Am I on the path of becoming a nun?

Lately I have been trying to picture myself in a new relationship. But I simply can't. I love being able to have all my time for me, planning my evenings, weeks, months independantly. Sure, when I see couples buying toothbrushes together in supermarkets I sometimes wish I too had someone who would come with me to do that mundane sort of shopping. But then on the other side if I was with someone I would not do half of the stuff I am doing and I would not meet all the people I am meeting now.

Plus it's kind of weird to imagine myself with someone I don't know; I don't have a "type" so if I ever meet someone again, they could be anything: a blond airplane pilot, a red headed struggling artist, a Chinese fashion designer, a French chef?

Hong Kong is a bit of a strange place in terms of opportunities to meet men. The atmosphere is very hedonistic. But I think with some effort nothing is impossible. With some of my single friends we have decided to try to experiment a bit to understand better how it all works because to be honest we are clueless. We are not the types to put on super big cleavage and pull men in bars. So we have decided to try out different ranges of places, test how being more extraverted and talking to people makes any difference, well basically have a bit of men and opening up some horizons. I shall report on how that goes.

In the meantime, back into the palace of singledom for me..

Today is the first day of the rest of your life

Sentences such as the above are cheesy as heck but there are days, like today, when they are meaningful.
After nearly a week of singing to the tune of internal Blues I've decided to give a kick up the Ass and suck it up. (I am not saying I want to suck up my own derriere, uuugggggg, I mean get on with life).
I have thus recovered my motivation at work, resumed driving my colleagues mad with my jokes, and started going to the gym again. In about 1.5 month's time I will be enjoying the famed London Summer and am planning on looking stunning, absolutely freakin' stunning! And that is not going to happen while sitting on the aforementioned-Ass feeling sorry for myself.

No more muscles

Some days I feel like I have no more muscles left in my body. I feel very close to just collapsing on the floor, in one small little heap. (Little heap but with a big ass, harhar).
This morning was one of those days. I went to the gym to work out with my personal trainer-terror. Except this morning I did not have any strength whatsoever. Even the presence of Muscle Guy, my cute colleague who often has the misfortune of working out at the same time as me and witnessing my monkeying on the muscle machines, did not give me any extra woooompf. Every exercise I attempted, I would stuggle, unable to lift even the smaller sized weights.

Three quarters of the way through the session I made up an excuse and told the trainer-terror I needed to leave early, and ended up sobbing in the bathroom. The worst of it is that I have no idea why. Well ok there are like a million reasons (Le Poulet, dysfunctional family, job worries) but these reasons have always been there so why the dark clouds today? No idea. Maybe it's the weather, which is as beautiful as my mood today.

Enough of that rubbish

So in the past two months I've been trying to re-bring to life the impressions of a week end long gone by, which have been harder and harder to capture as time has passed To cut the long drawn out process of trying to tell the tale: I ended up not going to the boat trip, but instead to the bbq - it was lovely, nothing super exciting to report but nevertheless just a simple fun day. The whole week end was a simple fun one, the type that leaves a big smile on your face for a little bit after it's over.
So yes, it was a complicated process to tell that tale. To be fair, I've not been at home a lot lately - been travelling a lot, and not just in plain "boring" places (boring by HK standards) like Thailand. No, I've been to the land of cheeseburgers, Levi's Jeans and Obama Clinton. Other things I have been up to:

- cancelling my Match Dot Com subscription after receiving offers for "3000 dollars for a night of sex". What freaked me out was not so much the offer as the fact that for about one tenth of a second I thought about it (hmm, me, in dire need of a man?). More seriously I could not be bothered with the whole online chatting, at least not having a subscription avoids potential disappointment

- going, coming back and recovering from jet lag to the States. It was an amazing trip, I saw Lil' Sis and my mother, went to a few comedy shows, ate like a gigantic whale..

- sitting on a beach and not daring to get up for the fear of the Ass making an ass out of me (get the pun, get it, get it? hahaha, I may have been away but my sense of humour is intact)

- avoiding getting fired, in an environment of dire global market slowdown. So far so good but I keep remembering "never say never".

- having two friends staying over, the first one came back from a 4 month back packing trip and considering breaking up with her boyfriend. The second one was sleeping on my couch because she had just broken up with her boyfriend. (See a pattern here? Heartbreak High is NOT in Australia contrary to what TV leds you to believe, it's actually in HK, in a high rise apartment building overlooking the city's skyline).

- avoiding Le Poulet like the plague. And I must admit, am not very proud of it, but I never wished him happy birthday last month, which made me a little bit happy. I am saddo drawing pleasure from it.

- listening obsessively to songs. Not a whole bunch of songs one after another, like normal people do, but finding one that I really like at a time and listening to it obessively. One day I'll figure out how to insert them in these pages.

How to have the best week end of your life - Part 2

Clearly he was totally drunk/stoned/mad as a hatter. I mean, why else would he come and speak to me outright? I am so unused to beautiful strangers talking to me, it sort of freaked me out and when he said "Would you like to join me and my friends?" I chickened out and said "erm yes sure, why don't you find them first and then we find you guys". This was in a crowd of thousands of people - needless to say we never managed to bump into them again - there went my chance to hone my skills at seducing beautiful (drunk) strangers. Note to self: next time a guy asks me to join his friends, say "Yes that would be lovely", not "wooooow I am freaked out by such an appealing proposal but am too shy to say yes".

This said the rest of the party was quite fun, well in not too large doses because there is only so much hard core techno music three rock chicks can take, so we decided to leave relatively early. I was still determined to make the night a success, and instead of going home we decided to head to town, and it turned into one of those nights that has a good vibe: we met some people, got into trendy nightclubs (given our techno-party-in-a-field attire that in itself was a miracle). The highlight of the night was discovering a cool little bar full of Spanish people.. Ever since my encounter with Fernando the Hot Beach Buddy last summer I have been somewhat partial to Spanish men :).

What's even better, the Spanish guys invited us on a boat trip the following day. How much better could the week end get? And then suddenly, it dawned on me: the next day I had already accepted an invitation to a barbeque party of a friend of a friend. The guy is very nice but I know it would not quite be the same, so I was facing a dilemna: either spending the day on a boat with half clothed hot Spanish guys, but having to cope with the guilt of turning down a previously agreed to engagement with someone I appreciate, or going to this bbq which was going to be full of married couples with their kids but at least it would be with a clean conscience. Mind you, I have nothing against married couples with kids but when it comes to making a choice between them and a boat full of half naked Spaniards, you can't blame me for hesitating!

What is a girl to do?

I leave this mini cliff hanger of unbearable suspence but promise I'll be back soon to tell the rest of the tale :-)

How to have the best week end of your life - Part 1

I think I have somewhat psychic powers. Sounds mad but there are a few instances where I had strong gut feelings which turned out to be proved right. For example, when celebrating the new year 2007 I spent the whole night repeating to people "2007 is the year of change, 2007 is the year of change". Little did I know at the time that my prediction would prove increbibly true, as that year I ended up changing jobs, moving to Asia, breaking up with Le Poulet, and basically there was little that did not change.

A couple of years ago I went out for beers with some colleagues of mine that I did not know very well. It was mid-January. For some reason I told one of them "I don't know why but I think you will have a really good February love-life wise". He looked at me quite flabbergasted and said "I am getting married on St Valentine's". Freaky, heih? (And why am I not ditching my job to start doing this full time and earning millions?).

Anyhow, I had one of those predictions again yesterday. I went to see a gig with DJ Tiesto (world-famous-most-known-DJ-in-the-world). It was a bit of rave actually, as he was mixing in the middle of a field somewhere out of town, playing a mix of techno-trance music. Not my usual scene and the night was going to be a bit of a long shot, given my friends and I like to dance but to techno music only in small doses.

Before the party I had my revelation: "Tonight is going to be either a totally rubbish night, or an absolutely fabulous one. But not an average so-so one". The start of the night seemed to point toward the former option. We took a shuttle bus for what seemed forever and were soon standing in the middle of the field. The music was quite hard core techno, and we stood there in the rain watching the crowd heaving to the music. There was an incredible energy in that crowd, it made me want to smile - and I was not pill popping! Many people looked like they were though, we spotted quite a few who looked a bit like zombies. Anyhow we decided to hit the bar for a drink, maybe that would help to get into the atmosphere, but the bar only sold soft drinks and water! We started laughing, seeing the funny side of being stuck in a field, in pouring rain, listening to techno music we could not get into, watching people who were either born with techno in their blood and dancing naturally, or totally wasted on alcohol and drugs, when we could not even buy ourselves a beer!

However, standing there, suddenly I flet my feet tapping to the music. I let myself dance a bit, and looked around at my friends who looked a bit more enthusiastic about the music as well. We were getting into it! At that point I thought maybe the night was not going to be such a failure after all. And then I felt someone coming danse closer to me on my right, turned around, and was greeted by a beautiful smile from a handsome stranger. I smiled back.

To be continued.

Wrinkles

The other day I found a grey hair. Like any normal human being it made me freak out a bit, as it was throwing into my face, I mean hair, the fact that I was not going to be a young thing forever. Unlike many girls nearing their thirties it does not make me really worry. Perhaps because my mother and grandmother have both aged very well. Perhaps because I was never obsessed by my looks (except the size of The Ass but that is independant from me as it has an identity of its own).
All these past years I have been in Serious Relationships and never worried about by Hook Up potential. I was always confident that the guys I was with liked me for me, not only my youthful looks.
Now that I am free and single again, of course I do feel looks will play a certain part in my future if I want to meet someone again, but then these days meeting someone is not so much of a priority. At the end of the day, if I end up living alone and Eaten By Alsacians (as Bridget Jones would put it), so be it. I have seen many women worry about ageing because:
Good Looks = Attracting Men = Happiness
Hence, once they age they become paranoid they lose their men and then they give into desperate measures like surgery. I would not want to fall into that trap. The other day one of my colleagues, who is a stunning Hong Kong beauty told me that she caught her image in the elevator mirror one day when she was laughing and realised laughing made her face wrinkled. So she was scared of laughing (!).

But there is one thing that is starting to bother me about time taking its toll on my body - it is not the face wrinkles (don't really have any except my worry wrinkle accross the forehead but I've had it since I was 12), not sagging boobs (they are too small to be subject to much law of gravity), or grey hairs (I pulled out the one I had). That one thing is: Under-arm Wrinkles! They appear just at the top of my arm pits where the skin folds when I have my arms by my side and I am pretty sure they were not here a few years ago.
Damn you Cruel Mother Nature!!

In Love

Ok ok ok. Ok. The title of the post is totally misleading. I am not in love at all (unless you have seen some pigs flying around the IFC2 tower lately?). But last week I went for drinks with my friend C, and she took me to one of those little bars in Wo On Lane, in the LKF area. The drinks were much needed after a very tough week for me, and a very stressful reunion with ex boyfriend for her. The moment the bartender guy spoke to us asking the wonderful words "what would you like to drink?" (I have heard those words before but they never sounded so beautiful) I was smitten.
Then I looked up and started to drown in the mysterious dark blue pool of his eyes. And then he smiled. At that point I think I peed a bit in my pants from the joy.

Er where was I? Ah yes, so I recommend this cosy little bar with rather, hum, nice staff. Initially I was surprised by the fact a male person is so mesmerising to me. But then I realised the explanation: the bar is listed in the Gay-Friendly Bars of HK. That was the only possible explanation: the first guy who actually touches me within my soul for the first time in centuries is most probably surely gay. Great. Stuff.

In illness and in health

One of my friends just came out of an operation. She is doing fine, there are no long term damages and all she needs is a few weeks off to recover and be fit as a fiddle again. She has her friends, boyfriend and family around her to help go through this tough time.
Talking to her made me realise the importance of being surrounded by people you love and people who love you. It made me wonder if I was setting my priorities straight and worrying about the right issues.
I spend a lot of my time agonising over my break up with Le Poulet, who was the worst person in the world to count on. One day I was in my kitchen in London and had a minor domestic accident, I basically burnt my arm with some boiling water. The burn was quite bad so given its size and the pain I decided to go to see a pharmacist asap. At no point in time I thought of calling Le Poulet. I don't know why. Maybe because I knew I would be disappointed.
When I moved here I have left quite a few friends behind in Europe and even though with the internet it's easy to keep in touch it's still not the same. I am meeting a ton of new people here in Hong Kong but it will take time to make deep meaningful friendships.
My family has always been another long story, we are not exactly connected closely most of the time. I know I can count on them in case of need but they are not part of my daily life and it's never something that I gave much thought before.
I still love my life here, and am not complaining (well most of the time). I needed to change many things in my last environment and Hong Kong offers a lot of the things I was looking for, including a challenging and exciting job. Even though making very precise plans in life is a bit useless, I am starting to realise I should be careful about not letting the important things slip by. Like someone said "On your deathbed no-one will remember you for the hours put in in the office".

Random collection of emails from today

From: Evie
To: B
Hi B,
So EXCITED, just bought my ticket to fly back to Europe this summer, will attend your wedding, wuuuuhh!!

*********
From: Colleague
To: Evie
Evie,
I fear we are not going to meet the deadline.

**********
From: Boss
To: Evie
Are we going to meet the deadline?

**********
From: Evie
To: Tom
Hi Tom,
Am going to be back in town this summer, we should catch up.
Incidentally, got a spare couch for me? Or a bed? Or your bed?

(This email was actually not sent, Tom is my crush from back home in London and the above email sent 5 months in advance of my trip would be a bit desperate no??)

*********
From: Evie
To: Best Friend1; Best Friend2
Guyyyyyyss!!
Howdie? Am going to be in town in June/July, wuuuuuuuh. Can I test-drive that new couch of yours??
Miss you.

*********
From: Evie
To: Fernando the Hot Beach Buddy (the one from the beach this summer, hmmm)
Hi Fernando!
I was back in Thailand last week end, went back to that night club again, it's still one of the best places on Earth :~)

A day in the life of

The days are following each other at a speedy pace, they all look the same these days:

8.30 - Alarm goes off. I hit snooze
8.37 - Alarm goes off. I hit snooze
8.44 - Alarm goes off. I hit snooze
8.51 - Alarm goes off. I hit snooze, but start to panic am oversleeping. I fall asleep anyway
8.58 - Alarm goes off. I hit snooze. This time drag myself to shower.
9.58 - Get to work
11.15 pm - Leave work, roll home, check email, think to myself "gosh I need a cleaner, this place is a dump", fall asleep, until...
8.30 - Alarm goes off. I hit snooze
And so on..

I fear in 50 year's time it will still be the same.

Saint Valenzillah

Despite my optimism this week, it seems like today has turned me into St Valenzillah. First of all I day dreamed all day about a surprise bouquet of flowers beingn delivered to me (sent from a non-existing imaginary ghost?). Then I caught myself giving the evil eye to every single girl in our office who was receiving flowers. And this is Hong Kong, the land of kitsh and commercialism, so you can be assured the office was full of flowers. Then at lunchtime I passed a jewellery store full of men gazing at the pretty stones they were planning to buy for their women, and I actually walked in there and declared to myself "Evie does not need a man to get jewellery, she can buy it herself". For a split second I was determined to spend hundreds of dollars (US) just to prove the point to myself. Fortunately common sense kicked in. And also the fact I don't particularly like jewellery. Then when I left the office tonight I was practically doing a James Bond style walk keeping my back to the wall and looking left and right in order to make sure I did not bump into Le Poulet, who happens to work near my office and I was very afraid to stumble upon him meeting up with a hypothetical St Valentine's date precisely at the moment I was walking past (I am pretty sure he had a date lined up for tonight, the eejit!). That would have totally ruined my day, no, week, no, year, no, life.
Then I went to this St V party thing which was nice but I was in such a foul mood that I did not feel like talking to new people, so stuck to gossiping with my friends A and K. And anyway the guy sitting next to me was a jerk (or did I perceive him being a jerk because I was sending off such bad mood vibes that anyone in my vicinity would have turned toxic anyway).
If I could write my astrology for this week in restrospect I would say "This week better to stay at home and hide under your duvet".
The good news though is that tomorrow am heading for a fun girlie week end to Bangkok, full of shopping, gossiping, and who knows what more. Ah yes and planning the come back of my previously characteristic good mood.

St V minus 3 days

I can see it from the corner of my eye, ready to pounce on me: St Valentine's, aka singleton'szilla. (It's like Godzilla but it swallows up single people all in one go).
It's my first StV in a long time and contrary to expectations it does not make me sad or nostalgic. The 14th of February with Le Poulet was always a non-event, he always made a point to remind me that it did not mean anything, that we were in a cool relationship that did not need that sort of artificial commercialism.

Well this year I am going to no less than two parties to celebrate this artificial commercialism. Once on the 13th (why there is a St V celebration on the 13th, I have no idea) and then another on the 14th (that's more like it). I am attending both events with a bunch of friends with whom I am looking forward to having one of those evenings where you can laugh yourself silly and have a bit of boogie as if nobody is watching.

On a side note my mood is considerably lifted and I am pretty sure it's something to do with my new obsession of going to the gym where 1. I can get the Ass in a proper shape again (the motivation is visualising myself on one of those junk boats in Hong Kong this summer) and 2. where I can catch up on all the episodes of Heroes while on the treadmill. Am totally hooked to both the sports chemicals and the series.

Hysteria

I liked this game found on Cinn's blog.

The rules:
1. Put your music player on Shuffle
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER WHAT. (This is in capital letters, so it is very serious.)

1. IF SOMEONE SAYS “IS THIS OKAY” YOU SAY? Short Circuit - Daft Punk (Is that supposed to be a short circuit in my brain?)
2. WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY? In the name of love - Bob Sinclair (Sounds about right)
3. WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL? Lucky Star - Basement Jaxx
4. HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY? Perfect Day - Trainspotting (How ironic..)
5. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE? Merry Happy / Little Red - Kate Nash (a mixture of happy and crazy, sounds right)
6. WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO? Onde Sensuelle - M (a French band, the song title means sensual wave, that is me!)
7. WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU? Not an addict - K's Choice (Well that is reassuring.. )
8. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR PARENTS? Lovely Head - Goldfrapp (Err?)
9. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN? But I feel good - Groove Armada (The But in the title is meaningful..)
10. WHAT IS 2+2? Everything she wants - Wham (No laughing at my music taste)
11. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND? Filthy/Gorgeous - Scissor Sisters (Haha will have to tell her!)
12. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE? My friends - Red Hot Chilli Peppers (Damn so we can only stay friends??)
13. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY? Sympathique - Pink Martini (Hmm, another title in French which means "nice", sounds a bit boring)
14. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP? Higher Ground - Red Hot Chilli Peppers
15. WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE? Mr President - Marting Solveig (yes I am easily impressed by that person)
16. WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU? The golden path - Chemical Brothers
17. WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING? Train - Goldfrapp (Ok so it will have to be a traintrack wedding..)
18. WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL? Stuck in the middle - Mika (Does it mean I will stay a ghost?)
19. WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST? How High - Madonna (I should become a pilot?)
20. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET? Burn away - Foo Fighters (Yes the secret inside me is burning me from inside..)
21. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS? Face to Face - Daft Punk (So I will need to tell them face to face, not here).
22. WHAT SHOULD YOU POST THIS AS? Hysteria - Muse (catchy post name :)

What were the odds?

Sometimes I worry that I will run out of stories to tell. But given the tendency I have to put myself in awful, ackward and embarassing situations I really don't know why I worry. There will always be a horribly cringe-worthy story to tell.. And here comes the daddy of all stories which will be hard to beat over the course of the year.

The other night I went out to a cultural event with some friends. These friends had some other friends also coming to the event, so all in all we ended up being a large group of people, most of whom I did not know.

The plan was to meet at a restaurant for a pre-event dinner, before heading there together. My friends were running late so I thought I was going to bite the bullet and just go there alone, even though I felt really shy not knowing anyone.

Now let me skip back a couple of months.. I went out clubbing once and ended up hooking up with this guy, let's call him Club Guy. That night I was more than a little bit tipsy, and the hook up was extremely silly and casual.. And also there was one fact that barely mattered at the time: that guy was not really available ie he had a serious girlfriend. I never saw him again or heard from him, and that was ok because it was one of those silly evenings..

Now, let's skip back time to my recent night out.. I turn up at this restaurant full of friends-of-friends I do not know, and who do I see sitting next to his girlfriend?? Yep, you have guessed, CLUB GUY!.. It was a horribly embarassing moment, I was desperately trying to act cool but the moment I recognised him my mind blanked and I can not really recall what I said or did.. I hope I pulled it off ok. We did not really speak to each other and I avoided all eye contact the whole night, but gooooshh.. I would be so bad at being someone's full time secret lover.

The really perverse thing though, that proves I do have a dark side after all, is that I felt a tiny weeny bit smug about the whole thing. After all my relationship with Le Poulet broke down because he was not ready to commit and have a Serious Relationship and rather preferred to have fun. Well in this case with Club Guy, I had become the element of Fun causing disruption in a Serious Relationship. It makes me feel bad but at the same time it felt like a revenge over the whole world.

I think I need to find a hobby like patchwork or something to avoid other machaivelistic thoughts like this, a bit freaky..

Holy cr@p, it worked!!

When the Chinese fortune teller told me this year (Chinese year starting Thursday Feb 7th) I was going to have lots of men in my life, he knew his stuff!!
Tonight I was 30 mins into the New Year (it was 00.30 am) I ran into two friends-of-a-friend on my way home, both guys. We had a fun chat in the middle of the street, and it ended up with us exchanging phone numbers. Not in a hmm-maybe-we-can-date-sometime way, more in a friendly way, which is still nice.
Tomorrow (technically tonight as it's past midnight) I am going out with some friends to a concert, I hope I meet cool new people while I am surfing this wave..

Happy New Year, again!

Hong Kong is very busy getting ready to celebrate Chinese new year. It's a huge event and it feels like the last few days in December all over again: companies give 2 days off, people go on vacation or plan huge reunions with their families.
I am watching all this effervescence with a huge curiosity and am trying to adapt by making sure I stick to the traditions properly - for example I need to distribute money in red envelopes to the people who are employed to help me, for example the tea lady at work. And also I make sure that I do everything necessary to bring me good luck for this coming new year.

One of the things I did recently was go to a fortune teller. He told me many things, some good, some bad, but one of them was that in the next couple of years I was going to have to make a decision among the many men in my life and pick one. Because there was going to be a ton of them to chose from, especially this year. Am very impatient for the New Year to begin (this Thursday) so that the men can start flocking in. I even expect that as I open my door that day there will be a couple already standing outside my apartment :).

One of the reasons I have been AWOL lately is that I have been obsessing once more about my life as a single girl with lots of metaphysical questions about who am I, am I happy blahblahblah and did not want to post of one those posts again. So in the end I made a promise to myself: I will absolutely NOT become one of those women approaching or past 30 who are desperate to get a man. And who have this desperation seeping through their pores. Instead I will enjoy all the things I can do now while single, and I give myself 12 months, until Feb 5th 2008 to start to get a bit worried. But at the moment am going to behave like an irresponsible 18 year old because that is what I am at heart.

Year of the Rat, bring it on.

What I learned today

Today was a bog-standard day, similar to so many days of my life. I still managed to learn from it:

- When I say to myself in the morning "Right, today am not eating any sugar nor greasy heavy food" I should never ever ever expect it to be true.
- Sushi can be a very greasy heavy lunch option
- It's possible to sit at a desk for 13 hours and still not get that much work done
- I have an embedded radar that can spot Le Poulet miles away in a street which enables me to successfully avoid him
- I manage to put on eye shadow quite fetchingly if I put a bit of effort into it
- I am about to get into trouble for forgetting to pay my Amex bill. Again.
- People in my building now talk to each in the elevator now. They actually smile broadly and say "Good evening" to each other. Even Stroppy and Tall Guy.

Nah that last point was a joke. Of course they don't - that would be breaking the number 1 rule of Elevator Behaviour.

Naked Guy

No, before anyone asks, this was not someone in my bed. And before anyone asks I promise I am not making this up. (Even if I tried it would not be as good).

From my building driveway I can see very well into flats of the building accross the road (it's quite low rise building with only a handful of floors). Very often when I get home late (not to say rolling uphill drunk) I stop in the driveway and have a good look at the Naked Guy who lives on the Nth floor of that building. It's quite an eye candy, very handy before going to sleep :-). I can of course only assume that he is totally naked because his window stops at waist level and thus it's only a partial view. (Frustrating, obviously).

The other night I was out having a drink and ran into a Folp. A FOLP is actually a Friend Of Le Poulet. There are a few lurking about in this city and one can never be too careful about what one is saying in that sort of environment. Anyway I had a polite chat which sort of went like this:

- how are you blah blah blah blah
- fine blah blah blah
- FOLP: So where do you live these days?
- Evie: Oh I found the dream flat on C Street
- FOLP: Seriously? I live on C Street! What number are you at? I am at number 2
- Evie: No Way! I am at number 1. Hold on a sec, is your building no the low rise one above Such and Such shop?
- FOLP: That's the one
- Evie: Cool! Hey you know there is a Naked Guy living in that building. What floor do you live on?
(For some reason a life-saving instinct kicked in and told me not to give more information. Not. Give. More. Info).
- FOLP: Nth. Where does Naked Guy live?
(Nth??? That's Naked Guy's floor!! Maybe they are neighbours?)
- Evie: Er I think he was higher than that. Hey do you live on the right or left hand side of the Nth floor?
- FOLP: There is only one flat per floor.
Oh. My. God. I am actually talking to Naked Guy!

At least the conversation could have taken a much worse turn with me blurting out straight away that I oggle this Naked Guy who lives on the Nth floor, FOLP would have said "wait a minute, that's me" and that would have been just lovely.

Come to think of it, it's true I never really got a good look at his face..

The Lert

So the other day I heard:
Be A Lert
The Country Needs Lerts.

So I decided to become one.

Lerts are characterised by very strange behaviour around other people and especially members of the opposite sex that are quite attractive.
In my case the victim of my inept behaviour is Muscle Guy, who works in my building. I've been introduced to him once which means that each time he crosses my path he is subject to my seriously ackward conversation.
Or lack of it.

Exhibit A: At the gym.
The other day I was there early for a Please-Shape-My-Body-Like-Madonna training session with my Body Shaper teacher. He basically makes me do lots of muscle exercices, sit on torture-like muscle machines and make a general fool of myself ("Ok Evie, I see 3 kilos is a bit too heavy, let's take it down to 0.5").
Anyway he sat me down on this horrid machine that spreads your tighs wide open and you are supposed to exercise by bringing them back together. Needless to say it looks totally un-sexy.
And of coure at that exact moment Muscle Guy walks by me. Goddammit! So I had no other option that just pretend to be super absorbed by the machine and stare ahead of me inhaling-exhaling very heavily with the effort. I mean, I was not going to look him in the eye with my thighs spread wide open and go "Hey Muscle Guy, nice to see you again ,Happy New Year, how are you, come here often?". The worst is that a few moments later my Body Shaper teacher took me to work in the same area of the gym where Muscle Guy was working out with his Body Shaper teacher (aha now I know how he gets his dream body). But I did not manage to say Hi once again because each time one of us was in a big series of abs/pushups/kickboxing rounds and it was not appropriate to say hi. Well that was ackward.

Exhibit B: With 2 biscuits stuffed inside my mouth.
A few days later I was determined to make up for my Social Inadequacy with Muscle Guy at the next opportunity I met him. The Opportunity did come but I missed it. I was running out of the building to go to the gym, and I had grabbed two whole oatcakes which I crammed in my mouth because 1. I was hungry and needed the energy for the gym and 2. because I had nowhere else to hold them having a handbag, a gym bag, an ipod to carry and at the same time texting my friend C on my mobile. Anyway, I was standing there waiting for the elevator and guess who turns up next to me also waiting for the lift? Yup you guessed it, Muscle Guy! And he said "Hi". And what did I say? Well NOTHING because my mouth was still stuffed with 2 whole oatcakes, and the sneeky buggers take an eternity to swallow. So all I said was "Grrmmpppff" while pointing at my mouth apologetically.
Classy.

One last thing about the whole New Year Thing

I saw this over the week end and it got me really excited.
This is what my horoscope predicts for 2008, according to the horoscope pages in Hong Kong Magazine (and it's powerful this one, so MUST be true).

”Do you ever wonder if God loves Brad Pitt and Paris Hilton more than he loves you, as seemingly evidenced by those celebrities’ lives? Do you suspect that Tiger Wood’s fame and Bill Gates’ wealth mean that fate is friendlier to them than it is to you? If so, you’re in for a major surprise, Capricorn. Events in 2008 will bring you big deliveries of the next best things to riches and fame. You’ll get more proof than you’ve had in a long time that God and fate adore you”.

So maybe the Jude Law kiss is a reasonable thing to expect this year?

Danger Danger

My life just got a whole load more dangerous. I thought I was living on the edge, but now I really am.
One of my social networks just created a Google Group. Usually when I log into Blogger my Evie login gets automatically recognised. From now on I will have to be super extra careful not to confuse my real name login with my Blogger one. I can feel a slippage coming up, I can feel it...

Love Love Love

No, love is not in the air for me, but I've been thinking about it these days. Probably because I've seen two soppy movies ("My Blueberry nights" and "the Notebook"). I won't give any spoilers here, but both are about the emotional connection that can exist between two people (aka love).

I have been in love twice in my life, which I should probably be thankful for, as some people spend a life time looking for something like that with no success. Both stories ended very painfully, in moments where you wish you never had a heart at all, that could neither feel happiness, love or pain. But after time does its healing thing you realise that it's all part of life and no one ever said it would be easy - but at least it's not boring.

I am still in a state of confusion though, as I am not sure wether to believe what the movies tell us about there being a possibility for a "Happily Ever After" scenario. Is it possible to find someone who is a real soul mate, and for these feelings not to have a shelflife? Are we all made for living our life with the same person, or are we supposed to experience cycles and move on from person to person (contrary to what the traditional institutions of marriage and family make us believe?). I don't know many couples among an older age group that reflects a very positive image about this. No one in my family is having a Happily Ever After (actually there are not many couples left at all) and in the other families I see sometimes it feels more like people just got used to being with each other (and have their finances and logistics planned all around it). It does sound cynical, I know.

Whatever happens, I do hope to get kissed one day in the same way that Nora Jones does in "My Blueberry Nights". And even better if it could be by Jude Law in person, pretty-please-thank-you-very-much.