The romantic love of my life found me long before my love for performing live music did. Had I known that I was about the meet the woman who I’d be spending the rest of my life with, I probably would’ve worn better clothes than the ripped-up shorts, long sleeve blue t-shirt, and a green rafting hat, riding up on that senior citizen’s tricycle.
It was 4th of July, 2003, and I was heading over to visit my old roommate, Jake, who was then living with Jimmy. They were hosting a get-together with friends to celebrate the holiday, and Shannon, a pretty girl who was in her early twenties, was visiting from the Midwest.
Both, I’ll call them - Jake and Jimmy, worked at the television station. Jimmy recently moved to Bend from Austin, Texas, and was working in television as the music director, bringing in music acts to perform live on the air. He also was an accomplished drummer with a long history performing in blue grass and rock bands. He moved to Bend from Alaska. He was living on his own with his dog, and got a production job at the TV station. When I was laid off and decided to go to Arizona to look for other TV jobs, he was the first person I asked to take over my side of the rent and live with Jake.
I started talking with Shannon shortly after I arrived at the party. We were instantly locked into a conversation. Shannon was visiting to scope out the territory, flying into Portland and renting a car that she drove through the Cascade Mountains to Bend where Jake lived. She was holding down a career in public relations for a large statewide non-profit based in Omaha. I learned also that I’d actually been talking with Shannon already over the years, while I was living and working with Jake, who was her long-time friend. She worked as an intern in TV, and for a couple of radio stations. She’d often call the TV station and I’d page Jake. Later, I’d be answering her call at home when Jake was my roommate. “Oh, you’re that girl?”
I told her, “Though I’m kind of a loser”, that I did know a lot of people in the non-profit world in Central Oregon, and could potentially help her out.
I learned how much of a music fan she was during the party, while listening to her battle of the cool bands conversation with Jake. She was on a whole different level of being a music fan.
“I’m on team Sunvolt,” replied Jake, arguing with Shannon about her opposing fan-loyalty going to Wilco, which were the two bands created after Uncle Tupelo broke up in 1994. The conversation went completely over my head.
Shannon was a big fan of Phish, U2, Radiohead and many others like I was, though her tastes were much more on the “music connoisseur-level” than my jam band tastes. She knew who was touring, who was on the rise, and knew amazing bands that I’ve never heard of, like Bright Eyes and The White Stripes.
Jimmy joined into the Uncle Tupelo debate saying that he was on team Sunvolt also, but only because Jake played it all the time. Jimmy’s musical influences and mixed tapes that he brought over from his days in Austin were right in sync with my tastes. He introduced me to bands like Government Mule, Disco Biscuits, and Moe.
I was super interested in Shannon. Not only was she beautiful, she had a lot of the same interests as me, and it turned out that she was exactly how Jake had described her to be -- a “cool chick”.
We exchanged emails, because I didn't have a cell phone, and she went back home to Omaha. It wasn’t long before we both formed a long-distance pen-pal relationship, first starting off with email, and then on to blogging. She was an active blogger, opening up about things in her life, which both interested me and scared me. She had a large group of blogger writers around the country. I found the blogging world to be very interesting, not only because it involved writing but also the way you could get to know about someone, who you would never meet otherwise. Although, I was a little worried that if I messed up, I would read about it later on her blog. Thankfully that never happened, but even if I did mess up and it was documented, I was convinced that nobody would really give a crap about some aspiring writer who stocked fertilizer, barbecue equipment, and garden supplies on shelves all night long anyway.
She did post a few ambiguous musings about conversations with some guy in her blog. There was some confusion on who exactly she was writing about. I went to go hang out with Jake and Jimmy at their home. There was another guy who was hanging out, who also was at the party when Shannon was in Bend. He was convinced that she was writing about him.
With beer and music flowing we all learned about her blog posts, and a mystery man who she met while in the Northwest. He said it had to be about him, who hung out with her and Jake during the extent of her trip in Bend.
I kept quiet about my blog interactions with Shannon. I didn’t want to jinx it, and Jake was friends with her much longer than me. Who knew how he’d react with having his good friend and former roommate involved with another friend from his Midwest roots?
I especially didn’t want to brew up any drama between the guy, who thought he was the mystery enchanter, and myself. So, I kept quiet and let the guys think Shannon was blogging about that dude.
Though I knew she was writing about me, I wasn’t counting my chickens. Shannon was on a fresh break from a long-time boyfriend in a relationship that I knew could easily be mended. There were no guarantees about anything between her and I.