It’s SUMMER!!
Everyone’s favorite season: the weather is awesome, no school, everyone’s relaxed and guys have an excuse to rock sunglasses to (safely) check out girls flaunting their bodies.
This summer is a little different from my previous two. I won’t be going apeshit in Tokyo for 3 months. I won’t be tearing shit up with Teddy. I won’t be involved in a ménage-a-cinq in an Osaka capsule hotel.
That’s not to say I won’t be going to Japan (I might, depending on financial constraints) but that’s stuff far, far in the future (late August), and I’d rather dwell in the present.
As I stated in the summer preview, I’ll be in Montreal for a month, Texas for two and somewhere else in the world for one (Japan? Europe? West Coast?).
The one problem about the next four, amazing, summer months?
I don’t have a girlfriend.
I need one.
I need this relationship thing.
This amazing “love” thing which makes grown men squirm like goo and independent women do the raunchiest things.
And I need to end this fucking drought.
Thankfully there is just the girl to solve all my
remedies.
In my cliffhanger in my previous post, I mentioned a free-agent Canadian pitcher looking to sign. Let me tell you a bit about her…
She’s this cute little Vancouver Asian who sits in the front row of my J-Class. Funny, cute and I spoke maybe three sentences to her over the course of a yearlong class.
Her name’s Allisa.
All my readers in Japan just started shaking their heads.
Yes, she does happen to have a similar name to the girl I almost started a fanclub for in Japan last summer (read it
here).
But I’m going after Allisa, not Alisa.
She’s different. I’ve (hopefully) gotten over Alisa.
I’m ridiculously infatuated with Allisa.
Because this is my first hint of entering back into the game after the Chiaki fiasco, my friends have all pitched in to help…which has led to much conflicting advice, nicknames and batting lineups.
I first told Teddy back in the winter about this when my feelings for Allisa were a small flicker instead of the huge forest fire of emotions. He called her “Say My Name”…for the obvious uncontrollable phrase I should utter
mid-coitus to remind myself of the first Alisa.
But notice she has two L’s in her name, which is why Maddy and I refer to her as Alisa 2.0 (also because Maddy is convinced, as all my Japan readers are sure to be, that this girl is just another version of Alisa). I shorten it to A2.0.
But since Teddy is fucking around in Tokyo, Calgary, Chicago, Vancouver, or some other first world city and since Maddy is in NYC, I’ll call this girl by the name D-German and Shortstop came up with, J-ZN (pronounced Jay-sian) a combination of Japanese (for her being in my Japanese class) and Azn (for her being a stereotypical Asian).
When I first met J-ZN, I thought she was a cute, petite, little ball of energy (like every other Asian female under the age of 40). I mentioned in passing to Teddy that I think I liked her around November, and he told me to go for it…but then the hype from the Calgary trip took over and everything (grades, food, facebook, J-ZN, etc.) took a back seat.
We all know how that story ended.
After my crazy
depressive state that must’ve lasted about a month, my feelings for J-ZN were rekindled…but considering I had spoken all of three phrases to her (“What’s up?”, “Do we have homework?” and “Is there a test today?”), there was no way I was going to be able to start much of anything.
I was ready to pencil her in as another lost chance.
Then a break.
Finally, a fucking break.
Something actually went my way.
It was on April 18, I had finally finished all my finals at 5pm, I bounced over to Teddy’s with two Aloe drinks, we promptly mixed them with rum and chilled for an hour or two on his deck.
The sun was hitting full blast after a winter of hiding, girls were flouncing by in skirts, tights and all other sorts of summer apparel which hide next to nothing and I WAS FUCKING DONE!
We had a Japanese class dinner to celebrate the end of the year scheduled at 7 so we got a little more sloshed, threw on some jimbeis (traditional Japanese summer clothes) and then bounced down Parc Avenue in geta (traditional Japanese sandals).
I felt like a million bucks but must’ve looked like 10 as I had mirror aviators and a folding money fan to top off my ridiculous outfit.
Needless to say, the whole fucking city was staring at us as we clopped our way to the restaurant.
We loved it.
We rolled into the restaurant with much fanfare (and amusement), got more sloshed and the then about half of the class headed back to Teddy’s apartment. Along the way, we recruited D-German into our ranks, bought a few bottles of beer, a few bottles of wine and a 2L Coke.
Needless to say, things got sloppy (or more like, me and Teddy got sloppy). I don’t remember much, but I remember dancing, playing “Never have I ever”, watching D-German attempt a headstand, rapping and going to a store with the D-German to get toilet paper at one point.
When all the girls got tired of all our antics and Teddy seemed to be falling on his face, we bounced out to go our separate ways.
Contrary to the weather during the day, the 3am Montreal night was freezing cold. It was about 35 degrees Fahrenheit
(about 2 degrees Celcius for the rest of the cultured world).
I noticed J-ZN hugging herself while shivering uncontrollably.
I offered her my spring coat which looked like a tent on her (the first time outside of Asia that I’ve felt HUGE) and walked alongside her shivering in my shorts, flip flops and t-shirt.
I have no idea what we talked about, but it was probably inconsequential. This was the last day I was going to see her (at least until the fall) and J-ZN is not the type to let up homeruns in the bottom of the 9th, so I wasn’t even trying.
I was the first to peel off from the group (D-German lived farther away so he had the “gentleman walking girls home” role covered). I offered J-ZN to keep the jacket for the rest of her walk, which would’ve been a great excuse to see her the next day (
In a really lackluster game, Gen tries a bunt single in the bottom of the ninth).
But like I thought, she’s a solid closer and took off the jacket while thanking me profusely.
I watched them walking away, all of them
shivering in the ridiculous cold of the night.
Another shutout.
I’m used to them.
The drought continues.
I was blearily awakened from my slumber by a 7am call from the Shortstop. She had been in the library all night and needed to crash at my place because we were supposed to meet Teddy the next day at 10am (to do a 6-way Skype videophone with the Calgary Japanese crew).
After letting her in and then sleeping a few more hours, we stumbled over to Teddy’s.
Videophone cancelled by Soon Hae.
Grumbling because we had destroyed our sleep for this videoconference, we decided to eat breakfast.
We get to some breakfast place, I see cloth napkins and hot waitresses, realize once again that I’m fucking poor and open my wallet to see if I have enough for this meal and see a 20 (phew!), some change and a dirty napkin, put the change in my front pocket and I’m about to throw out the napkin when some writing on the back catches my eye…
Allisa: *******@****.com Oh…
OH SHIT! YES!
Finally, a break! My luck has reversed!
YES!
Ok, I know its an email address, but I remember her telling me sometime the previous night that she doesn’t have a phone…so this is just as good as a number.
And have you ever gotten contact info from a shy Asian girl the first night you talked to her?
Ok, all of you just raised your hands…
But without mentioning grades or Hello Kitty?
I thought so.
Not that I remember how I got her email. Coincidentally, I also don’t remember how much I drank that night.
But my luck is finally turning…I would email her a few times and then I would casually drop an offer for a date and then we would have fun on the date and then…
And then I remembered I was going to New York City the next day.
Fuck.
What timing. My luck hasn’t turned at all.
The drought continues.
Took the train back grousing about my ridiculous bad luck.
But wait, New York City…means Maddy.
Maddy, my ex-girlfriend…and also my booty call...
I hastily called her up as soon as I got home.
Maddy has a boyfriend.
(If I were a real Asian, I would insert the “shocked” and “sad” emoticons here. Instead, I’ll stick to my usual collection of tasteless epithets).
Fuck.
I’ve written a bit about Maddy here. Basically, she was my first “real” girlfriend, if the term girlfriend can be applied to a two-week relationship. Because she couldn’t commit to anything, and since I’m an insecure little Asian (I hide it by cursing like a sailor and pretending I’m a stud on TravelBlog) we quickly dropped the boyfriend/girlfriend titles. We’re still amazing friends and when neither of us are in relationships, which happens quite often since she hates relationships and I suck at them, we’re snuggle/booty call/spooning partners. Which is amazing considering she’s a model and a Z-List actress, which means she’s smoking hot.
But now she’s in a serious relationship.
And she loves him.
I figured the one time to finally hit a homer would be with Maddy in the New York City Spring/Summer league.
The drought continues.
Fuck.
But meeting Maddy being all happy, and sappy, and in love awakened something in me.
I can’t fuck up shit with J-ZN.
I like her. A lot.
I spent my one week in New York parked in front of my computer buttering up J-ZN using the medium of cybertext.
But it wasn’t easy.
Several times, I was close to uncorking a right hand through my computer screen because her emails had as much content as a Keanu Reeve line and they were peppered with emoticons (which I loathe).
But I stuck with it.
I continued her childish jokes, pretended I had a cute, light outlook on life and though I didn’t stoop to emoticons or internet slang, I made sure I met my quota of one “haha” onomatopoeia per message.
I kept with it, and 10 back and forth emails later, I was on a train back to Montreal, had my passport stamped at the border and was in my new apartment living with D-German.
After one more innocent email from her, I crafted the “turning point” email with D-German and Shortstop’s help (Teddy had already flown back home). The "turning point" email where I would find out if a week spent busily refreshing my inbox in New York had been worth it. The email where I would get a glimpse of her intentions. The email where I asked her on a date (of course, it would be hidden amongst a bunch of rubbish that would make it seem like an innocent request to eat lunch).
After spending a good hour or two debating the finer points of the email with the two of them, we finally agreed on a final draft.
I quickly tapped the “send” button.
A reply came the next day.
I scrolled through the usual amount of emoticons and clutter to the 2 sentence meat of the message…
“Lunch sounds good! I am free this Thursday + the weekend :)”
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