day 2: rojie vs beau mec’s version

Rojie’s Version

Hmmm. That’s weird. I fell asleep and I was out cold. Normally, I am a very light sleeper when I’m not alone.

Anyway, it’s a new morning and there’s shit ton to do. I glanced over and saw that Beau Mec was still half-asleep. I went over to his bed and ripped the covers off him and told him he should shower since he didn’t last night, but he was slow to move. I am NOT a morning person either, but I wanted to make the most of the day. When he still wouldn’t budge, I grabbed his arm and tried to drag him off the bed since he wasn’t wasn’t going willingly. He finally conceded and begrudgingly got up and showered.

We were going to MOA (Mall of America) for clothes. I hate paying taxes on clothes in California and since Minnesota has none, it was a must. My style of clothing is dependent on my mood and I like what I like, so when I found a few eclectic and cute pieces (thanks to Beau Mec) that were heavily discounted, I wasted no time buying them.

It’s been well over 12 hours since we put on the feedbag, so it was time to feast again.

As a reward, we went to an AYCE Indian buffet. Why is Indian food SO SO good? Butter chicken, chicken tikka masala, palak paneer, tandoori chicken, samosas, aloo gobi, biryani, kurma, chicken vindaloo, and don’t get me started on the malai kofta. I tried not to shovel the food into my face like a damn pig in front of him but I had no chill whatsoever. I was starving. I was hungrier than a mofo since we didn’t eat breakfast because:
a) I normally don’t eat breakfast
b) I was still full from last night

After we ate, I drove us by my old house. I missed it so much. It was one of the bigger homes in the neighborhood and I had so many core memories there. I could feel myself getting emotional, sitting in front of the house until I realized that he was in the car with me.

We didn’t stick around long because the nasty mosquitoes were eating me alive. Since we were driving all over MSP, I figured we could go to Bde Maka Ska, a big beautiful lake in Uptown. We walked and walked. I thought since we ate so much that a lap around the lake would help digest the food we consumed.

Our conversation ebbed and flowed. Sometimes, we’d talk and sometimes we wouldn’t. I’m weird like that but there are times when I just like to be one with the earth, walking, listening to the trees rustle or a runner’s footsteps behind us. I was glad he didn’t force our conversations either. I’m an introvert and I still get shy at times.

After about 90 minutes, we went to grab food at Rainbow Chinese Restaurant. It’s a place my cousin and I would go after we’d have long study sessions at the library. I think our eyes were bigger than our stomach because we couldn’t finish all the food we ordered (cream cheese wontons and sesame noodles).

I got a White Rabbit cocktail that was way too strong and to be honest, I don’t know why I ordered it since I was driving. Ugh. What a waste. Good thing Beau Mec ended up finishing the drink for me and his own. I also ordered us Jasmine tea because I like drinking warm tea when drinking greasy foods.

Meanwhile, back at the hotel, we wanted to hit the gym. All that eating was making my clothes feel tight and it was very uncomfortable for me. I didn’t pack any workout gear but as luck would have it, Beau Mec had an extra t-shirt and long shorts for me to wear. Yes, they were a few sizes too big but I didn’t care. We were exercising, not going to a fashion show.

I spent most of my time on the treadmill watching the Food Network channel, hoping to make room in my belly for round two: drinks at the bar downstairs.

I was so ready to get my drink ON. Dude, it’s been a minute since I’ve gotten white girl wasted. As soon as we arrived, I bellied up to the bar and made friends with Chad, the bartender. He talked me into an asian pear martini. OMG, why was that so good? It’s been too long since I’ve been able to let loose and get tipsy.

After drinking the martini, I noticed an Indian couple next to us slamming lemon drops and suddenly… I wanted lemon drops too. I asked Chad to pour us some and the shots that he poured were fucking huge. I thought to myself, “Go big or go home” and threw my head back, downed, it and felt the alcohol running through my veins.

This is when I realized how potent those lemon drops were, so I asked Chad for a glass of water too. If I was going to keep going, I needed to pace myself and drink more water.

Beau Mec kept pace with the lemon drops too. I could feel him relaxing a bit and that’s when I knew we were going to have fun tonight.

Chad kept the drinks coming for him while I started chatting it up with the Sikh couple, Sammy and Sean (he was legit wearing a turban and told us that they were Sikh. I was confused since I thought Sikhs didn’t drink but I guess I’m wrong?). They were absolutely delightful.

The next thing I knew… they were buying us drinks, Chad was pouring more and more drinks to the point where I lost count of how many I drank. I was thoroughly enjoying myself and happily intoxicated. My alter ego—the gemini menace had arrived.

Somewhere during my drunken state, I learned that it was Sammy’s birthday AND she just finished med school. I announced to the whole bar that we needed to properly celebrate Sammy’s day.

I bought them a nice bottle of wine to take to their rooms and toasted them another shot. I also joked and asked Beau Mec if he was a nurse cause he was nursing his drink. Then I bursted into a giggling fit. The drinks kept coming and coming. It’s as if Chad knew I needed this. A good time. And it was. I was enjoying myself and the company of others without feeling like I needed to control every emotion or word coming out of me.

We closed that damn bar down. I gave Chad a great tip because he was a fucking rockstar. I don’t think I saw him crack a smile till he saw my credit card receipt.

I’m not really all too sure how I got upstairs, but I’m pretty certain that I wasn’t walking a straight line. I felt rather lucky that Beau Mec wasn’t a creeper about it—I trusted that he’d look after me if I got too fucked up.

It literally felt like I was in the movie, “My Sassy Girl“, the Korean version not the POS American version that they tried to recreate with Elisha Cuthbert and Jesse Bradford. The Korean version is a cult classic.

When we reached the room, I told Beau Mec that I needed food now because I was hungry. H-U-N-G-R-Y. It took forever for me to decide what I wanted to eat till I saw a pic of chicken wings. Yum. Yes. Wings and pizza. Whatever toppings he wanted, I didn’t give a flying fuck cause now I was teetering towards being hangry but still inebriated. He ordered the food and all there was left to do was wait.

He wanted to watch a movie, okay sure mister movie man! Whatever you want, dude.

When the food arrived, I got comfortable in my bed and he got into his as we watched this old Korean movie. I ate a slice of pizza and a few wings when I suddenly felt hella drowsy. I could hear my speech slurring and my eyes feeling heavy. I could not for the life of me keep them open.

The last thing I remembered was telling him that I was so sleepy… and then I literally blacked out.

Beau Mec’s Version

I woke up before Rojie, even though I fell asleep after her. This became a pretty consistent pattern, but when she woke up she’d bounce out of bed with stars in her eyes and springs beneath her feet and be ready to walk out the door. I’d wake up half-drowsy and be ready to roll around in the bed for a few more hours, and I took showers in the morning so in theory I should be out of bed before her. She’d threaten, cajole, and in the end just plain try to drag me out of bed, which alarmed me because she shouldn’t be lifting a lot of weight and I didn’t want to break her (people are very breakable objects). So the feeling of alarm would wake me up and finally I’d get out of bed.

First we went shopping. Normally I’m not a fan of going shopping with girls, but after surviving my sister Letitia, shopping with Rojie was easy. She picked out one thing early on, and later I was fingering an odd grey smock-like dress and thinking it was the nicest thing I’d seen that day when Rojie walked up, said ‘Ooh, that’s cute!’ and promptly bought it.

After that, we went to the Indian buffet. Oh dear. We ate quite a bit. Even though it wasn’t the greatest Indian food, it was still Indian food, and I couldn’t quite restrain myself. We ordered two mango lassis and ended up getting them free because the waiter took a little time to get them to us. We didn’t complain or anything and it really wasn’t all THAT late, but he just gave them to us free. This sort of thing also happened a lot when I was with Rojie.

After the buffet, Rojie drove us to her childhood home and we carried out some surreptitious surveillance, snapped a few pictures, and got the hell out of there because large amounts of gnats or similar airborne bloodthirsty organisms were converging on our location with worrying rapidity. We went to Bde Maka Ska (and I was glad she was driving, because I was full to the point of drowsiness) and walked around the whole thing, 3.1 miles according to her. You can’t do that shit with lakes in Michigan. It was a nice day out and we had a nice walk. Sometimes we talked, sometimes we didn’t, but I never minded not talking around her. If there was silence, it was a natural, comfortable kind of silence, and if we talked, it was a natural, comfortable kind of talk. And there was a kind of flow between the two. That’s a good thing, to me.

When we’d finished walking around the lake, we drove to an AMAZING Chinese restaurant called Rainbow in the city. We figured that after walking around the lake for an hour and a half, we’d have opened some space in our tummies after the Indian buffet. We were wrong. We ordered some crab cheese and some cold sesame noodles, and we couldn’t finish either of them, but they were gooooooooood. I got a Eu-K’s Magical Potion to drink, which was pineapple juice, orange juice, and Sprite (and it was gooooooooood). Rojie got a White Rabbit, which was a Labor Day special sort of thing, an alcoholic drink of some sort, but it was a bit strong for her so I drank that too (and it was gooooooooood). We also drank some jasmine tea (one of my favourites).

We went back to the hotel, and the general consensus at this point was that we’d had too much to eat. So instead of going out somewhere for dinner, we decided to go down to the fitness center and try to get in a little exercise. She didn’t have any sort of workout clothing, so I lent her one of my shirts. We threw a medicine ball around for a little bit, then I ran for 40 minutes on the treadmill while she ran for a little longer than that. We were watching Iron Chef on the TV while we worked, and it was making me hungry. I like that show. We went back to the room and traded showers, then the PLAN was we’d go down to the hotel lounge and have a few drinks, then order a pizza and watch a movie. That was the plan.

So we went down to the bar. The bartender was a grumpy charming old Armenian-looking fellow named Chad. We sat down and each got an Asian Pear martini, which had sake, vodka, and lime juice. The lime juice killed a lot of the taste of the alcohol, so they went down pretty easily. Yummy! I like drinking, but it’s hard to find people to drink with who don’t fold like an accordion after a few beers. Rojie was a bit out of practice, but she’s still stronger than a lot of girls, so we could enjoy ourselves a bit. She noticed an Indian couple at the bar ordering lemon drops, which should have been shot size but were actually half-glasses (maybe four shots’ worth). She wanted to order some. We did. They had a TON of alcohol in them, they were VERY TASTY, and they went down VERY EASILY. Rojie was pretty drunk after that, and she knew she was pretty drunk and had the good sense to stop, but I figured there was no reason I couldn’t have a few more myself. If we’d stopped there, we’d probably have been fine.

But that’s when they started giving us free drinks. I went to order a Purple Rain, which was black currant liquor, Bacardi rum, and pineapple juice, but he didn’t have the ingredients despite it being on the menu, so he apologetically gave me another Asian Pear for free instead. As I said, people gave us a lot of free stuff. They must have liked us. Or at least, they must have liked Rojie, because I sure as hell never got that much free stuff when I was by myself. Maybe they could smell the Minnesota on her. As I’d been going back and forth to the bar, the very drunk Indians (Sikhs, in fact) had been making conversation with me and we’d been getting pretty friendly. Rojie was wistfully watching me drink the Asian Pear while she had just water, till all of a sudden she asked if we could split another lemon drop. OK, I can split another lemon drop. I went to go buy one and Chad gave it to me cheap (probably because I’d added the cost of the drink he gave me for free to his tip). As I started back toward our table, one of the Sikhs (Sean) grabbed my arm and asked me if we’d like to drink with him and his girlfriend (whose birthday it was). I was down but I looked over at Rojie to see what she thought. She slapped the table, squeaked ‘Let’s do it!’, and bounced up to the bar.

The Sikhs ordered another round of drinks and bought Rojie another giant lemon drop for herself (keep in mind that’s like four shots) instead of the one we were going to split. I started sipping mine but tossed it back after Sean complained I was drinking too slow. I didn’t see Rojie’s go down, but she probably tossed it back too. It turns out the Sikhs were both medical professionals, too (Sean was in med school and his girlfriend Sammy had just become an M.D.), so they hugged Rojie excitedly and everybody oozed medical professionalism from their pores. I probably could have gone on for a while, but the bar was closing and Rojie was clearly done, or should have been if she wasn’t. She bought them a bottle of wine to take up to their room since they (also wasted out of their minds) were complaining that it was too expensive. So the bar closed and we went back upstairs to order a pizza.

I got on her laptop and ordered the pizza. Rojie initially wanted cheese bread with the pizza, but suddenly changed her mind to chicken with bleu cheese sauce. OK. While I was ordering, she fell off the edge of her bed, giggled, and righted herself. I thought, ‘Oh dear.’ She came to look over my shoulder at the screen, and when she saw in the status that our meal was being prepared by Luke, she kept bellowing at Luke to hurry up because she was hungry. Then she said, ‘What do you mean, I fell off the bed? I didn’t fall off the bed.’ I thought, ‘Oh dear.’ Well, we talked about Sikhs, Chad, alcohol, and how she hoped the Domino’s deliveryman wasn’t the creepy guy she’d met in the elevator the other day, and finally our pizza arrived and we settled down to watch the movie. It’s a classic movie, ‘Friend’. Probably one of the top 10 Korean movies ever made, and that’s saying a lot because there are a ton of great Korean movies.

We started to watch it and eat the pizza, but Rojie was full all of a sudden and couldn’t eat anything other than the crust of one of the pieces. So I ate half the pizza by myself. Omahgod. It was a lot of food. Then, about 20 minutes into the movie, her eyes closed and she started saying ‘Sreepy…so sreepy…’ She talks in a joking Korean accent when she’s trying to be cute, and it’s actually pretty funny so I guess it works. Normally, people falling asleep in the middle of movies is a pet peeve of mine (show some respect for the goddamn art!), but how could I be mad at her? She hung with me through more alcohol than anyone else has in a long time, and we drank with the Sikhs to boot. So I figured we could watch the movie tomorrow night, and let her get her well-deserved rest. At least she wasn’t throwing up on me or swinging lampshades at me in some kind of drunken kung fu rage. She kept murmuring ‘Please don’t punch me in the face’ as she fell asleep, and I kept reassuring her that I couldn’t punch her in the face. I suspect that she was saying it out of a guilty conscience from all the people she’s punched in the face in the past.

So we turned out the lights and went to bed. I made sure to close the blinds quite well because I had no intention of waking up early the next morning. I wasn’t really sleepy, and I felt like reading, but I didn’t want to turn the light on and risk waking Rojie up, so I watched her sleep for a minute instead. She was sleeping pretty deeply on her side, and was haloed all around by pillows. She looked peaceful. But then she rolled onto her back, which put her face right below one of the overhanging pillows on her other side. It wasn’t quite smothering her face, but it was on top of her face pretty closely. So she started snoring like: ‘Fuuuu…zrrrrrr….SNORT SLORP SNARF BURBLE…fuuuu…’ I would be lying if I said I didn’t giggle a little bit while I was watching it. A more humane person might have moved the pillow for her. After a while she woke up and went to brush her teeth, then I finally fell asleep. I woke up at 5 am and the room stank of pizza, and I didn’t like it, so I threw out all the leftover pizza, cleaned the place up, put everything back in its place, and even stacked our shoes neatly in the corner. Then I went back to sleep. She told me later that I had been snoring, but please. The girl was drunk. Who are you going to believe?