A Photo Essay: I think I wanna marry you.

I recently received an email asking how Andy and I got engaged, and because I actually have photographic evidence of this, and I finally figured out what button makes my scanner work and can stop screaming CRUCIO! at it and throwing it across the office, I thought, why not?

Plus Andy is all, it’s not magic if you are smashing it into the walls with your hands.

Whatever, Snape.

Andy and I met in pre-school.  It was the only one in town at the time, held in the basement of a Methodist church with sea foam green brick walls and carpet that was always moist.

He was a transformer, I was a Wuzzle.

It was a very Romeo and Juliet, star crossed lovers situation, as robot – sexually impossible animal hybrid dating was largely frowned upon in the 80s. (boo, Reagan.)

We went our separate ways, he to a public elementary, me to a convent.

Until circumstances beyond our control brought us together again later in High School, and I spent the next two years trying to convince him to change his name to Drew, because it sounded way more exotic.

Lost in the Night.  1998.  These outfits really happened.

One week before we went away to college, I asked Andy to marry me on my parent’s couch while we watched the Drew Carey Show.  He said no.  I pretended I was kidding and told him I didn’t want to marry him, anyways.

We dated through college, moved into a two bedroom apartment together in Columbus, and adopted a pair of homosexual cats, Jack and Gray.  They spent a lot of time being intimate in front of the television, watching cars out the window, and bickering about the throw pillows.

We were blissfully happy, until one day we weren’t.

He moved back home with our cats, and left me in an empty apartment.

I ran away to work at a summer camp.

It’s exactly like the movie Wet Hot American Summer and Meatballs.  The first one, not the second one…the whole alien thing was ridiculous.

By the end of the summer, oats were sewn, drunk dials were had and sloppy apologies were made.  I’d like to think the fact that I spent the summer on a horse in jeans, white tank tops and cowboy boots moved things along.

Girls are almost never not hot on horseback.

Except at Renaissance weddings.  Those are mostly awkward, there’s never any silverware, someone always stabs themselves with a sword, and the “mead” is just watery Bud Light.

A few weeks before Christmas, a group of us went to the zoo to see the twinkly lights.  It was terribly cold and the only reason I agreed to go was because Andy made me a thermos of warm rum cider.

Freezing my clitoris off on a slab of cold concrete.

He whispered one question in my ear.

Awkward kiss that I can never, ever unsee.

I said yes.

So, that’s how that happened.