pickle boy part I

"Another post? 2 in one day? What have we, the people, done to deserve this?" Interpret this as you will (1/2 empty or 1/2 full?), but I assume this is what many of you are thinking. Well, I am officially on Spring Break and have 3 weeks to write, write, write! Actually, I have 3 weeks to finish, finish, finish 2 large papers and one newspaper media monitoring project, which further explains my new-found zeal to blog at an alarming rate.
Hold on-interjection in "real time". Rivers just emerged from the bedroom after being asleep for an hour. Squinting his eyes as they adjusted to the bright kitchen lights he said, "sorry, I'm just really hungry" and proceeded to the fridge to grab one single cookie and then headed back to bed. This gives me even more reason to write my intended post: how I met and fell in love with Rivers. I'm assuming that I'll have this blog converted to a book (a personal, scrab-book kinda book. I'm not getting ahead of myself here...) which I hope Harper will read and enjoy when she is old enough. As a result, I want to write her mama and papa's love story so she can know for herself just how lame and strange her parents really are.

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I first heard about the legendary "Tommy Rivers" from one of my BYU-Hawaii roommates in the Winter of 2006. Sitting around our living room in a great Mormon girl-talk session ("oh my fetching heck!! Did you hear that ____ held hands with ____ and they're not even dating?!) MW asked whether I had had the priviledge of setting eyes upon this beautiful creature. I thought I had, but wasn't sure. See, I was in a class with his older brother Jake, but was yet unsure how to tell them apart. Anyways, MW proceeded to inform me that "Tommy just got off his mission and he thinks all the girls are in love with him". This later proved to be far from factual and just something assumed by girls love-struck over this handsome newcomer, but, being an independent, savvy 19 year old girl, I made a pact with MW to never again acknowledge this narcissitic T. Rivs. Time went on and I never ran into him, leaving me little opportunity to avoid him at all...

Then I began working alongside Jake Puzey for the International Cultural Studies department as a "student researcher" (photocopies, anyone?). Jake was married at the time, but must have thought I was somewhat cool as he suggested that I date his younger brother, Tommy Rivs. "Oh-you mean the conceited guy just off his mission? Thanks but no thanks, man. Plus, I'm dating a guy who drives a Mercedes..."

As fate would have it (literally), in the Spring of 2006 I moved into a house with 3 girls who were each equally and completely obsessed with this Tommy Rivers character. Ironically, I even gave one girl kaniving tips on how to get him to notice her. ("Play it cool. Gently touch his arm when he's talking to you. Act disinterested. Can you do a cartwheel? Good. Just do one in front of him. That should do the trick.") Ya, I was still dating Mr. Mercedes and thought I was too cool for school, and consequently, Tommy Rivers. I even started working with his little sister Anna, although due to a case of social anxiety on my part, our relationship at the time consisted of "Hey...I'm almost done with the computer so...."/"Ya, cool. I'll just be playing phone Tetris until you're done...." So up until this point, Rivers was an enigma, a mere shell of a man that had been so poorly represented by my peers, and I had believed all of the misrepresentations without ever uttering a word to him.

The first time I ever talked to Mr. McPopular was accompanied by one of my roomies, the one I was giving love advice to. Rivers worked in the Media Services lab in the library, and DW and I had to rent a movie to watch for class. In a twitterpated fluster that went something like: "Oh my gosh! There he is! K, come with me. Wait-you just go. What should I say? Ok, you just speak. How do I look. Eeeeee", and in this fashion, DW proceeded to meltdown. Being the love coach that I was (ha), I cooly waltzed up to the media counter. "Hey, man. Can we, like, rent a movie or what?" I asked with nonchalance. "Hey DW, how's it going?", Rivers said with sincerity and a kind smile on his face. Had I been wrong about this guy? DW then proceeded to introduce me to The Legend, and we had a brief conversation about French and Michael Moore. DW and I left and watched our movie in a cubicle. When Rivers was done with his shift, he came by our corner to ask how the movie was, and told us to have a good night. "Okay, DW, you were right. He is hot. And I think he's totally into you! Why else would he come say bye?!" I said encouragingly. And I didn't see him again until Fall of 2006...

TO BE CONTINUED.