Miscellany

So after that last post, I've been wanting to post something nearly as exciting.  But nothing has happened so I figured I'd just capture a few amusing moments.

I fixed the couched.  Samil seems to think its now invincible and just sort drops his whole body on the couch.  You'd think that I'd be pissed that he's regularly testing my handiwork, almost daring it to break.  Actually, I'm really hoping he jumps onto the couch and it collapses all around him.  That would be an awesome consolation prize to my repairs being destroyed.

This morning I was watching hockey highlights.  Samil walked over to me, at 9am, and asked "are you watching highlights or a game?"

Samil was asked by our downstairs neighbor if he was smoking weed.  I'm not sure how he answered, but he was very concerned by this.  Oh, he told me a week after it happened.  Great.

Finally, I haven't heard about Nancy since a week after the night she told him that she had issues with dating weed smokers.  He called, she didn't call back.  I guess its good that I don't need to hear about the drama and excitement and heartbreak.  On the other hand, he's back to asking me if I want to go scope out the Hawt Ladeez in the bars with him.  I'm not sure how I feel about this trade off....

The Girlfriend (?) Part Six

This isn't a very funny post, minus the beginning.

Last Monday Samil woke up and found me in the kitchen making a smoothie.  Rather than exchange our morning pleasantries (which is normally me saying Yo and him saying Whatsup), Samil informed that when he woke up this morning his sheets had blood on them. 

When I was younger I would get bloody noses overnight.  It happens, right?  Only, Samil discovered in addition to bloody sheets, his gums had started bleeding overnight.  When I was younger, my dentist told me people like Samil existed; but truthfully, I thought gum bleeders only existed in horror movies.  Still, I got into the habit of flossing, just like I am in the habit of keeping a few garlic cloves under my pillow.  (No, not really)  (I don't floss every day)

When I came home that afternoon from work, Samil had transferred the sheets to the "Laundry Waiting Area" which apparently is the entire floor of the living room.  There was actually more blood than I'd expect, but at least it wasn't End-of-Dead-Alive bloody.  Also, when I went into the bathroom, there was at least 3 feet of floss balled up in the bathroom. 

He went to the dentist the next day, who barely even treated him, and instead directed him to three specialists for the gums and 4 cavities in his mouth.  When you think about it, that's not so bad for not visiting a dentist for six years.  (That's a lie.)

Thursday, Samil took out Nancy to dinner.  Of course, he smoked up before seeing her, to I guess get in the mood.  They visited our local vegetarian Chinese restaurant, which has fairly reasonable prices for the food quality and quantity.  I'd recommend it much more if I was a big Chinese food fan.

After dinner, the drove back to the house to part ways as she was still recovering from her detached scratched esophagus.  Then she dropped the bombshell: "I'm not sure how serious I want this to be.  Really, its not you.  I just don't think I want to date someone who smokes weed.  I used to smoke and don't anymore, and while my friends do smoke, I don't want that in my lover."

Samil did not take this well, and I think got fairly confrontational about it.  Really, I'm not sure how objective his reporting on the event was, except for maybe what she said.  I was en route to the fridge when he came home, about to settle in to talk to a new friend/musician who will be playing in my area this weekend.  We were having a good conversation about carving a place out in the world as a professional musician.  Unfortunately, as soon as I saw Samil's face I knew something was wrong, and opted for the big beer and to postpone my conversation with my new friend. 

So I sat down and got comfortable in preparation for what turned out to be a two hour + conversation, ranging from the relationship to Samil feeling alienated in the world, to how pot smokers are looked down upon to the type of father he sees himself as.

Samil really liked Nancy, and didn't see this coming at all.  Also, any points Nancy earned previously have to be revoked for not ending the relationship, but essentially attacking Samil.  That's pretty low. Samil also thought that you have to give a guy at least two months before you pull the plug on something (as in listening mode, I didn't really comment, but damn... two months?).  Also, had he known she was going to do this, he would have made her pay for her dinner (you know, that ten dollar meal is an investment.)

Samil also essentially said he was out of sync with the rest of the world and didn't know what was wrong with him.  This was a pretty uncomfortable moment because well, this blog is sort of about that, right?  Also, I felt really bad for him.  That's a really shitty place to find yourself in on a Thursday night.

Then we talked about pot.  I said something to the effect of "If you really like her, maybe you need to meet her half way on the pot.  Not smoke around her, or at least keep it out of sight and all that."  His response "Well, what if she just needs to get over it?  And maybe I'm right about that."  Okaaaaaaaay, guess the meeting halfway thing is not going to happen.

You see, Samil believes that pot smokers get a bad rap, especially from drinkers.  People look at it like its a bad thing.  I guess people think it's immature and all that.  To be honest, I have no idea if he's right, as I do not smoke myself.  I do know that if he's planning on starting a family with a woman, that woman probably doesn't want to be around someone who spends his entire Saturday refilling his bowl.  That is really no different than making a baby with a raging alcoholic.

Speaking of being a father, Samil told me he would not be the typical father.  For one thing, he thinks he'll call his child a half breed if he marries a white woman.  (I dunno. Ask him.)  He gave me one example.  When his son/daughter are in third grade or so, our intrepid high school English Teacher will train the half breed to say "can I use the bathroom" to its teacher.  The teacher will inevitably say "MAY you use the bathroom?"  Then the child will be instructed to say "I'll take that as a yes," point backwards and walk to the bathroom.

Grade A Father material, amirite?

The Girlfriend (?) Part Five

Quick reminder for you all.... this is not fiction.  I swear.

We had last week off, minus half a day on Monday.  Our city ended up having TERRIBLE flooding, so we couldn't work.  

Samil basically loved this.  I'd relate to you an extended conversation we had where I explained to him that he couldn't advocate that education is in a crisis and also not finding the missed days to be important, but it’s a really boring story.

On the Thursday, I decided to investigate our broken couch (casualty of the party the week before) and put together a makeshift fix in for the moment by propping up the wood that cracked.  The couch is in bad shape, and will need extensive surgery.  The main support beam across the back is essentially cracked all the way through.  I hope you all keep it in your prayers.  After propping up the couch, Samil sat on it and then pondered whether the temporary fix would affect the couch's usefulness for hooking up.  I explained to him that the couch was broken and he shouldn't be making out on it.  He didn't seem to understand.  It is possible that in my next post I will be telling you all how I chased him and Nancy off the couch late one night after hearing them enjoying our sick friend/furniture too much.  

Friday, Samil's plan was to head into the city with Nancy.  My plan was to sit around and shoot aliens.  As he was leaving, he told me "I'm going to bring this sweatshirt.  I don't know if I'll need it, but I'm going to bring it anyway."  And then just left, leaving me wondering if I was supposed to offer advice or praise on the matter.  More importantly, he didn't tell me what he told me the next morning.

I ended up having some insomnia that night and got very little sleep.  Samil got less, coming in after I finally passed out and waking up around the same time.  He sort of stumbled into the living room (where I was back to shooting aliens), and then gave me an awkward smile with his hands folded in front of him.  The only way I can describe the smile is akin to when a child is attempting to be positive after a drunken redneck ran over his puppy in a pickup truck...

Samil: "So, I can't hang out with Nancy today."
Me: "Oh, what’s up?"
S: "Well, she got a virus and she was throwing up so much her esophagus detached from her stomach."

M: "Huh?"
S: "Yeah, and well, she's okay now, but she has to take some medicine and she doesn't want to leave the house."
M: "Oh, that sucks."

S: "Yeah - I'm gonna beat that guy up that gave it to her.  Stupid customer."
M: "Why don't you bring her some soup or something?  Make her feel better."
S: "She said she just wants to be by herself and sleep.  I asked but she said she didn't want that."
M: "Oh.  That sucks."
S: "What's wrong with me?  I'm really worked up over this."
M: "Well, you like her and stuff, but you know, shit happens.  You'll see her soon."
S: "Yeah, but... I'm tearing up here.  What's wrong with me?!"

And then he walked back to bed.  

Let's review.  Samil did not hang out with Nancy because she had a DETACHED ESOPHAGUS.  He's now emotionally distraught over this like a middle school boy upset the first girl that let him smile at her now won't talk to him.  After about 5 weeks of seeing each other intermittently.  Based on this conversation I arrived at a few possible conclusions...

1) Nancy has the worst luck in the world.

2) Nancy is really bad at getting out of a relationship

3) Nancy is REALLY cruel and very hysterical when she ends relationships.

I mean.... does that even fucking happen?  How does your esophagus detach from your stomach?  And, if it does happen, wouldn't you die?  Or at least go to the hospital?  How come I've never heard of the genius doctor that came up with the pill to REATTACH YOUR ESOPHAGUS to your stomach?  

When Samil finally woke up, he wrote a fiction story for 3 hours as therapy to explore his emotions, and he then finally came to the conclusion that she's ill and things like this happen.  That's good for him, and I'm glad he returned to Planet Reality.

Still, for a few days, Samil was a little bummed out that he didn't get to see his middle school sweetheart Nancy.  We were bumming around Monday night and he left her a message just saying he wanted to chat.  Then, as he was heading to bed, she called and he took the call in his bedroom.  I (surprise surprise) continued killing aliens for an hour or so and then started getting ready for bed.  As I was organizing my room he poked his head in the door and said "So, it was a scratched esophagus."

"Oh, well that's good.  And makes sense."
"Yeah.  I was sort of wondering why she wasn't like... in the hospital."

The Girlfriend (?) Part Four

Remember that party I mentioned a few posts ago? The next day I grabbed lunch with my good friend Dave. Somehow, when hanging out, I agreed to host a beer snob party. I'm not much a party hosting type, but our apartment is too awesome to not do it.
For one reason or twenty, I didn't get to tell Samil about this until over a week later, which was right before the event. When talking about it, Samil started wondering how big of a party we could have in our house. I had already done an informal poll on the matter and arrived at around 20. Samil however, wants to party in our bedrooms and was really set on the number 40. In fact, after breaking down the numbers room by room, he arrived at 25 total, but 40 over the course of the night. I could get behind this if he was trying to reach 42. But, no. Anyway, we had 17 over for the party, which was a train wreck on my part. Whatever you do, don't let me host your party. I will probably start drinking Corona Extras out of cans before everyone shows up and then start to hit people with frozen pizza boxes before some people have even arrived (Sorry, Steve.).

I do remember everything that happened, though. Samil was in great form, actually. Almost as soon as my friend John arrived, Samil called him an alcoholic and asked him how many times he has PISSED IN AN ALLEY. He said this as if it was a common trait among all people who drink regularly to relieve themselves in alleys. I was amused. John was slightly indignant.

Granted, it came up because John broached the topic of how much weed Samil smokes. Truth be told, I thought a relationship would be good for his smoking habits. He'd calm down, be less nervous, and I'm sure getting some would keep him naturally high a little. The reality is the total opposite. Samil is smoking more every day, it seems, possibly because he's not in the relationship phase and is worried about every possible pitfall.

Anyways, I'm telling you about the Part-ay because Nancy was there! This is when I started to become alarmed by their relationship. For one thing, she got along well with everyone involved. Too well. She must have flirted with a half dozen of my friends (where Samil was during this, I have no idea, and he probably doesn't either. He literally just vanished for like an hour)... telling one person he could take his pants off for a picture if he'd like. The next morning she even told me how cute she thought Clark was. Apparently she mentioned this to Samil multiple times.

Also, she didn't really show Samil that affectionate body language you'd sort of expect. The next morning she even almost seemed annoyed at him when they brought breakfast back. This annoyance was really only directed at him because when Steve, I, and the two of them were hanging together she was in great spirits.

She left for work for a few hours and then the three of us chatted for a while. Well, Steve and I chatted and Samil awkwardly stumbled around in our conversation, while taking hits the entire time. When I showed Steve out he told me "He just smoked more weed than my roommate smokes in two weeks. No wonder he's tired all the time. I'm surprised he's even awake." When I came back upstairs, Samil kept smoking, right up until he left for Nancy's place.

In that time Samil told me some more alarming things. I won't go into details, but essentially she's only been on the receiving end of the physical side of their relationship. He's okay with that. Also, she was a lot more reachable to talk to a week or two ago, and now he has to initiate all the conversation. He's okay with that.

Things he's not okay with, though, is their schedules. She works early morning shifts including some weekends and he reports to work a little later strictly M-F. This obviously is more important than any of that, and those other things are not warning signs in any way that this is not going well.

One more story:

That night he went over her house, he told me, again more graphically than I'll tell you, how much heavy petting was going on. Then she asked to smoke some of his weed. She took like three hits or so (he was really excited about them smoking together. It clearly was a turn on.) After a few of these hits she freaked out and wouldn't let him touch her for the rest of the night.

Right after he relayed this to me, he says "I think I'm going to turn her into a weed smoker. Yeah. It'll be great."

This relationship is taking a nose dive.

The Girlfriend (?) Part Three

I had a very important responsibility in making the third date happen, but beyond that I actually have no idea how it went.
Samil had decided his best option for finding a temporary ride would be to go to the Found-Anywhere-You-Look (FAYL) Car Rental Chain. Except he went to the FAYL in the town we went to college in. This location is 40 minutes by car and 90 minutes plus a thirty minute walk away by train, which is how he had to go since, well, he had no car.

On Friday he needed to bring his FAYL car back to the place he got it from, and thought it would be a great idea to ask Nancy to drive HIS newly fixed car (only cost 700 bucks, but that's a lot of money when your car is rusting out). My role in all of this was to be home to give her the keys so she could make her way down to their date.

I was worried about this because I got home much later than planned after a good deal of bar-related relaxation with coworkers. Luckily she had not woken up from her nap yet, and Samil told me "If she's not awake in an hour I'm going to call her and read her the riot act." I kindly told him that it’s not good to, you know, yell at the person you're trying to sleep with, especially if you're possibly the least timely person on earth, Guinness Record Pending.

Anyway, she rolled in and rolled out before I think I even could formally introduce myself and she was on her way. The next morning she woke up in the apartment and was not much more talkative. She did say that picking a lock in a video game with a bobby pin was pretty awesome (add to the points she earned after coming to Samil for Date 2)

Sunday we had a workgroup session: Me, Samil, and our friend Brian. I was coming from my folks place to meet them, but made the mistake of leaving my wallet at home. I had to drive back to their place to get it and informed Samil via text I'd be late and I'd meet them all there and to tell Brian. When I'm ten minutes from getting to our designated meeting place, I get a message from Brian saying "so, um, where are you guys?" I explain to him my situation and tell him I'll be there soon to get him. This is all obviously my fault, because I should have realized at the time Samil would still be asleep and Brian would not know. Once picking up Brian I did get a great rant about Samil's Pending Guinness Record. "I understand we're all too time conscious and everything, but if you tell me you're going to pick me up to go to a show at 9pm, don't show up at 10:30pm still half asleep because you took a nap for too long and then decided to smoke a bowl before getting me. I mean, what the hell." He then had some choice words for losing one's wallet which I definitely deserved.

En route to the library, I received a call from Samil apologizing for not getting the message, but he overslept, and then he asked "Did you get Brian anyway?" He said he'd meet us there in like an hour or something. Probably after he smoked a bowl.
Once arriving at the library, Samil asked me if I brought a spare set of ear plugs. I did not. This was not my fault, but he was almost shocked that I would only carry one set of ear plugs with me. I get it, I'm a musician, but I still only have two ears.

The Girlfriend (?) Part Two

A lot happened leading up to the second date.

The first thing that happened was that Samil's car fell in a tree.  We had a blizzard and the snow caused the car to collapse around the tree.  At least that was the appearance if you spent too long looking at it from your window chuckling.  It was even funnier, to me, because an hour before he discovered his tree in the car, he was joking about branches falling near his car, and then a half hour after that he told me another branch fell even closer to the car.  Then, he looked out the window and saw a cop standing near his car taking notes and he realized the shit hit the fan branch went through his windshield and busted up his hood.

Then hilarity began.  The cop told Samil he had to move his car that weekend or it would be towed so the town could remove the tree that was in his car.  Before Samil really could do that, he needed get a hold of his insurance company.  To do that.... he needed his phone and insurance cards which were in his wallet.  Commence an hour of him pacing around the apartment turning things upside down looking for his wallet and phone, angrily cursing at himself.  And I thought I was going to have a boring day lounging around the house.   

This all happened the morning of Date #2. No doubt, this was now a problem for his plans that evening, which included Thai restaurant + the bar + ?  As Samil was getting ready for Nancy to arrive at the house (who was nice enough to drive to him for the date. She def earns some bonus points right there), he comes into my room and asks me if I have condoms.  I do not.  He tells me that he has lube but no condoms (I gathered the latter, didn't really care about the former) and begins wondering out loud how to rectify this situation.  He asks me if I could drive to pick them up (My car is still dug in.  Does he want to dig it out for me?  No.).  He then hatches the Greatest Idea Ever* or as my friend said "that is so sketchy I'm creeped out and he's not even trying to date me."  He called a friend Mark and asked him to purchase some condoms and then deliver them to him when they're at the bar.  As he said to me.. "yeah, yeah, that'll work."  Right.  

As he is trying to figure this out, he gets a call from Nancy, whose tire blew out on the way here.  This problem was actually not a big deal.  Despite AAA claiming it would take forever and a year (I have a totally unrelated AAA story I will till, but not today), they took care of it pretty quickly, and they were out the door.

The date went pretty well, aided by her apparently drinking a lot.  They just went out for drinks because of the car troubles, and in a brief moment of genius, Samil told her to park in the Quick Check lot next to the bar so he could "ask them if it was okay to park there."  This is now code for me whenever I want to leave my date in the car to buy condoms on a second date when the only physical contact I've have previously has been a quick peck on the lips.

They came home and she crashed here, which he was really proud of.  I mean, she only crashed here because she was drunk and exhausted, but you take your victories where you can, right?  Also, he was pretty upset over just a little heavy petting, but he told me the next morning "it was cool, i just wish she told me 10 minutes earlier."  To which I probably should have said, "10 minutes before you told her to stay in the car at Quick Check so you could buy condoms?" 

A short addendum:

The next night I hosted a get together in my apartment, to which Samil partially attended.  In preparing for it, Samil was doing some dishes, and I brought to the sink some newly acquired silverware and cooking utensils that I got from my parents house.  I announced that they didn't need much cleaning, and if he could do some of them, that would be great.  He said "yeah, sure."

In addition to my party, Samil also went back to the same bar he went to with Nancy because he noticed lots of "Fly Ladies."  He struck out, but the next morning asked me to weigh in on whether a certain girl was hitting on him or not.  The trouble with this is that I wasn't there, and all my information is from him, so really my answer is heavily influenced by what he noticed.  

Also, he didn't do any of those dishes.  When I asked him about it, he said to me:

"Well, did I say, yeah, uh huh?  Cos you know, maybe I didn't hear you.  Maybe I wasn't listening.  I'm sorry, sometimes I do that and say things like yes to people.  Is that a problem?"

Um... yeah, uh uh.

The Girlfriend (?) Part One

So, I've been negligent in updating this.  Feel free to flog me.  I deserve it.  I promise make it up to you in the next week or so, since I have lots of things to share!  A new chapter started in our house in mid-February.  Samil began a relationship.

Valentine's Day I ended up hanging out with a friend of mine named Clark.  Neither of us is attached, and he was looking for something to do other than just sit around at home.  So we went out to dinner and then came back to my place and found, somehow, Mike Mozart.  This man represents all that is wrong with the Internet.  He posts reviews on youtube about bad toys.  I could spend a few hundred words explaining why this is terrible, but to put it as simply as possible: its like shooting fish in a barrel, but fish that have no sustenance or relevance to the real world.  His best work is probably this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYuxvh2bYDw

Clark and I sort of lost it while watching this one, and it is also when Samil arrived home.  Oh, right.  This was supposed to be about Samil, which it is!   He was getting drinks with a girl who I will refer to as Nancy.  Samil was set up with Nancy to get drinks earlier in the night by Opal, who is Alex's younger sister, who is Samil's close friend....  Here is a graphic to show you:

So Opal's great idea to set up Samil with Nancy just happened to occur on Valentine's Day.  After Nancy got off of work at her coffee shop job.  Somehow, Samil didn't know it was Valentine's Day, and didn't figure it out until midway through drinks.  Still it went well, and he arranged another date.

The First Date was somewhat well planned.  As most first dates should be, it was conversation oriented.  Samil's downfall was that they decided to hang out at her place, and not only was Nancy home, so was her room mate/friend/coworker Opal.  Also, their landlord was there, who is actually Opal/Alex's mother.  I'm sure it was a grand time and enjoyed by all.  Samil earned himself a kiss and secured himself date two.  

The next morning, while I was video gaming while he gave me the recap.  I think he told me a lot more, but I really wasn't paying attention once I heard that he was hanging out with the Opal and Mother.  He did grab my attention at the end of his rant on the difficulty in determining the status of the relationship.  He felt very comfortable stating that they were dating, "but like, you know... when is she the girlfriend?  Like... does it matter how much you've done?  How many dates you've been on?  If she forgets her toiletries at your place?  Man, this is so confusing.  I don't know what to say."  And then he went grocery shopping.  For 3 hours.