I had the oddest thing happen to me a couple of days ago. I was in a store looking at light bulbs and I saw a man rushing at me out of the corner of my eye.
When he got about four feet away he said "You're Karen Schindler! I love you!" which was kind of odd since I have a good memory for faces and I was sure that I'd never seen him before in my life.
He closed the distance between us and when he got right next to me he started telling me everything he loved about Miscellaneous Yammering.
I listened for a while and when he paused for breath I stuck out my hand and said
"Hi, I'm Karen and you are?"
The whole thing was surreal.
I felt like a rock star or something.
I didn't stop grinning for hours.
An interesting thing that came of the encounter [besides a gigantic boost to my ego] was a suggestion that the man made.
He asked me to put buttons on the blog that took people to my funny stuff, to my flash fiction and to his favorite piece … Tail lights and Testosterone.
So I did.
They're now at the top of the right hand column under Easy Navigation.
Now here's the part that boggles my mind.
I've had people from near and far contact me via email about things that I've written. People I know in real life read me and often talk to me about something I wrote that they particularly loved.
My regular readers make my day when they take the time to comment on something I've written and the readers and writers from the flash group from #fridayflash are pretty amazing at commenting too. And I do have a lot of Ohio readers, so Ohio knows who I am on the web.
But to have someone recognize me just when I was out and about and then to take the time to stand and tell me about looking forward to reading some new fiction that I've written, or about anticipating the next wacky thing that I'll talk about on the blog just blew me away.
I guess it was a good idea of Alan's to put my picture on the blog. [he's from Australia]
And I wouldn't have done it if Estrella hadn't made me into pop art. [she's from Romania]
And I wouldn't have started blogging in the first place if it wasn't for Sir. [he's from Virginia]
And if I hadn't started blogging I wouldn't have met all of you wondrous guys either. [you know where you're from]
But it's really cool to know that folks in my near neck of the woods appreciate me as well.
And I found that out because Dave took the time to rush up to me in a store and tell me he likes my work and that he thinks that I'm funny.
It was very cool to be recognized like that.
Surreal, but cool.
And so I just wanted to say thanks and that you made my day Dave. [he's from Ohio]
18 comments:
Wow, I can't imagine. Actually, it gives me pause, but then again, I'm a long ways from your degree of fame. I'm glad you had the thrill though.
Heh...reminds me of the time someone here in town took it upon themselves to track down my number and call to leave a message on my answering machine telling me how much they loved my book, thought it would make a great movie, etc. etc.
If you come out this way, you'd better let me know, because I absolutely *suck* at recognizing people in person. ;-)
Aston I don't know what year we're talking about....but my mind instantly went into story mode and gave me....wouldn't it be funny if this story happened in the early seventies and the person who tracked Aston down was named Spielberg?
Aston, Aston? Oh dear I think he may have blacked out.
And believe me if I come where the corn grows freely and the horizons stretch forever I'll give you a shout out.
Thanks for sharing.
Karen :0)
He was a lovely man Linda and it was nice of him to share his delight with me. I don't think things like that happen every day. So I filed it under hey this was special, remember it!
:0)
How cool! I suppose since my avatar is my cat, that won't happen to me anytime soon. But maybe my cat is famous, who knows? ;)
Hee hee hee Laura,
Your cat is probably signing autographs behind your back. Check the paws....ink is hard to get off.
I had a frog for my picture at first, then just the top of my head from the eyes up. It felt weird to have my face blaring out at me from the blog until I became pop art.
But there's another photo of me on my editing site and since I was wearing the same coat in that photo as I was that day at the store I think it was pretty easy for Dave to spot me.
Maybe if you carry a laptop and your cat around with you in stores your fans will recognize you in the flesh.....
:0)
That's sooo cool!
I'm so happy people are recognizing you in stores, but I'm not at all surprised at the fact that they love your blog.
And I feel so proud you have my pop art of you as a banner!
And it looks great as the banner. Like it's a brand or something. Thanks again Estrella for making it for me!
:0)
Too cool! The only people stalking me have no idea I blog, and have warrants out for their arrest.
Been there done that Kris. lol
He'd be a pretty lousy stalker since he gave me his business card and the vehicle he was driving had his name emblazoned on the side....
[grins at you]
I'm pretty sure I would have spotted him following me home....
And you deserve the recognition. On the famous Beaufort Creativity/Gasbag scale, you're almost all the way to the left. which puts you here:
C xx G
reativity asbag
You're in elevated company.
Awwww . . . my spaces got chopped. There were about 20 space-bar hits between C and G, and the xs were almost all the way to C and the rest of the two words were right underneath , , ,
You had to be there.
oh my gosh Tim..... I had to wait until the tears stopped running down my face to respond.
I've never heard of that scale, but thank you for putting me firmly in the Creativity column......still laughing.....
Was your scale supposed to look like this?
Creativity...................... Gasbag
c....xxxxx...........................g
I gave myself five stars instead of two since I had to redraw the graph.
get some sleep my friend. Your editor will thank you. oh man....this killed me.
:0)
And btw coming from someone who has scores of fans lining up at his book signings I'm just preening with pleasure at your compliment.
but I'm still rofl....
:0)
You've gotta stop thanking me... you're making me blush every time ;)
But you're very welcome, it was my pleasure!
Well alright, I'll stop but only cause you asked me to.
:0)
That's happend to me once. She said, "You're the zebra blogger, right?" Not quite as awesome as Dave knowing your first and last name and the name of his favorite story. You are a rock star!
You'd think with as many pies as you have your fingers in there in your neck of the woods that it would be a mob scene when you go out.
It must be the sunglasses and Jackie O hats throwing them off the trail.
:0)
Post a Comment