Head Over Heels

When there's someone out there that makes you truly and completely happy, you feel the need to be close to that person because they make you feel complete, but at the same time, you also know you don't have to be there all the time because there is a connection between the two of you.

This was how The Queen differed from everyone else. I loved being close to her and every moment with her is golden, even now, but I also didn't feel the need to be with her every single minute of every day, like I did with some of the previous ones. I suppose with them, there was a level of paranoia that if I left the scene, they would forget all about me, where with the Queen, I didn't feel that way. I know there was a maturity there that I didn't have before, but there was also so much more than that.

We went out every night we could, and saw each other every moment we could. If we had days off from work, we would spend them together. Every evening, we would spend together doing something. We saw each other nearly every day from that kiss onward until we got married about a year and a half later, and we never got tired of each other. But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.

I remember the very next thing we did together (the following night) was go play mini golf. We were a couple for sure, so we very much acted like one. Probably indistinguishable from high schoolers at that point, we were so drunk on each other. I'm sure the old people found us just shameful, but that's their problem, right? We were having fun being truly connected to someone.

Neither of us had had a whole lot of luck when it came to relationships as a whole. We'd both gone through hell with certain people in our lives, and we'd made our various mistakes in who were trying to be with. We both got hung up on the wrong kind of people and prior to re-meeting, we'd both gone through a period of going out with random people without any intent of seeing them ever again.

The spark that went between us, then, was so significant and even liberating that we got high on it very easily. From a purely geek-ish perspective, it's like drooling over that $70,000 103 inch plasma TV you've been eyeing, and then someone just giving it to you. Walk into your living room one morning, the Wii is plugged into it and turned on with Metroid Prime III loaded up, and you're handed the controllers and have to physically turn your head to see everything coming at you... Yeah, just like that.

So it was intoxicating. But it wasn't all bouncing around, though. A little over a month after we got together, we were able to reach back to the past a little bit when we went to the Oklahoma Bandmasters Association Championship at OSU and be a couple around all of our band friends from high school. But we really didn't see anyone significant from the past days that would have even been interested in our actually having come back together after so long.

We didn't have a firm schedule that we followed when it came to what we did, but there were a few days that we did almost the same thing every week. One thing she opened me up to was line dancing...yeah, at a country dance club. On Tuesdays, they had a night of no cover charge, and we always went there on Tuesdays, even for a little while after we got married. I admit that I enjoyed it to an extent. I do find dancing enjoyable, especially the choreographed, yet customizable, line dances. The biggest bummer to that place was that we always came home smelling like smoke (and neither of us have ever smoked).

On Wednesdays, we had dinner with my family (usually at Mazzio's), did something random right after that, and then had coffee at Java Dave's. On Fridays, we had dinner with her family. Saturdays was our bigger date night, and on some of those nights, we found ourselves playing pool at a gaming place. The other days, we figured out something to do, but it was never the same thing. We had fun.

On weeknights, I got her home by 10:30, and we usually talked on the phone after that for sometimes an hour or more. One such conversation had her talking about what she was looking for in a relationship. She said she wanted the fairy tale. You know, the knight in shining armor rides up to the tall tower and rescues the princess. He sets her on the saddle of his trusty horse and rides off into the sunset with her to live happily ever after.

Was she in distress? No. Her family is very kind and protective of her...even now. But she'd been through some bad guys and wanted the dream every girl has of having someone who will always be there for her to protect her and take care of her. The knight in shining armor is more than just the random prince; he is that protector who promises that none of the evils of the world will come after her; he keeps her close to his heart and acts for her -- in her honor, as it were.

I'd heard her stories. I knew the unpleasantness of how she'd been treated and even insulted by the swine she'd come across. I wanted to take her away from the ogres of her past and protect her in a castle far away from all of them. I told her I'd be her knight in shining armor. I wanted to be her castle.

The Queen told me about the moment she knew she was going to spend the rest of her life with me, and I remember the moment as well and it was not long after we'd had that conversation. We were on the pedestrian bridge that spans the Arkansas River, looking out over the edge at the river (it wasn't all dried up at this time of year). I'd given her my jacket because she was feeling a little cold, and as we stood there, I wrapped my arms around her.

It was a truly peacful moment. The world was quiet all around us except for the water rushing under the bridge, and she dropped her head back against my shoulder. We didn't say anything but just absorbed the surroundings and the company of each other. I don't know how long we stood there, but remembering it always reminds me of the movie poster for Message In A Bottle, though I've, ironically, never seen the film. But the heroine is leaning against her hero, just looking out over the water.

We've had some cherished moments, but of everything, that is probably the singular most peaceful moment I can think of, partly because it was so quiet that day on the bridge so that in my head, all I can hear is the wind and water, and partly because I picture that perfect couple scene in movies such as the one I mentioned. It's an almost iconic defining scene that if ever a film were made of our lives, that moment would get as much screen time as one could get away with.

What happened the rest of that day? No clue. I can piece it together, but it's kind of like the kiss; after a moment so significant, everything else is just mundane.

Sick, sick, sick!

I just had to throw this out because it's bugged me since I saw it. There's this unfortunate show called Wife Swap, where people willingly torture themselves by volunteering to put themselves into the worst possible living conditions for themselves by having their wives and mothers "trade places" with another woman to live as a wife in another home. I've seen some of the worst and most destructive things happen during the course of this show, and I just wonder why people would put themselves through it.

On one show, the intruding guest called the book reading daughter a "geek." This was brought up in the meeting at the end, and it was regarded as an insult. You see, that's what's wrong with society today. The greatest compliment one can receive is regarded as insulting. I was crushed. Someday, they'll discover that the Bible has a translation error when they re-read the beatitudes and it says: "The geek shall inherit the earth."

Anyway...

Beyond just being generally sick, we're ill as well, and have been off and on for two weeks now. It all started when we went to dinner with my family and one of them discovered they had the dreaded flu. This means that all of us have been tossing this thing around ever since. I haven't had a full night's sleep since...um...yeah. On Monday-Tuesday, Rock Girl was sick, so that was every two hours or less. On Tuesday-Wednesday, I was ill. Last night, Rock Girl was up again, and this time, she didn't realize the toilet seat was down as she was rushing through the darkness and the vomit went everywhere.

This means the Queen and I were up at 4:30 this morning cleaning the bathroom. Could there be a more romantic setting? Honey, pass me the bleach. Oh, you touched my hand... My, you look sexy with that mop. Nothing says "I love you" like the smell of vomit in the air. Ahhhh....

Of course, Rock Girl is devastated because a) she loves school (she's daddy's little geek, much to the dismay of the Queen) and b) there was a field trip today to see a play. Things haven't changed in school -- any field trip, no matter what you do or where you go, is always an event worth attending. You always go to school for a field trip.

Me? I've been ill for a few days again after being ill a couple of weeks ago. (It just won't go away and stay away.) But do I stay home and recover? Of course not. Let me introduce you to a little term I learned that's got an entire Wikipedia article to itself. Look up Presenteeism, and you find this: "Presenteeism is the opposite of absenteeism. In contrast to absenteeism, when employees are absent from work, presenteeism discusses the problems faced when employees come to work in spite of illness, which can have similar negative repercussions on business performance." I've been a presentee for days. On Tuesday, I was mostly hunched over my computer praying for the day to end quickly. I'm doing much better today, though I'm still feeling the backlash of being ill.

For now though, I find I'm thoroughly enjoying a little piece of technolust called an iPod. Perhaps you've heard of it. This little jewel plays music and movies, which are two of my greater passions in life. Why the iPod and not the iTouch? Well, ten times the storage for short. 8 Gig for $280 or 80 Gig for $250. I've got this thing packed out with about 30 Gigs each of movies and music, and I'm switching out movies as soon as I watch them. It may be a 3 inch screen, but the detail is astounding. The naysayers don't have one. They don't know.

I've watched movies during times where even a portable DVD player would be inconvenient or impractical. During breaks at either job, while waiting for programs or screens to load, standing around outside waiting for the Queen to arrive (granted, a rare occurrence, but there was one time) -- and I've got the music playing almost constantly when I can get away with it. It's very sweet.

And while I'm thinking about it, Jeepers Creepers was really dumb. Talk about the epitome of bad horror movies. They did all the wrong stuff. But I digress.

The Socialite decided all of a sudden that she wanted to take her lunch today instead of having lunch at school. Not sure where this came from, although with all the reports of school lunches gone wrong, the Queen was giving serious consideration to doing this anyway. Who knows? Maybe The Socialite overheard her. However, since there were no plans in place for her to take said lunch, and hence, no take-it-with-you lunches prepared, she got peanut butter and jelly. But since she happens to like peanut butter and jelly, she had no complaints.

Hopefully, we're almost over this whole sick thing because it's getting really old. No one likes being sick, and none of us are any exception to that rule. Someone at work asked Optimus Prime and I if we came into work while we were sick, and we just smirked. "We're Mr. and Mrs. Perfect Attendance," he said. Since he decided to go there, I had to add that he was the Mrs. as he possessed the man boobs. He declared he was a D cup and so ended that conversation.

Camelot and Magic

Having heard the advertisement on the radio for the musical Camelot, I thought it would be beneficial to be in a musical since it would show me the inner-workings of the whole process from the inside as a cast member. It would also show me how musical librettos are written, how the music is written, how the scripts are put together; I had it all worked out. Then I learned that the musicals of Lerner and Loewe are actually little more than plays with some songs thrown in to make them 3 hours long.

You see, at this point in history, I was in love with the works of Andrew Lloyd Webber, whose style is about a million miles away from Lerner and Loewe or even Rodgers and Hammerstein. So while I enjoyed The Phantom of the Opera on stage for the first time during Camelot's 8 show run, I quickly learned that what I would get out of Camelot would not be an unequivocal love of the musical.

I did enjoy the musical experience, however, and even played in all the shows of that season at the Colorado Springs Repertory Theatre Company. But like I said before, that wasn't the significant thing that happened during that time period. No, I managed to meet someone. Like so many other meetings in the world, it was a chance meeting and could have gone any way at all, but something about her grabbed my attention.

In my aliases, I call her Juliet, but don't misunderstand the name as the typical connotation of Romeo and Juliet of being the ultimate lover, etc. So, this name is more plot-based in that show. You see, Romeo and Juliet were forbidden to see each other and ultimately, their relationship failed because of its forbidden nature. Sure, it has that super-tragic ending that brings out the tears, but we aren't going anywhere that far.

Our first meeting was at the piano during a rehearsal. She was playing Music of the Night from Phantom, and I noted she was playing the song in C, where the actual song was in Db. This is the geek side, folks. I guess this amused her because a short conversation ensued after this, but it was merely small talk, and nothing of consequence...well almost.

You see, when I asked Juliet her age, she said she was fourteen. Red lights and buzzers went off all over the place. I was only nineteen at the time, but that meant we crossed the magic eighteen year old line of statute. This means avoid and don't pursue...which I didn't.

This, however, didn't stop her. Apparently, she was attracted to me, and made every effort to be close to me until I finally gave in to the temptation of the whole thing, and we hung out very regularly during the run of the show. But if you're taking notes, you can probably figure out that everyone else was too. Her age was not a secret any more than mine was. They also knew I was in the military, which means that there are additional avenues in which one can be reported for questionable activity.

Yeah, this sort of thing was actively condemned among the cast and crew of the show to the point where I was finding out that if it didn't stop, one retired Air Force Colonel who was in the show was going to take official steps to have me written up on this illegal activity. Hi Speed was in the crew of the show, and he was keeping me informed on some of the behind-the-back talk I was receiving from others on this as well, and it wasn't good.

So at the cast party, we hung out together, but also kept our arms' length distance from each other since we were being watched...well, scrutinized is a better term, and from the benefit of hindsight, I can see the differences we had, and I would have objections to my own daughters hitting it off with a nineteen year old when they're fourteen. Now, grant also that I was an extremely naive nineteen year old, and it's all too likely we were on the same emotional level when it comes to relationships, but that is quite beside the point.

So I went on to be in the next show, Oliver!, and we started writing to each other. I learned during the run of Oliver! that one of the guys in the show happened to have the locker next door to hers, so he served as a temporary messenger between us. Yup, wisdom had not yet settled in, and we were keeping in touch, despite the forbidden nature of it all. If it weren't so darn taboo, some might call it romantic.

Now, what did I see in this girl that I was willing to deal with the hell I was put through in regards to her? After all, one of the points of even telling about this part of life is not just to set up myself and who I am, but also to point out how it all relates back to the Queen, who refers to Juliet as"diaper-baby."

First, she was very intelligent. Smart to the point that she could not only converse intelligently with me, but challenge me as well. She was also taking college level math courses in high school; the Queen not only has a major in education, but also math and science. She had a strong family background, and that open heart I value so much. And of course, her interest in musicals didn't hurt either.

The other thing that came out of Camelot was an interest in a collectable card game called Magic: The Gathering. It's still around in its umpteenth incarnation since then, and I recognize very little of what's left. But both me and Hi Speed got into Magic since we had nothing else to do with our time or money. I spent literally hundreds of dollars on this game. I bought packs of cards, and then specific cards that I wanted to create decks I was making. My best desk was the discard deck; there were a few things that could defeat it, but it made people crazy. I used the discard cards everyone was familiar with as well as some of the more obscure cards that people had never heard of. It contained only creatures that forced people to discard, three colors of magic, and a full set of original double lands to accomodate the three colors within. If you don't know Magic, all that means nothing, but if you do, you might be at least a little impressed.

Ah well... The relationship with Juliet carried on in this fashion of occurring behind the scenes for the remainder of my time in the Army, and even after I got out. She let me know once about a show she was in, and I went to see it. It was the first time I'd seen her in eight months, and it was like we'd continue to grow closer during our time apart because of our letter exchanges and forbidden calls. I even stole up to her school for her homecoming dance. I actually got in through the back door without anyone noticing me (of course she got asked by her friends about the "built guy" she was with that night).

Believe it or not, everything else that happened during my time in the Army was of very little consequence. I did gig after gig and enjoyed playing music for a living all over Colorado, etc. The Chief and First Sergeant continued to look for everything I was doing wrong, and eventually they got their way. The band was going to dissolve the following year when the 4th Infantry Division went away, and everyone was going their ways to different bands all over the country.

I, on the other hand, was getting an honorable discharge because I was deemed "not a good fit" for the Army. October 13th was to be my last day, and I was expected to vacate my barracks room and be gone after that. Only a couple months prior, I had swapped my 89 Justy for an 86 Camaro, which was really sweet, I must say.

I decided to catch her after school the day before I left, and we spent a little bit of time together before I had to go. For the record, I did call her father once and ask permission to go out with her, but understandably, he said no. So we continued to go behind his back. Sorry, Ed. In retrospect, I would have agred with him, but I was quite blinded by my relationship with her. Part of me thinks if we had been permitted to go out, it would have died quickly, but the forbidden nature likely fueled it more than killing it off.

After I left the Army, we communicated periodically, maintaining that relationship and insisting more than anything else, that we could make it survive. Obviously, it was not to be, but I don't think it could have ended in a worse way than it did. I should have called it done when I left Colorado, but no, I don't know when to let things go.

This ran a little long, but I also covered over a year's worth of time as well. You see, a few months after I returned home, I would show just how "attached" to her I really was. Because in January, only three months later, I met... Allison.

The Kiss

I firmly remember two things about the next date we'd had after hanging out after the zoo. I know we went to a local park and basically talked. I feel like we'd done something prior to that, but for the life of me, I don't remember what that was. It wasn't the most significant part of that day, I guess.

Our time at the park was short-lived, for the most part. We weren't there to play on the equipment; we were just hanging out. I think I was aiming for some intimate time, but wasn't sure where to go to do it. The park turned out to be an intermediary part of the evening, because I took her for a much bigger step. I don't know what possessed me, but I took her home. Were we there to look at something on the Internet? I don't know what my excuse was, but we ended up at my parents' house for awhile.

Trying to think back on this, I think I was dead set on the date's ending for this day so I wasn't concentrating on what we were doing. This is one of those moments where I know that someday, my little angels will meet a guy just like me. All he will be concentrating on is that one big moment to seal the date, and he won't have a clue what she was wearing. Such is my problem with remembering all this.

Let me tell you, love is actually a very awesome thing. That head over heels variety gets you all wrapped up so you don't know which end is up. You look into the face of the one you love and you don't see anything else. It's just that connection that draws you closer, like a magnet, and you never want to break free.

After we did whatever it was we did inside the house, such as meeting my parents. Yeah, nothing big, just meeting the parents. You know, that should be something significant, shouldn't it? Well, my parents are cool with most everything, so they were happy to meet a girl that allowed me to go out with her, and come home at a reasonable hour. Yeah, there's a long story.

We ended up out back where I walked her through my childhood playground: a large, empty back yard. My parents live on a rather large plot of land encompassing just shy of a quarter acre (so I've been told), and in my hometown, that's actually quite a bit. I pointed out the big willow tree where my brother and next door friend slid down on a homemade zip line. Told her about the video things we did back there. Finally, reach what we called "the sand pile," which at that time and this, is little more than a mound of dirt.

I had to tell her the story of when we built underground forts in this pile and I got buried in one of them. It's a classic tale around my parents' house. My father crossed this large back yard in about 4 steps when my brother went in a told him the sand pile collapsed on me. He tore through the stuff on the surface and pulled me from an early grave.

That evening my sister was running circles around us for some reason. We were standing close together, but the chaos of a young girl running all over the place was very distracting. We told her to go inside for something or another. It doesn't matter what; we just wanted her to leave us alone. And she did.

The night falling. It was quiet. There at the sand pile where I'd spent so much time, I stood with a girl I thought the world of. We held each other for a long moment. For myself, I was working up the courage to do what I wanted to do, and hoping against hope that she wanted the same thing. For a geek such as me, girls are not something you grow accustomed to, or even begin to take for granted, so the chance of having someone want to grow close and even attahed to you is a rare thing indeed.

A few nervous words passed between us as we talked about any number of things that, in the grander scheme, didn't matter. All that mattered was that moment between two people who were truly destined to be together. All the time that was lost melted away into nothing. All the pain we'd both experienced from everyone who was just wrong was forgotten. The world drifted into silence around us, and nothing else existed.

As the stars finally shined from behind the veil of daylight, we silently looked at each other. And with no effort whatsoever, we kissed and for the first time in a long time, nothing mattered at all. I was home.