i love my husband

On October 21, 1999, I was excited. Practically giddy. I worked for a public company that set goals for its stock prices, and when it hit the goals it threw huge parties for its employees. And I do mean huge. Dancing, drinking (free), cash grabs, raffles (free) for various expensive products, etc. And that night was the night of another stock party. I couldn't wait to leave work early (another perk of the party) to get there.

I was prepared: I had notified my technical editing professor (now a good friend and mentor) that I would be skipping class to attend a party. She didn't approve, but since I hadn't missed any classes yet and assured her I wouldn't go over the absence limit (which I didn't), she couldn't really do anything about it. I was decked out in my favorite black pants and button-down, v-neck cobalt blue shirt (Al remembered this, not me) and ready to party. The funny thing was, at these parties I tended not to hang out with everyone from the accounting department, which I worked in as a collector. Correct that: anyone from the accounting department. I "floated," I guess you could put it, meeting new people and going from group to group, just having fun. In this way I met a lot of people from the plant (it was a printing company) and tended to have more in common--and more fun--with them than I did with my office colleagues. And I was looking forward to it. Really looking forward to it.

I don't remember many specifics about that night (it was almost ten years ago, now). I do remember being slightly disappointed in the party--it wasn't as good as many previous parties, and the venue and theme had a lot to do with it. The venue, a local cultural center at which many people have wedding receptions, just seemed too familiar to be grand enough for a stock party. And the theme--at least, in the dance hall, which is really all I remember--was swing dancing. I was into swing dancing just like almost anyone else at the end of the nineties and could (with the right partner) dance the basic moves fairly well. But I was also going on four months without having heard from my best friend and first true love (and at this point I can't help channeling The Princess Bride--"Love, true love"). The connection? He was a dancer--a professional dancer--and I had learned how to swing dance from him. At this point, I knew the non-communication was deliberate, although not why (later I learned it was because he had decided he needed to choose between me and another girl; he chose her and couldn't be around me for fear of confusion, temptation, etc.). I had given up on trying to keep him in my life, but wasn't too thrilled with the reminder at the party.

Anyway. At one point during the party, I was standing by myself when my friend Bob the maintenance man came up to me. He had a friend with him and introduced him. We chatted a few minutes and then went our separate ways, and I imagine I floated amongst people I knew and strangers until the end of the party, around 11 pm. At that point, I found myself standing near the doors wishing the party wasn't quite over. Then I spied him: Bob's friend.

"What's your name again?" I asked.

"Albert," he replied.

"No it's not. I would have remembered that."

"It's Alan," he said. Then, somehow, invited me to come out to a local bar with him and a bunch of his friends. I happened to know that a friend of mine, Paulie, was going to be there and thought, If this guy's a jerk, I'll just go find Paulie. Then Alan asked me to drive (he'd been drinking a bit too much) and said that his friend would drive his car to the bar. And off we went.

The bar later became a favorite of ours because a local cover band we loved played there weekly. Bob and the friend that drove the car (and their wives, who came along later) became some of our closest friends (well, they were already good friends with Al), and Alan later became my husband (finally, in June 2007). We have been together since that very first night, and many times I'm amazed that he's stayed with me that long (I've had some emotional, er, difficulties that involved many tears, tirades, a therapist, etc.). I somehow managed to find the sweetest, most patient man in the world to marry. The perfect man for me, as I always tell my former professor. She's since forgiven me for skipping her class that night.