wasabi ice cream, ex Boy, strangers

I try very hard to be open to new things and new people. I don't want to be the type of girl who is dismissive of anyone who approaches her. Neither do I want to be the type of person who shelters herself through playing games. Not to say that some games aren't quiet fun. I'm a big fan of dress-up and spin the bottle. I mean petty mind games.

So for me, this weekend was a success on many accounts. First, Saturday night, which wouldn't have happened if I had succumbed to the desire to play stupid games.

Saturday
So the ex-boy calls me. If you don't remember any previous posts about The Boy, specifically labeled not as The Boyfriend, though there are a few maybe from Feb or March, it's because he has legitimate reasons not to want to appear online. I have mostly tried to respect that.

So to summarize: we emailed for a month when I was back in the states. we saw each other almost every weekend for like five or six months and then both stopped calling each other. but since it wasn't a proper relationship, there wasn't a proper breakup, just an understanding that enough was enough. However, such endings don't give and ##closouuuuurue## or whatever. so when he sent me a 'hey, long time no talk' email, my first response was to be game-y and not reply right away. But I didn’t have anything better to do, so I suggested dinner or drinks.

At the following dinner and drinks, two things were very obvious and made me very happy

1)I wasn't dropped because I'm not attractive
(rather because I ask people to genuinely show they care, not just give bullshit lip service to the concept)

2)he's so not worth any more of my time. ha ha ha ha..... oh, the petty side of me is sooooooo satisfied. oh his poor new girl who can see through all of his bullshit yet. ha ha ha haaaaa. He’s such a coward…. Ha ha ha ha

one more important lesson was learned. When an ex offers to pay for dinner in order to make up some Karma, it is better to laugh or smile or say something innocuous than to fill him in on what Karma you think he should repay.

He thought that, since he now has a Long Distance Girl, he needed to pay back Karma for thinking I'm still attractive.

My laundry list was quiet different. I am glad I kept my mouth shut for once.

Sunday

Nearly 30 teachers, students, and groupies meet for aquarium, city panoramas, gyoza, and 12000ish flavors of ice cream. Not to mention beer and a strange haunted house.

The group was almost all people I’d never met, other than the guy making the invitations, and a few people whose names I couldn't remember from some parties and other events. So I start chatting to people and we’d break off into little groups and re-converge and break off again. Pleasantly repeat. I didn't really think it was weird at all that all the people I was having a good time with I hadn't met before. I didn't notice until people started pointing it out to me. It makes me happy that I've become the type of person who can do this. Being a sub in Ye Ol' Eikaiwa is all about being consistent with making good impressions. I'm glad I can carry this into the social arena. While I'll probably not be a teacher forever, this, I think, is a good skill. Hopefully it's a skill that won't wax or wane with my moods. Sure, the high of meeting an ex and judging him unworthy gave me an advantage, but I think I'm just getting more sociable every year. I made some new friends and got a proper invitation to what may be another legendary Halloween party. I'm planning to be Post Apocalyptic Miss America. Think my costume for the super legendary 2002 party at Katie’s on High St. meets Tank Girl.

the random one liner I'm most proud of:
some guy: it's statistically proven that there are more earthquakes during typhoon season. blah blah. most natural disaster happen in the fall. blah.
me: that's when god gets PMS

Sunday
after sleeping like the dead for 12 hours and only having one nasty dream, I headed to the Apple Store to see what was wrong with my laptop. It started making unhappy noises about a week ago and I was able to back up all my writing and pictures (but none of my music) before it wouldn't boot anymore. I'm typing now on the old Dell laptop that came with my apartment. The bottom line, it turns out for my computer, is that it has some sort of hard drive failure. about $400 to fix. The store guy (of course) recommends I get a new one instead. shit. I wanted this one to last until the mythical Law School 2008 fantasy comes to fruition. I wanted 2 more years out of this puppy. A new one costs maybe $1200. ug. or switch to PC again, which is maybe cheaper. But I want my music back.... so probably leaning toward fixing it. that's certainly no small chunk of cash, though.

anyway. the computer disappointment wasn’t the main adventure.
(though as a side note, I'd like to defend my lack of appropriate punctuation as having to deal with a different key board where the apostrophe take residence above the 7, rather than being easily accessible with the right hand pinky)

so, I've just made an appointment to talk to one of the "geniuses" at the Mac Store and was ready to kill an hour wandering around when a guy come up to me. He asks where I'm from (not a good way to ingratiate yourself to me, these days).
America, you?
Africa. He wants to take me out to coffee.
I say no.
He says I'm soo soo special and his heart is reaching out to me so why don't I just give him a chance, can he please have my number. (this happens at least once a month to me, can you believe it?)
No, you can not have my number.
Oh, I just knew I had to meet you, why don't you just give me a little chance...

I look him in the eyes. He is so not trustworthy. I'm vaguely skeeved out and totally on my guard... but I have an hour to kill I don't want him following me. Fine. We get coffee. I wish I could say that this experiment ended successfully, or that I got a random and cool friend. But really, he just continued to be vaguely creepy and falsely intimate. Like saying when I leave Japan in a year we can make plans what to do next. I laughed at him while calling him optimistic. He did not get my number. I did relent to giving him my email and told him if he wrote me an interesting story, I might call him. I give it a 50 50 if he'll write. If anything more entertaining come of this, I'll be sure to pass on the mirth. But don't worry, I'm not going to get myself swindled, kidnapped, sold into white slavery (I know that's what your thinking dad), drugged, etc. But I'm happy that I gave the weird guy a chance not to be weird. I’m glad that I gave an encounter that is getting more and more boring each time a chance to be interesting.

However, because of recurring events such as this, I will not post my address on my blog, so I'll respond to everyone who has been asking recently individually.

the adventures continue