The E.B. Pays a Visit

Tiffany's mom Patty came to visit for Easter weekend, and, coincidentally, the Easter bunny stopped by too. He pooped candy and coins all over our apartment floor while we were sleeping.

I found the coins before I was supposed to when the paper boy buzzed our apartment at 4:00 a.m. Stumbling bleary-eyed to the door, I thought Patty had somehow spilled big drops of water all over our carpet, but it was pennies and nickels and dimes and quarters that I was feeling under my feet.

Later in the morning, I pretended like I hadn't seen them. Tiffany and I waited--just like my brother and I used to wait for our parents all those Easters and Christmases ago--for Patty to start moving before we stuck our heads out our bedroom door. Never mind that we're almost 30. We were grinning ear-to-ear, ready to follow the coins and candy to our Easter baskets.

In theory.

"I found one," Tiffany said smugly, putting a pot of water on for tea.

"How is that even possible?" I moaned, crawling around scooping up trail after trail of Reeses peanut butter eggs, jelly beans and currency to one dead end after another. "Thank God we just vacuumed."

"I grew up with this woman," Tiffany said.

"It's not a very big apartment, Rebequita," Patty said, taunting me.

"It's huge!" I said. "The biggest we've ever had!"

I finally found one basket in the closet, stuffed in a crate with our bike locks and the reflective vest I used to make Tiffany wear on the scooter. But it was Tiffany's basket. And apparently there's a rule about finding your own. So back on the trail I went. I opened all our cabinets and the oven and the broiler/drawer. Finally, I stood staring blankly at the microwave...

"Are we nuking a pastel-colored gift bag with bunny ear handles?" I asked, triumphant at last.

Anyway, as you all know, there's nothing I like better than coins, and, who doesn't love candy and moms? By my quite literal calculations, it was a delightful weekend all around.

How I Met My Girlfriend Who Studies Chemistry: Part IV (Fin)

(This is the fourth and final part in a four-part series I unveiled in honor of my 100^th blog post. Click here for the first post in the series, here for the second and here for the third. If you like me, pass me on! Share me with your friends. Post me to your Facebook page. And, as always, thanks for reading!)

In my senior year in college, after I came out to my mom, Tiffany was the second person I told I was gay. We were sitting in a Dunkin’ Donuts near Boston's theater district, waiting to go into a flamenco show.

“What if I kissed a girl?” I began, blowing into my hot chocolate.

I hadn’t kissed a girl yet, but I was ready to.

She looked at me.

“So what?” she said. “You’d have kissed a girl.”

“What if,” I continued. “I wanted to keep kissing girls?”

“Then you keep kissing girls,” she said, like it was the easiest thing in the world.

It turned out it wasn’t. A few months later, when Tiffany came out and we got up the courage to kiss each other, I was shaking like a leaf.

This is the part in our story where Tiffany says I was playing hard to get. Actually, I was terrified we might lose our friendship. I was so scared that I wasn’t willing to risk another kiss, even with a potential pay-off like love, which, of course, I’d never experienced. I refused to consider dating Tiffany and began to “play the field” after I moved to New York.

By playing the field, I mean I attended several gay and lesbian social events, including one humiliating evening of speed-dating, or, as it was called in New York, “date-bait.” Here’s how it worked:

A bunch of women crowded into a rented conference room with Costco cheeses and crackers. Everyone was assigned a number. You had two minutes to talk to a woman before the organizer blew a whistle and then you had to move on to the next woman. At the end of the night, you wrote down the number of the women with whom you wanted to exchange contact information. If you each wrote down each other’s number, you got contact information. If you wrote down someone’s number, but she didn’t write down yours, you got cheese and crackers.

The system broke down around number 16, a very attractive woman who knew she was very attractive and began to accumulate an audience as women refused to rotate from her vicinity. I, meanwhile, was stuck in front of a woman who looked to be at least 65 years old. She asked me if I liked theater.

“Yes,” I said politely. “I love it.”

“Well, I’m writing a play,” she said. “I have 20 cats, so it’s about cats.”

“I think I saw that one,” I said, trying to make a joke.

She didn’t laugh.

My field included bars too, even though I don’t drink. I took whichever friends I could drag with me, including Tiffany when she was in town. Once we were dancing and a girl turned around and bumped into me:

“BLEH,” she said, pretending to throw up on me.

I stared at her.

“I’m just kidding,” she yelled. “I’m not really going to throw up on you. Hi, I’m ___. Want to dance?”

“I can’t hear you!” I shouted, pulling Tiffany away to the other end of the dance floor.

After a few months, I realized there wasn’t anybody on the field even half as beautiful or real as Tiffany. One night we went out together and called it a date.

We haven’t looked back since.

And now you’re reading my blog.*

*And I hope you keep reading it! Just because the series is over, doesn't mean the blog is! Regular, random posts will continue, right here.

Woooo-Hoooo!

Every once in a while, the sun shines in San Francisco. When it does, Tiffany and I like to get out and enjoy it. Now that the days are longer again, we try to go for a run together after work a couple nights a week. We run down to Ghirardelli Square, past the crazy people swimming in the freezing water and up and over Fort Mason, past the crazy grown-ups twirling their hula hoops.

We don't usually see crazy people on traffic lights. But that's just where we found one the other night.

"Wooooo-hooooo," we heard as we prepared to cross the street.

I squinted at some of the car windows around us but didn't see anyone who looked like they were in a "woo-hoo" mood.

"Woooo-hooooooo," we heard again.

Tiffany glanced over at the elementary school basketball court where a bunch of men were panting as they ran from endline to endline. They did not look like they had the extra air required to be "woo-hooing."

"Oh," Tiffany said. "Don't look up."

I looked up.

"Don't look up!" she said. "You'll just distract him and he might fall."

"Who are you talking about?" I asked, shielding my eyes.

Tiffany jutted her chin toward the traffic light. I scanned my eyes up, up... ah, yes, the woo-hooer looked exactly like you might expect a woo-hooer with the capacity to climb a traffic light to look: like he was on drugs. More specifically, he was young and skinny and shirtless, gyrating his hips as he grasped the light.

"Wooooo--hooooooo," he yelled, gazing up at the sun.

Now, I love me some sun too. But I see no reason to climb a traffic light to pay homage.

When the man's light turned red, we ran underneath him. Meanwhile a woman in a car pulled to a stop, took out her cell phone and snapped his picture.

She got an extra loud "wooo-hoooo" for her trouble.

How I Met My Girlfriend Who Studies Chemistry: Part III

(This is the third part in a four-part series I unveiled in honor of my 100^th blog post. Click here for the first post in the series and here for the second.)

Tiffany became one of my best friends on the team, especially towards the end of my sophomore year. My parents were in the middle of a separation that eventually became a divorce, and, when I couldn’t sleep, Tiffany let me come into her room and talk or fall face first onto her bed and scream or cry, whichever I was in the mood for. When we drove anywhere in her old white Saab — the mirrors of which were constantly getting stolen — she let me sing oldies at the top of my lungs. She just rolled down the windows — and rolled up her eyes — and let me have at it. I even convinced her to sing some oldies too.

The day I helped her move out at the end of that school year, we piled a bunch of the dorm-issued blue plastic mattresses high in her room and jumped on them, sing-shouting:

“THIS MORNING, I WOKE UP WITH THIS FEELING I DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO DEAL WITH AND SO I JUST DECIDED TO MYSELF I’D HIDE IT TO MYSELF AND NEVER TALK ABOUT IT AND DIDN’T I GO AND SHOUT IT WHEN YOU WALKED INTO MY ROOM… I THINK I LOVE YOU, SO WHAT AM I SO AFRAID OF? I’M AFRAID THAT I’M NOT SURE OF A LOVE THERE IS NO CURE FOR… BUM BUM BUM BUM!”

Even then, two years before we came out, I think we both could feel some truth bubbling up in the words. Tiffany made me feel safe and excited at the same time. It just took me a while to realize that combination of feelings was love.

(To be continued... one more post to follow next week!)

Eggplant, Sprout and Alfalfa

My brother and his fiancee have a vegetable garden. You know, with dirt and green things that grow into tomatoes and peppers and zucchinis and food you can eat.

Tiffany and I have seven potted plants.

To be fair, my brother and his fiancee have a backyard. We have a fire escape. But we don't keep our plants there because you have to climb out the kitchen window over the sink to get to it.

Tiffany is in charge of our plants, and she has named them. There's Alfa-alfa, named for Alfalfa for his spiky green shoots, but spelled like the adorable way Tiffany pronounces that word. There's Sprout, the sad little succulent I picked out that lost all its branches save one. There's The Tall One, Orchid, Bamboo and Pinky. These names are less original but practical. Pinky, in particular, is troublesome. She sheds her tiny pink flowers whenever you move her. Sometimes Tiffany carries Pinky in one hand to the sink to water her and the dust buster we got free with left-over credit card points in the other.

"Laugh it up," she tells me, as I chuckle at the sight. "Damn pink plant."

We keep the damn pink plant because she's beautiful and Tiffany's dad gave her to us even though she's messy and has a funny smell.

I came home the other night to find this...

"Hi Babe! I brought home another adoptee. I'm thinking of calling her Flow. What do you think?"

...on our dry erase board.

For a second, I let myself daydream that we were in a place in our lives where our adoptees were stray cats or dogs. But, as I put down my bag, I saw Flow. She was soaking water in her new soil in our kitchen sink. She has thick shiny leaves that are purple at the bottom. I found out later Tiffany had rescued her from a colleague's spring cleaning.

"What do you think of Flow?" Tiffany asked, bursting in the door.

"I like Flow fine."

"I'm not sure about the name... how about Eggplant, for the purple roots?"

I smiled as Tiffany bustled around, moving Sprout and Alfa-Alfa, cooing to Orchid and running her hands over Bamboo. She cursed Pinky's flowers in a loving way.

Later, as we got ready for bed, I scribbled in my notebook.

"I know you're writing about our plants," she murmured sleepily. "But I'm not sure about Eggplant. I think I like Flow better." *

"I like Flow fine," I said again, turning out my light and smiling into the dark.

*She later changed her mind back to Eggplant.

How I Met My Girlfriend Who Studies Chemistry: Part II

(This is the second part in a four-part series I unveiled in honor of my 100^th blog post. For the first post in the series, click here.)

After my recruiting trip, the second time I saw Tiffany was nearly a year later when I was officially part of the team. Along with more than 20 other girls, I was seated in the hallway outside the training room waiting for my physical. We had to be declared healthy before we could run the mile, the first of our fitness tests.

I had flown in the day before. Both my parents had taken me to the airport. Because I had never been away from home for more than 12 consecutive days, I was so nervous I wanted to throw up. I didn’t, though. Instead, I tried to be brave.

“This time tomorrow I should have 20 or so new friends,” I told my parents, my voice filled with false cheer. This was very optimistic of me. In four years of high school, I had three best friends. They were all boys. That's an accrual rate of less than one best friend per year.

“That’s the spirit,” my dad said, choking back a sob.

My mom didn’t bother to choke her sobs back. Her shoulders heaved as she cried.

A day later and more than 1,000 miles away, I sat cross-legged on the cold tile outside the training room next to a girl named Jessie from Long Island. She was not scared at all. She was The World’s Greatest Goalie, and she knew it. I was a midfielder from Kansas, a state no one in Boston seemed to know existed, and that’s exactly how I felt.

“Re-be-cca,” Jessie said, trying my name out while we waited. “Too long. We’ll have to give you a nickname.”

At the pulse-taking station, Jessie’s pulse was 63. Mine was 110.

“Hold on,” our student trainer said. “Let me try that again, I think I miscounted.”

She hadn’t.

“Wait, did you already run the mile?”

I shook my head. The trainer called her supervisor over.

“Are you having a heart attack?” Jessie called happily from the blood pressure table.

“Are you dead?” I snapped back, trying to regain whatever confidence I’d once had.

Jessie laughed, loudly. Well, I thought to myself: one friend down.

After the mile, my heart rate slowed considerably. It picked back up, however, when we piled out of the team vans at the camp where we were spending two weeks to train.

“Upperclassmen, pick a younger teammate to room with,” our coach called, marching off with her bags.

By the time I got out of the van, making my way from the very last seat, all the other freshmen had been picked. I stood, mortified, with my duffel bag.

“I’ll take you,” Tiffany said, smiling brightly.* “Come on, let’s go pick out a room.”

Once there, she pulled out her sheets and blankets with a flourish, making her twin bed up nicely.

“Where are your sheets?” she asked.

I pulled out the purple sleeping bag I’d had since second grade. My brother had an identical bag in green.

“My parents are bringing my bedding when they come after pre-season,” I explained, tossing the nylon bag onto my bed, which had an enormous dip in the middle. The bag immediately slipped off to the floor.

“Your bed has a hole in it,” Tiffany pointed out. “Why don’t you take mine? I don’t need to sleep well.”

She was recovering from shin surgery and unable to practice.

“No way,” I said. “I couldn’t do that. Thank you, though.”

She shrugged, then unscrewed a bottle of chewable vitamin C.

“Want one?” she asked.

Two friends down, I thought.

*I found out later she’d been coerced into taking me by our team captain.

(To be continued... This is the second part in a four-part series I unveiled in honor of my 100^th blog post. For the next post in the series, click here.)

Snowboarding--It's the Easiest Thing

I'm not sure who thought it would be a good idea to invent a sport in which you descend--sideways--down a snow-covered mountain with your feet locked onto a plastic board. But a few days ago, Tiffany and I decided it would be a good idea to try the aforementioned sport again.

Despite not having snowboarded in six years, my biggest fear was getting on and off the chair lifts. Forget personal safety. I did not want the lift stopped on my behalf while others waited to reach the top of the mountain and I struggled to dismount from a chair.

"Should we rent helmets?" Tiffany asked as we packed our things the night before.

"Helmets?" I asked. "I never wore a helmet."

"Everyone wears helmets now," she said. "I checked people's Facebook pictures."

"I'm not worried about my head," I said. "I don't plan on going fast enough to hurt it. How do you get on the lift again?"

Tiffany laughed.

"It's the easiest thing!" she said. "Just sit down."

I wasn't so sure. When I learned to ski at the age of seven or eight, I spent half a day by myself in ski school while my mom, dad and brother hit the slopes. When they got back, I knew how to snowplow and how to get on and off a lift. Then, as we waited in line to go up for my first time, my dad suggested another way to get on the lift.

"That's not how I learned it," I said, with furrowed brow.

"That's okay," he said. "It's the easiest thing."

Well. I'll skip to the end of this sad tale. The operator had to stop the lift because I--in a panic--could not decide which technique to use and so used neither, teetering on the edge of the seat for a few heart-stopping seconds before tumbling into a pile of powder below. In several more years of skiing, I never forgave my father.

In Tahoe, at the age of 29, getting on the lift really was simple once I dragged myself to the "Board Here" line. But getting off was not, mostly because I am The World's Worst Snowboarder. Before our Tahoe trip, I had only ever snowboarded once. That is, a single day six years earlier. To make matters worse, I was facing the wrong direction. When I rented my board, I couldn't remember whether I was regular or "goofy." I chose regular (left foot forward) and was totally wrong.

"Maybe we should put the bar down," Tiffany said as we glided up the mountain on the lift the first time. Thankfully, we had a chair to ourselves.

"Okay," I said, nervously. But about halfway up the lift, I put the bar back up.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Getting ready to get off!" I cried.

"Just point your board straight ahead," the teenager running the lift said as our chair slowed near the top. I wanted to slap his face, but, as it was, I pointed my board straight ahead and pushed off the chair with my hands. Tiffany and I immediately collided and, desperate to make it a safe distance from the lift, clung to each other, leaning forward to keep our momentum. After a few inches, Tiffany fell. I wobbled, nearly kept my balance and then sat down on her head.

Then--it was the easiest thing--I pushed off Tiffany's face with my mittens and, clawing at the snow, scooted away another couple of feet.

"Phew," I said. "We made it."

And we had. Tiffany was still crumpled in a heap, laughing so hard her Gore-tex-clad body was shaking, but that lift kept right on running.

How I Met My Girlfriend Who Studies Chemistry: Part I

Tiffany doesn’t remember the first time we met, but I do. I was a senior in high school on a soccer recruiting trip to Boston University. She was one of the freshmen on the team assigned to entertain me and the other recruits for part of the weekend. I wish I could tell you it was love at first sight, but she and I were 18 and 17 years, respectively, into the closet. You don’t spend a lot of time looking for love at first sight from back there.

After I joined the team the next year, some of the girls swore I was wearing overalls when I arrived that weekend. I continue to contest this version of events. Although I’m sure I wore something highly unfashionable, it would not have been overalls. I did own a pair at one time, from the Gap or some such place, but only because my mom insisted I buy them. She thought they were adorable. I hated them. No matter how I adjusted the straps, it was like constant wedgie, all the time.*

Anyway, everyone who thinks I was wearing overalls is probably just projecting their feelings about Kansas onto me. From the moment I arrived, it was a constant barrage of questions:

“Do you have electricity where you live?”

“Do you live on a farm?”

“Do you have, like, cows?”

“You’re from Kansas?” Tiffany asked. “Like, KansASS?”

That’s really the only thing I remember Tiffany saying to me the whole weekend. In spite of this abuse, I loved Boston and all the girls on the team. I made up my mind to go there while riding the T, my feet spread slightly to keep my balance between the squeaky stops and starts and groaning lurches. None of the places I had ever lived — Texas, Mississippi, Kansas — had a subway system. Where I was from, if you wanted to go somewhere, you got in a car and drove there.

I saw on the system map above Tiffany’s head that the T would take me to points in every direction, a beach called Revere and the airport. In other words, anywhere I’d ever need to go. I felt alive with possibilities.

*The other story that circulates about my fashion is that I arrived for pre-season camp the next year wearing a tye-dye shirt. Sadly, this is true. Even though I was a freshman in college more than 10 years ago, that was still about 10 years after tye-dye went out of fashion. But, as you’ll see below, I was very, very nervous about being away from home and when I’m nervous I like to have things that make me feel good on or around me. The girl I’d been babysitting since she was born — the little sister I never had — made me that tye-dye shirt. She thought I was a miracle worker. I needed all the confidence I could wear.

(To be continued... This is the first part in a four-part series I unveiled in honor of my 100^th blog post. For the next post in the series, click here.)

Drumroll, please...

It’s my 100^th post! Thank you for helping make it happen!

To celebrate, I’m bringing to life the post you’ve all been waiting for: the story of how I met my girlfriend who studies chemistry.

To keep you coming back for more, however, I’ve made it a serial post. It will appear in four parts, one for each week this month, along with my regular random posts about daily life in a relationship. The first in the series will appear as a separate post right after this one!

I’ve also updated my About This Blog page and added an About The Author page, so please click around and explore some.

As always, share me with anyone you think might enjoy what I’ve written and comment whenever you like!

Thanks for reading!