One of the best days of my life was the day I got to meet Amber Benson. It was April 9^th, 2011 from 2-5pm in Chicago at Midtown Comics. I got up really early and picked up my friend, Stina, and we made the three hour journey to Chicago. After meeting up with Stina’s friend, Amber and her friend, Devon, we made our way over to Midtown Comics. They insisted that they didn’t want to pay for parking so we parked about a mile and a half away at a Best Buy and got out the GPS to guide us back to the comic book store. The GPS started to say we weren’t going to get there until well after 2, so I started to freak out, turns out we ended up getting there over an hour early, we were the 5^th-8^th ones there and got a card with our number on it.

After hyperventilating (almost) and my stomach in total knots  they told us that the first 18 there could go in and get a seat. I was one of the first in and got to sit in the front row! It was amazing. Here we are in this tiny little thing of a room and the table Amber was going to be sitting at was only a few feet away. My friend Stina, was sitting right next to a door, and as I looked behind me and saw the congestion, I realized that Amber was probably going to be appearing out of that door, the one only about a foot and a half from where I was sitting. Hence more mind freaking out. So finally, they opened the door and let Amber in. I grabbed my friend’s leg and squealed a bit, but at least it was loud in there so no one could really hear me. I was freaking out, completely and totally.

Amber introduced herself and talked about how the night before she had read the sex scene from her book and that she had been up most of the night on ‘baby duty’ waiting for a phone call from friends about something, then had an early flight to get to Chicago on time. She went into reading an excerpt from Serpent’s Storm. I don’t think I even remember half of what she said I was so fixated on staring and taking in this skinny, absolutely gorgeous woman in front of me. Stina was an awesome friend an videotaped the entire thing for me! Anyway, when she finished reading the excerpt, it was time for questions. There was no way I was going to ask something. I was so starstruck I probably would’ve turned red and stuttered and rambled my way through the question. She was so hilarious and sweet, it was amazing. The Q&A finally ended when Amber started to pretend to shoot ‘holy’ breast milk from her boobs, pretending to imagine what Buffy would be like if it started up again.

Then, it was time for the signing. They were going in order from 1-18, then everyone else behind. I was 5. I had no idea what I was going to say I was so nervous. When Amber called 4, she looked over at me like ‘wtf, hurry up and get up here,’ she could probably just hear my inner squeal and squeaks and freak outs they were so loud.  I knew she had noticed me during the questions, because my bag has about a bazillion buttons on it, as in she looked at me I believe three times… So when 5 was finally called I took my friends cards as well as they were just there to support me and went up. I had four of her books and my 6^th season dvd with me, but I didn’t know how many things she’d be okay with signing.

So as I got up there I told her hi, and she said that she liked my bag! If I had been coherent I would’ve let her look at them for a while, but since my brain had previously melted, I wasn’t thinking very clearly. She then asked me what my shirt meant, and I told her that it meant legalize transgender rights, and then she asked about the star, which I have absolutely no idea why there’s a star there, just part of the logo. And I blabbered my way through where I had gotten it from. And after that I asked her ‘so…how many things will you sign before you get mad at me?’ and because she’s so friggin awesome and amazing and sweet and nice and cool…and I could go on and on, she said ‘keep ‘em comin!’ So I take out the first book I want her to sign…which I conveniently had in a plastic Ziploc bag (They’re still in them). I had wiped off the book and put it in there because no one but Amber and I are ever going to touch that book (I’m protective and OCD,) and asked her to sign them on the plastic. Amber, being who she is, just went along with it and we created a system of her taking the books out of the bags, and me putting them back in.

When she got to the Ghosts of Albion book someone behind me said, ‘oh I didn’t think of that!’ so I had to reply with ‘I kinda had to think of everything as I had a three hour drive.’ Which Amber exclaimed with ‘you drove three hours!’ so I told her where I was going to college and she started to ask me about that. When I told her I’m a Cell and Molecular biology major, she commented that it means I’m smart. Which I deny still, and I’ve changed my major to Biology because I started to hate CMB. Anyway, she signed my dvd and I asked if she would be willing to take a picture with me. She was all okay with it, and was going to take a picture where she was going to be on my right side, but again because of my ocd, I told her I had to be on the other side. So when we took the picture, I put my arm around her waist. And flipped. My brain really was mush at this point. My mind was screaming about the fact that I was touching her waist! And she’s sooooooo skinny! How the hell did people ever think she was fat on Buffy? After the picture we discussed how I hated Organic Chemistry and Physics, which she also hates, and unfortunately, our time talking was done.

AT that point I had no interest in leaving. I was ready to just sit there and stare for the rest of my life. You know, follower her bak to California and live in a box next to her house. But since I’m not going to be that much of a creepy stalker, I had to leave, as my friends were pulling on me to go. Since my friend hadn’t been able to find her number card for me to give to Amber, we went into the other room and found it. I got to give it back, but since Amber was talking to someone, I had to give it to the girl at the table next to her that worked at the store. After lots of sighing in my head, I had to leave. So we left the comic book store, regretfully, and I called my friend to rant for a good 15 minutes before I was okay to be at least slightly clam. I was proud of myself. I didn’t make myself look like a blabbering idiot and I hadn’t told her that I currently had over 4,000 pictures of her saved on my computer, which is now well over 40,000. The rest of the day was spent going to Mitsuwa and a Korean store, and spending all my money on candy. When I was finally alone in my car, I took out each item Amber had signed and looked at all of them. It wasn’t until a couple months later til I could actually handle watching the video my friend had recorded. It was probably one of the best days of my life and I’ll never forget it. I’ll never forget how incredibly excited I was, how I felt, and how absolutely beautiful of a person Amber Benson is.