That’s my girl in there. She’s in the bottom-right quadrant of the image, looking over her shoulder. Hi, Laura! I took this photo the day after I moved back to Vegas; someone invited me to one of Downtown Project’s let’s-communicate-our-ideas-through-Post-Its parties, to which I contributed no Post-Its whatsoever. Laura and I had met several times before this, but I didn’t recognize her on this day, because A) I had some personal shit going on and B) I’ve always been terrible with names and faces. (I have little doubt that Laura recognized me, because I’ve rarely known Laura to forget anyone’s name or face. It’s a legitimate superpower.)

Spoiler alert: We fell in loooooove, in spite of the fact that we were at this dumb meetup together and I didn’t say hi. Later that summer, she began giving me Wednesday night rides to Leavitt/Jaycee Park to play bocce with Ginger Bruner, Lissa Townsend Rodgers, Kristen Peterson and a bunch of folks from the Italian American Club. And even though I was a hot mess, Laura kept on inviting me out on adventures–to a New Year’s Eve party at Downtown Cocktail Room, to a zombie invasion at Absinthe, to this and that and the other. Aventura! It took until September 2013 for us to click, but click we did.

I didn’t expect to be here this long, you know. This May marks 10 years in Vegas for me–equal to the time I lived in Seattle, and only two years short of how long I lived in Vegas the first time. When I returned here in 2012, a big part of me believed that it was temporary; after all, I’d already left Vegas once before and lived through it. I figured I’d give Vegas a year, make some money and move on–to Portland, perhaps, or to LA. I’m glad I didn’t do that, because Laura was there in the crowd, was always there somewhere … and now, she’s here. Like, in the same room with me, right now, this second. That’s, just, wow. I could probably come up with prettier words to describe this feeling, but they’d be clumsily piled on top of this elemental, indelible wow. I’m here, and Laura’s here. I’m goddamned lucky I came back.