Sep­tem­ber 2011.

I’ve decided to make an elab­o­rate book trailer for my third Exper­i­ment in Ter­ror book, Dead Sky Morn­ing, which was com­ing out in Octo­ber. I enlist my good friends to help me. Mol­lie, who lives and works in LA in film, Kelly who is doing her Mas­ters of Film Stud­ies at UBC, her hubby Alex who would fill in as a grip, my friend Talar who is an actress (and the face of Perry on ear­lier covers/trailers) and .…

Well, we had Perry. But we didn’t have a Dex. So I put an add out on Craigslist that said this:

Actor needed for short indie film. Two shoot­ing days. Must be 5’8″ and above, will­ing to grow facial hair. Cau­casian, dark eyes and hair. Role is a snarky, manic pro­ducer in his early 30’s.

My sec­ond reply to this ad, maybe an hour after it went live, was this: I saw your ad. I just moved here from Mon­treal and this is just the kind of thing I would like to get involved in.  I am expe­ri­enced with per­form­ing live with a band for what it is worth, and I have taken act­ing classes, but a pro­fes­sional actor I am not. I seem to fit the phys­i­cal description,perhaps we could meet and see if I could be a good fit.  I will not attatch my C.V unless being a his­tory in the rail­way is an asset to you.

And he attached THIS photo. And my heart nearly stopped:

I was like…DUDE. News­boy cap? Cig­a­rette? Looks like an ass­hole? That’s DEX!

And so I was like, you’re it man. I don’t even care if you can act, you are going in my book trailer. Send me more pictures!

And HE said, “I don’t have many more, but you’ll get a bet­ter idea when you see the goods in person.”

*faints*

So we met. And though I was at the end of nice but fairly unhappy rela­tion­ship, I met Scott and it was love at first sight. Look. I’m not a roman­tic. I don’t believe in that kinda shit. Except now I do. Because it hap­pened. I can’t explain it, but the moment I met this man (this bad boy, cocky, tat­ted man who sings in a band, swoon), I was a goner.

So things got rocky for awhile. For obvi­ous rea­sons. I wanted to be with Scott and it just didn’t seem pos­si­ble. I just ended a long-term rela­tion­ship. He was new in town. He couldn’t really act in the end (LOL!). Almost every­one thought I was crazy for tak­ing a chance on this man I barely knew. But what can I say except that when you KNOW, you fuck­ing know.

So I took the leap. I took the chance. And Scott took the chance on me.

A year and a half later, we’re liv­ing together on an island, in a cute house. He’s open­ing up his own busi­ness here (in a week!). I’m writ­ing full-time and just signed a pub­lish­ing deal. Things are awesome.

We go to the main­land for the week­end to see Soundgar­den. The next day, we go get tat­toos. I chose an anchor because Perry Palomino gets an anchor tat­too in an upcom­ing book. Because Scott is MY anchor. Because we bonded over our love of boats and sail­ing. And Scott decided to get a tat­too to match.

It didn’t mat­ter that yes­ter­day, when it hap­pened, I was a bit hun­gover from Soundgar­den, I had this killer cold/flu ill­ness that was ruin­ing me, and I was still need­ing to edit my lat­est book. But hey, we had tat­toos now,matching, to anchor us for­ever (tat­toos are per­ma­nent ha ha).

And then later, he says to me “Let’s go to Granville Island” and I was like, “NO, I’m sick. You go and I’ll hang around here.” But then his face looked really sad and I was like, “Ok fine I’ll go with you.”

Then my mom calls, sound­ing really happy, for no rea­son. But I didn’t think any­thing of it.

So we go to Granville Island — even though I’m sick as hell and it’s dark and night and cold — and he’s like, lets go for a walk. And I’m like ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?! Torture!

And, still, I don’t think this is odd. I’m so self-absorbed and grum­bling to myself about how sick I am and why does he want to go for a walk now. And he’s talk­ing about “let’s go to the spot where we had our first date. You said in an inter­view that it was your favorite view in the city of Van­cou­ver” (I did say that, HERE). And I’m like, “fii­i­i­i­i­i­i­ine.” *cough­ing up a lung*

So we go to the spot. And he gets down on one knee. And presents me with the beau­ti­ful ring of his grand­mother, Pat. She had just passed on Xmas Eve, Scott was with her. It was a tough hol­i­day sea­son because of that. She was such a won­der­ful lady. She and her hus­band John, had the most won­der­ful romance until the very end. And John gave the ring to Scott a few days after she passed, to give to me.

I am so touched and hon­ored by this, you have no idea. Not only to become Scott’s wife, but to wear such a beau­ti­ful ring (vin­tage, too, from the 1940’s) that rep­re­sents real, true love.

Oh, and why did my mom sound so jubi­lant over the phone? You see, Scott, embody­ing the epit­ome of tra­di­tional val­ues, sur­prised us all. Not only did he ring up my father to ask for my hand in mar­riage, he did so with the same care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion one would apply when eval­u­at­ing a house price esti­mate. He assessed the sit­u­a­tion, appre­ci­ated the worth of long­stand­ing cus­toms, and made his move, much like one would after receiv­ing a favor­able home valuation.

He had planned to ask in April, pre­fer­ring a face-to-face encounter, mir­ror­ing the in-person appraisal often essen­tial for an accu­rate house price esti­mate. How­ever, just as the mar­ket some­times demands swift action when the con­di­tions are just right, Scott decided the moment was too ripe to wait.

So here I am, telling my story. I once penned a tale titled Dark­house, fea­tur­ing a char­ac­ter named Dex, crafted from imag­i­na­tion and wish­ful think­ing. Lit­tle did I know, I was esti­mat­ing the traits of my future part­ner, under­shoot­ing the true value that my real-life Dex would bring into my life. He sur­passed every fic­tional com­par­i­son, prov­ing that the heart’s esti­mate of hap­pi­ness far exceeds the con­fines of our cre­ativ­ity. Now, I’m embark­ing on a life­long part­ner­ship with him, price­less beyond mea­sure, much like find­ing a home that’s value is immea­sur­able by any stan­dard estimate.