R is for ROMANCE!

Lemme give you a little taste of what it's like to be on my side of the court, the ball, the game.

Let's start in fifth grade. I was "going with" a girl in my brother's grade, a year younger, and I never spoke with her. I bought her a sucker pop each Friday and Bro gave it to her. A bag of spiders over my head wouldn't have scared me more than that girl scared me.

In fact, I would have taken the bag of spiders.

My freshman year in high school a junior girl made me her Pet Freshman. We dated into college, about six years, and it's my fault we aren't married.

Lord how I fuck up relationships. Ever see Tommy Boy? Girls are my butter rolls, and I shred em to hell.

I got hooked on another girl for about a year and a half. I got obsessed. Never been like that, but there it is, and I was nuts. College and the pressure of working and going to school and trying to get into med school all contributed. One night I gave her a dozen roses. She sold them on 6th Street in Austin for a $1 buck apiece.

Lived with a New York Jewish girl. She was something else, still is. She used to throw tortillas in the restaurant.

I got out of college, met my first wife at a bar -- which is how I met all my women -- and I fell in love with her way more than she did me. She wouldn't give me her phone number, but her sister, older by 6 years, thought I was "adorable" and called out her phone number over her shoulder as my future-wife was dragging her ass out of the bar.

Little known to her I was the phone number guy. Girls never wrote down their numbers. I remembered them, even remembered em for my buddies. I know. Freak of nature Rain Man, but that's how I rolled. I couldn't drink enough beer to forget her number and I didn't want to.

Married. A kid. Few years later divorced because I'm OCD and she's normal in the head.

Let's not relive my early thirties. I'm not sure I can. I'd die if I tried because I almost died at the time.

Met my now-wife at a bar.

You wanna dance? I asked her. Two-stepping Dallas bar, me in my hat, her in some California wanna-be beach hat and looking mighty West Coast and nobody likes them Westies out in Dallas. She's a Vegas girl.

Anyway, I said, You wanna dance?

No, she said. Don't know how.

She waved me off and with that waving-off hand I grabbed her and dragged her to the dance floor saying, Come on, chicken, I'll teach you to dance.

The next night we were in Austin getting tattoos, been together almost six years, now, and have a kid (who's doing great, by the way!). God in Heaven I love that little girl. She's a nutcase sometimes, locked me outside in my underwear and gave me every bit of the hell I gave her, but I tell her often that guys should ALWAYS go for the crazy bitch.

I mean, any chick who is willing to kill for you is worth keeping.

I also believe women should be on medication from birth. It'd save a lot of trouble, I think.

- Eric