My friend Amanda made us this custom illustration, and I cannot get over how incredibly adorable it is. If you'd like to see more of her work, check out her blog.
So some backstory: Sean and I met about a year ago at a Reddit r/Columbus meetup (that I hosted, since I had just moved to the city). We had so much fun at this meetup that we decided to make it a weekly thing, and thus Bar Thursdays were born.
See, we even sat at the same table :)
I don't really drink, but it was fun to meet up with people every week (for a couple months we played trivia, which I enjoy quite a bit). Sean and I played on the same trivia team quite a few times, but we weren't particularly good friends until I saw a post on r/Columbus about a David Bowie movie that was showing at a local theater. As I was leaving the meetup (early, because I am a fart), I asked if anyone wanted to go see the movie with me. Sean said, "Sure, I'll go see that," and we made plans to get dinner and go see it.
We met at the Blue Danube, which, as Sean describes it, is a place where you can "get a burger and it won't kill you." Take that as you will. His friend Bart joined us, we had a
We had a casual friendship after that, grabbing food here and there, texting once in a while (one of my favorite interactions was that he texted me on Thanksgiving to let me know that the undefeated Packers were winning, and not realizing that he knew almost nothing about football, I replied, "Uh, obviously." I didn't know he was trying to impress me at that point. :)...but then two things happened that solidified our friendship.
The first was a minor emergency that I had. Of course, I call it a minor emergency, anyone else would...probably not call it that. It was November, and since I had moved in to my apartment, my lock had been only working sporadically. I got to my door and couldn't get it open...so, of course, I started crying. I was new to the city, didn't have many friends...and felt very, very stupid for not being able to get my door open. I called a friend of mine who only lived a block or two away, and he didn't answer. I started to panic some more, and mentally ran through a list of people I could call who would help me and who wouldn't mock me terribly for being unable to get my door open. Sean was the only person I could come up with. So I called him, crying, and he agreed to come right over to help me. He finally showed up (I called at 1 PM, so, naturally, I woke him up and he had to shower), and it took him about 30 seconds to open my door. Simultaneously humiliated and relieved, I started to cry. Allowing me to save face, Sean offered to take me to lunch. I had errands to do that day, but I knew I wasn't going to get anything done because if Sean left I'd just cry and hug my cat, so we went off to lunch.
After that, we started hanging out pretty frequently, drawn together largely by a love of food and a hatred of eating alone. Sean took me around the city, showing me his favorite restaurants, and we got to try some cool places together.
We very rarely made plans, and I would often be at work and think about how I wanted to relax alone that night...but then as soon as I got home from work, I'd text Sean and suddenly he'd be over, and we'd be watching Parks and Recreation, or playing video games, or just talking. We went to see Fun. together, and Radiohead, and we went to DC together for the documentary that I'm in. He also took a day off work to take care of me after I had a colonoscopy.
About a week before SSA Con, power went out in most of Columbus, which included my place, but not his. He invited me over to crash the night it happened, but I was stubborn and refused...until the next morning, when I woke up and it was 90+ degrees in my apartment and my cat and I were overheating. We spent the day in his AC'd apartment...until that night, when I ended up having a super bad Crohn's flare up and was hospitalized. They sent me home around 2 AM, with the warning that if I couldn't keep food down, I should come back. Of course, the next day...I was in Puke City. Back to the ER we went!
I was sitting in my hospital bed, waiting to be seen by a doctor, and holding a puke bag in front of me. I was pretty miserable (being in the hospital, away from family...kind of scary), I was crying and I said, "I'm sick and in the hospital and there's no one in this town who loves me." (because I'm a whiner). Sean said, "But I love you." And then he looked away, naturally. So he didn't realize that I said, "I love you, too" back to him...and I semi-whispered it...we'll say it was because my throat was raw from vomiting, but maybe I was a little nervous, too. Then we had that awkward (or adorable), "Oh...you didn't hear that, did you?" "Wait, what did you say?" conversation...it was all very cute. :)
Once Sean and I started dating "officially" (as in, made it happen on fb), he moved in, and of course we started talking about marriage (as you do when you just start dating). It honestly made things easier, because at that point we were at one place or the other every single day, and it was getting difficult to cook because we had to keep track of where certain things were when cooking).We kind of both knew we wanted to marry each other, and we'd often make jokes about when and where we'd propose to each other, or how we'd do it (sort of like Jim freaking out Pam on The Office by fake proposing to tie his shoe, etc.). We even went to the mall one day and looked at rings (and commemorated it by getting "just ducky" photos). The discussion turned to which one of us was going to do the proposing-- and Sean said he'd like me to do it. So, I started planning.
So, fast forward to now. If you read my previous entry, it's about my surgery (which went mostly well, save for a few hiccups in the post-surgery recovery). If you were following twitter or FB, I mentioned that the person to see for updates was Sean on twitter.
I woke up from surgery, and they kept me in a shared recovery room, which apparently made me very agitated (I was coming up from anesthesia...keep in mind that I don't remember any of this, it has just been relayed to me). They moved me to my single room, and my parents and Sean were sitting around the bed. Apparently I was very out of it, and my parents said they were going to go back to their hotel room to rest while I slept off the anesthesia (since my parents were nice enough to come down to Ohio from Wisconsin for my surgery).
I guess this upset me a lot, and I demanded (in a semi-conscious state) that they stay. Confused, but concerned for me, they agreed. Less than five minutes later, I told them I wanted them to leave the room. They said they would go back to the hotel room...but I said that wasn't okay. They needed to leave and come back. I kept suggesting that they go to the cafeteria or go for a walk and come back in a 20 minutes. Seeing how adamant I was, they agreed.
When they left the room, I turned to Sean (who had been diligently sitting at my side, holding my hand), and told him how much I loved him, how much he meant to me, how he was the most important person in the world to me...and then I asked, "Will you marry me?" and he said yes, and we kissed, and it was awesome. :)
Except for...I just had Sean proofread this entry, and he said that's not how it went down at all. Here is a more accurate summary from someone who was there and NOT waking up from anesthesia:
When they left the room, I turned to Sean (who had been diligently sitting at my side, holding my hand), and said, "I gotta ask you a question." (Keep in mind, I am not saying this very clearly, because, you know, drugs.) Sean humored me and said, "Okay..." and I replied, "Will you marry me...for real?" Sean said, "Of course." This is almost too embarrassing to write, but for the sake of honesty (and hilarity), I'm going to tell you. I then asked, "Was that a good enough proposal?" Sean laughed and said, "of course it is." I then druggedly suggested that he tell my parents when they come back, and when they did, we both blurted it out.
Now, remember that story, and remember that this was my face when I woke up from anesthesia:
...and he's agreed to marry me. :)
I have no idea what is wrong with him (okay, well, actually, I have a few ideas), but I couldn't be happier. :)
Edit: Oh, and the funniest part is...a few days ago, I asked Sean if he was okay with how we got engaged. He said yes, because he could tell I had been planning it for a few days...it was like the "porp." If you don't get that, read this: http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/09/party.html :)
