Caltrops - Icewind Dale





	[quote name="Quétinbec"]There are some people I'd marry knowing we’d get divorced in 7 years, because it'd still be worth it. I’m caring less about one such girl these days, and I’d like to record some feelings for her here before they mostly disappear. Her name is Ioana (pronounced ‘you-wanna’) and I think she is a bitch. I knew her for only 6 months but she changed my life and made me want to marry an Eastern European and live in Eastern Europe. She was an unemployed Romanian dance instructor I shared a room with in Delhi shortly before (and after) I was an unemployed ‘web designer’. We were staying at a flat full of international volunteers who were doing all kinds of great things to help Indians and really giving a shit, but we just fucked around and decorated the flat or complained about things or travelled. Her excuse for quitting was that schools ruined her dances and she wasn’t going to put up with that for $US120 a month. I quit because pretending to be a web designer was hard and I wanted to spend more time with her. She was 23 and I was 25. She wasn’t really beautiful or anything but had the most beautiful voice and a great smile and I loved her. <a href="http://s219.photobucket.com/albums/cc71/SarahPlunket/?action=view&current=DSCF1976-1000.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc71/SarahPlunket/DSCF1976-1000.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a> <a href="http://s219.photobucket.com/albums/cc71/SarahPlunket/?action=view&current=DSCF2523-1000.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc71/SarahPlunket/DSCF2523-1000.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a> <a href="http://s219.photobucket.com/albums/cc71/SarahPlunket/?action=view&current=DSCF3545-1000.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc71/SarahPlunket/DSCF3545-1000.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a> Man, selecting those photos and seeing her again has fucked me up. When we travelled, we’d share a bed to save money. We never fucked (which kills me), but when she fell asleep next to me, I’d listen to beautiful songs so when we parted they could remind me of her and I could be sad to be away from her. That's thinking ahead! She was Romanian and some flatmates said to be careful because apparently they steal and are lazy – which was why I was stuck sharing a room with her. I don’t think she stole form me, but I know she supposedly travelled for a month with me on €150 her parents gave her and I’m fucked if I know how she did that. I did a lot of crazy and disgusting things to impress her. I fucked a fat Indian. I tried to get my girlfriend back home to loan her money so I could make her happy AND show how devoted my girlfriend back home was to me (how cool must I be for an ex to willingly lend money to the new partner!); I committed insurance fraud; I rode motorcycles and jetskis and learnt to paraglide and did unlicensed scuba diving and all the things she couldn’t afford to do to try an impress her with my bravery and money, but I’d come back at night and she’d leave notes telling me to meet her on the beach. The beach in north Goa is never ending, but she’d write my name and an arrow at lots of different spots along it and leave messages with people (she refused to spend money on cellphone credit after leaving her job). I’d only find her about half the time and when I did, she’d have spent the day collecting seashells or drawing abstract pictures or painting a new face on a clock she’d found or other cute things and be only slightly interested in my accomplishments. As indifferent as she was to me on those occasions, she travelled by train for 3 days from Delhi to Madras to be with me, and riding in the lowest classes of Indian public transport is one of the hardest things I’ve done in my life and I never had a trip lasting longer than 2 days, AND that was with someone and with entertaining modern technologies. Three days solo and with nothing is so impressive. It ain't no fucking Dejeerling Express and she did it partly for me. Anyway, throughout our travels she hinted she would take my MP3 player when I left. I have an iRiver HD340 (the first MP3 player to play video) and some $200 Sony 7506 headphones. I had the first season of the Adult Swim cartoon “Home Movies” on my player. It’s one of my favourite cartoons but it’s hard to find people who like it, and I was so happy she did. How perfect! Throughout our trip, she’d ‘joke’ that she’d take my MP3 player. I say joke, but it was pretty much “I’m going to take this when you leave.” So fucking haha. On our last day together, I was hurriedly packing my shit because I was late for my bus. I had been planning this farewell for a while and the rush was fucking things up. I was crying and I wanted her to see that I was crying so she could see how much she meant to me, but I also didn’t want to look like a pussy because Romanian men aren’t pussies, so I decided the safest thing to do was to cry with sunglasses on. She had bought me some ice cream as a going away present but she hadn’t been able to find me in time (because I was out buying her much more impressive gifts) and most of it had melted. Everything was going poorly but I still cried. When she discovered I was crying, she started laughing pretty hard, which made me feel foolish. But, India was her first extended trip out of Europe, and she was under the misimpression that if two people care enough about each other, they’ll be able to maintain that same level of affection at a distance online or meet up a few years down the track and pick up exactly where things left off, whereas I knew rightly that she would never care this much about me again (and it seemed I’d overestimated her current amount of caring). The tears were justified. After being laughed at, I had a shower because I had a 20 hour bus ride ahead of me. I was confused about things and sad. When I came out of the shower, there was a 500 rupee note ($US15) in place of my MP3 player. That was money she owed me but that I was going to let her keep. I wasn’t furious about this theft because I could get insurance (without being fraudulent) and everything made sense now and I could tell everyone they were right about her and have a funny story about getting ‘played’. I got all my shit together and was outside about to return my motorcycle when I spotted her on the roof of our guest house watching ‘Home Movies’. She just smiled. And when I asked her to give me my player back she laughed, and then did. I was pissed off because she was incredibly important to me and was acting like a fucking weirdo. After I bagged the player and hugged her again, I got a bit teary and started to drive off. She yelled out something. I thought it was to remind me to say goodbye to a shopkeeper we’d become close to because I hadn’t (and didn’t want to). I stopped and said what? She said nothing and waved for me to go. So we parted on that awkward note. I missed my bus. She sent emails to ask me to leave my MP3 player for her in Delhi, the fucking bitch. I still don’t understand but after seeing those pictures again and remembering things, I’d probably still marry her. She’s picking fruit in Greece to save for the ski season in Romania. <a href="http://s219.photobucket.com/albums/cc71/SarahPlunket/?action=view&current=DSCF2824-1000.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc71/SarahPlunket/DSCF2824-1000.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a> [/quote]