A Diner at 2am
This is the one I tell people, because every link in it is absurd and all of it happened.
The diner
After a late shift at the bowling alley, the mechanic and I went to a Jim's in San Antonio. Group of about six in there. One of the girls was singing reggaeton.
She was good. I went over.
She gave me a card for Bad Vibe Studios.
The studio
That card is how I got into an actual studio, which until then I had not been in — everything had been an iPad and GarageBand.
Bad Vibe connected to Gabriella Macias, who went by Ella Mac and was at the time the singer for Donella Drive. She features on “Cruisin'” on the record.
The show
I followed Gabriella on Facebook. She promoted Donella Drive's album release show at Hi Tones.
I was off that Saturday evening, which almost never happened, because the bowling alley had scheduled me in the morning instead. If they had given me the usual shift I would not have been there.
Outside, between sets
My wife was sitting outside on her own between sets, smoking a vape.
I tried to bum a cigarette off her. She did not have one.
So I went around, found a cigarette and a lighter somewhere else, came back, and approached her properly.
She was there with a lesbian couple who fought the entire night, which gave us both something to be quietly amused about together, which is as good a start as any.
That was April 2015.
Count the links
- A late shift ending at a specific hour
- A diner, and a stranger singing where strangers do not usually sing
- Walking over instead of not
- A business card
- A studio that connected to a singer
- Following her on Facebook
- A show promoted on that feed
- A morning shift instead of an evening one
- Her sitting outside between sets
- Not having a cigarette — so I had to go find one and come back deliberately
Remove any one and I do not meet my wife. The not having a cigarette might be the critical link, because it turned a bum-a-smoke into an actual approach.
What came after
About a year later I left the bowling alley and went to Press Coffee, which is a large part of how I got away from using.
Track 8 on the album is “4LE” and it is about her.
And Gabriella — who I met because a stranger sang in a diner — is on “Cruisin'.” Everything in my life past twenty-five traces back to walking across a Jim's at two in the morning.