20 years

Some time ago, I met this balding, boyishly cute computer geek with twinkly blue eyes.

And he proceeded to steal my heart. (You can read all about that story here, if you feel inclined.)

After some gentle persuasion...

...we got hitched. Still the best decision I ever made.

Happy anniversary, honey. What do you say to another 20?

How it happened, part 6

[NOTE: This is the end of the story... if you haven't already read the beginning, now would be a good time.]

HAT was Captain Midnight doing all this time? Well may you ask. He had been keeping himself quite busy in the preceding few weeks.

First, he'd spoken privately with Podkayne. She had created a section of the BBS that was hidden and inaccessible to me, where Captain Midnight had announced to all the regulars that he was going to ask TPK to marry him, and requested advice as to how it should be done. Comments ranged from the clever ("Take her rock hunting, say 'I found a really cool one over here' and present her with the ring") to the amusingly horrific ("Jump naked out of a cake with 'Marry me and all this will be YOURS!' written across your chest in red lipstick"). Wisely, CM ended up taking none of this proffered advice, or this story might have had a very different ending indeed.

Second, the week before our little picnic, Captain Midnight and Ender had gone shopping for the ring. In fact, my mother got to see the ring before I did, after CM first swore her to secrecy.

Meanwhile I was still speaking to travel agents, steam issuing from my ears. Mom had the unenviable task of trying to keep me from hopping the next flight from Salt Lake City to Heathrow WITHOUT spilling the beans that question-popping was imminent. To her credit, she did a fine job.

"You don't have to leave this very instant," she pleaded.

"I don't see why not. He's being a jerk. Deserves a swift kick in the butt."

"Honey," she said, "you know he loves you."

"Yes, I do, and that's part of what's making me angry! If he loves me he shouldn't be pulling stunts like this."

"You've got to give him a chance," she said, trying to tell me something with her eyes. "Maybe it isn't what you think."

Around mid-week, I got another email from Captain Midnight, formally asking me out on Saturday. "Wear something nice," it said. "I am taking you out to dinner." I figured he was just trying to make it up to me; he must have known how much he'd hurt me the week before. Still muttering and grumbling, I was dragged to the store by Mom (I think I've already mentioned here how much I hate shopping for clothes), where we managed to find Smokin' Dress #1 and Smokin' Dress #2. On Saturday evening I was ready for my loving-but-annoyingly-recalcitrant honey to arrive.

He came up to the door, looking devastatingly handsome in a suit, and escorted me down to the car. (I'm pretty sure the moment the front door closed, my mother got on the phone and started calling EVERYONE SHE KNEW with the news. But I've got to give her credit for holding off until then.) We drove to what was, at that time, the nicest restaurant in town, and proceeded to have a lovely meal. To this day Captain Midnight swears he was cool as a cucumber that evening, but I want you to know he is lying through his teeth; I couldn't help noticing his hands were shaking all during dinner.

After dessert we took a drive up the canyon, to a little park adjacent to Bridal Veil Falls. We walked along the trail until we came to a little bench overlooking the river, and he suggested we sit down. We snuggled together for a while, and then he started to talk about how he'd fallen in love with me and how being with me made life so much better, and how much he wanted me to be his wife, and -- I swear, this is how thickheaded I was -- I didn't realize what was going on until he actually reached into his suit coat pocket and brought out the ring box.

I looked at the ring. Then I looked at Captain Midnight. Then I looked at the ring again. Then I said sardonically, "Gee, this is all so sudden."

He laughed. "You want some more time to think about it?"

"Oh, no, I'd say I've already HAD some time to think about it..." He laughed again, and I relented and said yes, of course I'd marry him, and I loved him with all my heart, and what the heck was all this "I don't see marriage in the near future" crap? He tried defending himself by saying that while marriage wasn't in the near future, he'd hoped engagement was right around the corner and -- oh whatever, goofball, shut up and kiss me.

So then we went to his parents' place, and they were all thrilled and excited and welcomed me to the family. He then revealed the super-double-secret section of the BBS where they'd been discussing our engagement, which I read with much laughter.

It was very late when we finally got back to my house, but the place was lit up like a Christmas tree and everyone in the family was awake, offering various lame excuses for being up. They were all on pins and needles to find out what had happened. After realizing that pretty much everyone under the sun knew I was getting engaged before I did, I was really tempted to pretend nothing special had happened. My plan was to wish Captain Midnight a good night, thank him for a lovely evening, then go downstairs to bed without telling them anything. But I just couldn't go through with it. I gave him a big goodnight hug in the front room and then said to my mom, over his shoulder, "By the way, we're engaged."

"I KNOW!" she crowed.

My prophecy to Captain Clueless came true, by the way; CM and I were married in early September of that same year, in the Salt Lake Temple.

Have we always been as blissfully happy as we were when we were "courting" and newly married? Well, no; every marriage has its problems now and again, but that goes with the territory. Marriage, even among two people who are perfectly well-matched, is like a particularly intimate form of culture shock. But it's been so very worth it to work out the differences.

And I can't honestly say I love him as well now as I did then, because there really isn't any room for comparison. Over time I've watched him do things and discovered reasons to love him even more, and on a deeper level, than I could have possibly imagined when we were first married. There's so much to know about one person; it's like discovering a new world. You can't understand how rich the experience of loving someone can be until you've been with that person for years, think you know him by heart, and then begin to realize there's still more to learn and explore. It's a good thing we decided on forever, because something tells me that's how long I'm going to need.

Some people talk about love at first sight. I'm sure that sort of instantaneous attraction does come along once in a while. But it wasn't like that for me. I fell in love slowly, gradually -- with a man who didn't catch my eye at first, but whose thoughts and words and actions (and twinkly blue eyes), taken in over time, led me to the realization that I'd stumbled across someone absolutely amazing and that I'd be an utter fool to let him go out of my life.

So that's how it happened, more or less.

How it happened, part 5

Go back to the beginning or back to Part 4?

N our next date, a beautiful summer Saturday, I invited Captain Midnight to go on a picnic with me up the canyon. He readily agreed. I fixed up a lovely pic-a-nic basket, fetched my beloved, and we drove way up the canyon until we reached our destination: a spacious clearing, filled with wildflowers and surrounded by quaking aspens. There we ate our lunch and smiled and talked and smooched and generally behaved like two happily infatuated geeks in love.

Eventually -- this all being part of my evil plot -- I steered the conversation around to the question, "What would you like to be doing a year from now?" CM suggested a few things he'd like to have happen in the future; then, as I'd hoped he would, he turned the question around on me.

I took a deep breath. "Well," I said, "to be honest, that all depends on you." (This may not sound like a big deal, but for someone as shy as I was, a comment like this was as blunt as I got.)

Captain Midnight looked at me, and for the first time in a while I couldn't read his expression. "Well, Sooz," he finally said, "I've got to be honest with you. I do love you, but I just don't see marriage in the near future."

I tried very hard to keep my face neutral and pleasant. I thanked him for being honest with me. There really wasn't much else to say. I tried to make additional small talk, and failed. So I gathered up the remains of the picnic and suggested we drive home.

Something interesting happened to my feelings as our elevation dropped. In our picnic spot, I simply felt as though my heart had been shattered. But as we drove down the canyon (and presumably as I grew less and less light-headed), heartbreak gradually gave way to indignance. So what exactly was I to him, then? Good enough to fall in love with, good enough even to meet the family, but not quite good enough to marry? What was wrong with this man anyway? I knew he was in love. Couldn't he commit? Was he scared, or just indecisive? Dammit, I wasn't going to take this crap lying down!

By the time I'd dropped off CM, I had a good mad on. I went home, smacked down the car keys on the counter and declared to my mother, "That's it, I'm going to England! I've wanted to go for ages, I've got the money, and Captain Midnight doesn't seem to want me... maybe he'll appreciate me more when I'm in another country for a few weeks. RASSNFRASSN GRACKNBRICKN stupidfrackn man..." and so on for another 20 minutes.

I had my passport ready. I had been squirreling away money ever since I'd been hired at WordPerfect, originally with the intent of visiting England, but later with an eye toward funding a possible wedding. Now all my old plans came roaring back with a vengeance. Was that how he wanted it? Fine. If he didn't see marriage in the near future, he wouldn't see me for the foreseeable future either. See how he liked that. Grrr.

But Captain Midnight didn't know what I was up to yet. He was busy executing a few plans of his own.

The end is in sight: read Part 6.

How it happened, part 4

Go back to the beginning or back to Part 3?

FTER an uncharacteristic silence of nearly a day from Captain Midnight, during which time I began to fret that I'd finally said something really offensive, The Letter arrived in my email.

First of all, it stated that although CM had dated Beatrice for a while and he liked her well enough, he had never felt the crucial spark that would indicate it was time to take things to the next level, so his romantic relationship with her was at an end. Second, it stated in slightly old-fashioned language that he would like to "court" me and see what happened next -- but only if it didn't ruin the friendship we already had.

Well. This was unexpected. (Remember, I hadn't heard the orchestral tiptoe noises.) Not to mention intriguing. I already knew Captain Midnight, I liked him as a friend, but what would it be like to date him? Would it mess things up between us? After a while I decided there'd be no harm in going out with him once or twice, just to see what it was like, and I wrote back to tell him I was interested in dating.

It's hard to explain what happened next, unless you've had the same experience. We started going out almost immediately, and everything just -- clicked. From the end of January, when CM sent The Letter, to Valentine's Day two weeks later, we were doing things together nearly all the time. We went to comedy clubs, we went to movies, we went to lunch and dinner together, we'd sit in the car after dates just talking and talking about everything that interested us, until nearly 2 a.m. We went to Hansen Planetarium to watch a laser light show... and when, in the middle of this show, he reached over and took my hand, I sat there smiling goofily in the darkness with little hearts going *pop* *pop* *pop* above my head.

On the evening of Valentine's Day, when the house was quiet and we were alone, he took the plunge and, for the first time, leaned forward and kissed me gently. (And I, being an unrepentant smart alec, ruined the moment by saying, "Finally!")

One day, when CM was over at my house and we were snuggled together on the couch watching TV, there was a knock at the front door. It was Captain Clueless. He was feeling unhappy about his latest girlfriend and decided to seek me out for free counseling -- only to discover that I was decisively not available to chat. During our brief conversation at the front door, I admitted to Captain Clueless that I wouldn't be surprised if Captain Midnight and I were married by the end of the year. He seemed stunned by this information. For the first time ever, Captain Clueless left my house feeling frustrated, while I went away from the exchange feeling happy and contented.

At first I wasn't sure whether I was in the advanced stages of twitterpation. I'd always thought I would need to know a man for years before I was ready to commit to something as life-changing as marriage. How could you really know, otherwise, whether this was the person you wanted to spend forever with? So when, after three months of steady dating, I began to wonder when Captain Midnight was going to get on the stick and just ask me already, I knew something was different about this relationship. I didn't fear making changes in my life, I wasn't afraid of committing, and the thought of having children with this man filled me, not with the usual nauseated revulsion, but a euphoric feeling of "Oh hey, that'd be neat..." Gradually, I came to the realization that I was neither obsessed nor temporarily infatuated, but had really, honestly, completely fallen in love with Captain Midnight. I just wanted to be with him and make him happy and I couldn't bear the thought of existence without him. For the first time in my life, I could say with certainty that I knew this was the right one.

But after six months, we were still happily dating and I began to wonder whether he had any intention of popping the question. Oh, I knew he loved me; he showed it by words and actions, treating me like a queen, and we had gone naturally and unselfconsciously into talking about things like where we'd like to settle down together and how many children we'd like to have. He'd met my family, I'd met his family, and everyone seemed to think it was only a matter of time -- and yet it kept not happening. Maybe he had a fear of commitment?

In mid-June, I got tired of waiting. I finally decided to take matters into my own hands and press the issue.

Dare you continue to Part 5?

How it happened, part 3

Go back to the beginning or back to Part 2?

 whole host of people came to Podkayne's F2F, cramming snugly into the living room. Most of them were people I'd already met at previous parties. We introduced ourselves to the new people, chatted and laughed and generally had as good a time as was possible without Toxic Punch being involved (this party occurred in the grim days before Toxic Punch had been invented). Somewhere in the midst of these festivities, a slim, rosy-cheeked guy with twinkly blue eyes and thinning blond hair inserted himself into the party. My first thought was that he looked vaguely familiar, although I couldn't place him. I wasn't all that surprised to discover that this was Captain Midnight.

After he introduced himself to the crowd, there was a quick round of introductions by alias. I don't remember what I said by way of introduction, but his response was, "Oh, so you're The Pirate King!" I deduced by this that I'd made some sort of impression on him, favorable or otherwise.

Later, he buttonholed me and asked why it was that Podkayne and I looked so familiar. We spent about ten minutes ruling out different places where we might have met, until finally I mentioned Podkayne's birthday party and his eyes lit up.

"You were at that party too?" he asked. As it turns out, he was George's roommate -- yes, the one who had barely made an impression, to the point that I hadn't even remembered his name.

I don't remember much of anything else that happened at the party, probably because we spent most of the time talking to each other, recreating in person the same kind of verbal banter we'd been writing on the BBS. Captain Midnight was funny, smart, personable, and (unlike many of the guys I'd met via BBS) socially savvy. And hey, he was boyishly cute too. What can I say, I've always been a sucker for twinkly blue eyes.

Even though I still had my eye on Captain Clueless, I did notice Captain Midnight, in my peripheral vision, showing up at a lot of Podkayne's parties. (It's a shame life doesn't have a soundtrack, or I'd have heard the Warner Bros.-style orchestral tiptoe sound he was making as he started sneaking up on me.) We'd hang out together at F2Fs; we swapped books and music and computer games; and I let him see me pretty much as I was, warts and all. I was pleased when he and I both got hired on at WordPerfect around the same time. Between chats on the BBS and intra-office email at work, we were in almost constant communication for months -- and rarely did a week go by when I didn't get an email from CM inviting me to join him for lunch at the Hard Disk, the company café. And I started wondering... what was up with this guy, anyway? If I didn't know better, I'd say he was, well, interested in me. This set off alarm bells. I began, subtly at first, then more overtly, to steer conversations back toward his girlfriend Beatrice.

Then came The Letter.

On to Part 4!

How it happened, part 2

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ODKAYNE'S BBS gained popularity pretty quickly, especially among the college-age and older crowd who were more interested in conversation than in playing online games. (In the early 1990s, most local BBSes focused almost exclusively on gameplay and file sharing.) On average, we'd get one or two new people signing up for accounts every night.

Most of these people I knew only by their aliases, although as co-sysop I had access to their real names (everyone was required to give a real name and contact information in order to receive an account). Because it's nice to have a face to put with a name, however, Podkayne would occasionally announce F2F (face-to-face) parties for board participants. She'd give the time, date and place (usually either at her home or in a public park), pick a theme, and people would show up and goof off. Intense curiosity usually got the better of shyness among this group, as most people wanted to know what everyone else really looked like.

Not too many months after Podkayne's birthday bash, a new user with the rakish-sounding alias of Captain Midnight started to call and leave messages on the board. His girlfriend, alias Beatrice of Castle Anthrax, had given him the number so that he could participate in the friendly chaos. His posts were funny and well-written, and usually detailed his mythic adventures flying through the galaxy in his trusty, somewhat rusty spaceship, the Flying Duck Flop. I was intrigued and amused by these comments, and often the nature of what he'd written provoked a response. It wasn't too long before Captain Midnight and The Pirate King were matching wits and trading banter on the BBS.

I didn't take any of this very seriously, for a couple of reasons. First, at the time I was heavily pining after a guy who shall hereafter be known as Captain Clueless in order to protect the guilty party. (Several friends and I referred to him by this alias on occasions when I was venting my frustration with him.) Back in high school I'd tried being direct on several occasions, boldly letting a guy know I was interested in dating him, and had promptly gotten shot down for my trouble; this failure had made me gun-shy of simply declaring my feelings. So I waited for Captain Clueless to make the first move. And although I waited, and waited, and waited, and several times received glimmerings of the idea that he might take a mild interest in me, eventually I realized the truth. I was focusing most of my romantic interest on a man who saw me as many things: a buddy, a confidant, a counselor, a default date, a partner in crime -- but almost never as a woman. (Yeah, you use a masculine alias online in the hope you won't be hit on, and in person the one guy you actually want to take an interest in you doesn't realize you're a girl. Warning: high irony content.)

Second, of course, it was already well established that Captain Midnight -- whoever he was -- had a girlfriend. I knew and liked Beatrice, had met her at a previous F2F, and I wasn't about to try zeroing in on her boyfriend. As far as I was concerned, Captain Midnight was taken; he was therefore perfectly safe to talk to and kid around with.

Still, I couldn't help but harbor a glimmer of interest as to who this Captain Midnight person was. I wondered what other interests he had, whether we'd possibly had any classes together at BYU. I wondered what he looked like. So when Podkayne scheduled another F2F at her house, I decided I'd probably better show up. It was my duty, after all; I was the co-sysop.

Continue to Part 3.

How it happened, part 1

Podkayne of Mars liked to do things a little differently.

I'd already been well aware of that for the several months I'd been her co-sysop on a local BBS. In that time I'd discovered that Podkayne hadn't used her legal name since high school, was deep into science fiction fandom, liked to dye her hair funky flavors and preferred to go barefoot everywhere -- and when she threw a party, it was bound to be likewise quirky and fun. So I wasn't too surprised to discover that she'd planned a "roughing it" birthday bash in a campground up Provo Canyon, where all the food was to be cooked on site in Dutch ovens over an open fire. Hand-cranked ice cream would follow. I figured I was up for some birthday festivities, and I'm always game for ice cream.

Of course, Podkayne wasn't her real name, just as The Pirate King wasn't my real name. Podkayne and I ran an alias-only BBS where all participants were encouraged to pick their own nicknames. (Podkayne had picked one of her favorite heroines from Heinlein; I chose a name that both reflected my love for Gilbert and Sullivan and camouflaged the fact that I was female. I really didn't want hormonal teenage guys from the board hitting on me.)

It was a beautiful summer evening, and the campground was filled with party guests -- some family, some friends, some regulars from the BBS, and quite possibly a few total strangers who had gotten lost and decided not to pass up a chance to score some free dinner. Podkayne's husband, who went by the alias Ender Wiggin, had enlisted several family members skilled in the art of Dutch Oven Fu to help with the actual cooking. I tried unsuccessfully to elude the mosquitoes, met a handful of new people -- a few Zoobies (the local nickname for BYU students), a guy named George and his roommate, Ender's younger sisters who would later join the BBS crew -- and caught up with quite a few friends who were, unbeknownst to me, mutual friends of Podkayne. (As it turned out we had a phenomenal amount of friends in common. Had Facebook existed at that time, it would have suggested her as a friend forty times over.)

Dutch oven food is usually pretty no-nonsense, but this crowd knew how to make campfire food sing. As the twilight guttered out into night, we ate and warbled songs and goofed off and inhaled ludicrous gobs of homemade ice cream and generally had ourselves a great time... with the exception of Podkayne, who was dreadfully sick the next day. The ice cream had been made with a generous measure of culinary lavender, and while it was delicious, Podkayne found much to her regret that her digestive system prefers lavender for external use only. We tried to avoid using it as an ingredient at subsequent parties.

Fortunately the lavender didn't bother me. I went home happy, smelling of campfire, with half a dozen mosquito-bite welts, not once suspecting that I'd just met the man I was going to marry.

Intrigued? Continue to Part 2!