C'mon...you remember what I taught you last year, don't you?

I came home from work yesterday and told Nick my news. My company lifts the dress code for one day every year in the spirit of Halloween fun...and, while I had personally elected to not stray down that particular conviviality, my team elected otherwise and I marvelled and revelled both at the dual mischievousness/genius behind the plan.

So I tell all of this to Nick. I continue on, "See, it's really just an excuse for us to show up in tees, sweatshirts, and jeans to work without getting in trouble." Besides, when the question was posed, What if they send us home?, there was a general shoulder-shrugging, I'm struggling to see the downside, response.

Nick, I am sure, heard little of this as he was jumping like a Mexican bean and tackled the stairs in a way that would make a mother grimace in almost certain future injury. Stairs need not know that sort of excitement. Stairs need calm, boring people. In a match of stair-climbing, I trump my domestic partner ten, nay, one-hundred fold. Ask anyone.

I follow slowly, as though I am walking through mud or climbing a treadmill at 15% grade. I begin to change from my work apparel for our run. Yesterday was probably the last nice day of the year, kissing the high 50's in the afternoon. The rest of this week will be lucky to see 45°. Meanwhile, the Latino pod showered me with something fiery and reflective, cheering, "You're so lucky you know me!" His eyes were Christmas.

My team decided to go today as Badger fans. I am decked out in a Ron Dayne jersey and Nick has scattered roughly 20 baseball caps around me as I type this morning, encircling my neck with an unused 1999 Rose Bowl ticket, a miniature stuffed Bucky Badger and a terrible towel tribute to Barry Alvarez from November-last...and I realize now that Nick has lived his entire life for me to go to work today as a Badger fan.

Nice of him, no?

And, as I publish today's entry, he jumps-all-but-slides down the stairs with another hat, having had a story behind each that he has presented thus far (including one that he warned has been well worn and I probably don't want to put anywhere near my head, says he with a scrunched nose), "I thought I was missing one! I got THIS one when we won...."

So, one of the perks to me buying a new car was Nick's chiseled-in-stone rule of "newest car parks in the garage". I live in Wisconsin. It gets cold. It snows. It frosts. I'm a wuss with cold weather. So I have to live on 5 pretzel sticks three times a day and sell my services on these suburban street corners every evening after work just to realise my goal—it's worth it for the damn spot in the garage.

You know, and at first I was all like, "No, I couldn't...it's your condo, your mortgage...the garage is yours, the end." He rescinded my termination of his garage policy (can you tell I've spent all of 2006 working in the insurance industry?) and I stewed to myself that I just wouldn't park there. It was the right thing to do.

Then it got cold, and I remembered how I didn't like the cold, and how Wisconsin typically gets colder, often even below the mid-forties...and I decided to be generous and let Nick sign over his place in the garage. Sometimes I'm too nice for my own good, but what is one to do?

Last night, we stopped by the lot where today I will sign the papers enabling me to call a spicy little compact "mine". I showed Nick the equivalent to what my car will look like, as mine has been shooed away to an undisclosed location, probably for prettying up...although it really didn't need much help if I do say so myself. Nick seemed tickled for me, really excited about the car...which isn't an easy place for Nick to arrive, I'll have you know. Nick is what I call "particular". He gives honest opinions.

And, when back at home, he looked at Mazda's site and all of the configurations available for the model soon-to-be-mine. I sat in the same room, slightly dozing where I reclined only to be startled into full wakefulness with his cries of dismay. "What!?—what!?" He twisted his neck toward me with a pained expression and tells me that the car is too long and won't fit in his garage.

We'll just see about that.

I became a pop culture sponge towards the end of my high school career, markedly later than my peers who had been carrying around magazines with the glossy images of prepubescent heart throb Jonathan Taylor Thomas when I was otherwise occupied with The Beatles Anthology.

Multimedia was my poison, and I built an impressive collection by the day I moved into my dorm. To this day, I attest, my friend-making ability existed solely on my highly borrowable amassment of both VHS and CD entertainment...of course, regular care packages from Aunt Debbie filled with homemade cookies or muffins that smelled so good one was forced to cry didn't hurt, either. You have to share food in the dorms—mandatory...or they kill you. There is nothing scarier, mark my words, than a craving deprived, under-rested, over-studied female who smells chocolate. Oh, I took plenty of hits for the team.

College was my first exposure to broadband internet. I had a laptop that I loved so much I almost dressed it up and held conversations with the device...ok, maybe I still held conversations, but I left the doll bonnet in the drawer. I remember buying what seemed like a 1,000 foot ethernet cable just so that I could walk around the perimeter of the shoebox we called home for nine months and remain online. Woo. I was big into that daredevil excitement stuff.

Needless to say, early aughts, high speed internet...what follows can only be Shawn Fanning and the glory of Napster. God I loved Napster. I loved free downloading. I loved absorbing new music without liability—I purchased a staggering amount of music during my foray with Napster, just staggering. Oh, Larsy-boy...I'm so disappointed in you. You were dissing Metallica fans when you criticized those that downloaded your music...tsk tsk. Bad for business. Besides, aren't you rich enough anyway? Because of you, I wanted to denounce my Danish heritage...luckily Hans Christen Andersen trumped you, drummer boy.

Shawn Fanning was my age. A guy my age did this, brought music to the world in a free context. Take a hike, JTT...my heart is taken.

I so clearly remember Sarah and I embracing our love of rock, head-banging to Disturbed...then swaying with fake lighters to the Fred Durst/Staind Family Values Tour of "I'm on the Outside". New CD mixes were created weekly-plus, and Sarah expressed disdain often that I never created a CD without a Creed song somewhere in the line up. We spent a lot of time together in a car, Sarah and myself, and she had this kick-butt stereo. We carpooled every weekend, the hour-plus ride home every Friday night...and the two-hour plus ride back to school every Sunday. Her foot always seemed to lose the lead during our time at home.

Then I moved away, RIAA got all pissy with the free downloads and put this major kibosh on things. I became a cultural hermit and watched Golden Girls marathons on Lifetime.

But this year, my former self has reemerged...partly due to Nick's own love of music, partly because of my puppy dog love for James Blunt. It is fitting, then, isn't it, that Nick gave me an iPod for my birthday...and that I discovered iTunes. And, darn that Amazon.com free shipping on purchases of $25 or more! That's like three CD's at Amazon prices! Oh well...one does what they must.

But this has created a new quirk in my relationship with Nick, a one-upmanship as I complain that my CD case no longer fits all of my CD's. I tell him I must have well over 200 discs, and he, with his dander visibly up and at attention, proclaims he has that and then some. It feels a bit like Yours, Mine & Ours...two large collections living on different floors and unwilling to so much as look at one another. I'm not too bothered...he bought me the new Five for Fighting album a few nights ago...and while one might say that should be grouped in a "ours" collection, I'm adding it to mine and getting a leg up on 'im.

There are perks to working in the same building as my aunt, but perhaps none so singular as my ingression to that twinkling beacon on the top floor known to the laymen as her desk.

I've mentioned the drugs before, haven't I? Brenda has a stockpile of drugs...everything over-the-counter-treatable from heartburn to headaches. One will find neither a shortage of chewing gum there—nor of lipstick, gloss, balm, and salve.

A lint roller, anti bacterial wipes, and deodorant are stocked in her wares, and I've been known in the past to steal a granola bar here and there. I use "steal" lightly, naturally...as when I met with her last week and admired her box of Lipton Herbal Peach Tea (Me: "Mmmm. I bet that's delicious!"), she said in her virus laced hoarseness, "I think it's yours." She chuckled, picking up a bottle of the Tylenol cold syrup I first romanced last January and have pledged faithfulness for all the viral attacks of my life. "And I'm finishing your cold medicine," she taunted. That's ok...I figure it's only fair. She has this splendid pair of minty-lime green sandals that clothe my feet like a dream...I used to borrow them all of the time, even when I wasn't wearing a speck of green, minty-lime or not. I wasn't so hot at asking first.

Today, frustratingly enough, I noticed a nail beginning to tear. I do not typically have a problem with taking a machete to my nails and hacking them down to size, but I have a wedding to attend this weekend and dude I totally know everyone is going to be staring at my right thumbnail. I quickly emailed Nick: "IS THERE SUPER GLUE AT HOME!?" His reply was sketchy and I considered my options when inspiration struck: Brenda.

I emailed my aunt, pleading for a rescue attempt. Finding her fully equipped with nail glue, I sped to her desk and nearly genuflected in my gratitude. Excitedly, I rushed back to my desk and contacted Nick to relay the continuation and subsequent conclusion of my saga—because he has nothing better to do during the day then listen to his girlfriend get all upset over a broken nail. Like, duh.

In his reply, he seemed to understand the extent of my aunt's stock, and even went so far as to inquire what she didn't have stocked at her desk. I was forced to reply—as it is a glaring oversight on her part that I have noted many a late Friday afternoon at work—, "Beer, sadly enough."

It's Monday night, and even I can admit that saying, typing, thinking, and even romanticizing the word "Monday" followed by "Night" feels wrong with out a "Football" to bring up the caboose. Not that I watch the games, mind you, but because of where I was raised. Ah, Wisconsin!—the lesser known Canadian annex next to Minnesota—Wisconsin that might as well get giggly on punch between Christmas and Easter because there's seriously nothing else to do. I grew up in a place full of drunkards and die hard Green Bay Packer fans.

The Packers in the eighties: can you say, "suck"? Like worse than now? When they used to have The Battle of The Bays as a tongue in cheek tourney because nobody seriously cared who won: the worst team in the NFL, or the second worst.

Perhaps the scent of rancid ale and the shouting of slurred profanities contributed to my modern-day forced-disinterest in sports. That being the case, I showered as Nick began watching tonight's game. When finally I quit the bathroom—after the myriad primping things women must do—I found the quiet of the condo disturbing.

No shouting, no ear splitting volume of a washed up sports has been dissecting the play all uppity like he was Moses staring down the Red Sea—I mean, I loved it, but was Nick all right? This silence from a man who yelled so loud at a Badger game a few weeks ago that I had to leave the house was unsettling. I hastened to finish moisturizing my face and neck to get to the bottom of this incongruity. Then, something happened that allowed me to breathe easier.

A yawn. A loud belly-yawn.

That's right, I remember now...The Packers were playing tonight.