April 2013
Hey Winifred.
I hope you always know how much your Dad and I love each other.
I hope its never a secret. I hope you can see it everyday. I hope you never
forget or have to be reminded. I hope it never grosses you out or makes you
uncomfortable. I hope you can look at us and know that our love is the kind of
love you ultimately want to have in your own life. Your Dad is hands down the
most important person to me in the entire world and has been for the past 10
years. We turned into the people we are today together. I cannot imagine life
without him. And that is why we love you so very much. Because we made you. You
are the very best of us both. You are the result of the love we have for each
other. You are the living, breathing, physical proof of us.
I am not trying to get too mushy on ya, kid. But, everything I
said is 100% true, and I hope that by now you know it.
That leads me to this: the story of how your Dad and I met - or
maybe more important to you, how you would eventually come to exist.
I was 17 (Yes, I was 17, and though its hard for me to admit it,
sometimes 17 is old enough). Your Dad was 24 (Yes, he was 24 - 7 years older
than me numerically but probably on the same level of maturity).
(As a quick aside, I am not advocating you hooking up with some
dude that is seven years older than you when you are technically still a
teenager and therefore a minor; however, in our case it worked out splendidly.
We are, however, a slim minority. I am not going to kick some dude out the door
for being older than you - just be careful.. and maybe bring him by for
dinner so we can make sure he’s a bad enough dude to be dating “Freddy
the Zuz” (this is your Dad’s new badass nickname for you - I approve on account
of its being both catchy and hardcore). Okay?)
It was the spring of 2003. I had only recently gotten my
driver’s license and I was driving around the city of Knoxville as much as I
could afford to pay for the gas (then it was only about a dollar a gallon so it
wasn’t super hard to afford). I was in a band with my only serious high school
ex-boyfriend Jay (we had only recently stopped dating after a period of 2
years) and another of my longtime high school friends Jon. We were called “The
Model Citizenz” (yes, spelled with a “z,” we were that hardcore). I sang and
played guitar, Jay was on drums, and Jon played bass. We made a demo with a
couple of original songs and were looking to try to get in to play some shows
anywhere that might take us.
A couple weeks before we made up our demo, I had made pseudo
friends with a guy named Arrison at a show I had recently attended at a
skatepark. I went there to see a friend of mine’s band play in a battle of the
bands and ended up really liking another band that was playing in the battle
called “Next to Never.” Arrison was a friend of theirs and as it turns out, was
one of the founders of a small local record label called “El Deth.” He noticed
I was enjoying Next to Never’s set and came over to give me the address of the
label’s website so I could find out more about them (he wrote it down on the
back of a flyer for a strip club.. I still have it somewhere…). I took it, and
engaged in some awkward conversation for a few minutes, and after arriving home
that night, I checked out the site. It had some music on it as I recall, but it
also had a message board (a place people could go and talk (type) to each other
about things related to the bands/label and shows that might be coming up). It
was pretty much just the bands’ circle of friends getting together to talk
online when they weren’t hanging out in real life. I chimed in on a couple of
threads, but mostly I just lurked and read other people’s posts.
OK, so, through this site, I found out about another show that
Next to Never was going to be playing at a bar in the Old City in Knoxville. I
somehow convinced my parents to let me go (I’m pretty sure I may have flubbed
the truth a bit… never do that), and I took Jon, Jay, and my best friend
Jennifer along with me. I got super cute-ed up. I can still remember what I
wore - a long sleeved black velvet dress with leopard print collar and cuffs,
white and black striped tights, and black patent leather (fake) sneakers
I bought from a second hand store (sadly, I have no photographic proof of
this). My hair was back in a ponytail as it was, at the time, really long
(about 4 inches below my shoulders) and dyed red. I had a pension for picking
out clothing that was both adorable/weird, but it worked (I’ve mostly toned it
down since then… mostly). As the four of us were walking in (this happened to
be an all ages show, or we would not have gotten to go), two guys held the door
open for us. One of them was wearing a black toboggan and had shoulder
length dark hair sticking out from underneath. That particular guy looked at us
and said, “What, are you guys like, in a band or something?” I kind of smirked
and kept walking. I am pretty sure Jay or Jon told him we in fact were in a
band, and the four of us continued on our way. It would not be later until that
I would realize that tobogganed gent was, in fact, your Dad.
Did I mention that I looked way cute that night? Apparently I
looked so cute, I attracted a gentleman suitor, but he did not actually say
anything to me at the show. We were there for a good long while (much
past curfew), and we left after having had much fun and having listened to
some much appreciated music. After arriving home, I got on the El Deth
message boards to lurk and perhaps post a review of the show. Nothing eventful.
The next day, I once again lurked the page to find I had a private message. It
was from previously mentioned suitor who was all in a kerfluffle over how
freaking adorable I was. He said he had seen me at the show and had somehow
figured out who I was on the boards (my screen name was LaLaLauren). We sent a
few messages back and forth. He seemed like a nice guy. We, as was custom for
early 2000 era suitors and suitees, arranged to meet at the mall.
I think it is important for you to know at this juncture that
this dude was not your Dad. It was some other tall, skinny, dude with long hair
and glasses.
So, we meet at the mall (I did not tell my parents I was going
to meet some older dude whom I had never actually met in real life at the mall…
at least I had the sense to meet up in a public place). I cannot remember what
I wore that day, but it probably had something to do with patterned tights and
a slip (I had a serious thing for Courtney Love). We talked, maybe held hands,
and we then proceeded to date for a couple weeks. During those two weeks, we
hung out a few times. I did eventually tell my mom about him but I never
brought him around to meet her. He seemed pretty interested in me. We talked on
the phone a lot and on something called “AOL Instant Messenger” quite a lot
(think text messages, but on the computer and people have individual screen
names instead of phone numbers - mine was “iwaslilies” after a song lyric I
wrote (yeah, I know, how very teenage angst/egomaniacal of me)). This guy
liked me so much he felt like he had to talk to me on AOL Instant Messenger
when he went to a late night party at a friends house. At said party, instead
of signing into his own account to contact me, he used the account of the
person whose house the party was being held. He added my screen name to this
person’s friends list. He contacted me using this person’s screen name,
“XevilXveganX”. After I established who he was, we talked for a few minutes - not
long.
The following day, I am on the computer, doing whatever I did
before lolcats and facebook, and I get a message from this XevilXveganX person.
Its not my suitor/boyfriend/whatever that guy was to me at the time - its the
owner of the account he had signed into to talk to me. Suitor guy had added my
screen name to this person’s friends list. (At that time, one would see all the
people added to ones friends list who were logged on at the same time you were
logged on - we’re talking very high tech stuff here.)
“Who is this?” XevilXveganX asks.
“This is Lauren,” I reply, “Who is this?”
“This is Bill.”
We begin talking. We talk a little bit over the course of the
next few days. Within that time, my band gets a show at a place called “Ivy’s.”
I’m pretty sure we would have been too young to get in if we were not in the
band. We were playing with a couple other El Deth bands and we had a set of 4
songs ready - 2 originals and 2 covers (Nirvana’s “About a Girl,” which we sped
up into a kind of punk rock version, and the Pixies “Where is my mind?,” which
Jon sang lead on). The Model Citizenz had uploaded our original songs onto the
El Deth website, and Bill really liked us. (He would later tell me he was a
pretty hard core advocate for us on local music websites’ message boards
- touting me as “The best singer in Knoxville.” - awe.). Bill
told me he would come to our show and would bring me some mixed CDs.
At this time, I was still dating suitor guy. He came to the
show. Our band played three of our four songs (the Pixies cover got dropped due
to time constraints). I dropped my guitar at one point on stage - while
playing. The strap broke. It was embarrassing, but I quickly recovered.
(Unfortunately no pics or videos of this event exist that are in my
possession.) Afterward, I hung out with suitor guy and left to go home around
12AM (past curfew). On my way out the door, a guy with shoulder length
dark hair approached me, bowed, and handed me three CDs in paper sleeves. I
think we exchanged a few awkward words, but I don’t remember what they were. I
helped my band mates pack up our stuff. I said goodbye to suitor guy. I
left.
Maybe it was the next day, maybe a few days later, I got a
message from Bill. He had been in a pretty serious car accident the night prior
(or maybe a few nights prior) and needed someone to drive him to take pictures
of his damaged car which was sitting in a car impound lot in Oak Ridge. (He
wasn’t seriously injured but had some minor injuries like a possible concussion
and damage to his spleen.) I agreed to come to his house in West Knoxville (a
30 minute drive from my parents’ house) and drive him out to Oak Ridge (a 20
minute drive from West Knoxville). (I once again lied to my parents about where
I was going… again, don’t do this.) I picked him up, we drove to the impound
lot, he took pictures, and then we went out for Chinese at a place called
“China Wok”. He ate there a lot because he, at the time, worked nearby. He
paid. We talked a lot about Lord of the Rings for which we were both pretty
much big fans (“The Fellowship of the Ring” had come out not too long before
that - I had seen it 9 times in the theatre, he had seen it 3 or 4). We came
back to his house, and he convinced me to hang out for awhile longer and watch
“The Last Dragon”. It was one of the few DVDs he owned. We sat next to each
other on the futon in his bedroom. The whole time I kept wishing he would “make
a move.” He never did. I went home after the movie. This was April 18th, 2003
(We still celebrate this day as our first date).
I was still technically dating suitor guy. I found out a bit
later Bill was also talking to a girl who was out of the country, but they had mutually
agreed to start dating when she returned in a few weeks (maybe months?).
We hung out again shortly thereafter - watched “The Fellowship
of the Ring” on DVD. After he walked me to my car that evening, we kissed for
the first time ever.
Suitor guy had inexplicably disappeared. He stopped calling. He
stopped messaging. I got an e-mail from him a few weeks later saying some crap
about how he wasn’t ready for this… blah.. blah.
I didn’t care. I was in love with Bill - I was in love with your
Dad.
And he was in love with me too. He told me a few days later. And
I told him the same.
It was hard for him over the next few months. We went through a
couple of weeks without wach other. He had just come out of a relationship that
did not end well. He wasn’t fully ready for what was happening between us.
After we had been together for about 6 months, he went to spend some time with
his friend Chris in Colorado. He was gone for a little over a month. We stayed
in contact the whole time. When he came back, he moved into his mom’s garage
apartment. I also moved in a little at a time over the course of the next few
weeks. We’ve been here ever since (your Grams eventually moved out and
sold us the house right after we were married - we rented it from her for a few
months prior).
And so, kiddo. That is the story of how your Dad and I came to
co-exist. It was a random string of coincidences that lead to the best
thing that has ever happened to me.
Your Dad and I love you, and we love each other. And I hope you
know that now and always.
P.S. - In case you are wondering why I am not currently famous,
the band pretty much ceased to be after the infamous Ivy’s show. I used “band
practice” as a convenient excuse to my parents about why I was gone so much in
the evenings (I was really with your Dad). The Model Citizenz eventually just
stopped getting together. Its a funny thing that happens when you are really
happy - it becomes kind of hard to write good music. We later (like 8 years
later) tried to get back together. Mostly, we just hung out and talked about
how awesome we were back in the day and how awesome it would be if we were to
start playing shows again.
Oh, and I totally forgot how to play guitar.
