“I love my wife.” – Jez

Letter of Thanks

Dear Narelle Da Costa,

Thank you for saving my life. No really, you did. Every time I fluke a credit during the next two years I’ll think of your kindness. I’m going to name one of my children after you. At least one.

Hugs,

Annie

Not On My Mind

Without realising it, it’s already been something like one year since my ex and I split. Honestly it feels nowhere near as long. I suppose if you were young, naive, carefree and spent three years of your life with one person thinking “this is it”, you might share my feelings of mild bewilderment to find not only how easy it was to move on, but how quick moving on can be.

I feel about the matter the same as I did two days after the break-up. Indifference with a splash of regret, a pinch of defiance (you break up with me? Please …), and a dab of relief.

I remember a line from this Jon Foreman song I used to really like – “two years later you’re still on my mind”. At 2:30 am on whichever day of February it was in ‘07, after I randomly SMS’ed five people (my boss included) with the same message, I wondered dully whether the lyrics would hold true for me in two years’ time. Two days later, however, I was already crushing on a guy from my course that my mother said resembled a middle-aged woman.

No, that wasn’t the rebound.

Rebound was probably worse. I don’t know. It’s a tight draw.

Nobody had ever heard of anybody bouncing off a long-term relationship like I did. Even I can’t explain it. I cried for a total of five minutes. I cry more during The Lion King.

So three months later I fell in love with Jez. Some think I fall in love too easily. They might be onto something.

I’m heading to my bed to call Jez so we could talk on the phone like we have done every night for the past 280 days. Twelve months ago this would probably have been the very last thing I would have guessed I’d be doing twelve months later.

Cybersex

Has even sex been made obsolete by technology?

I don’t remember the last time I opened a decent sealed section of Cosmopolitan. Granted, the frequency of my magazine purchases varies greatly, but during the past six months I’ve managed to collect around fifteen issues – a combination of Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, Harper’s Bazaar, New Woman and Cleo.

On more than three occasions have I come across some hyped-up article about cybersex or online-sex or virtual sex. In fact, two magazines have featured in their sealed sections the online game Second Life. Hello? Have you monkeys forgotten the tradition of the famous sealed sections? Whatever happened to full-frontal photos of completely nude men and women acting out their twisted sexual fantasies? The bizarre sex tips? The detailed step-by-step instructions on how to achieve three different kinds of orgasms simultaneously? The juicy naughty stuff that make teenage girls giggle, and high school math teachers blush when caught out on knowing about the sacred pages hidden within the “SEX SECRETS INSIDE” tab?

Apparently it’s a thing of the past.

From this month’s Cleo,

“Cybersex Dos and Don’ts

Set ground rules if you have a partner. Cybersex may be fantasy, but it can ruin real-world relationships.

As in real life, the easiest way to break the ice with someone new is via small talk.

Lock the door. Online forums are full of stories about people whose partners, parents or flatmates walked in on them mid-session.

Once an erotic story starts, follow the script and avoid continuity problems.

Be careful with misspellings. It can really wreck the mood if a partner suddenly sends an “LOL” in the middle of a steamy session.

Try not to leave the computer until you’ve both climaxed.”

It’s like a fussy cooking recipe.

“Follow the instructions in sequential order. The steps may sound simple but mixing the steps could result in unsatisfactory souffle.

The easiest way to crack open an egg is to tap the middle on a sharp edge.

Close tightly the lid of the food processor. Our forums are full of stories about bits of fruit flying around the kitchen as the top wasn’t sealed properly.

Once the flour has been sifted, stir in a single direction continuously until mixed.

Be careful with the type of baking pan used. It can really wreck a perfect muffin if the wrong type of metal results in burnt bases.

Try not to remove cake from the oven until the middle springs back when touched.”

The next page is titled “Sex in Second Life”. Surprise.

“Buying sex in Second Life

Straight sex: between $L1,200 and $L2,000 for one hour.

Fetishes or role play: An extra $L300 to $L1,000 an hour.

Threesomes: Up to $L4,000 an hour.

Oral sex: About $L250 to $L400 for 15 minutes.

Nude dance: $L400 for 10 minutes.

FYI: US$1 is worth about 250 Linden dollars.”

So basically, you pay about eight bucks to have someone’s avatar hump yours. Money well spent?

There’s a person who …

Has a pile of unused textbooks stacked below his desk. Dislikes Ne-yo for the claps. Reads Marie Claire with enthusiasm. Has eyes that are different from one another – the left is larger, rounder and lighter in colour. Always drinks bottled water, even at home. Has recently taken a liking to raw scallops. Doesn’t know where apart from Maloney’s to go for drinks. Has worn the same shoulder-bag for the larger part of the past year. Loves Milo cereal. Loves Milo in general. Dislikes Milo Ventimiglia. Has trouble getting up for work. Visits peculiar salons and emerges with peculiar haircuts. Knows how to fix peculiar haircuts. Wears boardies at home. Doesn’t know what to wear to the pool. Watches little TV. Has a level 70 warlock. Lies about being willing to delete level 70 warlock. Washes his face with St Ives apricot scrub. Could probably survive on potatoes for the rest of his life. Thinks Kate Moss is ugly. Farts often. Laughs afterwards. Sometimes groans and complains of pain. Goes swimming but doesn’t swim. Has a two-pack, maybe now four. Has no bath toys other than mini cars. Loves sleeping while it rains. Has a stockings fetish. Smokes occasionally, more often during exams. Has been pining after a Macbook for the past nine months. Is a semi-former Yongfook fan. Eats at a cafe he knows is shit. Browses Facebook photos. Teases his mother. Never eats tofu. Drives a silver Corolla. Was once fond of falafel kebabs. Keeps lubricant in a brown toiletries bag. Used to keep condoms in a blueberry yoghurt box. Can’t have sex using condoms. Writes to-do lists on a blue notepad. Drinks Tsunamis at Ramen Kan. Has a Fight Club poster on his wall. Would marry Catherine Zeta Jones if he could. Laughs manically at fat people. Plays his DS at work. Pays hefty phone bills. Has short eyelashes. Uses Clinique eye revitaliser. Hates mango tuna. Keeps instant noodles in his filing cabinet. Wears a silver hoop on his left ear. Has a mole resembling a piercing on his right ear. Loves lamb massaman curry. Usually has dry lips but refuses lip balm. For some reason likes pizza but eats it without the ingredient that defines pizza. Is openly gay with Nathan. Pines after Felix. Has a voice that seems incapable of volume exceeding that of normal speech. Owns a tweed Pete Doherty hat. Has something like six bottles of cologne but only wears Kenneth Cole. Is fond of sashimi. Works at F&W. Wears tiny aspirin patches over blemishes. Owns a bottle of revolting cough suppressant. Almost never gets sick. Wears black chucks. Plays with his neighbour’s cats. Has stinky underarms. Likes to keep his blanket and blanket cover separate. Makes turkey and cranberry sandwiches. Never changes his ringtone from the bomchikawahwah thing. Walks to Central station from work even though Town Hall is closer. Complains most about his belly, then nose. Has mini-fangs. Orders only mochas from GJ’s. Keeps notes and cards in a money clip. Uses Optifree contact solution. Wears black emo Kitoya glasses, which aren’t strong enough for his eyes. Window-shops online, a lot. Reads Naruto. Also reads some gay comic about tennis. Throws up on his bedroom floor after excessive drinking. Throws up all over his girlfriend’s shoes. Doesn’t own an iPod and lies about not wanting one. Has no hair on his upper arms. Has plenty of it on his legs. Spends his entire weekend in the company of one person. Is revoltingly lovey-dovey in public. Becomes extremely quiet when upset. Sometimes says things he doesn’t mean. Always takes them back. Is mature. Is considerate. Is caring. Is in love. Is very much loved. <3

Fixing a breaking heel with nail glue …

This is mighty disturbing. Especially when he dances. I didn’t finish watching because Eugene scolded me for expressing excessive interest in the embarassingly obscene. But on the plus side, it’s a love story. He lost more than five times my body weight since falling in love. Kudos to him!

Today is not suited for work. Most of my energy was drained from dragging my lazy arse out of bed and the rest spent on waddling to work in a semi-broken heel.

I was so pissed off that when changing trains at Town Hall I headed for Nine West in QVB determined to buy the most expensive pair of stilettos. Halfway up the steps I came to my senses and realised that this would look pretty shoddy on my record of daily spendings. And shops weren’t yet open, but that’s hardly the point.

Bought a little bottle of nail glue and stuck the wobbling heel back onto the sole. Nail glue because I’ve had much experience firmly sticking my fingers together while trying to apply french fakes. I’m feeling supergirl.

Call me Cinnamon Buns!

Friday

After the usual lengthy debate over where and what to have for dinner, I suggested we trek to Ashfield to kill two birds with one stone, since we wanted to take a walk anyway.

There was a little Shang eatery next to the fruit market that opened recently. Last time we passed by it was packed. And now, after deciding to dine there, we really wonder why.

We ordered pumpkin pancakes, hot and sour soup and traditional Shanghainese mini pork buns.

The pumpkin pancakes, it seemed, were identical in appearance to another number off the menu – red bean buns. Stupid, really, that we forced down unnecessarily huge servings of revolting and presumably cheap red bean paste before realising that they probably served us the wrong dish. In fact, we pretty much polished off the whole plate (I managed one and Jez nomnom’d three), wrinkling our noses in distaste. Of course miserly Chinese restauranteers would sooner swallow their woks than refund an already-devoured meal.

The mini pork buns looked and tasted pre-packaged-pre-frozen. On top of that they were laughably small. Fail.

Soup was average. Contained a lot of tofu, of which I’m not particularly fond. Jez would probably rather eat a soiled band-aid.

For the past week I had a distinct feeling that whatever little warmness Jez’s parents had felt for me had cooled down to Russian winter. It’s almost completely out of my control, but I create such strong awkwardness that sometimes even Griffindor’s sword would get owned trying to cut the tension.

This is what happens on a typical visit:

1. Walk down the hallway. Stick my head and just my head into the living room sheepishly. Say hello uncle. Hello auntie. Disappear into Jez’s room.
2. Re-emerge for dinner, toilet.
3. Upon leaving, stick my head into the living room sheepishly. Say bye-bye uncle. Bye-bye auntie.
4. Leave.

Further interactions take place approximately once every fortnight.

I can’t stand myself.

For someone who hardly has any D&Ms with her own parents, it isn’t easy to gel well with the boyfriend’s folks. I have little trouble with adults in general. It’s not a matter of age. It’s a matter of status. Say if there was a scale of comfort, from the most comfortable relationship to least, the list goes (and most of the following are from the pharmacy, as I rarely interact with adults outside of work):

1. Glenda, whose head and arse I have no qualms over hitting with a rolled-up magazine.
2. Eugene, for whom I have an inkling of respect, but little enough to feel perfectly comfortable with calling him mentally disabled for awful power-sliding.
3. Jason, who as a much more professional albeit young pharmacist ranks higher than Eugene.
4. Renata, who ranks higher than the above due mainly to her age and the fact that we communicate pretty much only on a weekly basis via the Kirribilli dispensary notepad.
5. Sally, who is incredibly pretty. I still don’t know her age but she doesn’t look a day over 30, though having graduated in ‘95 must be a fair few years past it.
6. Mirjana, who holds incredible authority over me by being able to summon me to the dispensary from pandemonium in the shop-front for just one script.
7. John, who though habitually and pointedly ignores all of us when in the wrong mood, is still easier to joke around than his fast-talking partner.
8. Jim, who I remember saying gave off the unmistakable air of the big piss-me-off-and-suffer-my-wrath boss initially, is still intimidating albeit professionally friendly. Still calls me “girl”. Still fights with Harsha like a pair of old marrieds. Differs from John in that while I joke with John, my comfort zone only permits me to laugh at Jim’s jokes. Extremely sycophantically.
9. To top even John and Jim are Mr and Mrs Cheng. The former pair are the bosses at work but the latter are the bosses of life.

My parents are, of course, not included. Because despite the little time we spend together, they’re parents. Only parents give you hell for leaving your room in semi-chaos, pick you up from the station to save you a six-minute walk in the dark, and tells you to pee after sex to avoid urinary tract infections.

Anyway, I was amused to find myself desperately clinging to the faintest signs that Jez’s parents don’t disapprove of me. Oh look, she said hello to me. If she didn’t like me she wouldn’t have said hi. Right? Right? Hmm, he asked when I’m supposed to start uni. If he didn’t like me he wouldn’t have said that. Right? Right?

When I sheepishly stuck my head into the living room to say bye to Jez’s dad, he asked whether Jez was driving me, and when I said no, told me to be careful on the way home. I took it as a somewhat positive sign. Desperate times call for desperate ways of thinking.

Saturday

I came home with ingredients for cinnamon buns. They were childishly easy to make, provided a bread machine is available. After observing the astronomical amounts of butter, margarine (yes, both!) and sugar that were used in this sweet and twirly creation, I swore to never snack on the seemingly innocent Baker’s Delight cinnamon rolls again.

If I do say so myself, they aren’t bad. My health-conscious parents found the richness a little unsettling but my grandparents loved them. Tomorrow Eugene and Jez will be subjected to my amateurism.

I was speaking to Victor earlier. The guy is completely in love with Jen and asked me for gift ideas. I thought the two of us were quite similar, but quite apart from coming up with stuff that Jen likes I couldn’t even think of what I like. I said Miu Miu. He said what’s Miu Miu. I said don’t worry, she’s so smitted with you I’m sure she’ll like anything you buy. He said what’s smitten. I said … .