List of loves...

I know my wife is going to freak out because I have posted twice in as many days, but I thought about this earlier as I washed my cheese slicer. I was thinking about the different things in life I have loved.

My first love came at a very young age when I was first introduced to cheese. I began by eating slices off of a block of mild cheddar. I knew then that a lasting relationship was formed. I began to seek out every kind of cheese I could. I loved Muenster, Cheddar, Monterey Jack, Colby, pretty much everything but American (it always tasted rubbery and self-involved). I remember at our nasty house on 22nd street we didn't have a fridge, but we kept all of our stuff in an ice-chest on the porch. Pretty gross. The only thing I would eat from that would be cheese. I learned to be picky and careful because of that, but to this day my favorite snack is a bit of white cheddar cheese on top of a chicken flavored cracker, don't knock it till you try it.

Soon, I discovered my second and third loves. The both occurred around the same time. My friend Adam had a Nintendo and I used to go over to his house a lot. He also had a computer with games like Doom and Wolfenstein on it. We used to try to find ways to put more blood on the game, something that isn't really tough to do anymore. This was my second love, video games. We were too poor growing up for me to have anything really, but eventually, and I think this came after much saving and borrowing, my mom got me a Super Nintendo. To say I wore that thing out is an understatement. I pretty much came home from school every day in middle school and played that game. I had games like Madden and Super Mario Brothers memorized.

My second love went hand in hand with my third, and maybe my most passionate. I discovered Dr. Pepper some time in middle school. It went from something that I loved getting (I would take some of our foodstamps down to 7-11 and buy the 59 cent glass twenty ounce every day) to something I felt like I couldn't live without sometimes. I have pretty much enjoyed a Dr. Pepper a day since. I have taken times off, but I always return to this love of mine.

Around my junior year in highschool, I discovered a love that I hadn't really appreciated, but I think was always there. I began to love football. Unfortunately, our school didn't have a team, but that worked out OK, because the college my family had gone to had just gotten a pretty decent coach. He came in and turned what had been a loser for the past decade or so into a success. This was all cemented in my mind during my senior year. We would all gather at my friend Jason's house. He was an only child in a rich family and he had an entire upstairs to himself. He had a huge screen TV and we would gather every Saturday to watch OU. Jason had some weird weapons around his room, like swords and big knives, and every time OU was down in a game, we would all grab a "rally weapon" and cheer harder. They came back every time that year. OU finished undefeated and I have not missed a game since, unless it was on Pay per view or something.

I have all of these loves, and they have all changed me, but my favorite and most important is my newest. I met her in 2003 and it has been an adventure since then. It took me some time to realize I loved her, but she is a lot more complicated than cheese or video games or Dr. Pepper. Those things don't feel the same way I do. But Robin passes them all. She is new and different and she changes and she makes me a better person. She won't make my cholesterol worse or keep me awake (well she does do that sometimes, but not because of caffeine). I used to think she was out of my league when we first met, then I got cocky and then I thought she was gone, then we were together and stayed that way. I am lucky to have her and I look forward to the rest of our life. And I'm glad she doesn't love Dr. Pepper and cheese and video games the way I do, more for me.