I'm a Little Bit Crazy and a Little Bit Rock N Roll

Me and my close, personal friend, Donny Osmond.

The Valentine that started it all.

Really, the only autographs I've ever wanted.

Ten years ago . . . no, lets go back a little bit further. Let's go back about 11 years ago. I went on a date. A date to the Provo theater to watch a production of "Little Shop of Horrors". My date had to pick me up on campus and drop me off back on campus (poor guy) because I was working on a project and we had a deadline and we were going to be flying out to Arizona for a national competition and it was busy and intense. Mix in the fact that I had originally thought the "date" was a group get together and not a one-on-one type deal but that didn't fully dawn on me until we arrived at the theater and no one else but couples were there and then he did the "I'll lead you to our seats by putting my hand on your back" type move and then it all clicked. My head was a-swarming with all sorts of things. Had I not been in such a state I might have been more coherent that the man sitting next to me was none other than the soldier of love himself, Donny Osmond with his teenage son in tow. I should have appreciated it more. I should have asked for his autograph then and been done with it, but I just couldn't go there. I was busy with other matters. I do remember he wore a black leather jacket and I vaguely wondered if he arrived here on a motorcycle. That would have been cool. About a year after that, I was working at an advertising agency in Portland and it was my first Valentine's Day there. I was one of two LDS employees and the only one that was female. The other was male in case you couldn't deduce that. I walked in to work to find a "Valentine" tacked to my cork board. It was rudimentary and hastily cut and pasted. It had a red "I" with a heart and a cut out of Donny Osmond. I know the giver of the Valentine thought it was funny, but I secretly loved it and kept it up on the board for years. People noticed and started giving me Donny memorabilia. I had quite a bit by the time I left that job. We moved and moved and moved and our dwellings started to get smaller and we added kids to the ever decreasing living spaces. I threw out all my Donny stuff except for the original Valentine. I have kept tabs on Donny since then: talk shows, appearances, game shows, movies (remember a little Disney film called "Mulan"?), music, documentaries, serenades. It just made me love him more. I wanted to start a blog titled "I Heart Donny" where people could write in and tell about their Donny experiences, but, in the end, I just didn't have the extra time and also, I'm just not that crazy either. So, time marched on. I went to a party. We played a game. They asked who is the one living person you would most like to meet? No hesitation. Word got around. Someone heard he and Marie would be at my local Walmart. I went, I bought a CD (and yes, it's a little bit country and a little bit rock and roll), I stood in line, I met Donny and Marie (bonus). They autographed my CD. They had bouncer-type people all around making sure no one talked too long or had them sign anything that wasn't a CD. I didn't like that rule. I pulled out my Valentine. It's pretty ghetto looking. I gave Donny the ole pretty pretty please while I batted my eyelashes. He looked it over, turned it every which way. Yes, it is awful to look at. But he happily signed it. I told him I had waited a long time for his autograph. Marie thought that was pretty funny. I was certainly one of the youngest in line--by like 15 years. And then, I hauled to bathroom because I had waited so long in line and I really had to pee (probably, much like my older counterparts in line). And THAT, my friends, is how I met Donny Osmond and he became my close, personal friend.