She Dances...er...Sits..With Wolves

The universe is a strange and wonderful thing and life is random. There is no other way I can explain how I can go from this on Friday:

To this on Saturday:

That would be the Taylor Swift concert in Chicago this past Saturday night, and yes, that would be Taylor Lautner sitting thatclose to me. Here is how that came to be...

I actually saw Taylor about 20 seconds after getting there Sat night. My friends and I were walking through catering to get to a backstage room and my friend just whispered "look left" and there was Taylor at the catering table right next to us. I just smiled and we kept on walking.  A little later while we were just hanging out talking to Taylor Swift's mom and he walked in to the room.  He was chatting and taking pictures with the daughters of some co-workers and getting up in the middle of a conversation would be the pinacle of rudeness, so again, smile and go on.

We were fortunate enough to watch the concert from the soundboard so we were standing in the little fenced off area towards the front waiting for the show to start, when Taylor walked in the arena with T. Swift's mom. I don't have the proper words to describe the shrieking roar that ensued. I don't even know how it spread THAT fast that it was him, considering he couldn't have been more than 2 feet in the door before everyone was screaming.  T. Swift's mom walked in to the soundboard area with him, and he moved to the middle towards the back by himself, the singular focus of every pair of eyeballs in the place. He just stood and smiled. The lights went out shortly after and the show started. My friends and I stayed towards the front, dancing and singing, because...well...we love Taylor Swift! Taylor just stood quietly by himself and watched the show.  About midway through the show, T Swift (it gets really hard to write this out with the Taylor/Taylor thing, bear with me) comes out to a little stage in the soundboard area and sings a few songs.  They bring some people down to sit on a big rug next to the stage to watch it. That's where I thought we were going. I was wrong.  Here is where I smell a little conspiracy amongst Mama Swift and my friends, but however it came to be, I am grateful. Mama Swift pulled us over to sit on the other side of the little stage. I was literally grabbed by the shoulder and placed next to Taylor to sit, one of my friends was placed on the other side of him.  When the lights came up as T. Swift ran up on to the smaller stage, it was blinding. I'm pretty sure I'm still seeing spots from all the flashbulbs. My friend looks at Taylor and says "thanks for getting me on everyone's facebook page tomorrow" and I asked, "so, is this just a normal day for you?" (Way less creepy than "hey I was eating cake off your face yesterday") He half smiled and replied "yeah, kind of." We then introduced ourselves, and he, quite adorably, introduced himself right back "hi! I'm Taylor" and shook our hands. 

Taylor for the most part just watched T Swift, singing along and bobbing his head along like the rest of us, occasionally looking down at his feet. I saw him glance over quickly when I pulled out my phone, but once he saw I was just taking pics of T.Swift he relaxed and went back to singing along. (note: great sigh of relief that just a day prior, I'd taken the RPattz screensaver off my phone). The most poignant part of the night for me came while T. Swift sang "Fifteen". The song just lays me out on a good day, but the combination of missing my own 15 year (gulp) reunion for this and who I ended up next to to watch the song, had me choking back the sobs because there was no way..NO WAY...I was going to cry in front of Taylor Lautner. So girls out there, high school sucks...but hang in there, go do your own thing...it's just an annoying blip on your life's radar! As you see it can get sooooooooooo much better from there!

After T Swift finishes "Fifteen" she has to get back up to the main stage, but not before doing lightening fast drive by huggings of everyone around the small stage. (Seriously she hugs you and tells you she loves you, do you SEE why I adore the kid?) She hugged me, and then of course, hugs Taylor. It was all very sweet.

After T. Swift made it back up to the main stage, we just stayed where we were and continued to watch the show. It was around that point that I realized that thousands of people in the arena had pictures of Taylor and me, but I didn't have a picture of Taylor and me. I still felt bad approaching him when he was not there in any sort of professional capacity, but he had hung back where we were standing and my friend pointed out he was sitting right behind us just fiddling with his phone.  I asked if he would mind taking an actual picture with me and he jumped right up, big smile, "no, not at all!" Which resulted in:

I thanked him then winked and said I'd leave him be now and he put his arm back around me and said "aww! No, you've been so nice!"  As if he hadn't won me over already, that did it.  I went back to my friends and we continued with our singing and dancing.  He sort of hung near us, but continued to watch on his own. It was hard, seeing him by himself and feeling like we should try and engage him, but also knowing that he probably rarely gets time to himself.  So we just left him to his own thing. During the big finale, Mama Swift and security just quietly got him out of the area.

We saw him a little later during T. Swift's aftershow T- Party, where she meets with a bunch of fans pulled from the audience during the show. He followed T. Swift in and took pictures and chatted with every fan she did. I was impressed with him. It was never secretive that he was there, and he took the time with as many fans as he could.  Overall, my impression of Taylor was that for the mania he's going through, as young as he is, how NORMAL he comes across. Actually, I don't even know if normal is the right word, since I have to say he handled himself far better, and much sweeter, than any 17 year boys I remember. He's a good kid, and obviously surrounding himself with other good kids.  I really wish him the very best.

Please excuse the rambling nature of this, after fighting technology yesterday, I was just trying to get the whole experience out while it was still fairly fresh.  I'll leave you with this very random youtube video of "the hug" and my silly very blonde head.

If there is a lesson in all of this, it's to always dress much cuter than you feel like dressing for shows because you never know when you will end up in a zillion pictures.

All still photos property of this blog owner, please credit if you use them...or just ask!