 Good morning, Hank, it's Tuesday. Despite being 41 years old, I still sometimes find myself starstruck. Like, when I meet people I admire, I often talk too much and feel nervous, and then afterwards exhaustively analyze the encounter before coming to the inevitable conclusion that I made a fool of myself. Why did I blabber on and on while talking to Dan Howell at VidCon last weekend, and why couldn't I form a coherent sentence when I met the author's Zadie Smith seven years ago, and did NBC's Sockers Rebecca Lowe notice that my hands were shaking when we met, and etc. Even though I understand intellectually that people are just people, I literally cannot help myself. Like, put me in front of Roberto Firmino and I will melt. Hank, part of what you explored so beautifully, and an absolutely remarkable thing, is how weird fame is. Like, if you met Roberto Firmino, for instance, who I'm reasonably sure you've never heard of, you would probably act normal, and calm, and ask interesting questions. Not because you're immune to starstruckedness, but because to you, Roberto Firmino isn't that famous. Whereas I have spent many hours thinking about him, and know the names of his spouse and children, and also his dentist, which is weird. Now, I have also been on the other side of this strange equation. Like, I remember once I was in the cereal aisle of the grocery store, when a young person started screaming, not like words or anything, just yelling, and I started to look around in a panic to try to figure out where the emergency was, only to realize that I was the emergency. Most people do not scream when they meet me, and for the record, even the person who did was very nice, just excited, and I like meeting people who like my work. I'm really grateful to anyone who's made a place in their lives for stuff I make, and meeting such a person, whether at a signing, or at a chipotle, is an opportunity to express that gratitude, albeit in a fleeting way. But it's also an inherently weird experience, because, like, that young person started screaming in the cereal aisle because they saw John Green, but I also wasn't aware that John Green was in the cereal aisle until that person started screaming. In the moment before, I wasn't experiencing myself as John Green, but instead as myself, a middle-aged dad in Indianapolis, trying to figure out the least sugary cereal my kids will agree to eat. And so that moment took both of us by surprise. Now, like, in a signing line, I know that I'm gonna meet you, and you know that you're gonna meet me, but still, it's a brief and intense moment that I never feel quite prepared for, and I really don't want to disappoint people who meet me because I know from experience that a negative encounter with someone whose work you admire can be a huge bummer, and I'm sure they also don't want to come off poorly, and so this nervous energy kind of collides, which can make it really difficult to say the essential thing I want to say, which is thank you. Regardless of where I am in that equation, I mostly just want to say thank you in a way that people will believe, and that will mean something to them, but of course, I can't. I can't because we only have a few moments together, and because I can't articulate myself that well, and also because it's hard to say thank you in a way that gets past the psychic armor of irony and cynicism. And so I often end up fumbling and mumbling, which is to say that I end up feeling starstruck on both sides of the equation. One last thing, I sometimes hear from people who've been excited to meet me that afterwards they felt embarrassed or mortified by something they said or did or didn't say or do, and I just want to respond to that with a blanket. It's okay. It's okay even if you screamed in the cereal aisle. I mean, I would endeavor not to scream in the grocery store in the future if you can avoid it, but don't worry about it. There's so much else to worry about. I'm glad to have met you, and if we haven't met, I hope we someday will, and I'll be able to say what I feel. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hank, I'll see you on Friday.