Initial Rantings

First of all, it is true that I have resisted posting on this blog for quite some time. Basically the entire time we’ve been married. I have my reasons for resisting, which are the same reasons I said I would never join facebook… which I did do, and now I can’t get enough. I think the fear of being hopelessly addicted to blogging has contributed to keeping me away. I don’t know about all of you, but I’ve greatly enjoyed reading Liz’s blog. I think she has a beautiful way with words and she’s positively hilarious. She doesn’t see it, but I think she’s quite funny.

Well, to make a proper introduction, allow me introduce myself properly. My name is David Malone, husband of Liz Malone. I’m the second born of five children, and I’m the only boy (that in and of itself should explain quite a bit about me). I was born in the great state of Virginia, but I don’t remember much of it. My father was in the Navy at the time and we didn’t stay there long. We moved to South Carolina for a minute, and then to Utah for a couple of years, before my parents finally settled into the house they begrudgingly still live in. They live in the great state of Georgia, the land that I call home since I spent the majority of life there. From age 7 to 23, Atlanta was my crib… Oh yeh, ‘daz right. I’m from ‘da hood. (Liz will probably kill me for bringing up my ghetto upbringing.) It was rough growing up in ‘da hood… Oh, who am I kidding? I’m as pasty white as they come! A suburbanite. (Fo’ shizzle.) I grew up in Marietta, GA which is considered part of the metro-Atlanta area. At any rate… I love legos and SciFi; my favorite movies include the Princess Bride and Star Dust; I adore all things feminine; my favorite color is purple; I love math, teaching, and rocking out on Guitar Hero and Rock Band. If that isn’t enough information for you, feel free to ask me whatever. I’ve always maintained that my life is an open book, if anyone is interested enough to read.

So, now, in my defense I must clarify some of what Liz has written. She wrote them that way on purpose, I think, to coerce me into finally writing something. I can’t blame her for that. So starting with ‘How I Came to Be Mrs. Malone’ part I….

The applesauce was really tasty, and I love applesauce, and I didn’t want to see it go to waste, and I didn’t have a bag on me, so in my somewhat abnormal thought process, the only thing I could do was to take the applesauce, and take as many as I could, and I had to put them in my pockets because I could carry more that way, and the guy who brought them sooo didn’t care. So, you see, it only makes sense that I would put 11-12 applesauce cups in the many pockets of my suit coat and pants in order to save them from going to waste…. I should be viewed as a hero for my role in that story… but it is true that I give a pretty terrible first impression. Maybe people will like me better if I stop stealing stuff….

I would also like to echo my praise of Monica, though, to this day, I still don’t know why she would invite me to a private gathering and not tell the hostess that I (AND my roommate) was coming to her birthday party. I need to clarify something about Liz’s birthday party though. When Monica called to invite me to Liz’s party she specifically said, “We’re having a fondue party, so bring something to be dipped in chocolate, or teas.” It was almost like the ‘teas’ part was an afterthought. Of course she had said cheese, but I didn’t hear that. I was sure I had heard her wrong, so I said back to her, “Teas?” Monica verified that that was indeed what she had said, but I still doubted and I said to her again, “TEAS?!” Again she affirmed that was what she had said. We ran through that a few more times before I finally said, “Okay.” So, I brought herbal tea. Imagine my surprise when, in an attempt not to make a bad first impression, I still managed to make a fool of myself. We apparently both misheard each other, but it didn’t matter because we all had a good laugh at my expense and Cassy really enjoyed the tea.

So on to part II. I’d had a wonderful time at Liz’s dinner and I enjoyed talking to her. It seemed so easy to talk to her and I found her intelligence truly sexy. There’s just no other way to put that. I love it when she gets all excited about intelligent stuff and starts spouting off everything she knows. Mm-hmmm…. Anyway, I was intrigued by her so I didn’t mind at all when she started showing up more often and hanging out at church longer to talk to me. Now, I know what many of you are thinking, because I’ve heard it all before from about a bajillion other people. I’ve been accused of leading Liz on and being slow to make up my mind. Well, that’s only partially true. I was slow to make up my mind, but leading her on was never my intention. I was building a friendship. See, I’ve had other relationships in which one minute we were acquaintances and the next we were girlfriend/boyfriend without anything in between. I’ve also had relationships in which the girl did all the pursuing, making it too easy for me and I ended up not appreciating what I had. I’ve also had several relationships ruined by people who talk too much and ruin good things. I was trying desperately to avoid all of those things and not ruin a potential good thing with Liz. (And I was trying not to fail out of DLI. Those language classes are insanely difficult.) So, from my perspective, I wanted to hang out more and get to know Liz better, but I felt that things needed to be done properly. We needed to be friends first before we brought in all the romance stuff.

Now, if only it was that simple. Like I said, I did have a hard time making up my mind whether or not to date Liz. I loved being with her, but I knew I was coming to Hawaii, that she was going to DC, and that we were running out of time. I also had the vain delusion that I would find my future spouse in Hawaii. Then, as Liz put it, “Sunday happened.” Finding her sitting at my bench made me very upset because I felt our relationship wasn’t to that level yet. I had resolved to just be friends, but this was more than that. It made me very uncomfortable, and she knew it, and I knew that she knew it, and she probably knew that I knew that she knew it. I was uneasy around her the rest of the day, but something clicked in my head after that. I knew that something had to be done. I needed to make up my mind. I needed to let her know where I stood… as soon as I figured it out.

So, I went home that night and stayed up late reading my scriptures, and I had a little talk with the Big Man upstairs. Now, there have been a few times in my life when I’ve known that I needed to do something. I’ve never ignored that feeling, despite how I knew it would play out. Sometimes those things didn’t turn out to be very good for me, but I know that it was what I had to do at the time and I stand by my actions despite the repercussions. Asking Liz on a date was one of those things. I was so confident in my decision that I’d already resolved to marry her if she would have me. Call me crazy if you want, but it all turned out just wonderfully in the end, didn’t it? You see, while I was at DLI, one day when I felt especially lonely, I was talking to God and I told him that if he would just tell me who I was going to marry, I could wait as long as it took to be with her. And I only had to wait two years!

I love Liz dearly, and even after only five days of dating, I didn’t want to live without her. She is so much fun to be with and we are so great together—I didn’t want to give that up. Asking her to marry me wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing. I’d spent the entire four days before that thinking about nothing else. I know what you are thinking… “Four *WHOLE* Days?!” In addition to wanting to be with her, asking Liz to marry me was another one of those things that I felt had to be done. I didn’t know what would happen, but I knew I had to ask. I think that it was necessary to get her to think more long-term. After all, asking someone to stick with you for two years while you are on either sides of the nation and you’ve only been hanging out for a couple of months is a big commitment. I never pushed her to answer because I didn’t think the answer was as important as the question.

That’ll have to do for now. I’d love to write more, but sleepiness is starting to make typing coherently very difficult. I hope you’ve all enjoyed my rantings! Good night!