Hopelessly Devoted

Writing all of these letters got pretty pricey. I remember during the summer between fifth and sixth grade I started to feel guilty for all the postage my parents were paying for. So, I set up a lemonade stand on the country road where we lived in Beverly, Ohio. There wasn't exactly a lot of traffic, so I didn't get many customers. And by not many, I mean no one other than my parents and siblings, which defeated the purpose. So I set up camp outside of my grandparents' home in town. When people would ask what I was trying to raise money for, I would simply say, "love." That seemed to win over the neighbors, who bought a cup of lemonade with a chuckle and a wink.

I soon decided that if I had nicer stationary or cooler stickers, maybe the objects of my affection would start writing back. So I started selling clothes and shoes in yard sales in an attempt to scrounge up enough for glittery gel pens and shimmering stickers. I don't remember asking my parents to pay for any of this, although I'm sure they would have. I was independent in that sense, and I was certain my hard work would pay off. Sadly, many lemons and a much diminished wardrobe later, I still wasn't having any luck eliciting a reply--not even a form letter.

At some point during my preteen fan years, the journalist in me began to emerge. I wasn't just writing to Jonathan or Justin or Brian about how I liked their song or how much their movies made me laugh. I was doing research. I would spend my hard-earned Internet privileges at school learning everything about my crushes and reading any teen magazine I could get my hands on. I started to write to them about what we had in common. "Justin, I read you love red Starbursts. So do I!" or "JTT I love my family more than anything, too!" But nothing worked; even when I put postage on a return envelope with my address.

One crush in particular frustrated me the most. I was watching "The Sandlot" (the 1993 movie about young baseball players, for those of you who might have missed it) and I absolutely fell for Mike Vitar, who played Rodriguez. He was the best baseball player in town and befriended the lonely new kid. I wrote him more than anyone I'd ever written before. I loved baseball and, growing up in Ohio, I was also a huge Cleveland Indians fan. I wrote him letters and letters all about baseball. I was especially disappointed with this one because of all the guys I'd written, he was the least famous. I thought since he was less known, he surely received less fan mail, and would be more likely to respond. No such luck.

And then, I stopped. I was 12 years old. During junior high and even a little bit of high school, some friends were just starting their fan-mail days. And soon, a lot of them started writing e-mails. I stayed away from it, though, vowing that my fan-letter-writing days were over. I didn't want to set myself up for disappointment again. Besides, by then I was busy having crushes on boys that were in my life, not just on my TV set.

But a new crush emerged during my junior year of college: Pat Monahan, the lead singer of Train. At this point, I'd racked up some confidence--my English teachers, both high school and college, told me I was a talented writer. With these compliments in mind, I thought that this fan letter would be different. It would be so powerful, there was no way Pat could ignore it.