Amy

Amy is a 40-year-old solo cornet player who first caught my eye about two years ago during the NABBA competition in Michigan.  Not saying I was flabbergasted or anything like that – she was just a very attractive woman and I’m a guy and I notice things like that.  I’d forgotten all about her by the time this year’s contest rolled around.  Interestingly enough, though, when I was taking pictures of conductors during the Friday night band sessions, I shifted my camera a little bit; and this extremely comely girl once again caught my eye.  She couldn’t really help it, because her head was filling my entire viewfinder.

So I took a bunch of shots of her (hey – she’s still attractive, I’m still a guy, and it was my job to take pictures of the competition, right?) and then went on about filming other members of her band and the rest of the bands that followed.

The next evening, I was tasked with shooting the championship bands’ second night of performances and the awards ceremony that followed them.  Amy’s band was the last one to perform before the awards, and I was shooting the bands from the balcony – shooting towards the cornet sections, so I once again couldn’t help noticing her.  After her band finished, I grabbed my gear and headed to the closest exit, intent on making it down to stage level in time for the awards.  I rushed down the stairs and turned a corner just as Amy’s band was coming around the same corner from the opposite direction (to stow their horns prior to returning for the awards).  As luck would have it, Amy and I locked eyes in a somewhat surreal moment, and she smiled at me – which nearly caused me to drop all of the aforementioned gear. 

I’m not sure exactly how, but I did manage to make it to the stage in time for awards pictures – and one of the first people to win an award was Amy – First Place in the high-brass technical solo contest.  So I learned her name…and I also got to stand 10 feet away from her and take her picture yet again…and she smiled at me yet again.

Which was nice.

Nicer still was a few days later when I got a “Friend Request” from her on Facebook, along with a nice note saying, basically, “Sorry we didn’t meet at NABBA, but I like your photos.”  I responded in my suave way that, “I think we might have nodded at each other.  Great performance.”

And that was that until a couple of weeks later, when she selected one of my shots of her (my favorite, in fact) to use as her profile picture on Facebook.  She left my watermark on the photo – which nobody ever does (a fact that generally pisses me off) – so I wrote to her to tell her thank you and to give her permission to remove the watermark if she wanted to.  She replied that she sort of liked it.  

And over the next few weeks, we began sending increasingly lengthy and less brass-related messages to each other on Facebook – not something I normally do with anyone as I’m not all that thrilled with the idea of using Facebook as an email client.  That being the case, I was thrilled when she asked for my email address, explaining that she wasn’t a big fan of using Facebook as an email client.

So the messages moved to email and continued to get longer and longer.

At one point during the FB messages, she’d given me her phone number, so – after I’d written about 48 pages to her in one email – I sent her a text message informing her that she was going to freak out about the email she was about to get.  I sort of thought that she’d freak out MORE about the fact that I’d remembered her phone number, but she didn’t flinch at all.   Said she was disappointed that I hadn’t called her when she first gave me the number. 

So, the next day, we had our first voice conversation.  I was, to put it mildly, quite nervous.

Since then, we’ve had a number of very long talks and it’s apparent to both of us that we’ve got a lot in common – including the fact that we’re both sort of crazy about each other.  She’s currently trying to make some plans to come visit Atlanta (she’s in Chicago) during the first week of June; and I’m trying to figure out how I can fly to Chicago at some point later this year.  

Yeah.  I said I’m planning to fly to see her. Like, on a plane.  

I’m also toying with the idea of driving up to Gettysburg in mid-June to surprise her at a gig that she’ll be playing there.

Long story short….I think I’ve completely fallen for this gal; and I think the feeling might be mutual.

Gorgeous. Smart. Funny. A champion musician.  And her middle name is Elizabeth.  Be still my heart.

TWD