The Cutest Story I Have Ever Told is back! Get ready. Sweetness follows:

Part II: The office.

A couple of days after The Encounter, I was virtually thumbing through Google Alerts tagged with my old company as part of my morning brain warm-up. To separate the good from the pointless links, I opened up all the alerts in tabbed windows and skimmed each one’s content. A lot of blog posts usually came up, typically personal blogs, often written by teenagers who can’t spel. (Natch!)

One LiveJournal came up, though, one that was heavily decorated in rich, Victorian colors and intricate gears and flowery embellishments. At this point in time, I didn’t know what steampunk culture was, so I was totally drawn into the pictures and projects that the blogger posted. At the bottom of the LJ entry was a link to an office known throughout the Web and gaming world for its crazy, steampunk interior. I clicked on the Flickr set and saw that the company had the same name as this Bongo boy’s company. How uncanny! And apparently the office was down the street. Precisely where Bongo was sitting on that fateful spring day. I was about ready to faint.

Instead, I asked Spaniel, “Is this where your friend works??” – Over IM, of course. I had the benefit of hiding my excitement by sitting with my back facing Spaniel.

Spaniel replied in the affirmative, telling me they also have a secret room. With candy (and alcohol) in it.

This was all too much. I needed to stop. The Powers That Be needed to stop sending me stuff, too. Teasing is for bullies.

Part III: Burritos.

About a month after meeting Bongo, I had had plenty of time to bury my thoughts about how close we were to each other. Brooklyn used to work in the same office as him, and I literally could have walked around the corner to stalk him. I didn’t, though the possibility of running into him on the street was super high. (As was my own awareness of such.) I kept telling myself to be economical and bring my lunch instead of go outside. ‘Twas no future in my feenin’.

One day, Spaniel rounded up anther coworker and me for burritos in South Park (San Francisco, not Comedy Central). The burrito place was a bit of a walk from where we were, so we had to leave slightly earlier than the average noon time.

Walking down the street and approaching the corner, I saw a young man with his head buried in a Moleskine, Puma’d feet stretched in front of him as he sketched on a bench.

My heart stopped.
Or jumped.
It somehow did both simultaneously.

It clenched in itself, and all I could muster in my brain was some sort of Aww, ahh! It’s probably what the discoverers of Owen and Mzee felt when they first saw the hippo attach to the tortoise like a child to a parent. I was melting all over and collected myself just in time to hear Spaniel say, “Oh, my friend Bongo’s coming to eat with us, again.”

POW OPLKDF@#$M POK*&%$Q@%#OFGSPO 3 . 1 4 1 5 9 ! ! !

I did what any logical person would do and kept quiet, though my face was doing this weird sort of contortion trick to try to hide my smile. I probably looked tense and awkward, but that was better than exploding in happiness with two people I worked with and one who barely knew me.

So eventually we make it to Mexico au Parc. Spaniel and Bongo were walking and talking, and I was walking and talking with my coworker, JewFro (because he has one). If you couldn’t guess by now, I was super antsy. We were about to eat burritos which are a notoriously gassy food and this was only my second chance to make a good impression and oh my God what kind of disasters lay ahead of me??

When we’ve all received our food (Which is good, I should say.), JewFro turns to Spaniel and me and says “Okay, I’ve got to head back to the office. I’ve got a meeting to prepare for.” Spaniel and I emit “boos” and “awws,” and now I’m stuck with Spaniel and Bongo. I’m with someone I’m completely comfortable with who is friends with someone I have had a crush on for weeks and I think I’m wearing somewhat cute clothes and did I mention it’s him? He’s here? I can barely contain myself. I don’t know what to do. I know how to eat burritos, so I’ll just stick to that.

South Park is a picturesque piece of green amidst the dirrty dirrty sidewalks of SoMa. It’s refreshing to come here to its open space. Less crowded and busy than Yerba Buena Gardens, people often playing fetch with their dogs, and even a swingset with sand. Like any other park, you have to keep an eye out for dog poop in the grass, but at the moment I can’t think of a better place to be than eating lunch with Spaniel and trying to not show Bongo that I remember him and like him.

The conversation is fun. I feel like I’m hanging out with friends I’ve known for a long time. The sun is shining, the grass is green, and I know from running my tongue over my teeth multiple times that there is no rogue cilantro clinging to my gums. I’m oddly relaxed, ultimately cheery, and this Bongo guy gets cooler by the minute. From where I’m sitting in our triangle, he appears completely huggable. Sigh.

He even asks me a question during a conversation (that I allowed to be) dominated by him and Spaniel. He turned to me and asked me a question! That’s so nice! He really is nice!

Our burritos, chips, and salsa disappear, and we rise to toss/recycle our refuse and head back to our respective offices. As we’re passing a rather ugly patch of noisy construction, someone brings up Harry Potter. At this time, J.K. Rowling’s seventh and final novel is still being edited and accumulating record-breaking preorders and waiting lists. It comes out that Bongo really likes Harry Potter. Finally, something I can wax poetic about. I know when to step up the sex appeal, so I really lay it down, “Are you going to go to any of the Harry Potter release parties? Because it’s the last one, and it seems like it might be kind of fun.”

Somehow this actually develops into more of a substantive conversation, and we talk more about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and the upcoming events surrounding it. Conversation then flows into Bongo’s office. I couldn’t keep my mouth shut, not after learning that Bongo is perfectly nice and reads HP, and I say “I saw your office in someone’s blog! It looks so cool!”

Normally I hate small talk, but I just dispensed one of the most dead-end statements ever. Bongo probably said all that he could think of to respond, and the topic of conversation changed yet again. I lost.

The corner that our offices sit on comes into view, and Bongo turns his head back to me to ask, “Would you like to see the office, Mayka?” And then I do this thing that I will always mildly regret, because to this day Bongo recalls it and normally that’s something I save for people I truly want to open up to, not people I am trying to win over with charm and wit.

I started skipping. It’s kind of like this gallop thing and I’m pretty sure I also clapped my hands together at one point. I then managed to stifle out a “Right now? Yes! That would be so cool!” Suddenly time doesn’t matter and who cares if 1 o’ clock is nearing or gone? Shit happens, people. Emergencies come up and you just have to go look at cool things with people you’ve contemplated stalking before. I had to do this. For me.

We enter the famed super cool office and I’m surrounded by innovative creative beauty. (Here’s the Flickr set, again, so you don’t have to scroll up.) Turns out Spaniel knows another person who works there, so he chats with BritSketch while Bongo gives me this impromptu tour of the place. Things are moving too quickly. I want to see if the levers on the wall actually move and pinch a piece of metal to verify that it actually exists. We breeze through the office, even checking out the secret room, and I’m left very wide-eyed and in awe.

Spaniel, Bongo, and I collapse on the tentacles of the game room and I ask if people can jump on them. If I wasn’t so self-conscious I would have just tried it out myself. I take a couple of pictures of the guys on the tentacles, Spaniel takes a picture of me on the tentacles, and it’s time to go.

At this point, I’m very high. Off of Life. Fuck it, I’m wasted!

Next: Part IV – The almost date.

Previous: How to have a “crush.”