The wrong potato

This report covers an eleventh date with the subject referred to here as M., held on Friday, July 31, at Firebird Grill, in her area, 45 minutes from my house. The date ran 120 minutes. The cost was $135.54, paid in full by me.

One thing was returned to a kitchen, which has happened once before in this arc, on the first date, 102 days earlier. One thing was said that this report had already written down, 4 days before she said it.

Summary of charges

• Duration: 120 minutes
• Travel, mine: 90 minutes
• Travel, M.’s: 10 minutes
• Questions asked by me: 10, approximate
• Questions asked by M.: 10, approximate
• Phone checks: 0 and 0
• Out-of-pocket costs: $135.54
• Amount contributed by M.: $0.00
• Follow-up: pending

Cost per hour in person: $67.77. Cumulative: $2,432.61 across 11 dates and 102 days.

The concert, declined

On July 22 M. asked me to a concert in Washington on August 15.

She has made 3 requests of me in this arc and it is worth setting them out. On July 15 she asked to redeem a card early. That one sat behind a clause, so honouring it meant waiving the condition it was written under, and I waived it: $846.10 and then $160.00 more. On July 22 she redeemed a second card, one written for immediate redemption, and I settled it 3 days later in my living room.

Both of those were claims against paper I had issued. The concert is the only request she has made in 102 days that was not a claim against an instrument of my own making.

On July 27 I wrote:

“I looked into the logistics for Seattle and the cost just doesn’t make sense for a last-minute weekend trip. Let’s commit to next year… if you’ll have me that long 😜.

Maybe some local adventures? You’ve got some birthday cards to redeem.”

She wrote:

“Okay”

We did not speak again that day.

Of her 3 requests, the 2 payable out of reserves I had written were granted, 1 of them with its own condition waived on request. The 1 that required a new decision was refused.

There are 4 figures in that exchange and they should be read in order.

The first is the phrase the cost just doesn’t make sense. This file records $2,297.07 spent across 10 dates, every one of which I proposed, and not one of which was assessed on that basis before I booked it. A resort I did not attend came to $846.10 and was settled inside a day, plus $160.00 in overage paid without a question. The first time a cost was weighed against its return in 98 days, it was weighed against the only invitation the other party has issued.

The second is let’s commit to next year. Five days earlier she had told me she makes no long-term plans, because we have not reached that point yet, and that she leaves space for disappointments. I replied to that position, in effect, with a 12-month one, and attached an emoji to it, 58 days after being told I am not playful.

The third is you’ve got some birthday cards to redeem. I declined a new claim and directed the claimant to the reserves already on deposit. The policies in that box were written by me against my own future failures. I offered them here as an alternative to a thing she wanted.

The fourth is Okay.

The single largest line in this file is $846.10 for a night I did not attend. The single cheapest is $0.00, and it is the only thing she asked me for.

Reversion

The previous entry was held at my house. She drove 90 minutes, I drove none, and it was the first date in 96 days to leave my road column untouched.

This one is in her area. I drove 90 minutes. She drove none.

I proposed it and I chose it, and it was agreed on Tuesday, July 28, by text, which makes 11 dates and 11 agreements reached by text and none in person. That is the day after the exchange above.

I am not presenting the reversion as a grievance. I chose the restaurant and I chose the city it is in. The record simply shows that the single evening on which the travel ran the other way did not change the standing arrangement, and that the party who set it back was me.

Arrivals

I arrived 15 minutes early. She arrived 15 minutes late.

Both are the standing pattern and both have appeared on this form before. The interval between my arrival and hers is now a recurring 25 to 30 minutes, it has never once run the other way, and across 11 dates it totals somewhere near 4 hours of sitting alone in venues I selected.

The potato

M. ordered mashed potatoes. She was brought a baked potato. I asked the staff to exchange it and they did.

That is the second item returned to a kitchen in this arc. The first was on April 20, on the first date, at The Vig, when a drink arrived that she did not like and I had it sent back and remade. The entry for that evening records it as the only point in 180 minutes at which anything was returned.

102 days separate the 2 events and they are the same event.

There is a third instance between them and it did not produce a return. On April 25, in the strip mall, she asked whether a dish came with specific garnishes and sides, was told it did not, and gave a dissatisfied look. I recorded the look at the time as attractive. Nothing was sent back, because nothing had arrived wrong: the specification simply was not available.

So the column reads 3 occasions in 102 days on which what arrived did not match what she wanted, and 2 on which I intervened.

I want to be exact about what my part in it consists of. A specification was given, the wrong thing arrived, and I raised it with the party responsible and had it corrected. That is the service I perform. Across 102 days my recorded contributions to this arrangement are logistics, payment, transport, reservations, and the correction of orders that come back wrong.

The towel, reviewed

M. raised the towel.

She said she thought it was odd that I had wanted to cover her up, and she put it to me that the moment had been an opportunity to go further physically than we did.

The entry for July 25 is on this site and it contains the following, entered by me on the night in question, 6 days before this conversation: that I should have moved toward intimacy before the evening ran out, filed under corrections entered after the fact. It also contains the towel itself, recorded as an exposure presented and covered, in the vocabulary this file has been using since April.

So the 2 parties reached the same finding independently. Mine was written on July 25 by a man alone in a house she had just driven away from. Hers was delivered on July 31 across a table, out loud, without being asked.

She used the word odd. I used the word covered. We are describing the same 30 seconds and she is the only one of us who described it to the other person.

People watching

Beyond that, there was no notable conversation.

The crowd at Firebird Grill was substantially older than us, and we spent a good part of the evening watching them. That was the activity.

It is worth recording where in the sequence this sits. On July 22 she asked me for one thing. On July 27 I declined it on cost and offered her next year. On July 28 I booked a restaurant in her neighborhood and drove 45 minutes to it. On July 31 the 2 of us sat in it with nothing to say and looked at other people.

A man who has maintained a numbered ledger of a relationship for 102 days sat in a restaurant with the subject of it and passed the time observing other people’s dinners. I offer no reading of that. It is on the form because it happened and because the form is the only place it will be written down.

Findings

Questions: even an eleventh time, 10 and 10. The count has now balanced on every date in this arc without exception.

Phone checks: 0 and 0. Running total 3 across 1,800 minutes.

Items returned to kitchens at my request: 2, on dates 1 and 11.

Findings reached independently by both parties: 1, the towel, 6 days apart, mine first and in writing, hers first out loud.

Disclaimers: none new. The file holds 13, none since July 22.

Positions stated: 1 mine and 2 hers. Mine is the message of July 27, which prices one thing and postpones it by a year. Hers are the towel, reviewed out loud at a table, and the answer of August 1, which is that she will consider it and let me know.

Physical initiation: 1, mine. The running figure is 17 mine and 1 hers across 11 dates.

Invitations extended: 1, mine, being the overnight asked for on August 1. The column now reads 2 mine and 1 hers, and hers is the one that was declined.

Requests made by M. in 102 days: 3. Granted: 2, both of them claims against instruments I wrote. Declined: 1, the only one that was not.

Costs weighed against their return before payment, in 102 days: 1.

Contributed by M.: $0.00, across 11 dates, 102 days and $2,432.61.

Costs

• Firebird Grill, dinner and drinks: $135.54
• Total: $135.54

Running position: 11 of 11 dates held, $2,432.61 out of pocket, 1,800 minutes in person, 995 minutes of road, 420 minutes of manufacture, $0.00 contributed by the other party.

This entry takes the arc to exactly 30 hours in company and 16.6 hours in a car. The ratio is 1.81 and it is the lowest it has been since June.

Status

Nothing was set at the table. I walked her to her car, kissed her, and drove 45 minutes home. The kiss is mine, as 17 of the 18 recorded initiations in this arc are.

The following day, August 1, I wrote:

“I want to have you over for an overnight - dinner, movie, lazy morning together. What night in the near future (tonight through the next week or so) works for you?”

She replied:

“Definitely not tonight but I will consider it in the near future. I’ll let you know when I have some time.”

The overnight was her idea. She raised it in my driveway on July 25, after the evening it would have belonged to had ended, and I asked for it 7 days later inside a window of about 10 days. The answer was that she would consider it and let me know.

She then sent me a screenshot of her August work schedule.

That is the second screenshot in this file. The first arrived on May 27 and recovered a date that had lapsed, with the words this is your reminder attached to it. The second is a month of shifts. One of them put a date on the calendar and the other establishes that there is no room on it.

I read the second one as an invitation to propose again anyway. I am recording that as a reading and not as a fact, because the message that accompanied it did not say so, and because this file already holds 3 rationalizations and knows what they look like from the outside.

The follow-up field reads pending for the sixth time in 14 reports. It has read none 6 times. It has read yes twice, both of them in June, and only 1 of those was a date.

The account is open. It records 12 disclaimers, 3 rationalizations, 14 outstanding policies, 30 hours in company, 2 screenshots, and 1 potato.