Bill was curious what happened on my trip to Austin where I met the love of my life and I’ll quickly comment that she indeed…was not. I sent her a text a few days after I met her at a bar, and unless her hands were removed detonating C4, I’m pretty certain she chose not to respond back. Let’s not discount the fact that she may have been a bomb expert and that didn’t come up in conversation. Why did I think she was the love of my life?

After cocktails on a pub crawl in Austin I was feeling good. There was an early flight to catch the next day and I forced Evan and Jess to go into one more bar on the walk home. Upstairs a tall blonde girl with a, and lets date myself with a Jersey shore reference, grenade. Lots of war references today. The band was playing popular covers and we were singing along. During a break, and I don’t know how the conversation started, we sort of hit it off. She told me she was divorced with no children, makes a nice living, and likes spending time questioning how to spend time. Of course the alcohol played a role, but in that moment, she seemed perfect. I even asked the question, what can we do to continue seeing each other. She gave me her number and that was that. I’m sure Bud could give further details on what I was saying when I got back to the apartment, but the combination of being drunk thinking I was Casanova seemingly worked until that damn explosion, because I’m still expecting that text back.

This brings me to yesterday when I went out with a girl I was set up with by a family friend. This date went well and I’m pretty sure she has no military background, but I also haven’t tested whether I’ll get a text back. We spent 2 hours together and there were no breaks in conversation, awkward moments, or thoughts in my head like this will never work out. My lack of partner generally stems from this idea if I had to spend the rest of my life with this person would I prefer to be in the Hurt Locker. So all in all, I’m feeling confident in life and well see where that goes. The thought being that I don’t want to force any aspect and see what happens. Wait a second….I just got a text…We’re getting married!