Gale Martin - Confessions of a Middle-Aged Fangirl

Today’s guest post is by Gale Martin, author of Grace Unexpected.

Confessions of a Middle-Aged Fangirl

I condemn incompetent guest judges, my acrylic nails tip-tapping #Boo or #SheStinks while keeping one eye peeled to the TV screen. I browbeat insensitive fellow Tweeters who complain that Amy Purdy is “sitting and dancing too much.” I’ve devoted whole blog posts to Gilles Marini donning a loin cloth and dashed off Twitter status updates propping up Meryl and Maks and running down Candace and Mark.

If I were one of my Twitter followers, I’d block me. If I were me as recently as five years ago, I’d condemn myself as infantile, imperious, and (the deepest cut of all) shallow. Yes, shallow, I say. There are innumerable injustices in the world I could rant about and countless other worthwhile fundraisers I could hawk to my 6,000+ Twitter followers. Yet, week after week, I switch on the ABC network and log on to Twitter, pounding out my agony and my elation, 140 characters at a time.

My name is Gale Martin, and I’m a 55-year-old fangirl of Dancing with the Stars.

I used to be a person of principle. I never watched shows like America’s Funniest Home Videos—too frivolous. I refused to pick up any book loosely categorized as a romance novel—too indulgent. I valiantly endeavored to complete the crossword puzzle in The New York Times Magazine weekly.

Then in 2005, I entered midlife and everything about me descended into a hellish place: my tastes, my priorities, my sense of reason, any semblance of decency. I inhaled The Bridges of Madison County and sobbed like I was a teenager whose first boyfriend just dumped her. I drank lemonade from quart jugs and downed buffalo wings by the dozen. I eaves-dropped on private conversations between female senior administrators at the small university where I worked, who gushed weekly about watching a reality show called Dancing with the Stars.

“Isn’t that one of those cheesy shows like Circus with the Stars that sucks out your gray matter faster than a Eureka canister thrust into your ear canal?” I asked myself, feeling silently superior to women with multiple advanced degrees. “What’s next? Watching Nascar races? Swilling Old Milwaukee?”

I had high standards, yes, but I was also searching for reasons to hobnob with the important, accomplished ladies serving on the president’s senior staff. So, I held my nose and watched one episode of Dancing with the Stars.

That was six years ago, and I have rarely missed an episode since. Now, I organize my life around Dancing with the Stars. Be it a haircut, a facial, a pedicure, a family meeting, or a work function, for six months out of the year, I schedule nothing between 8 and 10 p.m. on Monday nights.

Oh, and heaven help the unfortunate soul who calls me when my show is on. Yes, I have even declined calls from my own daughter who lives eight hours away, who still loves and respects me in spite of my behavior because I don’t genuinely like the show, she tells me. “You are only ‘engaging with it ironically,'” she explains since she attended a fancy liberal arts college.

Ironically or not, when each season ends, I lapse into full mourning. Then I titillate myself with anticipation before each new cast list is announced.

While the definition of fangirl typically doesn’t include baby boomers enough for lifetime memberships in AARP, I can assure you, I’m a fangirl. That is, if a fangirl is defined as a human being with two X chromosomes who has crossed the line between reasonable fandom and indecent obsession. When it comes to Dancing with the Stars, I’m indecently obsessed.

Wife, mother, author, and working professional six days a week. Supercilious fangirl one precious night per week. And if Meryl and Maks don’t win the mirror ball trophy this week, just log on to Twitter, type #DWTS in the search bar, and hear @Gale_Martin roar, @katyperry.
Grace Unexpected by Gale Martin Published: July, 2012 Publisher: BookTrope Synopsis

Thirty-something Grace Savage has slogged through crummy jobs and dead-end relationships with men who would rather go bald than say “I do”. In search of respite from her current job, she visits Shaker Village in New Hampshire. Instead of renewal, she learns that Shaker men and women lived and worked side by side in complete celibacy.

When her longtime boyfriend dumps her instead of proposing, Grace avows the sexless Shaker ways. Resolved to stick to a new plan – the Shaker Plan – despite ovaries ticking like time bombs, she returns to her life in Pennsylvania. Almost immediately, she’s juggling two eligible bachelors: Addison, a young beat reporter; and True, an anthropology professor. Both men have soul mate potential to test her newfound Shaker-style self-control, and Grace seems to be on the fast track to a proposal… until secrets revealed deliver a death rattle to the Shaker Plan.

Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iTunes | GoodReads

About the Author

Gale Martin is an award-winning writer of contemporary fiction who plied her childhood penchant for telling tall tales into a legitimate literary pursuit once she hit midlife.

She began writing her first novel at age eleven, finishing it three and a half decades later. Her first novel, DON JUAN IN HANKEY, PA, is a humorous homage to Don Giovanni, Mozart’s famous tragicomic opera about the last two days of Don Juan’s life. It was named a Finalist in the 2012 National Indie Excellence Awards for New Fiction.

Her second novel GRACE UNEXPECTED is wryly witty women’s fiction featuring Grace Savage, a 30-something protagonist with a heart of gold, wrapped in lead. Gale would commit a misdemeanor to score some Babybel cheese and goes weak-kneed for hummingbirds. She is a wife and mother of one and a communications director by profession. She blogs about opera–the art form, not the platform and is an opera reviewer for Bachtrack, an online site featuring classical performance worldwide. She can name any aria in three notes. Okay, five notes, perfectly sung, with full orchestration. She has a master of arts in creative writing from Wilkes University. She lives in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, which serves as a rich source of inspiration for her writing.