The difference between a good party and a great party is the people.  This last weekend was filled with great people even though I hardly knew most of them.  Here are the people I was really excited and delighted to see at the Barbarian Group Holiday Party in Boston this last weekend, in rough chronological order: Kellianne (<3), Erin Carey (fellow Seattle-ite), Ryan King (sharer of winter-themed Summer Shack), Harry (best sweater), Alice (super glamorous), Tiffany (best muppet dancer), Camille (trusted around money), Amanda (late-night caller), Alita (feather-bearing game-spotter), Danielle (unknown friend of Jakob), Rick Webb (best party-maker!), Judi (best host), Shannon (co-ruler of Boston), Russell (co-ruler of Boston), Alex (best red dress), Stephanie Durrell (instant friend), Ben Durrell (most social anti-socialite), Charlotte (pure fun), Ryan 1 (most absent future bff), Ryan 2 (pusher of spirits), Emma (best bench dancer), Tom (snack table bff), Mike Bodge (bff), Melissa (best sport), Abby (most fanatical), Emily (most cutting necklace), Suzy Bosch (bonder on scotch), Suzy Buzz (super tiny), Kim (Chris Weber's high school friend), and Victoria (engaged sandwich inventor).  This was a great party with great people!

bold = people I have met before but don't really know very well
italics = people I've never met before but am really glad to have met
everyone else = people I know and love

More accurately, a great weekend with great people, since there were after-parties, next-day parties, and next-next-day lounging, vegging, and Boston-bar-hopping.  It was awesome.  Here are other recaps and post-partyiums: Kellianne, Rick, Victoria, Abby, Alice, Alex, Alita, Kellianne earlier, Judi, and Abby earlier as well.  There are a whole bunch of pictures: mine / everyone's.

And the beginning of a great end (4 more big parties in the next 3 weeks), and the end of a great beginning (2007 was about the double down... 2008 about building on foundations).

Random highlights:

• The crazy mix of people all dancing together on the same stage, sweating like crazy
  
• The ridiculously open bar (even the money was floating about loose)
• The music (good blend of classics, embarrassing songs, and stuff I like)
• Going home to change
• After party at the Barbarian Offices where we exhibited the muppet dance
• Guessing people's drunkenness on a scale of 1-10, most people being 8s or 9s
• Smoking on the snowy fire escape
• Rick and Kellianne's rendition of Holocast
• Those fruit chips
• Meeting lots of people I had never met before but knew from THE INTERNET
• Seeing lots of people I don't get to see enough of
• Comments from our hotel neighbors in the morning
  
• Room service hamburgers and chicken sandwiches
• Shopping around: Garment District, Museum of Useful Things, Black Ink
• Dinner at Eastern Standard where they gave us extra-special treatment for no reason really
• After-after-party at Rick and Judy's where 20 bottles of champagne, and 1 bottle of absinthe, were drunk
• Parts of fur coats
• The Buddha Box
• Going through Rick's boxes
• Absinthe-minded drunkenness
• Stealing and taking apart a hotel sign
• Hopping elevators
• Sleep-talking
• Brunch at Charley's with ice cube feet
• A relaxing afternoon of Scrabulous and BSG at Rick and Judi's
• Haircuts
• Watching Nick Cave music videos
• Almost watching 2 cups and 1 girl, but not
• Bar-hopping, more absinthe
• Snowballs in faces
• Breakfast at some science place
• Knowing there are only 3 days left

From the moment I suggested to Kellianne that we have a “ridiculous distance-spanning crush extravaganza” after hanging out with her in March, life has become a full on, all-in, bi-coastal love letter to the universe.  Life as love as art inside-out and upside-down times a thousand.  It was immediately one of those relationships that seemed to benefit from every other lesson either of us had ever learned in every other part of our lives, as if we were being designed for this from the beginning by some fantastic all-knowing cephalopod at the bottom of the ocean.  You know how you always seem to know what you want out of love and romance, but more often than not you don’t know quite how to make it all happen at the right time in the right ways... with Kellianne it all immediately clicked.  It was more than a click it was a smash an explosion.  We don’t know how it all happened, or why we lucked out against the odds, or why so many things fell right into place at just the right time, but we were both ready enough for each other that we haven’t held back at all... we have since been spinning into an upward spiral of awesomeness.  

It has been mind-blowingly crazy and wonderful in every way.  Absolutely, ridiculously, amazing.  You can’t just make up this kind of thing.  This is what life was invented for... falling madly in love with someone that brings out the best in you while bringing out the best in them... doubling down on love, gambling everything, being in it to win it, going for broke, flying to the moon with the golden ticket.  All the things I’ve been talking about wanting, and then actually getting them.  It’s crazy!

In the first 6+ months of our dating, despite living on opposite coasts and having incredibly busy lives, we’ve managed to visit each other 7 times (not counting the two times she visited Seattle before we started dating) for a total of 73 days of living together (33 days in NY, 40 days in Seattle).  On the other 123 days, technology has made long-distance romancing so much more nerdy and fantastic with video chat, mp3 and photo sharing, and text messaging.  There are 69 pictures in flickr tagged with both of our names, 90 email threads, 100s of text messages, and 1,000s of phone minutes logged.  We have been truly documented by web 2.0 since our first kiss.  We’ve been hungry to learn everything about the other person, from ambitions for the future to myriad tales from the past.  And there are certainly ambitions and tales galore.  We want to know everything, experience everything, explore everything.  We have drunk a lot of champagne.  We’ve eaten a lot of good food.  We’ve racked up a ton of JetBlue miles.  We’ve crazy talked and lazy talked.  We’ve celebrated and vegged.  The last 6+ months have had several big friend and family reunions and we’ve had a chance to meet and be seen by almost everyone from our pasts and presents.  We have yet to have a serious argument despite my attempts to instigate one... okay we almost got into one about the taxi cab strike in NYC a couple weeks ago.  We’re patiently waiting for a real fight.  Mutual friends have never seen us happier.  It just makes so much perfect sense.  We want to spend the rest of our lives together.  Thoughts, emotions, and actions are positively aligned in our mutual love.  It’s, obviously, ridiculous and bold and vulnerable for us to say all of this... but it’s the only thing that we can or know how to say.  I know we must’ve been such nice and good people in our previous lives to have been able to cash in on all this good karma.

What am I trying to say?  That I’m super excited.  That horrible, sad, heartbreaking events can happen and still not break you or make you cynical beyond repair... that they may even make you want that miraculous perfect all consuming thing even more.  That I want to share more than I really should.  That I want people to be excited about love in all its forms that everyone comes up with (because everyone will come up with their own) and know that sometimes it works, sometimes it more than works.

This is the woman I am in love with and want to marry, in all her many forms.  



Here is the above picture with notes.  And clickable pictures. 

We’re getting married next October, most likely in Delaware.  She's moving to Seattle in January.  Woo!

Here's Kellianne's story.