I had known Will for three years and like to tout that within three years, I’d been to sixty social events, he to five-hundred and forty! I could not go somewhere and not see Will there, save perhaps a girl's only pajama breakfast.
One winter break from subbing and classes, I signed up for a few of his free concerts downtown, then allowed myself to cancel going, as I flowed with my immediate energy. I managed to show up to the third such winter concert, down town event; temporary ice-skating rink behind us. Will joked upon my actually showing up that I seemed to be going for the goal of most cancellations possible. We got coffee, and he coerced me to put some Stevia in my coffee, which I immediately regretted. What I noted most about Will, was he genuinely wanted me to be comfortable and happy, and not once was he sleazy or looking at me with anything but the way one would like kindly at a person who is there to keep him company on a week day afternoon on a sunny L.A. winter’s day.
Three years later we were at a Two-Dollar Taco Tuesday night. I was always looking for what I deem to be teacher summer's events, either cheap or free. Will was hosting a Gordon Bierch and six-dollar movie event the following day. The life of every party, he happily lights up every event with his funny humor and joyful laugh.
The next day I showed up early as he had suggested we all do to take advantage of the happy hour. I could scarcely afford the six-dollar movie, let alone anything at happy hour, but allowed Will to coerce me into ordering a beer to keep him company. The movie came and went. The group of us wound up back at Bierch’s late night happy hour. Myself and another lady were parked in the same lot as Will, and all walked together before parting at the elevators for our floors. Will gave such a nice yet wanting hug. Wanting not of sex, but of acceptance and warmth. I decided that for years I’d wound up at events, crowded or otherwise, where just he and I would find ourselves outside of the milieu of a crowd, often to smoke and pontificate the philosophy of life itself. I had also noted from the ice-skating rink on that Will had some of my major requirements, a job and a degree from a good school, USC. I did not know much else about him when I printed out his mugshot photo taken for the social online group MyPC and pinned it next to my computer on my wall. “He is nice, and I will have a crush on him this summer,” I told myself.
My first efforts to communicate with him via phone failed, as he was always too busy and out so couldn’t appropriately talk. “Fine,” I decided, “I will simply write to him about what my purpose is in contacting him, because he probably hasn’t a clue what it is about”. And so I did. I wrote to him that I thought perhaps us two could go out on a date. That ultimately I was looking to get married and have kids, but perhaps we could go on a date and have fun regardless if we held a future of the kind I was looking for.
Silence filled my inbox by way of response from him for three whole days. “Fine,” I thought to myself on day three. I found out which event he was to attend, got dressed up for a play I was going to afterwards, all dolled up as I like to do when a male has not responded how I wish him to, and went to the Acapulco event. I sauntered in and said hello to many people we jointly knew. “Hello,” he greeted me, “If I had known you were coming I would have saved you a chair”. I nonchalantly acknowledged his words, and sat a few people away from him to his left. The goal always being: be social and amicable, funny and relevant, then on my way to bigger and better places.
He found at some point an empty chair across from him and invited me to sit there and talk to him. “I have been busy and not had a chance to think of a good reply to your email yet, but I did receive your email. How about this Friday?” he asked. I later learned why it took him so long to reply. We made plans to meet for lunch with my charge, Laura, the eight year old I was sitting, for another online acquaintance. We then went on our real date that Friday evening where we saw a free concert at Levitt’s Pavilion after a drink at E Bar. Will hates my story of how we first began dating, because it puts the light sublimely on myself and a shadow of questions as to what he was doing in that time, loh those three days prior to d-day.
Will, I love you. You are my rock. Here’s to our next sixty and counting. May they be filled with travel, warmth, love, friendship, and understanding as we deepen our visage into the here after. Amen and God bless us and all we know and do not.
