Happy Birthday, Iain!!!

It's my burfday!
(And not just any birthday, but his 35th birthday, which is the age that really felt Officially Grown Up to me. And, as I discovered after previously mentioning the significance I'd attached to that number, to a lot of other people, too.)

Once upon a time, I mentioned to my friend Mannion that Anne Bancroft and Mel Brooks had always been my favorite Hollywood couple. "Not Bogart and Bacall?" he asked. "Not Newman and Woodward?"

"Nope," I replied. "Definitely Anne Bancroft and Mel Brooks."

He asked why. It was because of something Anne Bancroft once said. Yes, that Brooks made her laugh. And this: "When I hear his key in the lock at night my heart starts to beat faster. I'm just so happy he's coming home. We have so much fun." I can totally relate.

I'll never get over my crush on Iain.

There will never be anyone with whom I more want to share good news, with whom I most want to celebrate my successes or lament my failures, with whom I more want to see a movie I'm dying to see, or passionately discuss a book I loved, or play Rock Band until my fingers are ready to fall off.

(True Fact: I am composing this Friday evening. I just at this very moment got a text from Iain, who is on the train on his way home from work. It reads: "Totes wanna play some Rock Band with you tonight if you feel like it!" I do. I do I do I do.)

Tonight I will take him to dinner at his favorite restaurant, and, nearly ten years after our first dinner date, I am still excited to gaze at him across a table and have a tumbling conversation about interesting things.

Which reminds me of something else Anne Bancroft once said about Mel Brooks. "I'd never had so much pleasure with another human being. It was that simple."

I can totally relate to that, too.

I love you, Iain. Happy Birthday.