June 18, 2011, was a Saturday – the 169th day of the year.  Being June, it was hot is the valley of the giant magical flaming bird, reaching 102° Fahrenheit during the day, and only falling to about 68° in the coldest parts of the night with a dew point of thirty six degrees, which makes it a don’t point.  The barometric pressure was about 29.7, and with the mercury trying to escape right out of the top of the thermometer, it wasn’t going up by much any time soon.  There was, at least, a light wind blowing to the south-west, about ten miles per hour. It wasn’t enough to cool you off, but it was enough to make you remember how it felt to be cool, and admit to yourself that being cool again just wasn’t in your near future.

I had two options for parties to go to that night, and I wanted to go to both. I was having a good time at the first party, but the good company and good time were beginning to look just a little like a consolation prize, since getting to the other party had begun to prove difficult – coordinating a ride was starting to look questionable.  In the end, though,  I found someone who was planning on going to the other party, and arranged to ride with them. I’d figure out the ride home once I was there, and, worst case, I’d walk.

I’m constantly making the mistake of looking at a distance on a map and thinking “We used to march twenty miles in the army! This is far less than twenty miles.” By the way, when I stayed at the party late, Mike offered to give me a ride home later. She totally ditched me. I walked home. It was about five miles – which is way less than twenty – around one or two in the afternoon, middle of June. After a night of drinking. I was pretty sure I was gonna die.

I’m sure there was lost of good company at the second party, too, but I couldn’t really tell you who was there that night, except for Merrick & Bellana, and Mike. But, I’m getting ahead of myself. 

I finally arrived at the second party late for some people, but right on time for me. (I’d arrived at the first party before dark! it was alarming!)  First thing I always do, of course, is make a quick scouting circuit, say my hellos, and see who’s about.  Next thing I usually do is head for the bar and grab an adult beverage. This time, I’d brought my own, so that was easy. Instead of a beeline for the bar, my next stop was to the kitchen to stash my supply, and that’s how I ended up chatting with Bellana in the kitchen, as I often do. Parties are, for some, a chance to dance, to try to hook up, to drink, run around like a maniac, etc… For me, they’re a chance to sit and visit and talk with people.

So, I’m sitting in the kitchen, talking to Bellana, when I see this bald girl. In a way, I suppose it seems a bit superficial to admit that the shaved head removed any question of whether I’d talk to her, but, c’mon. What’s the first thing you notice about someone, their thoughts on Plato’s Theory of Forms?  As it turns out, I really – and I mean really – like short hair on girls. Clipper short is amazing to run your fingers over, and smooth is wonderful as well. A girl who’s going to wear her hair short is… Well, different.  There are a number of ways in which she might be different, and I like most of ’em.

Once you end up introduced to someone at a party, either there will be a short bit of conversation, or it’ll run longer.  If you end up talking for more than two or three minutes, chances are good you’re going to talk for hours. We spent the entire party talking to almost nobody besides each other.

Thing is, I’d actually been in enough relationships, already, and I was sure of it. I’d actually formally given up on the process and decided that being alone, romantically speaking, was the best plan for me. You know when you know, for sure, that you’ve been in enough relationships? Right after you know, for sure, that you’ve already been through enough break-ups.

I’d collected up a pretty good list of what my major relationship flaws were, and an honest assessment of which were entirely mine and which might be mitigated to belong, somewhat, to others as well. One of those major relationship flaws, for instance, is the fact that, given a full and complete array of data, I kind of instinctively expect people to make rational decisions. I think this peculiarity is probably what caused my mother, around the time I was four, to compare me to a character on television at the time, and say “Oh, my. You’re a little Vulcan child, aren’t you?”

Well, that got me into the idea that – obviously! – what was needed was for me to inform any potential romantic entanglement of every possible problem they might have with me in a hypothetical romantic relationship, clearly and directly, beforehand. This would ensure that if they chose, thus informed, to proceed with the relationship, naturally, any problems we had would be completely unexpected and certainly not stem from any of those pre-disclosed dispositions, right?  Um… Right? Seems logical to me, too.  So I did.

The more interested I became in her, over the course of the evening, the more careful I was to make sure she was well informed of every single bad habit, infuriating idiosyncrasy, emotional shortcoming, inflexible plan or requirement, or annoying predilection I had. Honest to dog, I thought that meant, if she chose to continue, we’d never, ever have to fight about any of those things.  Pretty much every week, by the way, in case you’re wondering. I’m thinking nobody but me is surprised and confused by this.

Well, despite all the disclaimers and waivers, she chose to follow up on our meeting, with a late dinner at Denny’s. We talked quite a bit, and it was very enjoyable. After that, we went into saturation mode, going for long walks most nights, before or after her work. Long walks. Sometimes twice as long as that walk home, but, in Arizona, walking at midnight is a lot easier. You know how it goes – years worth of talking jammed into a few weeks or months time.

We’d stop in at Starbucks and order our drinks, and the baristas got to know us, and I think a lot of it was because of the banter. We reminded me of that old series Mad About You with Helen Hunt and Paul Reiser.  Everything I love about love and being smart and New York and the modern world was kind of perfectly showcased in Mad About You, and one of the best things about it was the banter. One of the things I love about Starbucks is the way it simultaneously reminds me of New York and Seattle. And San Francisco, a little. And Portland. Actually, I like most cities better once I’ve been to a Starbucks or two. To me, it seems to be a welcoming, cool, smart place where banter is very much at  home. Tell me again why I live in the desert? Anyway, we banter well. 🙂

Banter’s not all of it, of course. She pays attention to the little things I like and how I like them. She acts as a bit of a counter-balance on the big things I’m not seeing clearly, too.  She went through this big long production, subjecting thousands of people to hundreds of incremental versions of a recipe, to perfect my favorite kind of pasta and feed it to me – and let me tell you, I love me a lot of pasta. She might have got me on that score alone.

One nice thing about sexism in the old days was that everyone knew who was supposed to propose and who was supposed to be proposed to. Now, it’s kind of a mix between a stand-off and a foot-race. Like the first kiss on super-steroids, except a marriage proposal rarely “just happens” no matter how “right” the moment. Except, maybe, sometimes it does.  One night, completely unexpected, just getting home from a walk, she just asked.

I didn’t really have to think about it.  In my head, she’d just checked the box next to the words “If you agree to these terms and conditions, click ‘propose’ below.”