Date-O-Rama

Warning: This post is not for the faint (or lonely) of heart.

I’ve had a crush on a girl at work for a little while now…

We’d never said 2 words to one another until a month and a half ago when she was sitting on the bench out front and asked how my leg was doing… I said “better” and somehow we got on to talking about conspiracies and UFOs and weird (HARP) technologies… I didn’t think girls who were into that sort of thing existed… and I definitely didn’t expect to find one on a park bench at work.

But then, we didn’t chat again

She kept getting cuter, though… At least in my mind she did…
So I decided I should instant-message her.
I didn’t have her IM, so I asked Kofi for it and I sent her a simple message that said:
“Do you like Marching Bands?”
She didn’t know who the message was from, becasue I was named “OrangeResolution”. Instead of being freaked out, though, she was like “Hell yeah. In fact, I used to BE IN a marching band!”
This lead to a fairly weird and convoluted conversation about what each of us would wear to a marching band concert… Eventually I let her know that it was me, and she burst out laughing… a very good sign Flirting in the 21st Century is so weird.

A few weeks later she mentioned that she was going to get a guitar, and so I burned her a copy of the “Learn Guitar” CD that I’ve been learning from… She said “Thanks Soooo much. I’ve gotta take you out for a beer to thank you for this”, and so she did. We had a nice walk from work to the restaurant (near my house, and the music store). It wasn’t a quick beer, though… No no… We sat at the restaurant talking for 5.5 hours! After we had our entrees she ran down the street for a couple of minutes to pick up her guitar at Steve’s Music. WHen she got back she was like a kid on christmas morning! SO excited! Good fuel for conversation… Then when the waitress said we needed to settle up, we did, and promptly went to Java House for even more drinks and to share some fried tofu. It was great, and when the date came to an end (7.5 hours after it began), I gave her a big hug (nerrrd) and hailed her a cab. I don’t think a first date could have gone smoother. No lulls in conversation!

We went out for drinks again, but I forget to where…
The next time we went out was for a walk through Kensington Market on the anniversary of the big Toronto blackout. People were running around the streets screaming about the power being out, and there was a big drumming circle, and lots of cool stuff going on. Then we went for dinner at The Green Room, and followed it up by going to see The Aristocrats at The Paramount Theatre.

I was happy when she led me to the back row of the theatre, but sad when I realized that a movie which repeatedly described sex between senior citizens and pre-teens was a very poor place to hold hands or kiss for the first time. It just wouldn’t have been right. We ended the night with some rum & coke at my place, and then I walked her to the streetcar and waited with her until she’d left. Nice yet again. I totally wanted to kiss her, but… it didn’t feel right, yet…

Then a co-worker of ours decided to have a party last Friday, and happened to invite both of us… even though he didn’t know I liked her. We totally chatted with one another for the entire night and there was all sorts of good energy flying around. A co-partyer noticed it, though, because he invited her to a party the following evening at his house, and he said “Why don’t you bring him along, too?”. Booyah!

At about 2:45am we decided it was time to leave, and we left together… We were offered a ride, but we both seemed pretty okay with waiting for a bus at 3am… A good sign

The first bus stop had a sprinkler wetting it, so we proceeded toward the next one. Just as we were about to get to it, a bus drove right by, and we missed it. That gave us a nice excuse to be standing alone together for the first time in what seemed to be ages… She thought she had some sort of bump on her neck, so being the gentleman that I am, I checked it out… But that *accidentally* turned into a pseudo-neck-rub, and then into a kiss that lasted for ages/moments, enduring 5 honks from passersby, and even 1 guy stopping his SUV next to us so that he could toss out some litter. He encouraged us not to stop for him, and said that we should keep going. So, we did. We kept kissing even when a bus stopped right beside us and opened its doors. Ha ha! The people on that bus must have felt pretty bored in comparison to us; We who had dropped our bags on the ground beside our feet. This kiss required 4 arms, 2 faces, and 75 minutes. When it ended I told her that I’d been wanting to kiss her all night, and she said the same to me. It was great. Then we caught a bus, sat down, I put my arm around her, and she snuggled in for the trip downtown.

We got off at Queen Street so that she could catch a streetcar home… What’s there to do when you’re waiting for a streetcar at 4am? Kiss! So we did, in yet another bus shelter… The surreal part was the crazy guy yelling “I’m gonna kill you!” at someone 25 or 30 feet away *while* we were kissing. Oh well. Who cares? Streetcar comes. Quick kiss. Walk home with a big grin

The next night was the next party… We started out at her place, but she had a houseguest for the weekend! D’oh. He was visiting from Australia for the weekend and she has a bachelor apartment, so there’s nowhere for alone-time. Oh well… We went to the LCBO, got some liquor, had a pre-party drink or two at her place (which is very cozy & cool), and then went to the party. We spent most of the evening standing very close to one another, either with my hand on her back, or hers on mine… It was sweet. It was comfortable. We headed back to her place around 1:30 or so, because she had to work the next day (her weekend is not Saturday/Sunday). Her houseguest immediately passed out on her bed, so we went out on the balcony, and… yup, we kissed. Two guys passing by on bicycles yelled out the familiar “Get a room!” — but as she so correctly put it, we were at her room!

We were interrupted mid-kiss (again) by one of the other tenants (which was inevitable, since our kisses tend to last a while). It was “the new girl” who had just moved in downstairs. She wanted to know if we were cool, and if we wanted to smoke up with her, and if we’d met her cats Bongo and Limpy. The white one was Limpy. We chatted a bit and then got back to the good stuff… We were focussed again, UNTIL we heard a stoned/drunken tenant whispering “Liiimmmpyyyyyy…. Heeerrreeee Liiimmppyyyyyyy”. Apparently her cat was not only physically impaired, but also lacked a sense of direction. We laughed out loud at the absurdity of it all… and then I went home… She did have to work in 4 hours… I didn’t leave until I’d told her that I had really enjoyed myself, and that I felt like a lot of goodness was going to come out of this relationship, and she agreed…

On Tuesday night I went over just to hang out and watch a movie or something, but we ended up talking for a while, and then falling asleep cuddling. That was the best thing ever. I had the hugest smile on my face walking to work the next day. If you don’t already know, cuddles are like my most favourite thing — especially in the morning. It’s been quite a while since I had morning cuddles, and I didn’t know quite how much I missed them until now… You see, when I dated Tania I never got them simply because she couldn’t stay over. She lives with her Grandparents (who are quite traditional and religious) and it simply wasn’t allowed. Before Tania I dated Jen, who lived in London, so again, the opportunity for pre-work cuddles *never* presented itself… Maybe occasionally on a weekend, but never on a work day… Anyway, yeah… It was pretty awesome… I was giddy about it all day long…

If it seems like I’m gushing a little, well, I am.

I just wanted to type all this in before I go to Victoria on Friday morning to stand in the wedding party for my best friend, Dave Barker, who is finally tieing the knot with his longtime love, Jessica Vinson (from Seattle), before they both fly back to Tokyo to continue their gigs teaching English.

It’s been a busy week, what with all that ON TOP of my moving to a new pad!
Yes, I’m moving again… I’m moving out of this madhouse (myself plus 5 roommates), and into my Uncle Richard’s place. It’s quite upscale, and I’ll only have 3 roommates there… My Uncle (who is very easy going), Sebastian (also very easy going), and a cute black cat whose name I can’t recall. It will be much more relaxed, and more “adult”, and if I’m lucky I’ll even learn to cook a thing or two. It’s only a half kilometre further walk to work from there, so I’ll still be able to walk, which is great. Also, it’s near a neighbourhood that I haven’t really explored, but which I hear is fairly hip & hoppin’ — Roncesvalles. Plus the place is right on the 24 hour College Street streetcar line. That’ll get me to and from my choir rehearsals at College & Spadina with minimal effort, once they begin in mid-September.

Everything’s falling into place.
Life is grand.

Tomorrow… off to Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle!

PS — I asked “The Girl” if I could write about us on my blog before I posted this entry, and she said she was cool with it as long as I didn’t use names, because she’s a private kind of person, so if you know who she is, please don’t post her name in the comments, ok?