The subject of snakes came up the other day during dinner. On the menu was spaghetti and meatballs, and for some reason, Amanda suddenly announced that the slippery texture of the pasta reminded her of snakes.
Of course, that was all it took for Saffy and me to put our folks down and push our chair back from the table. To my credit, I remained outwardly calm but Saffy’s formidable bosom began to heave asthmatically.
“Seriously, Amanda,” I began.
“You are just sick!” Saffy hissed, her eyes narrowing to slits.
Amanda looked astonished. “What?”
“You know how we feel about those…those things!” I said.
Saffy nodded. “And thanks to you, I can’t ever eat pasta again because every time, I do, I will be thinking about…about what they look like…and, oh God, I need to get away from this table!”
And with that, Saffy got up from the table and disappeared into her room. The next morning, she said she didn’t sleep a wink. “I kept imagining there were snakes crawling up my bed and under my sheets!” she reported. “And the air-con kept me awake because it kept hissing at me, so I turned that off, and then it got too hot and I had to open the window, but then I‘d read somewhere that there are snakes that can climb up trees and leap ten feet in the air and I kept thinking it would be just my luck that one of them decided to leap into my open window right onto my bed! So, I got up and closed the window and of course, I couldn’t sleep because it was so hot. I am a mess!” Saffy moaned.
Now, I know there are readers out there who have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about. “Snakes?” they’re probably thinking. “What’s he on about? Nothing wrong with them! Not the friendliest creatures I know, but I’ve got nothing against them anymore than I have against, ooh, say, chickens. And they taste good in a soup too!”
The thing is, I’ve always been afraid of snakes. Can’t stand them. Can’t stand the idea of them. Can’t stand the look of them. Can’t stand even the word. And, of course, like all phobias, it’s utterly irrational since as far as I can tell, I’ve never actually met a real snake. My sister, who has the same fear, thinks it must be a reincarnation thing. “We probably fell into a snake pit in a previous life,” she told me when she was 10 and I was eight. I had nightmares for six months and for years afterwards, I would ask everyone I met what their Chinese horoscope was and if the answer was ‘snake’, I ran for the distant horizon and never looked back.
Leave it to my mother to tell us the story of when her father fell ill, he drank his way back to health with a tonic made from a snake marinated in alcohol. Even at the age of seven, I remember thinking it was the most revolting thing I’d ever heard of in my life.
Years later, I read about this stupid schmuck who kept an anaconda as a pet and then one day when it got hungry, the dumb thing turned around, strangled its owner and then swallowed him. It was the grossest thing I’d ever read but all I could think about was that it served the guy right. “Why, oh why would anyone be stupid enough to have an anaconda as a pet?” I asked Barney Chen who replied that thinking about questions like that gave you wrinkles.
Meanwhile, Saffy is so annoyed with Amanda that they’ve not spoken in days. “Can you believe that anyone would be so cruel to say such a thing? I love pasta and now I can’t even walk past an Italian restaurant!” she posted on Facebook.
Her best friend Sharyn said all this reminded her of the time when she was growing up in a kampong in Kelantan in Malaysia and one day, while her granny was squatting on outdoor toilet, she looked down and saw a snake peering back up at her. When she heard that story, Saffy was simultaneously frightened out of her wits and furious. That night, she took Sharyn off her Facebook friends list.
“Oh God,” she groaned to me. “Now, I can’t even go to the toilet! Why do people tell us such horrible stories?”
“They’ll be punished in their next lives,” I promised her while thinking about the SMS I’d received that afternoon from Amanda: “In HMV. Am buying ‘Snakes on the Plane’ for Saffy. Haha!”
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Bag of Tricks
They say that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he packs his luggage. And when I say ‘They say’, I really mean ‘I say’.
People who are naturally messy in life – messy desk, unmade bed and even messier love life – will just throw their clothes into their Samsonite. They then find that the luggage won’t close naturally and will have to sit on the lid to lock it. These are usually also the same people who, at the airport check-in counter, are told that they are overweight and need to either unload some things or pay excess luggage. I can’t tell you how much I enjoy standing behind these people as they are forced to open their luggage in front of everyone and everything spills out: dirty underwear, tacky souvenir purchases, crushed boxes of chocolates, flattened soft toys, terrible fashion and dog-eared copies of porn magazines, I’ve seen them all. And when you’re stuck in a check-in queue, this kind of drama is hugely entertaining.
Then you have people like my friend Barney Chen who carefully sorts out all his clothes into neat vacuum sealed packs. I’ve never quite worked out what his system is. Sometimes, the packs are organized by days. Sometimes, it’s by outfit. Sometimes, it’s by occasion. Meanwhile, his toiletries – all neatly decanted into matching Muji bottles – are carefully slipped into ziplock bags.
Barney Chen is the god of packing, and he’s my idol. I’m convinced if everyone packed like him, the world would be a much nicer place.
“I really don’t think it’s normal to pack like that,” Saffy said firmly the other day after she came back from a visit to Barney’s flat. Out of a combination of sheer boredom and idle curiosity, she’d spent the afternoon watching him pack for a three day business trip to Hong Kong. “His suitcase was like when you open the box that your new TV arrives in. Everything fit together like a neat jig-saw puzzle. If you ask me, it’s the sign of an unhealthy mind,” she declared, her bosom trembling a little.
I replied that this was really rich coming from a woman who carefully arranges the magazines on our lounge table into a fan pattern.
“That’s so different!” Saffy puffed and disappeared into her room with a whiff of Chanel No. 5 and injured dignity.
A few days later, Amanda announced that she and her on-again, off-again insectile looking boyfriend – aka The Cockroach – were going off to Hong Kong for a week’s holiday.
“Why?” Saffy asked.
“Well, because we both have holidays to clear and there are cheap flights to Hong…”
“No, what I meant was, why are you still dating that loser?”
Amanda later complained to me that it was a pity she’d ever told Saffy all her deepest and darkest secrets, because she’d have kicked Saffy out of our flat in a New York second if she wasn’t so frightened that Saffy would turn right around and blackmail her.
As it was, Amanda nobly ignored Saffy’s question. “My point is,” she said icily, “it came up during our conversation that I would be bringing my Louis Vuitton trolley bag and Cockroach said that I should just bring a back-pack.”
This time, it was Saffy’s turn to sit up. “What, in addition to your trolley bag?”
“No. Instead of.”
“And check-in luggage?”
“None.”
“What, a week in Hong Kong with just a back-pack?” Saffy asked.
“Yes. And he got a little upset when I said I needed to check in some luggage. He says he hates waiting for luggage to come off a plane.”
“And you’re still dating this man because…”
“Oh, shut up, Saffy!”
For days, it was all Amanda could talk about. “What is it with some guys? Does he seriously think that I wake up each morning looking like this?” she demanded, waving her hand over her perfectly made up face, expensively coiffed tresses and this season’s Prada and Jimmy Choo slingbacks. “I need a separate bag just for my make-up and toiletries. And what about my shopping? Does he think it can all fit into a back-pack?” Her face wrinkled into a frown. “And you know what, I don’t think I even know what a back-pack is!”
Saffy says this is one of the reasons why she’s sometimes actually glad that she’s single. It’s just too disheartening, she says, to have to discover that the man you might actually want to have children with has the EQ of a coffee bean. “If he’s like this on the subject of holiday bags, what will he be like when the topic of vasectomies comes up?” she wondered.
People who are naturally messy in life – messy desk, unmade bed and even messier love life – will just throw their clothes into their Samsonite. They then find that the luggage won’t close naturally and will have to sit on the lid to lock it. These are usually also the same people who, at the airport check-in counter, are told that they are overweight and need to either unload some things or pay excess luggage. I can’t tell you how much I enjoy standing behind these people as they are forced to open their luggage in front of everyone and everything spills out: dirty underwear, tacky souvenir purchases, crushed boxes of chocolates, flattened soft toys, terrible fashion and dog-eared copies of porn magazines, I’ve seen them all. And when you’re stuck in a check-in queue, this kind of drama is hugely entertaining.
Then you have people like my friend Barney Chen who carefully sorts out all his clothes into neat vacuum sealed packs. I’ve never quite worked out what his system is. Sometimes, the packs are organized by days. Sometimes, it’s by outfit. Sometimes, it’s by occasion. Meanwhile, his toiletries – all neatly decanted into matching Muji bottles – are carefully slipped into ziplock bags.
Barney Chen is the god of packing, and he’s my idol. I’m convinced if everyone packed like him, the world would be a much nicer place.
“I really don’t think it’s normal to pack like that,” Saffy said firmly the other day after she came back from a visit to Barney’s flat. Out of a combination of sheer boredom and idle curiosity, she’d spent the afternoon watching him pack for a three day business trip to Hong Kong. “His suitcase was like when you open the box that your new TV arrives in. Everything fit together like a neat jig-saw puzzle. If you ask me, it’s the sign of an unhealthy mind,” she declared, her bosom trembling a little.
I replied that this was really rich coming from a woman who carefully arranges the magazines on our lounge table into a fan pattern.
“That’s so different!” Saffy puffed and disappeared into her room with a whiff of Chanel No. 5 and injured dignity.
A few days later, Amanda announced that she and her on-again, off-again insectile looking boyfriend – aka The Cockroach – were going off to Hong Kong for a week’s holiday.
“Why?” Saffy asked.
“Well, because we both have holidays to clear and there are cheap flights to Hong…”
“No, what I meant was, why are you still dating that loser?”
Amanda later complained to me that it was a pity she’d ever told Saffy all her deepest and darkest secrets, because she’d have kicked Saffy out of our flat in a New York second if she wasn’t so frightened that Saffy would turn right around and blackmail her.
As it was, Amanda nobly ignored Saffy’s question. “My point is,” she said icily, “it came up during our conversation that I would be bringing my Louis Vuitton trolley bag and Cockroach said that I should just bring a back-pack.”
This time, it was Saffy’s turn to sit up. “What, in addition to your trolley bag?”
“No. Instead of.”
“And check-in luggage?”
“None.”
“What, a week in Hong Kong with just a back-pack?” Saffy asked.
“Yes. And he got a little upset when I said I needed to check in some luggage. He says he hates waiting for luggage to come off a plane.”
“And you’re still dating this man because…”
“Oh, shut up, Saffy!”
For days, it was all Amanda could talk about. “What is it with some guys? Does he seriously think that I wake up each morning looking like this?” she demanded, waving her hand over her perfectly made up face, expensively coiffed tresses and this season’s Prada and Jimmy Choo slingbacks. “I need a separate bag just for my make-up and toiletries. And what about my shopping? Does he think it can all fit into a back-pack?” Her face wrinkled into a frown. “And you know what, I don’t think I even know what a back-pack is!”
Saffy says this is one of the reasons why she’s sometimes actually glad that she’s single. It’s just too disheartening, she says, to have to discover that the man you might actually want to have children with has the EQ of a coffee bean. “If he’s like this on the subject of holiday bags, what will he be like when the topic of vasectomies comes up?” she wondered.
Friday, March 12, 2010
White Wash
Apparently, when girls are growing up, between loving the colour pink and scheming to steal their father away from their mother, they dream of a wedding dress.
I say ‘apparently’ because I have no real reference point for this statement. My mother says she can’t remember when she grew up because that would actually involve her having to pinpoint an actual decade and she gave up on that kind of pointless mental activity round about the time she turned 35.
Meanwhile, my sister says that, thanks to our mother, she had such a traumatic childhood it would take decades of repressed childhood therapy to dig up anything useful from that period let alone any recollection of any dreams of wedding dresses. And besides, she always says, men are scum, so why would anyone want to have anything to do with them let alone have a wedding with them? “Let alone in a wedding dress!” she will add, somewhat unnecessarily.
But I have it on good authority – ie, my two psychotic flatmates – that most normal girls, with relatively normal parents and a normal childhood, grow up dreaming of a wedding dress.
Apparently, girls don’t dream of the actual wedding, or the groom, or the wedding banquet, or even the stacks of ang pows piling up on the reception desk. Which is really weird because if I ever knew that a load of money in shiny glossy red packets was in my future, money would be all I would dream about. But then, girls are just strange. They don’t care about these practical things. Because as my mother once asked my fifteen year old sister with penetrating insight, “Do you think a wedding just pays for itself?” after Michelle announced that even if the Prince of England proposed to her, she would reject him.
But, no, girls don’t think about such things. They just dream of the wedding dress. And it’s usually a big fat fluffy white puff ball of a dress that makes the girl look like a collapsed soufflé.
“I don’t know what it is,” Amanda sighed at a recent dinner at home. She paused mid-twirl of her spaghetti and looked up at the ceiling. “Maybe it’s the whole romance of the dress and what it represents, you know? I mean, my parents always had a framed picture of their wedding in their bedroom and I grew up looking at that picture. My father looked so dashing in his suit and my mother…my God, my mother!” Amanda actually put her hand on her chest and sighed. “She was radiant! Even in that black and white picture, she was radiant! And I wanted to be her!”
From the other end of the table, Saffy snorted. “Me, too!” she snuffled into her spaghetti. “Your father was a hottie! What? Why are you looking at me like that? I’m just saying!”
Maybe little girls dream about wedding dresses for the same reason they love fairy tales like Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella. That collapsed soufflé represents the idea of happiness which, in turn, represents the safety and comfort of home. Because isn’t a wedding supposed to be the happiest day of your life?
“Not for me, it wasn’t,” my mother said when I asked her. “I was five months pregnant with you when I got married to your father and I was petrified I wouldn’t be able to fit into that stupid dress! You were a big baby. I always thought you’d grow up to be fat like your Third Uncle. Thank God, you didn’t. Your sister, on the other hand…”
The other day, Amanda came home with a bundle of wedding magazines. “That whole discussion about wedding dresses the other night got me all wistful!” she told me with an accusing look. “The check out girl at Borders actually asked me when I was getting married. I had to make up a date, otherwise I would have looked like such a loser buying a stack of wedding magazines when I don’t even have a boyfriend!”
That evening, she curled up on the sofa flipping through page after page of cakes, wedding favours, to-do lists, decorating tips and dresses. Every so often, she’d murmur, “Mmm, that’s lovely!”, her fingers tracing the outlines of a dress on the smooth glossy page. And I’d catch the same look on her face she had when she was describing her mother’s wedding picture
I sent Saffy a text message: “Amanda is acting all weird. She’s reading a stack of wedding magazines and talking to herself!”
Saffy replied: “SHUT UP! I’m in a wedding boutique actually TRYING ON a wedding dress!”
I say ‘apparently’ because I have no real reference point for this statement. My mother says she can’t remember when she grew up because that would actually involve her having to pinpoint an actual decade and she gave up on that kind of pointless mental activity round about the time she turned 35.
Meanwhile, my sister says that, thanks to our mother, she had such a traumatic childhood it would take decades of repressed childhood therapy to dig up anything useful from that period let alone any recollection of any dreams of wedding dresses. And besides, she always says, men are scum, so why would anyone want to have anything to do with them let alone have a wedding with them? “Let alone in a wedding dress!” she will add, somewhat unnecessarily.
But I have it on good authority – ie, my two psychotic flatmates – that most normal girls, with relatively normal parents and a normal childhood, grow up dreaming of a wedding dress.
Apparently, girls don’t dream of the actual wedding, or the groom, or the wedding banquet, or even the stacks of ang pows piling up on the reception desk. Which is really weird because if I ever knew that a load of money in shiny glossy red packets was in my future, money would be all I would dream about. But then, girls are just strange. They don’t care about these practical things. Because as my mother once asked my fifteen year old sister with penetrating insight, “Do you think a wedding just pays for itself?” after Michelle announced that even if the Prince of England proposed to her, she would reject him.
But, no, girls don’t think about such things. They just dream of the wedding dress. And it’s usually a big fat fluffy white puff ball of a dress that makes the girl look like a collapsed soufflé.
“I don’t know what it is,” Amanda sighed at a recent dinner at home. She paused mid-twirl of her spaghetti and looked up at the ceiling. “Maybe it’s the whole romance of the dress and what it represents, you know? I mean, my parents always had a framed picture of their wedding in their bedroom and I grew up looking at that picture. My father looked so dashing in his suit and my mother…my God, my mother!” Amanda actually put her hand on her chest and sighed. “She was radiant! Even in that black and white picture, she was radiant! And I wanted to be her!”
From the other end of the table, Saffy snorted. “Me, too!” she snuffled into her spaghetti. “Your father was a hottie! What? Why are you looking at me like that? I’m just saying!”
Maybe little girls dream about wedding dresses for the same reason they love fairy tales like Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella. That collapsed soufflé represents the idea of happiness which, in turn, represents the safety and comfort of home. Because isn’t a wedding supposed to be the happiest day of your life?
“Not for me, it wasn’t,” my mother said when I asked her. “I was five months pregnant with you when I got married to your father and I was petrified I wouldn’t be able to fit into that stupid dress! You were a big baby. I always thought you’d grow up to be fat like your Third Uncle. Thank God, you didn’t. Your sister, on the other hand…”
The other day, Amanda came home with a bundle of wedding magazines. “That whole discussion about wedding dresses the other night got me all wistful!” she told me with an accusing look. “The check out girl at Borders actually asked me when I was getting married. I had to make up a date, otherwise I would have looked like such a loser buying a stack of wedding magazines when I don’t even have a boyfriend!”
That evening, she curled up on the sofa flipping through page after page of cakes, wedding favours, to-do lists, decorating tips and dresses. Every so often, she’d murmur, “Mmm, that’s lovely!”, her fingers tracing the outlines of a dress on the smooth glossy page. And I’d catch the same look on her face she had when she was describing her mother’s wedding picture
I sent Saffy a text message: “Amanda is acting all weird. She’s reading a stack of wedding magazines and talking to herself!”
Saffy replied: “SHUT UP! I’m in a wedding boutique actually TRYING ON a wedding dress!”
Friday, March 05, 2010
Love Actually
One of the greatest mysteries of the world is not why Julia Roberts keeps making such forgettable movies or why people still take up both sides of the escalator, but rather why we fall in love with the people we do.
A few nights ago, my flatmates and I were invited to a cocktail party at our friend Mary’s house. “Very casual, one, so don’t dress up too much!” she’d instructed over the phone earlier in the day. As it turned out, everyone we knew was there at the party and by the looks of it, they’d all followed Mary’s dress code to the letter.
“Seriously,” Amanda, in full Miu-Miu, murmured out of the corner of her mouth, “I wouldn’t go to the wet market in anything these people are wearing! It’s disgraceful. Sharon!” she suddenly exclaimed, her bright eyes sparkling as she leaned over to kiss. “So lovely to see you! I love your denim shorts! Is it vintage?”
Meanwhile, on the other side of the room, Saffy was busy mixing herself a particularly lethal gin and tonic. Her recipe, which she claims has been handed down to through the generations, basically involves a full glass of gin, and a teaspoon of tonic water. You could unclog a drain with the stuff.
“That looks like a strong drink,” said the girl next to her.
As Saffy later told us, the girl looked like she’d just stepped off a Victoria’s Secret fashion runway show. “She was just missing the glitter and the wings!” she reported enviously.
And as girls do at parties, they got to talking while silently sizing each other up. (“Su-ann has such lovely skin!” Saffy noted with approval.) First, it was about innocuous things like the outfits they were each wearing. Weekend plans were next, and by the seven minute mark, they had moved onto boyfriends.
“I’m here with my boyfriend,” said Su-Ann. “He and Mary went to university together. Oh! There he is over there talking to that...girl over there.”
Saffy, the world’s foremost expert on the pregnant pause, immediately swivelled her head in the direction of Su-ann’s finger and found herself looking at Amanda talking to a guy she would later describe on Facebook as a fat Borneo monkey.
“How is this world fair?” she posted. “A pretty girl dating someone so fugly!”
In turn, Amanda posted a comment that one shouldn’t judge someone on his looks and that Fat Borneo Monkey was actually quite interesting.
“He is fugly!” Saffy repeated. “No man would ever date a woman who looked like FBM. It’s a man’s world, I tell you!”
Of course, what really killed Saffy was the fact that someone who looked like FBM had actually managed to convince someone so pretty as Su-ann to go out with him. And, in her books, what was even more astonishing was the fact that Amanda had actually found FBM interesting enough to talk to him.
And the underlying rant here was this: if gorgeous girls like Su-ann were dating Neanderthal apes like FBM, what did you have to look like to date the actual good-looking men in this town?
“There’s no hope for me!” she wailed later that night in the cab home. Amanda made soothing but ultimately ineffectual noises. “And there’s more! They just got engaged. They’re getting married next month!”
A silence fell over the cab. After a while, a nagging thought finally managed to get Amanda’s attention. “Uhm,” she began slowly. “She hasn’t invited you to the wedding has she?”
“She’s asked me to be one of the freaking brides-maids!” Saffy screamed out loud, nearly causing the poor uncle taxi-driver to swerve dangerously on the CTE. “Oh. My. God. First of all, how do you fall in love with someone who looks like that? And secondly, why would you ask someone you just met to be a bridesmaid? Don’t you have any friends? Oh, speaking of which, Amanda,” Saffy added, looking a little guilty in the strobe-light of the street lamps, “uhm, you’re not invited to the wedding.”
Saffy later said that she was so relieved that Amanda hadn’t asked why. “Because if she had,” she told me, “I would have had to lie. But can you imagine that Su-ann was actually jealous Fat Ugly Borneo Monkey was talking to her?”
“That’s what he’s called now?” I asked. “Fat Ugly Borneo Monkey?”
“Well, I think the ‘ugly’ is essential, don’t you? The only problem is that it only makes Su-ann’s engagement to him all that more incomprehensible. God, I’m so depressed.”
Recently, Saffy changed her Facebook profile. In her “Relationship” status, she’s now put “Doomed to be discovered by the smell seeping from under her flat’s door”.
A few nights ago, my flatmates and I were invited to a cocktail party at our friend Mary’s house. “Very casual, one, so don’t dress up too much!” she’d instructed over the phone earlier in the day. As it turned out, everyone we knew was there at the party and by the looks of it, they’d all followed Mary’s dress code to the letter.
“Seriously,” Amanda, in full Miu-Miu, murmured out of the corner of her mouth, “I wouldn’t go to the wet market in anything these people are wearing! It’s disgraceful. Sharon!” she suddenly exclaimed, her bright eyes sparkling as she leaned over to kiss. “So lovely to see you! I love your denim shorts! Is it vintage?”
Meanwhile, on the other side of the room, Saffy was busy mixing herself a particularly lethal gin and tonic. Her recipe, which she claims has been handed down to through the generations, basically involves a full glass of gin, and a teaspoon of tonic water. You could unclog a drain with the stuff.
“That looks like a strong drink,” said the girl next to her.
As Saffy later told us, the girl looked like she’d just stepped off a Victoria’s Secret fashion runway show. “She was just missing the glitter and the wings!” she reported enviously.
And as girls do at parties, they got to talking while silently sizing each other up. (“Su-ann has such lovely skin!” Saffy noted with approval.) First, it was about innocuous things like the outfits they were each wearing. Weekend plans were next, and by the seven minute mark, they had moved onto boyfriends.
“I’m here with my boyfriend,” said Su-Ann. “He and Mary went to university together. Oh! There he is over there talking to that...girl over there.”
Saffy, the world’s foremost expert on the pregnant pause, immediately swivelled her head in the direction of Su-ann’s finger and found herself looking at Amanda talking to a guy she would later describe on Facebook as a fat Borneo monkey.
“How is this world fair?” she posted. “A pretty girl dating someone so fugly!”
In turn, Amanda posted a comment that one shouldn’t judge someone on his looks and that Fat Borneo Monkey was actually quite interesting.
“He is fugly!” Saffy repeated. “No man would ever date a woman who looked like FBM. It’s a man’s world, I tell you!”
Of course, what really killed Saffy was the fact that someone who looked like FBM had actually managed to convince someone so pretty as Su-ann to go out with him. And, in her books, what was even more astonishing was the fact that Amanda had actually found FBM interesting enough to talk to him.
And the underlying rant here was this: if gorgeous girls like Su-ann were dating Neanderthal apes like FBM, what did you have to look like to date the actual good-looking men in this town?
“There’s no hope for me!” she wailed later that night in the cab home. Amanda made soothing but ultimately ineffectual noises. “And there’s more! They just got engaged. They’re getting married next month!”
A silence fell over the cab. After a while, a nagging thought finally managed to get Amanda’s attention. “Uhm,” she began slowly. “She hasn’t invited you to the wedding has she?”
“She’s asked me to be one of the freaking brides-maids!” Saffy screamed out loud, nearly causing the poor uncle taxi-driver to swerve dangerously on the CTE. “Oh. My. God. First of all, how do you fall in love with someone who looks like that? And secondly, why would you ask someone you just met to be a bridesmaid? Don’t you have any friends? Oh, speaking of which, Amanda,” Saffy added, looking a little guilty in the strobe-light of the street lamps, “uhm, you’re not invited to the wedding.”
Saffy later said that she was so relieved that Amanda hadn’t asked why. “Because if she had,” she told me, “I would have had to lie. But can you imagine that Su-ann was actually jealous Fat Ugly Borneo Monkey was talking to her?”
“That’s what he’s called now?” I asked. “Fat Ugly Borneo Monkey?”
“Well, I think the ‘ugly’ is essential, don’t you? The only problem is that it only makes Su-ann’s engagement to him all that more incomprehensible. God, I’m so depressed.”
Recently, Saffy changed her Facebook profile. In her “Relationship” status, she’s now put “Doomed to be discovered by the smell seeping from under her flat’s door”.
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
Free for all
My overseas friends are always asking me what I do in my spare time. And they ask this with such serious fascination – a concerned frown creasing their forehead the way one mother might look at another mother if the latter announced that her 15-year old kid was still breast-feeding.
And I usually hesitate, because I’m never quite sure what to say. All my local friends like to joke that there’s nothing to do in Singapore except eat, shop and go to the movies. Well, now they can also go gambling, provided, of course, they can get past the queues of people outside, slowly baking in the hot sun. You’d have thought that they’d also be having sex, but judging by the recent surveys of Singapore’s falling birth rate and abysmal condom sales, apparently, that’s not happening either.
Which brings me back to my original source of embarrassment. I mean, you don’t really want to tell people that all you do on the weekends is eat, shop and watch movies, do you? What kind of an impression will that create in the minds of these impressionable foreigners?
But then, should I lie? Should I tell my American friends that on the weekends, I can be found abseiling down the Marina Bay Sand casino building? Or jet-skiing around Punggol? Which, in turn, gets me depressed because I can’t help but think how much more fun my life would be if I actually did any of these things. Nothing is more sobering than being forced to see your life from the perspective of a big fat lie.
The truth is, I just like to do nothing. Even when I’m meant to be busy. I could never do what Barack Obama does, for instance. All that stress of running a country and then having to make all those long boring speeches. In fact, I would never have run for office in the first place, let alone get out of bed.
But the one thing that I really like to do is to get free things. Now, I realise that some people may object to this on the grounds that this isn’t exactly an activity as such, but I like to think that seeing as the physical act of accepting the free thing requires actual effort, that’s got to count for something.
Recently, my flatmate Saffy returned home from what appeared to be a very successful shopping spree. ‘You’ll never guess what I’ve been doing!’ she announced immediately as she dropped what looked like ten Mustafa shopping bags.
‘You’ve been shopping. At Mustafa!’
‘Well, yes, I have,’ Saffy admitted, her impressive bosom deflating a little. ‘But that’s not all. I am the proud owner of a Mustafa loyalty card! Look!’ she said waving the little laminated card in my direction.
I sat up with interest. ‘What does it do?’ I asked.
‘I have no clue,’ Saffy replied. ‘I was just buying some toothpaste and shampoo and the girl at the counter asked me if I wanted to be a member, so I said yes.’
‘Did she say what the benefits are?’
‘She didn’t know either. She said the programme wasn’t going to launch for another couple of months.’
I eyed all the bags on the floor and wondered aloud how much toothpaste and shampoo Saffy had bought.
'Well, that’s the thing. I got so excited about my new card that I figured I might as well get more things while I was there.’
‘You get points with this card?’
‘I have no idea!’ Saffy repeated. ‘The girl didn’t know either, but we both figured it couldn’t hurt to start racking up the Mustafa dollars. Otherwise, what’s the point of a loyalty card?’
‘That’s what they’re called? Mustafa dollars?’
‘No, it’s what I’m calling them. They better be worth something,’ Saffy threatened, ‘otherwise I’ve just bought a lot of flavoured condoms for no reason!’
So here’s the thing. It’s mindless consumer behaviour like this that makes me love this country. People just willy-nilly giving away their private NRIC number to complete strangers in the vague hope that the little piece of plastic they’re given in exchange might one day get them something. Like a packet of sweets, or maybe a desk calendar, if they’re lucky.
When she heard about Saffy’s retail adventure in Little India, Amanda announced that it was women like Saffy that were causing the country’s falling birth rate. Saffy said privately that this was really rich coming from someone who had just dropped $13,000 on a stupid handbag that didn’t even have a zip. And, of course, first thing tomorrow, I’m heading out to Mustafa to get my card.
And I usually hesitate, because I’m never quite sure what to say. All my local friends like to joke that there’s nothing to do in Singapore except eat, shop and go to the movies. Well, now they can also go gambling, provided, of course, they can get past the queues of people outside, slowly baking in the hot sun. You’d have thought that they’d also be having sex, but judging by the recent surveys of Singapore’s falling birth rate and abysmal condom sales, apparently, that’s not happening either.
Which brings me back to my original source of embarrassment. I mean, you don’t really want to tell people that all you do on the weekends is eat, shop and watch movies, do you? What kind of an impression will that create in the minds of these impressionable foreigners?
But then, should I lie? Should I tell my American friends that on the weekends, I can be found abseiling down the Marina Bay Sand casino building? Or jet-skiing around Punggol? Which, in turn, gets me depressed because I can’t help but think how much more fun my life would be if I actually did any of these things. Nothing is more sobering than being forced to see your life from the perspective of a big fat lie.
The truth is, I just like to do nothing. Even when I’m meant to be busy. I could never do what Barack Obama does, for instance. All that stress of running a country and then having to make all those long boring speeches. In fact, I would never have run for office in the first place, let alone get out of bed.
But the one thing that I really like to do is to get free things. Now, I realise that some people may object to this on the grounds that this isn’t exactly an activity as such, but I like to think that seeing as the physical act of accepting the free thing requires actual effort, that’s got to count for something.
Recently, my flatmate Saffy returned home from what appeared to be a very successful shopping spree. ‘You’ll never guess what I’ve been doing!’ she announced immediately as she dropped what looked like ten Mustafa shopping bags.
‘You’ve been shopping. At Mustafa!’
‘Well, yes, I have,’ Saffy admitted, her impressive bosom deflating a little. ‘But that’s not all. I am the proud owner of a Mustafa loyalty card! Look!’ she said waving the little laminated card in my direction.
I sat up with interest. ‘What does it do?’ I asked.
‘I have no clue,’ Saffy replied. ‘I was just buying some toothpaste and shampoo and the girl at the counter asked me if I wanted to be a member, so I said yes.’
‘Did she say what the benefits are?’
‘She didn’t know either. She said the programme wasn’t going to launch for another couple of months.’
I eyed all the bags on the floor and wondered aloud how much toothpaste and shampoo Saffy had bought.
'Well, that’s the thing. I got so excited about my new card that I figured I might as well get more things while I was there.’
‘You get points with this card?’
‘I have no idea!’ Saffy repeated. ‘The girl didn’t know either, but we both figured it couldn’t hurt to start racking up the Mustafa dollars. Otherwise, what’s the point of a loyalty card?’
‘That’s what they’re called? Mustafa dollars?’
‘No, it’s what I’m calling them. They better be worth something,’ Saffy threatened, ‘otherwise I’ve just bought a lot of flavoured condoms for no reason!’
So here’s the thing. It’s mindless consumer behaviour like this that makes me love this country. People just willy-nilly giving away their private NRIC number to complete strangers in the vague hope that the little piece of plastic they’re given in exchange might one day get them something. Like a packet of sweets, or maybe a desk calendar, if they’re lucky.
When she heard about Saffy’s retail adventure in Little India, Amanda announced that it was women like Saffy that were causing the country’s falling birth rate. Saffy said privately that this was really rich coming from someone who had just dropped $13,000 on a stupid handbag that didn’t even have a zip. And, of course, first thing tomorrow, I’m heading out to Mustafa to get my card.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
The Periodic Table
People are always asking me what it’s like living with two girls. I always reply that it’s like being stuck in an endless episode of ‘Sex and the City’. But without the glamourous clothes, two inch Manolo Blahniks, sound-track and neat half-hour resolution of issues.
And it’s unbearable when it’s that time of the month.
When I was growing up, my mother would refer to the occasion as ‘the friend’. As in, “I think my friend is coming.” This was usually the hint for my father to suddenly have late night conference calls in the office and early breakfast meetings the next morning. As he once explained to my brother and me, “It’s not a good time to be around your mother when her friend visits.” To which my sister Michelle mumbled that when it came to Mother, it’s never a good time.
For the first two days, she would retreat to her bedroom in a foul temper with a hot-water bottle and every so often, she would send a message through the maid to one of us to pop down to the chemist to buy more pain-killers. Occasionally, we’d hear sharp yelps from behind closed doors and this would usually be accompanied by the sound of our father’s retreating footsteps as he scurried for the front door.
And when Mother eventually emerged from her room, looking pale and wan, we’d eye her cautiously, our emotions ranging between concern and barely retrained panic.
And you always knew that her ‘friend’ had packed up and left the house when she weakly lifted the phone to call Auntie Wai-ling to find out when the next mah-jong session was.
The funny thing was that I never heard any other woman use the term ‘my friend’ till I moved into the little flat with Saffy and Amanda and my beloved adopted mongrel dog Pooch.
One morning, not long after we moved in together, Amanda drifted out of her room, her hair limp and listless and her normally bright skin a shade duller. “Oh God,” she moaned as she slumped into the dining table chair. “I think my friend is here!”
I froze.
See, here’s the thing. It’s one thing to agree to live with two girls, but it’s quite another for them to become so comfortable with you that they’re able to discuss freely with you – at the dining table, no less – their assorted bodily functions. I mean, what’s next? Communal waxing sessions?
So, there and then, I decided to nip the problem in the bud. “We don’t have a guest-room,” I muttered as I got up and hurried into the kitchen with my cereal bowl.
Apparently, Amanda later said to Saffy that they had just moved in with a Neanderthal. In turn, Saffy is reported to have replied, “Ok. I don’t really know you all that well, Amanda, so don’t take this the wrong way, but if you’re going to call your period your friend, I’m going to have to seriously reassess our living arrangements.”
“But I hate the P-word!” protested Amanda, effortlessly betraying her convent school education. “It’s such a terrible word!”
Saffy’s bosom puffed up. “And ‘friend’ is better? Are you serious? There’s nothing friendly about something that comes every month and gives you crippling cramps, nausea and migraines! If men got periods, they would have killed themselves and the human race would have died out in the Jurassic period!”
Amanda later said that the fiery look in Saffy’s eyes prevented her from pointing out that humans were actually not around during the Jurassic period.
What followed was a curious four months as the two negotiated a mutually acceptable term to apply to what I still referred to everyone as “that time of the month”.
“Aiyoh, why they so cheem, one?” Sharyn complained. “By right is called menses, right?”
“Oh really, Sharyn,” I said urgently. “Don’t talk to me about this. Please.”
One night, I came home to find the girls sitting triumphantly on the sofa while toasting each other with a glass of champagne. “We’ve found a mutually acceptable term for our periods!” Saffy crooned.
I grunted, already making a beeline for my room. “And meanwhile, we’re in a war against terror. But that’s a small side show compared to this summit!”
Saffy giggled. “Oh really, don’t be such a baby!”
“It’s just too much information!” I pleaded.
Amanda sniffed. “We’re going to tell you anyway. As of now, our former friend is called our moon cycle!”
Saffy added, “It celebrates our woman-hood.”
I couldn’t help but think that they never had this kind of dialogue on ‘Sex and the City’. If they had, the show would probably have died out with the dinosaurs.
And it’s unbearable when it’s that time of the month.
When I was growing up, my mother would refer to the occasion as ‘the friend’. As in, “I think my friend is coming.” This was usually the hint for my father to suddenly have late night conference calls in the office and early breakfast meetings the next morning. As he once explained to my brother and me, “It’s not a good time to be around your mother when her friend visits.” To which my sister Michelle mumbled that when it came to Mother, it’s never a good time.
For the first two days, she would retreat to her bedroom in a foul temper with a hot-water bottle and every so often, she would send a message through the maid to one of us to pop down to the chemist to buy more pain-killers. Occasionally, we’d hear sharp yelps from behind closed doors and this would usually be accompanied by the sound of our father’s retreating footsteps as he scurried for the front door.
And when Mother eventually emerged from her room, looking pale and wan, we’d eye her cautiously, our emotions ranging between concern and barely retrained panic.
And you always knew that her ‘friend’ had packed up and left the house when she weakly lifted the phone to call Auntie Wai-ling to find out when the next mah-jong session was.
The funny thing was that I never heard any other woman use the term ‘my friend’ till I moved into the little flat with Saffy and Amanda and my beloved adopted mongrel dog Pooch.
One morning, not long after we moved in together, Amanda drifted out of her room, her hair limp and listless and her normally bright skin a shade duller. “Oh God,” she moaned as she slumped into the dining table chair. “I think my friend is here!”
I froze.
See, here’s the thing. It’s one thing to agree to live with two girls, but it’s quite another for them to become so comfortable with you that they’re able to discuss freely with you – at the dining table, no less – their assorted bodily functions. I mean, what’s next? Communal waxing sessions?
So, there and then, I decided to nip the problem in the bud. “We don’t have a guest-room,” I muttered as I got up and hurried into the kitchen with my cereal bowl.
Apparently, Amanda later said to Saffy that they had just moved in with a Neanderthal. In turn, Saffy is reported to have replied, “Ok. I don’t really know you all that well, Amanda, so don’t take this the wrong way, but if you’re going to call your period your friend, I’m going to have to seriously reassess our living arrangements.”
“But I hate the P-word!” protested Amanda, effortlessly betraying her convent school education. “It’s such a terrible word!”
Saffy’s bosom puffed up. “And ‘friend’ is better? Are you serious? There’s nothing friendly about something that comes every month and gives you crippling cramps, nausea and migraines! If men got periods, they would have killed themselves and the human race would have died out in the Jurassic period!”
Amanda later said that the fiery look in Saffy’s eyes prevented her from pointing out that humans were actually not around during the Jurassic period.
What followed was a curious four months as the two negotiated a mutually acceptable term to apply to what I still referred to everyone as “that time of the month”.
“Aiyoh, why they so cheem, one?” Sharyn complained. “By right is called menses, right?”
“Oh really, Sharyn,” I said urgently. “Don’t talk to me about this. Please.”
One night, I came home to find the girls sitting triumphantly on the sofa while toasting each other with a glass of champagne. “We’ve found a mutually acceptable term for our periods!” Saffy crooned.
I grunted, already making a beeline for my room. “And meanwhile, we’re in a war against terror. But that’s a small side show compared to this summit!”
Saffy giggled. “Oh really, don’t be such a baby!”
“It’s just too much information!” I pleaded.
Amanda sniffed. “We’re going to tell you anyway. As of now, our former friend is called our moon cycle!”
Saffy added, “It celebrates our woman-hood.”
I couldn’t help but think that they never had this kind of dialogue on ‘Sex and the City’. If they had, the show would probably have died out with the dinosaurs.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
My Word
I had a revelation the other day. And it took place in, of all places, my bathroom.
Imagine the scene…There I was in a hot, steaming bath, frothy with bubbles and squeezing a squeaking yellow rubber duck that belonged to my flatmate Amanda, all the while happily singing a show stopping, but admittedly off-key rendition of Barry White’s ‘You’re My First, My Last, My Everything’.
There is something about the comfort and sanctuary of lying in a tub of hot scented water, the steam fogging the bathroom and the world’s worries put on hold for a while. (Though I have to admit I stopped taking baths for a couple of years after watching Michelle Pfeiffer in ‘What Lies Beneath’.)
Anyway, in a bath, the muscles loosen up and the body relaxes. All is blissful. Bubbly. Comforting. And funny things happen to the brain. It begins opening up neural paths that are usually shut down for permanent repairs and maintenance. Must be the heat or something. Not surprisingly, the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes came up with the theory for buoyancy while he was soaking in the bath.
And that afternoon, in my bath, I had my Archimedes moment. One moment I was crooning, ‘My kind of wonderful, that’s what you are…I know, there’s only…only one like you…There’s no way they could have made two…’ and the next, it occurred to me – completely out of the blue – that I had a favourite word.
Out of all the hundreds of thousands of words I knew, I realized that there was one word that I loved above all. A word that, like a bowl of laksa, made me happy and forced my facial muscles into a smile.
“Celebration?” my flatmate Saffy said later that night at our dining table. “Why is that your favourite word?”
“It makes me happy,” I said. “Celebration. See, I’m smiling!”
“That’s a nice word,” our other flatmate Amanda said as she speared her pasta. “I actually think it reflects your personality.”
I was pleased. “Really? You think I have a celebratory personality?”
“Well, you wouldn’t know it when you wake up in the morning,” Amanda mused, “but I think there’s something to this. Hmm, I wonder what mine is. Let me think about it in the bath. I hope you cleaned up after yourself,” she added as she got up from the table and disappeared into our bathroom.
“What’s my favourite word?” Saffy wondered to the world at large. “Stupid? I use ‘stupid’ a lot. Dumb-ass? Is that two words? Does that qualify? Crap! Ooh, ‘crap’! Maybe that’s my favourite word? But it’s not very glamourous, is it?”
When Amanda eventually emerged from the bathroom, dense steam billowing out before her as she emerged like Tina Turner at a concert, she had narrowed her list to two candidates. “I’m thinking it’s a toss-up between Chanel and Dior!” she said dreamily. “I always get such a warm fuzzy feeling when I utter those names.”
“Ooh, that’s so you, Manda!” Saffy cooed. “My turn in the bathroom!”
The subject of our favourite words fully occupied our attention for days after. And to her eternal distress, despite taking multiple baths, Saffy was unable to come up with a meaningful selection. “All the words on my list are hateful words!” she complained, her impressive bosom trembling with self-loathing. “Strangle. Pain. Diet. Spit. I love the sound of them, but I mean, these are not words that I think should reflect my personality, do you? How come you get to pick ‘celebration’? It’s so unfair!” she moaned.
“Bitch!” said my friend Barney Chen immediately when I asked him for his favourite word.
I coughed into my coffee. “That’s your favourite word?”
“Yes,” Barney said firmly, shifting his muscled bulk on the chair and winking at the cute Toast waiter. “It’s very moi.”
“Uh huh, interesting.”
“Mine, hah?” My office manager Sharyn pursed her lips and concentrated. “My favourite word. Doh-no, leh! How about ‘Increment’? Oh, no, no! I like ‘Bonus’!” You could practically see the capitals glowing in the air.
“Sleep,” said my friend Karl, whose wife has just given birth to twins. “It’s definitely ‘sleep’.”
And Amanda was right. The emotional beam of the words that my friends chose as their favourite bounced off their personalities, shining a bright light through the polite, public façade – to uncover what lay beneath. With one word, a tiny capsule of compressed images of that person spun off into the world.
Meanwhile, Saffy continues to struggle with her selection. “I like the sound of ‘thin’,” she said worriedly this morning. “What do you think that means? I think I need another bath!” she decided and wandered off mumbling. “Fat? Food? How about food? Ooh, I hate this game! Or things related to food…Cheese! No…”
Imagine the scene…There I was in a hot, steaming bath, frothy with bubbles and squeezing a squeaking yellow rubber duck that belonged to my flatmate Amanda, all the while happily singing a show stopping, but admittedly off-key rendition of Barry White’s ‘You’re My First, My Last, My Everything’.
There is something about the comfort and sanctuary of lying in a tub of hot scented water, the steam fogging the bathroom and the world’s worries put on hold for a while. (Though I have to admit I stopped taking baths for a couple of years after watching Michelle Pfeiffer in ‘What Lies Beneath’.)
Anyway, in a bath, the muscles loosen up and the body relaxes. All is blissful. Bubbly. Comforting. And funny things happen to the brain. It begins opening up neural paths that are usually shut down for permanent repairs and maintenance. Must be the heat or something. Not surprisingly, the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes came up with the theory for buoyancy while he was soaking in the bath.
And that afternoon, in my bath, I had my Archimedes moment. One moment I was crooning, ‘My kind of wonderful, that’s what you are…I know, there’s only…only one like you…There’s no way they could have made two…’ and the next, it occurred to me – completely out of the blue – that I had a favourite word.
Out of all the hundreds of thousands of words I knew, I realized that there was one word that I loved above all. A word that, like a bowl of laksa, made me happy and forced my facial muscles into a smile.
“Celebration?” my flatmate Saffy said later that night at our dining table. “Why is that your favourite word?”
“It makes me happy,” I said. “Celebration. See, I’m smiling!”
“That’s a nice word,” our other flatmate Amanda said as she speared her pasta. “I actually think it reflects your personality.”
I was pleased. “Really? You think I have a celebratory personality?”
“Well, you wouldn’t know it when you wake up in the morning,” Amanda mused, “but I think there’s something to this. Hmm, I wonder what mine is. Let me think about it in the bath. I hope you cleaned up after yourself,” she added as she got up from the table and disappeared into our bathroom.
“What’s my favourite word?” Saffy wondered to the world at large. “Stupid? I use ‘stupid’ a lot. Dumb-ass? Is that two words? Does that qualify? Crap! Ooh, ‘crap’! Maybe that’s my favourite word? But it’s not very glamourous, is it?”
When Amanda eventually emerged from the bathroom, dense steam billowing out before her as she emerged like Tina Turner at a concert, she had narrowed her list to two candidates. “I’m thinking it’s a toss-up between Chanel and Dior!” she said dreamily. “I always get such a warm fuzzy feeling when I utter those names.”
“Ooh, that’s so you, Manda!” Saffy cooed. “My turn in the bathroom!”
The subject of our favourite words fully occupied our attention for days after. And to her eternal distress, despite taking multiple baths, Saffy was unable to come up with a meaningful selection. “All the words on my list are hateful words!” she complained, her impressive bosom trembling with self-loathing. “Strangle. Pain. Diet. Spit. I love the sound of them, but I mean, these are not words that I think should reflect my personality, do you? How come you get to pick ‘celebration’? It’s so unfair!” she moaned.
“Bitch!” said my friend Barney Chen immediately when I asked him for his favourite word.
I coughed into my coffee. “That’s your favourite word?”
“Yes,” Barney said firmly, shifting his muscled bulk on the chair and winking at the cute Toast waiter. “It’s very moi.”
“Uh huh, interesting.”
“Mine, hah?” My office manager Sharyn pursed her lips and concentrated. “My favourite word. Doh-no, leh! How about ‘Increment’? Oh, no, no! I like ‘Bonus’!” You could practically see the capitals glowing in the air.
“Sleep,” said my friend Karl, whose wife has just given birth to twins. “It’s definitely ‘sleep’.”
And Amanda was right. The emotional beam of the words that my friends chose as their favourite bounced off their personalities, shining a bright light through the polite, public façade – to uncover what lay beneath. With one word, a tiny capsule of compressed images of that person spun off into the world.
Meanwhile, Saffy continues to struggle with her selection. “I like the sound of ‘thin’,” she said worriedly this morning. “What do you think that means? I think I need another bath!” she decided and wandered off mumbling. “Fat? Food? How about food? Ooh, I hate this game! Or things related to food…Cheese! No…”
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Die die must try
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.
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.
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.
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