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The night I met LOST: September 10, 2004

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Back in 2004, my mom had decided to celebrate her birthday by splurging on a room at the Grand Californian Hotel and partying it up at Disneyland with myself and my Dad. You know the drill… chocolate covered strawberries, extra rides on the Matterhorn, maybe even building herself a Build-A-Bear version of Tinker Bell?
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So that was the plan… until ABC’s fall line-up got into the mix. LA had been abuzz with the awesome new fall line-up, and pretty much everyone I knew had seen the pilot episodes of Desperate Housewives and LOST way back as early as May (thanks to knowing random Disney/ABC employees). And to celebrate this awesome new line-up of shows, Disney decided to hold a big ‘ol industry fete where there’d be a little press but more of a pat-on-the-back for the upcoming stars. And where was the party to be held… well no place other than our hotel!
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I’ll admit I was a bit jealous when I was stuck in Friday afternoon traffic driving from downtown LA to Anaheim and received an exuberant call from my mom saying, “Um… guess who I’m sitting next to at the bar?” Uhh….. who? “Your favorite carpenter!” Would that be my brother? Oh no… “No silly, it’s TY!” Yeah, she was sitting next to my favorite Trading Spaces star, sipping on a cocktail, and getting her star sighting on while at Disneyland. Not too shabby.
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The party/luau they held for the ABC groupies started around 7pm and ended around 10pm, which is right about the time my mom decided to head back to the bar to hang out for a bit for some dessert and just to unwind. The whole hotel was in guest lock-down, meaning no one was allowed to simply wander the premise without their room key in hand, so the place was pretty vacant in general. Yet right around 10:15, everyone started filtering in. The cast of Desperate Housewives (aka. Teri Hatcher and other people) made their way to a back corner, and then Matthew Fox and random other people took a seat right behind us. Everyone hung around and had a good time in the small little fireside area, and we passed the time just sitting among this strange little party of celebrities. I spent some time at the bar watching the upcoming football previews on ESPN, and engaged in quite a deep conversation about the merits of PAC-10 football with the a producer and director from LOST… and complimented them on the pilot as well. I also took lots of longing stares at Matthew Fox, you know, just for fun. And by 11:30, we made our way back to the room and shared an elevator with Evangeline Lilly (aka. some brunette woman about my age) before retiring for the night.
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And that’s how I met the world of LOST: as a rag-tag group of random people all united by Matthew Fox who liked scotch and water. It’s hard for me to realize that the rest of the world knows them as a phenomenon, because try as I may, I just can’t make them into something more in my head. Maybe that weekend made me lose some of the magic of that strange island world… but needless to say, I want to know about the polar bear just as much as the next LOST fan. I’ll just save my fan-obsession for another show premiere and let the LOST-obsessed have their night tonight!

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