(Is This The Way To) Alfred, NY?

I am currently sitting in a chair in a university house in upstate New York. I arrived very late last Wednesday night in Rochester, thanks to a delay in excess of two hours on my connecting flight from Chicago to Rochester. This is the first time I've ever been to the United States. I've wanted to come here for twenty years and never got around to it. And yet here I am having booked a flight two weeks before I came, using my last five days' holiday for the year. It's amazing how quickly you get your narrow behind in gear when there's a girl involved. Funny, that. Ah, yes. The Girl. I haven't mentioned her before. She's the primary reason I have posted only once since I got back from Berlin at the beginning of September. I didn't feel I could talk about her because she reads this thing and I didn't want to jinx it.

I met Erin in London on September 9. I knew her from a German music mailing list we're both on. In late July she emailed me to say she was going to be in London in early September for a friend's wedding and the list owner had mentioned I lived fairly locally so did I feel like hanging out while she had spare time. So I met up with her at Oxford Circus and we hung out all day. She needed to buy clothes for the wedding so we did that first and then I gave her a little tour of central London on foot. I had no clue what to expect when I met her. Lots of awkward silences, probably. All I knew was she was a college student in the US, way younger than me, a German major and what she looked like. I had no idea whether we'd get along or find stuff to talk about. As it happens, we got along famously and talked all day about all kinds of everything and when she had to go she said she would be back two days later after the wedding if I wanted to hang out then. So I met her on the Sunday and we just hung out, wandered around central London, went for Chinese food in Soho, saw a movie and sat in Trafalgar Square talking for hours. It was so nice to talk to someone cool and interesting for so long and so naturally. It felt like we had known each other forever, not two days. We wandered around until about 3am and then I drove her back to her friend's flat in Islington since it was a schoolnight and I still had to get my narrow behind back to Reading. It was pretty obvious to both of us that this was the beginning of something really great.

She flew back to America the next day but she beeped me on IM when she got back and we immediately started chatting for hours on end. We missed each other pretty bad. Within a few days she called me - at 2:30am on a Sunday night when I had to be at work for eight! - and so our relationship developed rapidly on the phone as well as by IM. We talked on the phone and with ever greater frequency and length. My phone bill made interesting reading for October. There was a call of six and three quarter hours one weeknight. Just as well it's only 2p/min to call the United States. It quickly became a high priority to come see her, something she assured me she very much wanted too. We needed to confirm the chemistry we both knew was there and felt right from the start. Which of course it is. And so here I am. Friday was my birthday and I can tell you that I have never spent a better birthday than I did this year in a tiny town in upstate New York with a girl who brings to mind the line in the movie Singles: "If I had a personal conversation with God, I would ask Him to create this girl". She is everything I've always wanted.

I have to go back to England tomorrow. This is not something which fills me full of joy at the moment. But I'm going to come back in January, so it's not so bad. We can do this. The world is full of people in happy successful long distance relationships. She has a college radio show with her housemate Friday evenings. This Friday it was me and her on the show because her housemate was away in DC. Among the songs Erin cut out of her playlist for the evening was one I wanted to play for her. So since it bit the dust, here's a little snippet. I love you, honey.

Und wenn ich geh, dann geht nur ein Teil von mir
Und gehst Du, bleibt Deine Wärme hier
Und wenn ich wein, dann weint nur ein Teil von mir,
Und der andere lacht mit Dir