"Just Look at This as A Learning Experience"

I don't know about everyone else, but whenever I'm told this, it's usually because things are in the shitter. My boss told me this today. I can't talk about why. But if I go to jail, tell the world my story...

In other news, I'd responded to the family member about the Christmas (no) gifting, and received an e-mail today from the spouse. So. I forwarded it Joe, and maybe he'll respond before I have to. I'm running out of strength.

Speaking of Joe, my love, I get these little e-mails from him where he never fails to tell me how much he loves and misses me. It's awesome. There are actually some interesting facts about Joey and me regarding the time leading up to the awesome couple we are now. I know you're dying for me to tell you more. Okay! Here you go: Joe and I both moved from pretty far away states, Utah and South Carolina respectively to Rolla, MO in the same month of the same year, August 1997. Apparently, we had marching band together that year and the next, though I have no real memory of him there even though remembers me. Aww. Over time in HS I gained an awareness of Joe, though he was very skinny (cross country runner) and had highlighted hair. Not my thing. And of course, Joe thought I was an angry bitch (I was). So we completed our high school careers without really ever talking to each other. I graduated in 2001 and Joe in 2002. Sometime around summer 2002 or 2003 (I think), I went back to Rolla and met up with some friends, along with Susan, at Applebee's. Joe and his friend Scott were sitting behind us, and DUDE, they were no longer the super skinny cross country freaks I'd seen just two years earlier. Instead, they were bulked up and looking good. I believe I told Susan how cute I thought Scott was. Mwa ha ha ha. At that time, I think there was probably some exchange of words with the boys, though no real conversation. And that was it until Christmas 2004 when Susan and I went to a Christmas party at Jeff Lentz's house. I sat in the middle of a couch with Susan on one side and a very drunk Jeff Lentz snuggled close at my other side. There was a love seat catty-cornered to the couch, which Susan sat closest to, and on that love seat was Mr. Joe. I remember him being dressed mostly in black, wearing Buddy Holly style framed glasses, talking about how he'd been living in France for the past semester and was only home for the holidays. I thought he looked like an EMO jackass, so I didn't bother to talk to him, but he and Susan carried on a pretty good conversation. (I was probably also bitter due to a bad break up that occurred right around that time.) Joe told me recently that he'd picked up on my feelings and didn't want to talk to me either. Ha. Fast forward to some time around late summer, early fall 2005, and there I was a college grad hunkered down on FB with my little sister checking out Joe's shirtless pics when he was ripped. As we giggled together, I wrote him a flirty little comment. That opened up a short lived dialogue on FB, which was strained when Joe dated one last chick before me for about a month in...October? By then I'd been done with other dudes for about a year - after that aforementioned bad 2004 break up, I'd vowed a year of singlehood, which I did successfully complete. Anyway. Around Thanksgiving 2005 we had our first phone call. I was tanked on Nyquil amidst bronchitis, and it was horribly awkward. Most of our phone calls for that next month felt incredibly weird/awkward, and I was pretty sure nothing could possibly come of it. Joe was very nonchalant, non-committal, and seemed only "sorta" interested. I remember going to his house with Kellen Rapier at some point in early Dec. 2005 after drinking wayyyy too much at a combined STL weekend of Philadelphia Eagles and Flyers. I was hung over and looked like shit. Awkward again. Yet we kept trying. Kinda. By Christmas day 2005, I sorta asked him what was going on. He said we had a good thing but that he wanted to take it slow. Cool. A couple days later he stood me up the first time we were really ever supposed to hang out, and I called him out on it, though minimally. He never did it again, and we hung out for the first time on Dec. 30th instead. We dated steadily and lived together intermittently for the next two years, and then married on Dec. 28, 2007. Woohoo!! Fate, baby. It all hit me a couple weeks ago that it took us the better part of a decade of being in the same place to actually get together and stay that way. I'm so glad we did. :-*