i can actually remember when...

Many of you may not know how Marcus and I met, so on our anniversary this day, I feel it suiting that I share our story.  And this shall be the long and short of it, for your reading pleasure of course.  It's a twisted, small world, OH MY GOD, kinda story, and telling it can be a challenge, because deciding where to start can make or break the events, hope you are able to follow along.

I was 21 and spending a ton of time, as usual, in front of the mirror, when I heard that infamous sound that AOL used to make when you got IM'd.  I ran over, and saw it was this guy, Joel, and he was asking me about people that I knew, turns out, we had the same friends.  Jeff Seguin was our common ground, and we ended up going out a couple of times.  On our last official hang out, I met all his friends, and one in particular, Marcus.  It was the popular thing, these men/boys used to do back then, they'd bargain with bar owners, talk up a good game about bringing them a huge crowd, asking to charge a cover, keep the door all whilst the owners would revel in the spillage of bar tabs.  And it was at one of their gigs, Home Bar, to be exact where I met Marcus.  You wanna know something funny, I met Cindy that night too, met my husband and best friend all at the same time, pretty cool.  Joel and I were leaving, and he wanted to introduce me to his best friend, who happened to be DJ'n this time, and he was all the yummy I needed and wanted.  Needless to say, Joel and I decided after that night, friends was a much better fit.  Marcus and I never hung out alone, we were always together as a group, all the guys, myself, and whatever girlfriends the boys were dating at the time, etc.  One night in particular, Joel was sick, and left early when we were all out, and Marcus became my ride, lucky me!  The next morning...STOP...no, we didn't do it...we weren't even close, we got up from having slept at his brothers house...HOLY CRAP, this is so fitting, and do you know why?  Because in addition to this being our anniversary, it is almost our exact anniversary of our first official/unofficial date, wow!  How am I barely noticing this?...dude, blogging saves lives!!!  Sorry, didn't mean to go off on a tangent just then, but Marcus and I have so many serendipity moments in our relationship/meeting that we discover all sorts of things all the time, many of which shall be disclosed below.  That morning, after I slept on the couch, alone, we got up, and he took me home, and on our way, we stopped off at Raymond's BBQ on Garland Rd.  He was hungry, as was I and he asked if we could stop to get something to eat.  I was dying, because he was so delish, and we had never had alone time, I WAS DYING.  That lunch would be the beginning of a year long-give or take-of platonic friendship.  Now, Marcus and I tend to have different versions when it comes to the year long-give or take-of platonic friendship.  I remember us not kissing or having sex or anything of the sort, because he was so untouchable and so yummy, I never in a million years ever thought that a guy like him would ever like a girl like me.  He says it wasn't quite that way, whatever :-/  His house was a staple for our hang out time, his garage in particular was our living room for beer drinking and lawn chair sitting, talking into the night about all kinds of stuff, listening to Stevie Ray...those were the days.  There was always this one picture in particular that always caught my eye as I would walk past his living room and into his bedroom, drove me crazy, because I saw it everyday and everyday I wondered, "WHY, why does that picture look so familiar?".  There in his room, we played the "lets look through old pics and go down memory lane" game.  He thumbed through a dozen or so, and came across one in particular, and when he handed it to me, I flipped my lid.  It was him, IT WAS HIM, oh my GOD! 

My junior year in high school I had gotten invited by a senior to go to prom.  I went, and as I was dancing, I noticed Tracy Jones, a friend walk into the dance with this guy.  I never remembered her having a boyfriend in school, and sure as hell think I would have remembered a guy like that.  All night I tried to get over to her, dodging any gesture my date had toward me, but I couldn't break lose, damn it.  Never stopped thinking about that guy, in fact, I remember asking her about him and she was all like, "yea, that's my friend, he goes to BL, he has a girlfriend though."  What could come of it really?  Nothing, I was in high school for goodness sake.  However, when you're 16, it's the end of the world.

His name was Marcus Sais.  He and Tracy had been friends for years and he was her escort.  I couldn't believe it.  I was freaking out.  It was him, he was that guy.  Holy crap.  I was sitting next to him on his bed, we had spent endless nights drinking, dancing, hanging out and talking for hours on end about anything and everything.  My sister had taken a picture of Tracy and her date that night, and she/I had a copy, and I still had it, all these years, I still had that picture.  The same picture that he just handed me to look at.  Don't get me wrong, I didn't have it framed and under my pillow at night, but nonetheless, I had it.  And now, the picture in the living room that had haunted me all this time, was unfuzzy.  He wore the same tux to his own prom, and that is why it looked so familiar. 

One night, as we were heading into the movies, some time after we became an item, we ran into his god parents.  He wanted to stop and say hello, they had spotted him, and it would be rude to not say hello.  Introductions were made, and his god father was very friendly with me, almost as if he knew me.  Even asked how my father was doing.  I thought it was kinda weird, but kinda polite too.  As we parted ways, his god father wanted me to tell my dad that Johnny Joe said hi.  Later that week I told my dad about Marcus' god parents and how his god father had said what he said, and my dad almost fell out of his chair.  Apparently, Johnny Joe and my dad used to be best friends, worked together for over 20 years at the Sears downtown.  So close in fact, that Johnny Joe had three sons, my dad had three daughters, and birthday parties alike were often visited by both families.  Marcus used to live across the street from them, and he apparently and almost literally lived there, with them.  He was their "4th child", and we are told that we were at the same birthday parties, together, as children.  Marcus likes to kid that he remembers me, that he used to take me behind the shed and lift up my pink dress.  :-)

I feel so lucky to have found my dream guy.

I can be overheard saying many times that I can't believe I am married to Marcus Sais.  We relive those years sometimes, and every time we talk about it, I learn something new.  Turns out, he always had a thing for me, right off the bat he says, I never knew it.  All those times we hung out "platonically", he had ulterior motives, and I never knew it.  One of my favorite stories in particular was when he was shaving, and he "said" that he was having trouble making a straight line under his chin, and asked me if I could do it.  Uh, duh, any chance I had to get close to him, I was all over it.  He says that he remembers me being close, how my legs were nearly straddling him, as I sat on the sink, and how he wanted to so badly just grab my back and pull me close.  I love hearing that story.  And now, I get to be as close as I want, anytime I want, and I love having that.

Happy Anniversary Baby

Our First Dance...Our Song

Citizen Cope "Sideways"

Could not have been any happier!

Ps. The new corner, in my living room...