Closer With Closure (Updated Further)

Mr Dimples and I had been sitting by the beach of East Coast Park for the last three hours if you exclude the one hour spent in the small Japanese café.

We both had a long crappy day at work and we know how misery loves serendipitous company. So we met and exchanged grievances over dinner. I didn’t feel like eating but ordered a cold miso tofu to make him happy.

We definitely weren’t in the best of spirits but I like to think the chat by the sea and the night wind made us happier. We left with a lighter heart.

He talked briefly about the girlfriend (finally) and I buddified him forever by sharing (in generously general terms) my inability to be honest when it comes to relationships.

It was simple pleasure just sitting there and talking about things that matter to us, not worrying about time or work. I don't remember doing this before with any friend in recent times, not at the beach during nighttime for sure.

I hope I can do it soon again, with someone I really like and care about. When can I allow myself to fall in love?

Addendum (You knew it was coming, didn't you):

Me: Were we really, really at East Coast Park last night? Seems so surreal in the morning. But having to go to work is real.

Mr Dimples: Hi morning, yup, the surreal night. I also watched a night of dramatic soccer, slept at 6am and woke up now. Remember what we promised to do 100 percent.

(NB to readers: 100 percent refers to our rash vows the surreal night)

Me: Please find me a corporate knight in Armani suit to win my 100% I want to be a housewife and mother and just serve my husband :(

Mr Dimples: Haha. Don’t kid me and yourself. You can only do that for two days. The 100 percent is for you to give, not for him to win.

Me: 乱给不是很浪费，因为万一他不喜欢就会很难过。

Mr Dimples: You are afraid of failure.

Me: 默默、悄悄、静静付出，就算只有自己知道，也可以吧。

Mr Dimples: You are too noble :)

Me: Oh please. I just don’t settle for less. Boo.

Mr Dimples: Ha, this world isn’t perfect, and perfect people don’t exist. Being able to live with this fact would make life so much easier and happier.

At some point in time during dinner, he laughed, and smiled, and said I had a really cute expression.

There was an almost Definitely Maybe moment when the night wind was whipping our faces and we were watching the waves, and I said the only difference is the missing physicality, that we are not holding hands or doing anything like that now. There must have been a context that prompted my remark: probably when I was telling the key difference for me between a guy friend and a boyfriend (again). Our hands were still ours, and we just looked at each other wonderingly, keenly, quizzically, sadly at different times during the night.

I guess if I had a boyfriend and I knew he did the exact same thing with another girl, ie strolling on the beach and talking by the sea till past midnight, I wouldn’t be too happy about that. And my boyfriend has every reason to be unhappy with me if I allowed myself to be placed in that position.

Well, it’s a one night only thing. We have both agreed it was surreal on hindsight and I don’t think it would happen again. I shall certainly try to avoid. He met her parents last week for the first time.

No Class - Mostly In The I-Miss-School Sense

Being contemplative can be so unbearable, when you stop ever so often to reflect on Life and what you have been doing in yours to account for Meaning. I can stop to think, and quite happily so too, any time, any place, and yet I can’t stop Thinking per se, is that a boon or a bane. Religious people tell me it’s a sign I’m ready to embrace you know what and I said bull to that. Buddhism is the closest that comes to what I can accept with humility when it comes to philosophy of the sort, and that’s story for another entry.

Life has been more or less material for me in the one-month hiatus from this online sanctuary. I try to throw myself into the depths of shallowness, to just work and play, and be happy with spending $, but I floated straight up instead of sinking down, down into the sucking cesspool of Materialism. Damn, I guess I’m not as shallow as I aspire to be. Yet.

Had lunch with two of my closest friends from my lower secondary schooldays on two separate days. They were both, incidentally, very ambitious people (though my observation can be 100% skewed as the majority of my friends have un-complex and laidback personalities who find yours truly, ironically, to be the competitive and ambitious sort) so one can claim to be the youngest branch head in the ministry (with the fastest promotion in history) and the other is an AVP (not exactly accurate, but will do for the sake of convenience) in a bank When it comes to work, they both stated emphatically that they have worked very hard to get where they are and are the sort to put in 12 hours and more. The former went so far to say that she has no sympathy for people who merely whine and do nothing to change their circumstance. Both wanted early retirement and to earn lots of $$$. One is getting married this year and the other, probably in 2 years, with her boyfriend of 10 years.

I still haven’t fathomed the concept of doing long hours on a daily basis. I like being challenged at work (hence, the loveliness of my new workplace because there is always something new I can learn or work on to stretch myself professionally) and I am happy to put in extra hours to complete an assignment on time or to put more cherries on the cake for a particular account. But, I would think there’s something wrong with me, if I had to work dreadfully long hours everyday! I’m obviously not working at optimal capacity and need to operate more efficiently. Yes, some work needs time getting used to, but speed then, would come naturally with habit. Surely, in the long term, you can still leave work at around 7pm on the average, latest? I hope my dear friends are exaggerating. Likewise, what constitutes “working very hard”? I think I work hard too if hard means 100% heart and brain power to be creative for the cliché – out of box, but I certainly don’t work hard if you are talking about 12 hour straight shifts.

Who doesn’t want early retirement and be the super nouveau rich? Does it mean sacrificing my youth and social life now? Eek. I shall just defer my retirement, since youth cannot wait. I must eat the cake now even as I bake new ones to replace and store for the future.

Maybe it’s because I have no one to settle down with in the romantic sense that unlike my two friends, I don’t think about early retirement. I just date and do non-dates and that makes me have a social life, as opposed to a boyfriend who caps the number of times I can go out without him, if at all.

So first class pleasure for the past month came in the tawny and sinewy form of Robert Downey Jr whom I have lusted over unabashedly since watching Only You 14 years ago (absolutely no acting skills required here in his one and only romantic comedy movie). With Iron Man, he has truly been propelled into the Hollywood A list and I feel so damn proud of him. It’s the other way round with this superhero, isn’t it. Robert Downey Jr is Iron Man. I like it so much I actually watched an unprecedented second time in the theatre within two days. And I cannot stress enough how much joy I derive from googling Robert Downey Jr and reading raving reviews about my favourite leading man during the first two weeks of the movie launch.

After first class pleasure, there was Gold class, courtesy of Minxiu. I must say it was very fun and kinky to watch a movie in a comfy, plushy bed-like setting, complete with a blanket to snuggle in. Unfortunately, the movie was hardly enough to put us in a raunchy mood, since he was all for Nim’s Island, which was dreadful and indulgent. We didn’t care for the characters and plot at all. Now if only we had been watching Iron Man – whee.

Then there was Mayday concert and my sis managed to shook hands with the lead singer. Grrrrrrr.

There was a hilarious clubbing night out which I shall pay my tribute (or rather, my respects, hahaha) to it by devoting an entire entry on the experience.

There was Broadway Beng 3 and there was Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, which is really just one show with an extremely long title.

There were Angel and Taxidermia and then there were the many, many requisite KTV sessions.


Manufactured meaning comes in the form of good movies and theatre. I’m happy to squander my time this way. It makes me feel more myself and intellectual in a non-smirky way, like I’m still the same person from school days, and I haven’t changed much at the core. I’m just me, with more money.