What went right.

Someday, people may read this particular post and think to themselves, "Wow, I wish I'd chronicled all the things that went right in my life." And when they do, I hope they know that I wish that too. Because I'm quite sure that I will forget to write about so many of the things that are about to go right. Starting now.

Instead, it would be so great if people thought to themselves, "Wow, that girl knew the best thing when she saw it." Because that's the truth.

I did.

And here's how it happened.

One day I logged into Myspace. Yeah. Myspace. Normally I'm a Facebook girl, but I do have an account (which I rarely check) and in late January of this year, I logged in. Don't you just love being greeted with "New Comments!" and "New Event Invitations!" and "New Messages!"? I know I do.

Actually, it was only one new message and it was from Patrick, sent January 18th, with the subject line: Anybody home? I know this because I still have the email. Patrick is the ex-boyfriend of an acquaintance of mine, a Swedish girl I met (also through Myspace) a few years back when I was getting ready to move back to Seattle from Sweden and wanted to keep up my language skills.

A number of pleasantries exchanged, an invitation to a birthday-bowling party, an apology for not attending said birthday-bowling party with a consolation "let's get a drink" offer later, and we somehow found ourselves falling in love. Well, that's jumping ahead a little.

The "let's get a drink" offer resulted in meeting at the Bohemian--a coffee shop--at 4pm where I drank tea (because I was getting over a cold) and where he drank wine. Which led to dinner at Circa (because I worked there at the time and could get us food on the cheap). Which led to late-night happy hour at Mission--where I again drank close to a gallon of tea.

He, probably fairly well buzzed, left around 1am. Yes. 1 am.

And here's the best part of all: He didn't even kiss me!

No. I'm not kidding.

I don't think it was until the next day that either one of us realized that we had just had the motherload of first dates. And that it had gone really, really well.

The next weekend was Valentine's Day. And of all things that could go wrong, having a 2nd date on Valentine's Day catapults those things into a whole new level of awkwardness. So I did what any right-thinking person would do and invited a group of friends to accompany me on my 2nd non-date, which just happened to be an evening of bowling, with Patrick.

Let it be known for all of eternity that while February 2009 was indeed a "dry month" for me, I had allowed myself one day of, ahem, wetness (so to speak) and Valentine's Day was the designated date.

At some point, Patrick asked if he could "crash on my sofa" since it would not be prudent to drive in any sort of intoxicated condition. I agreed, and even went so far as to bring him a pillow and blanket.

But then.

Well, then we started talking. About all sorts of pain and other miserable things. It was Valentine's Day after all.

It started getting late. Very late. And while we were talking, Patrick began playing with my hair. And before I knew it he had caressed my cheek. And then he softly lifted my chin and kissed me in the sweetest, sincerest, most deliberate and loving way.

And that was really, really right.

Even better? I will always remember the date: February 15th, 2009.