What’s thing that you and Dave do that you are most looking forward to sharing with your baby?

This is a good one! A HARD one! Mostly, we look forward to sharing ourselves. We come frm different backgrounds, but have met in the middle in so many ways. We’ve talked about our differences, and our parenting ideals, for years, long before we decided to TTC. When I say ‘ourselves,’ it’s almost too broad, right? But we have such a happy and content relationship, that adding one more to love is exciting. We look forward to sharing our backyard — it gets pitifully little use by us adults, but it was a huge selling point for the house, knowing it would be so great for kids. And for that matter, our neighborhood, which I’m always raving about. I’m glad — we’re both glad — that we were able to get a house in this neighborhood, because of its kid-friendliness. I look forward to walks to the park, to walks to the polling place (voting geek), to walks in City Forest.  We both look forward to sharing our love of reading with the widget, and I look forward to watching Dave share his musical ability, too.

Did you grow up in Presque Isle?  That’s what I imagine when you mention your childhood, but I am probably way off…

Nope! Not "way off," in that I did grow up in the ‘real Maine,’ which is considered anything north of Augusta. (Portland is now known as ‘North Boston,’ for reference.)  I grew up in a town of ~150 people in Washington County, which is the poorest, least educated, least employed, etc etc, county in Maine. My backyard was, literally, miles and miles of forestland.

How did you and Dave meet?

Five years ago, to the day, yesterday, if I remember correctly. (It’s weird how once you get married, your first date-iversary gets lost in the shuffle.) Anyway, it was less than a week before Christmas. Actually, if I dug out a calendar I could figure it out.

How we met. . . . this is a long one! But I’ve never posted the story here, and it’s good in that ‘only in gretchen’s world would it happen THIS way’ kind of way.

Late 2000, I’m working tech support for an ISP, and I work 4pm-1am. I play chess with my (gay) friend and coworker, Kevin, at Denny’s after our shift. I’m making good money, I’ve ducked out of retail and worked myself into a cube farm, but it’s GOOD money. The nightowl life was fun.

ANyway, one night Andy and I are at my apartment on Elm street, and we’re online reading AOL personals. They are a RIOT, and we are totally mocking them, like "No WAY has that woman ever walked barefoot on the beach at sunset!" And they all have these cheesy titles to try to hook you into clicking like "RU4ME?" or "Searching4Romeo" and crap like that. Deserving of BIG BIG eyerolls. In a fit of total mockery, Andy and I create a personal for me. The hook-line is "What the?" and I fill out the form with all kinds of sarcastic answers, like answering "Egypt, or Tuffy Bears [this furniture store near here with ridiculous ads]" for "Where would you like to travel next?" Every answer is made tongue in cheek, and one of my hobbies was listed as "Trying to figure out why [local news personality] got all uptight when he moved from channel 7 to channel 2." (Seriously, his weathercasts on 7 were a RIOT, and as an anchor at 2, he was Mr Boooorriing.)

I end up getting a few emails, which are ridiculed justly my Andy and I (creepy mofos out there, that can’t spell for shit), but then I get one about the local news guy. It’s not a response to my ad, but just a paragraph about the news guy’s ‘going to read to a group of kindergarteners’ outfit of pjs and bunny slippers, and how he’d chase people around for being "BAD BUNNIES!" The email, of course, is from Dave.

Dave had been tipped off at work that some common acquaintance had an ad up, so he was looking for that, but was drawn into my ad because of the title "What the?" He sent the thing about the newsguy, and that was that, he wasn’t looking for a date. But, when i forwarded the reply to Andy, Andy replied right back "Oh my god, I know him. I went to high school with him. You should totally call him."

Me being all, "UH, right, I don’t DO the internet personals, dude," I brushed him off. Andy and Jenne and I went to Dysart’s, and convinced me to email Dave my number. They hadn’t been friends in school, but Andy knew him as a nice guy, and also knew him as a customer at Borders, where Dave went to buy VW magazines and music CDs.  In high school, Dave had been a long-haired bassist dude, who had spent his whole life on the wrong side of the tracks (so, TOTALLY the type I went for in high school) but since Andy had seen him as a customer over the years, he knew he’d not ended up in jail or whatever (like most people from the projects did). Andy and Jenne convinced me, and i sent my number, and he called me, and we talked a few times, and decided to meet. At Marden’s, in the brass monkey aisle.

I was SO nervous, as was Dave, but it was an instant attraction. We hadn’t really TALKED much over the phone or internet, I didn’t want it to be THAT, you know, so when people ask, the short version is "blind date." If not for Andy’s seal of approval, I would have just deleted the email like all the rest.  Weirdly, Dave remembers Andy, but has no idea why he’d vouch for him, but is obviously glad he did.

As we dated, we found that the fact that we hadn’t met was bizarre. We had many friends in intersecting circles, my friend Kasia dated his best friend (and our best man) Casey for a long time, but we never ran into each other. There were several other cases of just-missing each other. We actually figured out that I’d been in one of his history classes in high school, when I’d visited Andy at BHS and tagged along (which? Who does that? Ithought you were supposed to get your friend to skip while you visitied, not get a freaking guest pass and go to some other school’s classes all day . . .  anyway), and my first apartment in Bangor was almost in view of his.  The weirdest close call was discovereed after we’d been dating a while. I went to Amy’s apartment on Kenduskeag to feed her cat, or something, and as I gave him directions, it became clear that it was the same building as one that a friend lived in. When he saw the place, and realized that the stairs were Amy’s, he remembered where he knew me from — he’d seen Amy and I on the stairs one day (smoking, no doubt) when he’d gone to Jason’s to drop something off, and as he left, he remembered thinking "wow, she’s beautiful, I wish I could get to know her."

We met just before Christmas of 2000, we moved in together in November of 2001, we were married on October of 2003, and we bought our house in May of 2004, and in May 2006, we’ll become parents together.

Now, if you had told me that I would marry someone who responded to an AOL personal ad, I would have laughed in your face. That is NOT how things happen for me, and to admit it would be the most embarrassing thing ever. But, that’s how it happened. Lots of little twists of fate, strange turns of events, some leaps of faith, and a brass monkey that sits on the shelf in the baby’s room now, waiting to see the next phase happen.

What sort of AmeriCorps job did you have?

I served with a statewide technology initiative, called Project GOALS: Go Online At Libraries and Schools.  I had an office in the basement of the Bangor Public Library, and worked at BPL and other local libraries to teach librarians, library patrons, teachers, and parents of K-12 students how best to use computers and the internet.  That was the mission statement, in reality I worked with adult patrons almost exclusively, and many of them were senior citizens. I also did other things, like work on a user-friendly curriculum/manual that is still probably stashed somewhere in libraries around the state.  It was a lifechanging event in many ways, for one I met Annemarie (waves! Hi! Got your holiday card! She’s sooo big now!!!), and for two, I realized that I had a unique ability to translate computers and the internet to people who’d never before been able to understand them.  It was in Americorps that I decided to pursue Instructional Technology as a career, and here I am, more than half cone with my M. Ed. I would’ve done it another year, but funding for Americorps was cut post-9/11, and our program was one that disappeared completely.

Do you play a musical instrument?

I did. Maybe I still could? I can’t imagine even trying now. From 5th grade until 12th grade, I played clarinet in the band. I switched to bass clarinet in 8th grade? 9th? and played that for the last half of my school band career. I have a bass clarinet at my parents house, but I haven’t opened the case in probably 10 years.

Are you a fast reader?

Oh man, am I ever. I go through spurts, where I might read a book a day, and then go for a while without reading a novel all at once. I can’t think of a book I’ve picked up recently and not finished — even if I don’t like it, I can’t not finish it. When I worked at Borders, they had a staff book loan program, where basically all of Borders was my library. In Phoenix, I worked there nights, and worked days at an airline ticketing agency, a phone job. I read 2 books a day between calls at the day job.  I was actually wondering if I read more or less now, if I were to include my online reading. I read the boards at IM of course, and blogs, and TWoP recaps, and I wonder if my words-per-day is about the same as when I read a book a day.  I can also read upside down and backwards, and can usually do the daily Jumble in under 2 minutes. (It would be less, but I have to send my brain to the land of bad puns to solve the final joke.  The individual words are a snap for me, though.) Words and my brain get along famously.

would you *ever* move out of maine? say the perfect combination of job,
money and circumstances arose someplace out of state – would you do it?

Oh man, that’s so hard.  I LOVE my city, my neighborhood, my house. I like being close to my family, but not too close. We have a great quality of life here, and it’s pretty affordable, too. Dave has the best job he could get here, literally, he only got it because his predecessor died. It’s a company you don’t leave without a damn good reason.  So, it would have to be a really, really compelling reason. I mean, especially with the widget coming — I don’t think I’d move back to Phoenix for any reason. I don’t think I could ever live in the south, either. I don’t know where I could live — Madison, WI maybe? But if I was going there, why would I leave here?

what are some baby names you like?

Hmmm. This one is from someone I know in real life, well, I’ve met a lot of you, but mainegirl and I went to high school together. I have been hedging on names with IRL people, because what tends to happen, in my experience, is you say "oh, we’re thinking about Esmerelda!" and the person says "oh, I went to middle school with an Esmerelda who was as big as a mack truck and had herpes in her ears."  Then, the person who likes Esmerelda can’t get the image out of their mind, you know? BUT, if you have the baby and say "Meet Esmerelda!" they go "OOOOOOHHH!! CUTE BABBYYY!" and the name takes on a new meaning for that person.  I also am irrationally put off by people who refer to their unborn baby by their name before they are born, like "Oh, Esmerelday and I are going to the grocery store now" or whatever. Maybe it stems from my miscarriage, or something, but it’s weird. I’ve mentioned names that we like, that are front runners, on IM, but it feels weird to mention them here. SO. I will say that since the widget will be a MyLast, we’re looking for names that are Germanic or Scandinavian in origin. We like names that are strong and beautiful, and not too popular. However, that doesn’t mean that we are going to make them up by tossing in some unnecessary umlauts and such.

Now, it’s not that I think that mainegirl would  put up her nose at our frontrunner name choices, or do anything rude or think any less of me because of the names we picked out (she’s far too classy), but since my parents and ILs don’t even know what we’re working on, it feels weird to post it here. But! If anyone has any suggestions, feel free to offer them up! While we have front runners, nothing is ever set in stone. After all, I was going to be an Erica until oh, about 10 minutes after I was born, when my parents realized I was just NOT an Erica. Other than that, I’ll let you know our name choices in May. By Memorial Day at the latest. 😉