Michael Palin

One time when I was about 10 or 12 years old, my brother had a few friends over. The boys were trying to tease me to make me leave the family room, but I stubbornly refused to go. They were 12 to14, and they thought they were so cool, and quite honestly, I thought they were a bunch of mean jerks. Then suddenly, a comedy show came on t.v., a sketch, in fact, called "Bicycle Repairman" featuring Michael Palin. I was absolutely in tears, I was laughing so hard (thus further confirming how ridiculous I was to the boys), but I LOVED this show, and I loved Michael Palin and I think it gave me hope that there were "nice boys" in this world too, boys who could make me laugh. This began a long fan-ship, if you will, between me and Monty Python, but Michael Palin has always been my favorite.

In fact, I secretly wanted to marry him.

So, when I found out that he would be at a Literature Conference in St. Malo a few km away from here, I was so excited. I couldn't tell by the schedule description whether he would be there in person or if it was just his recently redone travel movie they were showing. He was there. The venue was a tiny room, and as circumstances had it, I got a front row seat. Did he look me in the eye? Yes, several times, YES. And was he funny and charming and sweet. Oh, YES, yes, yes!!! I kept having to check myself to make sure that I didn't have a silly grin plastered on my face the whole time because inside I was grinning all over. How could fortune have put me right here in front of this amazing person who was part of the one of the most genius comedy teams ever? If he had shown up in the U.S. or England, surely there would have been hundreds of people there to see him. He was here to talk about the book made into a movie starring him, Around the World in Eighty Days, but when he opened the discussion to questions, nobody asked anything that wasn't Monty Python related.


The photo didn't work because of the backlight. But I didn't want to flash his face, so this was what I could get on my iso setting. That's his interpreter on the left. He had to stop every few sentences to have her translate to French. But most people laughed at his jokes in English, so it must have been a crowd with a high level of English.



The girls played on the beach while I "conferred" at the Michael Palin seminar, and, when I came to get the girls, we even saw him walking the beach. I was picking seaweed out of Lauren's hair when I looked up and saw him smiling at me as he walked by. I sort of mouthed "hello" and he waved. I wanted to chase him to talk to him, but I was too nervous to talk to him both after the seminar and again on the beach. I mean, what would I have said? I wanted to marry you when I was 12? Actually, my crush on him lasted for quite a long time, but, now he probably will never know. Anyway, I'm sure he's heard it before many times.

Well, seeing him really felt like another thing I can check off my list (that doesn't exist) of things to do before I die. It seems especially fun when stuff on the list happens before I even think of it. What can I say. That's France for you.