Things like.

Say.

"Where have you been all this time?"

"You're getting married. Wait. You. Married. Getting. Huh. Huh?"

Or perhaps: "Daath updated. I need to look outside for frogs and flying dildos."

Rather than do an "I'll update soon, and by soon I mean I'll gloss over this period in my life" update, let's try something unprecented in the 9 years that I've had this thing.

I am going to tag-team this update with the help of my fiancee. Julia spent countless hours (if you have one hand and shit for short-term memory) writing an epic. I have her permission to shamelessly post what I will. The twist is that I can add my own perspective and commentary. Thus, you get a few advantages: 1) wit and rage; 2) sufficiently informative backstory; 3) getting to know a woman who is, without hyperbole, the most perfect match for me. It is quietly ridiculous. She is a badass, thoughtful, rat-loving, steampunky, incredibly intelligent, artsy, able to rock whatever her hair decides to do on a given day, counter-culture cook with a penchant for techno, goth, and lots of geek shit. Oh, and she is gorgeous. She is a woman who single-handedly showed me without a word what true love is, that marriage is the only conclusion when that happens. She outshines, outpaces, and outdoes every single female I have ever been interested in. That is not emotion talking. That is a fact built on a boneyard of vapid girls (and a literal few women).

She is in italics. I am regular. I will occasionally censor proper names or specific locations in brackets.

"...I can't even believe how much has happened in the last few months, not to mention the past two years. You probably won't either, but I'm laying it out there for...some reason. Possibly pure narcissism, but more likely because in a year or two I'll be back here, reading this post and comparing it to what's going on in my life that day. It's a recurring theme for me. Then again, this has quite possibly been one of the oddest and most amazing periods of my entire life, and I feel myself poised at a precipice with two distinct and equally terrifying (albeit for entirely different reasons, and one sort of terrifying is actually quite wonderful) prospects stretching out below me. My life could be the stuff dreams are made of, or it could crash and burn at my feet in a screaming hailstorm of blood, shit, and the tears of a generation.

Sounds fun, eh? Yeah."

Yeah.

There has been more development and drama in the last four months than the previous 3 years. On a personal level, we got to know each other and come together without a whole hell of a lot of say in the matter. It just HAPPENED. And it happened quick. I can say I'll try to do some justice to it, but who knows.

" I don't really want to get into things too much, because this is going to take long enough as it is. First off, Tom and I were dating. We started "officially" dating the day after Christmas, 2008. It was a good relationship. We had an awful lot in common, including hobbies, favorite music, favorite movies, and no few personal habits. There were a lot of things we didn't have in common, but those things we usually were able to work around or through without too much difficulty. Some things would repeatedly crop up and, over time, were becoming increasingly difficult to ignore, work through, or otherwise "fix", but at no point were either of us in any doubt of our commitment to each other. There was talk of marriage, although Tom was of the opinion that there were several things he wanted to change in his life, as well as several things he wanted cemented in our relationship, before anything concrete was set in place. The usual comment was "in five years or so." I was willing to wait, although after a while it started to feel like it was always going to be "five years or so from now," no matter how many years had passed.

*shrug*"

There's enough detail to fill a novella about their relationship. This isn't the place.

You all have been acquainted with my opinion about Thomas. I will save my updated musings about Little Lord Fauntleroy/The Boy Who Cried Wolf until later.

"Things started changing during the last 8 months or so...mostly due to the various stresses Tom was undergoing from mistreatment at the hands of a psychotic roommate and a leeching manipulative "friend." Between those two people, and the soul-sucking management techniques he was facing at [Souless IT Company], his self-esteem and confidence were at an all-time low. I devoted as much of my time, energy, and emotional support to him as I possibly could, trying to keep him from dropping into the bottomless pit of depression he seemed to constantly be circling. It left me little or nothing for myself, though, which caused no end of strain, since we were both entirely focused on his issues and feelings, and neither of us was paying any attention to mine. The mantra was always "it'll all be better when we move in together again in August," since we'd been so happy when I'd lived with him in his apartment on Londonderry. I think we were both hoping it'd be some sort of magic bullet that would instantly cure all the ills that had befallen us and our relationship over the past year. Stupid, I know, but people under a lot of stress don't always think so clearly, y'dig? And in the way of all people under major life duress, we yearned for "the good old days.""

They seemed quite happy. Granted, in the early days there was occasionally some tension that seeped through, but I had no idea. This is about where I come in.

"Around June, I was randomly contacted, by way of a friend request on Facebook, by someone I'd met two years previously: Auriel. Back in May of 2008, only a few months after we'd moved here, I'd seen his photography show at ERC and purchased a print of a burned-out old house that had called to me so strongly I shelled out money I really didn't have at the time to buy it. In order to pay for the piece and have it officially given to me, I had to meet him at ERC, which I did. We talked for maybe a quarter of an hour, about what drew me to the piece, how it was shot, our shared interests and hobbies (i.e. dancing at Inferno), and that was about it. We parted with promises of keeping in touch, but after just a few emails exchanged, we lost touch (partly because he'd mentioned being incredibly busy with work/school, and I didn't want to bother him). So it was quite a surprise to see him randomly friending me on Facebook over two years later, as you might imagine. There was a bit of contact across the fence, as it were, with the occasional comment posted or "like" button clicked, but not much else. Honestly, at the time when he sent me the friend request, I couldn't even remember what he looked like. Perusing his photos gave me a bit of an "oh yeah" reaction, but considering how much people's looks can change over two years, it wasn't much."

Auriel being me for people playing the home game. Photo in question is this one. We actually went to the spot where that old house once was. The only thing left is a few inches of foundation, a rectangle of grass-fed ruin set against light snow off of Woodward in Detroit. Julia and I held hands and admired. It is the most delicious irony that I met my future wife not because she regularly goes to the Inferno, not because she went to some of the same shows Emily and I went to, but because I did a 3/4 profile shot of a ruined wreck of a house infested by a gen-u-ine demon.

"Anyway, Tom and I put out a generalized "Hey, anyone with working limbs want to help us get all our stuff moved?" call, which a few people answered, Auriel being one of them. We said, "Sure, come on down!" he came on down, helped us move, and hung out to enjoy the new place with us afterward. I'd asked him at some point during the day why he'd randomly decided to get back in touch with me, and he explained that he and his girlfriend of 3 years had split back in March; after a while, he noticed that his circle of friends had severely lessened and wanted to make new friends that weren't tied to an ex. He'd remembered that I had seemed pretty cool, still had my email, and looked me up on Facebook. Voila.

Well, we all thought he seemed pretty neat, so I told him he could consider himself officially invited to all the group activities we were regularly scheduling: bowling nights, Rifftrax nights, random hangout nights, gaming nights, etc. etc. He seemed to dig that idea."

I pretty much spent the first 3 months post-relationship working about 65 hour weeks, watching 'Lost', going to the gym, and hanging out with Erik and Amy. Rachel and I also got close and regularly did marathons of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'. Meat space socializing was a crawl. So I wanted to insinuate myself into another group, just like I have many times before over the years. I honestly figured I'd helped them move and it'd be a one-shot 'yeah that was fun' kind of a deal.

This is actually where my last post ended. And given the length of this post, hey, I'm gonna end it here too.

BUT. BUT. I have plenty of material to work with on this latest mega update. So it should only be another 2 months!

You don't laugh because it's true. Or do.

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