Where My Dogs At?

Well ladies and gents, as of Sunday, it is officially the year of the dog.

Woof. Woof.

When I writhed out of the confines of my mother’s womb in the damp wool-gray March of ’82, I was a dog. With the goo of birth covering my fur and slicking my eager tail, I snuggled up to my mamacita and rested my little dogface on her welcoming chest. I let my human mother (I found out later that she was actually a rat) nuzzle my burrito-like body lovingly for a few minutes before I got too excited and pissed all over everything.

Not only does my birth year explain my habit of pooping outside and rummaging through trashcans with my mouth, but according to placemats at Chinese restaurants worldwide, it also ensures that I am loyal and honest. However, just like everyone else born in 1922, 1934, 1946, 1958, 1970, 1982, 1994, or 2006, I also happen to have a few downsides (aside from licking my own ass). Dogs can be selfish, stubborn, critical, and worst of all eccentric. Even with all of our faults, dogs make good leaders. Ever see Milo and Otis? Great movie. Just ask Lassie.
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What animal are you?

Here are some pictures from the Chinese New Year Parade in Chicago this past Sunday. Enjoy!

Here is a poster of me, carried by my adoring fans.

This is a human.

This is another human. She is the queen of the parade eventhough she looks a bit surprised about it.

Kilts are all the rage in China, I hear.

Ronald is a hit with the Chinese as well. All hail globalization! All hail America’s fat ass spreading world wide! All hail….oh, what’s this? He’s in a shoe. Gotta chew, gotta chew, gotta chase gotta chase.

Hot damn, I’m a good dog!

Some Socks of One’s Own

Ms. Woolf said, “a woman must have money and room of her own if she is to write fiction.” While I don’t agree that my writing suffers when a tight budget mandates that I have to share everything with Shaun, good ole Virginia hit the nail on the head with her larger implications that when a woman has her own cash to burn, her life rocks just a little bit harder. Namely, she might acquire some socks of her own.

Shaun and I approach life with unbridled veracity—our positive, undaunted attitudes keep our joy ride through life fun, even when we are sharing one pair of holy socks between us. We married when I was 19 and a sophomore in college and Shaun was 22 and had just graduated from college a few weeks before we wed. We charged off to Chicago on a wave of optimism that was so contagious that we quickly found jobs in a market that others called “impossible.” I got an oh-so-glamorous job at Starbucks and Shaun found employment at a handsomely paid not-for-profit art museum (har har). Shaun busted his ass so that I was always in school full-time and I never felt any pressure from him to sacrifice my important studies to work. He supported me in a million different ways.

Once I graduated from college, I was also working for meager pay, a patchwork of different part-time schedules (many at not-for-profits) to make ends meet. We are anti-credit card debt (we have our fair share of student loans to keep us company), so we continued to live frugally. But we are new to life, and we are happy and eager to work anywhere, to learn anything. And we learned how little money has to do with happiness. Even when we were eating nothing but lentils for months, even when I had only one pair of pants to my name, even when a simple matinee movie had to be budgeted at the beginning of the month in order to happen, and even when the thermostat wasn’t allowed above 58 last winter, we were laughing, having a great time, and loving life.

That said, I couldn’t have been happier to hear about my promotion at the MCA this week. Not only will this provide me with the amazing professional development that I crave, but it also means that the generous raise that comes with the new position allows us to breath a much deserved sigh of relief. Budgeting is no longer a matter of survival, but rather a means to fatten our savings account for our grad school pursuits. It means that I can buy more than one pair of pants that I iron nightly to give the appearance of freshness. I can stop my nasty habit of sharing Shaun’s hole-ridden dress socks. I now have socks of my own.

In addition to buying socks of ones own, this week I did some other grown up shopping. I bought a grown up purse—not a tote bag, not a backpack—a purse. I ordered a real live lady coat—not my trusty, rusty ski-jacket, and not my well-worn jean jacket—a nice coat. A work coat. I bought dress shoes that make me rub my feet when I get home and say, “oh, my aching dogs,” like a real grown up (this has already lost its charm). Tomorrow I’m off to New York and Company to get some sale dress shirts so I can replace my old, pitted out dress shirts. Granted, I am still shopping clearance racks, but I am able to get what I need.

And I needed socks of ones own.
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When did you smile in the ugly face of capitalism?

A Celebration of Happy, Beautiful Love

Four years ago today, Shaun and I were doing these things:

I won’t gag you with mushy sentiments, and I don’t need to. We make eachother unequivically happy. Then. Now. And when we’re old and crusty.

Ain’t love grand?

“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn/is how to love/and be loved in return”

Serendipity Strikes Again
The Author, 2006

The last years of her life were the first years of mine. Solid, white haired, and clad in polyester blue dresses, Nannar loved me as best as she could. Nannar, my grandma’s mom, lived in the apartment above my grandparent’s garage, where my mom and I would move after she died. While my mom was at work, I would stay at Grandma’s house, frequently meandering my way up to the apartment to play.

Nannar’s living space smelled like grapefruits and brine: she cooked tripe and livers and other stenchy, fascinating things. Sometimes when I think of her, I remember of sitting on her lap, her heavy bosoms swaying against my face as she taped a hardboiled egg perched delicately in an eggcup with a silver spoon. Tink, tink tink!

Midmorning stories, hours of fetch (I liked to pretend to be a dog), and entire afternoons comprised of me following her about, watching her do nothing in particular; my great-grandma was patient with me. I was Princess Truly.

Two birthdays ago I went to see a psychic spiritual cleanser. I don’t believe or not believe in the mystical realm—in fact, I typically gag at the notion of “gods plan”—so my visit to the psychic was just for birthday kicks alone. No revelations. No spooky omens. And I certainly didn’t expect that the gentle physic who took my hands at The Ruby Room to gasp, fling her eyes open and ask me who Nannar was. According to the physic, touching me filled her immediately with Nannar’s strong love. Aside from my great-grandma, Nannar is my guardian. Her function in the universe is to make sure that paths are clear for me. It is my job to be ready to travel down them, but once I am, a path will clear.

So far, Nannar has been doing a kick ass job, if I do say so myself. For fear of jinxing my happy luck, I won’t list all the times when I have only simply had to decide what I wanted in life and work my hardest to learn about it when an opportunity has appeared at my fingertips with nearly perfect timing. But trust me, it happens to me a lot. Granted, I am a really clear-headed person and a hard worker, but the timing is always so…impeccable. And besides, I like thinking that Nannar is shadowing me. I like her.

Now, six days after my wrongfull termination from the Writing Center (on the thinnly veiled basis of my meeting early in the Fall 05 term with the Department Chair to express my concerns about my ex-boss’ censorship of student work), my cool boss at the MCA called me into her office, beaming. She let me know that she just got the go-ahead to restructure the department, as our associate director of marketing has accepted a promotion elsewhere and would I be willing to accept a promotion? My boss invited me to shed my part-time assistant status and join the department as a full time, salaried Marketing Coordinator beginning February 3–might I consider it? Why yes. Yes I would. I would be delighted.

Serendipity is a strange and lovely thing. I don’t know if Nannar is helping me along once again, but I am excited to see what I will learn from this experience. And as always, I’m so thankful to have it.
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What is Serendipity to you, besides an unfortunate movie choice for John Cusak?

BREAKING NEWS: CHICAGOARTGIRL GOES FROM JOBLESS TO PROMOTED IN LESS THAN A WEEK!

 

Serendipity is a beautiful thing. I’ll write more later, but it looks like the Year of the Dog is going to shape up to be a lucky one!

Thanks for Making Me a Fighter
The Author, 2006

One of the best qualities that my family possesses is our resilience. We will not be defeated. We will not loose hope. We are characters of tenacity and most importantly, we are not jaded or hardened by our challenges. We grow and flourish from them.

When my mom found herself faced with single motherhood again in her forties with two teenage boys to support and no work experience in the past 14 years, did she resign herself to desperate attempts at saving the marriage just to retain her checkbook? No. She scrimped, she saved, and she went to college. She graduates this spring and I know she will be hired in the blink of an eye.

When Shaun’s application to grad school in Scotland was denied last year, did he give up on writing and higher education? No. He made sure to gain even more experience to make him even more of a competitive candidate—he wrote countless reviews, got published in a comic anthology, and edited a comic book guide. He researched his grad school options further and broadened his applications. I know that the hardest decision for him this March will be deciding which of the many acceptances to choose from to attend this fall.

When my sudden, unprofessional, unnecessarily rude, ungrounded, and highly inappropriate termination from the Writing Center happened on Wednesday, did I go to see a shitty movie all by myself just so I could be in the dark, eat chocolate, and cry without seeming like a depressed freak?

Yes.

But I also wrote a letter to the Dean and the English chair, describing the incident and my (and everyone else in the entire department) suspicions about the injustice behind the reasoning for the revoke of my rehire status. I was also in touch with my fellow colleagues that I am presenting with at the College Conference on Composition and Communication, to ensure that I am still eligible to present. I am. And the organizers are interested in hearing me talk about my recent experience, because the academic community really should be discussing the fact that any iota of dissent results in expulsion these days. I mean, I know that is how the Bush administration rolls, but for that level of fascism to penetrate a liberal, urban writing center in an art school, it really seems as if we’ve reached the last frontier. When academic staff is prohibited from expressing concern for the students and community that they serve, the result is a stagnant institution as opposed to one that is constantly growing and evolving, nurturing students’ pursuit of knowledge as opposed to squashing it. I don’t expect my letter or the upcoming presentation will get me rehired at the center, but I hope it will help to stop this type of reprehensible behavior from happening at Columbia College and other universities. Or if that’s wishful thinking (it is), at least get people talking about it.

I also put the word of my termination out to my colleagues, who are behind me 100%, and I have received an outpouring of support and a few job leads from them. While it is a bit too late in the term to get another job in academia, now is the perfect time to apply to various places for summer programs. And since Shaun and I will be moving for him to go to grad school this fall, I can take advantage of the transitory period this summer to apply at programs all over the country. I’ve applied to seven places today. Many are youth summer camps for the arts, a few are teen writers retreats, and some are college-sponsored workshops. I also spoke with a woman in charge of a great program sponsored by the Illinois Humanities Council. The conversation began with discussing volunteer opportunities and ended with discussions about a stipend position-teaching screen writing to adult ed.

Thankfully, I still have my trusty Monday-Thursday job at the MCA. I have always been so grateful for that job. I enjoy it and I hear that I’m good at it. But the MCA can only offer me part-time, and without my Writing Center job I will now be short $300 a month. This is nothing that a little job at Starbucks or Borders can’t remedy until I hear back from places for the summer terms I’ve applied for, but the Writing Center was more than just a job. Even after we got a new and atrocious director, the Writing Center felt like home. I’ve never suffered from a broken heart before, and judging from this experience, I hope I never will.
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Have you ever been unexpectedly out of a job that you loved? How did you deal?

Also, if you know of any youth summer programs for writing and the arts, anywhere in the world, drop me an email with the name of the program. I’ll love you forever…::smile::

My heart feels waterlogged and I can’t stop shivering. My face is fevered and there are blotches on my chest. Below you’ll find an email that I had to send today. I wish I could write more about the injustice of it all, about the fact that I was fired for this nifty thing I lug around called a backbone. But I can’t. Names have been changed.*

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Hello all,

Well, as it turns out, I won’t be able to meet with you all about this
conference at the Writing Center on Friday.

Jenn* contacted me tonight (Wednesday, 1/18/06) at 8:00 pm to tell
me that she needed to revoke my rehire status due to scheduling
complications. I am uncertain as to why the schedule I have maintained
for 1 1/2 years is no longer of use to the center and why I was not
informed of it until 2 days until the semester begins, especially
since my evaluations were favorable, I continually strove to further
the center with its mission, and new hires were added to the roster.
Nevertheless, I am extraordinarily thankful for the opportunity to
have worked at the center. All of you have been especially wonderful
to work with.

I sincerely hope that my termination from the center will not
jeopardize my eligibility to assist this team with the presentation at
the Conference on College Composition and Communication, as it is a
project I would really love to continue. If it turns out that I can
participate in the conference despite my present lack of affiliation
with any college, I would be more than happy to meet with you all at
another location before or after the meeting on Friday. Caribou
Coffee, anyone? Let me know and thanks.

Also, if it is not too forward, I would also like to inquire as to
whether any of you would be so kind as to let me know about any
part-time employment opportunities that you may encounter that you
feel would be suited to my skills. While the Writing Center was never
“just a job” to me, it was an income that I relied upon to supplement
my part-time Monday-Thursday schedule in the Marketing Department at
the Museum of Contemporary Art. I would like to continue my work in
academia and arts education, as I feel that it is my ultimate career
path.

My resume is attached for your review, in case you are uncertain of my
qualifications. I am really grateful to you all for all your support
and I can only hope that the workplace that finds me next has
colleagues half as encouraging, human, and lovely as all of you. Keep
in touch.

Best Wishes,

Truly
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Teaching Experience

Writing Consultant
Columbia College Chicago Writing Center: January 2003 – January 2006

Tutoring:
• Writing tutor to undergraduate, graduate, ESL, and Learning Disabled students.

Event Planning:
• Initiated The Never Ending Story collaborative writing event at Columbia’s annual orientation.

Writing:
• Co-wrote a chapter, “Publicity, Play, Pedagogy: The Story of the Never-Ending Story” in Creative
Approaches to Writing Center Work, scheduled for publication in 2006 by Hampton Press.
• Co-wrote a presentation for the 2006 Conference on College Composition and Communication,
“Passing the Pen: Introducing Students to the Not-so-Secret Community of Writers.”
• Wrote and compiled materials for the Writing Center Resource Library.

Writing Coach
College Summit: June 2004 – Present
Teach four-day personal essay writing workshops for high school students.

Media Experience

Marketing Assistant
Museum of Contemporary Art: June 2004 – Present

Writing:
• Write weekly newsletters, including Concierge News and Committee Newsletters.
• Assist in generating advertising copy for museum exhibitions.
• Assist in creating MCA eNews.

Event Planning:
• Cocktail receptions for international consul generals.
• Exhibition previews for concierges.
• MCA participation in Chicago cultural fairs and festivals.
• MCA participation in Greater North Michigan Avenue Association programs.

Administrative:
• Maintain advertising budgets, departmental calendar, and manage committee work.

Public Relations Intern
Harpo Studios: February 2003 – May 2003
Assisted PR associates during the taping of The Oprah Winfrey Show and maintained press clip files.

Television Station Intern
WPWR, UPN 50: June 2002 – August 2002
Wrote on-air program promos and produced segments for the community affairs show, Concerning Chicago.

Video Intern
KidzVid New Media: June 2000 – August 2000
Wrote, produced, and edited educational videos.

Education

• Bachelor of Arts in Television Writing and Producing
Columbia College Chicago

• Story Studio Chicago
Creative Writing Levels I & II
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Hiring or know anyone who is for part-time positions in Chicago? If so, click email me.

I work hard. I love people. I give a shit.

The Boys

This is my fourteen-year old violin prodigy of a little brother. No
joke—the music he makes come out of that instrument have knocked the
socks off of everyone who has ever heard him play. I call him Juje. Or
Jujie. Or Ju-Ju Bear. Or Juje-a-ma-Cuje. Or sometimes Cujo. He’s
started to call me Truje in recent years. He draws Shaun and I pictures
for Christmas gifts every year and he is torn between a career in
orchestra and a career as a cartoonist. He forgets to hand in homework
that he has completed and has an affinity for giant squids. I expect
Julian’s adult life will be rich and beautiful.

My seventeen-year old renaissance man of a brother would probably
prefer that I not put a picture of him up, so I won’t. Although quieter
and more reserved than our youngest brother, the renaissance man has a
wickedly
funny sense of humor. He’s been known to make gut-busting stop-motion
animations and he was nice enough to let me follow him around with a
video camera when I made a documentary of the psychology of teenage
boys for one of my senior-level production classes in college. He’s a
pro at supping up cars (he pimped a Neon, and making that car cool, my
friends, is a great feat) and fixing them too. He works construction
and he is the hardest worker his crew leaders have ever known. When he
was legally obligated to write an essay on the harms of drug use, it
was the most polished, expertly written essay the juvenile disciplinary
system had ever seen. He rocks at school when he goes (his IQ is
through the roof), and his teenage years have made him fragile and
ferocious all at once. I expect manhood will bring him great things.
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What are your siblings like?

Unbridled Machismo
The Author, 2006

During the second half of our California vacation, Shaun and I had the pleasure of really getting to know our favorite friends Beth and Allyson’s significant others, Jay and Jessie, since we all stayed in Ally and Jessie’s apartment just outside of LA. I couldn’t be happier for our friends, because the older we get, the better their taste in significant others becomes.

Like Shaun (and all of our friends, really), Jessie is an accommodating listener, asking questions and seeming genuinely interested in whatever lame story you might be telling, and piggybacking with funny stories of his own. While getting to know Jessie is as easy as pie, a first encounter with Jay is a bit more involved: he is a writer who upon first introduction is bristling with opinions and shows of fire-speed linguistic dexterity, but once a bit of time passes, he quickly settles into a naturally curious, genuinely nice and funny guy before this bubbly energy has a chance to get on your nerves. Jay is the kind of person that made me thankful for having patience, because once I got to know him, it became obvious to me that he is a hilarious, perfect match for our group of friends, plus he seems to be really good to Beth. Everyone involved gets two thumbs way up.

While we spent most of our time together in LA being stuck in traffic,
museum going, frequenting used record stores, discovering delicious ice cream parlors , eating heavenly Thai food, and playing endless hours of games (see random tangent for details), we also spent a few minutes everyday laughing at Ally and Jessie’s cat, Dean, who was wildly in heat. A spading is on the horizon for the female cat inexplicably named Dean, but the present sex-crazed reality of the kitty’s life causes her to be especially emotional and walk with her butt out and low—ready for action. As sad as it was to see an animal so helplessly preoccupied with its vagina, the freakishness of the scene was pretty entertaining. When Dean the cat came around, Jay would get low to its neck, and with his voice thick and rich and emanating from his chest, he would seethe, “Deeeean. Deeeaner.” The cat would go wild purring and arching her back with all this growly, raw machismo reverberating on her spine. Writing it makes this sound really crewel, but I have to say, we were all busting a gut over it.

As you may have read, this past Monday, January 9 was my and Shaun’s 8-year anniversary. To celebrate, we used a $50 coupon we had to dine at a fancy restaurant, Opera. Serving luscious Pan-Asian cuisine, Opera is by far one of the most dramatic dining experiences I have ever had. Walking into the bold, extravagantly decorated, open space makes you feel both special and stupid for wearing your big, clunky winter ski jacket accessorized by a lunch bag containing bright red Tupperware reeking of beet couscous from the day’s lunch-hour meal that you have in tow because you are meeting your date for dinner promptly after work. Once you suck it up, put on a brilliant smile, and get over your own personal lack of polish, the experience becomes marvelous again. Absolutely maaahvolous.

Tucked away from the rest of the diners are little, curtained dining coves in the exposed brick walls that are reserved for romantic couples or people who are wearing unsightly ski jackets accessorized by Tupperware. Seated in this intimate space is claustrophobic, but fun, like the whole family being cramped in the basement during a tornado watch. The funniest thing about these little dining coves is that the diners have no idea when a waiter is approaching and it is startling to have a waiter, no matter how ridiculously suave, pop his body through the curtain, like a little sprite, and take your order or bring you food and drinks. I was startled every time.

I can’t speak for the entire wait staff at Opera, but if you have a big paycheck coming up (or a coupon), I would recommend dining there just to have a hearty laugh at the waiter we had. Imagine a man too debonair for his own good. His hair is a permanent slick: coiffed and impenetrable. His eyelids hover halfway between open and closed at all times. His lips are glossed and puckered and curled up at the edges. His voice is thick and rich and emanating from his chest in the exact same tone as Jay used to seduce Dean the cat with unyielding hormones. The waiter is lavish. He is ready. He wants to roll naked in steaming piles of duck sauce.

After bringing us our appetizers, the waiter sashays into our dining cove.
“How are the flavors?” He coos.
I can barely keep a straight face. Shaun’s back is to him, so he can silently laugh all he wants.
A while later, the waiter tweaks his nipple, drooling and asks, “Is it finished?”
The odd use of the word “it” instead of the more standard, “are you finished?” causes me to imagine Shaun and I feeding a monster under the table. I suppress violent laughter and manage, “yes.” With his back to the waiter, Shaun is rolling.
Upon reserving our table, Shaun must have let it slip that we were celebrating our anniversary. When it was time for us to enjoy some decedent basil ice cream for desert, the waiter, desire oozing from every pore, burst into the cove with two dinky birthday candles a-glow on the desert plate. “I wanted to bring you some candles for your anniversary,” he said, his voice husky and low, “I wanted this to be special.”
Instead of crawling around on all fours with our butts arched ala Dean the cat, Shaun and I laughed until our sides hurt. It was a splendid evening.

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Have you had any laughable encounters with unbridled machismo?

::Random Tangent::
While I hope you are all familiar with Pictionary and make the game more interesting when you play by writing funny suggestions like “Poops Ma Gee” and “Vagina Salsa,” you may not be aware of three very fun games called The Name Game, 8-Headed Doctor, and Drawing in the Dark. I promise you will love them all. Here’s how to play:

The Name Game
Everyone at the party writes ten names on slips of paper and they put them in a hat. The names that you write can be anyone from celebrities, characters on TV or from plays, authors, mythical characters, Bible peeps, dead people, Tommy the boy who peed his pants on the big slide in your kindergarten class, your Aunt Sheryl—anybody, whether the others in the group know of them or not. Have the party break off in teams of two. It makes the game harder if you are paired with the person in the room you know the least. Pairing off in couples makes the game easier. Now it is the first team’s turn. One person draws a name. They may know who the person is whose name they drew, or they may not. But they have a minute to try to explain as many names as they can to their partner without using “rhymes with” or charades.

Once I had to explain a name that turned out to be Shaun’s sister’s 5th grade boyfriend. But at the time of drawing it, neither Shaun nor I had a clue as to who Michael David was. So how did we do it?

Truly: What is the name of our favorite character on the show Arrested Development?
Shaun: George Michael.
Truly: Good. Now say just his last name.
Shaun: Michael.
Truly: Now, the second part. What is the name of my favorite director?
Shaun: David Lynch.
Truly: What’s his first name?
Shaun: David. Michael David?
Truly: Good job! Next one…

See how having teams of couples makes everything easier? However you break off, it is a lot of fun and you learn lots of fun stuff about people and laugh really hard.

8-Headed Doctor
You can play this improvisation game anytime, as long as you have two or more players. If it is New Years Eve, it can also be a drinking game. Shaun and I also play it while we are taking long walks.

The object of this game is to tell a story, with each person of the group adding one word at a time.

Truly: Rancid
Shaun: cats
Jessie: hate
Allyson: to
Beth: wear
Jay: tutu’s.
Truly: The
Shaun: story
Jessie: begins…

See? Fun. If you add a word that results in incorrect sentence structure, or take too long to say a word (it should be a seamless flow after your practice run), the group makes the noise of a game show buzzer at you and you are responsible for starting a whole new story. If you choose to make this a drinking game, you also have to take a swig of something.

Drawing in the Dark
In this game, each participant is given a pencil and a piece of paper. All the people at the party put their names in a hat. Everyone draws a name and keeps it secret. Then the host turns off all the lights and each participant has a minute to draw a picture of the name they drew without being able to see the paper. Then the lights are turned back on and everyone displays their artwork and laughs at how retarded it looks. If the party can guess who you drew, then you are very cool and a winner indeed.

Lucky Number 9
© The Author, 2006

The night was almost over and I didn’t want it to be without him knowing what it meant to me. Even after getting chopped to bits by a lawnmower, pulling myself together and slipping into a sexy red dress to sing a gushing torch song in, and murdering my family in a manic, Valium induced frenzy ala Quentin Tarantino a while after, he still couldn’t tell that I was crazy about him. Boys can be so clueless sometimes.

Clarkston High School Drama Club (the organization I credit for keeping me interested in attending the hell known as high school and saving me from dropping out all together), had an annual fundraiser called Theater-A-Thon, which was a nine-hour variety show that took place starting right after school and running until midnight. The program was directed by the vice president of the club (which I was to become in my senior year) and it was comprised of student chosen, directed, and performed skits and musical acts that audiences could see for free, on a come and go basis (9 hours is a freaking long time to sit through the entirety). The MC raffled off neat items throughout the night and a surprising amount of people bought tickets, giving us money to build big, crazy sets for the spring musical. Theater-A-Thon was loud, funny, and riotous and it was by far my favorite thing about high school. Especially my sophomore year in 1998, when it allowed me to hang out with my biggest crush for countless hours of rehearsal and 9 hours of performance.

The first time I saw Shaun was at my first drama club meeting, fall of my freshmen year. I walked into the theater and a tingly, spiders prancing about your ribcage kind of overwhelming feeling rushed over me. I knew he was there before I saw him, eventhough I had never laid eyes on him before. It was as if I was looking for him. When I glimpsed the back of his head, I felt relief.

“Who is that guy?” I asked my friend Randi, pointing to the back of Shaun’s head.
“That’s Painter,” she said, using the name of a deaf character he played in a skit she was in with him.

I walked away from her and suddenly I was near him, smiling. He was alone, with a book on his lap.

“Hi, I’m Truly.”
“Hi.”
“Can I sit by you?”
“Sure.”

Later he said he thought that I must have been a senior (he was a junior and I was really tall) and feeling bad for him because he was all by his lonesome. And that he thought I was hot. I felt like I was coming home, a transcendental experience of reincarnation. I had always known him, and I knew that he would always be there. It was weird and it creeped me out and I loved him then and now in this big, amazing way that reveals a higher order of things and feels delightfully good.

We were friends my freshmen year. While I dated a few guys (one of which was later to become my gay best friend) I made it a point to get in with his group, firstly because they were all super nice, chill people and second because I liked being near Shaun. I liked how he was always first to arrive to a party. He brought chips and CDs and he always had a Snapple to drink. He was never loud or interruptive and he never did things for attention, and yet he got loads of it. The girls in our group loved flirting with him because he was too polite to flirt back. But we all played with his hair, and felt his muscles, and did all sorts of stupid girly things around him because it was so funny how non-threatening, bashful, and well mannered he was about it. You could tell he was really smart, although only because he was always offering to help whenever he heard you were struggling with a subject. He never bragged about being in AP English and AP Physics and a general, all-around smarty pants. I don’t even think most of us knew that about him. He was just a nice guy. Did I mention that I was crazy about him?

My sophomore year (Shaun’s senior year), I was getting a bit frustrated that he didn’t seem to notice any of my attempts to woo him. Didn’t he feel the same way? Didn’t he know we knew each other in a past life? Come on!

When it was time to begin preparing skits for Theater-A-Thon, among other things, I wrote and directed a piece called The Cleaver Family, which was a stage combat piece featuring a 1950′s family that becomes possessed in the night and tries to kill each other in all sorts of funny ways until morning, when all is rosy again. I cast Shaun as my husband. Practice was dreamy, but he still didn’t seem to get my drift. But he was secretly in love with me, too. He was taking a super hard class-load and already involved in more skits than he thought he could handle when he took me up on my offer to murder me in my skit.

The night of Theater-A-Thon, I participated in two other skits that went beautifully. The Cleaver Family stunned the audience and then shook them with guilty laughter, as any proper dark comedy should. It was spectacular. Once midnight struck, and we were all wiping off our stage makeup and packing up our props, I didn’t feel right ending the night without letting Shaun know how much, precisely, his participation meant to me. Walking out to the parking lot with my best friend Lindsey and my parents, I made an excuse to turn back. I found Shaun in the hallway, walking out by himself.

“Hey,” I said.
“Hey.”
“It was a really good night tonight.”
“Yeah, it was.”
“You know, I like you a lot. If you want to do anything about that, I’m not busy Saturday.”
His face broke into the biggest smile ever. I felt my heart sing.

Although we have a wedding anniversary (January 25, 2002) we celebrate January 9 as our “us” day. Eight years ago today, we became us and it seems like yesterday and forever ago all at the same time.

Happy 9th, Shaun. I love you always.