Just skip. You don't want to read about someone else winning the lottery.

I am happier than the average person (and way happier than Matt 33+ years ago) in part because I have, for over 12,000 days, marveled at my unfathomably and entirely unreasonable good fortune in meeting Anne. 

It is human nature to acclimate to everything good (the hedonic treadmill), but October 1992 was, for me, like winning the lottery and being given proof of a personal loving god (who, for some reason, happens to hate most other sentient beings).  

I think this is the first picture I took of Anne, which was two days after we wed.

From you know where:

The truth, with love, is that the heart knows straightaway

–Hervé Le Tellier, The Anomaly

(Oct 16, 1992)

Because of weird scheduling issues – e.g., I was out of town a lot for an ecology class, and she was busy teaching and looking for jobs – Anne and I didn’t meet to “discuss outreach” until a Friday in mid-October. She came over to my place, which despite my efforts at cleaning and improving, was a poor-man’s bachelor pad that smelled of cat pee.

Maybe I cooked something, but neither of us remember. What I do remember is that we didn’t talk much about animals. We got right down to “outreach.” At one point, I leaned back and asked, “What do you want to do now?” She replied, “I’d like to give you a backrub.” “Oh,” I gushed. “Will you marry me?”

Let the record show that she just giggled. ...

This might be as good a spot as any to list some of the things we have in common: From a redneck, small-minded, cow-forsaken cowtown; easily high school valedictorian; raised Catholic (goes without saying by this point) and Catholic schools; male and female siblings; father a pharmacist, mother worked in the school system. 

...

Sunday, October 18, Anne went out for a run and stopped by my place. As she told me later, she was doubting that things could really have been what they seemed to be. (Before we met, she had decided she was never going to marry and made peace with it.) By the time she left to continue her run, she was certain she was falling in love. (As was I! Wheeeeeeeee!)

The next Students for Animal Rights meeting was Wednesday the 21st. She came over before, and on the famous futon, we were sorely tempted to … just skip the meeting. But we pulled back. ... That Thursday night, October 22 1992, was the last night we willingly spent apart.

We were scheduled to go to a concert by Ellis Marsalis and Marcus Roberts on Friday [October] 23rd [1992]. Again on the famous futon, again terribly tempted to skip, but again we went, left early, and rushed back. That night is when we declared we were wed. And we began our life of sin.

(“Wed” being the commitment, “marriage” being a formal legal contract. I didn’t know this distinction until writing this book. We didn’t care about words; we just knew. October 23 is the primary date we celebrate, inasmuch as we celebrate anything.)

They say youth is wasted on the young. But yee-haw – for the next year, we took full advantage of our youth and vigor. It was Time the First: The first time my life was truly and completely wunderbar and I recognized and appreciated it as so.