friday

the weeks go by so fast, lately. and only six left before summer. can you believe it? at this time last year i was sitting behind a desk looking for teaching jobs, and now here i am with almost a year of teaching behind me. the difference between the first day of school and today is huge. i feel like i know what i'm doing, now.

so, will's and my engagement party is next weekend and we're really excited. will's dad will be in the city, as well as my parents. we've invited tons of friends. i can't wait.

tonight we're going back to the old meeting grounds - red lobster. unfortunately, our original red lobster (downtown on ohio and dearborn) is now a big, soulless chase bank, so we'll have to drive to lincolnwood tonight. to some, red lobster might be able to fall into the "soulless" category, with its relation to the massive chain that is darden (think olive garden, bahama breeze). however, to will and me it's a very special place.

after working at the red lobster in green bay for a good, hearty six months, i had saved enough money to move to chicago. several failed interviews later (and cartons of mcdonald's french fries as therapy), i made the agonizing decision to transfer to the downtown chicago red lobster. just south of the river, the chicago RL was the size of a football field, with the kitchen on one end and the bar on the other. contrary to the green bay restaurant's mostly girl cast, the chicago one was made up almost entirely of men. clients were rough, and no one seemed relatable.

my new vision of will has replaced the old, more vague picture, but i can certainly remember a good amount of details from my first day at the red lobster chicago. will approached me as i was getting my purse from the back coatroom. he said he has some friends in chicago and that we should exchange numbers. i gave him mine, he gave me his. with 100% honesty, i can say that it never entered my brain that he could have been attracted to me. my thoughts were that he was a nice guy who wanted to help me make friends. (am i naive or what?)

i left after 2 weeks, and will was out after a month. my clearest visual memory of him at red lobster will always be his side profile while filling up a soda cup at the machine - in his white shirt, black pants and big blue apron. i think this particular memory stuck because, to this day, i'm amazed at the distance from sternum to spine on that kid. built to be bulky. i thought he was so cute.

to make a long story short, will and i didn't connect again until months after we'd both said goodbye to the lobster. no one had called the other's phone number after the exchange. the internet brought us to one another in november. it's pretty amazing, really. an unlikely ending to our story, as i'd assumed we'd never see each other again.

anyway, it's back to the lobster tonight for some top notch seafood. i think will and i should write a letter to the president of darden letting him or her know that it was this fine seafood chain that helped us find one another. while i'm at it, here are a few other letters i could write:

1. Dear Lincoln Park High School,

Thank you for not hiring me. Although I deserved the job and would have kicked ass teaching your orchestra kids, I am eternally grateful for the rejection as I would have never met my future husband, Will.

2. To the state of California and the city of Atlanta,

Thank you for being too far away to move to. You may be warm most of the year, and Chicago may be obnoxiously windy and cold, but I needed to end up in Chicago for reasons stated above.

3. Dear Myspace and True.com,

Thank you for being the savvy social networks you are. To Myspace: thank you for incessantly advertising a free month of "True.com" on your homepage to the point where it was unavoidable for Will and me to at least try it out. (Still, why didn't any other Myspacers try it? God only knows.) Thank you to True.com for throwing my picture on Will's homepage exclaiming "Hey! Check out this girl!"

4. Dear Kappa Search,

Thank you for hiring Will that fateful October. You took a down-and-out young man and gave him reason not to join the Airforce. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

If I think of more, I'll post later. :)