Always Looking for an Angle

Gllen stumbled out into the living room yesterday, lurching and obviously still under the spell of sleep. He sat down next to me on the couch and sort of made some noises which indicated that he was tired. I continued getting ready for work, since he was obviously not acting like a human being yet.

Suddenly Gllen informed me, in a rather lucid-sounding way, "I have discovered the key to beating Soccer."

I turned to look at him, eyebrows raised. He continued, while staring straight ahead. "You find a really fat guy. And then he can hide the soccer ball in his fat folds. You'd have to practice with the team so that they could kick the ball perfectly into his fat fold. Then he just runs towards the goal."

I opened my mouth to offer commentary, but he ammended, "Well, he'd have to find a way to get it out of his fat fold at the goal... but still." Slight pause as he considered what he just said. Then he smiles. "It's the perfect solution."

Do You Believe in Magic?

I was bamboozled into going to a Magic Tournament (as Gllen reads this over my shoulder, he's already correcting me, saying "It's called a Magic Draft").

Gllen had advertised to me that Shane was having an Octoberfest keg at his house and tons of people were going, including extended friends and family from out of town. I expected to see lots of beer. I expected to find Gllen drunk. I suspected that I'd be the designated driver. I was not prepared for the Magic Tournament.

I arrived, fashionably late, cute as hell in a dress and heels from a previous party. As I pulled up in front of the house, I could see Kay peeking anxiously out the front door window. Perhaps she was worried that the police were going to arrive any second to shut down the monster kegger that had overtaken her home - at least, this is what I assumed she was feeling. You can imagine my surprise when I flourished through the door to find a quiet and somewhat reserved scene. A few people were playing Rock Band in the upstairs living room. A few people were mingling in the kitchen, watching Shane prepping food. Gllen was seated in the kitchen with Adam, hunched over a deck of Magic cards.

Oh, great, I thought to myself, he's going to be doing this all night. Little did I know. As I wandered towards the back porch, I noticed several tables, and more decks of Magic cards, and more hunched over fellows, muttering things like, "I cast my wolf of the dark banshee slayer..."

I flagged down Justen as he walked by, inquiring, "What is going on here?" He greeted me with an enthusiastic "Jazelle!" and happily explained that they were in the last legs of a Magic Tournament. He then gestured towards a gigantic white board where there was a complicated grid with player pairings. After detailed explanation of the rankings and who played what, he exclaimed, "Gllen is in the semi-finals!" Then he flitted away on a cloud of happiness.

Okay, I thought to myself, this doesn't seem to be the run-of-the-mill Magic game. Usually, a deck or two of Magic cards are brought out at random parties and I'll lose track of Gllen for most of the night while I socialize with those who aren't playing. In this case, EVERYONE was playing. I stared at the white board and did some mental math. So, it seemed that at least 10 rounds had already been played. In my rudimentary calculations, I figured maybe I'd be able to spend time with Gllen in a couple of hours, assuming he kept winning.

Some of the tournament losers had gone home to lick their wounds, others were immersed in the xbox. I didn't dare sit down next to Gllen, lest my presence be considered a bad luck charm. (Besides, I don't know anything about Magic, so its pretty boring for me to sit around and watch.) You may wonder why I decided to wait for Gllen. It was because in the two minutes I did talk to him, he hinted at the possibility of sleeping in his van - he had even come prepared with a blanket and pillow, safely stowed away in the back seat. Selfishly, there was no way I was going to allow that - I would end up worrying about him all night and never be able to sleep myself. Thankfully, Jesse arrived with his baby boy and I found the diversion I was looking for.

So the next hour or so, I was in the baby-haze. Either holding the baby, talking about babies, or staring longingly at the baby. But through this haze, I heard tiny snippets of what was going on around me:

"Gllen beat Adam!"

"The finals are going to be Gllen and Ryan!"

"Gllen won the first game in the finals!"

"If Gllen wins this game, he will be the Magic Champion!"

"Gllen won the tournament!"

Gllen won the final game and was crowned The Magic Champion. After 15+ games and 12 competitors, he earned his crown.

He eventually found me to tell me so. And then he told me again. And again. And it didn't stop for the rest of the night. As we were getting ready to leave, he said "The Magic Champion says 'drive me home'!" and then on the way home, he asked, "Did I tell you I won the tournament? I am the Magic Champion." Then we got home and he started making more demands like, "The Magic Champion says 'Open the door'." and "The Magic Champion wants McDonalds.", I didn't roll my eyes once, I swear.

This continued for at least a week. And even now, I still hear a thing or two about how I am dating the Magic Champion, aren't I so lucky?

Spoiler

Last night, Mike instant messaged Gllen about Top Chef. Specifically, "You owe me $20".

Gllen has bets on the show with some of his friends on who will be the winner. He has grown quite attached to his pick, Jennifer. We weren't able to watch the episode last night, so, as I was getting ready for bed, Gllen walked into the bedroom with a frown on his face. I worriedly asked him what was wrong. He choked out the words, "I think Jennifer was sent home last night". He then relayed to me the instant message and looked at me helplessly. He also tried to convince me to get out of bed and go watch the show. I refused, promising him that we would watch it the next day.

A half hour later, Gllen walked back into the bedroom.. I had fallen asleep with the light on and the book I was reading still in my hands. He assumed I was still awake and accused, "You're still awake?! We could have been watching Top Chef!" I garbled out some response and buried myself under the covers.

As soon as I got home today, he mentioned Top Chef again. We sat down to watch, and he started fretting almost immediately. The entire show, he was wringing his hands and groaning. I kept trying to reassure him that Jennifer wouldn't go home. He was debating whether Mike had tricked him or not. Finally, when they announced who was going home - it wasn't Jennifer - he was so excited that he drooled a little. He was laughing and fist-pumping. I asked him, "Are you happier now?"

He grinned, said, "Yes!" and gave me a hug. Pulling away, he added, "Mike is so mean to me!"

Celebrating 3 Years Today

Exactly three years ago, Gllen lured me over to his house for, what he considered at the time, a date. We had been emailing each other about music and we got onto the topic of Nintendo. When Gllen found out that I still owned the original system plus a bunch of games, he freaked out (with joy). I proposed that we battle each other in a tournament. He accepted. Gllen told me in an email: "I warn you, I'm a competitive little fuck when it comes to games. Be prepared for some shit-talking and whining." This is how he tried to woo me.

Our tournament was dubbed by Gllen as The Inaugural NES and BBQ Skillz Nerd-Off. I have no idea why there is BBQ in there, except that Gllen was obsessed with saying it at the time. (It turned out to be quite fitting, since my sister and I used to sing "Bar-ba-que!" to the melody of the Bowser AirShip levels in Mario 3 - You had to jump over flames and stuff - try it yourself.) I even questioned him about it and, to explain, he showed me an example of how he converses with others:

Me: BBQ
Me: i can't count that high
Mike: LOLCHA
Me: rofl mayo
Mike: LOLWTFGOURMAYO
Me: moyostard
Mike: mayobutter
Me: mayo cha
Mike: mallorca
Mike: IBIZA 200 BPM

Again, this is how he tried to woo me.

When he started speaking in full sentences again, we both discovered that in our youth, each of us had played the Little Mermaid game. When I mentioned that I still had the game, he said, "Umm... is this the disney little mermaid? The one where you shoot bubbles at fishies (sega echo-ish)? I played and beat that game at my grandparents house ALL THE TIME! I can't believe you actually have that! I have mad little mermaid skillz. Seriously, you might want to leave that one at home, you have no chance." He even "designed" a t-shirt for the Winner based on his mermaid skillz:

I responded by showing him the Loser shirt which he would be wearing:

And so began the brilliant repartee between the two of us that still continues to this day.

In the end, there was no winner of the tournament, because Gllen disqualified himself by being an incessant button-masher. And even though I wasn't thinking it was a date at the time, if you look at the dictionary definition of Date, then I guess it was "A particular point or period of time at which something happened or existed, or is expected to happen." So this is the place we mark as "The Begining" of our relationship.

Happy Anniversary.

Perhaps a Nightmare...

Gllen had a dream last night that the two of us were the final contestants on Top Chef. We were going head to head in the final competition and for our signature dishes, I made a sushi roll and he made a spicy lamb roast.

The judges did not all arrive on time, so we had to wait for them to all show up. Tom Colicchio reamed me out for having an inedible piece of seaweed in my dish. (Gllen described it as giant and completely impossible to chew.) Gllen's dish had been sitting for so long, waiting for the judges to arrive that when Toby Young cut into it, it had become hollow on the inside.

Because we both had failed at our dishes, we both tied for first place. Then, Gllen woke up. After he told me about the dream, I said, "Well, that was a nice ending! In the dream, did you give me a kiss after we both won?"

He sort of scoffed at that. He replied, "No. I was pissed that I didn't win! I was so sure that I was going to win. But I guess if you leave you meat sitting too long, it gets hollow inside and the judges don't like that."

So much for happy endings.