By Andrea Scarpino
(Somewhere in Germany)
I first met Zac when he was tabling for the Green Party at a student activities event on the University of Cincinnati’s campus. He had shoulder length hair, a blond goatee, and was wearing a bright tie-dye shirt. I thought he was the cutest hippy I’d ever seen. I walked by his table a few times with friends and pretended to browse the Green Party literature while secretly checking him out. When he said, Would you guys like to sign our mailing list? I immediately responded, I’m not a guy, but I’d be happy to sign up. As I walked away from the table, I chided myself for sassing the cute boys.
Now, nine years later, I’m celebrating our anniversary by spending time with good friends in Germany, and he’s celebrating back home in Los Angeles by writing application letters for the philosophy job market. Which in a funny way, speaks to the unique quality of our relationship. I moved to Columbus in part because Zac was already there in graduate school, and I moved to Los Angeles when he got a job there. We’ve traveled across the US and internationally together, regularly read each other’s work, read books that the other recommends so that we can talk about them to one another, run races together, cook together.
But even with so much time and energy invested in one another, I’ve always done my own thing, had my own friends, made my own explorations of the world. And so has he. When Zac and I had been together less than a year, I moved to France for nine months. I’ve traveled to South Korea and now Germany without him, and he’s traveled to Mexico and a myriad of US states without me. We don’t always like each other’s music (mine tells stories, his often involves terrifying sounds) or feel passionate about the other’s pet projects. I tend towards high energy and anxiety and he tends towards absolute calm and extreme understatement. So be it. Zac is a wonderful, caring, loving person who cooks me amazing food and concocts drinks to suit my every whim, buys me cute clothes for birthday presents, and always makes sure we have enough coffee, dessert and greens on hand in the house. He looks out for me, I guess I would say, and I try my best to look out for him.
So nine years have passed since our first date watching the presidential election debates between Bush and Gore. I visited a museum about the Nazi party, ate delicious salads, laughed with my friends. I walked on cobblestone streets and visited Nurnberg’s walled old city, which is now filled with cute cafes and clothing stores. I wore my scarf all day, mostly because it’s colder here than in LA. It would have been more fun to have Zac here with me, but given everything, it was still a lovely way to spend an anniversary. And next year’s the big 1-0. I want to throw a decade party to celebrate. In the meantime, more reading, more travel, more delicious food. I can’t wait.
Andrea Scarpino is the west coast Bureau Chief of POTB. You can visit her at:
Planet of the Blind 
What a wonderful tribute to your relationship and to each of you as the very special people you are!
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