Candyce and I had a nice dinner tonight at her house. We were planning on eating by candle light on the back patio, but the sky opened up and unleashed a massive rainstorm. Although we were discouraged that our plans had changed, the steady rain added some romance to the night that we never would’ve predicted.

Now let me talk about the food, because it was damn good. I sliced and toasted a baguette and then layered brie cheese with Granny Smith apples. It was so good that the two of us downed two massive plates full. Candyce picked up two salads from LGO, which are as good of salads as you can find on earth. Throughout the whole night, we sipped a tasty red wine from Trader Joes, a wine that rose to celebrity status because it is so good and so cheap. It earned a nickname of “Two Buck Chuck.” I mean seriously, a whole bottle costs less than a latte at Starbucks. You can’t beat that. For desert, I served lemon gelatto.

Throughout dinner, I couldn’t help but look at Candyce across the table and think about how many guys would like to be in my chair. Candyce is such a beautiful, smart, funny girl. She cares about me and supports me. She believes in me. My life is so good. This is the kind of life I always dreamed about when I was young. I am the guy in my 20s that I always wanted to be.

As nice as tonight was, Valentine’s Day seems like a quaint, shallow occasion compared to our upcoming wedding. And that’s the real reason why I left early tonight. I can’t distract her because she’s planning for a wedding and finishing her senior thesis. So I helped clean up the kitchen and then disappeared out the front door by 9 PM.

I took down this website a week or so ago because I wanted to add a new section of a map that shows where I’ve traveled over the years. This proved to take more time that I thought (just like everything else in life, right?) But I’ve enjoyed adding the travel adventures throughout the years because it helps connect memories in my mind. I have journals from those years, but it’s a different experience entirely to to see the flight paths exploding out of a city.

It’s made me curious about how I could recall other memories. I don’t know, maybe by making play lists of my favorite music at the end of each month. Or have good archives of digital photos or something. Part of me thinks that these are bad ideas because my life would become painfully boring if all I do is spend my evenings trying to record and organize my memories.

Actually, I feel really uncool right now, so I’m going to stop writing and find something more important to do.

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3 hrs later

I remembered that Candyce is having a pre-wedding party at my house this Saturday, so I scrambled around the house cleaning and organizing everything. That was three long, hard hours of cleaning.