Brandon's Buzz

Five years ago this very night, on a crowded streetcorner outside a bustling coffeehouse in downtown Austin, Texas, I met the sweetest, smartest, sexiest, most frustrating, most amazing, most incredible and interesting man. He scoffs when I say it, as though it couldn’t possibly be true, but I was smitten with him at once as we took a two-hour walk and chatted about our lives, our work, our dreams, and, of all things, our diametrically opposed opinions on country music. (For those who wouldn’t know, I’m a fan and he wasn’t, although I have managed to convert him somewhat over time and painstaking effort.)

To be able to spend an evening in the company of a man like this is a privilege. To be able to build a relationship and a home and a connection and a life with such a man, that’s something altogether miraculous.

These five years haven’t all been chocolate and roses, of course, but they have been without question the best ones of my entire life, and I would trade not a moment of any of it for whatever tempting treats may lie behind doors number two, three, or twenty-seven.

You’re still the one I love, A. Happy anniversary.

This very day — June 5, 2008 — A is out in Calla-forny celebrating his 29th birthday. He insisted he wasn’t planning on doing anything special, no matter how much I pleaded with him to at least go buy himself a birthday pretzel, or a birthday Jamba Juice, or a birthday slice of Stefano’s Pizza. So I’m asking you all to help me guilt him into treating himself indulgently today. (Oh, and to send along birthday wishes, too!)

Happy 29th, A! We love you in the heart!

I recently (and completely unintentionally) offended — and to the very depths of his captivating, baying soul, no less — the love of my life.

He’ll no doubt post a comment under this — the inaugural post of my spankin’ new blog — and emphatically deny all of what I’m preppin’ to tell you, but you have to trust me here: he didn’t speak to me for a solid week over this incident.

Back up.

His name is A. (That’s a lie, of course, but in the choppy wake of said incident, I have been forbidden from using his real name, even though I’ve repeatedly (and futilely) insisted that the only people who are going to be reading this and taking it anywhere close to seriously already know and love him profusely, faults and all.) He is a fixed income analyst out in Calla-forny. Lives right in the heart of downtown La-La Land. Rollerblades from the boardwalk in Santa Monica to the southern edge of Venice Beach, and back, for fun. Goes to CPK and orders salad. Possesses the most gorgeous, most eminently kissable dimples on either side of his criminally sculpted abdomen. Is gorgeous and eminently kissable (Lord Jesus, can that boy buss!) in ways irrespective to his trunk and its musculature.

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