So we’re doing a little web surfing over coffee the other morning, and Miriam is showing me something cool.

And then she does something that leaves me a bit flabbergasted.

“Miriam,” I ask her, “did you just press CTRL +T to open a new tab in Firefox?”

“YEP,” she answers and goes back to showing off.

She knows what she is doing. She’s toying with me. Dammit, this woman knows I love her. She doesn’t have to play these little games.

I catch her using another keyboard shortcut, but I say nothing. The geek in me is slightly aroused.

“You are so fucking cool,” I tell her.

She just smiled.

It’s one of those nights, and I’ve been here many times before. I’m tired, I know I’m tired, and yet I’m not sleepy. Can’t sleep. Nope, not gonna happen.

Things are going well lately and I’m quite content. I’m doing well at work, although I’m bored to tears. My job is quite easy and I am not challenged. I’m not even trying and I’m doing better than some people who have been there for years. My supervisor calls me her “star pupil”. I get the feeling that some people at work feel threatened by me, perhaps they think that I’m after their job. Little do they know that they have nothing to worry about. In four months I’ll be transferring out of that call center. Anywhere is fine, as long as I’m not arguing with people about their bill.

And Miriam is awesome, and I can’t remember being this happy with anyone, ever. I suppose I should say more about this *Miriam* gal, eh?

We met at work, on our very first day at Comcast. She sat on the other side of the room, in the back row, and I took every opportunity to ever-so-slyly steal glances at her. Our New Employee Orientation was quite full with 40 something people, and we all had to stand up and say a few things about ourselves.

“My name is Miriam and I’m very interested in technology.”

Whoa! Hu.. wha?? What did she just say? My neck snapped around to make sure it was that cute girl in the back row, the one I had the hots for, that actually said what I thought I just heard.

So I spent the rest of the day trying to play it cool. I had to play this one perfectly. Nope, not gonna screw this one up. There is something special about this girl, and I want to know more about her. I gotta be cool.

And then on Monday morning I joined my class of 15 or so classmates for the first day of Repair CAE training. And lucky me! That girl is in my class! She walked in the classroom and my face lit up and the whole world could see how excited I was to find out she was in my class with me for the next five weeks! I hope she doesn’t notice me staring at her… way to play it cool, Tom.

And then Miriam says that she loves the outdoors.

Wait. Wait. So, she’s techie Miriam *AND* outdoors Miriam? Just like me? OH… MY… GOD.

And so we would spend our first month flirting and smiling and trying in vain to play it cool and talking and wishing we were in each other’s group and being shy and it was just like high school.

Remember high school? Remember what it was like to have a crush on someone? Remember how excited you were in the morning when you woke up and got ready to go to class because you knew you were going to see that special someone? Remember how your heart fluttered when you daydreamed about them? Remember how your heart pounded when they caught you looking at them and they smiled at you? That’s what it was like to be in training class together. I felt like I was a teenager in love.

And then one day Miriam followed me across the street, to the golf course where I usually spend my lunch hour, and asked me to join her for lunch.

And she hasn’t been able to shake me since.

I’ve taken her to Truckee and Chico and I’ve been showing her all those awesome places that I’ve found, alone, in my travels and swore that one day I’d return with someone special.

We are very much alike and we get along so well. Every day we have a moment that goes something like this… “wait, you like that too?” or “wow, you feel that about that too?” We have a lot in common, indeed.

So our training is over and we’re on the floor, taking live calls and on our own and taking tech support calls and fixin’ shit. We sit right next to each other. We send little love notes and text messages to each other the entire shift. Miriam picks up little Nerf baseballs and throws them at me when I’m on a call. We take our breaks together and sneak out to the parking lot to make out. Miriam smiles at me and my heart melts.

And when we go home after our shift we open all the blinds and drapes so the neighboors and hear us playing Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin and singing to each other and see us dancing in the kitchen.

And when we go to dinner we sit right next to each other and feed little bites off our plate to each other and make everyone around us absolutely sick. It is sick, isn’t it?

And it feels just like when we were in high school…

*waves goodbye to Haystack*

*waves hello to Brentwood*

So here I am in the Delta Valley. It’s going to be hotter than Hades soon, and I dread the coming months. Although my years in Chico prepared me for the coming sweltering heat, I am still not looking forward to it.

I lived all my life along the coast, up until my 30th birthday when I moved to Chico. From Hayward to San Diego to San Francisco to Long Beach and Orange County the weather was always the same: mild winters and summers… a perfect 75 degrees year-round. It was all I ever knew. All this time I never lived with air conditioning–I never needed it.

And then I turned 30 and had, in no uncertain terms, my mid-life crisis. I decided to go back to school and finish college. Oh, and party my motherfucking ass off while I was at it. Oh, oh… and do a little fly fishing too.

Anyway.

Moving to Chico in January was nothing special. Sure, it was cold. But I like the cold. And then the summer came. Six months of 100+ degrees weather every damn day. I knew it was going to be hot. But I had never lived in that kind of heat. I did not enjoy the summer weather in the Sacramento River valley. I took every opportunity to flee to the cooler mountains nearby. I think one year I ran my AC for six month straight.

So then.

Here I am back in the valley. The heat is looming, like a hammer waiting to strike a nail, and I can feel it every morning when I walk out the door.

Thankfully I have AC.