The Oldest Story In The Book

In the end, six months after we broke up, C. decides to finally tell me last night the real reason why he left me. For another guy he met two months earlier. A guy I know very little about, except he is one year younger than C., newly-reformed from his promiscuous ways of old after attending some self-help course, wants to enter a more "serious" phase in his life, has a "big chest" and makes C. feel "protected".

Anyway, it seems he met this guy and fell hopelessly in love with him. They carried on for a while but the guy thought this is not right and he cannot live his life like this. Being a third party in a relationship didn't gel with his newly-reformed self so he "broke up" with C. Roughly a week later, C. then broke up with me in order to get back with this guy. Which he did. A sequence of events which has taught me that despite all the high-faluting theories about the hows and whys of relationship break-ups, including the ones he peddled to me in the last six months, there is always a simpler reason why guys do what they do. They upgrade.

In C's case, the new guy also held out the promise of a fresh start away from a messy relationship with me which he didn't know how to fix and apparently had lost the desire to fix. It was the "easy way out", he admitted, to clean up his life, get the independence he wanted and end all the "wrong" things about our relationship (e.g. clandestine hook-ups, me being too fat) which he never wanted to have a frank discussion about. In other words, all the previous reasons he cited for leaving still held but perhaps they weren't enough to jolt him into action. So here, I suspect things like "big chest" (and as I now know, big other-things) probably helped tip the balance.

I'm not sure yet what to do with this new information. I'm angry because although I also made mistakes in the relationship, I always stuck by our "rules", which were that either of us could go out and have fun but if our feelings ever got involved and there was a possibility of break-up, we had to sound the alarm with the other. My feelings were true to the end but he did not keep up his end of the bargain. Looking back, I also believe I always tried to play my best with the cards I were dealt in the relationship. The problem is that there were so few cards because he refused to discuss all these serious problems with our relationship with me. Apparently he has now learnt his lesson: he discusses everything with the new guy now and because of that, they quarrel very often (something we hardly ever did).

C., who is now also attending the same life-altering self-help course, is convinced that it is only by telling me the truth about what happened ("his Story", to speak in the vernacular) that we can move on and be true friends. He has said sorry so many times for hurting me, but right now it rings very hollow. The fact is that this has helped him much more than it has helped me.

There is some part of me that empathises with him, given that I did the exact same thing he did six years ago when I broke up a 4-year relationship I was in to be with him. At least now, as F. puts it, the "bad relationship karma" slate has been wiped clean (with the negatives transferred to C.'s slate I suppose). And I suppose it is some sort of closure, though that wasn't exactly what I was looking for. Or maybe I was, I dunno...

Added later:
It turns out that I do know who C.'s new guy is. A big guy called E., whom I know through two other friends. I'm not surprised because C. is the type he likes.

Was that what it was?

How do you quote the titles of more than 60 Pet Shop Boys songs and albums in a single blog posting? Like this. Absolutely fabulous.

Album of the Year

And it's a live album at that. The Pet Shop Boys' "Concrete" seems straightforward enough (it's a concert recorded for BBC Radio 2 with the BBC Concert Orchestra) but when I played it in the car, every track blew me away and I couldn't wait to get back into the car to hear more. Okay, it's partly because many of the songs, including "Left To My Own Devices", "It's A Sin" and a brilliant arrangement of "Rent", bleed with so much nostalgia of a simpler time gone by. But it's also the surprises on the album - like Rufus Wainwright singing "Casanova In Hell" and Robbie Williams on "Jealousy" (which, I've realised now, is my favourit-est PSB song by far).

Speaking of which, I bought Robbie Williams' controversial new album Rudebox, on the strength of it being a crazy-weird electro 80s throwback thing. It's the first Robbie CD I've ever bought and I kinda like it actually :)

Speaking of firsts, I also bought my first ever Creative gadget!! The Creative Xmod is supposed to make MP3 ripped to your computer sound better by restoring the quality lost during MP3 compression. Its "X-Fi Crystalliser" may sound like a machine from a tacky B-grade sci-fi thriller, but it damn well works. I'm such a sucker...

Random Musings (HK Mix)

I'm beginning to like these George Yeo-styled numbered paragraphs. So here goes with the random reasons why I could actually live in HK:

1. Seemingly inexhaustible supply of cute Chinese cubs/chubs, which moves HK up my Beari Index to #3. And unlike in Singapore, they all congregate in certain saunas, bars and cafes - so you get easy access to them. (The zit on my tummy didn't disappear, but it didn't really hold me back. Dim lighting really helps...) J. tells me, though, that at the rate I'm meeting them, the supply isn't really inexhaustible and will run out soon haha.

2. There are 8 (eight!!) California Fitness branches in HK.

3. Obscure second-hand CDs and bootleg DVDs that send my pulse racing. I've just finished watching a bootleg DVD of Tori Amos' VH1 Storytellers performance which I bought for HK$60 or just $12. Now watching a 1985 (yes, 1985!!) Everything But The Girl (oh Tracey's hair!!) concert in Germany.

4. Bear parties! Next one is Nov 18.

5. Public transport is actually good. You can actually get taxis in town at 11pm and bus/MTR travel is easy.

6. Friends like J. and D. who have been nothing but sincere, kind and generous with me even though I've known them for such a short time.

I really need to learn how to speak Cantonese though...

Random Musings

A list of unordered things that are worth noting but did not prompt me to make separate posts for since my last blog entry (hmm... is that grammatically correct?):

1. There are only a few moments in my life when I'm somewhere and I think: This is great, this is amazing, I'm so proud this is Singapore, we have arrived etc etc... The last time was at Nation.04 as fire spewed out on the musical fountain amid the dancing rays of water (!!??). I felt like that again last weekend visiting the new Tangs store at Vivocity.

2. Ikea discriminates against people who like dark coloured furniture. It makes me really angry.

3. M's cat died. She was 18. He told me yesterday that the morning she died she was moaning softly, but there was also a kitten meowing noise coming from outside his window. But he lives on the 4th floor and there is no ledge for any kitten outside the window. He posited, and I agreed, that it must have been the Cat Spirits calling her home. Later, we bought a Kashmiri urn for the cat's ashes from a roadside stall called Many Moons.

4. Out of nowhere, Tori Amos released a 5-CD box set of b-sides and rarities in a box shaped like a piano keyboard! I bought it of course; but I was strangely unexcited by it, then disturbed that I was strangely unexcited. Tori, even though my love for Thee is fading, You will always be a True Goddess in my heart!!

5. Scoop is a great show and Scarlet Johanssen is a really good actress. The new Cathay, on the other hand, is a really badly designed building.

6. I leave for HK tomorrow with a feeling that it's not going to be a good trip. Maybe it's the really big zit on my tummy.

Beck: Back!

It's a mystery how Beck has ended up becoming one of the those musicians whose albums that I never fail to buy. Especially since I don't really have a natural affinity for his American slacker-rock-rap style. Yet there is something about the guy that keeps me coming beck (haha).

I guess my odd liking for Beck started somewhere into the second track on his seminal "Odelay" album, which I have to admit I bought only because all the rave reviews meant any self-respecting music fan had to have a copy. Bewildered slightly by the ramshackle guitars and random screechy noises laid over an incongruous hip-hop beat, things took a bizarre twist for me when dreamlike flutes started playing like they were back-masked and voices came on...

"Who are you?"
"I'm the enchanting wizard of rhythm!"
"Why did you come here?"
"I came here to tell you about the rhythms of the universe..."

That's been pretty much my reaction to Beck albums. You never really understand them at first because they're always chock full of everything happening all at once and mumbo-jumbo lyrics sung by an American with what seems like a lot of cotton wool in his mouth.

Then suddenly, you realise the obiang bossanova beats on "Mutations" are quite sublime. And the awkwardly-loping electro-trash songs on the next album "Midnight Vultures" (with quite possibly the most vile cover artwork ever) are all quite Prince-like in their own relaxed way. And how you can't help but automatically turn up the volume and stay very still as you listen to the utterly brilliant next album "Sea Change", with its cheesy honky-tonk country & western songs of yearning and regret set to twinkly synths and sweeping orchestral arrangements. "Lonesome tears, I can't cry them anymore. I can't think of what they're for. Oh they ruin me everytime!"

Now, barely a year after the under-rated lo-fi "Guero" comes "The Information". This time, there is great hype. People are calling it a return to "Odelay" and giving it 5 stars, 9 out of 10. I'm excited by the cover that is just graph paper and free stickers, but as usual I don't really get it at first. Then in the middle of the 70s disco-funk groover "Cellphone's Dead", you hear a familiar sound. Trying to filter out the crazy girl who keeps saying "one by one I'll knock you out!" and the strange choir noises, you gradually realise that it is Indonesian traditional wedding music.

This is why Beck is the David Bowie of our generation. And yes, zyn, he is more genius than Jay Chou. A little more.

Attempt #3

Yesterday, I signed up for Japanese again, this time at Bunka Language School in Delfi Orchard. It has a patented teaching formula, which is supposed to enable you to learn Japanese quicker and with less pain. I was impressed enough by the method to list some of its more important points here, even though it will not make much sense to most readers of this blog...

1. Verb Conjugation
Foreign students of the Japanese language often have this problem. They learn a lot of words in vocabulary lists, especially verbs, but they still cannot understand what Japanese people are saying. According to the Bunka founder, that's because beginners tend to only be taught the polite "mas" form of a verb, and learn verb conjugation (into other forms) over the years. So beginners often cannot pick out verbs in speech. At Bunka, whenever they introduce a new verb, they give you all the forms (and there are maybe 8-10). After a while, you instinctively know how any verb changes its sound.

2. Wa versus Ga
A lot of textbooks emphasise when to use the particles "wa" and "ga". But actually they are not strictly comparable. "Wa" is a special particle that makes whatever precedes it the topic of the sentence. Sometimes it appears, e.g. with "e" or "ni ("ewa", "niwa") but other times it is omitted, e.g. with "ga". So "ga" and "wa" serve two totally different functions in the language!

Ok enough already. Class starts on Nov 11. Must buy nice pencil box.

E Penso A Te

Tonight at dinner, A. asked me whether or not I still thought about C. There was a rush of feelings that surged up inside me as I nodded and replied, "Yes, of course. A lot."

I think of him a lot when I'm driving. We used to go everywhere together and the seat beside me still looks strangely empty when I put the car into gear. I think about the coffeeshop in Bukit Merah we would drive to every morning before work.
I think about the times we read the papers in the airconditioned coffeeshop we would go to sometimes -- me eating eggs and kaya toast and him eating nasi lemak. I think about the nights I would drive to his office to fetch him home and the Sunday mornings when I would drop him off for Japanese class at Bugis. The afternoons I would pick him up from Tuas after reservist. I think about the morning he went with me to collect the Beetle. I remember how happy he had been for me.

I think a lot about the times we spent in the rented flat at Pasir Ris. How we went grocery shopping together at the strange standalone supermarket with bus lots for car park spaces. How we used to drive to Changi Village to eat at night. I think about how he used to go with me on endless trips to the fish farm and how we would choose coral and anemones from the large open tanks. I think about all the times we went swimming with a long blue tubed float that we stored in the kitchen and how we were stumped by how to remove the moss that had grown in the terrace.

I think about him most often in the night before I go to sleep. I think about how I used to steal the duvet from him at night. I think about the nights we spent watching Survivor and The Apprentice on TV and episode after episode of Queer As Folk on DVD. I think about the nights spent falling asleep by the flickering light of the TV -- him watching Taiwanese game shows on mute, listening wirelessly via headphones. I think about him playing World of Warcraft in the living room, the "ker-ching" of XP being chalked up and the arguments we would have about over-playing. I think about the parties we used to have, about the food that he would cook and how great he was with my friends and colleagues. I think a lot about that one year I celebrated my birthday just after I came back to the newsroom, how everyone was late and it looked like the party was failing. I remember feeling so glad that he was there for me, and how he had been there for me through so many birthdays.

I think about the special moments we had that I can never forget. The night we spent at the Beaufort and singing in the private jacuzzi at Banyan Tree Bintan. Having tea in the famous tart shop in Daikanyama and always going to the Nike store in Kichijoji. I think about us on the street in Ginza, puzzling over why the compact flash card didn't work in the camera I had just bought. I remember him writing in his Multiply diary how much he loved Taipei. I think about him beside me in Japanese class, coming to my rescue when I didn't know the answer.

Of course, I also think about the bad things. All the times I failed him in big and small ways. The time I wanted to leave early from a school reunion he had, when he obviously wanted to stay. The times I wanted to go travelling and made him worry about his finances. I remember all the household chores I was too lazy to do and all the times I made him feel small by not listening to what he had to say. And I remember, crystal clear, all the times I made him cry. I think a lot about the day he left and I still remember, verbatim, some of the things he said to me. How he thought of just leaving me a note and disappearing. I think a lot about that, especially. I think about how I didn't know at all that things had become so bad.

I think a lot about what he is doing now. I imagine him rushing about from place to place with the boundless energy he has. I think about him helping out at community events and festivals, and discussing politics with his friends and online. I think about him going to school at night after work and how well he must be doing in his studies. I think about whether he goes to the gym, whether he has bought new bags and shoes (which he loves). How much Diet Coke he is drinking and whether or not he has put on weight.

But most of all, I think about whether he is happy now and if he thinks about me much at all. I think about how deeply I still love him and how I miss him so much.

So yes, I think a lot about him. And how all the love I still have inside now means so little to anyone but me.

""Eventually I learnt how to love someone, but you had disappeared into the faceless crowd,'' sang Taiwanese songstress Renee Liu. ""And so I came to understand that you can let a person slip away, but that mistake will be for life.''

The Beari Index

Inspired by the Beri Index of labour productivity, a conversation I had recently, and currently bored out of my mind at work, I shall proceed to give my ranking of bear-chub guys by country:

1. Japan
Close fight with their Taiwanese cousins who have harder bodies, but Nihon-jin win out because they are fairer, more childlike, more boyish-looking and have beautiful, hairy thick legs. Plus, Japan IS the birthplace of the Asian bear movement. I want to be Japanese!!

2. Taiwan
Greatest concentration of muscle bears and cubs in Asia by far. Most of them have gorgeous thick stocky bodies from working out at the gym and are often deliciously tanned or naturally dark. Very warm and welcoming. Unfortunately, most are too fey and the incongruous pairing of a girly voice and a masculine body is just a little too unsettling.

3. Hong Kong *new!*
I've always had the impression that "bears" in Hong Kong tend to be more stocky-muscular than fat-muscular, and this, people tell me, is still by and large true. But what I saw on my last trip changed my mind. Lots of cute Chinese chubs and cubs in the gyms and bars, and of course there was this one bear that single-handedly pulled the average up :) And the scene is a lot more visible and lively because they are as well-organised as the Taiwanese.

4. Singapore
A lot of people have told me that the cutest guys are in Singapore. I always disagree but as I start to look around me more, I'm starting to see why. There are really a lot of cute bears on the street, especially the young gamer cubs playing games in amusement centres and browsing endlessly in Funan Centre and Sim Lim Square. They just need to shave their hair, grow goatees and wear the right clothes. Like the Taiwanese, I suppose, National Service and the proliferation of gyms give us a good starting base. But higher standards of living have also increased the bear pool by gifting it with bigger, fatter kids with more bear potential. Plus, the presence of stout Malay guys and cute Indian cubs makes for the kind of added variety that you don't get in homogenous societies like Japan and Korea.

5. Korea
Quite hit and miss. When they are beautiful, they are as beautiful as the Japanese - only more masculine. When they are not, they really are not. Plus, I find them often quite gruff and unfriendly.

6. Malaysia
The absence of a gym culture, plus a national obesity problem, means you get bigger, softer chubs here. Occasional gems spotted having coffee in Jalan Bukit Bintang or KLCC.

7. Philippines
Short guys that are always energetic, sincere and friendly. Happy cubs!

8. Thailand
Leaving aside the muscle guys in Tawan bar, I've yet to be inspired by what I've seen in Bangkok. Maybe I just don't know the right people or haven't gone to the right places.

$1788 excl GST for 54 months

So i've decided - no more pussyfooting. I only have three months left till the end of the year and I still need to gain at least 3 kilos to hit my target (83kg). So more food, more supplements, more sleep, more working out, less stressing over work.

It was in this spirit that I visited the new California Fitness branch at Novena yesterday. Working out amongst green fields and condos (don't buy Novena Suites) and peering into people's balconies was kinda strange but interesting in a pastoral kind of way. I've decided it's a good place for working out on Sunday haha.

Of course, it's also great because my favouritest, cutest membership "counsellor" Aaron has moved there from Orchard. He was in an impossibly cute adidas jumper yesterday which made him look even puffier and more cherubic than I remember; so to make him happy, I signed up for another 4.5 years even though I still have 1.5 years left to run. Sigh, so I'm signed up til the middle of 2012 now, but at least it works out to some ridiculously cheap monthly rate ($34). Don't anyone secretly go and sign up for the gym without checking with me ah... you need to go to best consellor, who will give you the best rate : )