How We Met: Alan's Perspective

Carrie and I met early in our first quarter at AIA. It was July in Atlanta, and the city was doing what it does best in the summer, which is to steam-fry anyone with the sheer gall to stand outside for longer than five minutes. Fortunately for us, the school seemed to have a policy of consistently refrigerating the five story office building that constituted our campus at temperatures more conducive to keeping penguins. That may be a bit of a exaggeration, but when you're looking back at the first few weeks of college from the other side of the diploma, the memories tend to take on a cartoonish technicolor hue. So when I say those memories seem plain vanilla in contrast to my first memories of Carrie, I hope you can appreciate how perfectly we fell together. By some bizarre cosmic coincidence, we were both bitten by the animation bug and had therefore enrolled in the Media Arts and Animation program offered by the school. This meant that eventually our class schedule collided and I ended up in a classroom seat adjacent to a bright-eyed and bubbly Carrie learning about the history of animation. Its at this point our accounts seem to differ. According to Carrie I was sitting behind her and she first noticed me when I absently started playing with her hair. I, being a gentleman of integrity, insist I was sitting beside her and did no such thing. Regardless, we met each other there, and I can say with happy confidence that neither of us ran screaming out the door, and no furniture was permanently damaged. After class, I was on my way out to my car and saw her waiting for the shuttle to the dormitories, which were about two very hot and urban miles away. On a whim, I offered her a ride, which very well have been one of my better whim-decisions ever. On the ride to the dorms, we found out that we had a lot in common, including the fact that we were both out-of-state transplants. One car ride turned into several, which turned into a dinner date that included fleeing from a fancy steak-house once we realized that they would not be receptive to seating two kids in jeans and t-shirts. One thing led to another and on the 24th of August, 2004 we were, as they say, officially an item. I have a feeling Carie will be posting her perspective on how we got together soon.

-Alan