IT’S ABOUT DAMNED TIME

It’s fall in Xi’An and- by definition- fall in Xi’An is kind of lame. They literally shake the trees to preempt any leaf-color-change and then quickly sweep away and evidence that there ever were leaves to begin with. They fail to turn on the heat until November 15th despite the freezing weather. The “White” season moves in and the air fills with exhaust, desert dust, construction debris and general pollution so thick a white blanket of fog envelopes the city and you can barely see more than 50 feet ahead of you. The sum total of this is that everyone everywhere is constantly sick. I, for one, have at least three more bouts of bronchitis to look forward to once I’m done with this one.

Another angle on the whole “fall” aspect is that I’ve been rather blue. I have no steadily available man friends to flirt with (all my male friends are married to Chinese women and therefore unable, under threat of castration or worse, to flirt) and my Brazilian Angel is leaving me at the beginning of December.

However, a new male friend who has been threatening to take me out to dinner for ages finally did and it was lovely. There’s no great lighting; it’s just lovely. He called me Saturday night for dinner, we met up and ended up talking until one in the morning. He’s also invited me over for dinner tonight (Sunday) because he’s having a small party with some mutual friends and he wanted me to join them. One of the best parts about it is that there is no pressure. His girlfriend left him here a few months ago and he’s still getting over their breakup. He’s not made any moves to imply that he’s look for me to be a rebound. We can just, simply be around each other and be two adults as two westerners understand “adulthood.” I can dote on him and he spoils me. The conversation is interesting. He’s fun and I can just relax. And, even though he’s Italian (read: not from my culture) it’s so pressure-free and we’re both of such similar temperaments that I completely forget myself. I never thought I would so very much enjoy the relief of playing the role of a man’s +1/date but I have truly missed it.

I was just thinking on Thursday (while trying to extricate myself from a situation where a wealthy, older, powerful man was clearly making the move to turn me into his wife/mistress) how sick I am of being a female (not that I would want to be a man) because it seems to be this sentence to be placed on a pedestal and never be spoken to, merely spoken at. But my Italian friend not only talks to me, he curses (though at first he was very apologetic about saying “damn” until I clarified that I have a mouth like a sailor) and talks to me about all sorts of things with no strings attached. He himself has even declared just how tired he is of trying to talk to the women around here and there being no topic except answering questions about how rich he is and if he’s willing to marry “a Chinese.” We both want to be able to talk about the same things (passion, art, life, politics, relationships, philosophy, etc) with someone of the other gender and now we have it. What a relief!

It’s about damned time.