Hey, hey, Tammy... I'm gonna marry you

The date is set -- April 21, 2007. The location is also chosen, and it's lovely, but that's confidential information for now. It doesn't have to stay that way, though... drop me an email for the full scoop, or, you know, just check your own email lately, and snailmail in a month or so, if you're on the Good List. If you're not... suffer.

Those of you who know SuperFiancee... well, you already know what a deal I'm getting. Those of you who know me must wonder what bizarre mind control drugs I'm introducing into SuperFiancee's salad dressing to so thoroughly blind her to my many impecunities, and the answer is, that's a trade secret, buddy, go get your own brilliant enormously capable gorgeous sexy divorcee with fabulous kids and mind control her. SuperFiancee is mine. Soon... forever! ::cackling maniacally, twirling my mustachios::

For those of you who don't really know SuperFiancee that well and therefore are perhaps doubtful that I may in fact be the luckiest of all creatures in this or any other universe, well, let me strive to correct your insane and delusional viewpoint as regards the most wonderful woman who has ever trod shoe leather, and my infinite fortune in somehow having managed to trick her into spending the rest of her life with me:

Back when SuperFiancee and I were just Internet acquaintances, and I was trapped and miserable in my brother's back bedroom in a tin shanty in the most horribly racist and backwards ass small town in all of Florida, SuperFiancee took it on herself to make my life better. So she started sending me CARE packages. I'd understood that these were only going to contain a few HeroClix she found cheaply at some yard sale somewhere, or something (my borther and I had just gotten into Clix, and any clix at all would have been more than welcome, as back then we had, like, maybe 9 between us). So I was expecting this tiny little box with a few little plastic figures in it, and instead, UPS rolls up with an 18 wheeler and uses a derrick to offload something roughly rectangular, wrapped in brown paper and twine, approximately the size of a whaling dinghy. Astonishingly, it was addressed to me, from Kentucky, and when I finally chainsawed it open, it proved to contain a enough goodies to sustain a small African nation -- not just thousands and thousands of HeroClix, but also snack foods of every description, as well as various other grocery items that were entirely welcome, given that Paul and I were so po' at the time that we had to actually rent water to boil our Ramen noodles in, because we couldn't afford to buy any outright.

The look on Paul's face when I staggered into the house with my arms full of Ding Dongs, brownie mixes, M&Ms, and Kool-Aid packets and kicked him mercilessly awake (he worked a night shift at the time, and slept on the couch) was priceless. Well, at first it was just a sort of mixture of bewilderment and irritation, as he hid his head in his arms and whimpered "Stop it, stop kicking me, jesus, it hurts", but then, his eyes went wide and he was like "WHERE did you get all THAT?" and I was like, "From Tammy!"

And that was cool.

And the packages, full of enormously thoughtful selections of foodstuffs and giftcards and useful household items and tshirts and HeroClix and DVDs and CDs and on one occasion even a frickin X-Box dude !!!! kept coming, for the next two years, along with the cards -- including a blizzard of birthday cards Tammy mailed to me for a week leading up to one of my birthdays, so I'd feel wanted -- and the gift baskets, and the frequent phone calls and emails that turned into nightly and daily phone calls and emails. And my last Christmas in Zephyrhills, because Tammy didn't want me to feel sad and alone, she sent me a truckload of presents and an amazing pre-stuffed Christmas stocking. Of all the Christmases I've spent alone in my life (and there have been way too many) that was easily the happiest. Which sounds like damning with faint praise, but it isn't, because none of the others were happy at all.

It takes true talent to make someone happy when they're all alone on Christmas morning. Talent at making people happy is something Tammy has. At supergenius level.

For that whole two years, Tammy was the only really wonderful thing in my life in Zephyrhills. And when Zephyrhills was done with me, it was Tammy who came swooping to the rescue in a rented UHaul, and when I arrived in Louisville and unpacked that truck, it was into an apartment that Tammy had found for me.

At that time, I already thought I loved Tammy to an infinite and endless degree, but I didn't even know what love was, because at that time, I hadn't met the SuperKids yet.

You think something is perfect, and it can't ever get better, and then, it becomes even more perfect, which shouldn't even remotely be possible, but, with SuperFiancee and the SuperKids, all things are possible, as long as all things are good and wonderful and amazing and fabulous, which, with them, all things are, always.

So, hey, hey, Tammy... nobody else could ever do.

I love you, baby.

Thank you for making the rest of my life so much better than I ever dreamed it ever would be.