Picking up from yesterday, and how lovely working with contestants was –
I felt like the contestants kept me sane and happy that summer, which is funny, ’cause I think that was kind of what I was supposed to be doing for them.
I made friends there that I have to this day. I went to visit some former contestants up in Seattle. When I was living in New York, I went to a fundraiser with some of my girls from the show.
Heck, one of the contestants went on to be my roommate for a year!
There was this crazy during-the-show-time when I ran into a few boys from the show at a bus stop! It was kind of jarring to see them outside of work because there were all these contracts stating no fraternizing and everything.
But how could I help that we were at the same bus stop? It was so random, and I wouldn’t have believed it if it didn’t happen to me.
(I wanted to “run into” people at the movies and stuff when they’d tip me off on what they’d be up to. People kept telling me to come hang out with them. I would’ve absolutely loved to do that, but all that contract business seemed so serious with fines they could impose and stuff. So, I never did… But the accidental bump into at a bus stop was real… Unless they were “running into” me. ;))
It was a little draining to say goodbye to people you loved every week – and not even just to say goodbye… Because, you knew when the show was over, you could keep up with them with all the newfangled technology available to us.
But to see these friends of yours you cared about, have a dream slip away… Ugh, it was painful every time.
And I know one show doesn’t mean their careers are over. But rejection on such a humongous scale – blegh. It seemed awful.
(Though, as crummy as those parts were, it was fun to see people continue on another week, and go from 200 Facebook friends to more requests than they were allowed to accept – to know people in the moment before they became famous and see them becoming a star right before your very eyes. The level of that joy vibe you’ could feel radiating off the person was beautiful.)
I’m sure I could go on for a while with specific stories (like how we used to have freestyle rap battles complaining about Corner Bakery since we ate it everyday), but I think you’ve very much gotten the gist.
(I know these past two posts have really just been kind of like personal journal entries and not really information adding posts to anyone who has any interest in what goes on behind the scenes.
But if you do have any questions about anything, as always just let me know.)
In the not to distant future, I’ll talk about how I got my jobs after this one. But for now, let’s talk about game shows for a few days. ‘Cause really, how many days in a row do people want to hear about my day jobs?