I met
J my
very first semester at grad school.
I had to take a reading intensive course in a modern foreign language, and so I took French. That first day the desks were all set up in a circle around the room, and I took a seat across the room over by the windows. Much to my dismay there was this guy sitting over by the door with whom I felt this unbelievable magnetic attraction! I couldn't believe I was feeling this, because in my head (and to myself) I thought I would never like a guy like that. He was very tall, somewhat overweight, and a more than a little nerdy looking with very short hair and glasses. The next day it was the same thing, only now this guy had moved over to my side of the room, sitting right next to me on my left, so close we were almost touching. I had a stack of books on Buddhism I was trying to stuff under my desk (I was interested in practicing Buddhism and so was trying to learn all I could about it). He made some comment on all those books (meant to be funny, of course) which got my full attention and made me laugh. Again I felt this magnetic energy pulling me towards him, and again I thought
you've got to be kidding! Eventually we got to move our desks out of that stupid circle and put them in rows like normal people (I still dislike sitting in circles, even now when I'm the prof.). I struggled with learning French, and told my department chair that I would stand a better chance of learning it if I just moved to France! That was also an idea I found far more appealing than taking this class. The professor was extremely arrogant, and preferred teaching to the students in the class who already knew the language (I suppose, who wouldn't?)! This meant that we went flying through all the material, leaving me basically in the dust.
J seemed to be having some difficulty as well, but not like I was (I found out later that he had already studied 5 other languages, and while languages were never his favorite subject, he
could manage them). When I went to see this professor in his office, he made some really flippant, hateful remark that made me so mad I dropped the class. And this could have meant the end of the story with
J. I never saw him outside of class and spoke to him only a little in class, as there was never much time for socializing.
Well, one day I'm in the library (where you basically live when you're a grad student, except that I was also a mom so I tried to not be there so much). I'm sitting at a table when I look up for just a moment from whatever it was I was working on and there stood
J. He asked me how I was, and I just blurted out that all I did was eat, sleep, and breathe school, and that I really needed to get a life! Good thing I wasn't really thinking, because I guess this could have been interpreted as a pick up line, only it wasn't. I was just exasperated. However, it got results, because
J asked me if he could call me sometime, and I said sure, as I quickly wrote my phone number down on a scrap piece of paper and handed it over to him. A few days later he called, but as fate would have it I truly was too busy to talk, but tried assuring him that I did want to and to
please call me again soon, which he did. The following Friday night he came over to my house, and whew! What an evening. There was so much raw animal magnetism surrounding us that only one thing could be done. Still, I couldn't believe it! I was not physically attracted to him, so how was it even possible that I could sexually feel something for someone that my mind could not yet feel? (I suppose, now that I think about it, guys probably experience this all the time, but I hadn't ever!) Anyway, he asked me out for Saturday night; I was all too happy to have human contact with someone other than my 7 year old daughter (though I had by then made friends with two great women who were also studying English). We drove down to Eastgate (an outer suburb of Cincinnati) for dinner and a movie (we saw
Always with Richard Dreyfuss and Holly Hunter. The year was 1989). We stayed out really late, talking and laughing the whole night long. And thus began our rather tumultuous four year courtship.
