January 10, 2004 - 11:59 a.m.
Man, I do so love candy hearts. I love them so very much. Way, way more than I should. This is made all the funnier by the fact that I am pretty sure that most people hate them. In writing, you always see them referred to as "those little candy hearts that taste like chalk." My coworker Brian said they remind him of candy corn, and then went on to state that he would rather run his tongue through with a big knife than eat candy corn.
But I love candy hearts! I was surprised to see a bowl of them on the receptionist's desk at work, mainly because Valentine's day is more than a month away. Every time I entered or exited the building over the course of my workday, I found myself taking a handful of them, until I found that I had basically emptied the bowl. I'm a little unclear on the concept of the bowl of candy on the receptionist's desk, but I'm fairly certain that it is intended for visitors, not employees.
I really didn't mean for this whole entry to be about candy hearts, but bear with me. I figured that since I had depleted our goodwill jar, costing the company millions of potential customers, I should probably replenish it. So I bought two bags of the original Necco brand hearts on my lunch break. The bag says that they are "mini conversation hearts," which I think is funny because you cannot construct a conversation with them. I know, because Matt and I tried, and it came out like this:
"YOU & ME," said Matt.
"I'M SURE," Kevin replied.
"I WILL," said Matt.
"I HOPE," answered Kevin.
"E MAIL," responded Matt bizarrely.
E MAIL? Like... the concept of e-mail? The back of the bag proclaims that "over 100 sayings are imprinted on Sweethearts each year including 8 to 10 new sayings to keep up with the times." That explains E MAIL and IM ME (which looks to me like "I'M ME," which is funny) but there is one new heart I encountered just now as I started this entry that inspired me (apparently) to write five paragraphs about candy hearts:
BOOK CLUB.
What? LET'S READ was weird enough, but BOOK CLUB? I can kind of see that reading books together could be romantic, if not terribly passionate. But BOOK CLUB?!
I'M SURE!
I just did a Google search and easily found out that this is due to the "theme" of this year's batch of new slogans, "promoting literacy." Way to totally ruin my fun. I guess I should have thought of that earlier.
In other news, Laurie beat me playing DDR.
I don't know if you fully comprehend the full impact of that, so I'm going to write it again:
LAURIE BEAT ME PLAYING DDR.
Note that I have been playing DDR fairly regularily for about three years. As recently as Thanksgiving 2003, Laurie was heard expressing an interest in learning the game.
Conclusion: Laurie is a GENIUS.
She will tell you that she only won because by that point in our session I was very tired. She might also note that I had a higher Max Combo. But it was she who had the bigger score, twice, on two different songs, on the Heavy (hardest) difficulty. So she was the winner.
So I suppose it is appropriate that the first time I said "I love you" happened while we were in front of the DDR machine.
I didn't intend for it to happen that way, of course. But it seems oddly appropriate. It was a complete accident, actually. I'm not even sure how it happened; I think Laurie said something about being really sweaty and dorky, and, intending to say something reassuring like "aww, that's okay, don't worry," my mouth instead said "I love you." Before it had sunk in, the next song had started and we were dancing away. And I had a sort of Royal Tenenbaum moment: immediately after making this statement, I realized it was true.
Later that night, I realized I should have clarified by assuring her, perhaps as she was walking to her car to drive home, that I meant it. Because I don't know about you, but if I were her, I would have ended up with my mind wandering into the wee hours, wondering just what I'd meant by it.
In the interest of laying all my metaphorical cards out on the table, I told her I'd meant it (though I hadn't meant to SAY it at that particular moment) over dinner the next day. She looked a little embarrased but happy. I haven't said it since, because I know better than most about the awkwardness of having somebody declare that they love you all the time and being unsure yourself. I'm not worried because actions speak louder than words-- I've always saved my "I love you"s for special occasions as a matter of principle, rather than peppering them meaninglessly into my conversations like some couples seem to-- and Laurie seems to have the same feelings for me as I do for her. So yay. Everything is going astonishingly well; I just wish my mouth wouldn't say things my brain had not approved.
The odds of me ever having children are still quite low, but I wanted to share that story, because of the incredible hilariousness of imagining a child asking his father when he first told his mother he loved her, and the father A) having to say he was playing Dance Dance Revolution at the time, and B) having to explain Dance Dance Revolution to his children, who will of course at that time be playing video games using special COMPUTER CHIP BRAIN IMPLANTS.
