I like to think of myself as a fairly calm guy. Theoretically, nothing ruffles me. There are, of course, exceptions to this general rule. Several, in fact. Oh, alright, many things annoy me. But other than that, I’m generally fairly calm.
Since we’re on the topic though, can I just say that one of the things that really bugs me is those dumb-ass ‘1000 Places to See Before You Die’ books?
First of all, who has time to visit 1000 places before they die? The unemployed sure don’t. They’re too busy trying to feed a family on a dollar. And I know for a fact that Donald Trump doesn’t. He’s running a real estate empire, flying around in his helicopter and firing people.
So that leaves people like me. And let me tell you that these days, I don’t have time to pee.
“I’m sure they don’t mean it literally,” Amanda said the other day at Borders as she tried to hide behind her copy of Vogue while I furiously waved a copy of ‘1000 Places to See Before You Die’ at her.
“It’s ridiculous!” I said, flipping through the book. “Look at this…the Ring Road in Iceland? A country full of bankrupt banks! Who goes there?”
“Uhm, I hear it’s quite pretty,” Amanda said vaguely.
“And look at this,” I went on. “Doubtful Sound in New Zealand! Seriously, would you go anywhere that had ‘Doubtful’ as part of its name?”
Saffy says she’s with me on this one, but her beef is with books that are titled ‘1000 Movies You Must See Before You Die’ or ‘1000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die’.
“Does anyone realize how expensive the whole exercise would be?” she snapped recently. “At $20 per album, 1000 albums is $20,000, and just like that, we’re looking at a down-payment for a retirement village!”
“I don’t know why you two are getting so upset,” Amanda said. “They’re just gimmicky books. No one takes them seriously.”
Saffy took a deep breath and puffed up. “Yes, but these books are deliberately written to make me look dumb! And that’s unacceptable. They always include obscure things on those lists that no one has ever heard of. If I wanted to listen to a Nigerian acapella group, I sure wouldn’t wait for you to write a book to tell me about it! I want to listen to Spice Girls and are any of their fabulous albums on the list? No, but Rachmani-bloody-koff is, though!” Her bosom inflated dangerously at the musical slight to Posh and Baby.
And there you have it. The problem with these books is the assumption that someone else knows better than we do about what we like and what we should read, watch and listen to. And the fact that there are apparently a thousand books, movies and albums that we’ve not heard of only serves to make us feel guilty.
Saffy, for one, is not having any of it. As she points out, if she’d listened to all those dumb-asses who told her that ‘Titanic’ was a crap movie, she would have missed out on what she insists is one of the most moving cinematic experiences of her life. “Though,” she recently conceded at a Harvard cocktail party which she attended as Amanda’s plus-one, “I probably should have listened to them about ‘Rocky Balboa’, but that’s so not the point!”
Amanda says it’s a good thing that Saffy has such an incredibly high self-esteem that she can feel intellectually superior even in a room full of Harvard professors.
“I don’t know what the big deal about Harvard is,” Saffy sniffed recently, and noticing Amanda’s hurt look, she hurriedly added, “But not you, Amanda! Not you! You’re a big deal!”
“Shut up, Saffy!”
The other day, Saffy rang me in a state of excitement. “I’ve got a great idea that will make us an obscene pile of money!” She drew in an audible breath. “OK, we should write a book called ‘1000 Crappy Books You Should Not Bother Reading Before You Die’! Huh? What do you think? And then when we’re done, we can move onto movies and music! We’d have no problem getting material. There’s just so much junk out there!”
“It’s a catchy title,” Amanda later admitted. “But aren’t you afraid people may sue you for saying their work is crap?”
“Let them!” Saffy huffed. “It’ll be great publicity! Oooh, who knows, we might even end up on Oprah’s Book Club!”
And in spite of myself, I’m getting excited about the idea. Amanda thinks we’re nuts. Saffy says we’ll see who’s nuts when Oprah comes calling.
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Saturday, January 30, 2010
The Parent Trap
It’s hard to believe it now, but once upon a time, my parents were party animals. They loved dancing and every Saturday, they’d put on their dancing shoes and head out for a bit of fox-trot and two-step. And if they were feeling particularly energetic, they’d round up some friends and have dinner at the Tropicana.
These days, their idea of an exciting evening out is to watch an R-rated movie at the cinema. Sometimes, this involves a bit of blood and guts – they loved “300” – but who knew that my mother would enjoy “Saw” so much that she’s recently came home with the DVD box-set? And there was an anxious moment when my father thought his pace-maker had stopped right in the middle of “Ring” in the scene where that girl with all that hair rises out of the water.
When Ang Lee’s “Lust, Caution” came out a few years ago, my mother said to my father, “Let’s go watch this. I hear it’s very art-house and nostalgic.”
Apparently, all went well with the first third of the movie when the handsome group of terrorists was trooping all over Shanghai and Hong Kong, but then when the first of the sex scenes came on, Mother actually screamed.
“And not in a good way either,” my father later said to my sister. Michelle replied that it was thoughtless comments like that which explained why all his children had grown up with severe emotional issues.
“Aiyoh!” Mother moaned the next afternoon to her mahjong group. “You could see everything! Even Tony Leung’s pee-gu!”
“Eeee!” said my Auntie Wai-ling. “Are you sure or not? Pong! Where got such thing?”
“Ay, I must go watch this movie then. Worth my movie ticket!” said Auntie Ming.
“I’m telling you, it was disgusting!” Mother said firmly, with a delicious shiver. “Young people today just have no shame! Can you imagine having sex with someone you’re not married to, in front of a director and his rolling camera?”
There was a brief embarrassed silence when Mother suddenly realized that Auntie Kwai at the table had divorced her husband for precisely that reason, except in his case, he and his trollop of a secretary had been using a hand-held Sony-Cam – and according to reliable eye-witnesses of the movie, ie the mahjong group, the shaky picture quality left a lot to be desired.
“I really need to join your mother’s mahjong sessions,” Saffy said the other day.
“It sounds like so much fun!”
I grunted. “It’s a vicious group,” I said. “They’ve been playing for years and they know every secret there is to know about each other. They’re all best friends but they’re scared to leave the table to pee because the minute they’re out of the room, the remaining three will start bitching!”
“They look like such sweet old ladies,” Saffy said.
“I’m telling you, I’m surprised they’ve not developed any urinary tract infections!”
Then, a few days ago, I got a call from my mother. “Jason, dear,” she began. “Your father and I are in Switzerland, and we’re about to jump off a mountain. I don’t want you to worry, but just in case, this is where we’ve hidden the jewels…”
As I later complained to everyone on Facebook, the way my mother started the whole conversation, it sounded that she and Father were about to put in motion a double-suicide pact in a glamorous location. “I have aged 10 years!” I posted.
It turned out that my parents had recently joined an over-60 leisure group that did exciting, life-threatening things like parachuting and abseiling. And now, the group had jetted off to Interlakken in Switzerland where they got to jump off a sheer cliff and hang-glide around the lake. Just the thing for a man on his second pace-maker, my sister observed when I told her. “I hope she told you where they kept the wills!”
“She said that you only die once!” I reported.
“So what, now she Jane bloody Bond?” my sister said. You could tell she was getting agitated.
Amanda thinks my parents are heroic. “They’re living life to the full! When was the last time any of us did something like that?” she demanded. “I wake up, go to work, come home. I have the occasional date, but I spend most of my time watching ‘American Idol’. Meanwhile, your parents are diving off mountains! It’s inspirational, I tell you! We’re the old people! We should learn from your parents!”
Saffy looked doubtful. “Can’t just start with some ballroom dancing first?”
Me, I've got bigger fish to fry. I'm going to go dig up some family jewels from our garden.
These days, their idea of an exciting evening out is to watch an R-rated movie at the cinema. Sometimes, this involves a bit of blood and guts – they loved “300” – but who knew that my mother would enjoy “Saw” so much that she’s recently came home with the DVD box-set? And there was an anxious moment when my father thought his pace-maker had stopped right in the middle of “Ring” in the scene where that girl with all that hair rises out of the water.
When Ang Lee’s “Lust, Caution” came out a few years ago, my mother said to my father, “Let’s go watch this. I hear it’s very art-house and nostalgic.”
Apparently, all went well with the first third of the movie when the handsome group of terrorists was trooping all over Shanghai and Hong Kong, but then when the first of the sex scenes came on, Mother actually screamed.
“And not in a good way either,” my father later said to my sister. Michelle replied that it was thoughtless comments like that which explained why all his children had grown up with severe emotional issues.
“Aiyoh!” Mother moaned the next afternoon to her mahjong group. “You could see everything! Even Tony Leung’s pee-gu!”
“Eeee!” said my Auntie Wai-ling. “Are you sure or not? Pong! Where got such thing?”
“Ay, I must go watch this movie then. Worth my movie ticket!” said Auntie Ming.
“I’m telling you, it was disgusting!” Mother said firmly, with a delicious shiver. “Young people today just have no shame! Can you imagine having sex with someone you’re not married to, in front of a director and his rolling camera?”
There was a brief embarrassed silence when Mother suddenly realized that Auntie Kwai at the table had divorced her husband for precisely that reason, except in his case, he and his trollop of a secretary had been using a hand-held Sony-Cam – and according to reliable eye-witnesses of the movie, ie the mahjong group, the shaky picture quality left a lot to be desired.
“I really need to join your mother’s mahjong sessions,” Saffy said the other day.
“It sounds like so much fun!”
I grunted. “It’s a vicious group,” I said. “They’ve been playing for years and they know every secret there is to know about each other. They’re all best friends but they’re scared to leave the table to pee because the minute they’re out of the room, the remaining three will start bitching!”
“They look like such sweet old ladies,” Saffy said.
“I’m telling you, I’m surprised they’ve not developed any urinary tract infections!”
Then, a few days ago, I got a call from my mother. “Jason, dear,” she began. “Your father and I are in Switzerland, and we’re about to jump off a mountain. I don’t want you to worry, but just in case, this is where we’ve hidden the jewels…”
As I later complained to everyone on Facebook, the way my mother started the whole conversation, it sounded that she and Father were about to put in motion a double-suicide pact in a glamorous location. “I have aged 10 years!” I posted.
It turned out that my parents had recently joined an over-60 leisure group that did exciting, life-threatening things like parachuting and abseiling. And now, the group had jetted off to Interlakken in Switzerland where they got to jump off a sheer cliff and hang-glide around the lake. Just the thing for a man on his second pace-maker, my sister observed when I told her. “I hope she told you where they kept the wills!”
“She said that you only die once!” I reported.
“So what, now she Jane bloody Bond?” my sister said. You could tell she was getting agitated.
Amanda thinks my parents are heroic. “They’re living life to the full! When was the last time any of us did something like that?” she demanded. “I wake up, go to work, come home. I have the occasional date, but I spend most of my time watching ‘American Idol’. Meanwhile, your parents are diving off mountains! It’s inspirational, I tell you! We’re the old people! We should learn from your parents!”
Saffy looked doubtful. “Can’t just start with some ballroom dancing first?”
Me, I've got bigger fish to fry. I'm going to go dig up some family jewels from our garden.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Career prospects
Not to sound like my mother, but kids these days have it easy when it comes to their careers. They can be almost anything they want. When I was growing up, there were only three acceptable professions: lawyer, banker or doctor. And by doctor, my mother meant a real doctor. Not a dentist. And by banker, she meant a vice-president, not the guy sitting behind the teller looking bored as he shuffled money through the machine. If you deviated from that holy trinity, Mother would walk around the house for months clutching her heart and grimacing in pain.
“After all we’ve sacrificed for you, this is how you repay us!” she told my brother Jack after he said that he wanted to be architect. “You could at least become an engineer!” In the end, Jack became an art teacher and on the day he graduated, Mother cancelled her week’s mahjong sessions and took to bed with a splitting migraine.
How the world has changed since then. Today, little Alice can come home and announce that she wants to become a musician and immediately the parents have images of her CD at the top of the charts. Or if little Meng says he likes cars, daddy will start fantasizing about a career in F1.
It’s fascinating to imagine how our lives would have turned out if we’d had the same choice of careers while growing up. And at a party the other day, the topic came up between the seventh margarita and the fifth vodka shot.
“I thhhink I would have been a fash…uhm…fashion model,” my flatmate Amanda slurred modestly while sprawled on the sofa. “I have amazing cheekbones!”
“And you also have such lovely long legs!” Saffy said, her face turning pink.
“Oh, that’s so sweet of you! You really think I have nice legs?” Amanda stretched her legs and peered down. You could see several guys shift uncomfortably in their seats.
“They’re fabulous!” Saffy insisted.
“What would you be if you had your life all over again, Saffy?” someone asked.
“I’d probably be a princess!”
In the gathering quiet, faces screwed up as brains tried to connect with ears and eyes tried to focus.
Eventually, someone else said, “That’s not a profession, surely? Don’t you have to be born into a royal family or something?”
Saffy’s formidable bosom shifted. “Oh, that’s too much hard work. I would have just married a prince. I think Prince William is a total fox!”
“Losing his hair though,” said Amanda, regular reader of the gossip magazines.
“OK, his hunky brother Harry, then!”
There was a general rumble of agreement on that point and everyone agreed that Saffy would have made a terrific princess, if only her ridiculously short-sighted parents hadn’t insisted that she enrolled in a management course at university, and now she was forever stuck as a lowly paid, unappreciated HR manager.
“But it could have been worse,” Saffy said, sniffling into her gin and tonic. “I could have been a…a…oooh…what do you call those people?”
“Astronauts?” Amanda hazarded.
“Noooo…”
“Uhm, a gardener?” someone else guessed, as Saffy gestured wildly.
“No! No! Those people! You know! Those people who do that thing with their fingers!” Saffy made pinching motions.
“Oh, I know! I know! Prostitutes!” I shouted. And got hit several times with a sofa cushion.
This went on for a while before finally someone said, “Do you mean beauty therapists?”
Saffy beamed with pleasure. “That’s it! Beauty therapish…therapist! Oh, I would hate to do their job!”
“Vile!”Amanda agreed.
“Listen, if there is a more vile job out there, I can’t think of it!” Saffy declared. “Imagine spending your whole day pressing crap out of people’s noses and chins!” Saffy’s fingers pinched and squeezed the air as everyone at the party turned their minds towards a lifetime of pore extraction.
The next morning, the three of us sat at the dining table, feeling very sorry for ourselves and passing around the bottle of Panadol.
“Someone please stop the world from spinning!” Amanda moaned.
“I’m never touching alcohol ever again,” Saffy swore. “What’s wrong with you, Jason?”
I gingerly touched my face. “My nose hurts.”
Amanda leaned forward and peered. “Hmm, it’s a bit red. Especially around the chin and…”
You could feel the world spin to a stop as the events of the previous night caught up with our hangovers. Suddenly, I got flashes of Saffy’s face looming large over me and people laughing and cheering. Amanda frowned as she thought. Meanwhile, Saffy stared at me and then down at her fingers. Snapshots of memory slid treacherously into place.
We started screaming at the same time.
“After all we’ve sacrificed for you, this is how you repay us!” she told my brother Jack after he said that he wanted to be architect. “You could at least become an engineer!” In the end, Jack became an art teacher and on the day he graduated, Mother cancelled her week’s mahjong sessions and took to bed with a splitting migraine.
How the world has changed since then. Today, little Alice can come home and announce that she wants to become a musician and immediately the parents have images of her CD at the top of the charts. Or if little Meng says he likes cars, daddy will start fantasizing about a career in F1.
It’s fascinating to imagine how our lives would have turned out if we’d had the same choice of careers while growing up. And at a party the other day, the topic came up between the seventh margarita and the fifth vodka shot.
“I thhhink I would have been a fash…uhm…fashion model,” my flatmate Amanda slurred modestly while sprawled on the sofa. “I have amazing cheekbones!”
“And you also have such lovely long legs!” Saffy said, her face turning pink.
“Oh, that’s so sweet of you! You really think I have nice legs?” Amanda stretched her legs and peered down. You could see several guys shift uncomfortably in their seats.
“They’re fabulous!” Saffy insisted.
“What would you be if you had your life all over again, Saffy?” someone asked.
“I’d probably be a princess!”
In the gathering quiet, faces screwed up as brains tried to connect with ears and eyes tried to focus.
Eventually, someone else said, “That’s not a profession, surely? Don’t you have to be born into a royal family or something?”
Saffy’s formidable bosom shifted. “Oh, that’s too much hard work. I would have just married a prince. I think Prince William is a total fox!”
“Losing his hair though,” said Amanda, regular reader of the gossip magazines.
“OK, his hunky brother Harry, then!”
There was a general rumble of agreement on that point and everyone agreed that Saffy would have made a terrific princess, if only her ridiculously short-sighted parents hadn’t insisted that she enrolled in a management course at university, and now she was forever stuck as a lowly paid, unappreciated HR manager.
“But it could have been worse,” Saffy said, sniffling into her gin and tonic. “I could have been a…a…oooh…what do you call those people?”
“Astronauts?” Amanda hazarded.
“Noooo…”
“Uhm, a gardener?” someone else guessed, as Saffy gestured wildly.
“No! No! Those people! You know! Those people who do that thing with their fingers!” Saffy made pinching motions.
“Oh, I know! I know! Prostitutes!” I shouted. And got hit several times with a sofa cushion.
This went on for a while before finally someone said, “Do you mean beauty therapists?”
Saffy beamed with pleasure. “That’s it! Beauty therapish…therapist! Oh, I would hate to do their job!”
“Vile!”Amanda agreed.
“Listen, if there is a more vile job out there, I can’t think of it!” Saffy declared. “Imagine spending your whole day pressing crap out of people’s noses and chins!” Saffy’s fingers pinched and squeezed the air as everyone at the party turned their minds towards a lifetime of pore extraction.
The next morning, the three of us sat at the dining table, feeling very sorry for ourselves and passing around the bottle of Panadol.
“Someone please stop the world from spinning!” Amanda moaned.
“I’m never touching alcohol ever again,” Saffy swore. “What’s wrong with you, Jason?”
I gingerly touched my face. “My nose hurts.”
Amanda leaned forward and peered. “Hmm, it’s a bit red. Especially around the chin and…”
You could feel the world spin to a stop as the events of the previous night caught up with our hangovers. Suddenly, I got flashes of Saffy’s face looming large over me and people laughing and cheering. Amanda frowned as she thought. Meanwhile, Saffy stared at me and then down at her fingers. Snapshots of memory slid treacherously into place.
We started screaming at the same time.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Lo Tech
It’s a little known fact that while I have the memory of an elephant for song lyrics (who else on this planet can sing flawlessly the first two verses of the Ewok Celebration Song?*), when it comes to technology, I might as well still be beating a jungle drum. You could send me off to a one week boot-camp on how to download an iTune, but at the end of the week, I’ll be back to sticking a CD into the player.
Saffy, on the other hand, is a freak of nature. This is the girl who once got lost for half an hour in Raffles Place MRT station (“Why are there so many levels in this place!” she screamed at me on the handphone) but put her in front of a machine, and she’s Rain Man. When Amanda’s laptop suddenly went blank, Saffy tapped a few buttons, keyed in a string of code, rebooted and all was well again. If an alien space-ship ever crash landed on Earth, she could probably repair, and then fly it back home while filing her nails.
“I don’t know how I do it,” Saffy said recently when she fixed our aging desk top computer. “It must be sheer natural talent. Now if only I could apply those skills to finding me a husband!”
Meanwhile, I’ve got my eye on the iPhone. Everyone I know has one. Even Ah Chuan, our fierce, semi-literate cleaning lady has one. In between mopping our floors, she can be seen busy flipping screens with her callused fingers. For the longest time, we wondered what she was doing until one day Amanda plucked up the courage to ask her.
“Apparently, she’s checking the stock market!” she reported that night.
“She owns shares?” I asked.
“Seems that way. And she says she’s making a killing, especially on her pharmaceuticals.”
“We pay her enough to own shares?” Saffy asked, looking thoroughly dissatisfied at Life’s unequal distribution of wealth.
The point is, we seem to be the only ones on the planet without an iPhone. But for different reasons. Amanda just got a phone from Prada and is reluctant to, in her words, trade down. Saffy says she doesn’t have two cents to rub together, and I, of course, am afraid that I won’t even know how to open the box in which the phone comes.
And I just know that the minute I fork over a year’s salary to buy the phone and then spent literally weeks learning how to turn it on, a new model will come out on the market.
And now, of course, there’s the Kindle. Everyone is talking about it. I’ve seen a few people on the MRT reading on it. And I love that it can hold thousands of books. Imagine going on holiday and just packing that thin machine instead of my usual pile of magazines and novels.
A few days ago, I came home to find Ah Chuan sitting at the dining table surrounded by mops and buckets of detergent.
“I’m not slacking, I’m resting!” she screamed at me the minute I walked in. “It’s incredible how you young people are so untidy and dirty!”
“I think you’re talking about Saffy,” I replied coolly in a combination of fractured Cantonese, Mandarin and Hakka. “I’m very clean and tidy. It’s practically a sickness!”
“You three are my weirdest employers! It’s a good thing I like you!” Ah Chuan shouted. “Do you want me to fix you lunch? I was just playing with my new toy!”
Which was when I noticed that our $10 an hour cleaning lady was fiddling with the latest version of the Kindle.
“She’s got a Kindle?” Amanda asked incredulously that night.
“Apparently, she’s learning English on it.”
“My God, how much are we paying that woman?” Saffy huffed.
“It’s just so unfair,” I complained, “that I can walk into any room and immediately, the tech quotient in the room drops by 75 points!”
“These days when I walk into a room, men just turn away,” Saffy said morosely. “What’s that all about?”
Amanda thinks we should just buck up and confront our fears. “It’s a phone, not the Space Shuttle!” she said firmly to me. And to Saffy, she said, “Men are just animals with a dumb-stick between their legs!”
Saffy blinked. You could tell her brain was turning.
I said, “Huh.”
Yesterday, Saffy asked John from HR out on a date. Meanwhile, here I am standing in front of the Apple store. I’m trying to be brave. And very softly, I’m humming the Ewok Celebration Song.
* If anyone is interested, this is the link to the Ewok Celebration Song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUWk1WBfDP8
Saffy, on the other hand, is a freak of nature. This is the girl who once got lost for half an hour in Raffles Place MRT station (“Why are there so many levels in this place!” she screamed at me on the handphone) but put her in front of a machine, and she’s Rain Man. When Amanda’s laptop suddenly went blank, Saffy tapped a few buttons, keyed in a string of code, rebooted and all was well again. If an alien space-ship ever crash landed on Earth, she could probably repair, and then fly it back home while filing her nails.
“I don’t know how I do it,” Saffy said recently when she fixed our aging desk top computer. “It must be sheer natural talent. Now if only I could apply those skills to finding me a husband!”
Meanwhile, I’ve got my eye on the iPhone. Everyone I know has one. Even Ah Chuan, our fierce, semi-literate cleaning lady has one. In between mopping our floors, she can be seen busy flipping screens with her callused fingers. For the longest time, we wondered what she was doing until one day Amanda plucked up the courage to ask her.
“Apparently, she’s checking the stock market!” she reported that night.
“She owns shares?” I asked.
“Seems that way. And she says she’s making a killing, especially on her pharmaceuticals.”
“We pay her enough to own shares?” Saffy asked, looking thoroughly dissatisfied at Life’s unequal distribution of wealth.
The point is, we seem to be the only ones on the planet without an iPhone. But for different reasons. Amanda just got a phone from Prada and is reluctant to, in her words, trade down. Saffy says she doesn’t have two cents to rub together, and I, of course, am afraid that I won’t even know how to open the box in which the phone comes.
And I just know that the minute I fork over a year’s salary to buy the phone and then spent literally weeks learning how to turn it on, a new model will come out on the market.
And now, of course, there’s the Kindle. Everyone is talking about it. I’ve seen a few people on the MRT reading on it. And I love that it can hold thousands of books. Imagine going on holiday and just packing that thin machine instead of my usual pile of magazines and novels.
A few days ago, I came home to find Ah Chuan sitting at the dining table surrounded by mops and buckets of detergent.
“I’m not slacking, I’m resting!” she screamed at me the minute I walked in. “It’s incredible how you young people are so untidy and dirty!”
“I think you’re talking about Saffy,” I replied coolly in a combination of fractured Cantonese, Mandarin and Hakka. “I’m very clean and tidy. It’s practically a sickness!”
“You three are my weirdest employers! It’s a good thing I like you!” Ah Chuan shouted. “Do you want me to fix you lunch? I was just playing with my new toy!”
Which was when I noticed that our $10 an hour cleaning lady was fiddling with the latest version of the Kindle.
“She’s got a Kindle?” Amanda asked incredulously that night.
“Apparently, she’s learning English on it.”
“My God, how much are we paying that woman?” Saffy huffed.
“It’s just so unfair,” I complained, “that I can walk into any room and immediately, the tech quotient in the room drops by 75 points!”
“These days when I walk into a room, men just turn away,” Saffy said morosely. “What’s that all about?”
Amanda thinks we should just buck up and confront our fears. “It’s a phone, not the Space Shuttle!” she said firmly to me. And to Saffy, she said, “Men are just animals with a dumb-stick between their legs!”
Saffy blinked. You could tell her brain was turning.
I said, “Huh.”
Yesterday, Saffy asked John from HR out on a date. Meanwhile, here I am standing in front of the Apple store. I’m trying to be brave. And very softly, I’m humming the Ewok Celebration Song.
* If anyone is interested, this is the link to the Ewok Celebration Song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUWk1WBfDP8
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Idol Worship
I don't care what anyone says, but American Idol rocks! If you're having a bad day or feeling sorry for yourself, you just need to watch the auditions. I swear, there's nothing like a good laugh at other people's delusions to put your own problems into perspective.
Venus Trap
The other day, our friend Mavis threw a housewarming party in Holland Village and invited us along.
“Just bring a bottle of wine and nothing else!” she commanded. “I have too many things as it is. I don’t need more stuff.”
Saffy was perplexed, unable to conceive of anyone who would say ‘No’ to a free present. “I love stuff,” she said firmly. “If any of you ever feel the need to give me stuff, don’t hesitate. Now, Amanda, what are you wearing to this party?”
By the time we showed up on the day, the party was in full swing. The lighting was flatteringly low. The balcony doors were swung open to the cool evening. The guests were a glamorous mix of long haired beauties, cool looking nerds and buff models. Meanwhile, the dining table was laden with bottles of tequila, gin, wines and vast bowls of corn chips.
“This girl knows how to throw a party,” Amanda said approvingly, and immediately caught the eye of a guy on the far side of the room who looked like he’d just stepped off the runway.
Saffy clung to my arm. “Whatever you do, don’t let me near those corn chips!” she pleaded. “You know what I’m like. I can’t stop at just one!”
I pulled away. “You’re on your own. I just spotted booze.”
A few hours later, I found myself sitting on my own, one hand on a glass and the other clutching a bottle of gin. And at the other end of the table, Saffy was foraging around the bottom of a bowl of corn chips while moaning, “Oh my God. I can’t believe I just add this whole bowl! Oh my God!”
And that was when Amanda materialized out of the gloom. Saffy’s antennae for drama, never offline even when she was in a state of carb, fat and salt-induced shock, sat up. “What’s the matter? You look like you just watched the growing old scene in ‘Up’!”
“Nothing,” Amanda whispered as she looked helplessly around the table for a clean cup. And the tears started to flow in great fat drops. Saffy carefully pushed the bowl of corn chips aside and went to Amanda, gently pulling her outside the apartment where we sat on the stairs and waited for the tears to stop.
It turned out that some of the girls at the party had made rather disparaging comments about Amanda. Apparently, no one had bothered to be discrete. “SPG” and a word that rhymed with “switch” had been uttered.
Saffy’s formidable bosom inflated to a dangerous volume as she struggled to get up. “Which ones? Show me! Those fat cows. Someone is going to be pushed off a balcony tonight! No, don’t try to stop me! Let go of me! Seriously, let go! My God, Amanda, how did you get to be so freakishly strong?”
As I later said to Karl over a beer at our local bar, if there’s one thing Saffy is really good at, it’s her uncanny ability to muscle her way into any good drama and seize the spotlight.
“But what did Amanda do though?” asked Karl who’s always had a crush on her.
“She’s beautiful,” I said flatly. “That’s all she did. This happens all the time. She just has to show up at a party and every woman in that room will immediately start to hate her just a little. And if they have a husband or a boyfriend, they’ll make sure she doesn’t get beyond ‘Hello’. And if she talks to a guy is single and unattached, they’ll hate her even more.”
Karl looked shocked. “But, but…that’s just like…”
“That’s just like high school,” I finished. “And the fact that she’s totally unaware of her own beauty makes other women hate her just that little bit more.”
“Huh.” Karl peered into his beer. “I had no idea. I’m just trying to think now what happens when a good looking guy walks into a room.”
“I think you’d just feel a little bit of envy and then drink some more beer. Guys aren’t very complicated that way. Or so I’m told.”
What I didn’t tell Karl was that after Saffy had calmed down at Mavis’s party, she’d gone back in and identified the mean girls. Then she went downstairs to a payphone and called the police and told them there were illegal prostitutes in Mavis’s flat. She gave very precise descriptions of the girls. We left the party just as the first police car pulled up.
Amanda says she hopes she never falls out with Saffy. I’m just glad I’m not a woman.
“Just bring a bottle of wine and nothing else!” she commanded. “I have too many things as it is. I don’t need more stuff.”
Saffy was perplexed, unable to conceive of anyone who would say ‘No’ to a free present. “I love stuff,” she said firmly. “If any of you ever feel the need to give me stuff, don’t hesitate. Now, Amanda, what are you wearing to this party?”
By the time we showed up on the day, the party was in full swing. The lighting was flatteringly low. The balcony doors were swung open to the cool evening. The guests were a glamorous mix of long haired beauties, cool looking nerds and buff models. Meanwhile, the dining table was laden with bottles of tequila, gin, wines and vast bowls of corn chips.
“This girl knows how to throw a party,” Amanda said approvingly, and immediately caught the eye of a guy on the far side of the room who looked like he’d just stepped off the runway.
Saffy clung to my arm. “Whatever you do, don’t let me near those corn chips!” she pleaded. “You know what I’m like. I can’t stop at just one!”
I pulled away. “You’re on your own. I just spotted booze.”
A few hours later, I found myself sitting on my own, one hand on a glass and the other clutching a bottle of gin. And at the other end of the table, Saffy was foraging around the bottom of a bowl of corn chips while moaning, “Oh my God. I can’t believe I just add this whole bowl! Oh my God!”
And that was when Amanda materialized out of the gloom. Saffy’s antennae for drama, never offline even when she was in a state of carb, fat and salt-induced shock, sat up. “What’s the matter? You look like you just watched the growing old scene in ‘Up’!”
“Nothing,” Amanda whispered as she looked helplessly around the table for a clean cup. And the tears started to flow in great fat drops. Saffy carefully pushed the bowl of corn chips aside and went to Amanda, gently pulling her outside the apartment where we sat on the stairs and waited for the tears to stop.
It turned out that some of the girls at the party had made rather disparaging comments about Amanda. Apparently, no one had bothered to be discrete. “SPG” and a word that rhymed with “switch” had been uttered.
Saffy’s formidable bosom inflated to a dangerous volume as she struggled to get up. “Which ones? Show me! Those fat cows. Someone is going to be pushed off a balcony tonight! No, don’t try to stop me! Let go of me! Seriously, let go! My God, Amanda, how did you get to be so freakishly strong?”
As I later said to Karl over a beer at our local bar, if there’s one thing Saffy is really good at, it’s her uncanny ability to muscle her way into any good drama and seize the spotlight.
“But what did Amanda do though?” asked Karl who’s always had a crush on her.
“She’s beautiful,” I said flatly. “That’s all she did. This happens all the time. She just has to show up at a party and every woman in that room will immediately start to hate her just a little. And if they have a husband or a boyfriend, they’ll make sure she doesn’t get beyond ‘Hello’. And if she talks to a guy is single and unattached, they’ll hate her even more.”
Karl looked shocked. “But, but…that’s just like…”
“That’s just like high school,” I finished. “And the fact that she’s totally unaware of her own beauty makes other women hate her just that little bit more.”
“Huh.” Karl peered into his beer. “I had no idea. I’m just trying to think now what happens when a good looking guy walks into a room.”
“I think you’d just feel a little bit of envy and then drink some more beer. Guys aren’t very complicated that way. Or so I’m told.”
What I didn’t tell Karl was that after Saffy had calmed down at Mavis’s party, she’d gone back in and identified the mean girls. Then she went downstairs to a payphone and called the police and told them there were illegal prostitutes in Mavis’s flat. She gave very precise descriptions of the girls. We left the party just as the first police car pulled up.
Amanda says she hopes she never falls out with Saffy. I’m just glad I’m not a woman.
Saturday, January 09, 2010
Name Dropping
When I was in school, I remember thinking that Americans gave their children strange names. “Whitney Houston?” I asked my best friend, Paul when we were browsing in HMV. “What kind of a name is that?”
“It’s an African-American name,” said Paul who, even at 15, knew everything in a way that, if it had been anyone else, would have made you look for the nearest bus to push him in front of. “They like unusual names, like Toni and Oprah, Maya, Tellulah, Dinah, Mariah and Aretha.”
“Huh.”
I went home and told my mother. She sniffed that the Americans had nothing on the Chinese. “Your Auntie Mary just called her baby girl Precious Jade, and let me tell you that there’s nothing precious nor jade-like about that ugly child!” To which my horrified father said that this was not the sort of thing one said in front of impressionable children like his son.
“Well, it’s true!” my mother went on stubbornly. “Have you seen that baby? Well, I have and you’d have to be blind to name her Precious Jade!”
As it turned out, Precious Jade grew up to be juvenile delinquent and when she was hauled before the magistrate’s court for breaking and entering our local library, Mother was triumphant.
“Stupid Rock would have been a better name for her!” she said. “Who’d ever heard of anyone trying to rob a local council library? What, did she think there was a big black market for the 1994 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary? Poor Auntie Mary, I must call to see how she’s coping with this scandal!”
And then, one day, after I was all grown up, I visited my brother Jack in Hong Kong, and that was when I found new champions in the category of “What Were Your Parents Thinking When They Named You That?”
At a party thrown by my brother, I was introduced to a pair of identical twin girls wearing matching Chanel boots and a Karl Lagerfeld dress. (I know they were Chanel and Karl Lagerfeld because my sister was with me, and she can spot a label from ten paces.)
“Jason, I want you to meet…” Jack paused and pursed his lip in an effort not to laugh, “…I want you to meet the lovely Yuan sisters, Million and Billion.”
I blinked. “Uh, hello?”
“You can call us Milly and Billy!” the girls sang in their melodic Hong Kong accent.
“Wait a minute,” my sister said. “Your names are Million and Billion?”
“Yes!”
“Million and Billion Yuan?”
“Yes!”
From across the room, Jack shouted, “And their surname is written just like the currency!”
Two days ago, my flatmate Saffy came back from her friend Jane’s baby shower. “Can I just say that it’s taken me an hour to get home from Jurong East? I feel like I should have brought my passport!” Her formidable bosom rose like shifting continental plates.
“How was the baby shower?” I asked.
Saffy paused. “I don’t want to be rude, but some people have some very strange ideas about what’s acceptable to call their children. Jane’s expecting twins, as you know, and guess what she’s going to call them?”
I waited.
Saffy stared at me. “Guess!” she said, finally.
“Oh, you weren’t being rhetorical! Uhm, Million and Billion?” I hazarded.
“Not even!” Saffy puffed. “Even those would have been acceptable names. No, she and that dolt husband of her’s are going for, wait for it, Messiah and Concept!”
You could practically see the italics hanging in the air.
It turned out that Jane is an editor at a magazine and two of the interns working there are called Messiah and Concept, and she’s so taken by the names she’s going to call her off-spring the same things.
It’s all Saffy has been able to talk about since then. “Messiah? Isn’t that a lot of pressure to place on a child?” she posted on Facebook.
“What if he grows up to be a bus driver?” she wondered aloud this morning at breakfast. “Or what if he has a lisp? A lisping Messiah! How uninspiring would that be? Or what if Concept turns out to have the IQ of a door-knob?”
What I wanted to know, I said, was what Jane thought the other kids at school would do to her children the minute their names were announced to the class.
“If they’d been in my class when I was growing up, they’d never have survived to recess,” Saffy said firmly. “Did I tell you when I was in the third grade, I made five boys in my class cry?”
Their crime: they were making fun of her name.
“It’s an African-American name,” said Paul who, even at 15, knew everything in a way that, if it had been anyone else, would have made you look for the nearest bus to push him in front of. “They like unusual names, like Toni and Oprah, Maya, Tellulah, Dinah, Mariah and Aretha.”
“Huh.”
I went home and told my mother. She sniffed that the Americans had nothing on the Chinese. “Your Auntie Mary just called her baby girl Precious Jade, and let me tell you that there’s nothing precious nor jade-like about that ugly child!” To which my horrified father said that this was not the sort of thing one said in front of impressionable children like his son.
“Well, it’s true!” my mother went on stubbornly. “Have you seen that baby? Well, I have and you’d have to be blind to name her Precious Jade!”
As it turned out, Precious Jade grew up to be juvenile delinquent and when she was hauled before the magistrate’s court for breaking and entering our local library, Mother was triumphant.
“Stupid Rock would have been a better name for her!” she said. “Who’d ever heard of anyone trying to rob a local council library? What, did she think there was a big black market for the 1994 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary? Poor Auntie Mary, I must call to see how she’s coping with this scandal!”
And then, one day, after I was all grown up, I visited my brother Jack in Hong Kong, and that was when I found new champions in the category of “What Were Your Parents Thinking When They Named You That?”
At a party thrown by my brother, I was introduced to a pair of identical twin girls wearing matching Chanel boots and a Karl Lagerfeld dress. (I know they were Chanel and Karl Lagerfeld because my sister was with me, and she can spot a label from ten paces.)
“Jason, I want you to meet…” Jack paused and pursed his lip in an effort not to laugh, “…I want you to meet the lovely Yuan sisters, Million and Billion.”
I blinked. “Uh, hello?”
“You can call us Milly and Billy!” the girls sang in their melodic Hong Kong accent.
“Wait a minute,” my sister said. “Your names are Million and Billion?”
“Yes!”
“Million and Billion Yuan?”
“Yes!”
From across the room, Jack shouted, “And their surname is written just like the currency!”
Two days ago, my flatmate Saffy came back from her friend Jane’s baby shower. “Can I just say that it’s taken me an hour to get home from Jurong East? I feel like I should have brought my passport!” Her formidable bosom rose like shifting continental plates.
“How was the baby shower?” I asked.
Saffy paused. “I don’t want to be rude, but some people have some very strange ideas about what’s acceptable to call their children. Jane’s expecting twins, as you know, and guess what she’s going to call them?”
I waited.
Saffy stared at me. “Guess!” she said, finally.
“Oh, you weren’t being rhetorical! Uhm, Million and Billion?” I hazarded.
“Not even!” Saffy puffed. “Even those would have been acceptable names. No, she and that dolt husband of her’s are going for, wait for it, Messiah and Concept!”
You could practically see the italics hanging in the air.
It turned out that Jane is an editor at a magazine and two of the interns working there are called Messiah and Concept, and she’s so taken by the names she’s going to call her off-spring the same things.
It’s all Saffy has been able to talk about since then. “Messiah? Isn’t that a lot of pressure to place on a child?” she posted on Facebook.
“What if he grows up to be a bus driver?” she wondered aloud this morning at breakfast. “Or what if he has a lisp? A lisping Messiah! How uninspiring would that be? Or what if Concept turns out to have the IQ of a door-knob?”
What I wanted to know, I said, was what Jane thought the other kids at school would do to her children the minute their names were announced to the class.
“If they’d been in my class when I was growing up, they’d never have survived to recess,” Saffy said firmly. “Did I tell you when I was in the third grade, I made five boys in my class cry?”
Their crime: they were making fun of her name.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Separation Anxiety
A few days ago, my friend Jane rang to tell me she and Peter were divorcing.
“It’s just not working out,” she sighed. “We can’t even stand being in the same room together anymore.”
First of all, what do you say to someone who’s divorcing a man she first dated way back in high school?
“They’re getting divorced?” Amanda gasped, her pretty eyes wide.
“Is that even legal in Singapore?” Saffy wondered aloud.
Who saw this coming? No one. If Barack and Michelle Obama had been born Chinese, they would have looked like Jane and Peter. If they weren’t actually such nice people, you’d have hated them and looked for the nearest staircase to push them down. She was tall and pretty with long lustrous ebony hair, and was captain of the netball team. He was tall, buff with a perpetual tan as well as being captain of the hockey team.
Everyone loved them. When Peter’s mother died in our third year of high school, all the cleaning ladies showed up at the funeral crying hysterically. And you could just tell that, one day, they were going to live in a house with a garden, a dog, and a SUV filled with gorgeous children who played the violin and had IQs in the high 100s.
After high school, they went away to university, Jane to Cambridge to study medicine, and Peter to Oxford to read philosophy. And when they got married on a beach in the Maldives…well, my point is, divorce was never on the cards for these two.
“What do you mean they grew apart?” Amanda demanded. “How is that possible? He’s gorgeous!”
“Jane says she feels suffocated by Peter,” I reported.
“That woman is crazy! I’d give anything to be suffocated by Peter!” Saffy sighed, her magnificent bosom swelling at the fantasy.
For days after, it was all the girls could talk about. Much of the discussion centred around the idea that – in spite of the Tiffany commercials to which they were both hopelessly addicted – love might not, in fact, be forever. After all, if anyone was going to make it forever, it was meant to be this Golden Couple. And if this was the case, that love was just a momentary lapse in judgment, it then threw into question the whole point of dating and looking for Mr Right. Especially if after all that work, everyone was going to end up in some stuffy, expensive lawyer’s office dividing up the assets, planning visitation schedules for the children and then, if you were like Madonna, starting the whole dating process all over again.
As Saffy observed with her usual penetrating insight, “How depressing would that be?”
A few days later, the girls had afternoon tea with Jane. To their surprise, she looked radiant. “It’s such a relief to finally admit that we’re not right for each other,” Jane confided. “He was just irritating the hell out of me!”
Amanda looked flustered. “But, but…But you were so much in love!”
Jane rolled her eyes. “You’ve obviously never been married. Love doesn’t last. It’s replaced by routine. Because what nobody tells you is just how much hard work a relationship is! And when you have kids, you’re lucky if you even have two minutes of quality time together. I think I’ll take some time off, go to Bali and meditate. I need some me-time, I think,” she said wistfully.
Saffy looked pained. This was obviously not what she wanted to hear because it made her wonder just why she spent each Friday night primping for a date and the following week waiting for the guy to call her. As she later posted on Facebook: “If it’s all going to end in divorce, I should just take up a cookery course. It would be so much more USEFUL!”
Meanwhile, I had a drink with Peter. He too looked rested and relaxed. “I can’t believe we stayed married for so long!” he grinned as he gulped down his beer. I said that divorce obviously suited him. “You bet. I’ve been on three dates this week!” he grinned, while I choked into my gin and tonic. “It’s good to be back on the market!”
“He’s already dating?” Amanda squealed. “But he’s just gotten divorced!”
This morning, Saffy headed out to get a new outfit. “Uhm, I need new clothes,” she explained vaguely, while Amanda picked up the phone to book a facial. I’m thinking I should warn Peter. He won’t stand a chance. But then, it’s his fault for getting divorced in the first place.
“It’s just not working out,” she sighed. “We can’t even stand being in the same room together anymore.”
First of all, what do you say to someone who’s divorcing a man she first dated way back in high school?
“They’re getting divorced?” Amanda gasped, her pretty eyes wide.
“Is that even legal in Singapore?” Saffy wondered aloud.
Who saw this coming? No one. If Barack and Michelle Obama had been born Chinese, they would have looked like Jane and Peter. If they weren’t actually such nice people, you’d have hated them and looked for the nearest staircase to push them down. She was tall and pretty with long lustrous ebony hair, and was captain of the netball team. He was tall, buff with a perpetual tan as well as being captain of the hockey team.
Everyone loved them. When Peter’s mother died in our third year of high school, all the cleaning ladies showed up at the funeral crying hysterically. And you could just tell that, one day, they were going to live in a house with a garden, a dog, and a SUV filled with gorgeous children who played the violin and had IQs in the high 100s.
After high school, they went away to university, Jane to Cambridge to study medicine, and Peter to Oxford to read philosophy. And when they got married on a beach in the Maldives…well, my point is, divorce was never on the cards for these two.
“What do you mean they grew apart?” Amanda demanded. “How is that possible? He’s gorgeous!”
“Jane says she feels suffocated by Peter,” I reported.
“That woman is crazy! I’d give anything to be suffocated by Peter!” Saffy sighed, her magnificent bosom swelling at the fantasy.
For days after, it was all the girls could talk about. Much of the discussion centred around the idea that – in spite of the Tiffany commercials to which they were both hopelessly addicted – love might not, in fact, be forever. After all, if anyone was going to make it forever, it was meant to be this Golden Couple. And if this was the case, that love was just a momentary lapse in judgment, it then threw into question the whole point of dating and looking for Mr Right. Especially if after all that work, everyone was going to end up in some stuffy, expensive lawyer’s office dividing up the assets, planning visitation schedules for the children and then, if you were like Madonna, starting the whole dating process all over again.
As Saffy observed with her usual penetrating insight, “How depressing would that be?”
A few days later, the girls had afternoon tea with Jane. To their surprise, she looked radiant. “It’s such a relief to finally admit that we’re not right for each other,” Jane confided. “He was just irritating the hell out of me!”
Amanda looked flustered. “But, but…But you were so much in love!”
Jane rolled her eyes. “You’ve obviously never been married. Love doesn’t last. It’s replaced by routine. Because what nobody tells you is just how much hard work a relationship is! And when you have kids, you’re lucky if you even have two minutes of quality time together. I think I’ll take some time off, go to Bali and meditate. I need some me-time, I think,” she said wistfully.
Saffy looked pained. This was obviously not what she wanted to hear because it made her wonder just why she spent each Friday night primping for a date and the following week waiting for the guy to call her. As she later posted on Facebook: “If it’s all going to end in divorce, I should just take up a cookery course. It would be so much more USEFUL!”
Meanwhile, I had a drink with Peter. He too looked rested and relaxed. “I can’t believe we stayed married for so long!” he grinned as he gulped down his beer. I said that divorce obviously suited him. “You bet. I’ve been on three dates this week!” he grinned, while I choked into my gin and tonic. “It’s good to be back on the market!”
“He’s already dating?” Amanda squealed. “But he’s just gotten divorced!”
This morning, Saffy headed out to get a new outfit. “Uhm, I need new clothes,” she explained vaguely, while Amanda picked up the phone to book a facial. I’m thinking I should warn Peter. He won’t stand a chance. But then, it’s his fault for getting divorced in the first place.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
High Resolution
So it’s nearly the end of the year as I write this. I’m still in London, I’m still cold, it’s not even 4.30pm and it’s already pitch dark outside. So I’m staying indoors and thinking about the new year.
Soon, it'll be 2010. A brand new year. And a brand new decade. Which is as good a time as any to assess my life so far. I do this every year. I look back. Take stock of what I did right. What I did wrong. Get depressed. Get drunk. Wake up the next day with a hangover and swear I’ll never do anything that stupid again.
I remember there was a time when I’d get on a bus, look around me, and smugly realize that I was the youngest person on board. The Future stretched ahead of me. And it was filled with Plans. Big Plans.
One year, I came home from school and told my mother that I wanted to be an astro-physicist. She looked up from the mahjong table, her hands not missing a beat as she clicked and clacked the tiles into neat stacks. “I bet you can’t even spell the word!” she said.
My sister Michelle says it’s a miracle that none of us turned into homicidal maniacs with a penchant for home-made explosive devices.
Looking back, I see my mother’s point though. Between the ages of seven and 17, I changed career plans the way Madonna changes her hair colour. Who could keep up?
When I was 8, I wanted to be a doctor and discover the cure for cancer. Two years later, I wanted to be a paranormal investigator. And when I was 13, I watched an illegal DVD of ‘Speed’ and told my father that I was going to be a bomb-disposal expert. My mother overhead the comment and said, “But you’re colour-blind! Guess what’s going to happen when you snip the wrong coloured wire? Kaboom!” Her fingers, dazzling with diamonds, danced in the air.
The day I graduated from Law School, my mother was practically catatonic with sheer happiness. “Finally!” she said to me in the car on the way home from the graduation ceremony. And that’s all she said. But I knew she was proud as hell because the children of her mahjong kaki told me they were sick of their mothers coming home and berating them for being such useless layabouts when May-Ling Hahn’s son had become a lawyer.
The day I announced I was leaving private practice to become a freelance writer, my mother didn’t attend her afternoon mahjong session. All her friends were convinced she had died and called the police.
These days, when I get on the bus, I realize I am no longer the youngest person on the bus. Sometimes, kids call me “uncle” and I suddenly realize that the big Future that once stretched ahead of me is now in my Past.
But the bigger question is this: What have I done with my life? If I got run over by a bus today, would my last thought be: “I’ve had a great time, I have no regrets! Oooh, what’s that bright shining light?” Or would it be: “Are you kidding me? I skipped dessert and now I’m dying? Oooh, what’s that bright shining light?”
I think I’ve done well, especially this past year. I’ve written for a whole bunch of magazines. My editors seem to like me. Well, they’re returning my calls – and, in Singapore, lemme tell ya, that’s a big deal. Sure, I’ve not made a whole tonne of money, especially compared to my legal days, but I make enough to pay the rent, go on holiday and still have some left over to stash away for a rainy day.
My flatmate Saffy thinks I’m over-analysing things. “Listen,” she said the other day, her fabulous bosom straining over a super tight tee-shirt that declared ‘My eyes aren’t here!’
“This whole taking stock in the new year’s is too depressing. Life’s too short. You gotta live it, grab it by the balls and hang on! That’s what I do!” she said with immense satisfaction.
“Yes, and you wonder why your dates never call the next day!” Amanda sighed.
Saffy giggled and waved her napkin at Amanda. “No, I’m serious! You can’t control your destiny. Every day is Life’s way of surprising you. What you do with that surprise is up to you.”
Amanda later said that just when you thought you were totally done under-estimating Saffy, she turned around and surprised you with depth.
Me, I’ve decided to call my mother more often. And to stop taking the bus.
Happy Christmas, everyone.
Soon, it'll be 2010. A brand new year. And a brand new decade. Which is as good a time as any to assess my life so far. I do this every year. I look back. Take stock of what I did right. What I did wrong. Get depressed. Get drunk. Wake up the next day with a hangover and swear I’ll never do anything that stupid again.
I remember there was a time when I’d get on a bus, look around me, and smugly realize that I was the youngest person on board. The Future stretched ahead of me. And it was filled with Plans. Big Plans.
One year, I came home from school and told my mother that I wanted to be an astro-physicist. She looked up from the mahjong table, her hands not missing a beat as she clicked and clacked the tiles into neat stacks. “I bet you can’t even spell the word!” she said.
My sister Michelle says it’s a miracle that none of us turned into homicidal maniacs with a penchant for home-made explosive devices.
Looking back, I see my mother’s point though. Between the ages of seven and 17, I changed career plans the way Madonna changes her hair colour. Who could keep up?
When I was 8, I wanted to be a doctor and discover the cure for cancer. Two years later, I wanted to be a paranormal investigator. And when I was 13, I watched an illegal DVD of ‘Speed’ and told my father that I was going to be a bomb-disposal expert. My mother overhead the comment and said, “But you’re colour-blind! Guess what’s going to happen when you snip the wrong coloured wire? Kaboom!” Her fingers, dazzling with diamonds, danced in the air.
The day I graduated from Law School, my mother was practically catatonic with sheer happiness. “Finally!” she said to me in the car on the way home from the graduation ceremony. And that’s all she said. But I knew she was proud as hell because the children of her mahjong kaki told me they were sick of their mothers coming home and berating them for being such useless layabouts when May-Ling Hahn’s son had become a lawyer.
The day I announced I was leaving private practice to become a freelance writer, my mother didn’t attend her afternoon mahjong session. All her friends were convinced she had died and called the police.
These days, when I get on the bus, I realize I am no longer the youngest person on the bus. Sometimes, kids call me “uncle” and I suddenly realize that the big Future that once stretched ahead of me is now in my Past.
But the bigger question is this: What have I done with my life? If I got run over by a bus today, would my last thought be: “I’ve had a great time, I have no regrets! Oooh, what’s that bright shining light?” Or would it be: “Are you kidding me? I skipped dessert and now I’m dying? Oooh, what’s that bright shining light?”
I think I’ve done well, especially this past year. I’ve written for a whole bunch of magazines. My editors seem to like me. Well, they’re returning my calls – and, in Singapore, lemme tell ya, that’s a big deal. Sure, I’ve not made a whole tonne of money, especially compared to my legal days, but I make enough to pay the rent, go on holiday and still have some left over to stash away for a rainy day.
My flatmate Saffy thinks I’m over-analysing things. “Listen,” she said the other day, her fabulous bosom straining over a super tight tee-shirt that declared ‘My eyes aren’t here!’
“This whole taking stock in the new year’s is too depressing. Life’s too short. You gotta live it, grab it by the balls and hang on! That’s what I do!” she said with immense satisfaction.
“Yes, and you wonder why your dates never call the next day!” Amanda sighed.
Saffy giggled and waved her napkin at Amanda. “No, I’m serious! You can’t control your destiny. Every day is Life’s way of surprising you. What you do with that surprise is up to you.”
Amanda later said that just when you thought you were totally done under-estimating Saffy, she turned around and surprised you with depth.
Me, I’ve decided to call my mother more often. And to stop taking the bus.
Happy Christmas, everyone.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Clean Break
The other day, my friend Patricia came over to lunch. I stirred a spoonful of sambal belachan that my Auntie Wai-ling had given me into a pot of oil, threw in a handful of spaghetti and ten minutes later, set a plate of sambal pasta before her.
“Mmm, this smells divine,” Patricia sighed with pleasure. You can always spot a Peranakan girl a mile away. Then she extracted a tissue from her pocket, picked up her fork and wiped it.
I blinked. “What are you doing?”
She looked up and caught me staring at her polishing my clean fork. “Oh!” she said giggling. “Sorry, lah. I forgot where I was!”
Later, I recounted the story to Amanda who said that obviously Patricia had not had a home cooked meal since forever, if she had such an ingrained reflex action. “Poor thing! What on earth are her parents doing all day?” Saffy said she’d have scratched out Patricia’s eyes.
“I’m sure she didn’t mean to be insulting,” Amanda said reasonably.
Saffy’s bosom inflated. “I don’t care. I’ve never liked her. And I don’t trust her. She’s too thin and pretty.”
If nothing else, the episode reminded me that we live in a germ infested world and that for many people, you just can never be too careful or too clean.
Whenever she returns from an overseas trip, Amanda will carefully wipe down her luggage with a dish cloth rinsed with Dettol. As she once pointed out, “My suitcase might be Prada, but it’s spent a lot of time with other crappy pieces of luggage in the airplane hold, and who knows where they’ve been? Cheap hostels and filthy Third World pavements, I’m sure.” She shuddered delicately.
I bring my own towel whenever I travel. People laugh at me, but I really don’t care. All I can say is that the next time you’re at the hotel’s check-in desk, take a good look at the other guests and then imagine wiping your face with a towel that they’ve been using.
And, as Saffy once pointed out – speaking as someone who’d been on more than a few dirty weekends with horny boyfriends in her life – who knows what else they’ve used the towel to wipe down?
And when I get into my hotel room, the first thing I do is wipe down the telephone, remote control, light switches and toilet seat (in that order) with my trusty Lysol disinfectant spray.
Meanwhile, it used to confuse all of us why Saffy took such a long time in the toilet. “What have you been doing in there!” Amanda once cried when Saffy finally emerged from the toilets at the Shaw Centre cinema. “We’ve missed the opening credits!”
“I had to find a clean toilet! Some of the stalls had remnants in them, and some of them were wet! Really, I want to see how these people live at home! Do not tell me that they leave puddles at home too. One of the toilet seats actually had foot-prints on it! Do you mean that someone was actually standing on the seat?”
“I told you to go when we were at the Grand Hyatt!”
“But I didn’t want to go then! And this is another reason why I can’t go on a holiday to China!”
But according to Saffy, what takes longest is the lining of the toilet seat. After selecting the most suitable cubicle, she will carefully lay strips of toilet paper onto the seat. “Ideally, you need a cushion about three layers deep,” she explained. “You’d need more if the toilet paper is one of those cheap, useless tracing paper squares. And when I’ve done all that, I can sit down and relax.”
“But Saffy, you’re just peeing!” Amanda said, her voice rising several octaves. (I’ve always said you can tell the woman has a Type A personality. You can’t look that good and naturally air-brushed without being in tight control of your life.)
“Peeing cannot be rushed,” Saffy replied serenely, like a yogi dispensing life-changing wisdom.
A few days ago, Patricia rang to apologise for wiping down her cutlery at our lunch. “I’m so embarrassed when I think about it! I didn’t mean to imply that your kitchen was dirty. It’s a force of habit from always eating in a hawker stall.”
Amanda said at least Patricia hadn’t put a packet of tissue paper on our dining room chairs. “But otherwise, such good manners!” she said with approval.
“I still don’t like her,” Saffy said stubbornly. “I bet she’s the kind of girl who rushes her peeing.”
“Mmm, this smells divine,” Patricia sighed with pleasure. You can always spot a Peranakan girl a mile away. Then she extracted a tissue from her pocket, picked up her fork and wiped it.
I blinked. “What are you doing?”
She looked up and caught me staring at her polishing my clean fork. “Oh!” she said giggling. “Sorry, lah. I forgot where I was!”
Later, I recounted the story to Amanda who said that obviously Patricia had not had a home cooked meal since forever, if she had such an ingrained reflex action. “Poor thing! What on earth are her parents doing all day?” Saffy said she’d have scratched out Patricia’s eyes.
“I’m sure she didn’t mean to be insulting,” Amanda said reasonably.
Saffy’s bosom inflated. “I don’t care. I’ve never liked her. And I don’t trust her. She’s too thin and pretty.”
If nothing else, the episode reminded me that we live in a germ infested world and that for many people, you just can never be too careful or too clean.
Whenever she returns from an overseas trip, Amanda will carefully wipe down her luggage with a dish cloth rinsed with Dettol. As she once pointed out, “My suitcase might be Prada, but it’s spent a lot of time with other crappy pieces of luggage in the airplane hold, and who knows where they’ve been? Cheap hostels and filthy Third World pavements, I’m sure.” She shuddered delicately.
I bring my own towel whenever I travel. People laugh at me, but I really don’t care. All I can say is that the next time you’re at the hotel’s check-in desk, take a good look at the other guests and then imagine wiping your face with a towel that they’ve been using.
And, as Saffy once pointed out – speaking as someone who’d been on more than a few dirty weekends with horny boyfriends in her life – who knows what else they’ve used the towel to wipe down?
And when I get into my hotel room, the first thing I do is wipe down the telephone, remote control, light switches and toilet seat (in that order) with my trusty Lysol disinfectant spray.
Meanwhile, it used to confuse all of us why Saffy took such a long time in the toilet. “What have you been doing in there!” Amanda once cried when Saffy finally emerged from the toilets at the Shaw Centre cinema. “We’ve missed the opening credits!”
“I had to find a clean toilet! Some of the stalls had remnants in them, and some of them were wet! Really, I want to see how these people live at home! Do not tell me that they leave puddles at home too. One of the toilet seats actually had foot-prints on it! Do you mean that someone was actually standing on the seat?”
“I told you to go when we were at the Grand Hyatt!”
“But I didn’t want to go then! And this is another reason why I can’t go on a holiday to China!”
But according to Saffy, what takes longest is the lining of the toilet seat. After selecting the most suitable cubicle, she will carefully lay strips of toilet paper onto the seat. “Ideally, you need a cushion about three layers deep,” she explained. “You’d need more if the toilet paper is one of those cheap, useless tracing paper squares. And when I’ve done all that, I can sit down and relax.”
“But Saffy, you’re just peeing!” Amanda said, her voice rising several octaves. (I’ve always said you can tell the woman has a Type A personality. You can’t look that good and naturally air-brushed without being in tight control of your life.)
“Peeing cannot be rushed,” Saffy replied serenely, like a yogi dispensing life-changing wisdom.
A few days ago, Patricia rang to apologise for wiping down her cutlery at our lunch. “I’m so embarrassed when I think about it! I didn’t mean to imply that your kitchen was dirty. It’s a force of habit from always eating in a hawker stall.”
Amanda said at least Patricia hadn’t put a packet of tissue paper on our dining room chairs. “But otherwise, such good manners!” she said with approval.
“I still don’t like her,” Saffy said stubbornly. “I bet she’s the kind of girl who rushes her peeing.”
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Cold Comfort
You probably can’t tell, but I’m writing this while sitting in a very cold flat in London. Incredibly, my sister, who lived here for years, says that there’s never been any heating. She says every spring, summer, autumn and winter she complained to my parents, but they always refused to send over a cheque to install a new heater.
“You complain every month?” I once asked her. “Even in summer?”
Michelle sniffed and said that it’s always cold in London and that summer happens just one day a year. Too bad if you’re out of town when it happens. “Last year, summer happened on a Wednesday. This year, it was yesterday.”
So, this morning, with the thermometer reading 5 degrees, I wrapped myself up in every piece of clothing I could find in the flat and added a blanket, trudged downstairs and knocked on my neighbour’s flat. This cranky old biddy answered the door.
“Who is it?” she demanded.
“Sorry, Mrs Lord, it’s me, but is your heating on?”
“Go away! I have no spare change!”
“It’s Jason, Mrs Lord! I live upstairs!” I shouted, suddenly remembering that not only does Mrs Lord have advanced dementia, she’s also stone deaf. “I’ve been coming here every summer since I was three. I once peed on your couch. Remember?”
The old cow scowled at me. “Please go away! I’m not interested in your Scientology rubbish!” Then, she slammed the door in my face. The breeze from the force made me even colder.
I don’t know what it is with the English and the cold, but they just don’t seem to notice it. You just have to wander the streets and you’ll see people walking around in thin shirts and flimsy jackets. They don’t seem remotely cold, I think enviously, as I wish I’d worn a fifth layer of thermal underwear.
(The English also don’t believe in umbrellas. It could be pouring and people just walk around hunched over. The weirdest thing is that they never seem to get wet. Meanwhile, the only people scurrying around with an umbrella are the Asians. The slightest hint of precipitation and the Asian will pop open an umbrella. If you go to Chinatown when it’s raining, you’re at risk of getting your eyes poked out by an umbrella. It’s just like being in Singapore which is why I feel very much at home in Chinatown. Even if the dim sum is generally rubbish.)
So, anyway, I’m cold. It’s the dead of winter in London, the heater doesn’t work and I’m cold. I tried whacking the heater with a spanner like they do in the movies, but no joy. And of course, since the heater is connected to the boiler, there’s also no hot water.
Have you ever taken a shower when the ambient temperature indoors is 5 degrees and every time you open your mouth to say “Aiyoh”, the air is frosty? If you haven’t, you should really try it one day. It’s character building as my mother would say.
“I’m convinced we’re adopted,” my sister said to me the other day when she rang to see how I was surviving. “She would never put up with this, but somehow, we’re expected to! We should report her to the police.”
In spite of myself, I giggled at the image of our mother wearing blue prison overalls and slumming it in the slammer. In my defence, the cold does strange things to people.
“I’ve had to shower in the gym down the road,” I reported, my teeth chattering only slightly. “Thank God someone has kept up the membership fees on that place! How did you survive here all these years?”
“Don’t get me started,” Michelle said grimly. “Why do you think the linen cupboard is stacked high with hot water bottles?”
All I can say is that I will never again complain about the heat. Saffy Skyped me morning to say that it was nice and warm in Singapore. “Lemme tell ya,” she said, her ample bosom inflating with an unexpected 3-D quality, “if I’d been one of those early pioneer explorers, England would never have been found! Why would anyone voluntarily go and live there, I wonder? And there’s no fried beehoon there, right?”
I paused and thought. “No, not that I know of.”
Saffy sighed. “There you go then. I couldn’t live there. My constipation would just turn to a block of solid ice inside me, and I’d topple over and die!”
Amanda SMS’d me: “How does Saffy turn every conversation around to her problems?”
I’m so cold, I really don’t care anymore.
“You complain every month?” I once asked her. “Even in summer?”
Michelle sniffed and said that it’s always cold in London and that summer happens just one day a year. Too bad if you’re out of town when it happens. “Last year, summer happened on a Wednesday. This year, it was yesterday.”
So, this morning, with the thermometer reading 5 degrees, I wrapped myself up in every piece of clothing I could find in the flat and added a blanket, trudged downstairs and knocked on my neighbour’s flat. This cranky old biddy answered the door.
“Who is it?” she demanded.
“Sorry, Mrs Lord, it’s me, but is your heating on?”
“Go away! I have no spare change!”
“It’s Jason, Mrs Lord! I live upstairs!” I shouted, suddenly remembering that not only does Mrs Lord have advanced dementia, she’s also stone deaf. “I’ve been coming here every summer since I was three. I once peed on your couch. Remember?”
The old cow scowled at me. “Please go away! I’m not interested in your Scientology rubbish!” Then, she slammed the door in my face. The breeze from the force made me even colder.
I don’t know what it is with the English and the cold, but they just don’t seem to notice it. You just have to wander the streets and you’ll see people walking around in thin shirts and flimsy jackets. They don’t seem remotely cold, I think enviously, as I wish I’d worn a fifth layer of thermal underwear.
(The English also don’t believe in umbrellas. It could be pouring and people just walk around hunched over. The weirdest thing is that they never seem to get wet. Meanwhile, the only people scurrying around with an umbrella are the Asians. The slightest hint of precipitation and the Asian will pop open an umbrella. If you go to Chinatown when it’s raining, you’re at risk of getting your eyes poked out by an umbrella. It’s just like being in Singapore which is why I feel very much at home in Chinatown. Even if the dim sum is generally rubbish.)
So, anyway, I’m cold. It’s the dead of winter in London, the heater doesn’t work and I’m cold. I tried whacking the heater with a spanner like they do in the movies, but no joy. And of course, since the heater is connected to the boiler, there’s also no hot water.
Have you ever taken a shower when the ambient temperature indoors is 5 degrees and every time you open your mouth to say “Aiyoh”, the air is frosty? If you haven’t, you should really try it one day. It’s character building as my mother would say.
“I’m convinced we’re adopted,” my sister said to me the other day when she rang to see how I was surviving. “She would never put up with this, but somehow, we’re expected to! We should report her to the police.”
In spite of myself, I giggled at the image of our mother wearing blue prison overalls and slumming it in the slammer. In my defence, the cold does strange things to people.
“I’ve had to shower in the gym down the road,” I reported, my teeth chattering only slightly. “Thank God someone has kept up the membership fees on that place! How did you survive here all these years?”
“Don’t get me started,” Michelle said grimly. “Why do you think the linen cupboard is stacked high with hot water bottles?”
All I can say is that I will never again complain about the heat. Saffy Skyped me morning to say that it was nice and warm in Singapore. “Lemme tell ya,” she said, her ample bosom inflating with an unexpected 3-D quality, “if I’d been one of those early pioneer explorers, England would never have been found! Why would anyone voluntarily go and live there, I wonder? And there’s no fried beehoon there, right?”
I paused and thought. “No, not that I know of.”
Saffy sighed. “There you go then. I couldn’t live there. My constipation would just turn to a block of solid ice inside me, and I’d topple over and die!”
Amanda SMS’d me: “How does Saffy turn every conversation around to her problems?”
I’m so cold, I really don’t care anymore.
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Waxing Lyrical
Call me So Last Century, but I’d never been terribly bothered with waxing. Why bother, I asked: it’s an exercise in abject futility since the hair will grow back faster than you can say “Simon Cowell”.
So here’s the thing. If you read trashy gossip mags with the same religious devotion that I do, you’ll have seen those photos of Simon’s suddenly all-white, fuzz-free hands. One minute, he had Hairy Gorilla paw, and the next, it was all gone. It’s all over the newspapers in London and it’s all anyone can talk about. Iraq War? Debt crisis in Dubai? Child poverty? Global warming? What?
I know people who get waxed with the regularity you would normally associate with the Pope and Mass. Any sign of hair, and they’ll wax it off. No area on the body is off limits. Nostril hair, ear hair, between the eyebrows, on the back of fingers, arms, back (and all the other body parts that rhyme with ‘back’ – you go figure it out), legs, toes. And of course, the va-jay-jay.
My flatmates Saffy and Amanda have spent a small fortune on waxing their bodies; though, in Saffy’s case, she has almost no body hair to speak of (none that are visible to polite company, anyway), so I figure she shows up at her waxing salon every two weeks just for a chat.
“When was the last time you got waxed?” Amanda asked me the other day at lunch.
“Since never,” I said smugly. “And think of all the money I’ve saved!”
Amanda’s pretty nose wrinkled as if something had crawled under our dining table and died. “It’s a wonder you’ve not been deported.”
Just then, her handphone rang. She clicked it on and even before she could bring it to her ear, I could hear Saffy’s scream: “Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!”
“Saf, calm down!” Amanda instructed sternly. “What’s happened? Uh huh. Uh huh. Yes? Uh huh. Ooh, that’s nice. Uh huh…Oh. No! What?...Ohmygodohmygod! How did that happen? Stay there, I’m on my way!”
I could tell that something wonderfully dramatic had just happened, but Amanda was practically incoherent as she grabbed her handbag and rushed out the door, all the while shouting, “Ohmygod!”
“Why is there always so much drama in your flat?” Karl asked me later over drinks.
“Isn’t it stressful?”
“Only if it involves me. But it’s all great material for my column. I swear you couldn’t make this kind of thing up,” I said as I proceeded to tell him what happened.
It turned out that Saffy had arrived at her waxing salon for her bi-weekly Brazilian. Only this time, she’d decided that she wanted to try something new. Just her luck that her regular wax therapist was on holiday and she was assigned a new girl.
“From China!” Saffy said darkly much later. “She might as well have been from the North Pole for all her comprehension of English!” Apparently, she’d told Xiao Wei that she wanted to prune her South of the Border into the shape of an upside-down triangle. She even drew a diagram and shaded in the triangle. “This is what I want!” she told Xiao Wei, while stabbing the paper with her pencil.
Xiao Wei peered at the diagram and nodded. “OK. I can do.”
So Saffy lay back and day-dreamed of, as she tends to do these days, Robert Pattinson while Xiao Wei got on with the job. And when she announced that she was done, Saffy sat up with great satisfaction and peered down. There was a pause. Then she started screaming. And she didn’t stop screaming till Amanda arrived.
“Look what she did!” she shouted and promptly dropped the towel she was wearing. Amanda gasped. Poor Xiao Wei was, by this time, a blubbering mess. “But you say you want a triangle!” she cried.
“Yes, but I want hair in the triangle!” Saffy screamed back. “You’ve done the opposite! That’s why I shaded in the triangle! To show where I wanted hair! Why would I want to have a hairless triangle? Who does that? Can we sue? I want to sue!” she shouted at Amanda who was still staring at Saffy’s oddly landscaped va-jay-jay with horror.
“Imagine if Saffy had done IPL instead!” Amanda later told me. “At least it will all grow back eventually.”
But Saffy still wants to sue even though the salon has offered her free waxing for life. “What if I’d been prepping for a hot date?” she asked. I wanted to add, especially if that hot date had been Simon Cowell, but the look in Saffy’s hunted eyes stopped me.
So here’s the thing. If you read trashy gossip mags with the same religious devotion that I do, you’ll have seen those photos of Simon’s suddenly all-white, fuzz-free hands. One minute, he had Hairy Gorilla paw, and the next, it was all gone. It’s all over the newspapers in London and it’s all anyone can talk about. Iraq War? Debt crisis in Dubai? Child poverty? Global warming? What?
I know people who get waxed with the regularity you would normally associate with the Pope and Mass. Any sign of hair, and they’ll wax it off. No area on the body is off limits. Nostril hair, ear hair, between the eyebrows, on the back of fingers, arms, back (and all the other body parts that rhyme with ‘back’ – you go figure it out), legs, toes. And of course, the va-jay-jay.
My flatmates Saffy and Amanda have spent a small fortune on waxing their bodies; though, in Saffy’s case, she has almost no body hair to speak of (none that are visible to polite company, anyway), so I figure she shows up at her waxing salon every two weeks just for a chat.
“When was the last time you got waxed?” Amanda asked me the other day at lunch.
“Since never,” I said smugly. “And think of all the money I’ve saved!”
Amanda’s pretty nose wrinkled as if something had crawled under our dining table and died. “It’s a wonder you’ve not been deported.”
Just then, her handphone rang. She clicked it on and even before she could bring it to her ear, I could hear Saffy’s scream: “Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!”
“Saf, calm down!” Amanda instructed sternly. “What’s happened? Uh huh. Uh huh. Yes? Uh huh. Ooh, that’s nice. Uh huh…Oh. No! What?...Ohmygodohmygod! How did that happen? Stay there, I’m on my way!”
I could tell that something wonderfully dramatic had just happened, but Amanda was practically incoherent as she grabbed her handbag and rushed out the door, all the while shouting, “Ohmygod!”
“Why is there always so much drama in your flat?” Karl asked me later over drinks.
“Isn’t it stressful?”
“Only if it involves me. But it’s all great material for my column. I swear you couldn’t make this kind of thing up,” I said as I proceeded to tell him what happened.
It turned out that Saffy had arrived at her waxing salon for her bi-weekly Brazilian. Only this time, she’d decided that she wanted to try something new. Just her luck that her regular wax therapist was on holiday and she was assigned a new girl.
“From China!” Saffy said darkly much later. “She might as well have been from the North Pole for all her comprehension of English!” Apparently, she’d told Xiao Wei that she wanted to prune her South of the Border into the shape of an upside-down triangle. She even drew a diagram and shaded in the triangle. “This is what I want!” she told Xiao Wei, while stabbing the paper with her pencil.
Xiao Wei peered at the diagram and nodded. “OK. I can do.”
So Saffy lay back and day-dreamed of, as she tends to do these days, Robert Pattinson while Xiao Wei got on with the job. And when she announced that she was done, Saffy sat up with great satisfaction and peered down. There was a pause. Then she started screaming. And she didn’t stop screaming till Amanda arrived.
“Look what she did!” she shouted and promptly dropped the towel she was wearing. Amanda gasped. Poor Xiao Wei was, by this time, a blubbering mess. “But you say you want a triangle!” she cried.
“Yes, but I want hair in the triangle!” Saffy screamed back. “You’ve done the opposite! That’s why I shaded in the triangle! To show where I wanted hair! Why would I want to have a hairless triangle? Who does that? Can we sue? I want to sue!” she shouted at Amanda who was still staring at Saffy’s oddly landscaped va-jay-jay with horror.
“Imagine if Saffy had done IPL instead!” Amanda later told me. “At least it will all grow back eventually.”
But Saffy still wants to sue even though the salon has offered her free waxing for life. “What if I’d been prepping for a hot date?” she asked. I wanted to add, especially if that hot date had been Simon Cowell, but the look in Saffy’s hunted eyes stopped me.
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Comfort Zone
Relationships are funny things. When you’re single, you spend every waking minute wishing you were in one and stressing that you’re going to end up alone and living in a cardboard box under a bridge. And when you’re finally in one, you catch yourself – usually as you’re putting up the laundry, or screaming at the kids – wistfully thinking about the good old days when you were single and fancy free.
My mother always says that if she had her life all over again, she’d never have gotten married. And at some stage in our lives, she’s said this to each of my brother, sister and me: “You know, as I was lying there on the operating table trying to push you out of me, thinking that I’d rather be dead, I swore to myself that I’d never do it again. Ever! And look how much you’ve ended up costing us!”
I think she probably said it out of some misguided sense that she was helping us in some way, by imparting a valuable life lesson in staying single, footloose, and debt free. My sister has since spent her whole life complaining to her therapist: “My mother always considered me a cost centre! Seriously, it’s a wonder I’m not a bigger nut case!”
Meanwhile, as soon as he was able to walk, my brother tried to put as much distance as he could between himself and our parents. When he was 8, he sneaked out of the house and was found a mile away hiding under the table of our local pub. And when he turned 20, and got his hands on the first installment of our grandfather’s trust fund, he packed up a tiny rucksack and went trekking in Nepal.
“He’s so ungrateful,” my mother will complain to all her mahjong kaki. “Not even a postcard on my birthday.” On cue, her tai-tai friends will cluck, though I know for a fact that Mrs Yang recently disinherited her daughter on the dubious grounds that she’d married an Australian man, while Mrs Tang’s husband is having an affair with his twice divorced Indian secretary, so they should be the last people to be casting stones, if you ask me.
“This must be why I’m still single,” my sister moaned to me on Facebook the other day.
Which reminded me of the conversation my flatmate Amanda had with her girlfriend Sheryl.
Sheryl had been single for the longest time, but one drunken evening, at her firm’s end of financial year party, she woke up to find herself in bed with her boss. There’d been a lot of flirting going on over the course of the year and between the canapés and the champagne, inhibitions were shed and assorted sins were committed.
The morning after, Sheryl and her boss assessed the situation and decided that they rather enjoyed each other’s company and what they did after office hours was really nobody’s business but their own. Within six months, Sheryl had moved into his apartment. And on the eight month, he proposed. But here’s the kicker: she told Amanda over afternoon tea that though she’d told him that she loved him at least a million times, he’d never actually said it back to her.
Amanda blinked. “What, like never never?”
“Never,” Sheryl said firmly. “Sometimes he’ll say, ‘Aw, that’s sweet’. And the other day, he said, ‘Thank you’.”
Amanda gasped. “Oh my God! Do men still say that?”
“Apparently.”
But the best part was a recent declaration of ‘I love you’ by Sheryl, to which her boss slash fiancée replied, “Thank you. I feel very comfortable with you!”
Of course, the minute Amanda left Sheryl, she immediately speed-dialed Saffy.
“What is wrong with men?” Saffy wanted to know. “Why can’t they just say ‘I love you’ back? These are not difficult words to say! It’s a total of three lousy syllables.”
The subject haunted the girls for days and formed the subject of endless threads on Facebook. The unanimous female verdict was that men were basically scum. The hostile level was high until Peter calmly tapped out a comment: “Yes, but is this guy cheating on your friend, S? Does he physically, emotionally or verbally abuse her? Because if he doesn’t, then why are all you girls so hung up on whether or not he will say ‘I love you’?”
“Who is this Peter guy?” Saffy asked.
“He’s a friend of Marlene’s,” Amanda replied after she checked.
“Is he straight and single?”
“Apparently.”
“He makes an interesting point,”said Saffy. “I’m intrigued.” Later that night, she sent Peter a ‘Send Request’ friend app. “Maybe he’d like to get comfortable with me,” she said, hopefully.
My mother always says that if she had her life all over again, she’d never have gotten married. And at some stage in our lives, she’s said this to each of my brother, sister and me: “You know, as I was lying there on the operating table trying to push you out of me, thinking that I’d rather be dead, I swore to myself that I’d never do it again. Ever! And look how much you’ve ended up costing us!”
I think she probably said it out of some misguided sense that she was helping us in some way, by imparting a valuable life lesson in staying single, footloose, and debt free. My sister has since spent her whole life complaining to her therapist: “My mother always considered me a cost centre! Seriously, it’s a wonder I’m not a bigger nut case!”
Meanwhile, as soon as he was able to walk, my brother tried to put as much distance as he could between himself and our parents. When he was 8, he sneaked out of the house and was found a mile away hiding under the table of our local pub. And when he turned 20, and got his hands on the first installment of our grandfather’s trust fund, he packed up a tiny rucksack and went trekking in Nepal.
“He’s so ungrateful,” my mother will complain to all her mahjong kaki. “Not even a postcard on my birthday.” On cue, her tai-tai friends will cluck, though I know for a fact that Mrs Yang recently disinherited her daughter on the dubious grounds that she’d married an Australian man, while Mrs Tang’s husband is having an affair with his twice divorced Indian secretary, so they should be the last people to be casting stones, if you ask me.
“This must be why I’m still single,” my sister moaned to me on Facebook the other day.
Which reminded me of the conversation my flatmate Amanda had with her girlfriend Sheryl.
Sheryl had been single for the longest time, but one drunken evening, at her firm’s end of financial year party, she woke up to find herself in bed with her boss. There’d been a lot of flirting going on over the course of the year and between the canapés and the champagne, inhibitions were shed and assorted sins were committed.
The morning after, Sheryl and her boss assessed the situation and decided that they rather enjoyed each other’s company and what they did after office hours was really nobody’s business but their own. Within six months, Sheryl had moved into his apartment. And on the eight month, he proposed. But here’s the kicker: she told Amanda over afternoon tea that though she’d told him that she loved him at least a million times, he’d never actually said it back to her.
Amanda blinked. “What, like never never?”
“Never,” Sheryl said firmly. “Sometimes he’ll say, ‘Aw, that’s sweet’. And the other day, he said, ‘Thank you’.”
Amanda gasped. “Oh my God! Do men still say that?”
“Apparently.”
But the best part was a recent declaration of ‘I love you’ by Sheryl, to which her boss slash fiancée replied, “Thank you. I feel very comfortable with you!”
Of course, the minute Amanda left Sheryl, she immediately speed-dialed Saffy.
“What is wrong with men?” Saffy wanted to know. “Why can’t they just say ‘I love you’ back? These are not difficult words to say! It’s a total of three lousy syllables.”
The subject haunted the girls for days and formed the subject of endless threads on Facebook. The unanimous female verdict was that men were basically scum. The hostile level was high until Peter calmly tapped out a comment: “Yes, but is this guy cheating on your friend, S? Does he physically, emotionally or verbally abuse her? Because if he doesn’t, then why are all you girls so hung up on whether or not he will say ‘I love you’?”
“Who is this Peter guy?” Saffy asked.
“He’s a friend of Marlene’s,” Amanda replied after she checked.
“Is he straight and single?”
“Apparently.”
“He makes an interesting point,”said Saffy. “I’m intrigued.” Later that night, she sent Peter a ‘Send Request’ friend app. “Maybe he’d like to get comfortable with me,” she said, hopefully.
Friday, November 20, 2009
On the Blink of Extinction
These days, I try not to blink. Because I’m scared that, if I do, it’ll be New Year’s Eve, and there’s no way in hell that I’m ready for that yet.
Someone needs to tell me: How could it possibly be the end of the year already? Where did 2009 go? I actually remember it just being 1999. Back then – and excuse me if I sound like my grandmother – everyone was really excited about the year turning 2000. Y2K was on everyone’s mind. No one wanted to fly on New Year’s Eve just in case, when the clocks struck midnight, all the computers shut down, and Superman can only be in so many places at the one time.
Imagine if all the computers shut down today. Half the world’s population would drop dead from instant Facebook deprivation.
I started 2009 with so much hope and promise. There were so many projects I wanted to do. It was such an exciting time, though Amanda later pointed out that it was probably the champagne breakfast that made everything look so glossy and rosy.
“I’m going to brush up on my French,” I said on 1 January.
“Oooh, mais oui?” Saffy cooed. “Well, I’m going to lose three kilos! I am determined to fit into my skinny jeans again!”
“I’m going to find a boyfriend who adores me!” Amanda sighed blissfully.
Twelve months later, I can barely count to ten in French while Amanda is still wasting her time with the Cockroach, her long time on-again, off-again insectile looking boyfriend. “This is so incredibly depressing,” she said recently, her luxuriant hair vibrating with anger and missed opportunities. “Why am I still with that incredible loser? Why am I not working this out? I must be missing something. Because, seriously? I deserve a whole lot better. I’m beautiful, goddammit! And this kind of crap does not happen to beautiful people!"
To which Barney Chen posted on Amanda’s Facebook wall: “Oh yes, it does. Just look at Madonna!”
Meanwhile, Saffy…Well, let’s just say, it’s not looking so good in Saffyland.
She wandered into my room the other day, her face white as snow. “It’s not possible,” she breathed quietly. “How did I put on an extra two kilos? I’m supposed to lose three, not put on another two!”
“Well, you have been going to a few parties.”
“But I don’t ever eat anything at those parties. I just drink the free booze!”
I didn’t have the heart or nerve to tell her in person, so I went onto Google and emailed her several links to articles detailing the calorie count of your average Cosmopolitan, and gin and tonic.
This morning, Saffy announced that from now till January 1, she’s not eating any solids. “I’m just going to drink water and eat celery sticks,” she said with the kind of grim determination you normally associate with people who are about to get a face-lift and tummy tuck.
Amanda pulled a face. “Celery sticks? Why celery?”
“Because they have no calories in them. Apparently, you use up more calories just chewing them. So, it’s a win-win situation,” Saffy said. There was a haunted look in her eyes.
Not so random memory: When we were kids, the new year was such a magical event. In my books, it was way better than Christmas. Because somehow, in the space of seconds, we left behind the present. Yesterday, last week, last month, two seconds ago, last night…all these events suddenly, magically, became something called “last year” at the stroke of midnight. It was the coolest trick.
But marking the passing of another year is cool only when you’re five and the days seem so much longer. These days, I wake up, stumble into the bathroom, blink, and it’s the end of the day, and I have no idea what I’ve done all day. And increasingly, it seems to me that it’s not just the days that are disappearing without a trace; it’s also the years. At this rate, I’m going to be wearing adult nappies, hooked up to a respirator and eating jelly because no one can find my dentures.
“And the last words you hear won’t be ‘Good night, see you tomorrow’ but ‘Switch him off!’” Amanda said grimly.
Saffy says she doesn’t care if those are the last words she hears. “As long as I’m thin and can fit into my skinny jeans, you can say whatever you want to me just before I croak it!”
So no, I’m not looking forward to New Year’s Eve. I’m not ready. Which is why I’m not blinking.
Someone needs to tell me: How could it possibly be the end of the year already? Where did 2009 go? I actually remember it just being 1999. Back then – and excuse me if I sound like my grandmother – everyone was really excited about the year turning 2000. Y2K was on everyone’s mind. No one wanted to fly on New Year’s Eve just in case, when the clocks struck midnight, all the computers shut down, and Superman can only be in so many places at the one time.
Imagine if all the computers shut down today. Half the world’s population would drop dead from instant Facebook deprivation.
I started 2009 with so much hope and promise. There were so many projects I wanted to do. It was such an exciting time, though Amanda later pointed out that it was probably the champagne breakfast that made everything look so glossy and rosy.
“I’m going to brush up on my French,” I said on 1 January.
“Oooh, mais oui?” Saffy cooed. “Well, I’m going to lose three kilos! I am determined to fit into my skinny jeans again!”
“I’m going to find a boyfriend who adores me!” Amanda sighed blissfully.
Twelve months later, I can barely count to ten in French while Amanda is still wasting her time with the Cockroach, her long time on-again, off-again insectile looking boyfriend. “This is so incredibly depressing,” she said recently, her luxuriant hair vibrating with anger and missed opportunities. “Why am I still with that incredible loser? Why am I not working this out? I must be missing something. Because, seriously? I deserve a whole lot better. I’m beautiful, goddammit! And this kind of crap does not happen to beautiful people!"
To which Barney Chen posted on Amanda’s Facebook wall: “Oh yes, it does. Just look at Madonna!”
Meanwhile, Saffy…Well, let’s just say, it’s not looking so good in Saffyland.
She wandered into my room the other day, her face white as snow. “It’s not possible,” she breathed quietly. “How did I put on an extra two kilos? I’m supposed to lose three, not put on another two!”
“Well, you have been going to a few parties.”
“But I don’t ever eat anything at those parties. I just drink the free booze!”
I didn’t have the heart or nerve to tell her in person, so I went onto Google and emailed her several links to articles detailing the calorie count of your average Cosmopolitan, and gin and tonic.
This morning, Saffy announced that from now till January 1, she’s not eating any solids. “I’m just going to drink water and eat celery sticks,” she said with the kind of grim determination you normally associate with people who are about to get a face-lift and tummy tuck.
Amanda pulled a face. “Celery sticks? Why celery?”
“Because they have no calories in them. Apparently, you use up more calories just chewing them. So, it’s a win-win situation,” Saffy said. There was a haunted look in her eyes.
Not so random memory: When we were kids, the new year was such a magical event. In my books, it was way better than Christmas. Because somehow, in the space of seconds, we left behind the present. Yesterday, last week, last month, two seconds ago, last night…all these events suddenly, magically, became something called “last year” at the stroke of midnight. It was the coolest trick.
But marking the passing of another year is cool only when you’re five and the days seem so much longer. These days, I wake up, stumble into the bathroom, blink, and it’s the end of the day, and I have no idea what I’ve done all day. And increasingly, it seems to me that it’s not just the days that are disappearing without a trace; it’s also the years. At this rate, I’m going to be wearing adult nappies, hooked up to a respirator and eating jelly because no one can find my dentures.
“And the last words you hear won’t be ‘Good night, see you tomorrow’ but ‘Switch him off!’” Amanda said grimly.
Saffy says she doesn’t care if those are the last words she hears. “As long as I’m thin and can fit into my skinny jeans, you can say whatever you want to me just before I croak it!”
So no, I’m not looking forward to New Year’s Eve. I’m not ready. Which is why I’m not blinking.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Facing Facts
So after the longest time of holding out, I’ve finally succumbed to the Dark Side, otherwise known as Facebook.
“I don’t need to stay in touch with 500 people I don’t know,” I would tell anyone who asked. “I have trouble staying in touch with the two people I already live with!”
“Please don’t tell anyone you’re touching me!” Saffy SMS’d me once.
But one rainy Sunday, when there was nothing on television and I’d already read my latest copy of 8DAYS from cover to cover, I found myself signing up for a Facebook account. Just to see what the fuss was all about. And also because you know something is not quite right with the universe when your mother emails to ask why you’re not on Facebook.
People must have installed some kind of a ‘Jason is now finally on Facebook!’ alert, because within minutes, messages began popping up on my screen. Many, from people I’d not seen or heard from for years. And quite a few from what I was convinced were complete strangers, possibly stalkers or potential mass murderers looking for fresh new victims.
Surely they couldn’t have been waiting for me to sign on, I wondered.
“Wah, what took you so long?” Melinda Goh wrote.
I sat for a while wracking my brain trying to remember who the hell Melinda Goh was. Absent mindedly, I clicked on the ‘Confirm’ as friend button, figuring I’ll work it out eventually. Later that night, after watching ‘Single White Female’ on DVD, I got up out of bed, logged onto Facebook and removed Melinda Goh.
“I can’t believe you’re actually on Facebook! Welcome!” Jenny Tan fluted across the internet.
“Post something on your Wall!” Darren instructed.
I stared at the screen a bit longer. And then picked up the phone.
“I don’t know what to say on my Wall!” I said to Saffy.
“Hang on, I’m coming to your room,” Saffy said as she opened my bedroom door, a little breathless from the exercise of walking 15 feet. She flopped down in the chair next to me. “Really, how you ever evolved from a tadpole, I’ll never know. Just say anything!”
“Like what?”
“Just say, ‘Sunday blues’ and then hit ‘Share’!”
“And what would that do?”
Saffy’s bosom deflated. Obviously, I was a lost cause. “You don’t have to do or say anything meaningful!” she sighed. “Facebook is just an excuse for people to waste time and be sociable! It’s sharing whatever is going on with you right now. I just posted a YouTube link about a Rottweiler puppy with the hiccups.”
“Why?”
“I thought it was cute. It’s just like a diary where you record things that interest you, or just reflect your state of mind at the time. Only all your friends get to read about it.”
“And that’s fun?” I asked.
“Sometimes, it’s better than sex,” Saffy replied firmly. “Ooh look, there’s your mother! She’s got a lovely profile picture! All that bling! Let’s see how many friends she has,” she said, her fingers clicking expertly over the keyboard. “375!"
My sister wrote to me (on email) saying that it was really depressing that our 60 year old mother had more friends than her three children combined. I replied it was really depressing that I still hadn’t posted anything on my Wall besides ‘Sunday blues’ which generated 35 comments, most of which ranged from the inane (‘Ya, me too!’) to the positively imbecilic (‘Sunday got colour, meh?’). That last one was from Melinda Goh, before I removed her from my friends list.
My cousin David posted a picture of a traffic jam that he was stuck in. I commented that I hoped he had both hands on his steering wheel, and as soon as I hit ‘Share’, I realized how much that made me sound like my naggy Aunt Carla. I spent the next day tortured that I should have included a smiley face in my comment.
I somehow wonder if I’ve missed the boat on Facebook. I still don’t get it. All my friends seem to spend their whole lives on it. I was at a dinner the other evening and Mike would whip out his Blackberry every time a course arrived and tap on the keyboard for a few seconds. After a while, I asked, “You’re not Facebooking this dinner are you?”
“Please,” he said, sounding just like Simon Cowell. “Facebook is so yesterday. No, I’m Tweeting!”
Just what I need: another stupid social networking tool I have to learn and then abandon two seconds later. Call me a tadpole, but I think I’m going back to posting letters.
“I don’t need to stay in touch with 500 people I don’t know,” I would tell anyone who asked. “I have trouble staying in touch with the two people I already live with!”
“Please don’t tell anyone you’re touching me!” Saffy SMS’d me once.
But one rainy Sunday, when there was nothing on television and I’d already read my latest copy of 8DAYS from cover to cover, I found myself signing up for a Facebook account. Just to see what the fuss was all about. And also because you know something is not quite right with the universe when your mother emails to ask why you’re not on Facebook.
People must have installed some kind of a ‘Jason is now finally on Facebook!’ alert, because within minutes, messages began popping up on my screen. Many, from people I’d not seen or heard from for years. And quite a few from what I was convinced were complete strangers, possibly stalkers or potential mass murderers looking for fresh new victims.
Surely they couldn’t have been waiting for me to sign on, I wondered.
“Wah, what took you so long?” Melinda Goh wrote.
I sat for a while wracking my brain trying to remember who the hell Melinda Goh was. Absent mindedly, I clicked on the ‘Confirm’ as friend button, figuring I’ll work it out eventually. Later that night, after watching ‘Single White Female’ on DVD, I got up out of bed, logged onto Facebook and removed Melinda Goh.
“I can’t believe you’re actually on Facebook! Welcome!” Jenny Tan fluted across the internet.
“Post something on your Wall!” Darren instructed.
I stared at the screen a bit longer. And then picked up the phone.
“I don’t know what to say on my Wall!” I said to Saffy.
“Hang on, I’m coming to your room,” Saffy said as she opened my bedroom door, a little breathless from the exercise of walking 15 feet. She flopped down in the chair next to me. “Really, how you ever evolved from a tadpole, I’ll never know. Just say anything!”
“Like what?”
“Just say, ‘Sunday blues’ and then hit ‘Share’!”
“And what would that do?”
Saffy’s bosom deflated. Obviously, I was a lost cause. “You don’t have to do or say anything meaningful!” she sighed. “Facebook is just an excuse for people to waste time and be sociable! It’s sharing whatever is going on with you right now. I just posted a YouTube link about a Rottweiler puppy with the hiccups.”
“Why?”
“I thought it was cute. It’s just like a diary where you record things that interest you, or just reflect your state of mind at the time. Only all your friends get to read about it.”
“And that’s fun?” I asked.
“Sometimes, it’s better than sex,” Saffy replied firmly. “Ooh look, there’s your mother! She’s got a lovely profile picture! All that bling! Let’s see how many friends she has,” she said, her fingers clicking expertly over the keyboard. “375!"
My sister wrote to me (on email) saying that it was really depressing that our 60 year old mother had more friends than her three children combined. I replied it was really depressing that I still hadn’t posted anything on my Wall besides ‘Sunday blues’ which generated 35 comments, most of which ranged from the inane (‘Ya, me too!’) to the positively imbecilic (‘Sunday got colour, meh?’). That last one was from Melinda Goh, before I removed her from my friends list.
My cousin David posted a picture of a traffic jam that he was stuck in. I commented that I hoped he had both hands on his steering wheel, and as soon as I hit ‘Share’, I realized how much that made me sound like my naggy Aunt Carla. I spent the next day tortured that I should have included a smiley face in my comment.
I somehow wonder if I’ve missed the boat on Facebook. I still don’t get it. All my friends seem to spend their whole lives on it. I was at a dinner the other evening and Mike would whip out his Blackberry every time a course arrived and tap on the keyboard for a few seconds. After a while, I asked, “You’re not Facebooking this dinner are you?”
“Please,” he said, sounding just like Simon Cowell. “Facebook is so yesterday. No, I’m Tweeting!”
Just what I need: another stupid social networking tool I have to learn and then abandon two seconds later. Call me a tadpole, but I think I’m going back to posting letters.
Friday, November 06, 2009
Fatal Attraction
Anyone who’s been a date recently will know that it’s a cruel, vicious world out there. If you thought the slave gladiators fighting the lions in the Coliseum had it rough, you’ve not had to deal with the pain, humiliation and sheer nervous stress that come from spending a few hours with someone you like. And might possibly like a lot more if he/she would only agree to go on a second date with you.
It’s especially worse for women. For some reason, bum dates just seem to wash off men. It must be a superior genetic code encoded in our DNA that was left over from our cave days. “Bad day hunting for a mate? Not to worry, just go across the valley and club one over the head and drag her back by the matted hair. Oh, and while you’re at it, can you bring back another mammoth? We’re running low for winter. Cheers, darling!”
But give a girl a bad date and she falls to pieces.
“Why hasn’t he called?” Saffy screamed the other night. It was a full 48 hours after her first date with the delightfully named Bip Lim. Which, as Amanda pointed out, was not unexpected. “You can never trust someone whose name sounds like a Korean appetizer,” she said firmly.
Apparently, Saffy’s trolley had crashed into Bip’s in the spice section of Cold Storage. She took the location of the first meeting as a good sign. He was, according to Saffy’s breathless description, tall, well built and impossibly handsome.
“He’s an ABC!” Saffy said, her eyes shining. “Do you know how rare it is to find an unattached ABC in this town?”
“Sorry, is that Australian or American?” Amanda asked.
“American! He’s incredibly sexy. Have I said that already?” she Skyped Barney Chen who immediately asked if she was sure Bip didn’t bat for the other team: “Because in my considerable experience, ABC men who are tall, well built and impossibly handsome are…well, me!”
Saffy replied that the entire time they were chatting in the supermarket, his eyes were glued to her breasts. Amanda pointed out that meant nothing, adding, “Arthritic dogs can’t take their eyes off your breasts. I sometimes can’t take my eyes off your breasts!”
I really don’t need to tell you the rest of the story. If you’ve ever been on a date, you’ll know the scenario by heart. But for those of you innocents out there who still believe in fairy tale romances, sit up and pay attention to these cheat notes because you’re going to need them one day.
Bip asked Saffy out on a date. She spent the next week in a state of extreme sexual tension. She bought a new dress and borrowed Amanda’s Jimmy Choos and Bottega handbag. She had a facial, manicure, pedicure and a head to toe Dead Sea mud body exfoliation. Four days before the date, she stopped eating any solids and by the evening of the date, she was exhausted, malnourished but thin.
The instant she got back from the date, she disappeared into Amanda’s room where they went over every single second of the evening, covering everything from what Bip wore, to word for word recitations of what he said and what his facial expressions were as he was saying them.
The next day, Saffy kept her handphone glued to her side and checked it every two seconds for a missed call or a message from Bip. By lunchtime, she was a complete mess.
“He’s probably busy in meetings,” she told Sharyn.
“He’s got a very stressful job,” she Facebooked all 345 of her friends.
“Maybe he lost my number?” she asked Ah Chuan, our cleaning lady.
“You don’t think he’s been in an accident, do you?” she asked me.
“I have a really bad feeling about this Bip Bam Bong,” Amanda muttered after the first 36 hours had come and gone without a squeak from Saffy’s date. “You’d think though that she’d recognise the signs by now. This isn’t her first date!”
But here’s the thing: dating is a bit like giving birth. It can be so freaking painful. But once it’s over, and you’ve recovered, you kind of forget how icky it was the first time round. So you go again. And again. It’s not that you never learn, but I figure it’s nature’s way of making sure you keep dating, when the natural instinct is just to stay home for the rest of your life. Otherwise: hasta la vista to the human race.
Saffy says she doesn’t care. She’s decided to grocery shop online.
She’s also been crying a lot.
It’s especially worse for women. For some reason, bum dates just seem to wash off men. It must be a superior genetic code encoded in our DNA that was left over from our cave days. “Bad day hunting for a mate? Not to worry, just go across the valley and club one over the head and drag her back by the matted hair. Oh, and while you’re at it, can you bring back another mammoth? We’re running low for winter. Cheers, darling!”
But give a girl a bad date and she falls to pieces.
“Why hasn’t he called?” Saffy screamed the other night. It was a full 48 hours after her first date with the delightfully named Bip Lim. Which, as Amanda pointed out, was not unexpected. “You can never trust someone whose name sounds like a Korean appetizer,” she said firmly.
Apparently, Saffy’s trolley had crashed into Bip’s in the spice section of Cold Storage. She took the location of the first meeting as a good sign. He was, according to Saffy’s breathless description, tall, well built and impossibly handsome.
“He’s an ABC!” Saffy said, her eyes shining. “Do you know how rare it is to find an unattached ABC in this town?”
“Sorry, is that Australian or American?” Amanda asked.
“American! He’s incredibly sexy. Have I said that already?” she Skyped Barney Chen who immediately asked if she was sure Bip didn’t bat for the other team: “Because in my considerable experience, ABC men who are tall, well built and impossibly handsome are…well, me!”
Saffy replied that the entire time they were chatting in the supermarket, his eyes were glued to her breasts. Amanda pointed out that meant nothing, adding, “Arthritic dogs can’t take their eyes off your breasts. I sometimes can’t take my eyes off your breasts!”
I really don’t need to tell you the rest of the story. If you’ve ever been on a date, you’ll know the scenario by heart. But for those of you innocents out there who still believe in fairy tale romances, sit up and pay attention to these cheat notes because you’re going to need them one day.
Bip asked Saffy out on a date. She spent the next week in a state of extreme sexual tension. She bought a new dress and borrowed Amanda’s Jimmy Choos and Bottega handbag. She had a facial, manicure, pedicure and a head to toe Dead Sea mud body exfoliation. Four days before the date, she stopped eating any solids and by the evening of the date, she was exhausted, malnourished but thin.
The instant she got back from the date, she disappeared into Amanda’s room where they went over every single second of the evening, covering everything from what Bip wore, to word for word recitations of what he said and what his facial expressions were as he was saying them.
The next day, Saffy kept her handphone glued to her side and checked it every two seconds for a missed call or a message from Bip. By lunchtime, she was a complete mess.
“He’s probably busy in meetings,” she told Sharyn.
“He’s got a very stressful job,” she Facebooked all 345 of her friends.
“Maybe he lost my number?” she asked Ah Chuan, our cleaning lady.
“You don’t think he’s been in an accident, do you?” she asked me.
“I have a really bad feeling about this Bip Bam Bong,” Amanda muttered after the first 36 hours had come and gone without a squeak from Saffy’s date. “You’d think though that she’d recognise the signs by now. This isn’t her first date!”
But here’s the thing: dating is a bit like giving birth. It can be so freaking painful. But once it’s over, and you’ve recovered, you kind of forget how icky it was the first time round. So you go again. And again. It’s not that you never learn, but I figure it’s nature’s way of making sure you keep dating, when the natural instinct is just to stay home for the rest of your life. Otherwise: hasta la vista to the human race.
Saffy says she doesn’t care. She’s decided to grocery shop online.
She’s also been crying a lot.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Talking Heads
Forget about the Virgin Birth. There are enough mysteries in this world to fully occupy all our waking hours without having to deal with the parentage of someone who may or may not have been who Dan Brown says he was. Like how telephone marketers just seem to know to call at exactly the most exciting bit of Desperate Housewives. Or why some people still think it’s acceptable behaviour to clip their fingernails on the bus.
But the greatest mystery is The Female Problem. This is not to be confused with The Male Problem. Because this is what The Female Problem looks like:
Amanda: I’m so angry with Jason.
Saffy: Oh my God, why? What happened? Tell me everything!
Amanda: Well, I’m having a hard time at work as you know. The case is [Blah, blah, blah. You don’t need to know what the case is about. She’ll spend the next 10 minutes talking about how difficult the case is. That’s all you need to know.]
Saffy: That’s terrible. How do you balance all this with your social committees and gym classes?
Amanda: That’s the thing! Men think we just get out of bed looking the way we do and that children just grow up by themselves, and the food magically appears on the kitchen. And [Blah, blah, blah. The next ten minutes are about how without women, men would just fall over and die.]
Saffy: Then what happened at work?
Amanda: Well, you know my colleague, Anna? She’s the one who went to SCGS and thinks she’s superior to the rest of us just because we went to JC, and [Blah, blah, blah. The next ten minutes are about what a first class bitch Anna is with long detailed examples.] And the worst thing is, she’s been trying to sabo me from the moment she joined my team.
Saffy: But why?
Amanda: Well, on her second day at work, she showed up in this Prada dress. You know how last year Prada was really big on lace and [Blah, blah, blah. Ten minutes on Prada’s 2008 Fall collection]. So, I said, “Wow, they must have given you a big starting salary!” I was just saying it like a joke, and she gives me this dirty look and ever since then, she’s been very snippy.
Saffy: Wow, so sensitive.
Amanda: I know, right? So, today, this is what happens [Blah, blah, blah. You know the drill by now.] I was so angry. I came home and told Jason about what happened at work and the first thing he does is say, “Oh, why don’t you just report her to your boss!” And I was, like, what is wrong with guys?
Saffy: Don’t you just love how they go charging in and try to save the world?
Amanda: Every single freaking time! It’s so annoying!
Meanwhile, this is how The Male Problem unfolds:
Jason: Hey.
Karl: Hey, buddy. How’s it going?
Jason: Alright. Amanda’s in a bit of a mood with me.
Karl: Oh. That time of the month?
Jason: No. She had some problem at work. One of her colleagues is being mean to her. Said some things about her and is making her life difficult. I told her to report the bitch to the boss. And then she got mad at me.
Karl: Oh. Man, that sucks.
Jason: Tell me about it.
Karl:Want a beer?
Jason: Sure.
So, here’s the thing. It’s a mystery how women are able to make a 24-hour period stretch into a week. It’s the only way to explain how they get so much done in a day. My mother always said that if you want a job done, give it to a busy woman. It’s true. No one knows why this is so. It just is.
And the other thing is that as busy as they are, they will always, always, always have time to talk about the problems in their lives. They love to talk about problems. Not just theirs. Anyone’s. Including their 567 closest girlfriends’. Talking soothes them. It makes them happy, secure, fulfilled and connected. To get the same feeling, a man would need to discover the cure for cancer.
What a woman does not need is for a guy to tell her the solution to her problem. She already knows what the solution is. She knows what to do. She doesn’t need you to tell her. She’s probably already done it. You’re just meant to nod and look sympathetic. Remember that the next time you open your big mouth and try to be helpful.
But the greatest mystery is The Female Problem. This is not to be confused with The Male Problem. Because this is what The Female Problem looks like:
Amanda: I’m so angry with Jason.
Saffy: Oh my God, why? What happened? Tell me everything!
Amanda: Well, I’m having a hard time at work as you know. The case is [Blah, blah, blah. You don’t need to know what the case is about. She’ll spend the next 10 minutes talking about how difficult the case is. That’s all you need to know.]
Saffy: That’s terrible. How do you balance all this with your social committees and gym classes?
Amanda: That’s the thing! Men think we just get out of bed looking the way we do and that children just grow up by themselves, and the food magically appears on the kitchen. And [Blah, blah, blah. The next ten minutes are about how without women, men would just fall over and die.]
Saffy: Then what happened at work?
Amanda: Well, you know my colleague, Anna? She’s the one who went to SCGS and thinks she’s superior to the rest of us just because we went to JC, and [Blah, blah, blah. The next ten minutes are about what a first class bitch Anna is with long detailed examples.] And the worst thing is, she’s been trying to sabo me from the moment she joined my team.
Saffy: But why?
Amanda: Well, on her second day at work, she showed up in this Prada dress. You know how last year Prada was really big on lace and [Blah, blah, blah. Ten minutes on Prada’s 2008 Fall collection]. So, I said, “Wow, they must have given you a big starting salary!” I was just saying it like a joke, and she gives me this dirty look and ever since then, she’s been very snippy.
Saffy: Wow, so sensitive.
Amanda: I know, right? So, today, this is what happens [Blah, blah, blah. You know the drill by now.] I was so angry. I came home and told Jason about what happened at work and the first thing he does is say, “Oh, why don’t you just report her to your boss!” And I was, like, what is wrong with guys?
Saffy: Don’t you just love how they go charging in and try to save the world?
Amanda: Every single freaking time! It’s so annoying!
Meanwhile, this is how The Male Problem unfolds:
Jason: Hey.
Karl: Hey, buddy. How’s it going?
Jason: Alright. Amanda’s in a bit of a mood with me.
Karl: Oh. That time of the month?
Jason: No. She had some problem at work. One of her colleagues is being mean to her. Said some things about her and is making her life difficult. I told her to report the bitch to the boss. And then she got mad at me.
Karl: Oh. Man, that sucks.
Jason: Tell me about it.
Karl:Want a beer?
Jason: Sure.
So, here’s the thing. It’s a mystery how women are able to make a 24-hour period stretch into a week. It’s the only way to explain how they get so much done in a day. My mother always said that if you want a job done, give it to a busy woman. It’s true. No one knows why this is so. It just is.
And the other thing is that as busy as they are, they will always, always, always have time to talk about the problems in their lives. They love to talk about problems. Not just theirs. Anyone’s. Including their 567 closest girlfriends’. Talking soothes them. It makes them happy, secure, fulfilled and connected. To get the same feeling, a man would need to discover the cure for cancer.
What a woman does not need is for a guy to tell her the solution to her problem. She already knows what the solution is. She knows what to do. She doesn’t need you to tell her. She’s probably already done it. You’re just meant to nod and look sympathetic. Remember that the next time you open your big mouth and try to be helpful.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Art Attack
Here I am, gentle readers, in Paris on a little vay-kay, as they say, with the parents. We’ve rented an apartment just behind the Pompidou, that wonderfully designed modern art gallery with all the coloured plumbing and electrical piping on the outside of the building. Which means that every day, when we emerge from the apartment and head for a morning café and pain au chocolat (why does even a chocolate croissant sound sexy when it’s in French?), the Pompidou is the first thing we see.
And you know it’s got modern art inside, because in the vast cobble-stoned entrance, there is a giant column about ten metres tall, on top of which sits an enormous gold flower pot.
When Saffy saw the pot a few years ago on our first trip together to Paris, the first thing she said was, “Seriously? An empty flower pot? Painted in gold? Someone got paid to make this?”
That’s the thing about modern art. It always excites such extremes in opinion. In most cases, you either love it, or you hate it with a passion. Which is not the case with something like the Mona Lisa. I’ve yet to come across someone who’s said, “The Mona Lisa? That piece of crap? Seriously? Someone got paid to paint that?”
I remember once wandering around an art gallery in London and found myself standing transfixed before one of the pieces for at least ten minutes. After a while, I looked around, searching for a hidden camera, or just waiting for someone to pop out and sing, “Smile, you’re on Candid Camera!”
Because the exhibit in question consisted of a little plinth on which was balanced a scrunched up ball of white paper. That was it. It wasn’t folded into a delicate origami. It wasn’t painted. It wasn’t festooned with holograms or painted with tiny images of the Mona Lisa. It wasn’t anything. Just a scrunched up ball of what was probably photocopy paper. It was the stupidest thing I’d ever seen.
Just then, two people came up behind me. One of them gasped. “Oh my goodness!” she said with the kind of accent you don’t normally hear outside of a Merchant Ivory movie. “That’s astonishing!”
“Isn’t it?” her companion said. “I think it’s one of his most moving works! His grasp of motion is just flawless, I think!”
I had to check that they were looking at (and talking about) the same exhibit I was looking at. Again, I glanced around with a nervous smile for the hidden cameras. Mentally, I berated myself for not seeing why that bloody ball of paper was so moving. I felt like an artistic Neanderthal.
That’s why modern art makes me nervous. I find myself unable to express an opinion about anything just in case I expose my horrible ignorance about the subject. What if I say I like something only to find that all the arty farty people think it’s revolting? Or, worse, what if I really hate that oil painting and it turns out to be one of the most important pieces in the artist’s catalogue?
And now, years later, I found myself in the Pompidou in a state of nervous artistic tension. Saffy SMS’d me from Singapore: “I can’t believe you’re putting yourself through all that rubbish again!” One thing you can say about Saffy is that she never has any doubts about herself. If she decided tomorrow that the world was flat, she’d have no trouble sleeping.
I stopped in front of a painting and I swear, I had a mini nervous breakdown. I use the word ‘painting’ loosely because there was – how do I put this precisely? – nothing on the canvas. Not a scratch. Not a daub of colour. Not a pencil dot. It was just a white canvas.
In my mind, I imagined the artist going down to his local art supplier, picking up a fresh canvas frame and then going straight to his art dealer. “Voila!” he says, as he hands over the canvas. “My latest work! It’s called ‘The Transition of Volatility’. It’s my best work so far!”
The art dealer looks at it and whispers, “My God, this is revolutionary!” before he slaps on a $1m price tag on it. A few days later, some sap from an art gallery comes along, takes one look at it and declares, “My gallery simply must have this! It’s such an important work!”
And so here I am standing in front of an empty canvas hanging in one of the world’s most prestigious art centres, and I’m still waiting for someone to tell me that it’s all a big fat joke.
And you know it’s got modern art inside, because in the vast cobble-stoned entrance, there is a giant column about ten metres tall, on top of which sits an enormous gold flower pot.
When Saffy saw the pot a few years ago on our first trip together to Paris, the first thing she said was, “Seriously? An empty flower pot? Painted in gold? Someone got paid to make this?”
That’s the thing about modern art. It always excites such extremes in opinion. In most cases, you either love it, or you hate it with a passion. Which is not the case with something like the Mona Lisa. I’ve yet to come across someone who’s said, “The Mona Lisa? That piece of crap? Seriously? Someone got paid to paint that?”
I remember once wandering around an art gallery in London and found myself standing transfixed before one of the pieces for at least ten minutes. After a while, I looked around, searching for a hidden camera, or just waiting for someone to pop out and sing, “Smile, you’re on Candid Camera!”
Because the exhibit in question consisted of a little plinth on which was balanced a scrunched up ball of white paper. That was it. It wasn’t folded into a delicate origami. It wasn’t painted. It wasn’t festooned with holograms or painted with tiny images of the Mona Lisa. It wasn’t anything. Just a scrunched up ball of what was probably photocopy paper. It was the stupidest thing I’d ever seen.
Just then, two people came up behind me. One of them gasped. “Oh my goodness!” she said with the kind of accent you don’t normally hear outside of a Merchant Ivory movie. “That’s astonishing!”
“Isn’t it?” her companion said. “I think it’s one of his most moving works! His grasp of motion is just flawless, I think!”
I had to check that they were looking at (and talking about) the same exhibit I was looking at. Again, I glanced around with a nervous smile for the hidden cameras. Mentally, I berated myself for not seeing why that bloody ball of paper was so moving. I felt like an artistic Neanderthal.
That’s why modern art makes me nervous. I find myself unable to express an opinion about anything just in case I expose my horrible ignorance about the subject. What if I say I like something only to find that all the arty farty people think it’s revolting? Or, worse, what if I really hate that oil painting and it turns out to be one of the most important pieces in the artist’s catalogue?
And now, years later, I found myself in the Pompidou in a state of nervous artistic tension. Saffy SMS’d me from Singapore: “I can’t believe you’re putting yourself through all that rubbish again!” One thing you can say about Saffy is that she never has any doubts about herself. If she decided tomorrow that the world was flat, she’d have no trouble sleeping.
I stopped in front of a painting and I swear, I had a mini nervous breakdown. I use the word ‘painting’ loosely because there was – how do I put this precisely? – nothing on the canvas. Not a scratch. Not a daub of colour. Not a pencil dot. It was just a white canvas.
In my mind, I imagined the artist going down to his local art supplier, picking up a fresh canvas frame and then going straight to his art dealer. “Voila!” he says, as he hands over the canvas. “My latest work! It’s called ‘The Transition of Volatility’. It’s my best work so far!”
The art dealer looks at it and whispers, “My God, this is revolutionary!” before he slaps on a $1m price tag on it. A few days later, some sap from an art gallery comes along, takes one look at it and declares, “My gallery simply must have this! It’s such an important work!”
And so here I am standing in front of an empty canvas hanging in one of the world’s most prestigious art centres, and I’m still waiting for someone to tell me that it’s all a big fat joke.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Home Alone
Ask anyone who’s been single a long time about what she fears most and, chances are, she will tell you (if she’s honest, or failing that, drunk) that the one thing that keeps her awake at night is the thought that she might die old and still single. And by old, she usually means 40 years of age. (Ask a teenager, and he’ll tell you old is 30. He, of course, has no idea and part of me so wants to be around with a video-cam when he hits 30.)
It’s one of the cruelties of each passing year. And it really hits home when you’re filling in your personal details on the website and you get to the bit about your birth date and you find you have to scroll down for what seems like an eternity before you get to your year of birth.
And then it occurs to you that somewhere out there, like that Linda Rondstadt song, there are actually some people who were born in, say, 1997. That was the year ‘Ally McBeal’ first aired, way before Calista Flockhart was in ‘Brothers and Sister’; Lucy Liu was a nobody; and ‘Friends’ was still a fresh TV show. Especially when you remember that Jennifer Aniston hadn’t even met, married and divorced Brad Pitt yet. For these 1997 babies, 30 isn’t going to happen till 2027, by which time, you’re going to be…
Well, the thought doesn’t even bear thinking about, really.
But then, one dark night, when it’s storming outside and you’re stuck at home watching an illegal download of ‘Flashforward’, your thoughts turn to time and what you would do if you could predict your life 6 months from now.
“I’d better not be single,” Saffy threatened. “I’ll kill myself if I’m still living with you two!”
Amanda and I looked at each other.
Saffy said, “What? Why are you looking at each other like that?”
Amanda coughed. “Well, we’re not quite sure how to break this to you,” she began gently. “It’s just that, well…”
I’m a firm believer in ripping off the metaphorical bandage. “Amanda’s being sent to her Hong Kong office to work on that case of her’s for two months, and I’m going to London for a month with my parents. On holiday. It’s going to be horrible, but they’re paying for it. So, uhm…” I trailed off in the glare of Saffy’s disbelief.
As she told her best friend Sharyn the next day, “God almighty, those two might as well have just stuffed a pillow over my face, killed me and then shoved me down the rubbish chute! How can they leave me alone for two months! What kind of inhuman people are they?”
“Aiyoh, they not your husband, what! How can you stop them from going?” Sharyn said reasonably.
Saffy puffed up. “Excuse me,” she said in a chilly tone. “You don’t go and leave your poor single flatmate alone for months on end! If I wanted to live alone, I wouldn’t have had flatmates in the first place!”
“You come stay with me, lah!” Sharyn offered brightly though, as Saffy later reported, you could tell it was only a half-hearted offer. “I’m sure she thinks I’m going to seduce Alvin!” Saffy said and added, “In his dreams!”
“It’s only for a couple of months, Saf,” Amanda said desperately recently shortly after Saffy suddenly burst into tears at the dinner table.
Saffy sniffed into her tissue. “The scary thing is that I could trip and fall in the shower and nobody would know I was dead! Nobody! And by the time the smell from my rotting body seeps out into the corridor, it will be too late!”
“Pooch will call for help!” Amanda said. “He’s very clever!”
I coughed. “Uhm, I’m sending him to a dog hotel.”
Saffy looked up. “Good idea. Because I so don’t want him around when I’m lying there dead!” she declared. “He’ll probably start snacking on me! By the time you guys come back, I’ll just be a pile of neatly sucked bones!”
Amanda looked down at her beef stew, and pushed the dish away from her. Saffy sighed. “This is just great! I’m single and about to die alone, and without having had sex in nearly 8 months! I might as well be back at home living with my parents. Where is the justice?”
That night, she fed Pooch an extra serving of dinner. “I need all the time I can get for the emergency crew to get to me!” she told him. He never even looked up from his bowl.
It’s one of the cruelties of each passing year. And it really hits home when you’re filling in your personal details on the website and you get to the bit about your birth date and you find you have to scroll down for what seems like an eternity before you get to your year of birth.
And then it occurs to you that somewhere out there, like that Linda Rondstadt song, there are actually some people who were born in, say, 1997. That was the year ‘Ally McBeal’ first aired, way before Calista Flockhart was in ‘Brothers and Sister’; Lucy Liu was a nobody; and ‘Friends’ was still a fresh TV show. Especially when you remember that Jennifer Aniston hadn’t even met, married and divorced Brad Pitt yet. For these 1997 babies, 30 isn’t going to happen till 2027, by which time, you’re going to be…
Well, the thought doesn’t even bear thinking about, really.
But then, one dark night, when it’s storming outside and you’re stuck at home watching an illegal download of ‘Flashforward’, your thoughts turn to time and what you would do if you could predict your life 6 months from now.
“I’d better not be single,” Saffy threatened. “I’ll kill myself if I’m still living with you two!”
Amanda and I looked at each other.
Saffy said, “What? Why are you looking at each other like that?”
Amanda coughed. “Well, we’re not quite sure how to break this to you,” she began gently. “It’s just that, well…”
I’m a firm believer in ripping off the metaphorical bandage. “Amanda’s being sent to her Hong Kong office to work on that case of her’s for two months, and I’m going to London for a month with my parents. On holiday. It’s going to be horrible, but they’re paying for it. So, uhm…” I trailed off in the glare of Saffy’s disbelief.
As she told her best friend Sharyn the next day, “God almighty, those two might as well have just stuffed a pillow over my face, killed me and then shoved me down the rubbish chute! How can they leave me alone for two months! What kind of inhuman people are they?”
“Aiyoh, they not your husband, what! How can you stop them from going?” Sharyn said reasonably.
Saffy puffed up. “Excuse me,” she said in a chilly tone. “You don’t go and leave your poor single flatmate alone for months on end! If I wanted to live alone, I wouldn’t have had flatmates in the first place!”
“You come stay with me, lah!” Sharyn offered brightly though, as Saffy later reported, you could tell it was only a half-hearted offer. “I’m sure she thinks I’m going to seduce Alvin!” Saffy said and added, “In his dreams!”
“It’s only for a couple of months, Saf,” Amanda said desperately recently shortly after Saffy suddenly burst into tears at the dinner table.
Saffy sniffed into her tissue. “The scary thing is that I could trip and fall in the shower and nobody would know I was dead! Nobody! And by the time the smell from my rotting body seeps out into the corridor, it will be too late!”
“Pooch will call for help!” Amanda said. “He’s very clever!”
I coughed. “Uhm, I’m sending him to a dog hotel.”
Saffy looked up. “Good idea. Because I so don’t want him around when I’m lying there dead!” she declared. “He’ll probably start snacking on me! By the time you guys come back, I’ll just be a pile of neatly sucked bones!”
Amanda looked down at her beef stew, and pushed the dish away from her. Saffy sighed. “This is just great! I’m single and about to die alone, and without having had sex in nearly 8 months! I might as well be back at home living with my parents. Where is the justice?”
That night, she fed Pooch an extra serving of dinner. “I need all the time I can get for the emergency crew to get to me!” she told him. He never even looked up from his bowl.
Thursday, October 08, 2009
Mass Communication
This might come as a shock to some people, but I actually remember a time when people actually corresponded with letters. It was quite relaxing actually. You wrote what you had to say to the other person, slipped it into the envelope and posted it. Then you forgot all about it for weeks on end, until the other person replied eventually. In the office, once you’d sent off your stack of letters, you still had time to knock off early and go grab a game of golf before dinner.
These days, I don’t actually do any real work till after lunch as it takes me that long just to get through all my emails and catch up on Facebook. That’s the trouble with instantaneous communication. There’s just not enough time. You send a note, and two seconds later, you get a reply. So you feel compelled to write a reply, and a reply comes shooting back. And on it goes. And before you know it, it’s time to retire and cash in your CPF. And you’re left with the haunting feeling that somehow you kind of should have done more with your life instead of hitting that ‘Enter’ button 5000 times a day.
Meanwhile, your boss wants that report filed while you are on leave. “Surely they have internet at that resort? You can do some work while you’re there, right? And we can call you on your handphone?” (Bosses can be total assholes, but that’s a topic for another column.)
And then there’s Facebook. My cousin David spends his whole life on it. Every minute, he’ll update all 589 friends with what he’s doing. But it’s not as if he’s telling us how he’s saving his world, or how the negotiations for the Kyoto Protocol are going. Instead, they range from the stupid (“Need to pee”) to pseudo-philosophical. “Why?” went one of his posts. This elicited 34 ‘Comments’, and 20 ‘Likes’, which led me to wonder whether I was missing some hidden code. “Why what?” I asked him on e-mail. I got a smiley face in reply. A few minutes later, he posted “Things are turning to prime time!” I stared at that post for a bit, and then removed him from my friends list.
And a few weeks ago, Amanda asked me if I was on Twitter.
“Seriously,” I replied. “Why do I need yet another mode of communication? I can barely keep up with what’s going on in Facebook, and last time I checked, I have 45 new emails.”
Amanda sniffed. “Email is so last century! Nobody emails anymore except to send documents.”
According to Amanda, these days, you can’t get ahead if you’re not on Twitter. Something about condensing information to its bare essentials and then transmitting it to an exponential database. “You never know who you might meet this way,” she said wisely as she tweeted on her Blackberry that she was living with someone who wasn’t on Twitter. “I’m a follower of Oprah, Paula and Ellen. I really feel connected to them!”
I peered over her shoulder as she scrolled down to a recent tweet by Paula Abdul: “Just got back to the hotel after a day full of meetings. I haven't slept! Early night for me. Love you all”.
In spite of myself, I asked, “Where is she?”
“London. She was supposed to be there earlier for Simon’s birthday party, but then she got sick and her doctor stopped her from getting on the plane.” As I later said to Saffy, it sounded like Amanda was in daily BFF contact with Paula.
Saffy shrugged. “Well, I’m following Ashton and I can see why Demi is in love with him.”
I blinked. “Ashton who?”
The bosom inflated. “Ashton Kutcher! Please keep up! I’m also following Anderson Cooper. I keep hoping he’ll get more personal like where he’s going to have dinner, but his tweets are really so deadly boring. All he ever talks about is Afghanistan and the Gaza crisis. I’m sorry but a crisis is the fact that I’ve not had sex in three months!”
I’m still holding out on Twitter though. As it is, I’m now looking at my Facebook friends with the kind of critical eye you’d use to decide who to throw off the lifeboat. I can barely keep up with correspondence on email. Do I really need more friends?
Saffy told me this morning: “Keep this up and you’ll be that guy who dies alone in his bathroom and doesn’t get discovered till the smell seeps down the corridor!”
These days, I don’t actually do any real work till after lunch as it takes me that long just to get through all my emails and catch up on Facebook. That’s the trouble with instantaneous communication. There’s just not enough time. You send a note, and two seconds later, you get a reply. So you feel compelled to write a reply, and a reply comes shooting back. And on it goes. And before you know it, it’s time to retire and cash in your CPF. And you’re left with the haunting feeling that somehow you kind of should have done more with your life instead of hitting that ‘Enter’ button 5000 times a day.
Meanwhile, your boss wants that report filed while you are on leave. “Surely they have internet at that resort? You can do some work while you’re there, right? And we can call you on your handphone?” (Bosses can be total assholes, but that’s a topic for another column.)
And then there’s Facebook. My cousin David spends his whole life on it. Every minute, he’ll update all 589 friends with what he’s doing. But it’s not as if he’s telling us how he’s saving his world, or how the negotiations for the Kyoto Protocol are going. Instead, they range from the stupid (“Need to pee”) to pseudo-philosophical. “Why?” went one of his posts. This elicited 34 ‘Comments’, and 20 ‘Likes’, which led me to wonder whether I was missing some hidden code. “Why what?” I asked him on e-mail. I got a smiley face in reply. A few minutes later, he posted “Things are turning to prime time!” I stared at that post for a bit, and then removed him from my friends list.
And a few weeks ago, Amanda asked me if I was on Twitter.
“Seriously,” I replied. “Why do I need yet another mode of communication? I can barely keep up with what’s going on in Facebook, and last time I checked, I have 45 new emails.”
Amanda sniffed. “Email is so last century! Nobody emails anymore except to send documents.”
According to Amanda, these days, you can’t get ahead if you’re not on Twitter. Something about condensing information to its bare essentials and then transmitting it to an exponential database. “You never know who you might meet this way,” she said wisely as she tweeted on her Blackberry that she was living with someone who wasn’t on Twitter. “I’m a follower of Oprah, Paula and Ellen. I really feel connected to them!”
I peered over her shoulder as she scrolled down to a recent tweet by Paula Abdul: “Just got back to the hotel after a day full of meetings. I haven't slept! Early night for me. Love you all”.
In spite of myself, I asked, “Where is she?”
“London. She was supposed to be there earlier for Simon’s birthday party, but then she got sick and her doctor stopped her from getting on the plane.” As I later said to Saffy, it sounded like Amanda was in daily BFF contact with Paula.
Saffy shrugged. “Well, I’m following Ashton and I can see why Demi is in love with him.”
I blinked. “Ashton who?”
The bosom inflated. “Ashton Kutcher! Please keep up! I’m also following Anderson Cooper. I keep hoping he’ll get more personal like where he’s going to have dinner, but his tweets are really so deadly boring. All he ever talks about is Afghanistan and the Gaza crisis. I’m sorry but a crisis is the fact that I’ve not had sex in three months!”
I’m still holding out on Twitter though. As it is, I’m now looking at my Facebook friends with the kind of critical eye you’d use to decide who to throw off the lifeboat. I can barely keep up with correspondence on email. Do I really need more friends?
Saffy told me this morning: “Keep this up and you’ll be that guy who dies alone in his bathroom and doesn’t get discovered till the smell seeps down the corridor!”
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