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+Document: WM-018                                                 P. Webb
+Category: Life                                                2017.10.29
+
+                           How I met my wife
+
+Abstract
+
+   Somehow, I got lucky
+
+Body
+
+   I was your typical (angsty) teenager. Like most people, I was trying
+   to find my voice, trying to find what made me unique, and how I could
+   use that to become popular…needless to say I failed. Once, *for some
+   reason*, I decided to ask one of the most popular girls in school on
+   a date, instead of *my actual crush* (who was friends with her).
+   That's a dumb story for another day.
+
+   1. Classface
+
+      In 2002, 14 was my age when a friend of mine called (remember when
+      this happened?) to pester me about joining an "exciting" new
+      social network called, *Classface*. I'll paraphrase the
+      conversation here:
+
+      Cleo: OMG Paul, you need to join this site. It's hella dope.
+
+      Me:   *Uh-huh*. What site?
+
+      Cleo: It's called Classface and--
+
+      Me:   (mumbling) That sounds dumb.
+
+      Cleo: --you get to meet people from around the *world*!
+
+      Me:   I don't even like people *near* me, why the hell would I
+            like people *far away*?
+
+      Cleo: JUST JOIN IT NIGGA.
+
+      With a heavy sigh I typed www.classface.com[1] into Internet
+      Explorer (yes, seriously) and was greeted with basic, sparse web
+      design reminiscent of the era.
+
+      📸[In due time, I would love seeing this everyday][IMG1]
+
+      Back then, no one thought about the need for private profiles.
+      After all, wouldn't you *want* people to find you? I spent a
+      couple minutes looking at random profiles until I saw a face that
+      took me aback. Here was this girl from Phenix City, Alabama (what
+      the hell is "Phenix", I thought at the time, shouldn't it be
+      "Phoenix"?) and she had such a genuinely happy smile. "Keisha
+      Page", I thought to myself, "I like that name". She was *fiiiiine*
+      as hell too! I hovered over whatever button to get to the next
+      random profile while having an internal discussion with myself.
+
+      Lame Voice:   Wowee, who the hell is THAT?
+
+      Cooler Voice: Your future girl bro!
+
+      Lame Voice:   Nah, that'd never happen.
+
+      Cooler Voice: Not with that attitude! Just say hi.
+
+      Lame Voice:   Really? No way man, I'm nervous.
+
+      Cooler Voice: You can't be a bitch *all* your life. You can't even
+                    tell Shawna you like her, you can at least tell a
+                    girl who lives THOUSANDS OF MILES AWAY that she
+                    looks cute. She realize you a scrub? Delete
+                    your account!
+
+      And so, that's what I did! I scoured her profile for an opener and
+      saw that she was a fan of Degrassi (the Drake era). I believe I
+      wrote something along the lines of:
+
+      > Hey, I just joined this site and I just happened to find your
+      > page. I wanted to let you know that you have a pretty smile
+      > anyhoo did you see what Skinner did to Marco last week? What a
+      > bum, yeah, Jimmy should've said something to him.
+
+      (For those who don't know, Drake's character was named Jimmy on
+      the show.)
+
+      I anxiously awaited her reply and probably played Road Rash on a
+      Shockwave site to pass the time. To my delight, she thanked me and
+      our friendship flourished thanks to our shared interests. I'd like
+      to take a timeout to publicly thank Drake[2], Andrea Lewis[3] (my
+      favorite person on the show), and everyone else from Degrassi for
+      making this possible.
+
+      Classface eventually became a lame place to be and it was their
+      fault. They had the *terrible* idea to redesign the site but with
+      no UX sense. No one knew where to go to do things you could do in
+      the original version and I believe they messed the site up *more*
+      trying to fix it. So, everyone moved to Myspace.
+
+   2. Myspace
+
+      It was during this time that Keisha gave me her phone number
+      (holla!) and I heard her Southern accent for the first time and we
+      would talk for *hours* about how wack our parents were, dreams for
+      the future, and everything in-between.
+
+      Years later, I would reminisce about those conversations and
+      create music. Here's a sampling of those tracks:
+
+      [4][5]
+
+      *Dusty Stars* is from Music from the Love Lounge, Vol. 01[6] (this
+      cuts off early for some reason, probably data corruption) and
+      *Remember When* is from Vol. 02[7]. I sometimes find music a
+      better conduit to express my thoughts than simply talking.
+
+      Keisha and I got busy with our own lives and communicated less but
+      I would check her profile every couple months to see what was new.
+      At some point, I saw she was in a relationship with a guy I
+      instantly disliked and partly because I was being a hater. From
+      where I sat, thousands of miles away, it seemed like he wasn't
+      treating her right and her journal posts confirmed my suspicions.
+      When she uploaded a picture of herself with a baby on a beach, my
+      unspoken hopes were smashed.
+
+      Welp.
+
+   3. Facebook
+
+      Like with Classface, Myspace became lame and so everyone jumped to
+      Facebook. Keisha and I continued our random check-ins over the
+      years but it wasn't until October 2011 that we reconnected. Her
+      marriage to that *terrible* guy was over for quite some time but I
+      was just happy to converse as a friend.
+
+      The following month, we became closer than I ever expected (or
+      hoped) and I had the bright idea to try and visit her for
+      Thanksgiving. She thought it was a fantastic idea so I begged my
+      mom to buy me roundtrip tickets to Jacksonville, FL…my mom is a
+      bit paranoid. Catfishing, abduction, and other crazy things happen
+      all the time so she wasn't super keen about the idea at first. She
+      made me promise to text her as soon as I landed (I forgot to do so
+      until the next morning and got a rather disgruntled phone call,
+      haha). Keisha and I were using Skype at this point and I was one
+      *thousand* per cent sure she was real. 😏
+
+   4. Florida
+
+      📸[Me, after realizing what I got myself into][IMG2]
+      📸[(Kinda) high-school sweethearts][IMG3]
+
+      When Keisha greeted me at the airport, it was surreal. We both had
+      goofy grins on our faces and then hugged. Our immediate,
+      simultaneous remarks were: "OMG you're so tall/short!". LOL
+
+      Luckily, her siblings and daughter liked me and we had a fun week
+      full of jokes (you gotta come prepared with some zingers 'round
+      these folks), fun, and of course…Thanksgiving. 😉
+
+      In fact, it was Thanksgiving Day that I asked/confirmed our
+      relationship status. *Pro tip:* if you're forgetful of dates like
+      I am, make sure anniversaries are on a date you *know* you won't
+      forget. BWAHAHAHA!
+
+      Y'know those movies where a main character departs for a flight
+      and the other main character is super sad with tears in their eyes
+      but the first character wants to be strong for the second and
+      tries really hard to keep it together? Yeah, that was us when it
+      was time for me to head back to Boston. As soon as I turned away
+      from Keisha and entered the airport, I was
+      boo-hoo-Academy-Award-winning-actor-Viola-Davis crying. My. Tears.
+      Were. *Fugly*. I looked like my mom AND dad took turns beating my
+      ass for stealing cookies and smudging a wall they just painted
+      after mooning the elderly Polish woman next door. It was bad man.
+      My chest hurt.
+
+      Some of my friends at the time thought I was crazy to date someone
+      on the other side of the country, and for a couple years at that!
+      Keisha and I would visit each other at least twice a year for
+      physical reminders of why we were together and spoke/texted nearly
+      every day and that nourished our emotional *and* mental needs.
+
+   5. Massachusetts
+
+      With our generation, I've seen and continue to see posts on social
+      media where people are hella frustrated about relations̶h̶i̶p̶shits
+      they get into. The ratio of disappointment appears to be balanced.
+      I believe 90% of issues could be solved with communication. Notice
+      I didn't prefix the word "more". I don't think people communicate
+      at *all* anymore. Millenials would rather swipe left/right and
+      take pics or make statuses for likes that don't matter instead of
+      communicating for love that *does* matter…ooh, that'd make a great
+      post in of itself.
+
+      Even though Keisha and I knew each other for 10 years, we still
+      had to learn *how* to live together. I was a guy in a two-bedroom
+      apartment with a long-distance girlfriend and when she moved in, I
+      suddenly had a three-year-old stepdaughter and couldn't fucking
+      swear all the time. And furniture. Oh my *gawd*, Keisha had so
+      much furniture. I had a desk…and a sad excuse for a bed. During
+      Keisha's first night living in Massachusetts, a speeding driver
+      knocked off the sideview mirror from her parked car (*pro tip:*
+      don't live on Main Street, side streets are better).
+
+      I found that (gasp) Keisha could irritate me sometimes! I
+      irritated her *all* the time! There was a period in the first year
+      where everything could've gone up in smoke but we *communicated*.
+      My default way of dealing with things at the time was to shut down
+      and stew, have mock debates in my head. Little did I know, Keisha
+      does that on a regular basis and always had an immediate response
+      to everything I could possibly say. Hoo boy, I'm a pro now but
+      that was not a fun time.
+
+      Compromise was something else I had to learn. I was resistant at
+      first but when faced with the prospect of losing her and an
+      adorable little girl who now saw me as "daddy" instead of "Paul",
+      I quickly learned to adjust. I'm not a perfect guy today, but I am
+      perfect for my family (or damn close to it). Don't hashtag,
+      retweet, or share "relationship goals"…just learn how to
+      compromise, communicate, and ensure your partner is on the same
+      page. Remember when your parents made you eat nasty things with
+      dinner? I would mix the nasty things with food I did like to get
+      them out the way so I could enjoy the rest of my meal. The same
+      thing applies to relationships; do the hard stuff now so you can
+      enjoy growing together later.
+
+   6. The Future
+
+      I proposed to Keisha on Easter, earlier this year. Remember my pro
+      tip from earlier? BWAHAHAHA!
+
+      📸[Please ignore the fact that all of us are looking at ourselves and not the camera][IMG4]
+
+      And now? We're married! As far as what's next…growth. Our focus is
+      creating an environment where our kids are nurtured, growing, and
+      happy. That means becoming homeowners so we REALLY own our own
+      space, and helping each other thrive in our fields.
+
+      Keisha went from being a sailor in the Navy, waking up at the
+      bootycrack of dawn to work out, have 24-hour shifts for some thing
+      or other (idk, I'm a civilian) to becoming a stay-at-home-mom
+      because we don't trust anyone with our toddler until he learns how
+      to speak. We've been spooked by online videos of "caretakers"
+      smacking babies in the face and parents wondering why their child
+      has a fear of pillows. NOPE. 🖕🏾
+
+      Since our son's been born, Keisha has garnered a reputation in mom
+      groups as THE go-to person when you want a custom designed shirt,
+      poofy skirts, onesies, booties, and so on. I've designed logos for
+      her and provided my designer-y expertise on how to deal with
+      clients and she's flourishing!
+
+      I'm a simple man, I just want world domination.
+
+      It's amazing that two 14-year-old kids would connect on social
+      media in 2002, only to marry each other 15 years later. Paul Webb
+      and Lakeisha Page met online…Webb and Page met on a webpage.
+      WebbPage. See? That's some high-quality movie shit. 🕸
+
+   Extra
+
+      This may sound completely fabricated to you, dear reader, but
+      Keisha and I lived in the *same* city and our fathers were
+      stationed at the *same* military base at the *same* time.
+      Clarksville, Tennessee was the city, Fort Campbell was the
+      military base, 1994-1997 was the time. Fort Campbell had "family
+      days" and there would be lots of kids playing together. I don't
+      remember any of the kids I saw/played with but it's quite possible
+      that we've seen each other back then.
+
+      How weird is that?
+
+   P.S.
+
+      During one of Keisha's early visits to Massachusetts, I asked her
+      to appear on that year's release of Music from the Love Lounge.
+      It's a fitting end to a post like this, check it out (beats by
+      me)! 🕸
+
+      [8]
+
+   P.P.S
+
+      Here's my wife's post[9] about how we met! Did you know that she
+      found her dress at a thrift store and *completely* redesigned it?
+      She's craftier than a mofo!
+
+   P.P.P.S
+
+      📸[I gotta say, we look DAYUM good][IMG5]
+
+References
+
+   [1]    <http://web.archive.org/web/20050830203010/http://www.classface.com:80>
+   [2]    <https://twitter.com/drake>
+   [3]    <https://twitter.com/missandrealewis>
+   [4]    <https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=512177084/size=small/bgcol=010000/linkcol=c8af60/track=3614882051/transparent=true>
+   [5]    <https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=955213907/size=small/bgcol=010000/linkcol=c8af60/track=918133906/transparent=true>
+   [6]    <https://wibby.bandcamp.com/album/music-from-the-love-lounge-vol-01>
+   [7]    <https://wibby.bandcamp.com/album/music-from-the-love-lounge-vol-02>
+   [8]    <https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=4219807572/size=small/bgcol=010000/linkcol=c8af60/track=635396433/transparent=true>
+   [9]    <http://sincerelyshantelle.com/blog/how-i-met-my-husband>
+   [IMG1] <https://🔥.pixels.wtf/blog/image/2017/how-i-met-my-wife-a.png>
+   [IMG2] <https://🔥.pixels.wtf/blog/image/2017/how-i-met-my-wife-b.jpg>
+   [IMG3] <https://🔥.pixels.wtf/blog/image/2017/how-i-met-my-wife-c.jpg>
+   [IMG4] <https://🔥.pixels.wtf/blog/image/2017/how-i-met-my-wife-d.jpg>
+   [IMG5] <https://🔥.pixels.wtf/blog/image/2017/how-i-met-my-wife-e.jpg>