Like any good story, there are two versions: Hilary's and Brody's.

How We Met:  (according to Hilary)

June 11, 2005

It’s a Friday afternoon.  I’ve recently finished grad school and my family has just left town after graduation.  My friends are also starting to scatter to the four corners of the earth, and I’m sitting there wondering what I’m going to do that evening when my friend Ed (from Peace Corps Nicaragua) gives me a call.  He invites me over for a bar-b-que that he’s got going on.  Perfect, Ed is always fun to hang out with, and I can tell him about this new job prospect I’ve got in the works.  Then he hands the phone off to Geoff to tell me how to get there.  Wait, I know where Ed lives, and who am I talking to?  It turns out Ed was hanging out on a former roommate’s porch, and soon I’m off to Glover Park.  I meet everyone there, and it turns out to be a cartography cult…okay maybe not, but I’d never met any cartographers before, and here there are three of them sitting on this one porch.  Strange.  So I’m telling Ed that I might have a job lined up in Iraq, and I’m pretty excited about it.  I had been looking forward to leaving the country again, and this would be an interesting way to do it. 

At some point Brody joins the conversation (he is running around trying to get dinner ready).  I’m not sure what we talk about, though I do remember thinking that he was awfully cute.  Later everyone was talking about phone numbers and I mentioned that mine was really easy to remember and that’s how Brody was able to call me later.  All in all it was a very pleasant, but rather uneventful evening.  I had every intention of leaving the country soon whether or not this Iraq job panned out, so romance was kind of out of the question for the time being. 

The next night I was out on the town for a friend’s going-away party when I get a strange message from Ed at about 2 am.  He was clearly in a very noisy bar, and I couldn’t understand most of it, but I did make out that he mentioned Brody.  I didn’t think anything of it though, as Ed has been known to leave strange messages before. 

Several days later, a Thursday perhaps, Brody gives me a call.  I was on the phone, but he leaves a message and I call him back shortly.  He’s wondering if I might be interesting in this documentary film festival that was going on this weekend.  I’m flattered that he thought enough of me to call, so of course I agree.  The plan was that I would pick a restaurant near the theater since it was in my neck of the woods, and he would pick me up Saturday evening. 

Brody shows up Saturday, purple daisies in hand, and we’re off for Burmese food.  I was hoping he was the adventurous type. ;)  We’re sitting there chatting over dinner and he’s telling me this story about how he stole his parents car and drove from LA to Maine or somewhere very, very far away in pursuit of this girl.  I wasn’t really sure what to think of this, but I guess that answers the “adventuresome” question…

After dinner we head over to the theater.  There were lines galore for each different movie playing.  It turned out we couldn’t see the one he had suggested, which might not have been a bad thing since I’m doubtful I would have enjoyed The Aristocrats.  Instead we saw a documentary on the Swenkas of South Africa.  It was a really interesting movie about something I had never heard about, though it wasn’t a particularly long movie and we soon found ourselves out on the street again.  Not wanting the evening to end so early, we took to walking the streets of Silver Spring.  Despite the late hour, Borders was still open, so we stopped in for some hot chocolate.  We lingered as long as we could in the travel section before they kicked us out and we found ourselves back at the truck. I think we stood outside of the truck for close to an hour just talking.  Somehow, while we were talking, Brody flung the remainder of his hot chocolate down his back.  I’m still not sure how that happened, but it was quite endearing…

Reluctantly, we get in the car and head back to my apartment, but when we get there we’re deep into a conversation that doesn’t end until several hours later.  We literally sat in the truck in front of my apartment talking for at least two hours more that night.  Finally though, Brody gives me a kiss goodnight and I head upstairs.  I do remember thinking in the elevator “wow, my cheeks hurt from smiling all night, that’s usually a good sign.”

By then, however, I had accepted this position in Iraq, and I knew I was probably headed out of the country in a few weeks.  I wasn’t sure how long I’d be around, so I wasn’t interested in starting anything serious at this point.  Brody, however, had other intentions.  

Brody's Version

It was just about any other day from May to October in DC. It was late afternoon, hot and sunny, and I was sitting on my porch drinking beer. It was my usual thing to do during the porch season. I had a really nice porch, which could easily accommodate four people who could look out and watch the people walking down the street. Sometimes it was a traffic jam of cars, other times it was the European male porn stars that lived across the street, or perhaps it was just to see who was going to the liquor store that day. But honestly, I usually sat there to watch cute girls walk by.

So there I was, sitting on my porch with my buddies Oscar, Ed, and Geoff. It was a pretty slow day on the street below, but we were still having a good, mellow time. The plan was to grill up some burgers and what not, eat them, and probably have some more beer.

Oscar, he’s a friend from way back.

Geoff, he ate meat back then, and a good buddy I met when I first moved to DC.

Ed, he’s that’s respectable guy that the ladies flock to but hHe’s always too involved saving babies with heart defects to care about the ladies. But if you’re a dude, he’s the guy to hang out with because of his "Associations."

We’re all on the porch, and Ed turns to me to ask, “Hey man, how come whenever I come over to your house, the only hot chicks here are your roommates?”

Seeing that I wasn’t apt to hang out with hot chicks, primarily because I didn’t know any in DC that weren’t married, my only, and truthful, response was, “Ed, I don’t know any, that’s why I sit on my porch and drink beer. But dang man, you know all sorts of fine lookin’ ladies. How come you never bring them over to my house?”

I guess I had Ed on that one, because a few moments later he pulls out his cell phone and makes a call. The rest of us go about drinking our beers and watching the world go by. Ed jabbers away on the phone, and after some time we have to give directions to someone on the phone on how to get to my house. Luckily, there were three map makers on that porch who came up with a generally confusing set of directions after the phone was passed all around, then back to Ed who finished the phone call.

And again, it is back to porch activity: drinking beer and whiling away the time. Eventually, as the middle of 7pm and 8 rolls around, Jen, another main stay of the porch and Oscar’s wife showed up, signaling the time to start up the grill. I light up the charcoal chunks, get a good smoke going that is lifted up through the 30’ stovepipe that stretched up above the porch and roof of the rowhouse, and make a few trips in and out of the house, bearing burger ingredients, getting the food taken care of, and exchanging empty bottles for cold beers. At one point, after checking on the condition of the grilling meat, I glanced down to the street and peeped one of the few hot chicks that had graced the sidewalk that afternoon. Long, curly brown hair, a cute smile (not often seen in DC), and generally, a downright beautiful woman walking in front of my house. So, as anyone involved in people watching and beer drinking while on a porch would do…I stared.

Maybe I stared too long, because all of a sudden she turned to walk up the steps to my house and to my porch. It must have been Ed’s friend from the earlier phone call, but dang, she was cute! And that there was the time that I decided to run inside the house.

I eventually came out; maybe with plates in my hand, maybe with beers or a chair, I’m not exactly sure. But I did go back to the porch, where I enjoyed the company of Ed’s friend (Hilary), and memorized her phone number.

I called her a few days later too.

And we went on a date.

And that was that.