It was supposed to be a very good day - the day I was going to see Paul Wylie for the last possible time, ever! My mother, my friend Laurel, and I were going to drive to Seattle, stop and shop around for a bit, and then take the ferry over, meet other Seattle Paul fans, and SEE PAUL. I could hardly contain myself.

Everything was going great; we had lunch, shopped a bit (visiting a large number of stores at the mall... this plays a part later), and enjoyed a relaxed evening.

Then... as we were in the car, driving to the ferry... I felt my pocket where the tickets had been... and they weren't there. "The tickets aren't in my pocket! They're not there!" I shrieked. Frantically, Laurel and I searched the car while my mom looped the car around to head back to the mall. We first searched the restaurant we'd stopped at -- garbage cans, bathroom stalls, you name it -- and then retraced our steps through the mall, going to every store we'd been to and asking the cashiers if anyone had turned anything in to them.

We had been planning to meet the other Paul fans at 6:00, but it quickly became obvious that it was not going to happen. After an seemingly endless amount of time combing the mall, we decided to catch the 7:00 ferry, rush to the Key Arena (where SOI was taking place), and try one of three things: buying scalped tickets, buying crappy nosebleed tickets at the booth, or having the original tickets traced. Racing towards the Key Arena entrance at about 7:35 (the show had started at 7:00), a scalper apprached us, and we bought three not-too-bad tickets from him. Not as good as our original $55 ones... but OK.

We then went up to the booth to see if we could get our original seats back. We couldn't, but the nice lady gave us some free tickets (crappy, sure, but free!) We compared the six tickets and decided to go with the scalped ones. After bounding inside and purchasing a program, we walked in as Katia was doing her white-jumpsuit Gershwin number. We were pretty far up, in the corner, an OK view (right above Paul during the Olympic parody -- that corner, luckily ^_^).

I hyperventilated through Sleepers (it was so weird seeing someone in person that I had watched so closely on TV for years), with the binoculars on Paul the whole time, thinking "This isn't too bad." He did very well; during the edgy part where he's rolling his extended arms back and forth on one foot he was heading straight toward us, which made for a cool view through the binoculars.

Per everyone's advice, I kept my eyes on him throughout the whole Olympic parody -- he was hilarious! The jumping, leaping, posing - it was a hoot. Like I mentioned before he was directly below us in that corner so it was easy to see everything as we watched him from behind. When he shouted "Bravo! BRAVISSIMO!!" his voice filled the entire arena! I took a whole bunch of pictures during this part but we were pretty far up so I'm not sure how well they'll turn out.

Intermission rolled around and I said to Laurel "Let's walk down the steps here to the ice border -- see what the view's like down there." We stepped down the concrete stairs all the way to rinkside level, marveling at how close the ice was to us (no more than ten feet away, horizontally), and, on a side note, happened to spot John Curley (of Seattle Evening Magazine fame) in our corner. I mentioned that I'd heard that for the beginning of the second half the skaters came out, walked through the crowd, and went out on the ice and put on their skates. We decided to stay right where we were during the intermission, thinking "Maybe we'll hang around here to see them go into the crowd, if security will let us..."

Well, out came the skaters on the opposite side of the arena, walking RIGHT PAST all those people with on-ice seats, and disappeared up the stairs. Laurel and I moved a step closer so we were about two steps away from the ice and sat down, on the cement stairs. Out came the skaters, in the corner entrance about 20 feet away from us! They came down the stairs and headed right in our direction! I sat, mouth hanging, as Paul (oh yeah, and the others too ^^) walked no more than 5 feet in front of me. I could see his slight 5:00 shadow and everything. The group was all stoic-faced (in "muse" persona) but they had to have noticed the two girls huddling on the aisle steps just several feet in front of them. :)

After they went out on the ice and put their skates on, they did this weird jumble of elements to some music from "The 5th Element." Paul was doing huge, broad spread eagles right in front of us!! VERY cool, and he left nifty circular tracings on the fresh ice.

After that, Laurel and I crouched close to the stairs, even after the lights went off, feeling very naughty for sitting there at the bottom of the aisle. I half-expected to get a tap on the shoulder at any moment from an annoyed member of security. As skaters did their programs, I continued to throw quick little glances behind me, to see if anyone was coming after us. But alas! We went blessedly undiscovered! (Or they didn't care enough to boot us back to our seats!)

And suddenly -- Paul came out, to skate "Go the Distance!!" He, again, couldn't have been more than seven feet away from us at points in his program, when he jumped and crossovered through the corners. His spread eagles, too, seemed close enough to reach out and touch. He popped a few jumps (the lutz was a big ol' single) but who cares? Not me! When it was over, Laurel and I hoisted my big cardboard "You're the best, Paul!" sign, screaming like lunatics. (Several people in actual close-up seats on either side of us turned to try to read what the sign said.) As he took his bows very close to us, I could see his eyes, his smile, every hair on his head -- it was amazing!!

Then, the Led Zep finale -- I really dig this number, and it went over very well here. Paul did his mini-solo right in front of us, cool leap and all! He looked our way, too! The only bummer was that when it was all over, he went to the corner opposite of us to shake hands. If only he'd come over to our side -- that would have made the night surreal!!

I left the arena with a huge smile. What a guy! What a night!

In all -- I suppose it was worth the $200 in total ticket costs I ended up paying for it. My rear end ached after sitting on the concrete steps for the second half of the program, but it was WELL worth it. I waved at Paul. And he smiled back. ^_^