A Thousand Days in the MakingPart 5: Rachael Returns the Favor

In April/May I was going through one of my special alone time phases. When I'm in one of these phases, the first thing to drop off the map is my ability to respond to emails. The inbox was piling up at a steady rate, and every glance at it prompted a begrudging thought of, "Wow. I really need to reply to some of these."

Day 939(May 6th, 2009) -

I was at home avoiding the world when the little mail icon popped up on my computer. It was a Facebook friend invite from Rachael, the girl I had been meaning to write back for the past 3 weeks. I accepted the invitation and opened up the chat window to apologize.

"I thought I had scared you off with my last email" she began.

Her? Scare me off? What had that email said?

I quickly switched back to my email and began reading.
Joke about me being silly.
Work talk
Blog talk
More jokes.
Invitation for coffee

Shit

I went about cleaning up my mess as well as I could by apologizing profusely and simultaneously trying not to sound like a complete tool. It probably wasn't working, but eventually we agreed that we should meet up sometime.

Unfortunately both of our schedules were busy, and we spent the next few weeks unable to agree on a date until our schedule's aligned and we decided to meet on June 2nd.

Day 965(June 1st) -

Rachael called to let me know that work had gotten extremely busy, and she just couldn't make it. We rescheduled for the following Monday(The 8th).

Day 968(June 4th) -

Rachael called again to let me know that she had book club on Monday, and needed to reschedule for Tuesday(The 9th).

I got ditched for books?

Day 973(June 9th) -

Rachael and I had spent the past week with a flurry of emails, but the day had finally come. By this time I was really excited to meet my new virtual friend. I had gotten to know her over email and blogs, and the idea of meeting her in person was a little intimidating.

As our six o'clock meet up time grew closer, I started to get nervous. Sean was the only person at work that I had told, and he was taking this opportunity to turn my seed of doubt in to a full blown issue.

"Man. What if you fart or say something stupid? You'd better not screw this up. That girl is way out of your league."
"It's not like that. It's just friendly."
"She's too good for that too."

At 4 I got an email with a huge apology explaining that Arlene, a coworker of Rachael's had fallen and been injured. We would have to reschedule again.

Rachael and I had a few more emails, but they soon faded and I stopped hearing from her. I had assumed that something had "Red Flagged" me and that she had decided to get rid of me in a polite manner.

Day 987(June 23rd) -

I sent one last email in an attempt to make sure everything was okay. I had made a joke about being an e-stalker in my last email, and felt like a total creepo.

Had I scared her away?

Nerd Word(s): Special Alone Time

Special Alone Time
- Noun

1. My semi-annual need for a lot of alone time.

[ Origin: A few times a year I become a hermit and shun the outside world. Erik has been known to refer to this as my "Special Alone Time" ]

- examples
1. December '08
2. October '07
3. Summer '04

Nerd Rule(s): Female Naming Conventions

When discussing any female, whether there is a possibility of romance or not, she should be referred to by a geographical location until such a time that her real name is suitable, or an alternative nickname has been set in place and is agreed upon by all parties.

[ Origin: My good friend Adam is currently living in Germany. Through the miracles of modern technology(Instant Messaging), we've been able to keep in touch and talk on a near daily basis. One popular topic is women, and due to my bad memory, it was necessary to develop an alternative naming scheme that was easy to remember. ]

- examples
1. Ana - Chile
2. Jo - Chicago
3. Ruth - Ohio
4. Mandi - Montana
5. Rachael - Kansas

A Thousand Days in the MakingPart 4: Jesse Delivers the Triple No No

I know, I know. I'm a bit behind on all this. No excuses, I've been busy. We're finally getting to the meat of the story though. If you've followed the blog for a while we're introducing a new Rachael in this story. Fortunately, she spells it differently than the "other" Rachel.

Also, I should point out that I took the link to her blog out because it's now private. And before you ask, yes it's because she didn't want you reading it(Kidding).

Day 828(January 16th, 2009) -

My phone buzzed around lunchtime to let me know that I had an email. Oddly enough it wasn't work related, or even a personal message. It was an email to my Sesquipedalis account. Before the Shaq piece, that account got about as much email as Isaiah Washington gets gay fan mail. Even more odd was that it was from a girl, identified in the From field of the message as Rachael.

Hi there,
I found your blog in a round about way through my sister Mandi's. She convinced me to start one at Christmas and I did. Not sure that it is so fabulous, but it entertains her and my mom so I guess it serves a purpose. Anyways, I thought yours was pretty funny. When I have some time I will read more of it. If you're interested mine is removed. I live in Phoenix too oddly enough. Happy blogging :) Rachael

I immediately went and spent some time reading through her blog. One of the first entries I came across pertained to her penchant for giving pet names to the peeps in her life. Oddly enough, the first comment her sister Mandi ever made was about my tendency to do the same. I was pretty amused by the whole thing, and since it had relatively few entries at the time, I breezed through it.

In the upper right hand corner of the blog was a picture of Rachael. I throw words like "Cute" and "Pretty" around on this blog like Steve Nash dishing assists, but I find them insufficient in regards to describing this girl. She was gorgeous. And for my part I was having none of it.

I once wrote that after the twins, I was tired of pretty people. You need to be a 6 or less to hang out with me, and Rachael had missed the cut by about 4 points. I sent her a very polite response and thanked her for reading, but when I received a response the following Monday, I just let it go. In my mind, no girl that attractive was out on the Internet interested in talking to me. She probably didn't care if I wrote back or not.

Day 890(March 9th, 2009) -

I was surprised when Rachael left a comment on one of my blog entries, and even sent me an email to let me know how amused she was. I had assumed that her initial letter was just an attempt to gain more readers, or just a friendly hello. Even more surprising was that within 30 minutes of her leaving the comment Liang was in my office.

"Who's Rachael?"
"Huh? Uh... Ruth's sister? The twin? You've met h..."
"No... the one who left a comment on your blog. The super cute one in the beanie."

Leaving a comment on my blog had lead him back to hers.

"Oh... her. That's Mandi's sister."
"Who the hell's Mandi?"

An hour later I got an IM from J.R.
"Who the hell is this Rachael?"

I was doing my best to keep expectations low, but by the end of the day Rachael was the talk of the office. The common question became, "What are you going to do?"

My plan remained the same. I was going to do nothing.

"Have you seen that girl?" I'd ask, "I'm not taking my whiffle ball bat and trying to hit in the National League. I'm not doing anything."

Most of the nerds let it go fairly quickly. Most of the nerds except for Sean. Sean has been happily married for a while, which somehow gives him carte blanche to screw with the rest of us when it comes to women. Had he not metaphorically won the lottery by meeting his wife, he'd be just as spineless and lame as the rest of us, but since fate had dealt him a royal flush he took this opportunity to mess with me while we planned his annual St. Patty's day party.

"You should invite Kansas."
"Let me get this straight... Some girl who I only know because I know her sister, in fact, I don't really even know here sister, I should ask her to a party with a bunch of you dorks? Yeah, that won't be creepy. Pass."
"Do it. If you don't, I'll write a comment on her blog and ask her for you."
Fine

Day 892(March 11th, 2009) -

I sent Rachael a long email, and tried to casually work it in that she could come to our party.

Day 893(March 12th, 2009) -

Rachael sent me a long email and casually worked it in that my invitation to a party with a bunch of people she didn't know was sort of weird, and that she would not be attending.

Rachael and I continued to correspond for the next month. The letters were always quite lengthy and amusing, but eventually I decided that she was most likely just being nice. Pretty, funny, smart girls probably have better things to do with their time than email me. Right?

Day 926(April 14th, 2009) -

Rachael sent me a lengthy email that I had thought was quite typical. The email sat in my inbox for quite some time. I had intended to respond, but never got around to it. I would later find that I should have read the email more carefully...