26 posts tagged “weirdness”

I've been wanting to blog this but never got around to it:

Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to say "My hotcakes are no longer hot." You will be proud to know that I seized it.

She.rnice went for a gynae check-up, not because she was feeling any pain, but just to be on the safe side. The doctor scanned her womb, printed the film and told her to take them down the hall to another doctor.

As she walked down the hospital corridor, she decided to try to decipher the sheets of film, based on the extensive knowledge she'd gleaned from such informational programmes as Gr.ey's Anato.my and House, M.D. She saw that there were some dark shadows hovering over certain sections of her womb as represented on film. Within the shadows were squiggly marks that looked... like death.

She started panicking.

"I'm going to die," she thought to herself.

She reached the second doctor's office and knocked on the door. The doctor opened it, took the film from her and told her to wait outside until her name was called.

She waited an hour and a half. It was enough time for her to convince herself that she had cancer, and that the doctor was taking so long because she was trying to think of ways to break the news to She.rnice gently.

She called her boyfriend, because boyfriends are sources of solace and care.

"I think I have cancer. I saw some weird stuff on my film. I'm pretty sure they were tumours."

He exhaled, then said:

"It's ok ah. Just eat a lot of tomatoes."

I've just come home from a media party at Demp.sey Road, and I am exhausted but I just had to note this down for posterity.

Ge.rrie formally introduced me to N, the reporter from the daily broadsheet who has never deigned to even look at me the past 25 times that we've crossed paths (and when I say crossed paths I mean sat in the same room and then huddled together in the same scrum of reporters interviewing a Very Important Person) but who upon first meeting Ge.rrie offered her a ride in his car and then promptly looked her up on Facebook and added her as a Friend.

Tonight, she brought him over and said, "You know Yasmine of course."

I quickly said, "We've met."

He scrunched up his face and squinted his eyes in an expression that was clearly meant to indicate that he was at that very moment ruffling through his internal Rolodex of faces and name cards but was coming up with nothing.

I said, "We've met at several events," and nodded a lot.

I suppose my persistence made him realise that he was not going to get away with pretending that we'd never seen each other before, because then he said, "Oh yeah, but we haven't formally met." And then he held out his hand.

Douchebag.

As you read this, keep in mind that I have just developed carpal tunnel syndrome. Think of the pain I am going through as I bring you this, the long-awaited finale to The Midget Chronicles.

At the end of Part 2, the midget had asked me to watch Die Hard 4, an hour before the film was supposed to start. Instead of casually mentioning the fact that I had a boyfriend like I was supposed to, I panicked and told him simply that I couldn't make it.

He replied, "Haha ok den ü"

And honestly, I thought that was the end.

But no. The next morning, before I'd even left the house for work, I got another invitation!

"Wd u like 2 watch Harry Potter on fri nite at 9 pm? I got free tix"

This time around, I didn't reply immediately. I took a deep breath, waited an hour and then replied: "Sorry I can't. I've promised my boyfriend that I'll watch it with him."

He replied with a stoic "Haha dat's ok ü"

Needless to say, that was the last invitation I received from him.

That night, I finally told The Russian about it all, and I asked him: honestly, I don't think this guy is interested in me. I think he just asked me to watch the movies with him cos maybe all his other friends bailed on him or something. But as a guy, what do you think?

He said: Are you out of your fucking mind?!!

And then he taught me about the world as seen through the eyes of the short man.

Well basically the lesson was this: As long as a girl is short, kind of cute and friendly, a short guy will nurse hope that she will fuck him.

(Of course my own boyfriend was too smart to ever land himself in the kind of situation that the midget had dug himself into. He had made sure that I asked him out first, the wily bastard.)

"So he only likes me because I'm short and friendly," I said, in cynical awareness.

"And hot! You are hot!" he snapped.

"No I am not, objectively speaking," I reasoned, "I wear a headscarf. I'm obviously Muslim. As far as he knows, I could be a religious fundamentalist. And no non-Muslim in his right mind would be interested in dating a visibly-practising Muslim girl, unless like you, he was already friends with her, knew her very well and was in love with her."

Don't you think?

"Look at your own case," I continued, buoyed by my own flash of enlightenment, "When you first started going out with me, your colleagues - even your Muslim colleagues - were telling you to be wary of the restrictions you'd have to respect when you went out with me. Nobody in their right mind would think it fun to date a Muslim girl when they hardly even know her."

And thinking this then made me realise what I'd pointed out to you in my earlier installments: that I had been asking all the questions, and he knew next to nothing about me.

Which meant what? He liked me because I showed interest in his photography and travels? He liked me because I was short and friendly! He was so desperate of being "left on the shelf" that he would date a headscarf-wearing Muslim girl he barely knew just because she'd exchanged some SMSes with him.

And well, that's basically it.

A week later he sent me another message, asking me if I'd gone to see his photo exhibition. I said no, and he said, "u still hav 2 days left. On sat im picking e fotos up frm e gallery."

I never did go, obviously.

TR: I have a talent.
Y: Trolling!
TR: I have a talent for turning something beautiful into something evil.
Y: Yeah, trolling!
TR: Stop using that word. Only I can use it.
Y: Why?
TR: Because it comes from the Internet. Everything that comes from the Internet belongs to me. Like Google.
Y: Huh?
TR: Yes. You can take everything that comes from chicken. I own everything that comes from the Internet. Fair, right? Chickens came long before the Internet. 

Dinner with the Russian turned out to be so much fun. There was a moment at Watson's when I accidentally spilled some water on his pants, and while patting him dry grabbed his ass, so that he yelped and almost fell backwards into an old man walking behind us, who then glared in disapproval.

And the next day, Saturday, I spent a wonderful whole day with him. The day was 07/07/07, the day of Live Earth. At about 9 pm we tuned in to watch the concerts and got a shitload of Sydney's crappy line-up. Of course I hadn't bothered to look at the full list of artists performing at the 7 concerts, so I didn't even know who I was watching out for. So we waited and waited and just kept getting disappointed, which meant we ended up entertaining each other instead.

"Why don't they show something else? Something I can sing along to? Why do they keep showing Wolfmother?!" I whined.
"You should know by now," the Russian scolded me, "It is ALWAYS Wolfmother!"

It was lovely. Watching TV with the Russian is one of my favourite things in the world.  All thoughts of boredom and the midget were driven from my head.

When I reached home, though, I got a surprise SMS from him, the midget: How was ur day?
I replied, "It was nice. I spent a lot of time sleeping and now I'm watching Live Earth."
He said, "I juz came bk from my fren's wedding. I ate so much. Burp :O"

OMGWTFLOL. It was like a light switched on in my head. He was so banal. How had I managed not to notice how uncreative and uninventive his messages were? And what the fuck is up with the spelling?

I felt really stupid for letting a 2-month trip in Iran blind me towards a person's utter lack of personality. But on the other hand, I was also glad that it had happened. I'd had a small crush on a guy I didn't have, only to realise that what I did have was infinitely more exciting. If I hadn't been so intrigued by the midget, and hadn't carried on the conversations with him, I wouldn't have been able to notice the contrast between him and the Russian.

It was something like this:
1. Obviously the Russian is something special, which is why I fell in love with him in the first place.
2. Then this other guy comes along, and he seems to have some interesting qualities too, being talented and kind of cute.
3. But then, look -- gaping flaws! Bad SMS spelling, utterly vapid conversationalist, insecure about his height to the point of lying about it! All things that negate him from being anything special.
4. On the other hand, the Russian is talented, cute, visibly taller than me, not ashamed of his height and in fact writes about being short in the national news, sends me quirky and funny messages everyday (eg. "If you can find Generation Terrorist by the Manic Street Preachers, you can have my babies" and "Your honesty wafts across even the cold medium of telecommunications!") and is 99 times out of 100 a very engaging conversationalist who is willing to argue with me about the value of art.
5. Which means that I might get bored sometimes, and new guys might seem interesting in comparison, but the truth is, the Russian is always better.

So anyway I didn't reply, and I didn't hear from him again. Until the following Monday.

He sent me an SMS: How r u? Im on leave frm work for the nxt 2 wks!
Me: That's nice. I wish I could take a holiday too but I'm stuck in the office.
Him: Take leave!
Me: Can't, we're understaffed and I just took leave a few weeks ago.
Him: Work hard!

Are you not rolling your eyes? I began asking my friends for tips on how to get him off my back. I complained about how boring he was. I said, I've been spoilt by my boyfriend. Look at this message he sent me: "Hoof! The earth shakes. A hundred cows are stampeding in terror! They fear the sun's heat.. and the great happy cat in the meadow."

They said, Yasmine, anyone is boring compared to your boyfriend. Your standards are superhuman!

But then I showed them the message that the midget had sent me on Saturday night: "I juz came bk from my fren's wedding. I ate so much. Burp :O" And they said, EEEWWW!!! Ok I understand. Society will not look badly upon you for this. Next time he messages you, just mention your boyfriend.

And then, at 6 pm that same day:

Him: I noe this is kinda late but wd u like 2 watch Die Hard 4 at Cineleisure at 7 pm?
Me, totally panicking: I finish work at 7.30, sorry!

Who the hell asks someone out after meeting them once and then having sporadic SMS conversations over the next two days?

In Part 3: The Russian enlightens me, once again. 

I guess it's about time I blogged about the midget. I've already told many people about this, and I think many of you reading this will be among those people. But I think it's a story worth writing down and looking back on later, don't you?

I got the time wrong for a press conference one morning, and arrived about half an hour early. When I reached the venue, the only other person there was a photographer from one of the daily papers. I sat across from him, said hello and went on listening to my iPod, but he began talking to me so I responded. We ended up having a small chat about photography. Me being me, I asked a lot of questions.

A lot of old friends I talk to say that when they talk to me, they feel like they're being interviewed, but it's not something I do consciously. I don't think it's something that I've started doing only since becoming a journalist. I've been a curious kid all my life, and I am genuinely interested in the minutiae of other people's lives.

And so I discovered that he had become a full-time photographer only three years ago. Before that he was an engineer. He was 35. He worked only part-time at the paper, and spent the rest of his time taking wedding photos and such. I thought he was kind of cute.

Finally, the PR people felt they were ready to bring us to the room where the conference was being held, so we stood up to follow them. And then came the stunner: HE WAS MY HEIGHT.

Look, I know I'm short, and I have girlfriends shorter than me. But, DUDE, there is NO reason for a man to be that short if he's not from a third world Southeast Asian country.

Well, never mind, he was still kind of cute. And anyway, I'm a midget myself, right, so no judgement here.

We entered the conference room and for the next hour or so we each did our separate jobs. Then at lunch we sat next to each other and talked some more. Again, I asked all the questions. I found out that he had spent 8 months travelling all over Asia, including Kazakhstan, Pakistan, India, Iran and China. He'd spent about $8,000 in all. He was planning to spend a year in Cuba. He didn't believe in short holidays.

Then when I had to leave with the television crew for my free ride back to the office, he asked for my number!

I gave it to him.

Funny thing though -- when I got to the lift, he and his reporter appeared too. And in the lift the television reporter agreed to give them a ride in the van too. So in the van we talked some more. Again: me asking, him talking. He had just won a photo competition organised by a bank, and his photos were on exhibit at the Esplanade until July 20th. He was considering returning to the engineering life, all he would need to do was give one of his ex-colleagues a call. He had two weddings to attend in the next two weeks, and on both occasions he was one of the "brothers". He said, "All my friends are getting married one by one. I'll be the only one left on the shelf!" I don't care how cute you are, that's a really pathetic thing for a guy to say. Some of his photos were on his website, and he gave me the address.

The van dropped us off eventually, and then three of us -- me, photographer and reporter from daily paper -- waited by a stoplight. I realised that he was actually shorter than me now, because we were standing on a gentle slope. So I asked him, "What's your height? Are you the same height as me?"

He replied, "No I'm taller. I'm 158."

And in my head, I could only think, "BULLSHIT."

When I got back to the office, I took a look at his website. There were a few photos from Iran and India, which were really quite nice. I sent him an SMS, saying just that. He replied asking for my email address, so he could send me links to some of his other photos on the web. I gave it to him and said I would try to see his exhibition, maybe the next day, Saturday. He said the gallery was closed on Saturdays, which I thought was quite stupid. So I said ok, well that makes it a lot tougher. I'm so busy and I have to meet my friends on Sunday. And he said, bring your friends to the exhibition! And I said, no, I'd prefer to go alone and Saturdays are best because I can just go after my French class. And he said, wow he'd always wanted to learn a third language. And I asked which. And he said, Spanish, since he was planning to live in South America. And I said, I learnt a bit of Spanish before.

And then I realised this was a really long SMS conversation for someone who was really still a stranger, and I had to meet my boyfriend for dinner, so I stopped. But if I'm being honest with myself, it was kind of exciting. The Russian and I had just gotten over a fight at the time, and I was in one of my bored spells, and here was this new midget guy having a long SMS conversation with me, you know? I barely noticed that he hadn't asked me anything about myself. Any information he'd gotten about me I'd offered unbidden.

And so I was giggly, like a 16-year-old. But then the Russian came along.

Stay tuned for Part 2.

Quote found on the wonderful Internet:

I found out about bands before they were cool before finding out about bands before they were cool was cool.

So it turned out that people who came to dinner were the people who went to Cambodia.

Far.ah tells us that she should be confirmed at her job soon, which means $300 extra pay each month, which would bring the total to over $2,000. Fa.rah works 4 hours a day.
Um.a: Hey, you could give me that much for 4 hours of work a day. I won't complain.
Me: That's a lot of money. You could get married and support So.o Hia.n already, he doesn't need to work anymore.
Far.ah: Yeah, and he could do the housework.
The Russian: What? With 4 hours of work a day, you could come home and do the housework yourself lah!
Me: Yeah, everyday S.oo Hi.an just go downstairs to drink kopi then come upstairs to play guitar.
SH: Yeah I won't help with the housework one. "I don't touch that. Wash the dishes? No I don't touch that."
TR: Because your fingers are bleeding from playing the guitar! And you write angry songs about your bleeding fingers.
Me: And songs about how your wife doesn't support you, always asking you to do housework when your fingers are meant only for art!
TR: And when you run out of angry songs, you can do rap.

TR: What happened to the erhu?
Fa.rah: It's just sitting at home. It can't be played anymore.
Me: What? Why not?
Far.ah: It's the humid, warm air here... it's spoilt my erhu.
Um.a: You should get it fixed then.
TR: Yeah... at an erhu repair shop.
Me: Or you could go to the Cambodian embassy. "Excuse me, can you help me repair my erhu? This is a political crisis!"
TR: Hey maybe when you walk into the embassy you'll see rows of people sitting there mending erhus. "Oh, another one? Get in line."

Um.a: I wish I would meet A now, so I can tell him that WM got married to a really really rich guy. He's super rich. He bought her a private apartment.
TR: Sure he's rich, but is he a rapist?

On the bus, we see a trailer for The Planet Earth.
Me: Oh, Joon says we should watch that. She says it's really good. But it's showing at the same time as American Idol. How?
TR, looking at me in disgust: One is transcendental... The other is just a dumb documentary about wildlife.

I have quite suddenly found myself in the position of spiritual guide.

I do get a lot of girlfriends telling me about their problems, as do we all, but having one come to me for affirmation of and assurances about her strengthening faith in God is quite something altogether.

Let's just take yesterday, for example:

Two girlfriends talked to me about certain male colleagues in their offices torturing them with equal parts allure and aloofness.
Another also had a male colleague problem, but that's complicated on a whole other level.
One sought help with her final year project because her own groupmates didn't care.
One had another episode in a recurring cycle of pain with her ex-boyfriend.
Two were having acne breakouts.
One had to deal with a bitch who was going around the world telling people that my girlfriend had caused her miscarriage. (My girlfriend did not.)

Now all of this I can deal with. All of this I even kind of enjoy, in a way -- the warmth you can only feel when a girl types, in caps, BOYS ARE STUPID, or wails in chorus with you about her physical flaws.

BUT to have someone come up to me out of the blue to say, "I've decided to wear the hijab," and then add something to the effect of, "I've come to you so that you can tell me this is a great decision because some other people have told me that it's not, so I need your support or we will never be friends again," just floored me.

I'm not kidding; she said that she had lost one of her closest friends, N, over the issue -- not because N had objected to her wearing the hijab, but because N had disagreed with her on whether it would be acceptable for her to temporarily stop wearing the hijab in future if it ever fucked up her career options. My friend here thought that it was ok to take it off if ever one had a major job interview to score, and then put it back on once one had gotten the job; N disagreed and said the hijab was a commitment you stuck with no matter what.

It's just weird. Why me, right? I have never said anything remotely religious in front of her. In fact I've told her about my secret rebellions against my parents, my atheist boyfriend, my liberal eating habits.

Well, when you come right down to it, she probably just thought that I was the right person to turn to because I wear the hijab and therefore, clearly, obviously, without a doubt, I must be religious and have wise religious things to say. Just as I must be a BH reporter to some. Furthermore, she'd lost her good friend N and she knew nobody else who wore the hijab.

Because I am a coward, I gave her the support she was looking for. But because I am also a wily, wily serpent, I managed to steel her resolve while deftly avoiding professing my own beliefs: "Well, you clearly have been reading a lot about the religion and you feel ready to take a step not just to strengthen your faith but to show the world that you are Muslim and you're proud of it. Yay for you!"

"You should do what feels right by you. Of course, win-win situations are best, when you can both get the job and wear the hijab as well. But why worry about job interviews now? You're not even planning on looking for a new job anytime soon!"

I was unwilling to confess my truest thoughts on the matter for several reasons:
- In the last couple of months she had dumped two friends over such disagreements, debates over religious principles.

- She even called me up in the middle of the workday just to rant about the byline photo of a journalist who used to wear the hijab but now didn't. She didn't even know this journalist personally, she'd just noticed the change in byline photo, and that was enough to throw her into a turbulent rage. I was not prepared for another long conversation at my desk about personal principles and moral codes.

- She isn't such a close and valuable friend that I really have to have her in my life, but I really don't like explaining myself and my beliefs, not even to people who share my beliefs and especially not to people who will overreact and completely misunderstand me.

- I just don't like cofrontations, ok.

As a result of my weasel-like ways, she absolutely fell in love with me. She said I was mature beyond my years, that  I was one of the most intelligent and thoughtful people she knew. Now every once in a while she sends me messages to let me know if her colleagues have commented on a certain outfit, or to confide about how hot and sweaty she feels, wearing the hijab under the Singapore sun.

Somehow I think I wouldn't feel this hollow if she were simply lambasting, then ignoring me.