December 3 - Ronny and Michelle

Ronny Glasscocks's friends at the stop motion photography studio where he worked had a field day when they found out he was dating a glass blower named Michelle Swallow.
They'd met at a renaissance fair where she was making and selling glass dragons and unicorns, and she caught his eye. He decided against using his last name as a pick-up line because she was cute and he didn't want to blow it (so to speak) by saying something off color.
As it turned out, he needn't have worried. She was more than happy to take care of that herself when she saw his last name on the credit card he used to pay for a couple of rainbow colored glass dragons.
"Glasscock, huh? Nice to meet you. My name is Michelle Swallow, and as you can see I'm a glass blower. I think we both know where this one's going."
He laughed.
"All right," she said, effecting mock boredom. "What do you say you buy this girl a beer and let's get this over with?"
And that's how it started. One beer later, they were well on their way to coupledom.
And they were an unconventional couple in many ways. He was thin, bordering on gaunt with limbs like shoelaces; she was rounder than an overweight sumo wrestler whose body was swelling up from the world's largest bee sting. When they hugged, they were like a jumbo-sized dumpling crisscrossed with strands of angel hair pasta.
And when it came to personality, they weren't exactly on the same page or even the same chapter. He was precise, anal, and neurotic. She was loose, free spirited, and gregarious.
To their friends they were a circus sideshow of a couple, but they didn't care. They were happy.
And unpredictable.
And passionate.
And volatile.
And inseparable. They collaborated not only romantically, but also professionally, creating animated fantasy short films based in glass: Her figures, his stop motion photography, their story lines.
Tails of the Glass Dragon was the name of their first project, and it told the story of a glass dragon named Rutherford who was constantly being pulled in opposite directions by his two headstrong tails. At the end of the story, the tails ended up breaking off of Rutherford's body, and, without the tails to provide him with buoyancy, Rutherford plummeted to the ground and shattered.
Ronny and Michelle couldn't agree on what the point of Tails was. Ronny felt like it was a comment on the importance of knowing what guides you. Michelle thought it was about being OK with feeling conflicted.
But even though they clashed on what it was supposed to mean, they were pleased with how it came out--so much so that they got started on a follow up right away.
Their next project was a series of shorts about the adventures of a group of anthropomorphic bar glasses. They called it After Last Call, and putting it together was an incredibly stressful, meticulous, and tension filled process.
Ronny was emphatic about improving the quality of the animation effects. Michelle was domineering about the story lines. They snapped at each other constantly during its making, and their snaps often escalated into full blown fights.
But in the end they were pleased with the world they had created. Among the characters of After Last Call were Rocko, the hard-nosed rocks glass; Pepe and Chico, the smart-mouthed tequila shot glasses; Dean, the suave martini glass; Schmidt, the bossy beer mug; Cosmo, the pretentious wine glass; Fruity Fluty, the effeminate champagne flute, and Colin, the preppy tumbler glass. The glasses would come to life after their bar closed for the night, and make fun of the days' customers, get into ill advised relationships, and fill each other up with alcohol. The shorts were basically fictionalizations of episodes that Ronny and Michelle had experienced during their days in the service industry, but they generated a lot of buzz.
And an impressive level of fame.
And considerable interest from people with money.
And further tension between Ronny and Michelle.
In fact, the tension between them grew so great that at the height of a huge argument about the direction their work was heading in, they tumultuously and dramatically ended their professional and romantic relationship by screaming and throwing their glass creations at each other.
It was a train wreck.
And when it was over, not one piece of the characters they had worked so hard to create was salvageable.
That was the end of After Last Call, and the end of Ronny and Michelle.
Years later, after enough time had passed, they both had the perspective to admit that their union had been beautiful while it lasted, and they'd made some amazing things together.
But in the end, the reality was that any unstable relationship like theirs that had been forged in glass was destined to break up.