It's been awhile since I posted any thoughts or dreams or passages from Fat Habits. I've had some personal emotional issues spread out from about Thanksgiving to March or April. It's just life, I guess. Also I was having a difficult time accessing this page and today might have fixed it. I do want to write about how I met your mother, before time blurs everything. However I will get back to this later... now that I seem to be back on.

so it's the day after 4th of July and Mathew is over his cousin's house playing video games with Luke and Christopher is having his requested and much needed "social break" and eating chocolate Lucky Charms, head phones on and watching YouTube on his phone; outside the heat is on still and Mat has a summer ball game later today. I want Farmer or the coach to show us how to throw a change-up. I never pitched so I never learned. It is a pitch that would almost make Mat unhittable in many situations....

so back to how I met your mother. The very first time was around 1988 or 1989. I was dating Anne then. There was a party at Michael Cloherty's house, one of my brother's friends. A typical loud drunken crew. Your mother was there hanging out with her friend, Trisha Cloherty (Mike's older sister). Everyone standing around the kitchen talking, laughing, smoking cigarettes and playing drinking games like Drink-while-you-think or Quarters. I have a memory of seeing her and thinking she was very pretty but that was it. I had a girlfriend so it went no further and that was that-- the last time I would see her again... until....

Fast forward to 1996. I was living on Allen Street, the house right beside my parents house, in the down stairs apartment. I had moved in there in 1995 with roommates, Kevin Trull and Wes Bethune (eventually Wes would move out and a kid named Jason would replace him). We did a lot of drinking and partying in those days and I was still happy being a single guy. So the night before I met your mother and our lives changed forever, I was up late, hammered.

The next morning, the phone rang... I forget why the answering machine was off but the phone just rang and rang and woke me up and I tried to ignore it but it wouldn't stop and it became clear that I had to get up and answer it to make it stop. So I answered it. Mike Cloherty was on the other end, perhaps drunk I don't know but he pleaded with me to come over and help pull someone's truck out of the mud-- no, I said, I'm sleeping. He continued, come on Jim, I'll buy us booze and we will have a cook out and I'll barbecue; still no I told him. But he went on and on like he did in those days and finally just to shut him up, I agreed to help.

Of course, by the time he picked me up, his friend had already remedied the truck situation and here I was-- awake now and heading over Mike's for another round of drinking.

They were living in Randolph on Orrin White Drive in a two family house. Mike lived with his mother on one side and Tricia lived alone on the other side and so when I got there (I was a full fledged cigarette smoker then) one of the first things I did was head out to the shared back porch and have a smoke where Robin and Tricia were talking. We small talked and remembered each other from the party a few years ago. We got along instantly and I started to think maybe we will hook up-- maybe coming to Mike's wasn't such a bad idea.

So Robin had stuff to do that day but promised she would be back later. Of course I asked Mike about Robin and he said they were seeing each other and well that put an end to that so I dropped it all together. Later that night she returned, looking absolutely hot, so hot, I thought, I had no chance with her anyway. She brought her friend Julie who was attractive enough and as a buzz kicked in I figured well maybe me and Julie could hook up so I gravitated toward her. I ended up talking to Robin mostly though as a party began to form around us, more people dropped by for drinks and food and I often found myself talking with Robin by the kitchen bathroom. I brought up Mike and asked her how long they had been dating for and she looked at me with surprise and said they weren't dating. Of course that changed everything.

We ended up talking most of the night and did hook up. The next morning she drove me back to my apartment. I really liked her already. I knew she was a real deal and not some one shot wonder, that maybe we should be exclusive to each other. She was incredibly shy she said but I made her feel at ease and comfortable to talk. She could definitely be a real girlfriend, my first in three years.