perils
of living in the desert, everyone!) Even recovering from the strep
didn’t help.
I was almost immediately back down again with a case of food poisoning,
I had
to try to move all my financial stuff over to a new bank after the old
one
refused to correct their mistake & the payroll staff at the
hospital
is
apparently run by a bunch of monkeys, because for about a month now
they’ve
been unable get my old direct deposit transferred to the new bank
account.
There were definitely days in there when it wasn’t worth the effort of
getting
out of bed.
Friday
felt like one of those days. It was a very busy day at work. They
changed the
system so the process takes twice as long then, with typical corporate
reasoning,
they expect everything to be done twice as fast. So Friday for me was
hectic,
not helped by the payroll monkeys & subsequent unplanned trip I had
to make
to the bank. So, though I wasn’t upset par se when finally driving
home, I
wasn’t in my best mood either.
All
that
changed when I pulled up & stopped at my mailbox. I was haunting
the
mailbox, because I was waiting for my new debit card to come from
the bank
& it'd been two weeks already. And I was checking the mail, looking
for my
debit card (which didn't come btw -- just one more chapter in the
ongoing
transition nightmare) when I saw that I’d received a package. It was
addressed
in a strong, bold hand to 'Christy'. And I was momentarily nonplussed.
None of
my business mail (or purchases usually) come addressed to 'Christy'.
Only my
friends call me that. All business (& 95% of my mail) comes
addressed to
'Christina' (my legal name). So I was understandably confused. I
glanced up in
the left corner for the address & (here's the even weirder part)
there was
no return address on it.
I carried the package inside, not sure what
to make of it. It
definitely caught
my interest, because I wasn't expecting anything & usually when my
friends
send me something, they call or email to give me a heads-up to watch
out for
it. I felt confused because it seemed the package was from a friend,
but no one
I knew was sending me anything. So I took it inside and looked for
scissors to
open it with.
While hunting the scissors, I snuck a look
at the postmark, hoping that
would
give me a clue to the sender's identity. That proved more puzzling,
because it
was postmarked as being sent from Los Angeles. And though I have a
few friends
who hail from California, none of them are out
in L.A.I'm ashamed to say I
didn’t
connect the dots, but the realization of who it really was from was too
fantastic to occur to me.
My anticipation thus renewed, I urgently
ripped the package open
and
extracted three objects. And among those objects was a handwritten
thank you
note from Patrick (thus the inspiration for my title.)
And that was the point I screamed.
Now we have to back up a moment for all of this to make sense. As some
of you
already know, I attended
the
12th Annual Xena Convention in January of this year & met
Patrick
there. What you may not know (as I didn’t include it in my con report)
is that
as well as meeting him, I also brought him gifts.
The
reason
why I did this is quite simple: I wanted to express my gratitude for
the hard
work Patrick does every time he steps onscreen. Take from one whose
spent their
fair share of time under the lights; acting is not easy. Repeating the
same
lines over & over until you are sick of them, long hours spent in
rehearsal,
working with people you loved at the beginning of casting & now
wish would
drop off the face of the earth -- it’s all part of the package.
Although performing
is fun & can be an incredibly rewarding experience, it’s not fun
all the
time. There is a lot of work invested & sometimes I think the
audience on
the other end of the entertainment spectrum doesn’t fully appreciate
all the
hardship that goes into that line of work. Acting is a rough,
rejectable
business. And even for those who get consistent work, it takes
persistence and
drive to stick it out in such a hard-nosed profession. For that alone I
admire
the actors who are out there in Hollywood, fighting for the art
they love,
giving it all they’ve got. Especially the unknown actors.
So
I
wanted to clearly express my appreciation in way that would be
unmistakable.
And in so doing, I realized too late that maybe I was overzealous.
You’ve got
to understand, my personality mirrors that of Tigger -- like on Winnie
the
Pooh. Creative, bouncy, full of ideas -- yet not so hot on the common
sense. And
I’m very big on personalized gifts,
because again, being like Tigger, I get all excited over presents so I
expect
everyone else to feel the same way. I still haunt the Christmas tree
like a
little kid & give the best Christmas presents in my family, because
I
remember little details about people, like their favorite color or what
books
they read. I can’t explain how or why I do it; it just comes naturally
to me,
hard-wired into my personality somehow. The problem is: once I get an
idea I
like, I get all excited in a very bouncy way about it then leap off to
do it
without a thought towards the consequences. And since I got so many
ideas for
gifts for Patrick & naturally liked all of them, I decided in a
rather
Tigger-y fashion, “Oh what the hell, let’s do them ALL!” without
realizing this
could be overwhelming to a total stranger.
And
while
you are doubtless shaking your head & clucking your tongues, able
to see
already where this story is leading up to, let me just say that I had
all the
best intentions in mind when I did this. Course the problem is you can
never
anticipate how someone might react to a gift. You can try of course to
anticipate their reaction, as I do every time I personalize my gifts to
someone, but you never truly know what they think until they unwrap it
(&
sometimes, not even then). And Hollywood has now added a whole
new dimension
to being a fan with events like conventions & public appearance
promotions which
I think are as much as curse as a blessing. Though it’s wonderful to
get the
opportunity to personally meet someone you admire, there are definitely
fans
out there who abuse that privilege. We need to remember that, though
they are
very talented, actors are people too & deserve the same rights
& self
respect as our neighbors, our friends & our fellow co-workers do,
including
the right to privacy & personal space. None of us would ever think
of stalking,
obsessing over, stealing from or physically assaulting a neighbor or a
friend
(hopefully not anyway!) so what gives anyone the right to think that’s
acceptable behavior with a celebrity? We’ve all heard the horror
stories of
those crazed fans who basically give us all a bad name by acting this
way
around celebrities (or worse!) & I think that’s caused by a wrong
perspective. If anything we should be more
respectful to celebrities, not less,
because they are doing us a great service by investing their time &
energy
to entertain us, bringing laughter & joy into our lives. To act
improperly
or offensively is a great disservice to them and the work that they do.
But it’s
gotten practically to the point where celebrities practically cannot
walk out
their door without being mobbed by paparazzi or some fan who wants to
smack
their rump & I think that’s just wrong!
We need to shift past this concept of stardom & realize that these
are
people just like us trying to do their job & do it well. (/end my
mini-rant) Still -- as months passed after the convention with no word
from
Patrick, I began to wonder ashamedly if I hadn’t just joined the ranks
of those
bad-impression causing fans!
I
want to
be clear that I take full blame for this. I know Patrick is an
incredibly busy man
& with his responsibilities, expecting him to take time out to
contact me
personally is the highest form of presumption. It was just that I’d
told him
about the website (What? Me, a shameless self-promoter? Never! *cheeky
grin*) &
hoped to get his opinion on it. But as months passed with no word, I
looked
back in retrospect & regretted, as I often do, my leaping ahead
without
fully weighing the consequences. Perhaps I had offended him by
presenting him
with so much & so informally. Not to mention building a website,
then
immediately expecting him to take note of it, as if it were such a
tremendous
thing that he couldn’t help but do otherwise. *sigh* Though he was
naught but
gracious about everything when I met
him in January, it occurred to me later that he might be overwhelmed
& was
simply polite about it. I meant no harm, but perhaps in my bubbly,
boisterous
way I did more harm than good.
All
this
changed last week, last Friday in fact, the aforementioned lucky Friday
waaaaaay back at the beginning of this story. Not only did I receive
some very
lovely things from Patrick in the package, I think what might’ve
touched me
most was the fact that there was a thank you note enclosed,
hand-written by the
man himself.
And
it
took me back to a simpler time, a time when my mother (who was a
stickler for good
manners & proper grammar) would sit us down at the table before
school
vacation ended in January & had us hand-write our thank you notes
for all
the gifts we received that year for Christmas (& in my case,
birthday because
it fell in January). To me, a hand-written note is a symbol of
gratitude that
nothing else can quite touch. It shows forethought & dedication,
that the
person took the time to sit down and painstakingly express their
gratitude for
whatever the situation might be. I’ve always, always treasured
the thank you notes I get from friends and
relatives -- I keep them in a special box in my closet & they
encourage me
on days that aren’t bright or cheery otherwise. The fact that he
hand-wrote it --
not just typed up something & inserted it in the package as an
afterthought
-- meant more to me than anything else did. It’s a sign of good manners
&
true gratitude. And, to me at least, it’s an unmistakable indication
that this,
this, is the kind of celebrity worth
supporting. Not the ones who make headline news with drinking &
drug
problems or crumbling homelives. But the kind who sit down and write
thank you
notes to their fans before calmly going back and doing the
job they are called to do. THAT is the kind of
celebrity I want to admire. THAT is the kind of
celebrity I want to
place on a pedestal & say about him, “Look at him, you guys. He’s a
good man.”
So
-- I hope
this rather lengthy story encouraged you & if anything, that it
helped make
your fanship stronger & induced you to keep supporting Patrick in
his work.
If you didn’t catch it on the news page, he is going to be appearing in
a
variety of new programs come October & so please do try & watch
those
so we can help increase his viewer status. If I have one beef in all
this
(which truly how can I complain about
such generosity?), it’s that I wish he had given me a return address.
Not that
I don’t appreciate his privacy & certainly understand the reasons
why he
didn’t -- but I was well brought up too
you know. *grins* Such a nice gesture & here I cannot hand-write my
own
thank you note for it. My mother would be utterly mortified if she
knew.
But
since
I cannot be so mannerless as to offer no thank you at all, I am leaving
a
personal message for Patrick on the website, in hopes he may catch it
if he so
happens to jaunt through here again. I’d prefer of course not to post
it on
such a public forum, but lack of other opinions presenting themselves,
I’ll do
my best to be appreciative. Patrick, if you are reading this, I’m sorry
I
cannot offer anything better, but please know that it comes from the
heart. Thank
you. And
all of you other fans, I do ask you to be respectful & let this
personal
message remain personal by not
reading it, since it is intended to be just for Patrick. And with that
I close,
until next time. Be well my friends & keep in touch.
All of my love to everyone,
Christy
The Webmistress
PS:
Those
lovely upcoming appearances under the new work section, Patrick gave me
those
tips, yep. As far as inside sources go, you can’t ask for much better
than
that! *grins*
Patrick & Ruby, just saying hello to all their fans!
|
* * *
Just when I think it couldn't be any harder down here
Another blow comes out of nowhere
And knocks me down again
When I think I'm all alone
The phone starts to ring
It's just the voice I needed to hear on the other end
You do it again
You do it again
Speak to me just like a friend
You always seem to show up right on time
You do it again
/ POG - Do It Again
* * *
If you haven't read my con report about the 'meeting in January', now
is a perfect time to delve in! You can catch the first half here in Part 1
:: Five Days in Hell or step ahead to Part
2 :: Two Minutes in
Heaven.
Posted 09.23.07
All material & images posted here are © Christy Burk ::
September 2007
All song lyrics used are appropriately
credited to their respective
artists.
This document
may not be altered, redistributed or reposted without prior written
consent. All rights reserved.
