Vote Me Off This Stinkin' Planet

Photo by Thomas Hill

So, the other night I'm sitting in my living room, watching another episode of Sailor Moon thinking again about how she's 14 and I should stop looking at her bod 'cause it's weird when my mom calls. She's excited.

"Cheryl, what is the ONE thing you’ve always wanted to do?"

"See the Earth from space." (This is said without hesitation.)

"Yes. Well, there's this contest…"

One week and 25,000 votes later I am in seventh place in a Metro contest that will send a civilian into space. I know what you're thinking, "The Metro? The free paper teens keep trying to hand me when I get off the subway? They’re going to send someone into space?"

Yes, they are. And that person will be me, IF YOU LET IT.

Right now, with one click—one measly little movement of your finger—you can vote to send me, Cheryl Hann, into outer space, where I belong.

I don’t know exactly when my fascination with space started. It might have been when I was nine. My brother and I used to go GTing on this hill in Quirpon Newfoundland, the tiny town I’m from. One night while we were sledding I ate it—really got the wind knocked out of me. As I lay there, sort of wincing and panicking, I looked up at the sky and, holy shit, it was on fire. The Leonids in full force. The meteors rained down in streaks of pink, green, and purple and I was never the same. I used to stand outside, arms spread, just waiting, readying myself for an alien abduction.

Cheryl Hann as Captain Janeway by Andrew Burke

This year I went to LA and the first thing I did was visit the Griffith Observatory. I kept looking at the moon for way too long and then shaking the operator’s hand so profusely that he had to put his other one on my shoulder and hold me still while he pulled away. This was only the small telescope. They have a huge one too, and after some coercing the operator pointed it at Jupiter for me.

I barely took a breath the whole time he was moving the scope, and actually sort of trembled as I walked up to the lens. Jupiter through a telescope looks a lot like our full moon on a regular night, but you can see two brown cloud bands and the faintest impression of the Great Red Spot (though that may have been wishful thinking on my part). I know, zzzzzz, but hang on. Its moons were aligned in a clear diagonal, and it was too much. I turned to my friends to try and say, “This is so cool!” but broke mid-sentence and cried in front of everyone in the room. Full waterworks. The operator laughed into his shirt sleeve.

I know. Everyone wants to go into outer space. It is THE dream. It’s the one impossible thing that’s left, and now that there’s a contest—a CONTEST—that brings the impossible within reach, well… I’d be an idiot if I didn’t try my hardest to win. I mean, who wouldn’t want this chance? This is something that will put your existence into perspective. You will be floored and humbled and destroyed by the deep, dark vastness of the cosmos!!!!

If I win—well, fuck. If I win, I’ll be happy. There isn’t a word yet for this kind of happiness. I don’t know what to expect from this experience except to have the wonders of the universe take a dump in my mind. I guess I’ll probably take a hundred thousand pictures, and then put my camera away when I realize it’s preventing me from really seeing what I came to see. I’ll probably try and catch my space-tears in a jar so you can all taste them, too.

Photo by Jon Eisener

I still don’t understand how the Metro is able to put on this contest. Where is this money coming from? Didn’t America just scrap its whole space program because going to space costs a zillion dollars? It all seems too good to be true. I’m waiting for the catch. Like, “You can go to space, but in exchange, we’re going to need all your skin and you have to eat poop.”

“Cool. I barely use this skin anyway. I love poop.”

Well, hopefully there’s no catch. Hopefully this is totally real and not just a ploy to sell newspapers and cars. Well, it’s definitely that… but if someone is willing to send me to space, I will personally sell a thousand Volkswagens. I don’t care. Just send me to space! I know the flight up is long, and possibly life-threatening. I know you only get to hang out in space for one hour, but one hour is a long time on the dreams-come-true clock, and I can’t think of anything else I’d be willing to die for.

The truth is, I have been unreasonably lucky in life. I've got an awesome mom who calls me with news about contests. I've got great friends who amassed 16,000 votes in four days to help make my only real dream come true. I have a TV show somehow, and all my besties are in it with me. My life is stupid. It's so stupid and good and you're all thinking, "Fuck you.” But don’t.

Instead, think about how much I love space. I love it a lot. I love nature. I love life. I love you!!!

PLEASE vote for me to go to space and you can all taste my real and truly genuine tears. My happy, happy, isn’t-life-amazing tears. Help make my dreams come true, guys! I'd do it for you!!