The Anderson Cooper Affair

Last Wednesday night, my mom and I went to Olsson's books on Wilson Boulevard in Arlington to see Anderson Cooper (CNN journalist extraordinaire) talk about his new book. My mom got there first and staked out a pretty good spot, about 10 yards away from the podium. As her poor little foot is still healing from surgery, I fended off the masses from stomping on her boot-encased ped, as the people started rolling in.

Now mind you, we know who Anderson Cooper is from TV, we read the article about him in Vanity Fair, and we think he's somewhat exotic (what with the premature grey hair and steel blue eyes and all), but we're not big enough fans to buy his $40 book in hard-cover for an autograph (like the majority of the audience). Rather, we simply came to gawk at a celebrity.

There we stood for at least 30 minutes, huddled against the CD racks, attempting to peer around a cumbersome column and a rather chubby gay man in a pink polo shirt who was partially blocking our view, waiting for Anderson to make his appearance. When I looked down, out of sheer boredom, to see what CDs were in my line of sight, my eyes caught on the new Kenny Rogers CD... or rather the fearsome spectacle that is now called Kenny Rogers' face. Holy crap, if you want to see plastic surgery gone bad, check this out:


The before and after shocker... Kenny Rogers and the alien.

It reminded me of that woman who now looks like a cat she's had so much surgery.

Now that is just gross.

Everyone standing around me at Olsson's agreed...

Anyhow, soon after my momentary obsession with Kenny Rogers' uplifted face passed, the audience roared, and Anderson Cooper made his appearance. My mother, ever the tactful one, immediately hollered out, "Oh my goodness, he's tiny!" Despite my momentary embarrassment, I had to agree. The man was positively tiny... and not just short, I mean he was just a very small-boned man, very narrow, and very baby bird-like. I guess TV really does add dimension to people (thank god that was not my career of choice) because I'd always imagined Anderson Cooper to be around 6'2" and rather strapping. Instead, my guess is that he's only 5'8" and 140 lbs. at the absolute most. In fact, it appeared I might be able to snap him in half like a twig. Not that I would ever want to do that, of course, but it seemed as though I could have if I'd really had the desire.


Teeny Anderson with Steve Tyler in drag. Hahaha. Not really.

He only spoke for about 20 minutes -- a good, fairly comical and rather humble speech actually -- before he began signing people's books in a private room at the back of the book shop. At this point, my mother and I decided to run outside and see if we could see him up close through the window. Apparently other people had the same idea, and I kid you not when I tell you that at least 20 people were ogling at poor Anderson through the outside glass window, just like one might watch a chimp at the zoo before he launches his own poop at the crowd.

I quickly sneaked into a spot next to the window... so close to Anderson I could have touched him had it not been for that damn glass!... and snapped a pic of him on my phone. Which, of course, I have no idea how to download onto the computer now...

And on that note, I must go pick up Miguel from a long day of World Cup drinking and festivities.