iPalimpsest

Jenny and I were married in New Paltz on March 27th, 2004. Mid-March 1996 we kind-of-got-together (the start of relationships is a little hard to identify, but we were totally together by the end of Spring Break in 1996), so it's about eleven years, and 3 since our marriage/ act-of-civil-disobedience.

In 2004, I really thought Jenny and I would be legally married by now. I can't believe our country still doesn't recognize our relationship as more than roommates.

Eleven years ago for Spring break, Jenny and I and two other friends tried to ride our bikes (by ourselves, not in any organized ride) across Florida. We were 2nd year students at Grinnell College, and we took the bus all the way from Iowa to our friend's uncle's apartment in Tampa. Then, we rented bikes and randomly started riding in some direction, and off we went. We stayed at crappy hotels at night, and even hitched a ride over a bridge without a bike lane, with some creepy guy (I know how lucky we are that nothing horrible happened during this trip).

Anyway, parts of this trip were completely miserable. We were lost, living on junk food (especially mini powdered donuts and vanilla milkshakes-- we weren't vegan yet), carrying everything in our backpacks, and we had a few biking incidents (Jenny jumped a curb and flew into a lampost!)-- some of the hotels were really questionable.

So, Jenny and I sort of got together in mid-March, swept away by the passion of Grinnell's annual Disco party, and then were sort of in denial. But during this bike trip, one night, we were in this creepy hotel, and Jenny and I were in the same bed (the other nights we were switching off who shared beds with who), and she grabbed my hand, and pulled me under the covers, and to the horror of our friends (why didn't Jenny wait until they'd at least turned off the lights?!) she kissed me under the covers. And that sort of sealed the deal, at least until study abroad the next year (but this is a story for some other time).