A Valentine

In the comments to my last post Brett offered that we each write a post about how we met, post them at the same time, and then see how they differ (I had to post a bit early because of work commitments, but Brett promised not to read this before posting his). I agreed, which in retrospect was kind of stupid because he’s going to out funny me by about a million miles. However, odds are I will out sweet him with a sugary post.

(If you’d like the multi-media version of this post, you should go download the following song (I’d give it to you if I could, but my workplace might not look to kindly on that type of activity, they’re already on the fence about paying me to read everything ever written on the internet): "Break in The Clouds" by the Jayhawks, it’s a perfect pairing with this here entry, much like a box of Franzia with a slab of Spam.

Brett and I officially met on the internets. I had been using one particular dating site (starts with an “m” and ends with an “atch.com”) for a few months, and had gone out with a few fellers. I wasn’t really enjoying it because you know, it’s kind of a pain in the ass and sometimes you think you’re meeting up with Captain America, only to meet the Mayor of Loserville (population: my date). It’s a crap shoot and possibly veering towards fraud on some people’s parts. But then, THEN, I got an email from an individual named “Moon-Uranus” (how mature, no?) on February 11, 2006 (yes, I still have the email, it’s a love letter for the electronic age). So I click on over to his little profile thingy and would do I see but a tag-line that reads, “So a baby seal walks into a club . . . “ and that’s when I knew this guy was different (obviously). Most guys put something like “fun guy looking for cool girl,” or something lame. So I emailed him back.

Thus began a few days of emailing and when I re-read these emails now I cringe because no matter what you do, when you start dating you have to try to look and sound good and OMG it’s painful to read. However, he saw through it and really our emails were surprisingly honest and coherent and witty. Then he said he was coming to Billings with a couple of his buddies from the wind farm, and would I like to meet up at the rodeo? I was already planning to go to the rodeo with the two couples I played fifth wheel to. How was I going to pull this off? You see my friends didn’t know I was meeting folks through the internets (I was embarrassed for absolutely no reason because it turns out two of them had done it too) and so I had to concoct some peculiar story in order to sneak away and go meet Brett at a rodeo. While performing these circus tricks, you’d think I’d sit down and ponder the fact that I was lying to my friends in order to meet a wind farmer from the internet at a rodeo? What? But you know what, aside from the lying part, it was pretty fun.

So the day of the rodeo charged forth and the temperature was about -3,000 with a 75 mile an hour wind. Okay, it wasn’t that bad, but it was about the coldest day I have ever lived through and I’m from Minnesota where cold is our identity. My friends and I arrive at the rodeo and I grab the first of many beers because I was extremely nervous, and apparently an alcoholic. Then I get a call on my cell phone from a number I don’t know because Brett does NOT own a cell phone and is using his buddy’s phone. (who dates on the internet and yet does not own a cell phone?) I told them I’d meet them at a particular place in the arena, and I say THEM because Brett’s buddy was going to come along for the meet up. AWKWARD! So I sneak away from my friends and rendezvous with two men, each dressed in head to toe Carhartt winter weather gear. One of them had a beard that would make Lincoln himself jealous, and that was my man. We met and started chatting and I really wished the “buddy” would go away, but I couldn’t stop staring at Brett’s eyes, because they were quite piercing and well, something about this guy made me all giddy inside.

Brett’s other buddy and his girlfriend joined us and I really don’t remember anything we talked about. Brett and I didn’t really watch the rodeo at all because honestly I’m not exactly a huge rodeo fan to being with, and second of all we were smitten. He was kind of reserved (despite the moderate inebriation) but would laugh at my lame attempts at humor and that will win me over any time. He was also weird and tall and didn’t fit in with the guys he was with, and yet probably fit in pretty much everywhere and no where at the same time. He talked slowly and deliberately, and then giggled like a little girl sometimes because he was nervous.

I took him over to meet my friends, and my friend Erin later told me that she could tell something was up and that this one was “different.” Brett and his buddies were going to a “club” after the rodeo. This is amusing on two levels because (1) Brett is not much of a club go-er; and (2) A club by normal standards does not exist in Billings, but it’s more like a place for wannabe cowboys to go and hit on slutty girls who have a thing for cowboys. Not really my scene, and plus I was not about to run off with these guys that I had just met because that would have been potentially stupid and dangerous (in retrospect this amuses me because these boys are anything but dangerous). So I kissed Brett on the cheek and left with my friends.

I later learned that Brett’s buddies thought I was kind of a bitch for not going out with them. What girl would traipse off with a bunch of wind farmers she just met without her own transportation? Not this girl. As it turns out Brett never made it to the “club” but he can describe that action himself.

You know that feeling when you crush on a guy and there’s that one night that he acts like he’s crushing on you back and you pretty much feel like you could float out of your shoes and possibly explode from the “EEK!” of it all. Yeah, that’s how I felt the next day and that’s why I called him, which I never did (I mean, the day after? That’s like the opposite of what you’re supposed to do). But I called him and left him a message on his answering machine (again, no cell phone) and was not worried for one second that I wouldn’t hear back from him. It was just easy. He called me back later and we talked for 2 hours and he read me a poem he wrote (way less cheesy than it sounds) and I got nervous because this guy was strong and tough and yet sensitive and smart and EEK!!! Did he really exist? Could he exist? It was like my brain manufactured this perfectly peculiar plan for a man for me and somehow executed the plan and here he was.

We called and emailed all week, then he came down to Billings and one of my dogs pooped in front of him, in the living room and I could have died of embarrassment, but he later said he didn’t mind because I had to bend over to clean it up and he got to see my ass. Oh dear.

The first day we went out (which I’ve already mentioned) we went to a Thai restaurant and he ate something he had never had before with gusto. This was HUGE because my biggest turn off is picky eaters. I can’t handle a picky eater, but Brett was willing to try anything and everything and that is honestly one of the things I love most about him. He is zealous to try anything, no matter what it is. This is seriously one of my favorite qualities about him because we can do anything.

We went to see Curious George, and forever I will cry when I hear “Upside Down” by Jack Johnson because that song is us. It’s our first date and a sweet song and it reminds me of sitting next to him at the movie theater and feeling all squirrelly inside and wanting to hold his hand.

That night he kissed me, or I kissed him, and I felt almost sick to my stomach (in a good way) because all that adrenalin I had built up was released and he was so sincere.

We talked every night, and he came down to Billings, and I went up to Judith Gap. Two weeks after we started seeing each other I went on vacation. I was driving down some highway in the middle of Florida with my sister and Brett called and after I got off the phone with him I told my sister that he was it. I was in love with him. When I got home from vacation I went to see Brett and I said, “I love you.” He was lying down at the time and he picked his head up and said “What?” and I repeated it and he said, “I love you too.” And now, two years later, here we are, still saying “I love you” and still meaning it with everything I am. I love you babe, for all your weird, wonderful ways.