Friday, November 19, 2004

Conversations from India.

Chris: The cleaning staff threw away some of my stuff.

me: Like what?

Chris: One of my half-used candles.

me: You brought candles all the way from the US?

Chris: No, they were in the gift basket.

me: [flashback to first day at guesthouse] Wait, that's right, there were candles in that gift basket! You took both of them?

Chris: There were 5. I took all 5.

me: That gift basket was for all of us!

Chris: (patronizingly) Do you want one of my candles?

me: One of your candles?! No, I want one of my own candles back, thank you.

Chris: Fine. [picks up his laptop bag, starts moving toward door to leave]

me: [noticing that he's holding a roll of toilet paper] Why are you taking toilet paper?

Chris: I might need it. I have kind of an upset stomach.

me: Don't you think they'd have it at the office?

Chris: They ran out on Sunday.

me: Oh, ok.

Chris: [gets to door, pauses with hand on doorknob] By the way, this is your toilet paper.

me: What?

Chris: Yeah, you don't have toilet paper any more in your bathroom.

me: You stole my toilet paper?? [starting to laugh] Why did you do that?

Chris: I thought you'd left for work already.

me: (laughing) You are the worst roommate ever!!




me: Can we get them to bring us more exotic fruits at the guesthouse? Right now we have apples, bananas, oranges. I want papayas, mangoes, weird Indian fruits.

Lalit: They actually ship this fruit from the US. The apples are from Washington. And the oranges are from Florida.

John: So don't tell them you want exotic fruits, because they'll bring you apples and oranges.

Friday, November 12, 2004

Bangkok

Sitting in bed in our lavish Bangkok hotel room, typing away. It's been 5 days since we left Mtn View (a bit confusing due to time difference). Today we dictate our own schedule, which I am looking forward to.

Chris was in an awful, awful mood until Wednesday afternoon.

Tuesday morning, Chris went to the sauna in our hotel. Upon his return, we were all getting ready for going out into the city.

John: Were there any hotties in the sauna?

Chris: (mumbling slightly) It was a male-only sauna, and I was the only one there. So there was one hottie.

John: What? I couldn't hear you.

Chris: (mumbling) I was there, so there was one hottie.

John: What?

Chris: I was the only hottie.

John: What?

Chris: I was the only ---

me: Okay, okay! You think you're a hottie! We get it!

Later, we're all in the ferry terminal, waiting to ride the ferry from Kowloon across to Central Hong Kong.

John: We should get some female interns. It'll be like Monika Lewinsky.

me: Oh no!

Chris: [stalks off without a word]

We catch up to him.

me: What's going on?

Chris: I feel like it's National Hypocrisy Month. Like, this morning you got after me for saying that I'm hot, but you're saying all the time, 'Oh, my abs look great today.' or 'my hair' And it's not okay for John to want female interns, but it's okay for you to hang out with Mark Cook and Todor and Peter?

John: I'm going to get some candy. [runs off]

We discuss, Chris calms down. But he's still angry. He refused to sit with us on the ferry, and on the bus ride to see the Giant Buddha. He doesn't smile, doesn't make any jokes.

Wednesday morning, we're sitting in a noodle shop. Chris says nothing and eats nothing.

John: I'm actually a CIA agent. I saw this movie about a guy who ran game shows, but he was also in the CIA, and he would take the winners on these trips where he was actually hitting targets.

John: So I'm a CIA agent. I have a mark in Bangkok, and in Bangalore. I just gotta find one for Hong Kong.

Chris: You can do me.

John: What?

Chris: You can kill me.

John and I look at each other and raise our eyebrows. I put my hand on Chris's shoulder and squeeze it. He reaches up and lightly lifts my hand off of him.

We split up after that. When we reunite 2 hours later, Chris is mysteriously in a much better mood. The mood has lasted through our day in Bangkok.