Margarette

  Well I suppose it all started when I was working at P&G the summer before grad school started.  It was summer of 2006 just back from Kolkata and it's surreal experience.  I was contracting for P&G again, but in the research and development section instead of testing and validation.  As always I pretty much kept to myself, there were a few other contractors around, but I didn’t say much to them.  About 3 or 4 weeks in I had to learn how to use the HE washers so this other contractor taught me.  He seemed like a reasonable person so I made a point of greeting him afterwards.  Two or 3 weeks after that I noticed he was always reading so I asked him about the books he read.  He mentioned Sci-Fi.   I’m not sure who started talking about Octavia Butler (I think it was him), but I remember being so surprised that someone else knew about her writing and of all people this random guy had almost all of her books. After that I think we had lunch.  I remember bringing my book (I was reading Hannibal at the time), just in case we had nothing to talk about.  That was not a problem.  Shortly after that he literally fell to his knees at my feet when I told him about my 3 8 hour tapes of Gargoyles in order without commercials (A highly geeky moment for me).  Soon after it was known that I would probably be where ever Stephan was or he would be where I was.  There was one time when I was working in the basement of Ivorydale and Stephan made a point to pound on the insulated door to make me laugh.  We were admonished by co-workers not to have children together as they would be so smart they would take over the world. Anyway my time came to an end as school would be starting in September, but I was getting a group together to go to see Spamalot in October so on a whim (he seemed reasonable) I invited Stephan.  That might have been the end of it if it wasn’t for Shadowbox Columbus doing Rocky Horror Picture Show.  Stephan invited me to go and I of course had a blast.  I quickly became a Shadowbox devotee, and Stephan started coming up to visit me on weekends.  Our first weekend was chaperoned by a friend of a friend, but after that we had hours and hours of movie watching Saturday through Sunday.  We got to be great friends and had great long conversations during the week.  There was a time when I wouldn’t call him (because I always end up calling people during dinner, and the first time I called him it was during dinner).  But soon I would call him to tell him goodnight and help him have good dreams by thinking of happy things.  It was at this point where most of my friends noted that he liked me and we should probably date, since we were talking more than many couples.  I insisted we were just friends although I complained continually about being alone.  Through the fall into December we continued our friendship and I started making excuses as to why Stephan and I couldn’t date.  Though he had not asked me anything.  I actually started dating someone else just so I couldn’t complain about not having a date (though I talked about Stephan the entire date).  My first New Years back in the States I had a HUGE party.  Midway through the party I got up the courage to tell Stephan that I thought one of his friends was treating him poorly.  And he responded with “I want to date you.”  I began listing out the reasons I collected so carefully through the fall and he argued each one down with logic.  During the next five days I broke things off with the guy I was dating and told Stephan we could try it.  That was January 5th our first date was MLK weekend, and the rest was history.  J About a year and a half later he woke me up and placed a box in front of me and I (though half a wake and actually thinking I should say something) said yes before I even opened it.  I was applying for Medical school and told him I wasn’t planning on getting married until my last year (five years after our engagement date).  Three months later I gave Stephan his engagement ring (he wanted proof if he was going to have to be engaged that long).  And now here we are.  I’ve never been so happy, healthy, or glad to have someone in my life.