sometimes a girl just needs her Superhero

All I had to do was go to Shabbat services, the big young adult one that attracts 300-400 people once a month.  I was late, with some friends, we took a spot up in the balcony.  About 5 minutes later, some guy comes in, crams himself into my row and just about sits on top of me but ends up just sitting on my coat.

I give him flack.

Fifteen minutes later, he gives me flak for reading ahead in the prayer book (I never know when the silent Amidah ends).  I had to lean over to my friend to ask if he was cute, because he was sitting SO CLOSE.  Turns out he's cute.  The banter continues throughout the service, afterward at the massive social piranha fest they call an oneg shabbat, and then over a drink at a nearby restaurant.  It's the beginning of a great love story.  Except for the part where he is visiting from the opposite coast and leaving for home in less than a week.

He adds me as a Facebook friend on Saturday, then calls -- we make plans to get together Sunday.  Vague plans.

Sunday morning he calls and he start trying to patch our plans together.  It turned into patchwork quilt, truly...  everytime I am free, he is busy; everytime he is free, I am busy.  But we each wanted to see each other, so we did the least obvious thing in the world: we patched our days together and spent the whole day doing each other's things. We both had some off-center sense of adventure and agreed it would be a total disaster or a total blast.

We went to a birthday party, we drove someone to the airport, we watched the moon-rise from an incredible vista when the moon was the closest to us it could get (and got the photos to prove it), and we had a late dinner at a random Thai restaurant that turned out to be amazing and we shut the place down.  We crossed four different bridges five times that day.  And laughed the whole time, had plenty to say to each other and couldn't wait to see each other again.  It was one of those day-into-night dates you never want to end.

So we continued our date that whole week, until he left.  We met each other's friends, spent nights curled up together and enjoyed every second of each other's company until time ran out.  And he left for New York.  We never talked about anything other than the present moment.

I'll pause for a second.  For an entire week, I lived in that moment.  Have you met me?  Do you have any idea how unlikely it is that I could utter a sentence without planning for the next 30 that will come out of my mouth?  How absurd it is that I could something without over-thinking it?  It's like pigs flew.

He has a really adorable name, and it is the kind of name you give a superhero.  And he is a superhero to me.  So he is, and always will be, Superhero.  My sweet, sass-talking, wise-cracking, adorable, witty Jewish Superhero who lives on the wrong coast.

Of course, it's not like he got on a plane and that was the end of the story.  Because, really... what if??  It's not like I could stop thinking about him.  So there's not really an end to the story, per se. 

I suppose the definition of a superhero revolves around the rescue, right? You don't really hear about the superhero who sticks around to make a general nuisance of himself like if he became a stable, live-in boyfriend.  Remember when Clark Kent gave up his powers to be with Lois Lane and got the crap kicked out of him at the diner?  I don't want that to happen. So Superhero he will be.  And I'll let him swoop in and rescue me from time to time.  'Cause sometimes a girl just needs her Superhero and a magical four-bridges, moon-rise date.