Creepy Stalker

A handful of weeks ago I decided to head to the used book store down the street. Aaron had just gotten home from class and he decided to stay in, so I headed off to the bookstore by my lonesome. It was a lovely afternoon so I didn't mind the walk alone, even though I prefer his company. Little did I know what was in store for me just around the corner.

I had just crossed the parking lot when I noticed a man talking to some woman about a kid. She left and when he approached me, I only stopped because I assumed he had lost his kid and needed help. Turns out instead, he just wanted to talk to me. No harm in that, the people in our new place have all been very neighborly and welcoming, so I thought nothing of it. At first.

He asks me my name, tells me his, explains he had bought cookies from one of the children near by and asked me which he thought he should bake first, the chocolate chip or the peanut butter. I'm like, "Uh... both?" Though easily the correct answer would have been to bake them both together so they would be peanut butter-chocolate chip.

He then goes on to ask if I was attending the college nearby and what classes I'm taking or would be taking. A little intrusive of a stranger to ask, but not altogether unheard of, so I mention I plan on taking ASL in a year or so and he exclaims that he's been learning ASL for a while now and that we should get together to study. I explain that it'll be a while until I attend, if I even do for that matter, and he instead offers the use of his Sign Language books.

I'm a little hesitant about taking anything from a stranger out of a weird sense of debt, but he's pretty insistent upon it and invites me inside. Red flag goes up and I mentioned that I really ought to be heading to the book store since it closes at six, and he waves it off and assures me it'll only take a moment. Reluctantly I follow him towards he door to his apartment, though I don't plan on going in. Especially since five steps forward he tells me how careful I should be, because there are, "Many bad men out there." Additional red flags, are they even needed?

I hover abouts the doorway, where his dog is lounging so it doesn't seem too impolite and he goes in to get the book. I hear him call out that he won't bite and he's got nothing to hide so I should, come in. Cautiously I tip toe a foot into his apartment, knowing the woman across the street saw me do so and that the door behind me was still open. Immediately I notice the over-grown tomato plants obscuring the view into/out of his window. He must have been able to tell that I found it odd, because he started explaining straight away that they used to be even bigger, but when new management took over and did their walk-throughs, they made him trim them down.

He then starts telling me plants can grow year-round so long as you tend them right, and I agree, because out here in California that's very true. If you keep a plant warm enough in the chilly months and well nourished enough, they need not enter a dormant phase. He hands me the book, and I kindly thank him, hoping to now head on to the book store, even going to far as to tell him that. Not quite yet!

He goes on then to introduce me to his dog. An Akita he rescued several years ago after his Lab-Retriever finally had to be put down. Her name is Sierra. Like the mountain, he says. I'm like, okay... It apparently dawns on him that I was walking to the book store, because he asks me why I'm not driving there. I explain that I don't own a car and prefer to go places that I can on foot. He get real close to me and I can tell, awkwardly, that he planned to hug me before thinking better of it and instead shakes my hand, complimenting my morals.

Which leads him to the story of why he no longer owns a car either. He's a born-again Christian sort of fellow and he used to visit all the local churchs like Paul or Peter or some other Bible character I cannot recall at the moment. But he did so in a white Bronco which lead several of the other church-goers to look down on him for, "thinking so highly of himself and riding in on his white horse," in reference to his vehicle...

So long story short, he sells his car to a pastor. I tell him then that I really have to go, as it has been forty-five minutes already and the book store closes in ten minutes. He stops me and says he wants me to use the ASL book to decipher what he says first. I mentioned again more expressively that I really do need to go, but he again insists it will take only a moment. So he signs something, I'm oblivious and the book isn't helping (since most ASL books don't without proper instruction). I realize I'll be here all night at this rate and throw in the proverbial towel. He then says he was saying, "I want something with you."

Mentally I'm thinking, "Oh, ffs!" But outwardly I'm more composed and polite about it, explaining to him that I'm already in a relationship and quite happy. You'd think that would be enough, but he then goes on to like... give me instructions on how to proceed in dating him should I want to and break up with Aaron.

We could only be friends for the first month, nothing romantic. And! If Aaron and I are living together, that's at least five months before he will date me. If Aaron and I were to get married and then divorce, I could not date him for a year per every five years Aaron and I were married.

...

Yes, these were actual words coming out of his talk-hole. I smile and nod and then, one final time, insist I have to go now. Finally, I'm free. I have to run to the book store by this point because it is so close to closing time, and once I get there I only have a few minutes to quickly peruse what's available. A shame, because there is a ton of great old books to sort through. I grab a couple nicely bound old prints and head out. By now it is growing dark and weird guy's behavior has made me nervous, so I call my mom as insurance on my way home.

As expected, he's waiting outside for me when I get into the parking lot. I assume surely no one would be so intrusive and creepy as to interrupt someone obviously in the middle of a telephone conversation... but he does. He stops me to tell me a story about some Christian radio show he had listened to some time ago about star crossed lovers. The entire time my mom is in the background, on the phone asking, "Who the hell is that? Is this the creepy guy? Was he waiting outside for you?" Etc., etc. None of which I can answer while he is RIGHT there.

I smile and nod some more, and take my leave, finally making it home to tell Aaron all about my experience and how I'm never leaving the house by myself ever again.

Just you wait. There's more.

Yesterday I was doing laundry, while checking the drier to see if it was finished, the same guy comes running up from across the complex shouting my name. I'm like, "???" and peek out of the laundry room window only to realize who it was. I instantly wish there was a back door, but alas there isn't so I just had to be trapped in the room with him.

I'm dreading this conversation but he starts it off with an innocent, "How goes the ASL?" To which I can only reply honestly, that I haven't had the time to start. Then he hits me with he creepy, full force.

"I've been walking this way with Sierra the last couple of weeks trying to see if I could find out where you live."

Not only is he completely socially inappropriate in most ways imaginable, he's also been trying to stalk me for two weeks straight. Since the day he met me. Creeper! To make it worse, the whole time he's talking to me he is obstructing the exit so I cannot leave, and I just so happen to have a laundry basket with underthings in it. Sigh.

He then clarifies just to make sure I did in fact have a boyfriend. I say yes, because... I do. Then he starts asking if any of the people outside are him. One by one. When I say it isn't the man in the baseball hat he says, "I thought for sure it was that guy in the hat, because he keeps checking you out. I guess it's just cause you're pretty though." When I decline that it is the guy watching us from across the street he says, "Huh, he must just be keeping an eye on you to make sure I don't do anything bad."

...

His friends show up to relieve me of him (not fast enough) and he asks them if I can go along. I don't know where they're going, not that it would make a difference. He then touches my arm after they agree and says, "Heh heh, just playin, I see you're doing laundry." and gives a nod to acknowledge my basket. I uneasily ebb by him and make a retreat to our apartment, but only after I was sure he'd gone and wasn't observing from afar.

This is why I lock myself -in- the house.

Hard Cider

Aaron and I drove down to San Jose with Josh to meet up with Melina (not to be confused with Milena) and hang out at Sean's for Halloween weekend. A formula for super fun.

Sean's cat was remarkably nicer than the last time we'd seen her (back in March), where she would growl and attack people as they walked innocently by her. She only having two outbursts of feline anger. At times, she would even approach you and let you pet her. Granted only for a few seconds before got nervous and/or ran off.

We met up with Melina, Joshua (not to be confused with Josh), Chris, and Kayleigh in San Fransisco at the gigantic mall downtown where we congregated in Borders like true geeks. From there we went on the prowl for sushi, which lead us several blocks away to some itty bitty sushi bar on one of those steep hills you can only find in San Fransisco where we met up with another pal, Stephanie. I'm not exaggerating when I say it was a tiny place, our group of nine took up nearly all of the tables, but that added to the charm of the place.

After having our fill of sushi, Japanese beer, plum wine, and warm sake we concluded that it was time for ice cream. Coldstone was reputedly fantastic, so we headed there. Sean and I racing down the hill nearly into on-coming traffic. Sean won, but only because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to stop myself before plowing into the side of a car. At Coldstone I got a giant scoop of Watermelon sherbet with rainbow sprinkles mixed in. It was delicious, but after-the-fact I determined I should have also gotten chocolate chips.

While lingering outside of the ice cream shop, it was decided that we should meet up at Chris' apartment to watch 300, drink some American beers, and hang out. After driving uphill what seemed like an impossibly long time, that's exactly what we did. This is where we met Abbey, Chris' roomie, who thought my name was, "Totally intense!" and asked what sort of human I was. She was also mesmerized by Aaron's hair. Not that I can blame her. He does have amazing hair. Then we returned to Sean's to pass out until morning came and it was bacon time.

Halloween morning it occurred to us that we had a costume party to attend in a handful of hours, so we raided Sean's closet for last-minute costumes. Which was surprisingly fruitful, yielding masks, cloaks, and all kinds of random costume bits. We ended up with December (a creepy masked man in a suit), a guy with a burlap sack over his head, a lumberjack, and a cloaked woman with claws that we dubbed, "Or Something." Pictures were taken but not by me. So you'll have to wait to see them.

The party itself was fabulous. Joshua made this excellent spiced rum cider and served it out of a Jack-o-Lantern, which was totally my drink of choice for the night. We played on the Wii, then several rounds of I've Never followed by many hilarious games of Twister. Twister as an adult was totally more fun than I recall Twister being as a kid. Maybe it was the alcohol. Or maybe it was the fact that it was a bunch of adults dressed in costumes playing. Either way, it was great.

When the party finally died down, we headed back to Sean's house and went to sleep. Though it could be argued I went to sleep on the ride home, as I fell asleep in the back seat with my head on Aaron's lap. The next morning we went to some quaint little diner for breakfast and some much needed (albeit not good) coffee, before saying our goodbyes and heading back to Sacramento. All in all an A+ vacation.

All New

Oops, a month went by. My bad. You can guess that my life has either been really busy, or really entertaining. Truth is that it has been both.

September was our last month in the old apartment. Sean came up to visit us and on the weekend of the first, we moved into the new apartment!

With just the three of us it was a little hard, but luckily we weren't taking everything. Mostly just a bunch of things in boxes, bagged groceries, and a couple of pieces of furniture to get us by until we buy new furniture.

Basically we rented a truck, loaded it, then drove over everything we planned on keeping to our new place. Then we went back, loaded the truck, and dropped off all of the stuff we weren't keeping. It took all day, but we got it done with plenty of time for booze and pizza afterward.

The new place is in a better, safer location right by the college Aaron goes to, so he can bike to class. Within walking distance there is also a grocery store, a Target, a Walgreens, a Home Depot, and an In 'n Out. Delicious In 'n Out burgers, mmm... Those of you not on the West coast have no idea how good those things are.

We also found a used book store right around the corner with an awesome selection of really, really old books in really good condition. We bought King's, The Shining first edition in hardcover and a neat hardcover edition of Russian history from the 1950's. I foresee many hours and many dollars being spent there. To make it even better, they've got a shop cat named Sugar. An old, portly white cat without a tail. Super friendly. I may wind up visiting the book store just to visit her on occasion (though I'd undoubtedly leave with a book anyhow).

As if the old book store wasn't rad enough, we also found a comic shop. Scratch that. A huge comic shop. So big in fact its got its own building. Not like usually, where the comic shop is in one of those little strip malls in some tiny neglected section beside a laundry mat or whatever. Wall-to-wall nerd, just like I like it.

We picked up some snazzy new dice, Apples to Apples, and later ordered Arkam Horror. A Lovecraftian boardgame which we've found ourselves playing daily since it arrived. Yesterday Cthulu got out. Aaron was like, "Welp, game over." And I was all, "Lets try to fight him!" But neither of us had dice pools anywhere near big enough to even do damage. So the game was indeed over. Haha.

Basically you randomly select an investigator and an Ancient One. Then you go around the ''city'' as random, usually dangerous, events take place -- fighting monsters and closing portals to other dimensions along the way. If you manage to close all of the rifts, you win. If too many open, or any of several other situations are allowed to transpire, the Ancient One you selected at the beginning of the game is unleashed and you lose.

Well, you may not lose automatically, depending on the Ancient One you wound up with. For example, Yig has a combat modifier of -3, which is doable albeit challenging whereas Azathoth has a combat modifier of -infinity. Which basically means you instantly lose, with no hope of fighting him.

Aside from fighting great beasts from beyond, we've been playing Civilization 5, watching House, Stargate: Atlantis, Dead Like Me, Madmen, The Office, and reading A Feast For Crows together.

If anyone hasn't seen Howl's Moving Castle, you should do that right away.

We're as settled in as we can be until we get all of our furniture. Which, should be soon. We've got the funds, we just haven't actually gone out and made the purchases yet. We even found two furniture stores nearby. One which we've been to (and made note of items we liked) and another which we'll have to visit soon.

I think it would be amusing to buy furniture from both of them and have it delivered on the same day. So they run into each other on the way up.

Library Adventures

Yesterday I went to college with Aaron. He needed to make use of the campus library and I just like to go places with him. He gave me a tour of the grounds, showed me where a few of his classes are, pointed out the nerd section in the cafeteria, and then we made our way to the library.

Unfortunately the book he needed was checked out, so we decided to head to a nearby bookstore to buy other books he needed for other courses. En route we decided to check out some of the apartment complexes nearby since we are in the market for a new place and we've had our eye on a particular place in that area.

We found a particularly nice one and will likely wind up there once we've got all of our plans panned out and everyone's schedules worked in. Best part is that it's a big place, perfect for the two of us and Neelix the giant. Second best part is that there is a creek nearby, so there is a cool place for me to go chill by the water and play with frogs.

The second place we stopped to check out was endlessly confusing, though they had brilliantly tended palm trees lining the walk ways. We wandered around for so long trying to find the manager's office that there were hawks circling over head waiting for us to die so they could bag a free meal.

The third place was even less welcoming, if that's possible. We found the manager's office easy enough, however the manager was some crotchety old woman who made fiberglass socks seem pleasant. She answered the door with a, "Yeah?" and when we informed her that we were in the market for a new apartment her reply was, "What do you want?"

An apartment... we just said that, didn't we? I was speechless, it was profound how ill suited she was to her job. Like she wanted nothing to do with us or the paperwork that would be involved in taking copious amounts of our cash. Her loss.

She made the guy at the first place who had sat down to have a chat with us and then took us on a tour of the community seem like some housing market saint. I kind of wanted to go back and offer him a drink or a cookie or something for being good at his job (and not an ass).

It was an entertaining day. Once we got back to the library, the book Aaron had needed was back and he could get his work underway. I busied myself with sketching beside him and bore witness to the most painfully awkward/hopeless flirting ever -- making the day even greater.

At the next table some odd social fail was happening. This dude casually "wanders" past the girl sitting there, does an actual double take and coyly proclaims how he almost walked right by her without seeing her there. Despite clearly having no business in the library, let alone the inner most library courtyard aside from "nonchalantly" bumping into her. As in: no books, no back pack, no notebook, no writing utensils. He then helped himself to the seat beside her.

At first I thought it was going to be a really weird case of unrequited affections, but no, it ended up being weirder because she totally wanted him as much as he wanted her. Just somehow neither of them were aware of the other's interest. While he had come there just in the hope of running into her, she flirted with him mercilessly the second he sat down.

And yet she remained oblivious to his motives and he remained just as ignorant to hers. I was tempted to go over to the both of them and set things straight just so I could stop being witness to all of the sad, but eventually she left and he just sat around for twenty or so minutes (doing nothing) until I guess it finally became clear she had left for good, and then he left as well.

It was really funny.

Once Aaron finished his work, we packed up our things and journeyed home, stopping for tasty Mexican food at this new little place on the way we had been curious about. Om nom nom. We spent the rest of the night in with Stargate and Civilization 4. Spain declaring war on me kept us up way past bed time.

In other news, it was brought to my attention that Neelix was very sick recently but is on the road to recovery now. Everyone keep his big giant head in your thoughts and send him all your well wishes if you happen to be his ultra cool Facebook friend.

Cheesecake and College

Aaron started classes today so I'm sitting here all by my lonesome thinking on how weird it feels that the seat beside me is empty. Or more accurately: isn't occupied by him. Maybe I will construct a make-shift Aaron out of blankets and talk to it while I play video games until real Aaron gets home. Maybe.

Last Saturday he took me to Cheesecake Factory for dinner (and cheesecake). I had never been there before, so it was twice as amazing. Being that Aaron took me there made it thrice as amazing. The fact that they had pages and pages of cheesecake to choose from boosted the amazing factor even higher. The food was magnificent from appetizer to dessert and the environment was especially pleasant. Were I a restaurant critic I'd be giving my Cheesecake Factory experience a 5 out of 5 stars.

It was also the first time I've ever had asparagus. Little did I know, I like asparagus! I've tried more new things since my arrival here than I have in the last ten years of my life. It was a wonderful way to spend my evening. We even brought some cheesecake home so that we could have more cheesecake later. And we did.

Right now I'm musing over dinner. Aaron's schedule means I'm alone for dinner tonight, and everyone knows of the two of us, he is the chef. I settled in with Dragon Age and a bowl of rainbow sprinkles a bit ago but at some point I'm going to need actual food. At least, that is what my adult senses are telling me.

Not dinner?

Almost Home

I'm back in Ohio now safe and sound but only until Saturday. Then I fly home, to California! I shall pass the time with this here kitten on my knee.

Michigan, This Weekend!

This will be my last appearance before I take the Oregon trail West. It may be quite some time before you see me again, since I'm no longer dividing my time between both coasts but moving there full time. I'll be bringing kittens, so if you would like one or know someone who would, let me know ahead of time and I'll bring extras! I'll be in the 313 area, specifics available upon request. I hope to see you all there!