There are a lot of things that I say about myself that — in my head, over a long, long span of time — have become somewhat apocryphal.  The allergies thing was a good example of that … I’d spent so long telling people that I had atrocious allergies that I’d started to believe I was exaggerating.  Going back to the allergist and hearing him say that I really do have some of the worst allergies he’s seen reminded me that things I’ve said about my allergies were’t exaggerated for the point of good story-telling (not that I don’t do that too), but were, in fact, grounded in reality.  (Oh, the shock).

I had another one of those things happen last night.  I tell people I have a distinctive laugh (in fact, I think it’s been part of my personals ads), but again, over time I’d come to think of that as an overstatement … based on comments people had made, sure, but not necessarily “reality.”

There do exist some old recordings of shows (in very tiny venues) where there’s lots of back and forth banter and audience participation and whatnot and you *can* hear my laugh in those.  But in the past several years I’d written that off as bad data, in that the people who were telling me this were good friends who, of course, would recognize my laugh… I could recognize theirs in the same sessions, so no biggie, right?

One of those shows was by Tim Easton, perhaps my most favorite singer/songerwriter ever.  I had a chance to go see him last night (for the first time in three years, probably?), and I was surprised, amazed and pleased as punch when, post-show, Tim came out to talk to folks, spotted me, smiled and said:  “There you are!  I could hear you laugh and was so glad you were here!”