Aaron posts some photos of himself, his wife, and some other guy performing in what for all the world looks like my parents’ living room*. Aaron is the bearded one. With the hat. And the grin in the first picture as if to say, “Behold my guitar, foolish mortals!” His wife is the non-bearded one in the shirt that shines under its own power.
Aaron’s wife, Krista, was one of the very first people I met in the music department at college (we were freshmen the same year). What I always remember about her (well, one thing) is mildly lampooned by Aaron in the caption to the second photo: no matter what the piece of music is, no matter how frenetic the percussion parts are, she maintains a completely blank expression while playing. I seem to recall her once telling me that she actually worked to cultivate this skill, which I must admit would be absolutely useful in certain situations. For instance, Krista belongs to a special class of people for whom I’ve always felt the highest levels of sympathy: she is one who has had to play the snare drum part to Ravel’s Bolero. (There is no piece of classical music I despise more than Bolero.)
However, looking at these pictures, I note something else about Krista: She shows, to my highly practiced eye, absolutely no sign that she has aged a single day since I first saw her in the music building lobby fifteen years ago**! I spent a bit of my day mulling this over — as I noted previously, my current job is one that lends itself to lots and lots of time for “mulling” — and, when I considered the fact that Aaron’s job is an overnight one (I think), I came to the staggering conclusion that Krista is, in fact, a vampire. Thus, she spends the time when Aaron is sleeping — during the day — also in deep slumber, albeit in a coffin, which serves double-duty at night as the object she uses to tote around her drums. It all fits!
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* You can tell that I am too book-centric when I look at the photos of Krista and try to identify the books on the shelves behind her. I always do this. Show me a picture of George W. Bush accepting a bribe from Saddam Hussein in front of a bookshelf, and I’m going to try to identify the books.
** Holy Crap, has it been that long?!
