Our first date

Our first date was over coffee at Amberlounge, in Burwood although neither one of us had coffee. It was our first meet-up after that surprising night at Greenwood, which was all about swaying in sync to the music and – let’s face it – an expulsion of pent-up lust rather than any meaningful exchange. I was busy pretending nothing had happened afterwards. Freak of nature, scratching an itch, drunken tomfoolery, call it whatever you will. Coffee that Wednesday night was supposed to be just casual coffee between friends. Fast forward two years and seven months later. We fell in lust long before we fell in love. Sounds a bit unappetising, but that’s what it was.

I was in a hurry, but he didn’t know it then. I was in a hurry because I had double-booked dinner with another somebody immediately prior to our coffee rendezvous. Imagine me shrugging my shoulders here. No harm intended or done, back-to-back casual dinners and coffees between friends are above board, especially when you’re single. So it was a furious dash, skip and hop back home after the uneventful dinner, throwing on fresh jeans, a tactile sweater, some powder and a flick of mascara.

He picked me up from my home and we greeted each other with a peck on the cheek as platonic friends do. Laughed all the way in the car-ride to Amberlounge. I remember being sick at the time from a bug I caught from a quick weekend jaunt to Melbourne and ordering hot water to wash Panadol down with. Pecking at his semi-soggy fries, dragged through ketchup. One of his friends sat on the table next to us by a spook of nature, and I remember him eyeing me curiously as they greeted each other. It was some time later that I learnt he was the current boyfriend of an old girlfriend of mine, a girlfriend whose long-time ex, also an old friend of mine, incidentally was with him at Greenwood that fateful night, egging him onto me. Kevin Bacon had nothing on us.

Our discussion that night is a blur now, I can’t recall the details. I remember the mood being relaxed, easy-going and rife with warm laughter. There were no gaps of awkward silences, just jumps in the conversation one after each other at all the many things we had to talk about. I remember being distinctly delighted at the change in atmosphere compared to the dinner I just had with somebody else, which frankly pained me a little. Our companionship from the beginning was like melted ice-cream. Sweet and generally smooth with the occasional meltable lump. At that point I still thought it was platonic, almost grateful that we managed to nudge over the mild inconvenience of a mistaken hook-up.

We finished up with the fries and hot water and walked shoulder to shoulder to his car. It was probably more like my shoulder to his elbow, even in heels. The outdoor car park by the park was shrouded in shadows from the trees, the ground slightly wet with earlier rain. He opened my car door for me, which made me smile. As I settled into the seat, a man approached him from behind which made me prickle with caution. He looked dodgy at best, and I left the car door ajar to hear what he had to say. Bizarrely, he wanted to know whether we wanted to buy his cheap alloys, because he had a ‘spare set’? Right. Spare like I just happen to have a spare liver.

He politely declined and to my relief the man walked away with no drama. He walked around the car and got into the seat on his side, turned to me and smiled. It was around about that point that he proved to me and I guess I proved to myself, platonic wasn’t meant to be what’s between us. I appreciate assertiveness as a character trait, particularly in a potential suitor. It’s extremely attractive, as are optimism, kindness and the sense of humour to not take life or one’s self too seriously.

Amberlounge has since closed down, which prompted me to write this in a sort of twisted belated remembrance. Through the taxi window the other night, I saw that the replacement café looked brighter, cheerier and cleaner, but somehow lacked personality. Perhaps what’s missing are the emotional brownie points. Amberlounge was never a great hang-out, with the smoking and carbon monoxide wafting in from the road and hideous coffee, but it formed the backdrop for one of our earliest and most surprisingly sweet memories together.

Praise be to Large Cappuccinos

I tried, I really did. I had work to get through this morning and was running late so I scurried in, buckled down and got on with it.

I lasted until 10.30am before finally admitting defeat. A quivering lump of brainlessness, a sorry excuse of a working woman who had caught a severe case of stupiditis. My productivity was in the red, worse than zero. I was wasting mother earth’s precious energy resources without contributing an iota.

The first gulp of caffeine was an elixir of the highest degree. Every cell jumped for joy like a bouncing bean and screamed with relief. I’m never holding out again.

My deepest heartfelt thanks to the Ethiopians of the 9th century. You’re all my favourite people today.

A vote of confidence in Darwin

One of the best pieces of dating advice I ever got was out of some smutty women’s magazine a long time ago. The advice was something along the lines of this –

“Don’t try to change somebody else, try to be the date of your dreams if you were of the opposite sex”.

It’s an interesting proposition, I think riss wrote about this once too. Would you date yourself, if you were of the opposite sex? If the answer is in the negative then one has some serious self-esteem issues and should invest time in therapy as opposed to reading silly blogs, but dream date is another matter.

If I was a guy, I’d like to think that I’d date me. The thing I like most about that little gem of advice is it focuses on what we can change, namely ourselves, rather than the absurdity of hoping somebody else will change for us. We all know how dismal and fruitless an exercise that can be. This is one instance when stepping back achieves a world more than charging heedlessly ahead. The petulant and adverse nature of human behaviour dictates that more often than not, we’ll willingly do something if we not required to, but will steadfastly refuse to budge if under the threat of nagging and whining.

Putting myself in the shoes of a guy, I would loathe to have a stupid, vain, needy, waste-of-space girlfriend. I would hate to be the guy shifting awkwardly from foot to foot, avoiding the eye contact of other snide women as I wait for mine to exit the change room. I would hate for my girl to expect me to pay for everything because ‘it’s a man’s duty’. I would hate for my girl to be afraid of trying new restaurants, activities, styles simply because she was afraid of failing. I would hate for my girl to be a perennial hair-twirler, the type that squeaks instead of speaks, plays cute instead of womanly, giggles coquettishly instead of laughs uproariously. I’m not that girl and wouldn’t want to be, which just goes to show that I could never be a guy since so many of them fall for girls exactly like that.

Apparently those type of girls make guys feel like men. Ergo, being who I am I don’t generally make guys feel like men. Which probably explains why I was once called ‘demasculating’, clearly by somebody of extreme small…stature, shall we say. All I can say is if it takes a wimpy excuse of a woman for one to feel like a man, as opposed to actually being a man, then those guys deserve those wimpy women. They will have wimpy spawn who will mop up the mess they leave when my future offspring beat them up to a pulp in the playground, before they grow up to rule the world.

Aquarium adventures

I’ve visited the Darling Harbour Aquarium a handful of times over the past few years now and Saturday was the first time I saw the crocodile actually move. Always used to suspect that the thing was a fake, with stupid humans ooh-ing and aah-ing over a stuffed suitcase under a heat lamp. This time Mr Crocodile actually stretched its jaw and yawned, then sinuously slid into the water. Fine, no suitcase then.

Also new – I touched a Port Jackson shark in the ‘touch pool’. The skin is rougher than I expected, almost scaly like fine sandpaper. My mother brought dried shark fin over from HK to cook for me on this visit, but it got confiscated at customs due to it being an ‘endangered specie’. Which is a load of crap since it was lawfully marked farmed shark fin for commercial consumption. Confiscated into the immigration custom officer’s locker I’m sure. Which is just as well I suppose, as after seeing live sharks in their natural turf at Heron and Brampton, I’ve vowed not to eat shark fin anymore. I won’t go as far to swear off leather and meat, but this, this I can do.

They’ve completed the long awaited penguin and seal enclave, so we got to see fat, supple seals swirl and swim around delightedly underwater. They’re so agile! For some reason seals always look so cheerful, like they don’t have a care in the world. Which, if I was a seal that was being fed regularly and under no pressure to clap and wriggle as summoned, I would be too.

Huge doesn’t begin to describe the rays. They’re the size of a twelve-people round table at marigold yum-cha. Their undersides are a strange shade of freckled pale pink, like a mildly sunburned pommie wearing an expression of grimace. See what I mean?

Zoos have always made me uncomfortable, even as a little girl. I hated seeing cheetahs and lions cooped up behind brick walls and bars, they belong on dusty land under a burning sun, chasing antelopes and ripping them apart with wild jaws. Strangely enough although the concept is the same I love and appreciate aquariums. The underwater world is so spectacular and foreign, without aquariums and sea parks we wouldn’t be able to get within easy sniffing distance of seals, see giant sharks cruise by with little fishies hanging onto its gills. A visit to Great Barrier Reef to see them on their own turf once a year is not nearly enough. It isn’t the real thing, but it’s better than nothing every other day of the year. I feel small and oddly at peace in the aquarium, despite screechy kids and pushy parents with prams. Watching the bluebottles pulse steadily and eerily under the fluoro light is another form of meditation.

I don’t believe that life is boring. As cheesy-Hallmark as it sounds life really is what you make of it. If you insist on going to work, then home, then work monotonously day in and day out without making an effort to add any colour except bitch and moan, then of course it would be boring. We are a privileged, fortunate bunch. We may not all be royally rich, but we’re educated and comfortable, with countless books, music on demand, galleries and museums and art exhibitions to attend to. Italian shoes, French wine, Japanese tempura and Playstation, English afternoon tea scones and Belgian beer at our fingertips, not to mention a state-of-the-art aquarium that’s open almost every day of the year for the price of a cafe lunch. It wouldn’t do to complain.

Religious intolerance and the Aryan Nation are not so different

Upfront disclaimer that no attempt is being made in any way to step on any pious toes in the process. This is not about anyone else, this is about thoughts in my head. Any attempt by anyone to get personal with me on this have missed the point and will be duly ignored.

Religion is a topic I’m highly sensitive to, as many I’m close to will no doubt be keenly aware of. I’m not religious, but I like to think that within my own definitions and parameters, I am spiritual. I believe in being a good person, helping others and making a positive contribution to the world. I believe in being financially and mentally independent, caring for friends and families, being respectful of the elderly and offering your seat to children and pregnant women. I don’t believe in a god per se, but I believe that there is a higher being somehow, somewhere who governs the cosmic balance. I believe that although there is a higher being, we alone are responsible for our own faults and strengths, we create our own destinies through our choices and actions.

I respect other people’s faith, even if it’s not my own. I respect that we all think differently and that these differences keeps the variable cogs of the world turning brilliantly. I respect and indeed, often admire other people’s ability to believe and to hold faith in their religion. Religion can be a wonderful source of strength, a pillar of goodness to look up to and emanate. Even if I don’t share those beliefs and have no immediate desire to, I respect those beliefs in other people. If it makes them happy and brings them towards performing good deeds that helps others whilst finding self-fulfilment, I cannot see any negativity. Nor would I even dream of shoving atheism literature in the face of those who believe. Which is something that some religious ones do not hesitate to do to me, but that’s for another day.

But why is it that it’s exactly those who are supposedly religious that often take such a narrow view of the world, narrow and myopic to the point that there is no room to accommodate people who don’t believe, or those who believe otherwise? To some there is only one single religion – their own – all others are nasty, evil, immoral, wrong, incorrect, indecent, sinful, shameful. There is no room for tolerance and acceptance of those who may hold equally strong faith in other religions, or indeed, none at all. To me, THAT is shameful and sinful.

In its worst form, it’s akin to those white-supremacist Neo-Nazi Aryan Nation members, the people who believe that all is good and right in the world belong to those with blond hair, white skin and blue eyes. Derogatory and intolerant sentiments towards another religion is no different from those white supremacists saying “f-ing no-good nigger/chinga” and spewing racial hatred over anyone else who is different. Intolerance and disrespect are exactly the same, be it in the turf of religion or racism.

A person who is calculative, spiteful and intolerant of others is not religious or pious, even if they attended religious ceremonies every waking minute of his or her life. Such behaviour means they are no more a religious being than the typical garden snail. Spirituality is bred through what we do, not in our beliefs and cheap talk. The world we live in today may be an increasingly flat global village, but it’s still big enough to hold every man and woman, regardless if they’re white, black, brown or yellow. Big enough for Catholics, Christians, Protestants, Hindus or Buddhists to co-exist in harmony and respect. Big enough for every leopard and swan, every fig and willow and every nebula and dwarf star. It’s just not big enough to hold this sort of intolerant hatred, masked behind the snide label of religious loyalty.

No higher being worthy of worship is going to promote that sort of intolerance. Humans are the ones who have twisted the meaning and created this sort of ugliness on their own accord, for their own agendas. If god, in whatever carnation or form does indeed promote this sort of intolerance, then I’m comforted by the fact that I don’t believe.

When Imitation isn’t the sincerest form of flattery

Oops, did I just plagiarise you Miss Lokemotion??

I don’t quite understand the psychology behind blog plagiarism. By their very nature and definition, blogs are egocentric and self-centred to the author. They are a forum to allow people to rant, rave and gurgle about themselves to the world at large, even if the world does not care. To incessantly and gleefully talk about their own stupid weekends, to wax nostalgic over their love of hairy German girls, snowboard air time, touch footy boys, self-help books, fugly handbags, Stella McCartney and post up silly pictures baring teeth and gums and smoochy faces. That is the fun of it. It’s entirely frivolous and entirely your own.

So why would people bother to copy other people’s neurotises and peculiar expressions of self? I find it perplexing, but mostly amusing actually. We must all have enough of our own idiosyncrasies and stupidity to not have to resort to other peoples’! You can be inspired by what you read. I’m often guilty of reading a particular something and wishing fervantly I had the creativity to write it myself, but copying it onto my website doesn’t make it mine. Even if nobody knows, I know. And somebody always finds out anyway.

Sometimes it doesn’t even have to be word for word copying. Usage of the same three words and phrases in the first sentence of a blog title-bar as my own, which has been up and running for over two years unchanged now, is sufficient to make me raise my eyebrows at the unoriginal stench.

Explore your own style peoples, as crappy or silly or mundane it may be. At least it’s your own. The world is tiny and everybody is connected, particularly if you’re a twenty-something Asian. Nothing can possibly escape every connection’s radar. At least when it’s your own it’s original ponder and original babble so that nobody can out you as a copycat on a corner of cyber space somewhere.

Dancing, rugby, girl talk and everything in between

Waratahs vs Crusaders – 33 to 34. Missed out by just ONE measly point, because the dude who was kicking the last conversion managed to smack the post instead of sending the ball through it. He must feel like cracking his own noggin on that post now. I’m told that ten tries and three penalties in one game isn’t bad effort, but it still would’ve been icing on the cake to watch my home city win.

Seeing a rugby game live is another world from watching it on TV. The guys seem so much bigger, the lights dazzling, the grass a crisp shade of green. Experiencing the crowd roaring and surging to their feet in unison banging those blue plastic air drum-sticks makes one forget, for one blinding moment, that they really don’t quite care either way.

On the same night, I watched a guy zoom in on a girl in a crowded club and within the span of one hour progress from leaning in to talk to her to caressing her neck to slinging an arm around her waist to dirty dancing, pelvis to pelvis. It was fascinating to watch in a pervertedly morbid way, like watching a cheetah tear apart an antelope with bloody jaws on those Discovery Channel shows. Is it really that easy? That neck-caress move was obviously his ‘power move’, and made me slightly want to vomit.

Sunday was a gorge of girl talk, from lunch to dinner. I’m often fascinated by the myriad of topics which arise during my girl talk sessions. Pap smears, Taiwanese pop soapies, Country Road new stock, wagyu beef ribs and marriage contemplations (not mine) are de rigeur, constipation and Catholic guilt (fortunately) are not.

Couch Turfing

Watch the boys flex their muscles and test Newton’s gravity laws as they precariously turf a feral, bug-infested couch over the balcony. Must admit it was a bit anti-climax after all the hemming and hawwing beforehand.

Can anyone show me how to rotate videos?

Money money money

Cash is indeed king, and a very conspicuous one at that. When you spend on credit, nothing feels like it’s coming out of your pocket. It’s intangible. One hands over their little piece of plastic, takes bag containing cute shoes/books/bottles of wine/zimmermann dress, then also takes back their little piece of plastic. Nothing is lost. Nothing is felt either until the credit card bill at the end of the month slings through the heart like an arrow. There is a very real reason why AMEX keeps offering to increase my credit limit.

So in an attempt to curb my frivolous spending just a little, I’m resorting to the cash-only option for the next month. No more credit cards. Not for petrol, not for groceries and definitely not for drinks at grubby Privos on Friday nights. It hurts so much more when cash is involved. Little pieces of hard-earnt paper just disappear, poof, into the wind. I have a feeling it’ll make me think twice about unnecessary spending. Handing over $45 cash at Woolworths last night hurt and that was just for zucchini, steak, carrots and broccoli – all necessary, healthy stuff.

My last attempt to curb spending worked remarkably well, hopefully this one will too. I’m just dreading next week when my folks come over for a visit. Inevitably we’re going to go to poshy restaurants, the type that’s going to be require me to peel wads of cash from rolls curled together with a rubber band.

It’s what inside that counts

So what happens when you look inside, and don’t like what you see?

I find that one of the most disillusioning thing about growing progressively older is that I’m confronted by more and more parts of myself which I wish wasn’t so. Which I’m almost shocked to discover that exist. When I was younger, I had a notion of myself, what I stand for, what I would tolerate, what I would accept and embrace or discard. There are situations and circumstances which I find myself in now that even two years ago, would have caused me to walk away without a backward glance. The fact that I don’t walk away now, in some small part, makes me look at myself with distaste.

It’s true that idealism is entwined with immaturity, so perhaps I was too inexperienced before to recognise that the real world isn’t as slickly black and white as I’d like it to be. The ‘acceptance’ I talk of now regarding these deplorable situations is maybe merely an adjustment for what was an unsustainable state before. There’s still undeniably a part of me inside that agrees with this logic, but just fervently wish it wasn’t like this. I wish I could hold onto the idealism, cling with stubborn fingers onto that pretty version of ‘me’ which I took for granted once.

The ultimate black and the white book-ends of my value system haven’t changed, it’s just the myriad of greys in between got much murkier. Something which was black before gradually got diluted by the white of compromise, acceptance and second chances. Maybe I’m just scared that the more the grey takes over, the more the book-ends start moving sneakily and stealthily outwards until one day, I wake up and realise I represent everything I’ve always disagreed and loathed and despised, right inside of me.