Mark

Wow, sorry I haven't been posting as regularly as possible. Life got into somewhat of a routine here and less exciting things happened. But who needs adventure to have fun?? There's plenty of crazy ass crap going on right here in my very dorm room. My roommates and I are practically our own little dysfunctional family now so I want to share them with you.

I have three roommates, Mark, Claude, and Terry. They're each very special in their own way and bring something special to the table and the speciality just blossoms all over the place all the freakin time. First, we will talk about Mark.

Mark has an uncanny ability to be nude when you least expect it, a skill I have grown to admire. His warning (if he chooses to give you one) is, "Hey, don't turn around." Unfortunately, I have yet to listen to him and have always turned around (Side note: Terry and Mark just informed me that "alwaysed" isn't a word. How special!). I have a growing fear that I will never learn to not turn around and will continue to sporadically see Mark's bare ass until August. I've seen it far too many times for us to not be going steady. Mark may be that kind of guy but I'm a gentleman.

Mark is special to me for a number of reasons beyond shamelessly donning his birthday suit, believe it or not. Mark is the reason I decided to study straight men. I'm learning their language, and slowly but surely I'm learning their ways. It was the night Mark had two of his friends over that I found myself in a plethora of stinking, wonderful testosterone - an anthropologists dream come true. I'm pretty sure the three of them were drunk, as it was a wednesday night with only ONE class scheduled for the next day. I have termed this kind of gathering a "bro-thering."

One of Mark's bros, Harry I believe was his name, stumbled over to me holding a laptop and asked what rank the girl on the screen deserved. At first I was scared, confused, and a little cold but Harry took notice of my inner turmoil and slurred, "Ish she a eight or a nynne?" I looked carefully, anxious I would offend the bro and said "7 1/2."

"Reallly?"

"Yes."

Harry seemed disappointed, Mark hollered from his bed, "He's been after this girl for four years." Four years?? I don't ever remember crushing on someone for more than two weeks without saying something. But alas, perhaps the way of the bro is different. Harry wasn't bad looking, and despite the drunken slurring, he seemed like a pretty stand up guy. He was three sheets to the wind and managed to keep his pants on in front people he'd just met, good enough for me. What was weirder was that he was gushing over this girl like a schoolgirl in front of a Zack Effron poster. He continued to show me pictures of this girl in various poses to try and improve my judgement of her.

"Wha' about thissone?"

"Eh."

"This onne?"

"Are her eyes looking in the same direction?"

"OKAY okay how 'bout THISS one??"

This continued for several minutes and after seeing the girl in about twenty pictures he showed me one in which she managed to pull of a hair bump flawlessly. I gave her an eight.

"YES!" Harry exclaimed. It was weird, I thought bros only talked about porn, alcohol and well, porn. But Harry not only facebook stalked another human being of feminine persuasion, but campaigned for her hotness. What was to come next? Silk pajamas and a pillow fight? I felt like I was in high school and the lines of gender began to blur once again...

But I spoke too soon. Moments later, Mark pulled out a sandwich and made a peculiar exchange with Terry, my second roommate. Terry sat up from his bed like a deer sensing poachers and walked over to Mark.

"Ya got a sandwich there?" He asked.

"Yeah, I got it from Pret, it's a (whatever the fuck it was)."

"I gotta be honest, that looks like a really good fuckin' sandwich."

"That it is my friend!"

"You still got a little way to go, enjoy."

... What the hell just happened? I've never seen so much mild enthusiasm for a sandwich in my life. I almost think it was a counter attack on Harry's sickeningly sentimental high school crush on facebook girl (I forgot her name .3 seconds after I was told it). Then I thought, why does this seem girly to me? Maybe I should help disband the theory of female dependency on men by reporting my experience with Harry. It turns out that no matter what gender you are, you'll probably go through a phase in which you oggle someone from afar because you haven't quite mustered up the courage to say "hi." In an attempt to will the heavens into forcing that person into your life, you'll galavant his or her facebook picture around to all of your friends, demanding they admit he or she is as hot as you think he or she is.

On another side note, Claude just went to sit down next to Mark and his face turned pale moments before he fled the room, gasping for air... I'm assuming Mark is the silent but deadly type. Oh sweet Jesus he just sat down across the table from me... Whoever reads this, tell my family I love them and that I never wanted to go like this.

Okay false alarm, I'm alive.

Now would be the time I tell you about Terry and Claude, but I want to gather more from them before I write shamelessly about them. I want to do their reputations justice, like I did with Mark. We have six more weeks here so I'm sure I won't let them down. In fact, I'm not entirely sure I'm done telling you all about Mark anyway. Whatever happens, I'll try to paint the picture the best I can.

Love you all,

Sam