fenchurch | Twenty Years Ago

It's a phrase you'll probably hear from me a few more times over the next several months... and I've already missed a few, due to all the traveling I did last month.

So, to catch up... The first week of October, twenty years ago:

celedraug, our roommate HZ, and I hosted a Filksing at our apartment. I'd broken up with my most recent boyfriend not long beforehand (nice guy, but he'd gone through something like five jobs in the three weeks that we dated -- not a good sign) and I had been contemplating the prospects at the university's SF&F club. There were a few guys I was interested in, including one who I'd thought was too old for me when I'd met him the previous year (three whole years older... horrors!). Through the SF&F Club, I knew his twin sister (who was by that time off on a mission for the church), his younger brother (who I'd considered asking out the previous year), and one of his younger sisters, B, (who they'd started bringing along to club meetings when she was 12) and I'd even been to his family's house for Filksings, a time or two, so I'd met his parents.

I set about trying to attract his attention... sitting next to him in the circle, sharing my music with him, that sort of thing. And he seemed like he might be interested, but I couldn't tell for sure (it turns out he was just really shy). Then we ran out of sodas, so HZ and I figured we'd walk over to the Circle K to grab some more... and we took B (who was 13 at the time) with us. I tried to subtly ply her for info about whether her brother was dating anyone, but apparently I suck at subtle. She rather excitedly told me that no, he wasn't dating anyone she knew of and before long, she and HZ had dared me into asking him out, giving me a deadline toward the end of the month and saying that if I didn't ask him out by then, they'd do it for me.

Toward the end of October, twenty years ago: The SF&F Club was hosting a Spook Alley on campus as a fundraiser during Club Week. The guy I was interested in was playing the part of a mad scientist, complete with jacob's ladder and beakers borrowed from his dad, a chemistry professor. I was dressed as a zombie, taking tickets at the door... and I had until midnight that night to ask him out. I'd worked up a spooky-looking note (written in what looked like dripping blood) asking him if he'd go to Preference (the formal girl-ask-guy dance) with me and finally just handed it to a trustworthy looking person, asking him to give it to the mad scientist. And then I waited.

The next day, he stopped by with a rose from his mother's garden and said he'd love to go with me.

Twenty years ago, yesterday: Our first official date! Not that it mattered much, since we'd been spending pretty much every available waking moment together over the previous few weeks. We'd just clicked and at some point, we realized we'd started talking about what we'd do after we were married... the places we wanted to go, the sort of life we wanted to have.

I didn't have any sort of formal dress, so I borrowed one from a neighbor and borrowed some nice earrings from HZ. Here we are, twenty years ago yesterday (and wow, is that picture starting to look worn -- I'll have to see what can be done to clean it up):

Unfortunately, that background was not the best... we both have dark hair (mine was actually dyed black at the time) and I was wearing a black dress, neither of which really show up well against a black background. Plus I'm doing my fairly standard blink because of the flash (I actually think it looks better than what I tend to do nowadays, which is try to keep my eyes open, fail, and end up looking like I just rolled out of bed and can't quite focus on anything).

And I know it's pretty obvious, but the guy in the photo with me there is

rackham. :-)