Sunday, August 24, 2008

By The Numbers: Take Seven

The other night, I Opened The Vault to the beginnings of my relationship with Mark, a.k.a. Sparky. A California native, Sparky acquainted me with the up’s and down’s of a long-distance relationship -- and what it means to have a love that’s worth such a roller coaster ride.

When you’re in a bicoastal romance, numbers become very important. The number of times you call each other daily, the number of hours, and minutes even, until you’re together again and so on. Here’s some more about my East-West Coast love affair, By The Numbers:

Number of miles collectively traveled by Sparky and I to see each other: 64,012
Number of dates before he presented me with a diamond ring: 3
Number of trips to visit Sparky in L.A. without my parents’ knowledge: 3
Number of trips to L.A. they never found out about: 1
Number of earthquakes experienced while in L.A.: 1

I still remember how unnerving it was to feel the ground shake -- and to learn that Sparky lived just a few blocks from the quake’s epicenter. He slept right through the aftershocks, as I awakened to a new appreciation for residing far from any major fault lines.

It’s fitting that my one and only experience of earthquakes happened with Sparky. As many friends and diary entries can attest, he shook up my world in a big way. One of the happy aftershocks of spending so much time in California with him -- discovering all over again that there’s no place I’d rather be than right here in the Big Apple.

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