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Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2002 - 1:29 p.m.

When six months feels like six days

Sunday was six months - six months since I picked up Casey at the airport and immediately felt so completely comfortable, as if I�d known her for months already. Which, of course, I did, in a way, chatting on the computer and then the phone. But it was another feeling, a feeling of a missing piece finally falling into place, that the search was over.

I�ve always believed that there is somebody out there for all of us, but not everybody necessarily finds their someone. And there could be more than one person for everyone, you just have to be lucky enough to meet more than one. All signs seem to say that I am at least half lucky.

Saturday�s snowstorm kept me from going to Casey�s after work on Saturday. After our early deadline at 10 p.m., I cleaned off my car and crawled up the Parkway, watching the idiots fly by me at 60 miles per hour and faster on the slick, snow-covered roadway. I was sure that I could make it to Jersey City, even if it took me 90 minutes or two hours, but I was also sure that I�d witness a car sliding off the road, and I didn�t want it to be mine. At one point, I found myself in the right lane, with two plows staggered in the center and left lanes, and could do nothing but pass them, considering the line of cars behind me. That made the roads worse, because as good as they had been up to that point, the conditions were due directly to the plows� recent sweep.

Reluctantly, I took Exit 109 for my parents� house, taking solace at least in the fact that I could read my sister�s copy of the fourth Harry Potter book, having left mine at Casey�s -- or rather, left Casey�s copy at Casey�s. Anwyay, I couldn�t -- Jess hadn�t finished it, as I�d thought, so I watched SNL instead. (Great Weekend Update, and plenty of Jack Black singing skits.)

Sunday morning, unable to sleep much past 8 a.m., I got out of bed and Mom made pancakes, as she seems to do whenever it snows, though that�s usually because of her elation at not having to go to school and this was a Sunday snow. But I didn�t complain. After breakfast, I cleaned off my car again -- much of it now ice, since the snow had turned to freezing rain late in the evening. The decision to stay in Little Silver was, of course, a good one, and the drive to Jersey City was quick and dry, as expected. I got there a little after 10 a.m. and joined Casey and Kerry for a few games of Tetris on the old school Nintendo.

After Kerry and Justine left for their afternoon excitement (both had the three-day Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend), Casey and I pondered what to do with our day leading up to dinner in the city. After lunch of buffalo wings and the Steelers game, we showered and dressed and went off to the Liberty Science Center for some nerd entertainment. The best part was definitely the animation station, a table with colored foam blocks set beneath a camera and light with a television monitor nearby. Every few seconds, the image on the screen would be saved in a photograph, and after eight images, they were cut together quickly in broken animation. The best was when I took two half-circles, made them look like Pac Man, and had it chomp its way toward a red rectangular block, swallowing it in one bite at the end.

Back at Casey�s, we changed into our evening wear; me in a shirt and tie, Casey in a skirt and fishnet stockings. We walked to the Light Rail, transfered to the PATH, and took the subway up to 57th for dinner at Brasserie 8 1/2. The Dine Out discount helped, but money didn�t matter. What mattered was the two of us sitting alone in a booth that could fit six, thoroughly enjoying our dinner, the sorbet and the company, both of us amazed at how quickly six months can go by. And both of us oblivious at the people we were before July 20, 2001. Not that we�ve changed all that much, but that we�ve grown together and so close so fast.

What a wonderful feeling that is.

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