I think our neighbors had a cigarette after we were done the other night. Perhaps it's the 5am workout regimen or maybe we are just two randy people, but last night kept me distracted all day thinking happy rosey thoughts about John...I am literally staring off into space thinking about him. Which leads me to a question that Gooseberried had, how did I know that John was the one for me? It was because of what I saw hidden in him...the stuff he was trying to make sure I wouldn't see, but it's hard to see how I got to John without knowing where I was before that.
Stop reading here if you've been with me over the past few years, it's just a rehashing of old events.
Some people have been reading this blog since the days that I was stalking Derek (the poor boy that worked at the bar up the street from my house whom I focused all my drunken affections on in a truly humiliating fashion that made this blog possible!) But to those of you who haven't been reading through the long haul here's a brief summary of what happened:

1. I fell in love with a boy when I was 25 (I went to college with him and loved him from afar the entire time). We dated for a while (after reuniting randomly in a graduate school class) then he broke up with me telling me that it was "too soon", because he ended his seven year relationship to be with me. Heartbreakingly he added that he just wasn't in love with me...although he had said it enough during our relationship for me to believe it. Six months after breaking up with me, he met his future wife and married her within the year.

2. A sad fact, I wasn't truly interested in a single man until I met John; it sounds cheesy and phony but it's the absolute truth. Yes, I dated here and there but I didn't get over Chris for years. It was a ridiculously long time for a fairly short relationship and I didn't do anything about it (like call him or anything), I just felt sad and broken for many years. Which is what caused #3.

3. I decided to harden my heart and just sleep with whomever I felt like it. It was fun, most of the time...occasionally it got messy but I was pretty good at separating true affection and sex...with my buddies T and Chelle by my side it became almost a sport for us and it filled our weekends pretty nicely.

4. I met Derek and I knew that he wasn't interested in me, so it was silly and safe to focus all my "love" on him because I wasn't going to get my heart broken...then I really kind of liked him. He still didn't like me and I was the drunkest stalker you could find! The blog posts are pretty funny but fairly embarassing to go back and read (Dec 04-Aug 05 I think). Looking back, I don't think I really would've liked Derek all that much if I knew him a little better than I did but it was a pretty fun time until I got depressed that he didn't like me (weird little things we do to ourselves, huh?). John likes to make fun of me because he and Derek went to high school together and were friends. I blush a lot when his name comes up.

5. After Derek left for school, I put myself on a Man Ban, and decided to get my head straight, heal my heart (finally) and move on with my life without sleeping with ex boyfriends, friends or strangers. I did pretty well. I avoided temptations left and right. I fought the urge to answer booty calls and I just kept chugging away in my self-prescribed celibacy. All I can really say about that period of time was that I kept the grocery store in business with all the batteries I was purchasing for my vibrator.

6. In a chance meeting right before Christmas, John was in town hanging out with his friends. T, Tony, John and I ended up staying up all night and I thought he was cute...in fact, I was thinking of calling off the Man Ban that night...alas, he dropped T and myself back at my house--but, he had my number if he wanted to use it.

7. I fell off the Man Ban bandwagon on Christmas Eve...it was uneventful, but I thought I deserved a present.

8. John sent out a mass text on New Year's Eve, I responded to it and then we started flirting via myspace and texts. Somehow, I talked him into meeting up with me in the city. He lived there, I pretended that I went there all the time. From there, we basically started dating because drunkenly I asked him if he wanted to be exclusive on our "first official date". What can I say? I'm ballsy when I have whiskey in me! Although things were far from perfect. For instance I didn't know that he was still talking to his ex-girlfriend/girlfriend (I'm not totally sure if they were broken up or not because they had this crazy long distance open relationship), and him wanting to celebrate the single life with his roommates. I could tell that he liked me and I was terrified because in under two months, I had fallen for him. But why?
He made me laugh. That may be the most cliche reason in the book but he did things just to make me laugh. He was intelligent ( I was notorious for ending up with men who weren't bright and I would just end up mocking them and just being plain old mean to them). When he was with me, the entire world just seemed to fall away and he would focus solely on me (like the days where we would spend the whole day in bed, laughing/having sex/listening to music etc)...he still does this. I was smitten with the city life, even though I'm two years older than John I felt like I was just a little kid when I went down to see him--I felt sophiticated. That doesn't have anything to do with John persay, but I'm sure that it had something to do with the early days of liking him. I just liked him. For the first time in my life I wasn't scrutinizing anything or picking him apart, saying the things I did and didn't like about him, I liked him completely. I think that was big, particularly for me.

9. But there were roadblocks in our romance. Everything seems (and is) peachy in our relationship now, but John got cold feet and broke up with me. He wanted to "date" (aka screw) a waitress. I'm not entirely sure why I didn't just throw in the towel on him and deem him an asshole...which is the way he was completely acting at the time but I really think I understood why he was doing it. I saw his fear as he was pushing me away, I saw that he was in love with me too even if he didn't know it himself (uggh, that sounds like the stuff that bad romance novels are made of)...but maybe I was just hoping, I'll never know because I decided to do something about it. I went to the city and made a stand...albeit a drunken, piss myself kind of stand, but a stand nonetheless.

10. And after that, we were engaged by the end of May and married by the end of July in Vegas. Everything has been very easy for us, we've straightened each other out, helped each other prioritize our lives. Together we are everything I thought we could be, perhaps more (again it might sound like a line or cheesy but it's the truth). To answer your question in the comments Michelle, I'm not exactly sure how I knew, but somehow there were enough clues there for me see that I wasn't giving up on him without a fight.

Hopefully this post didn't bore anyone and gave some background without having to go back and read the entire archives.

"Who's he?" E pokes me in the rib and asks.
"That's Mike," I reply not offering too much info.
"Why did he just stick his tongue out like that at you, and now he's talking to T?" E asks, his hand grazing my thigh.
"I dunno E. The other day he asked T to go home with him and then he asked mea few minutes after that. I think he wants to sleep with the both of us."
E's face clouds over, "The hell he will!"
To goad him I say, "If I want to sleep with T and Mike I'll do it!" (I have no intentions of ever doing this.)
"Why would you want to go home with that douche when you can go home with me," he says placing his hand in the small of my back.
"Space! You said you'd give me my space" I say, wiggling out of my seat and running to the safety of the juke box.
***

E's next moments of exasperation came within minutes of each other--and their names were Hot Ronnie and Favorite Bartender. Hot Ronnie came over and attempted to talk T and myself into coming over to listen to music at his house (at3:00 am on Thursday morning??)...in fact, Hot Ronnie and I even sang a duet at the bar (and no it wasn't karaoke night!) None of this was making E happy,but I think the funniest thing was when Favorite Bartender was showing someonehis tattoos on his chest and being as drunk as he was, he just unbuttoned his entire shirt. T turned to me and said, "He needs to stop that! It's too enticing." I turned to look and I think my tongue fell out of my mouth...FavoriteBartender has an excellent body that I just wasn't aware of before. He propositioned Chelle the other weekend, and now that he's girlfriendless...I think she should take him up on that offer asap.

With T and I drooling in the corner over Favorite Bartender, E decided it was time to pack us up and take us home. Well...that's not totally true. T and I started walking out of thebar and E asked, "Are you two alright to be driving?" (and the answer wasabsolutely not...which was why we were just going to walk home) He shook his head and said, "Get in the car you two." And like drunken idiots we ran giggling to the car. In the car he asked, "How did you two ever make it this far without dying or something?" I shrugged, "I don't know, someone always takes good care of us."
"Well someone needs to...you two attract all the wrong men." Which made T start giggling and pointing out the obvious, "But you like Melina!" and me being the jackass that I am, I started laughing too and said, "Yeah."

E took us to Wawa so that we could eat. We ran around the store grabbing all kinds of food off the shelves and cacklinglike hyenas, he shook his head and said, "Girls! Get your food and get in the car. Now." We tried to hold back the laughs but it was impossible, they tumbled out. I saluted E and T mockingly said, "Ok Dad." He brought us home and again, after I munched on an assortment of foods, he attempted to have a "serious" conversation with me. And of course, it caused me to feel the fight or flight impulse surging within me. I cupped my hand over my mouth and ran past the bathroom, up the stairs to my room yelling, "I think I might get sick." But no, I was just saying that to get to safety.

TodayI woke to a note that said, "Both you and T snore like bears. I checked in on the two of you before I let myself out. Have a good day off and think of me while I'm slaving away at work."

Ugggh.

Went out Friday night with T. We started out at the FQB for the Christmas party and then made our way up to thitwbar. Guess who I saw in the flesh?? That's right...Derek. But I chose not to talk to him since he didn't send me an email or anything letting me know that he was coming into town.

I ran into Matty, did a shot with him, flirted with him as soon as I saw his whatever she is walking over towards us with a hellish look on her face and her lips screwed into a little knot. Then I watched him get bitched at by her, it was amusing but I wanted to get back to T, E and his friends. On my walk back I saw Todd, and rather than hear that he's engaged in one breath and hear how he wants to fuck me six ways to Sunday in another, I just pretended that I didn't see him. All of these "reunions" made me want to drink heavily...and so I did. And so did T.

We were both pretty drunk when we decided to invite people to come hang out in the Basement Bar at my house. Only E and his four friends, Tony, T and I went--which was good because there wasn't that much alcohol to be had. Tony poured himself a tall glass of Scotch, T had a beer and for some reason I made myself a nice big tumbler full of champagne and chambord...go figure. Anyways, two seconds later E says that he needs to talk to me upstairs and grabs my hand and takes me upstairs. He asks me, "Are you ever going to kiss me again?" and I replied, "I don't know." The next thing I knew I was making out with him like you did in high school before you've had sex...like a million hours of making out. Although, I think it was only for like 20 minutes, but still. Then later for some reason I let him share my barstool and he proceded to rub my ass (and perpetuating the stereotype). His brother and friends were falling asleep on the couch (it was 5:30am) and so E decided he had to take them home. He whispered in my ear, "I can come back" but I just shook my head no with a smile.

So now today I'm doing damage control. He sent me a text message on Saturday morning saying, "I had a really good time with you on Friday night. Kissing you is fun." I didn't respond. Now today I've been discussing the "meaning" of our makeout session on AIM with him for the past few hours. Merry Christmas everyone! I'm going to lay in the grave I dug the other night. While I attempt to sort out my feelings, I'm sure my mouth will get me in trouble more tonight...going out with T, E and a bunch of people that I haven't seen in a long time.

Last night I went out to dinner with T down at the FQB and then we decided to stay for a few beers. After the most satisfying meal of my life (mmm chicken tambo...they make it for us special since it's not on the menu anymore), we moved into the bar area and just laughed and chatted talking about her men, and the funny messages that E drunkenly left me on Sunday night when all of them (E, Chelle, T and the rest o' the gang) were out, and I was sleeping responsibly since I had work nice and early in the morning.

Then at around ten my cell chimes that I have a text message. I open my phone and it says Matty's name and his number but nothing else. So I thought,"Huh?" and so I typed, "Huh?" and left it at that. A little after that message I got a text from M asking, "What are you up to?" and I just replied, "Out with T." Something was obviously in the air...wondering what both these boys were looking at or doing that reminded them of me.