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.

Only the best for Mother

My mom's birthday was Monday.  Hi Mom!  She doesn't actually read the blog.

Anyways, that's important, but only important in a little bit.  Friday Samil came home from work around 7:20pm.  I can say that with a good deal of accuracy because he was kicked out of the building at 7pm and it takes about 20 minutes to get home.  Samil was very upset.  He was upset because grades were due on Friday and the kicked him out before he was able to finish start inputting them.  This was clearly not his fault because well, he started working on determining his grades at 3pm.   He finally finished grading all his final second marking period assignments and calculating marking period grades at 7pm when the security guard told him "Hey, its Friday, asshole.  Its 7pm.  You need to go home because I want to have a life and I can't if I'm sitting here babysitting you in this building.  Why are you even still here, anyway?  It is Friday, you know."  (that's at least what I imagine the security guard saying.)

Samil was not totally receptive to my point that hey... they were due on Friday, maybe um... you shouldn't have started work on them on... Friday... after school ended.  It was, obviously, the fault of his boss, since she scheduled professional development on Friday.  I doubt she understood Samil's work schedule, and gosh darnit, that's why he can't do a good job.

Sunday, my mother came for a birthday lunch.  She recommended a Mexican place near Samil's old apartment, which while not being all that far away from our current digs, would mean we'd be driving past about 50 other amazing restaurants so I suggested a Mexican place closer.  After giving Mom the tour of the apartment, I told Samil what was going on and mentioned her suggestion which caused a very elaborate conversation about Thai food.  He thought we should not only drop the idea of eating Mexican, but drive all the way to his old apartment and eat at a... get this... take out Thai place.  Only the best for Mother, of course.  After being as cordial as possible towards his suggestion we made our merry way to the close Mexican restaurant.

On returning, I brought back a menu from the establishment, which Samil found to be an invitation to read aloud the various foods they sold.  Samil was very impressed with the menu.  He thought the prices, which were on the slightly higher side for a few school teachers, to be particularly fascinating, and he recited those a few times for each dish.  He also, for some reason, was very interested in a single dish: the Fish Tacos.  I need to stress that this interest was not ironic in any way.  He was actually delighted that they offered the entree.  Now, I don't hold anything against a person who enjoys a good fish taco, but Samil doesn't.  Samil is a vegetarian, and not the type that says they're vegetarian but still eats fish.  So every time he mentioned the Fish Tacos, which he kept coming back to when looking over the menu, I became more confused.

You would think that moments like this would become less surprising for me after living with Samil for 5 months.  But, I'm not.  My only fear is that maybe he's getting more Samil-like.

house cleaning

One of the things that I told Samil when we started the process of moving in together was that I required we have someone clean our house.  I was too old to be having room mate spats about cleaning and stuff, and I knew I was really busy, and that he was pretty lazy.  So I thought it was a good time/money/stress balance.

Its now January and we're finally getting our first cleaning.  While the house has been messy, it hasn't been terribly dirty, so its not a big deal.  I had someone in mind to do this, but she became unavailable so Samil suggested someone else.  We'll call her L.  His selection of L combines a fair amount of smart thoughtfulness and a heaping dose of "that's a terrible idea Samil, what the hell are you thinking."

Samil decided to pick someone that worked in the activist organization we both met in.  This is a nice idea because its pretty much a group of poor college students who could use some money and need a flexible schedule.  I also like not paying a middleman or overhead: every dollar goes to L.  But here's the "that's the terrible idea" part.  Samil and L were, shall we say romantically involved, in the fall, but when he suggested they make it a formal sort of relationship she turned him down and that was that.  I am convinced, without a shadow of doubt, that this move is an attempt be near her every 2-3 weeks and eventually win her favor.  This is not behavior I'm comfortable my room mate engaging in with the person cleaning my apartment.  At the same time, who am I to keep Samil from making a fool from himself?  At the very least it will provide me fun things to write here...

And last night he did not fail to perform.

Once L got in, he gave her the tour of our apartment and then sat her down to chat for a solid hour.  He talked about tea, the stress of his job (more on that in another post), and the goings on of their mutual friends, etc etc.  Once she started to clean, he followed her around to see what may or may not need to be done in the apartment, trying to decide exactly what should be done in the apartment and what was not necessary.  This is of course something a contractor should tell a contractee if a job is to be done right.  You don't want to be unhappy because you weren't clear with your expectations.  That said, I don't think he needed to tell her that the shower needed to be cleaned or that the living room HAS to be vacuumed.  These things, I think, are fairly obvious.  But I'm probably crazy.  Also, between each room he made sure to ask if she had everything she needed and if there was anything she might want... tea, water, food, weed, and so on.

Once she finally got the rundown, he went into his bedroom and set up Pandora for her listening pleasure.  While she attempted to clean, he attempted to talk to her about Lady Gaga, and began by asking if she had ever heard of pretty much every single she's released, playing each song for about 30 seconds.  Her affirmative answers were obviously a sign to Samil that he should talk about how great Lady Gaga could be, if she got the right producers and engineers and songwriters and worked on her singing.  But she's pretty all right now.  He digs her.  The music is good and all, but you know, its not great.  It could be better.  If she had the right producer.  And if she didn't sing like that.  But this song is great.  Oh, but did you hear this Remix of Poker Face?  Oh man, you need to hear it.  She's pretty good, but man, if she had the right producers...  (I think you get the idea).

Eventually he got the idea that well, she didn't want to stay there all night and it would be nice if she could get on with cleaning, so he left her mostly alone... checking in periodically to see if she needed anything.  At this moment, possibly the funniest thing Samil has ever said was um... said.  He walked into the bath room and declared, "Hey... this is my last piece of gum.  Do you want it?"  "Um.       Okay."

I hope she comes back.

Like Father Like Son

Samil and I went to nearby high schools.  They weren't rivals, but the sports teams did play each other regularly. So Samil will do this thing whenever he meets someone who went to my high school.  That thing is he'll talk to them about his experiences on the wrestling team.  Thing is... none of my friends care about wrestling.  They don't care my team had a paw print on the butt, or that his team always lost, or... really anything about it.  I wonder if and when he'll get that hint.

And that's not related to this story.... Samil also has an issue with time management.  As he told our mutual friend Brian, everyone should have a 30 minute window to be late to something (Brian's response, for the record was "I'll actually kill anyone who makes me wait for a half hour.").  This is a curious thing because he wanted to leave this morning for his father's place at 10.  As I expected, he started eating breakfast at 11.  Not a big deal... going home a little late on a Saturday morning is not the end of the world.

Except his sister was taking the SATs and was expecting him to pick her up when they finished.  So around noon when he finished cleaning up from breakfast, he turns to me, informs me about it, and then goes "do I need to be there at noon or 1?" as if I'd know.  So, his bright idea is to call his dad and tell him to pick her up.

He made that call while I was on my way to pick up Brian, and when we got back to my place, he was sitting on the couch staring at the wall.  We sat around and talked for a bit: we're all teachers, and two of us are workaholics.  The other is Samil.  Two of us like to be on time to things... and the other is Samil.  etc. etc.

And then Samil's little sister calls waiting to be picked up.  Apparently dad is not there.  This causes Samil to angrily call Dad.  A while passes and we talk about politics and the sort.  And then the sister calls again, with the same problem.  Now Samil is flipping out, and tells Brian and me "my dad has the worst time management skills EVER.  We would always be sitting in the living room, and he'd walk in going 'let's go let's go let's go' and we'd always say 'we're waiting for you dad' and I mean, how could you do that?  And his temper.  He's always so angry, and we always have to put up with him."

The logician in me of course is wondering how Samil can be so angry at his father for his sister not being picked up when Samil had volunteered to do it and pawned it off on his dad when he was running hours behind the time he said he'd be in town.  Of course... like father like son.