Coffee Shop Paparazzi

A few weeks ago, Julie and I were downstairs at the bar, ignoring homework and attracting a lot of attention on the dance floor. (Yes, we live above a bar. Yes, it’s true what you’ve heard about our dance moves—they’re bizarre yet infectious.) Julie grabbed my arm and yelled in my ear as she often does in these kinds of situations: “Wanna pee?”

As we were waiting in line for the bathroom, a girl came out of one of the stalls, looked at both of us, and said in utter seriousness, “Oh my god. You’re Hannah and Julie. I fucking love your blog.” She slung her purse over her shoulder and started washing her hands. Julie and I looked at each other. Do we know her?

“You guys make me cackle. Seriously, I cackle every time.” Two bathroom stalls opened up, but Julie and I didn’t move. We just stared at our fan. “Holy shit, thank you,” I managed to say, and after a few more enthusiastic nods from all parties involved, our fan pushed through the door and back into the bar. Julie and I turned to look at each other with wide eyes. A fan. A totally random, unaffiliated fan. In that moment, standing on the sticky floor in our campus bar’s most crowded bathroom, we knew that we had just officially become famous.

(Full disclosure: Taylor was not actually a random and unaffiliated fan. She and I were on the same pre-orientation camping trip before move-in day, and although we weren’t in any of the same activity groups, we did become Facebook friends then, and that’s how she found the blog. She’d dyed her hair since freshman year, too. But in the moment, she looked wildly unfamiliar and recognized us in the bar bathroom. If that doesn’t say celebrity, then what does?)

Surprisingly enough, Julie and I didn’t become bloggers for the fame. We hoped that our little writing venture would help us find some readers, sure, and maybe add a few names to the list of people who are secretly in love with us. Before we turned twenty-one and started posting all the beer pictures, we’d even hoped that this blog might help us get jobs at some point. (Hi future employers! We love you guys.) But fame? We never imagined becoming famous in our wildest dreams. We also never imagined Taylor Swift sexy-singing this close to aggressively dangerous animals in her Wildest Dreams music video, but here we are.

At a recent networking event, my resume and I sat down with a representative from a company that totally ignored my internship application last summer. She took one look at my EXPERIENCE section and furrowed her brow. “Wait a second, Hannah and Julie…” she said, “Did you study abroad last semester?” When I confirmed that I had studied in Spain and my roommate Julie had been in Ireland, she threw her head back and laughed. She laughed! In business casual attire! “Oh my goodness, your blog was a hoot! I read your stuff all the time after we got your application. Can’t remember why I never got back to you. I definitely loved that blog, though.”

Who needs employment when you have celebrity, am I right?

A rather astonishing number of people have been introduced to us, narrowed their eyes, and said something along the lines of: “Not to be creepy, but… do you guys have a blog or something?”

Our moms’ friends—and our friends’ moms—have started reciting our own jokes to us.

Readers on campus seem to love giving me coffee recommendations via Julie. (Ex. “Tell Hannah to try iced heavenly delight at Breaking New Grounds. It’s kind of like hazelnut.)

My friend Matt, who you may remember from the time with the finals and the pineapples, has found increasingly creative ways to work the word “basic” into everyday conversation.

Our friend Will recently began a conversation with Julie by saying, “So I was lying in bed last night thinking…how would Hannah and Julie weigh in on this?”

And last week, a bunch of girls in Julie’s major thanked me for putting their grad school feelings into words. (Julie wrote all of those words, but I still gladly accepted their praise.)

This blog has changed our lives. It really has. Now I know how Jennifer Lawrence felt after she won that first Academy Award. She once told Barbara Walters that on a perfect day, she would be able to go for a walk and buy her own coffee. Which is really kind of sad, if you think about it. J.Law’s just a regular person that happens to be charmingly witty and really good at pretending to be other people. Jules, let’s never get that famous.

But the coffee thing brings me to my next point: Julie and I had a professional photo shoot in a coffee shop on campus the last week.

Technically the photo shoot was for me. There’s this newsletter for our College of Liberal Arts, and sometimes they ask you for a student interview, which is really pretty flattering, and then they insist that a professional photographer take pictures of you trying to act natural in a crowded public place. Considerably less flattering. I begged Jules to come for moral support, and before we knew it, we were in the middle of a fucking professional photoshoot.

This is what my face looks like usually I guess!

We just wish the paparazzi would let us drink our damn coffee, you know?

The bottom line is, we love writing for you guys. Our newly acquired celeb status has made for some hilarious pictures, but running a blog really isn’t about the fame and the public’s unwavering love. It’s about the message.

We’re so lucky to have a place to share our stories, and we’re even luckier to have a community of people that understands what the hell we’re talking about. Keep reading and sharing, my friends. We love the shit out of you.