RM update

We're back to low-drama for now: annoyance by a thousand paper cuts. And by paper that wouldn't even cut if it were anybody else.

For example, I wouldn't have minded, or even noticed if Kevin started buying the same food I do... but since I know RM is just buying those things upon seeing that I have have, I find it creepy. In isolation, it appears harmless; in context, it's his way of squirming his way into my life, through a door that I've done everything to shut.

Last night, he came in just as the Colbert Report was ending. From downstairs, he shouted, "wow, something smells good in here!" I didn't respond--that would have required me to leave my office, into the shark (roommate) infested waters of the common spaces of the house. He came upstairs, repeated it. I said I wasn't sure what it would have been. I'd baked some mochaccino muffins and red wine cookies that morning for a fundraiser at work, but he would have noticed the aroma then. And, I couldn't help but offer him the rejects (a couple of muffins didn't come out of the pan without breaking--I'd run out of muffin paper)--he said he had his PT test that morning (what kind of idiot does that kind of thing without having breakfast?)--and I hoped he didn't take it as some sort of sign that I was warming up to him or feeding him out of any sense of roommately affection. That's exactly the message I've worked to avoid--and it's the opposite of what he's tried to encourage by asking me to get involved in his eating habits. But I digress.

The Colbert Report ended, and I knew I had to do something to keep him from interpreting the lack of sound coming out of my office as an invitation to talk to me. So I played some YouTube music videos. Of course, when I emerged from the office later, he said, "Thank you! I enjoyed the music!" Grrrr. Again, I know it sounds harmless, but that's his way of making it seem like a shared evening between the two of us.

In any case, I'm glad we're back to low-intensity conflict.