Can an introvert be a successful autograph seeker? Not in my case. It's never been my thing. I've got two whole 'celebrity' signatures. One is from the folk singer Greg Brown (and I wasn't even present at the time of the signing!) The other came into my posession just last week.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

This all started one evening last fall. I come home from work and the wife says that she's got an interesting story for me. Some guy called the house to say that he accidentally received my copy of Stereophile in the mail...and would I like to pick it up or just have it sent back in the mail? She had his phone number.

Hmmmm....

Being a true-blue New Englander, where a newly-encountered person is considered to be the enemy until they can prove otherwise, this left me in with quite a dilemma. Do I make the call? Just ignore him (he'll take the hint)? What if I do call and he's a loser? On the other hand, he's into audio and music ....and it would be fun to have another audio co-conspirator to hang around with. One thing that I'm pretty sure of is that he's not from around here....because looking up a person's number from waylaid mail and making that phone call...that just not very...ummm..."New England-like". (Surely, if it had been me, I would have stuffed that thing right back in the mailbox!)

So I make the phone call. And it turns out that he's not the enemy. Just a nice guy who's into music and sound. We joke that we're probably the only two subscribers to Stereophile in out town. We manage to get together several times over the next few months....great to hash out arcane music issues with a like-minded person.

Oh...meeting Tori Amos...right.

My new friend is lucky enough to win tickets and VIP passes to the show at the University of New Hampshire. He calls me to relate the story...and would I like to go? Actually, there's one more introversion twist to this story. He want to know if I want to go if his wife fails to find a baby sitter. Sure I do...but, pathetically, in the back of my mind...I'm hoping that I don't have to go. For an introvert, the only thing worse than meeting a new person is meeting a famous person.

Well, the baby sitter fell through and I got my chance to shake Tori's hand. Also had her sign the booklet from Little Earthquakes. Ah, and here's where my Stereophile subscription payed off again: Tori asks us how long we've been friends. "Only a few months" I say and then Eric quickly relates the story of the mis-delivered magazine. "Ahhhh...you're audiophiles!", says Tori. I didn't really want to admit to that but she interrupts with "That's OK, I'm married to one!"

So my booklet is signed "To Mark, the audiophile dude - Tori Amos".

I've gotta work on this introversion thing.

Who knows what'll happen.

(First posted on Mark Is Cranky)