Birthday

Last night was a blast. It was John's birthday, our Greek Civ teacher. He invited a lot of his students from his other classes and the eight of us. Sadayah and Courtney weren't there but it was the most of us. I met a ton of girls which was new for me since pretty much the only girl I've had semi-long conversations with is Christina haha. There was this one girl that kept talking to me. I was thinking that she liked me. I wasn't interested in her. At one point, John made a toast and said something touching. I didn't hear the touching part but the girl that I think liked me said, "Oh no, some people are crying. Don't want to be near that." I don't know why this was my response but I said it: "I'm crying from my armpits." She looked at me like I was crazy and asked me what I meant. I said, "Well, I'm really hot. I'm sweating. That was kind of gross, wasn't it?" She said, "Yeah, there's really not a way to get out of that one." It was slightly embarrassing but I didn't really care.

A while ago, John said that his wife, Amy really liked my "Omorfia Mou" song that I put on YouTube and would ask John to sing it to her in the morning. Before we got into the party, John said he wanted me to sing it to her when I saw her. Less than 15 minutes into the party, Amy came up to me and said, "I showed your song to my sister and her response was, 'I want to put him in my pocket.'" An hour later, John passed me, now even more "tired" as we'll put it in this blog, and pointed at me.

"Go sing to my wife, NOW. Come with me." So I had to do it. Cody walked by me soon after and asked me what was going on. Once he heard the news, he seemed thrilled and pulled me forward to the kitchen where John's wife was. I was a little scared, mostly because I wasn't sure if I'd remember all the lyrics and I didn't have a piano to accompany myself with but I was more excited than nervous. Ricky, standing beside me, asked me if I wanted him to provide the backbeat. I thought that was a great idea. Ricky started clapping and I think Cody did some beat boxing. John was standing in the kitchen a little ways away and Amy was leaning against the door frame, too embarrassed to look at me. First of all, I started the song in a much higher key than I wanted to so I had to hit some of the chorus notes in the falsetto. Second of all, I didn't miss a note, my voice was surprisingly clear and full and I didn't forget one lyric. On the last chorus, John joined in between words. I would sing, "Omorfia mou!" and he'd add, "Omorfia" in a voice that I dare say was not very good. It was a very cool moment for me. I looked over and people had gathered around me. Keep in mind, this apartment is like a maze. It zig zags a lot so people didn't have a much space in which to surround me so it was like three stooges in how some were peaking out over others, creating the three hovering heads effect. I mostly noticed all the girls looking at me :). I guess I kind of forgot one lyric. I was going to the end the last chorus early but John egged me on, singing, "Eisai Telia!" so I joined him cause those are the last words of the song.

Afterwards, a lot of people told me that I had a really nice voice. This girl came up to me and said that she really enjoyed my voice. She also told me that she spoke Greek and that it was nice to hear a line in my song that was common in the language. The line she was referencing was "To perimeno pos kai pos," which means "I'm looking forward to it." It's so ironic cause I wrote that song two weeks after I got to Greece. I had had only like one Greek class by then! So naturally, I used my lonely planet phrase book to write it haha. Kind of cheating but hey, what the hell. From then on, I gotta say, the land of conversation was fertile. Does that make sense? In other words, I was talking to these two girls for a while. Michael told me today that while I was singing, a girl said, "OH MY GOD is that him singing? He's even cuter when he sings!" Mmm smile on my face. It was funny cause later in the night, someone brought up my singing and this guy said, "You were singing? I heard that but didn't see who was doing it! You have a good voice." I laughed and said that I wasn't aware how much my voice carried. Everyone must have heard it in the apartment haha. Awesome. Great beginning of the night.

I asked John's wife if there was anymore wine. She just told me to have some beer from the fridge. I guess her friend recently bought some. Ricky asked me where I got the beer. He was nervous to ask if he could have some from the fridge too so he decided to ask indirectly. He went up to Amy and said, "Hey, so where's the nearest place where I can get beer?" I totally relate to Ricky cause I can see doing that. The outcome wasn't the best though. She took him completely seriously and had her friend, the same one that bought the beer for the fridge, help her tell him where the nearest kiosk was. I gave him a smile when he looked back in the middle of being told directions. I told him I'd go with him. We walked out and ended up finding only one kiosk that was closed. Fail. So we walked back and started singing together. This was a very revealing moment for us. We got lost. The closed kiosk was less than a minute away. We started cracking up and getting scared at the same time. Ricky said, "You were just telling me how you get lost when you sing! That's why we shouldn't go together but we should at the same time!" It was funny. We asked these Greek people where the street was that we were looking for but Ricky kept messing up the name and I had trouble too. It was a disaster. They had no idea what we were talking about. Finally, we saw a mattress on the sidewalk and Ricky yelled, "I REMEMBER THIS!" and started kind of dancing while running. I ran with him and cheered. We found our way back and laughed about how much longer it took to get back when we were SO close before. At some point in the night Ricky told me that he needs people like me to get him going. It was nice. I said it reminded me of my brother, how I would make up the weird things and he would add on.

I was talking to this one girl when Michael (my roommate) walked near me, chatting with someone. First he said, "Stoddy's a good guy. Just thought you should know." Then he walked away and said, louder than I desired it to be, "Let's go guys. We need to give Stoddy some 'space'". Hahaha, that made it a little awkward cause honestly, I wasn't trying to hook up with her. I was just having a fun conversation with her. It was ok. We carried on. Then Cody came. Later he told me that he thought I was "workin' my game" and walked away. "But then you went to get something," he also told me later. Ok, so that was the cue to take the girl I was "hitting on"? I guess. Yes, he made out with her outside the apartment. Haha, I don't care at all. I just find it funny. Unfortunately "his game" was destroyed when the girl's friends went and found her, supposedly screaming, "THERE YOU ARE!!! OH MY GOD! WE'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR YOU EVERYWHERE! Oh my god, get away from that guy! HE'S BAD!" They didn't know him at all haha. Well that's probably why they saw him as bad, right? So they took her away. I guess she was just visiting the girls for a few days. It was funny cause Cody was talking about how the girl was kissing normally at first but then suddenly opened her mouth up unnaturally big and "ate his face." Hilarious. I don't know why he would be so pissed about the game-over if he was being eaten but whatever.

Before Cody started his "game", he did the Jimmy character the South Park, the crutches guy. He is so good at that. That's where I first saw him. He was acting as Jimmy at the South Park musical at Berklee. He also did Cartman. Eat-face girl was going, "Woow!" all impressed with the Cartman voice.

Another great part of the night was when James (a guy we met that was cool and said he smoked pot all day, every day haha), Cody, Ricky and I went to a pool hall. It was right near John's place. We were going to go straight home but ended up staying there for about an hour and a half. We played two games and I lost both of them. I was SOOOO pissed. It sucked cause on the first game when I was on Cody's team, I got too shots that were so incredible. They were slops but still amazing. That's why losing sucked the first time. The second time, now on the team with James, I ended up sinking the white ball in when all we had was the 8 ball to hit in. I wanted to break the stick. To keep it fun, we all decided to keep playing even though James and I lost. But guess what? I sank the white ball AGAIN. Hahahaha, double lose. So really, I lost three times in two games. That's rarely done, let alone NEVER. You have to believe me though. I did play pretty damn well. I just made some very stupid shots also. Ok, maybe that's loser talk.

After the games, Cody talked to the bar owners for a long time but I was happy about that because I suddenly could not find my credit card in my wallet. I remembered that earlier in the night, at the party, a felt a card come out of my wallet in my pocket and I just shoved it down into the wallet so I was thinking that it never really clung to it and ended up falling out. I rummaged through it for a while, freaking out in my corner of the pool hall and crawling around. Luckily, I don't think anyone saw me. THEN I FOUND IT. It was shoved down in an unlikely crevice. I was so happy, I lifted it up to my face and almost tasted its beauty. Luckily, no one saw that event as well.

Another ironic thing about the night: Cody lost his wallet! Yeah, I felt so bad. Funny since I had just thought I lost my credit card. Well, funny in the dark humor sense. He called me in the middle of night, at about 4:30. At first I kept hanging up the phone cause I was half asleep. Finally, I picked it up and Cody told me the situation. So I stayed up for a while looking for it in my room but found nothing. We're thinking that he left it in the taxi. And Cody left the taxi cursing about the taxi driver to us cause he left the meter running during our minute of discussing how to pay. He was so pissed about that. If he did leave his wallet in the taxi, he is NOT getting it back cause I'm sure the guy didn't have a very high opinion of Cody. It sucks so much.

Today we had an unusual day. We had class! We never have class on Fridays. It's a special week cause next week is my Greek test, on MONDAY! The class ran from 12 to 2 like usual. Then from 2 to 6:40 or so, Petros had us rehearse our song for the Greek Crossroads class. We actually might perform some songs including mine on Tuesday for Berklee faculty and others. I'm excited! Man, the practice was long though. I was getting so tired but it felt good. It was the longest school day I've had here, in the terms of nonstop class. I actually got pretty upset when Petros asked Ricky to show us the song he had just written so we could rehearse it. Before even hearing the FIRST verse, Petros stopped him and started to suggest changes. He did that the whole time. He didn't even let Ricky play the whole thing through, once. I was looking at Cody, showing him with my eyes how pissed I was. Cody kept saying, "Chill, man, chill."

I said, "Shut up, what the fuck?" to Cody today! YES! It was great cause it really worked. I didn't understand something he was saying and he looked at Michael with a "what the hell" face and started telling me how he was not going to repeat it cause I never get anything. Something like that. So I said "Shut up, what the fuck?" and he said, "I'm just messin' with you Stoddy," and answered my question. So there! I've found out it works to tell him shut up. I've seen Sadayah do it. It reminds me of Brandon with Whit.