And then there were two.

Today is December 20, 2004. First of all, Happy Birthday, Mom. How does it feel to finally reach 39? I hope everything went perfectly for you today, and that you had a nice birthday. And I hope you won’t be too offended if I talk about other things in my blog entry tonight.

Because today is important to me for another reason in addition to my mom’s birthday. You see, five years ago tonight, I went to a Fugazi concert in Nashville. Fugazi is a punk band fronted by Ian McKaye, who is an activist, the former frontman of Minor Threat, a general anti-corporate spokesperson and all-around nifty human being. I was pretty excited about going to see Fugazi with two friends, but that's not why I'm telling this story. The really important thing about that night happened before we got to the show. The really important thing happened when we stopped at Taco Bell beforehand.

Now, I know that some of you have heard this story a million times, and some of you have not heard it at all. I'm gonna tell it anyway.

Five years ago tonight was the first time that I met Michael. I walked into Taco Bell behind my two friends and suddenly, the world splintered. My friends skidded off into universes of their own. The background store area was gone. And all there was, was me and this very beautiful green-haired boy behind the counter. That really was all that it took. One look, and I was in love.

I stumbled through a conversation with him. I don't remember much about what I said, but I do remember walking away with the distinct impression that he was intelligent and open-minded. The ordering process couldn't have lasted more than five minutes, but it will not be surprising to anyone who knows Michael and myself that during this time the group of us had swiftly made our way through a brief religious and philosophical discourse. You get people like us together, and that kind of thing just comes up naturally. He was perfect for me, and I knew it.

I went about the next few weeks telling my friends and family and coworkers that I had met the guy I was going to marry—the green-haired boy at Taco Bell. I didn't know his name. I didn't know anything about him. And maybe I was half joking because of that, but Taco Bell became my favorite place to eat, just so I could see him. And every time I saw him, I was reconfirmed that I was in love.

It took until late February for my friends to get sick of me talking about this boy without knowing his name or asking him out. It was a Wednesday night when my friend Jeff dragged me (literally dragged me) off the couch and into his car to go ask him out. But he wasn't there. It was Thursday night when I went to a concert with Elizabeth. I went to Taco Bell on the way to invite him to the show whenever he got off work, but once again, he wasn't there. I was totally bummed about this, because I had learned that he was always there on Thursdays. I was afraid he had quit and I had lost my chance forever. Elizabeth gave me a pep talk, and encouraged me to try again.

It was Friday night after work at Lenscrafters that I pulled into the drive-through lane at Taco Bell, and opened my wallet and realized I had no money. I was going to leave, but three other cars had already blocked me into the lane, so there was nothing to do but go through. I got to the intercom and heard, “Welcome to Taco Bell, can I take your order?” and my heart sank, because this guy had a thick, and I do mean thick, southern accent, which my green-haired boy did not. I ordered water because it was all I could afford on nothing.

He said, “... water.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“That’ll be... free.”

“Thanks,” I said.

I was very embarrassed, but there was nothing to do about it. My plan had been that while getting food at Taco Bell, I would casually ask out the green-haired boy like it was a spur-of-the-moment thing, but the lack of funds kind of negated that. Now I was stuck in line with no money and no green-haired boy. But whatever. I turned up the radio, and decided to make the best of it. I think Nirvana was playing.

The southern accent came back. “Welcome to Taco Bell, can I take your order?”

“Um... no. Still just water,” I said.

“Oh... well it's still free then,” he said.

The line wasn't moving. It was twenty minutes before I got to the window to collect my free water. I was wondering if I should act like the water had been worth the wait, or if I should flippantly mention how it sucks when you get stuck in the drive-through lane, or if I should just duck my head in an embarrassed manner and pretend I didn't exist.

The miracle happened when I was the second car in line. I looked up and that southern-accented honky was suddenly sharing the booth with my green-haired boy. And then the southern-accented honky left, and it was the green-haired boy who would be at the window to give me my water. And that was when I decided to turn the situation to my advantage.

“You just wanted water?” he asked.

“Yeah, that’s all.”

“That will be free,” he said.

“Thanks,” I said. “What time do you get off work?”

He paused for a moment, looking at me. “About 4am,” he said.

“Oh.” I was disappointed. “That’s a bit late for me. What are you doing next Tuesday?”

He grinned and leaned out the window. “I don't know,” he said. “Would you like my number?”

Would I?!

“Yes, I would.”

He bounded off and returned with a napkin and I don't really remember what happened after that because I was so thrilled that I had that napkin, but I suppose I made it through without saying anything REALLY embarrassing, so that was good. Moments later I realized I had forgotten to get his name, and all that was written on the napkin was “Corlew-y” and his number.

I called Dustin first. “I GOT HIS NUMBER!!!!”

“Great,” he said. “What's his name then?”

“I don't know.”

Now, by this time, I had seen Swingers enough times to know that you wait two days after you get someone's digits. But my friend Commie Paul (formerly Paul the Communist) said that I should call him Saturday night and invite him to the show we were at. But I didn't. I stuck to the two-day rule and called him Sunday night, to ask him out for Tuesday.

But once I got this Corlew-y person on the phone Sunday, he invited me to Waffle House with him and his friend Duke. I got his name this time. My heart was hammering and my hands were shaking and neither of my roommates was home, so I called my friend Dan for some moral support before I went to meet the green-haired boy.

“His name is Michael,” I said.

“Who?” said Dan.

“The green-haired boy at Taco Bell,” I said. “I'm going to meet him at Waffle House right now.”

“Oh, you mean that high-school looking green-haired boy at Taco Bell?”

“He doesn't look high-school,” I said dejectedly.

“Well, the only green-haired boy at Taco Bell that I can think of looks high-school.”

I had clearly called the wrong person for moral support. I called Dustin.

“Does he really look high-school?” I whined.

“Well, Kati,” said Dustin reasonably, “You have to admit the chance that someone with green hair who works at Taco Bell... is in high school.”

“Oh,” I said.

“But I'm sure you'll have a great time,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said.

At least my heart wasn't pounding and my hands weren't shaking quite so much.

So I walked into Waffle House, and here's the thing: Duke is one of Michael's best friends. He was Michael's best man, and they've known each other since elementary school. They are close, and have great chemistry—playing off each other while they talk. And that is the reason that when I walked into Waffle House, I thought, ‘Oh shit. He’s gay.’

I thought that he had invited me out with his boyfriend to show me, rather than tell me. I nearly bolted right then. But then I just shrugged and thought, ‘Oh well, he still seems cool. Maybe we can be friends.' So I sat down.

It seemed like forever, but eventually, Duke started talking about this girl he liked, and so my hopes perked again. And I also made sure to weave our ages into the conversation and found out that Michael was 18. He was totally legal. I was in the clear.

He was so mine.

We talked and we laughed and I drew a cartoon on a napkin for them because Duke wanted to know how Michael met people like me, and Michael and I wrote notes to each other and I admitted on a straw wrapper, “I like you.” By the time I left we were finishing each other's sentences, and we had pecked each other on the lips.

Later that night, Michael and Duke decided that I was the one for Michael, but you'll have to ask him for that story. I wasn't there.

Tuesday night was Waffles at Midnight at Elizabeth's house, and I had invited Michael along because it is always good to get a female friend to scope out a potential boyfriend. My sleep schedule was really weird at the time because I was taking 18 hours of classes and working two jobs. I never slept a whole night through. I would get half my sleep in the middle of the day, and the other half at some point between 6pm and 6am. That night, I went to bed at about 8pm, to wake up at 11pm, and was going to go back to bed for a couple of hours after my first morning class, or something like that. The thing was that I overslept and was an hour late picking up Michael. He had to call and wake me up.

In the Taco Bell parking lot, I fell to my knees, dramatically apologizing for being late, and he rolled his eyes and pulled me up and stopped my babbling by kissing me, which really threw me off. He said he wanted to make up for that bad kiss at Waffle House. I hadn't thought of it as a bad kiss, but I didn't tell him that, because I thought maybe I'd get more kissing out of it later.

Elizabeth approved of how he understood that I needed sleep and hadn't been upset for me not waking up on time, but she was skeptical because Michael didn't use to eat back then. She was suspicious of anyone who didn't eat. (For a very long time, she said that that was Michael's only flaw. Of course, he eats now, so now he's perfect.)

A few days later, I was skipping though campus with Dustin and he smiled and said that it was nice to see me “so unabashedly happy.” Liz, and quite a few others for that matter, continued to refer to Michael as 'Boy', short for 'the green-haired boy at Taco Bell', for a long time since that had been his name for so many months. They were all pleased I had finally asked out Boy after harping on about him for so long. My coworkers asked me how I did that. “I mean, did you just say, ‘I'd like two tacos and a side of boyfriend'?”

“Actually,” I said, “I just ordered water.”

However, I was determined that after a few past relationship burns that I would maintain control in this situation. I was going. to. take. it. slow.

But it was only, like, a week or two into the relationship when I woke up one night on the phone. As previously mentioned, Michael worked until 4am, and I had a random sleeping schedule, so I had told him that I didn't mind if he called in the middle of the night, even if he did wake me up. But because I wasn't getting a whole lot of sleep around that time, sometimes I didn't wake up all the way when someone called and I answered, which was a constant source of amusement to my friends since I would often be talking to dream characters and saying nonsensical things. Sometimes I would wake up half-way through a conversation and be like, “Hey, am I talking to someone?” and someone would laugh and say, “Good morning, Kati. This is _____. We've been talking for ten minutes now.”

So I was having this dream that I was talking with Michael in person, finally confessing to him the truth of how I hadn't dated in awhile since I had realized I had bad taste in men, and that he was the first person in a year and a half that I had wanted a relationship with, and he asked why, and I fessed up and told him that I thought he was my soulmate. And then I woke up and I was lying in bed and it was dark in my room and I had the phone to my ear and I panicked as I asked, “Um... hello?”

“Yeah, I'm still here.” It was Michael, and I had no clue as to how long we had been talking or how much of what I dreamt I said that I had actually said, and Michael never told me.

He spoke to me in German a lot, and I was pretty sure that he was telling me beautiful things, but he waited for me to be awake when I told him I loved him before he said it to me in English. I asked him how long he had felt that way and he said always. I asked him why he had never told me, and he said, “Because that's what German is for.”

“They” say that it takes six months to two and a half years for the honeymoon to end in a new relationship. It's been five years now for Michael and me, and here is the God's honest truth. I still get giggly when I see him. I still think that he is the cutest guy on Earth. I still love having religious and philosophical discussions with him. I still like him. And I still believe that he is the one for me.

But beyond that, Michael and I have been through a whole lot together. We know each other really well, our strengths and weaknesses, our likes and dislikes, our insecurities and prides. We can have whole conversations without saying anything. We can anticipate each other's next move. We can get into arguments and be confident that it'll be okay. With everything we've come through together, we know that we can rely on each other, and that we'll always make it through.

It feels simultaneously as though the past five years have flown by, and that I've known Michael forever. He's my best friend, my moral support, my sidekick, my jester, my counselor, my lover, my ally, my mate. I love him, and I like him. I respect him. I want him. I choose him. He is my favorite. He is his own.

But he's also mine.