Look Back In Love: The Not-On-TV Office: Episode Two - Work Is Where The Heart Is

Under the category, "Eat Dessert First!"  the Mariner and I are off to our pre-elopement honeymoon.  What better time than to look back in love. This time in the Office.  Where love blooms in many different ways.

Originally posted August 19, 2008.


This is Nick. He's to my left.

He talks to me over the "hedges."



Sometimes I hear him giggling in shock while he listens on his headphones to Wendy Williams on BLS. We lend each other books and because of him I'm trapped in the middle of an adolescent vampire series where I am reliving the worst of every crush I ever had only these book characters have better luck than me even when they want to suck the blood of the one they love. I lent him a book about a woman's spiritual journey. I'm not sure if that's an even exchange, especially after he told me he reads two pages and falls dead asleep, even on the train. He also makes coffee every day. I supply popcorn. He's the go-to man for pop culture. I supply the moral advice.

This is me.



Thirty-hours a week I get a break from Florence-stuff (except when I have to get on the phone with the insurance company, Medicaid, CASA II, the doctor’s office, the home attendant agency…)

This is Adriene. She's to my right.


This is what I see when we talk.



If it's not Monday we talk quite a bit. She listens to Michael Baisden on her radio which, unlike my radio, doesn't get static. This is an actual exchange:

A: Oh he's so nauseating.
C: Why do you listen to him?
A: Because he's an idiot.

Sometimes we sing together, and when Kiss FM plays Rock Steady by Aretha, I turn on my radio and hug it so it doesn't get static and then me and Adriene get to chair-dance in stereo. She's the go-to woman for basic information like the seizures and video game connection, best methods to kill mice, and the 70's. I supply the cheerful morning greetings and once a gluten-free loaf of bread which turned out to be inedible to humans and mice. When she really wants to upset me she offers to hug me. When I really want to upset her I talk about foods with wheat.