Love! Exciting and new...
Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
I'll die alone.
You probably will, too.
-Graham Mutch
You have my permission to use that in all your valentines and wedding toasts. Having said that, I'll understand if you're surprised to learn that, beneath the wounded cynicism and several layers of pizza fat, I'm actually a diehard romantic. An I-saw-The-English-Patient-six-times-and-it-made-me-cry romantic.
Jamie and I had very different experiences during our formative adolescent years. Being the drummer in a popular band, Jamie was to sexual conquests as Cortés was to the Aztecs. Whereas I, having memorized the core rules for Basic and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, could have cut off my hand and counted my partners on the stump. I wouldn't have, though. I really needed that hand.
When I was seventeen, I fell in love with a girl in my acting class. She was brilliant, beautiful and funny. I wooed her with witty banter that was, in retrospect, almost certainly sexual harassment. I wrote poems about her. Really, really bad poems about the apple-strawberry scent of her hair. Her hair didn't even smell fruity. I just thought it made for a better poem.
Today, she's an Account Director working in the same city I do, though we've never worked together. Also, I'm still in love with her.
-Graham
P.S. Thanks to everyone who's voted for us! It fluctuates, but we peaked at #32 out of 2000. Whoo hoo!
