I Asked Amy

I love brushes with “fame”. This is well-known to my friends who shake their heads at my obsession with People and all things Kardashian. I know way too much about Brad and Angelina and prefer to attend movies solo so I can get completely engrossed in the fantasy lives of my screen idols. One of my friends calls me Tiger Beat. (For those of you not familiar with this esteemed publication, it’s a teen idol gossip magazine geared toward adolescent girls.)

I have been fortunate enough to meet lots of people of varying levels of celebrity in politics, business, television, movies and the sports world. So, from time to time I’ll give you the scoop on my latest close encounters with famous folks who visit Syracuse.

 Most recently, I had the absolute pleasure of meeting Amy Dickinson. Better known as Ask Amy. Her advice column appears in our Post Standard each day as well as in 150 other newspapers across the country. She also is a regular guest on NPR’s Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me and author of a memoir, The Mighty Queens of Freeville.

For those of you not familiar with Freeville, NY (population 454), it is right down Route 81 South in Tompkins County. Amy was born and raised on a dairy farm there and lives there still with her husband and five daughters. She spoke at a conference at The Lodge in Skaneateles this fall that I attended. Her talk was so good that it had me and the rest of the audience laughing, then teary-eyed then laughing again. Anyone who left that room uninspired must have been asleep.   

So I just knew I had to meet her. I snuck away from one of the less than stimulating sessions that day and tracked her down at the table where she had been signing copies of her book. Lucky me, she was just wrapping up a conversation and there was no one else in sight!

I found myself face to face with the woman who offers some of the most sought after personal advice on the planet. So I did what so many people wish they could do: I asked Amy. About my career. About priorities. About balance. And we had a pretty terrific and impactful conversation.  

I completely understand why people tease me about my fixation on famous people. But they became famous for a reason. They’re interesting or funny or have something important to say or just plain entertaining in a widely appealing way.

Amy Dickinson belongs in this category as she was many of these things wrapped up in a likeable package. I think I especially liked her, though, because she’s one of us – an Upstate New Yorker. Just sayin’.