next best thing

Love does not come last. Uh uh. (I defy thee, credit-free online quizzes.) But until it strikes ... okay fine, until I-find-it, weekends like this provide adequate distraction.

In addition to our usual Saturday morning Q-time, N and I spent the evening together - which we don't do very often, my bad. We went for a scenic drive, strolled through Sup Ct Gardens, sat in the foyer of my future workplace, avoided festive (read: drunk & disorderly) folk, stumbled across to the Swan Bells, and made our way back to the car without anyone having to carry anyone else (am glad those formidable years are behind us). The night was still young, so we dropped in at the "Red"-iculously Groovy Nite line-dancing extravaganza where mum was shakin' her booty. The yummier food had already been devoured, the sight of a bunch of post-menopausal women dressed in all shades of red (some of whom with better figures than I) was too much to bear, so we nicked off home for sweets + The Wedding Planner (I'm certainly doing my bit to set N on the straight-&-narrow, aren't I?).

When we'd been assured that the heroine and the hero would together live happily ever after, and mum had returned, I sped to Belle's post-hen's-night at Burswood. It wasn't as if I had to take N for the night and hence couldn't make it to the harem party, but at this stage of my life an entire evening with a group of strangers expressing our collective joy and envy (however heartfelt) for our mutual friend's imminent marital bliss is something I recognise as being optional. Still I feel awful for the option I'd taken, especially since I ended up seeing Belle for only 10min in front of the Money Wheel (the identity of which had previously been unknown to me; there are many wheel-shaped apparatuses at a casino and all of them seem to be concerned with $).

Sunday. N's Tumble & Splash birthday party. I've been to so many of these as to be incapable of making any interesting observations about them. Suffice to say a good time was had by all.

You know you have a friend for life when s/he shows up uninvited to your baby sister's b'day do, present in hand, to provide supplementary entertainment, take over the photography work, and fight the invited guests for the chicken nuggets. In 1 day I found out that I have at least 2 such friends. Although, I wasn't sure whether 1 of them giving the other's phone number to the cute Party Leader was entirely appropriate; it's my job hooking my husband up with the remaining few desirable-&-eligible's in this tiny incestuous town!

Speaking of Hubby, I couldn't have demanded greater enthusiasm from him for our 1st anniversary. We celebrated at Nero's (recommended to the cheapskates amongst you :p instead of tablecloth they give you paper and crayons with which you can get as creative you want), with some company and a Merry Monk (sweet Italian wine which no straight guy would buy by the dozen). The rest of the night involved me declining to visit a strip club, him failing to keep his HB from falling asleep before 9pm, and us having more success coercing his sister into go to the Court for the 1st time. Not much new there, so I'll leave you with the Story of Us.

One year ago on yesterday in an unremarkable suburban cafe, across spag marinara and chicken caesar salad, Girl wearily came out to Boy, whom she has loved and been loved by for some years. 'Wearily', for she had made the spiel too many times in the preceding months to experience any more adrenaline rush but not quite enough to be completely unawkward about it.

Boy grinned the biggest grin that Girl had ever seen him grin, and seemingly froze in that position for what felt like minutes. Eventually Boy came to and chirped something to the effect of Me Too. Once Girl had gotten over the initial classic-histrionic reaction of "How dare you upstage me?!", which did not take very long, she said to Boy that they had just had a moment they were never going to forget.

They embraced and started a new chapter of their lives together. Ever After or no, things haven't been the same since - and will only become curiouser and curiouser.

when Harriet met Sally

Never seen When Harry Met Sally? Where've you been all your life?!

Disagreed with its thesis? Well don't feel special. It doesn't make you any more progressive than the next person - popular opinion has always been fairly evenly divided on this one.

For ye uncultured ones, aforementioned thesis runs: 2 persons of compatible sexual orientation* can never be Just Friends. (* updated for Equity & Diversity) Of which I thought I was a proud dissident. But lately, I'm not so sure.

homework

Two emails to write this weekend.

#1 Someone I was once very close to, a long time ago, found out my 'secret' last week from a mutual acquaintance with whom I'd always been on amicable though by no means intimate terms. Yesterday she emailed to apprise me of said discovery, and wondered why I worried about telling her. I did, not for fear of rejection as she speculated, but because I couldn't find time - as pathetic as that sounds. Long and quiet stretches of it, to catch up properly, and paint a balanced picture in which the 'aberration' is but one conspicuous yet peripheral element. She doesn't demand an explanation, I know, but I do of myself - because she matters.

#2 Exhausted and in no condition for obligatory entertainment, I piked on an outing last night. I do this often enough not to have too many qualms about it... until I received the angriest most embittered sms ever from the organiser of said event. I was in the wrong, absolutely, but to be accused of lying and complete disregard for a friendship, and to inspire 'disgust beyond words' - did I deserve that? To boot, by someone I've given a lot of time and patience and thought to, who dare I say hasn't made comparable efforts, and who also happens to routinely bail on me. I shouldn't get worked up by this, maybe I'm in no position to. So I'll only attempt something earnest and unoffensive.

L is for lazying on a fine winter day

One very sweet Chicksta made a copy of The L Word 3rd season for me without prompting and trekked all the way from Woop Woop to deliver it. I was therefore more than happy to shout coffee.

Afterwards we managed a 2-hour wander in, and around, KP, without getting up to anything naughty. For y'all this translates to "Don't hold your breath this one's not a Likely Potential" - just so we're on the same page.

Before today we'd only chatted online and run into each other a few times @ Meat Market #1. But there's no substitute for the low-key face-to-face one-on-one. I know I couldn't get by without the eye contact, the idiosyncratic accent and rhythm of each voice, the spontaneous and irretractible intermingling of ideas and, last but not least, the not having to shout and/or send out wrong signals by leaning in too close.

a banana and a hard-boiled egg

For the uninitiated, observe that the former is yellow on the outside and white on the inside, while the reverse is true for the latter.

Last night the alleged banana took the self-proclaimed hard-boiled egg (HBE) for b'day celebrations at a Chn eatery with poor lighting and a strictly Caucasian clientele (i.e. we couldn't've gone lower).

Do you have people you simultaneously like and dislike? I don't mean on an alternating basis - for that's commonplace enough - I mean truly contemporaneous affection and contempt, so as to leave you at a loss for what to do. Well that's HBE to me; I'm told the feeling is mutual.

As I suffered through yet another critique of the Azn female talent among his aquaintances / unveiling of his plans for world domination / attack on my utter lack of conventional ambition, I absent-mindedly beamed with anticipation - of the day I 'show myself' and shock him into permanent speech impediment.

best when least expected

Shell and Tez were the first friends I made at high school, which also makes them among my first friends in Oz. We drifted apart after Yr 10, when Tez left school, and Shell and I enrolled in totally different subjects. Since then we've caught up once or twice a year, doing something distinctly teenager-y even after we became disqualified.

They loved me when I spoke funny English and brought weird lunches and was bewilderingly brainy. They love me today. (Which I don't deserve, but what other kind of love is there?) It's far from an intense consuming we-know-each-other's-every-secret sorta sensation; rather, a part nostalgic part amazed part instinctive knowing.

Just came home from Shell's b'day outing @ Ruby Room, after 4hrs, when I'd only planned to stay for 1. Am achy all over confirming a good time had, even if not of the R-rated variety.

The rest of this post goes out to those of you who lead a more respectable nightlife than I and may therefore be ignorant of certain ways of this world. Read no further if you're feeling sanitary.

• Doesn't matter how a lady dresses or behaves, some guy will always think he's in with a chance. Moreover, this perceived chance increases materially when boob-tubes, alcohol, girl-on-girl action are involved. (To avoid doubt, tonight I did not wear a boob-tube, but still got pinched and danced-too-close-to a few times.)
• I have gaydar. Yeah. I register on other people's gaydar. Bugger.
• Hell on earth = smoker's terrace, especially when your friends' friends are chain-smoking soccer hooligans.
• It is wonderful partying with realistically proportioned women.
• It's true: homos make better dancers.
• Also true: sex-only arrangements are not the exclusive domain of homos.
• A guy could be clumsy and shy and a non-dancer but if he's also polite and patient the girl he fancies would at least give him the time of day. On the other hand, a girl who's witty and charming and voluptuous and drives a powerful car often gets nowhere with the girls she fancies. Oh the injustices of this world... (Obviously not referring to myself there - so shut up and leave me to sulk.)

Lesson for the day - stay on the straight-&-narrow, and stay home after dark. Mwa!

a week's some-merry

Fri night

Won't use the usual pseudonyms. 'Tsnot safe; for me. Instead:

NG: gayest-acting straight chic I know ('not gay')

NS: straightest-acting gay chic I know ('not straight')

Can you not appreciate the beautiful symmetry already?

The plan was to get plastered/maggoted/shitfaced (gotta love vernacular), in hope of momentarily reversing the smallness of Life and bigness of Problems. NG started off not as complicit as I'd have liked; until she realised that leisurely sipping white wine in a hectic Northbridge budget-dining establishment was a trend worth starting, even if it meant glares from the owner of said establishment.

Fried ice-cream was followed by a wasteful (for it undid part of that lovingly nurtured intoxication) interlude of fumbling along the Terrace towards the site of the State Squash Championships (NG has diverse interests) - and not remotely making it. Whereupon the substance abuse was resumed at my new fave wine bar.

Now let me digress!

Beware of Asiaphiles. They're everywhere. Luckily they're easy to spot; easier yet when they introduce themselves as such. Yep the singer in the bar (if only he manifested one-tenth of the attributes typically associated with this occupation!). I mean, how much gayer must I dress - ditto NG (recall description at start) - to be spared this nonsense? OK that's not the point, and that's also exactly the point. 2 Azn girls 'on their own' in a bar = open invite = fair game? Like, keep tryin' boys - sooner or later you'll stumble across one in heels and a foul mood. (Lucky for our singer we were neither at the time.)

Enough rant. Later a distressed NS crashed our party-of-2 to find solace in a euphoric and therefore empathetic audience. The conversation rapidly deteriorated to somehow centre around NG's OGTs (Obvious Gay Traits), for which I suspect I was partially responsible but I plead diminished capacity in defence.

In said diminsed capacity a lift by NS was declined and the alternative of waiting 50min for the 1am train jollily taken, notwithstanding that it cost NG and I 2hrs' sleep. Well, dero behaviour is becoming a luxury and ought to be savoured at every opportunity.

Sat day

Woke up to the sounds of children playing. It made me happy; yikes I'm maternal. Get to see a different side of N when she's interacting with people her age, it spins me out. I'm excited for her, being a kid and all. I'm also reminded to not overdo the Missing Childhood line; I too have had my fair share of fun.

Sat night

Bro's housemate's birthday party at their house. So many Mormons, so little alcohol. *sigh* I was introduced to everyone as Bro's wife. Not in a closeted way! More in a mocking-the-institution-of-marriage way... no that's not it either. We are practically married. We rock as a couple. When we have enough affluent acquaintances between us to make the ordeal profitable, we'll 'throw a wedding'. Consider yourselves put on notice.

mid-week excursion

Time is like cleavage, squeeze and you'll have some.

Just had to share that choice line with y'all.

The day started off badly: a 6pm Procedure tute with hopeless presenters and a tutor who hadn't read my paper and therefore presumed I was in my usual clueless form (which presumption, however, was well-founded given my stunning displays of ignorance to date).

But then I decided, gladly in retrospect, to do what a sizeable portion of Australia would've done this evening: watch the Green-v-Mundine bout at a pub. Venue - the Melbourne. Cohort - Suga & co, and the Albanyan (whom I dragged along because a. she looked like she could use a drink even if she didn't know this until she'd had it, and b. who else would I root for the ethnic boy with?).

Ahh the Albanyan. To think, this time last year, I was convinced we'd never speak again!

Lovely to meet Suga's friendly good-looking successful all-Azn posse. Much as I relish my one-on-ones, I find myself sporadically envious of people with groups of friends who know each other and enjoy quality group-time.

So next up is dim-sum with her folks, whereupon I shall be officially inducted into Suga Domain! Hohoho... Spreading rumours is fun.

two kids in a rotten candy-store

... would be more impressed than we were at Sexpo '06. Still, conscious of the kinds of activities which we at our age ought to partake more in, Dr Prozac and I garnered enough enthusiasm to check out every stall, take the token amusement ride (if only it was as seedy as that sounds!), and wince at an instructional video about exfoliating the male's nether region.

The above notwithstanding, Saturday nights out with the Doc rock my world. And no amount of overpriced entrées or cleanskin wine could ever make it otherwise.

boys on the side

Out the front, actually. 'Twas Women Only Night (WON) at the Meat Market. All those with Y chromosomes were barred from the courtyard.

Wouldn't've gone but for Cherry's birthday drinks. Ahh the things we do for girls. Even wore makeup (!) and slutty jeans (ripped in a wikid place). Unfortunately, by the time I got there (11pm) she'd drunk to a state of contented oblivion, and my decent sensible side took hold and quelled any compulsion to seduce. Who am I kidding, there's something, and it ain't goin' nowhere.

Turned out to be a great night all the same! Suga and Foxxy (S&F - as yet unofficial but what the heck) are always fun to hang out with and tease the crap out of. Also met E, Suga's very own boy minion - an absolute riot, and roughly (no pun intended) her male equivalent. Of all the nights he could've chosen to make his comeback onto the Market... (To eliminate confusion, boys and/or those ideologically opposed to the concept of WON were confined to the indoors area, so it wasn't like E had to cross-dress to sneak in.)

People I didn't expect to see / who didn't expect to see me:

• Ex of Nobel-Laureate-to-be (NL2b) / current of ex-pal and Prime-Minister-to-be (PM2b). She claimed to swing occasionally but I could tell she was just another garden-variety hetero dag. *g* Still, we moved some dirty for the ladies. Can't wait to hear PM2b's reaction when I'm finally outed. It'll be simply delicious.
• S, sister of Cat (my adopted sister). I knew about S (who didn't?), but Cat hasn't told her about me. S and I were friends in Year 9, then she became troubled (not referring to the fence jumping - that came much later) and drifted away.
• V, Honours comrade. She seemed slightly rattled to be spotted at such establishment, even though her bf was with her, and stressed that they came to support a friend. *rolls eyes*

Fuck-me outfit was sending out wrong signals (or rather, right signals in wrong directions), so I stayed close to my crew. Bad move! They loaded me up with champagne (so nice not having to drive) then let me loose. Lucky I had ample self-restraint... Well, not really. All it took was residual clarity of mind to perceive the ferality abound, to not want to partake therein.

Admittedly it's been a looong time since I got this tipsy. But I played it up a bit to excuse bad behaviour. What a hideous cliche I've become.

Oh I did spot one hottie, whom I bummed a light off. (Chill folks - queer as I am, I haven't taken up smoking. Was only helping out S&F who were busy with you-can-guess-what.)

Afterwards, McHappy Meal in hand, we headed to Foxxy's for a brief recovery session. A very trashed E continued to blab about his priest bf and his trophies for the night (too vulgar to repeat even here). I continued to apologise repeatedly to S&F for myself and E. Poor things.

good Good Friday

Despite:
- getting 5 hours' sleep over two days
- doing the boys' washing
- straining to keep mum away from my homo-ies
- nursing a thoroughly wasted Yes

Thursday night a very wound-up Suga Babe came over for a drink, which turned into yet another deep-and-meaningful about the 'complexity of being Asian and gay'. We are very much enjoying each other's company. This surprised me initially because it seemed that apart from the Asianness and the gayness, we couldn't be more different. Turns out that was only my lousy first-impression-forming faculty playing up.

She ended up crashing in my bed (while I took to the sofa, mind you). Her alarm went off at 5.30am (then at 6, 6.30, 7) - the woman never rests! So the D&M continued with us snuggling up on the sofa. At one point she insisted that I examine closely her perfect legs - the woman is Narcissus-reincarnate! Albeit consciously so, which I suppose is a bit less bad not to mention funnier.

Later in the morning, after much pleasure-free contact with men's underwear (see above), I went to see Yes. A rare treat, given that she works 40+ hrs/wk at the Sunflower, on top of full-time uni and traveling by public transport. Breaks my heart.

A wander in KP and a pizza on the curb later, I took Yes home as a surprise for N who, as you know, is thrifty with her affection but makes quite an exception for Yes. For the rest of the afternoon I happily delegated all sisterly duties and played in the kitchen instead.

Dinner was DIY Vietnamese ricepaper rolls. Major success. I invited Bro, in an effort to dispel (or fuel? oh who cares...) the highly elaborate affair between him and me which mother has extrapolated with her mighty imagination. 'Twas as big an Easter gathering as our home has ever seen, with the boys practising their obscenities-around-the-world at one end of the table, N flitting around making rolls for mum and herself, and Bro Yes and I doing our best to be cryptic with uncompromising vulgarity.

After the feed things started to go downhill. Yes passed around the champers she brought. Bro implored me to sing for/with him while he worked his self-taught-virtuoso magic over the keyboard. Unfortunately, my sheet music collection consisted largely of pitiful lamentations of loves unrequited and/or lost. Suffice it to say that some among us gave in to thinking about precisely the wrong things/people. Before long Bro was belting it out with moist eyes while Yes crouched silently in a corner sipping on a red (fast drinker, that one). I did my best to reassure C (19yo friend-of-an-old-friend, visiting from next street up) that not everyone grows up to be a loon like those two, washed up, made dessert, etc., whilst inside I too was going a bit lala. Mine is a seriously disturbed family.

As mum and N prepared to retire for the night, HM2 (Husband Material No. 2; for Bro will forever be No. 1) was summoned to the after-party. [An aside: how incestuous must I appear to the unsuspecting browser-by, all this talk of 'me and my Bro'.] Even though he and Bro would probably bid premature farewell on the path-to-coupledom, I couldn't help but request that they behave themselves in my room - into which mum tends to wander at will - and felt like an enormous prude for doing so. Later HM2, the sweetheart that he was, was given the third degree by my re-emerged mother. Bless him.

That's all folks. The only bits omitted are the hurling and cleaning and nursing which you'll agree are best left that way.

registry of births deaths marriages

Little Rose is on my mind. Last we MSNed she was in HK nursing her father, who has advanced lung cancer. He went to high school with my mum. Haven't seen Rose online for a few days; before then she was on all the time. It's making me think sinister thoughts. You know you're getting old when people your parents' age start signing off.

Elegant Lotus is on my mind. And her 10-day-old S, the second cutest Asian baby ever (after N, duh). Wow I'm an auntie...

Belle is on my mind. She's getting hitched on October 7. She was so unhappy for so long I worried whether she'd ever rise above it. But life helps those who help themselves, so it seems.

the spinster fairy-godmother

Friends are 'coming together' (early days, but) through me. They keep me apprised of fresh developments, sometimes in disturbing detail.

It accentuates how single I am, although this doesn't bother me... for now.

Suga Babe disapproves, however. She says I shouldn't settle for content happy, and must instead aim for wow happy. She points out that I go out of my way to spend time with someone but really expect them to make the first move. She's taken it upon herself to coach me re how-to-be-more-physically-assertive. What a value-packed alliance this is turning out to be.