Three weeks later, our school has a dance. First, I check with Jon if it's ok to ask Gwyneth. He's cool with it because he wants to ask Steffi. So we trade dates (lots of fun with that). I call Gwyneth and ask her to see a movie so we can get to know each other before. Seems like a good idea. She accepts. Warm fuzzy.

I get incredibly lost getting to her house which is located in Bumf*ck, WI. I mean Sussex. Well, the part of Sussex that touches Menomonee Falls. You must understand where I'm coming from... Sussex is like, um, Outer Mongolia it seems. It takes me 30 min to get to her house which includes "getting lost" time. It's funny because it's out in the country and instead of being able to read street signs with my headlights, I have to get out and pull over and run over to the sign and realize I'm lost. But I get there.

We see Dante's Peak. I still shudder. This is my second or third attempt at high school dating, you know. What am I doing? I don't know. But I manage to hold her hand for the final scenes so I guess it was a success. I start calling her to chat. She chats back. It's fun discovering another person. It's fun telling her stories. It's fun for the whole family. Because my sister's making fun of me a lot. (She remembers the last dating thing).

When I drop Gwyneth off at home, I walk her to the door and my car slides down her driveway because it's icy. That's funny, because I'm hugging her and she's trying to save my car. So I'm stoked for this dance coming up. She is too. But her best friend, Hannah, has no date so I gallantly offer my young innocent friend Yung-Ee (I'll call him Brian from now on.) I talk to Gwyneth every night. 555-3225: it's in my fingers. We're in the dating stage, I'm told.

Dance is cool; I dance, she dances, we're dancing. Kimi gets yelled at for dancing suggestively. Afterward, we go back to my house and watch movies, eat, etc. The girls are staying over at Hannah's that night. I'm nervous ( I think the parents were gone again... that happened a lot). 3:00. They leave. Or, they're leaving.

I pull Gwyneth away and give her a red rose. Because Valentine's Day was the day before and we hadn't been able to go out. And I'd never been in a dating type situation around Valentine's Day before and I was going to try it out now. So I present the flower, in my little mudroom while everyone else is leaving out the front door. And she kisses me. And I don't come down from my cloud for another two months.