Young and Stupid

Sometimes I think back to who I was and realize what a fucking dumbass I was. Be it six months or six years, I am almost appalled at how dumb I used to be. Granted, I think I am smart as whip right now, but I am sure in a few months, I will look back at a couple things I did this month and think, wow, how fucking stupid was I.*

I generally try to keep my emotions in check, walk around with the poker face. However, one of the instances this does not work is when I play video games. Specifically, when the video game is obviously cheating. Video games do cheat sometimes, particuallry sports game, though sometimes I just play poorly and I get fucking pissed off. When I was young and stupid, I would have to keep my emotions in check, usually. Lots of times my parents would be around somewhere, or I would be playing late. In those cases, I would not swear like a sailor or throw things or pound my fist on the desk.

If my folks were not around, it was pretty much anything goes. Cursing, throwing controllers, yelling, all that shit. I cannot remember how old I was during one particular instance, but I was probably in high school, playing Madden on the computer when I truley acted dumbly.

It was the summer time, or a vacation day, but I know that it was during the day and my parents were both at work. I was playing Madden and the game began to obviously cheat and try to ruin my perfect record. When the final gun sounded, I had lost, and I was pissed. I stormed around yelling whatever obscenity popped into my head. And then, needing a way to really, really show the Madden game how pissed I was at it, I punched the wall.

It was a pretty good punch, though not conventional. It was not a jab, more like a swing. Essentially, I was walking down the hall, arms at my side, and just flung my right hand behind me, as though I was on a bike and emphatically stating that I was making a left turn. My punch was true, and hit the wall in a perfect spot, right between the studs. Drywall of course, is not that strong. I did not break through the wall, but I dented it pretty good. It really is quite amazing how you can be so pissed off you punch a wall, but then once you acheive the desired result, breakage, your mood switches pretty quick to holy fuck, my dad is gonna kill me.

But that is not the worst part of the story.

With a dented wall, I was young and stupid enough to think I could fix it and no one would be the wiser. In theory, it was a good plan. In theory, communism works. But being young and stupid, theory was all I needed. I headed to the basement, secured some spackle, and went about patching the dent. I spackeled the dent, smoothed it out as best I could and prepared to move to the second phase of the plan.

Had I been smarter, I would have realized that the first part of the plan doomed me to failure. Spackle takes about 24 hours to dry. After it drys, you need to sand it. And regardless, one can always tell the where dry wall has been spackled. But I threw caution into the wind, and set about finding the paint to cover up the white spackle.

And this might be the worst part.

I could not find the paint. But I found white paint and a paint that was just a little bit darker than the paint on the hallway wall. So, I mixed them. Seemed like a good idea. Mix dark paint with light paint, you get the right colored paint. Course, I am color blind so there really was never a chance for me to tell that the colors matched. Not to mention the fact that wet paint is always a slightly different shade than dry paint.

But I had gotten this far, so I painted the damn wall with my mixed paint. Cleaned everything up, turned all the lights off in the hallway and hid in my room.

Eventually, my dad got home. It took about two hours, but it happened. I was laying on my bed trying to read, when I heard "what the hell is this?" come through my bedroom door. He was asking my little sis, but I knew I would soon have a knock on my door. There was nothing I could do. I had to tell the truth.

"Yeah, so I kinda punched the wall, and it made a little hole, so I got the spackle and patched the hole, but then I could not find the right color paint, so I mixed a couple paint buckets that I found in the basement and painted the wall."

I think my dad was shocked at my combined ingenuity and stupidity. I mean really, after hearing that story, what are you suppossed to say? He did not say much, and if I recall correctly, I did not even get in trouble. Just a few head shakes and a couple incredulous "Wow"s. My mom was thrilled I had fucked up her wall, and not just because I am her only son who can do no wrong. She had been pestering my dad to repaint the hallway. This gave him a good reason to do it.

I am still shocked that I thought that this was the best course of action. But I was young and stupid. Now when I get frustrated at video games, I just bottle the anger, and get some lumps on my neck.

image from: http://simpsonsviewertop8.blogspot.com/

*I went out with my paralegal friend a couple weeks ok, and he lives an hour out of DC (he has a shitty commute), so I would go out in his town and pass out at his place. It was a pretty standard night, drinking and shit, but when I woke up, I put on my shirt and pants and went out to smoke. My friend showed up and was like, what the fuck happened to your shirt? I look at my shirt, and there is this nasty stain on my shirt and the crotch of my pants. Based on the visual evidence, it looked like I threw up on myself. I had no recollection of me throwing up and nor did he. We went down to the basement where I slept and found no further traces of vomit. We were flummoxed, but came to the conclusion that I vomited on my shirt and pants at some point, and that was that. Cut to Monday morning, and paralegal friend informs me that it indeed was not vomit on my shirt. Instead, I decided to reheat some spaghetti and meatballs that I found in his fridge and eat it on his deck. In my drunken stupor, my aim was poor, and much of the spaghetti and meatballs I tried to shove in my mouth missed, rolled down my shirt and pants and onto his deck. My friend discovered this because of the mess I left on his deck. So yeah, should not have bought myself a shot that night. Stick to beer.

Selfish?

In the nearly a year that I have been working in the Real World at my current place of employment, two people in my group of about 22 people have passed away.

The first, was wholly unexpected. The guy was about 50 years old and had a sudden and massive stroke. He was on life support for a couple of days before passing. A week after he died, his 18 year old graduated high school. Horrible, horrible story. My grandfather had a stroke when I was about five and was never the same. I never really got to know him. Strokes and anyuerisms scare me more than anything. I was friendly with the guy, but never really talked to him at length. We tax attorneys tend to keep to ourselves.

The second, was a bit more expected, but still unsettleing. I summered where I work in 2007. I shared an office with her then. We shared the same exit door, but it is what we call a "walk-through." Her office was behind mine, with a wall and a door separating us. Our shared printer was in my bay, so I would see her at least several times a day. As just mentioned, we tax attorneys are not the most talkative, outgoing bunch, so we never engaged in any long discussions, but I still used her as a resource and asked her dumb questions like, "Where can I get more legal pads?" or "Can I recycle this, or should it be shredded first?" At the end of the summer, when I shredded a lot of my shit using her shredder, but letting her clean up the mess, I informed her that I would probably accept the offer and would see her in 2008. Turns out I wouldn't see her in '08. But I saw her twice in '09.

When I started working last Septemember I ended up in a different office. I stopped by to see her once, but she was not there. She was never there. Something had happened. Turns out, she had cancer. And not the good kind (not that there is a good kind).

And then, in early '09, someone in the group lateralled, and in the ensuing office reshuffle (I was eager to get out of my current office for a myriad of reasons, even though I had just scored a brand new desk they refused to cart to my new office), I ended up where I had spent the summer of aught seven (though it had been renovated, it now had a better bookcase and a whiteboard. Score! Crappy desk though). I took all the cool shit I had acquired in my three months in my old office, except for the desk and coat rack, and moved back into my old spot. And it essentially became my office. Sure it was a walk-through, but she was never in. The only reason someone would come into my office was because they wanted to talk to me or got me confused with the office next door where you pick up legal pads. There were drawbacks to having one's own office. Well, drawback. I usually get to the office late, around 9:30. But lots of time I do not get in until 10. Occassionally I miss the train that gets me to the office at ten and I end up in the office at 10:15. And thus, anyone walking down the hall can see that the light in my office is off. I am the only one with a key who shows up on a regular basis, and if the light is off, I am not in. I do not think anyone cares, but I am just a paranoid first year in the middle of a recession who gets worried about this shit. Sort of. I am fairly certain no one cares. As long as I get my shit done (or think I am getting it done).

But since I have been in my new old office, she has shown up twice. The first time she walked through the door and said, "Surprise!" as I frantically shoved the newspaper that I was doing the sodoku puzzle in under the desk. But I was surprised. She was not the same that I remembered. It was clear that the chemo and cancer had been very unkind to her. She was bald, wearing a neck brace, using a walker, and extremely skinny. It took a second for me to register who this was. If it had not been for a her voice, which I had not heard in 18 months, I do not think I would have recognized her. I can only hope that the look on my face did not shift from horrified to recognition and was merely confusion for a half a second before recognition. I cannot remember what I said to her after she said surprise, I can only hope that it was "Hi, nice to see you again" and not "Hi, how are you doing?"

When she came in again a month later, she looked better. She was not using the neckbrace. But she still did not look good. And it pains me that I have trouble remembering what she looked like before the cancer. I saw her almost every weekday for three months, and now I can only picture her as I last saw her (for what it is worth, when I try to construct the prior memories of her, she keeps looking like a female version of the old Rob from Get Fuzzy, which is not quite accurate).

A month ago, her mother and hospice worker came in to remove her personal items from her office. I did not realize it at the time, but she had likely taken a turn for the worse. My two bosses stopped by to chat with her mother, and though I had my headphones on, I usually keep the volume very low while working, and was able to hear what they were chatting about. No one had a bad thing to say about her. But at least they got to know her. She worked for us for 25 years. I got the impression that my bosses understood her fate, but were thought she could beat it. They understood the importance of standing behind her, and doing whatever was in their power to keep her in her proper position after she beat it. I was only overhearing, but I was very proud of my bosses. These are people you want to work for.

She did not beat it though. She passed over the weekend.

And I feel a bit selfish. No one where I work has as private an office as I do. We have an open door policy. However, the doors facing the hallway are always kept close. Hence, my office door is always kept closed. The other similarly situated offices are walk-throughs. Important people sit in the back office. Hence, others are always walking through the walk-through office. Other offices are offshoots of a lobby area, where the hallway doors open up into a lobby area that provides access to six or eight offices. Sure these offices can have their doors closed, but it is not really the way we roll. And thus, I am in a walk-through that no one walks through in an office with an open door policy where I cannot keep my door open.

Therefore, I have a more private office than most. As mentioned, no one comes into my office unless they want to talk to me. Rarely do people want to talk to me. Usually, it is just my bosses, either to hand me a case or pontificate about potential fantasy trades. Or occassionally, my paralegal friend stopping by because I am late in grabbing him for a smoke (his office is closer to the elevators). No one ever stops by to chat. And a random person will stop by to discuss something work related, though I can usually anticipate that because I have asked them to look at something.

So, for the most part, I can do whatever I want in my office without fear of pop-ins. This is nice for doing crosswords, sudoku, trying to get around the firewall, and, as was the case the other day, having some serious gas. The other night I decided to make a tuna casserole. I used a one of the big cans of tuna (not bulk size, but pretty big). As such, around 2 the next day, I had some serious gas. I started ripping farts left and right and straight down into my chair. If a fart is particularly nasty, I will light a match, but for the most part, if I have to fart, I let it rip, smell factor be damned. With another person sharing my office space, or with an office that people regularly walk-through, well there is a time to breathe and there is a time to squeeze, though that can lead to disasterous results.

Point being, I was sad to learn that she had passed. But I fear I may have been sadder to learn that seven months of private office may be coming to an end soon. I like having my own space. When the wind blows a certain way, I like knowing that I can break wind if that is what I desire. I wonder if a part of me hoped that she would beat it, so she could keep doing what she was doing, so that I could be ensured another five to seven years with a private office (assuming I stay here that long of course). Of course, it is not just the lassiez-faire farting I enjoyed. It was printing random crap. Playing brickbreaker while bored. Surfing the intertubes (to the extent the firewall allows me. Oh, and has anyone else noticed that google reader now starts showing the URL of the site you are readering, rather than treating it like a flash page where the only URL exposed was reader.google.com. What is up with this? Upcoming post on how google is becoming evil btw). Printing out the latest sports guy column and reading it at my desk as oppossed to on the computer so it looks like I am reading shit for work and not slacking on the intertubes.

So this is my apology to her. I am sorry I did not get to know you better. I know there is so much that I could have learned from you. Just today, I was struggling with a basic question about tax law that you would have known. Had you been there, I would have asked. I am sorry I did not ask more questions in the past. I am sorry I am selfish. I saw the e-mail saying that you had passed, and my heart hurt because you helped me in the past. I could have used your help in the future. But then I went to smoke with paralegal friend and told him my fears about the high mortality rate in my group. And I thought about how your passing would affect my private office. And I thought about how I could just take your case of bottled water and no one would care.

But mostly I am sorry that I did not get to know you better (yeah, its a repeat). I saw you many times for three months and I do not know anything about you. I am sorry. You are tougher than me. I wish I could have done more.

"I Screwed Up"

Those were the words I uttered to my boss when I walked into his office yesterday morning.

It happens to everyone. You screw up. You fail. Does not make it any easier. Fear of failing causes procrastination, making excuses, and can result in failing to do anything. Everyone knows this. I cannot tell you anything you cannot learn in Psych 101 (I assume, I never took it, which makes me unqualified to speak on, oh let's just say anything).

I suppose I could have made excuses. But that would have looked pretty stupid considering I sent my boss an e-mail last week saying everything was going as planned. And at that time, I really thought it was. In that e-mail I stated I needed X, Y, and Z, and that I should get them next week. Everything was on track. We were cutting it a little close, but there was no reason to worry.

Then, Monday afternoon, the mail came. I got the letter I was looking for. Read it and said, "What the fuck?" I got Y. I got Z. But there was no X. And X was the most important part. At first I got pissed. They did not send me the information I specifically requested. Then I looked through the case file. I did not actually request it. Oops.

I am fairly certain I told them about X on the phone. But X was not in the writing. Oops.

So, I cursed myself for about twenty minutes. Then ate lunch. Then decided to bite the bullet and tell my boss what was going on. Head into his office and, hello, he is gone for the afternoon. At first I was annoyed. I fucked up, won't someone help me. Won't someone please think of the children!?

Turns out, this was a good thing. I went back to my office, and instead of wallowing in my own misery, thought to myself, how can I make this right? There was no way to make it perfect, my fuck up had pretty much sealed that, but there is always an answer, and I set about considering my options. I eventually settled on the proper course of action and did the paperwork and drafted the shit I needed to accomplish that course of action.

So, Tuesday morning (well afternoon actually, I had a bunch of shit and meetings and crap and other types of malarkey to do in the morning, point is, soon as I had a free minute) I went into my bosses office and announced that I screwed up. I explained what happened and how it happened and how it got to the point that a fuck up like this could have caused this problem (i.e. excuses, not all my fault, but I take full responsibility because really, it is my fault). So we talked about it for a while, and worked out a solution, which happened to be the same one I had come to. So when he said, how soon can you have this drafted, I was able to say, it is right here.

Now, in the grand scheme of things, this is not that important (and really, what is?). I did not miss some sort of hard and fast, no questions asked deadline. It can potentially make me, my boss, and my department look bad. But not that bad. It is still unfortunate, simply because this should not have happened. And if the big boss comes calling, it is my boss that is going to take the heat, not me. I have not even been there for a year. The big boss would consider it a failure of management.

But because I went into my boss's office; because I owned up to the error; because I came in with a solution; well, I do not think my boss will mind getting any crap about this screw-up.

And most importantly, I have recognized the error of my ways. I screwed up. It happens. But now that I recognize my screw up, I have to learn from this. I cannot make this error again. If I do, well, I suppose I either get fired or allow my boss to grift me in a fantasy trade.

Greatest Hits II

I don't write here as much as I should or write long posts like I did. So indulge me as we take a trip down memory lane and I repost some of the better (read: unsucky) posts from my old blog. I may add a prologue or a post script, but probably not because I am lazy.

I just posted a long-ass tribute to my girlfriend, of which I meant every word, but this edition of my greatest hits relates to when I was not so lucky in love. Or, more accurately, when I was quite loved, but had no idea that such love even existed. So join me, as we reminisce about my love life, as it existed nine years ago.

There are probably several stories from my younger days that are worth telling. However this is the one I want to tell. Just as Mike from Barely Legal Blog worked at Kroger, I did so too. However, I do not have ten stories to tell, just one (though I was wearing the polo that Mike instituted).

It was so long ago, I cannot even remember what year it was. I think it was the fall semester of my sophomore year in college, when I came to be employed by the Kroger in my college town. A friend of mine had recently begun working in the Deli there, and told me it was an easy job and they were hiring. Me needing money to pay those older than me to procure beer for me, decided that the Deli at Kroger’s was the perfect job. I quickly set about filling out an application and was hired (I think there may have been an interview, but who knows). I naively figured that this would be a good chance to hang out with a friend of mine, and getting paid to do so. This assumption turned out to be erroneous quite quickly. We both worked at night, but since we were both part-time, we were generally paired with a full-timer, and thus worked on different nights. Apparently there were some people in town who felt that working in the Deli at the Kroger was a career. After all, there were Union benefits (biting my tongue).

I generally spent my three nights a week working with Bertha. Bertha was a regular townie. She looked the part and acted the part. She was maybe a hair over five feet. She also had a nice pair of coke bottle glasses. In other words, the three-month old honey ham was more appetizing than her. While we worked together, she talked incessantly, not really to me (or so I thought), but at me. I usually grunted a reply, but because I was too nice a guy I could not tell her to shut her hole. She would yammer on, and I would say things like “yup,” “MMM-Hmmm,” “that’s interesting,” “wow,” “huh,” and “cool.”

To this day, I have no idea what she was talking about 90% of the time, but in the three months I was there, she told me one story twice; How she found her husband. From what I could decipher, one day Bertha decided she needed a husband. To accomplish this monumental task, she set up three dates. The details of the first date escape my memory, but it probably involved the guy seeing her, excusing himself from the table, and fleeing through the bathroom window. At the second date, the guy did not show up, even though Bertha was to pick him up at his home. But, as Bertha told me, she had a great time with his parents. Apparently, this guy still lived with his folks, and then skipped out to prevent meeting her, and his parents were forced to deal with her. According to Bertha, they were very nice folks (which I do not dispute, there were some folks around these parts that are salt of the earth), and she proceeded to hang out with them for a few hours.

Fortunately, on the third date Bertha struck gold. She met her soul-mate, Billy. Three dates was all it took to find love. If only that could work for us white-collars. Anyway, when Bertha met Billy sparks flew and they each knew that the other was the one. After all, Bertha worked in the Deli and Billy worked in the Meat Department, both at Kroger. It was a match made in heaven, or at least a recipe from the Kroger Bakery. After what was probably an exciting and eventful courtship, Bertha and Billy got married.

However, shortly after I began working in the Deli with Bertha, they began going through some problems. Unbelievably the marriage began to fall apart. This of course, was completely unknown to me, because I never listen to what people have to say. Had Bertha said something to me, I probably would have grunted. Of course, that may have happened, and Bertha found my grunt to be the sexiest thing ever. Because I came into work one day, and Bertha was scheduled, but no where to be seen.

With Bertha gone, a kid my age, (but not in school, though a cool guy nonetheless) named Tom was forced to stay late and work with me. As I recall, I was scheduled to come in an hour before Bertha, so after about an hour and a half of hard Deli work, the word began to trickle down. Bertha and Billy broke up. They had a huge fight the previous night, and no one knew where Bertha was. I, of course, did not care, I was more concerned about who would help me close up the Deli that night. I spent the better part of an hour convincing Tom to stay and help me close up. I talked him into staying until closing time, though not until closing procedures were completed, but that was good enough for me. Then the bombshell came.

To be continued….

********************************************

I heard it moments before the manager called me into his office. Tom had been walking around, and heard the gossip, soon to be confirmed by the manager. He informed me that Bertha and Billy had had a big fight the night before, and Bertha informed Billy that she was in love in with me. SHE WAS IN LOVE WITH ME!!!

I was floored by this revelation. A wet noodle could have knocked me over. A feather duster, a sombrero, a dishrag, hell even a drop of water could have knocked me on my ass. I did not even like this woman. All I did was give her a passing acknowledgment when words passed through her lips. Not to mention the fact that she was a solid 15 years older than me. I would not have given her the time of day had she passed me on the street. I don’t think that I was even that nice to her. I just said the occasional, “yep,” “uh-huh,” or “that’s great.” Was she so starved for attention that this was all she needed to fall in love with someone?

As I said, moments after I found out that I had unwittingly broken up a marriage, the manager called me into his office, and basically confirmed the rumor. Bertha had broken up with Billy because she was in love with me. The manager then proceeded to tell me that what I did on my own time was none of his business, just so long as it did not interfere with work. Had I not been so shell-shocked, I would have made it clear that I never so much as touched Bertha (OK, so maybe I brushed up against her tits once, but it was an accident). Still numb, I left his office with the knowledge that it does not pay to be nice.

The story is not done there though. All this happened within the first two and half hours of my shift. I still had half of it let to go. The rest of the day was filled with Kroger employees from every department casually walking by, peering into the Deli to see who had caused the latest drama. I wanted to hold up a sign saying, “I HATED BERTHA. SHE IS AN IDIOT. I NEVER DID ANYTHING. SHE IS READING INTO THINGS THAT ARE NOT THERE.” I did not get a chance however, as there were a lot of people asking for Lorraine Swiss Cheese that day.

The coup de grâce came about 20 minutes before closing time. A man and woman walked up to the Deli counter. Trying to put the whole thing behind me and be a cheery Kroger employee, I asked if there was anything I could help them with. They said, “Do you know [lawschoolrules]?” I said that was me. The man said, “Well its nice to see who that bitch left my brother for” and walked away. “Oh Fuck,” was the only thing I could think. That brief exchange taught me a very important lesson.

The next twenty minutes were anxiety ridden. The only thing I could think about was how many guys would be hiding behind my car waiting to break my legs. Would it just be Billy? Billy’s Brother? Both? Does Billy have more friends or brothers or uncles or nephews or bothers-in-law? They knew what I looked like. I had one saving grace though, Tom. I figured Tom would be there to help me out, he was a good guy, he would certainly escort me to my car.

Nope. As soon as the clock hit 10 he was gone. I don’t think he even said goodbye. Just punched out and left. As I wrapped up the corned beef I began thinking about how much a tire iron to the knee would hurt. I wondered if I had the balls to scream, “RAPE!!” But I sucked it up; I left the store with no escort, no gun, no brass knuckles, no nothing but my own fear. I walked out of the automatic doors and saw no one waiting in the shadows. I pressed on, my fists clenched ready to start swinging at anyone who came near. I made it to my car without any trouble, but knew that there was still a chance for violence. I got, started the car up, and drove away without incident. I was relieved, after all it had been the second time in my life I had been presented with the fact that I might get my ass kicked in a parking lot (the first time required sweet talk since the angry people were actually there).

The repercussions of this day were few. I quit shortly thereafter, partly because of this, and partly because of something else, which I cannot talk about (the Bar would have my ass). I occasionally ran into some of my other co-workers (at the time this happened my friend had already quit), and learned that Bertha and Billy had worked things out. So, officially I did not unwittingly break up a marriage, I just nearly unwittingly broke up a marriage. It was close I am sure, but God has plenty of other reasons to send me to Hell. I did see Bertha about a year later. I was doing some late night shopping at the Kroger and she was working the register. She did not acknowledge me, and I did not acknowledge her. But she looked pretty much the same, and it was at that point that I decided to never be nice to anyone ever again.

An Epithalamium to My Woman

Last Thursday, I was talking with my girlfriend over Skype and I mentioned a post that I wanted to do involving Filter, Tipper Gore, Robert Gates, and libel. She was excited for me to write it, and sadly, I never got around to it. I hope this suffices (and yes, I know it is not a poem, as the title may suggest, but whatever. I am still working on that sonnet though).

As I write this, it is our 9 month anniversary. If you do the math (or grab the 2008 calendar out of the trash), you will see that our first date was on Election Day. It truly was a historic day (though oddly enough, neither of us voted for the same person and neither of us voted for Obama).

The odd thing about our relationship (I might use "odd" a lot, my apologies) is that we have spent about half that time apart. She is a law student (rising 2L), which means lots of nice long breaks from DC. There is Thanksgiving, a month for Christmas, spring break, and of course the place we are mired in now, the three month summer vacation. If you had the first few weeks where we were just casually dating (which I do, because everyday with her is better than my best day without her), one gets to about 4.5 months of away time. Which sucks.

But it is also good. I will not say great, because it sucks so much, but one could say that it has been great for our relationship. Kind of. Well yes, it has. Beginning around Thanksgiving time, we have had some epic g-chats (though before this, we had marathon text messaging sessions (on of the reasons I had to upgrade my phone plan (and eventually went with a blackberry so I could email her while I was working (except I dont get service where I work so I just use my work e-mail (I am sure the all-seeing eye thinks I am hilarious)(gmail blocked at work (bastards!)))))). So over Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks, with finals between them there was not a lot of quality "us" time, we talked about lots of things. We really got to know each other.

But I think that my nature is one of the reasons this really helped our relationship. I am not much of a talker. I fumble words; have trouble getting thoughts out; feel the pressure of having to talk and can not come up with the words (for instance, I have spent about 45 minutes typing what you have read up to now. If you read it, it would take a minute, said it, maybe three). But with the typing, I am fucking Casanova. All the sweet things that my brain cannot communicate to my mouth, my brain has no trouble sending to my fingers. It was through this forum that I could really convey to her how much I really liked her. She recently read through some of our old g-chats (after I mention some really cute parts of them to her) and said to me that she could not believe how much I liked her and how she did not pick up on it.

I understood how she did not though. I am generally a very guarded person, and even though I was attracted to her from the moment I saw her standing in the King St. metro parking lot, I was still quite keen on protecting my feelings. She is much like me in this respect. But to her credit, she made the first move. Well, really the first and the second. She knows the first move, I might tell the rest of you about it sometime. But she made the second. And I am glad she did, because I am a wimp.

After our lunch date (oh yes, I called in sick to work on Election Day to have a lunch date with a girl I hardly knew), she suggested we take a walk around Olde Towne Alexandria. During lunch, we mostly discussed law school (read: me explaining to her why law school sucks and no one should repeat my mistake (although I am glad I went, odd right?)). But after lunch, we took a walk, which shocked me that she suggested it. I am not the most entertaining lunch guest. But we walked down to the Potomac, down where the anchor is on King St., and I made one of my infamous "smart-alec jokes." She laughed, and she would later tell me this when she stopped thinking of me as crazy possible stalker rapist, and started thinking of me as a sweet guy she could use for his law knowledge (operative word being "sweet").

If pressed, I would say that the definitive point in our relationship for me was the night I had to spend in the hospital. It occurred sometime in January (yay two months!). It was a Friday or Saturday night when my body began to revolt. My stomach clamped down on me, shrinking itself to at least 1/1,000 of its size (I assume). Anything I tried to put in came right back out. Anything that was there, would not come out. Bent over in pain, I refused to do anything. "This shall pass," I said. My girlfriend thought otherwise and agreed to stay with me that night. Around five in the morning of a sleepless night, me writhing in pain, she insisted we go to the hospital. I said I was ok. She said HOSPITAL! I said, lets call the nurse hotline on my health insurance, see what they say. Damn nurse said hospital. So I let my woman drive me to the hospital. I tried to be calm with her driving my car, but between the gut-wrenching pain and her inability to begin stopping 18,000 yards before a stop sign, I was a little freaked out. Miraculously, she got me to the emergency room in one piece (that was sarcasm dear). But I would later learn, that this was a test for her.

Most people do not like hospitals. I know I hate them. I have hated them ever since my little sister was born. It had been a difficult pregnancy, and when my mom was recovering, only my dad was allowed to see her. My two older sisters and I were left in the waiting room. For a six year old, I was pretty fucking pissed. All I wanted was " TO SEE MY MOMMY!!!!" I do not think that I threw a tantrum. I tried to be tough. I understood what was going on. But in that moment(s), I hated my dad because he got to see my mom and I did not. It was an early lesson that life is not fair.

I am still not sure why my sweetie hates hospitals, though I can venture a few guesses. And all of those guesses make me understand why she hates them. But she parked my car and came into the waiting room with me. I think she had her laptop or at least a casebook or two with her. It was a good chance for her to do homework. Bleeding guys are not that much of a distraction.

Eventually, they called my name and I got to go in the back, where they make ER patients wait even longer. They did a test or two (I was most worried about appendicitis), and then made me drink liquid cum. It was a huge glass of yellowish liquid, viscous, but flavored with powdered lemonade (still gross). I got about 3/4ths of it down before throwing it all back up. They still insisted on a scan of some sort (damn kick-ass health plan), to which I submitted. But when I got back, they stuck me back on my cot in my "room." I say room because I was in the hallway, surrounded by a couple curtains.

But during this, and this is the part my girlfriend does not know, was that all I wanted was her. I wanted her next to me. I wanted her to hold my hand. I wanted to hear her tell me everything was going to be ok. After three hours, and the doctors not being able to figure out what was going on with me, I broke. I tried to be tough. My girlfriend made it into the waiting room, a big step for her. Getting her in the back room, with all the sick people, I did not want to do that to her. But I had to. I needed her there. I told the nurse that my girlfriend was in the waiting room, and could she (nurse) please get her (gf) and have her (gf) sit with me. And she came. It is a little strange to say that one of your happiest moments is to have your girlfriend walk into the emergency room, see her eyes light up when she sees you, and just be so thankful that she came, even though the pain you are in still throbs in your temples.

I am not exactly sure when I first asked for the pain medication, if I had to guess I would say it was shortly before my girlfriend showed up, though it might have been shortly after. I just know, that lying there, in the hallway, my ass hanging out (damn hospital gown), the only thing I wanted was to see her.

The hospital eventually kept me overnight, and my girlfriend agreed to stay with me. I was hooked up to an IV and the hospital required me to piss into a jug. So I pissed in a jug in front of her. And I was ok with that. I even made jokes about that (though that may have been the drugs). But she stayed with me. In the hospital. All night. We even tried to watch a movie on her computer (old and black and white), but I fell asleep after five minutes. But she was there. All night. We laid in the hospital bed together until 6 am when the nurse said the Doctors might not be too keen on such relations (its not like we did anything, I was either too doped up or in too much pain to say or do anything remotely sexy).

But the girlfriend thinks that the night we spent in the hospital was when I thought I could fall in love with her. But in reality, I fell in love with her when I was laying in the hallway cot, only wanting her by my side, but understanding (I am not sure if I understood then, but i respected) her disdain for hospitals, hoping that I would be in and out of the hospital, and when I understood that I was not, asking the nurse to get her, and then my girlfriend walked through the doors. If there was a drug that could preserve what I felt when I first saw her walk in there, I would be an addict. I was so happy. The pain was momentarily gone. All I wanted to do was reach out to her and hold her and feel her against me. And know that when she is close, everything is gonna be alright.

So that is the story of when I knew that I loved my girlfriend. The story of when I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her is much more mundane. She had recently left for the summer, so I had not seen her for a couple of weeks. I was sitting on the couch, hand down my pants Al Bundy style, when this odd feeling washed over me. I became disconnected, but completely connected to myself, electricity ran through my body, I became numb, my jaw felt like it was no longer attached to my face, my eyes could not focus on anything, I was completely and totally stunned. It just hit me. I was gonna marry her. I knew it. One day, she is gonna be my wife. One day, we are gonna be old, sitting in rocking chairs watching the sunset in Greece, and be even happier than we are now. I just knew it.

If you watch TV, you have seen the e-harmony commercials. In them, the bride and bridegroom talk about how much they had in common and how great it was that e-harmony facilitated that connection. Thats great. My best friend from my younger years met her husband on e-harmony. And that is great. Its just not for me.

My girlfriend and I have a lot in common. I am a lawyer, she will be a lawyer. Family is very important to us (though more so for her, I define family as mom, dad, and sisters, she defines it as everyone who may or may not be related to me). We both like reading. We both love Arrested Development (ok, she had no clue what it was before I made her watch the DVDs). We both think building the Lego DeathStar together would be a good relationship test.

And we have a lot more that is not in common. She is a people person. She loves meeting new people. I hate people. They annoy me. She can walk up to anyone and make friends. When she moves to a new city, her first task is to make friends with bartenders, which she does quite well (our second "date" involved me meeting her at her favorite bar. When she ordered drinks they were alcohol fueled and cheap. When I ordered drinks (and she was not around) they were alcohol light and expensive). Alright it may not be her first task, but if it is a task for her, she does quite well.

Whenever we talk about the proper way to raise kids, we disagree. Whenever we talk about a political issue, we disagree (or I take an ad hoc position and she shows me the light until I agree with her). Religion: disagree. Cigarettes: disagree. Buffy: disagree. Watching movies: disagree (I prefer TV shows. I like the development involved. Fact: In nine months, we have never had a date that involved going to see a movie). Jefferson v. Hamilton: Disagree. Going out v. Staying in: Disagree. Relationship with cousins: Disagree. Enjoyment of eating seafood: Disagree. Enjoyment of eating any quasi-exotic food: Disagree. Section of the used book store to browse through: Disagree.

That is just a sampling. But that is perfect for me. I spend all day with me, the last thing I want is someone who is exactly like me. I want someone who challenges me. Someone who makes me try new things. We agree on the important things: Marriage; Yes, Kids; Yes. But everything else, well that will take some work. And I want someone who is going to disagree with me on things like how to raise the kids. All the great bands made their best albums when the members were at each others throats. Example #1, #2.

I know that we are not a band. But we have a thing called compromise. As of right now, my belief in God is lacking. But I want my kids exposed to it, but not brainwashed, so that they can make their own decisions. I will be married in a Greek orthodox church, so long as it is understood that I do not believe that Jesus Christ is my lord and savior, though I desperately wish I could believe that. What I feel everyday with my woman, how much I care about her, how much I want to be with her, how great and happy she makes me feel, is real, the idea that a benevolent or unmerciful god is out there, is not. Its an issue, I do not deny that. I do not think it is insurmountable because we love each other, and we can find a way.

And I think that way about a lot of issues. We have different thoughts about many different issues. But I do not want someone like me. I want someone that sees the world differently. That can enlighten me, that can teach me things. Not a day goes by when she does not provide some new insight into some sort of issue.

And I don't want to spend another day of my life without her there to guide me. We have had dumb fights in person, we have had serious fights over IM, and vice versa, but not a minute goes by that I do not love her. Sorry for the double negative. I love her all the time. She has been in Greece for the last three weeks, and I think about her constantly. She has been away from me since the middle of May and I miss her terribly. She is the piece that completes me, and with 4.5 months of having her with me, I have spent the other 4.5 months lost. I just want her back so that I can feel whole again.

There is no doubt in my mind. I am going to marry her. The future is what it is. Maybe we will face obstacles we cannot overcome. I do not think we will though. Everyday since I have met her has been something special to me. I find myself amazed that I have met, and fallen in love with someone so fantastic. And the kicker is that she loves me too. I can be my nerdy, dorky self in front of her, and it still makes her laugh. And the sound of her laughing is the one sound that I could listen to for all of eternity.

So baby, on our nine month anniversary, I did not get you any presents. i did not write out the post I promised to. I wrote this. I hope you like it.

Because I love you so much, you are my Thumper, you are the most perfect thing that has ever come into my life. When you come back in sixteen days, I cannot imagine ever letting you go again. I know I have to, for thanksgiving and such things, but you are the one for me. I love you. When I talk to you on skype and I have to say that I need to hang up because it costs too much, it breaks my heart. I wish I had the ability to give you everything you ever wanted, to talk to you whenever you wanted, for as long you want. And I am sorry I cannot do that yet.

But, the one thing I can guarantee you is that you have my heart, you have my soul. Baby, Aug. 21 is going to be the best day of my life because that will be the day that I know that I get to spend to the rest of my life with you.