so pretend its Feb. 14

I sent for him on a Thursday.After weeks of back and forth, I finally got up the nerve and fill out the form and entered the charge number and hit submit all at the same time. 

“On a scale of one to ten,” he’d said, “I’m looking for a Q.”

It ate at me for those two weeks. Was that a typo? He couldn’t possibly have meant that literally.

But I couldn’t let it go. Me, the serial dating bohemian poet, was gonna meet somebody on the internet? No. Nobody meets someone, their somebody, on the internet.

“I’m looking for a Q.” 

I put the thought away countless times. But it kept coming back, so I did too. I coughed up the twenty bucks Match.com was requiring to send him an email to ask him if that was a typo, and why I wanted to know. I figured he’d say it was a typo and I could go about my day. I could finally put the thought away, maybe make a friend out of it. Or not.

Besides he said he was cross between Walter Payton and a teddy bear, and Walter Payton is fine so why the hey bob not?

He emailed me back on that Saturday. Said it wasn’t a typo, he was looking for an original.

Ahem.

We talked a lot, almost every day, at least once a day, sometimes twice. Every email ended with a poem, both his and mine. He was not my first electronic friend. I talked to a guy in Jamaica for a few years before he drifted away, as long distances tend to limit friends you’ve never met, besides we both had significant others, and this was clearly different. I started to trim the serial dating. I was twenty-four, I was freshly done with what had turned out to be a quick regenerating love. I was finished healing from a previously damaging relationship. I was looking to have a good time. I wanted him to be my first “just for fun” guy. Nothing serious, just somebody to kick it with. And he seemed game for that.

On that first day we met we talked for hours, we closed the Art Museum, the Zoo, and Chevy’s. We both came to the meeting place dressed to scare the other off, he in his bright green denim jacket and army cammo bandana. Me with my eight inch afro picked out and my Clark Kent glasses. I laughed when I saw him. Prayed to God then shook his hand. We ended up back at my house, watching cartoon network till we fell asleep. We talked about movies and bad TV, the change in entertainment, our families. The next morning I made breakfast. Ever seen Love Jones the movie? When Darrius is talking to his friend and he’s like,

Darrius: “I woke up and made breakfast.”

Friend: “You did what?”

Darrius: “Cheese Omelets.”

Friend:  “What?”

Yeah that was me and my girl talking about it that next wed at poetry, only my breakfast list was way longer than a  cheese omelet. French toast, hash browns – from an actual potato, fruit and turkey ham, and orange Juice not from concentrate, which out of all the cooking I did, impressed him the most. Not fresh squeezed mind you, but not from concentrate. I was sold right then, cause any man that all it takes to impress is orange juice?!?! I am so on point for.

This was seven years ago.

And lately I’ve been remembering what it was like to love him back then, when there were no kids, not responsibilities, nothing but the time we wasted just being together. Glad for the glimpses our life affords us now to step back and be together the way we were then on occasion. Glad that the love we share everyday is just as strong as the memories of what we used to be.

I love you Cubby.