LITTLE THINGS

I have been MIA from my life for the past week and a half because last Sunday, (1/6) I got a phone call from the French replacement of Le Francais (husband to my Brazilian Angel). Le Francais- generally being a good guy for those not on his shit list- set up this new lad with both his former apartment and his car. My Brazilian Angel has told me he was a lovely boy but certainly a party animal (strike one) and “very handsome” (strike two) as when he had come to Xi’An to visit in November, she was utterly unable to get the lot of us all together for dinner for his partying schedule. She suggested that I drop by to see him at some point and, though more than cautious about any 25 year old with the party instinct, I felt the tug of being indebted to my Brazilian Angel for having helped me when I first got here. Frankly, Xi’An can be great and it can be brutal. The deciding factor is (as it always is) knowing the right people. Which is not to say that I constitute “the right people” but I’m certainly better than the vacuum of nothingness.

Nevertheless, I was quite certain that some hotshot, “goooorgeous,” corporate sales, 25 year old party animal would be interested in precisely nothing I would be interested in. Frankly, what I most value (and most hate; I’m a complicated girl, I tell ya) about my experience of this area is not the Disney-fied clubs, the West Egg bubble and the inflated sense of my worth simply because I am white but the fact that I am firmly entrenched in a Chinese world. Granted, there’s no “Real China” just like there’s no “Real World” but I see a piece of China that is rather untouched by an extensive history with the West and I am full well aware how rare and valuable that is. I’ve worked at more than enough corporate environments to know that those boys and I rarely have common ground on anything, much less enough to make conversation over a brief dinner.

Ironically, I knew the less the boy and I had in common the more he would need me. Frankly, the area we live in is very isolated and the only people living here are families that are so insular they don’t trust singles living in the apartment complex. I am only given a reprieve because they are all intimately aware of the goings on of my day, their children love me, they have watched me intensely and all have sussed out that I am a “good” girl. I knew any boy I wasn’t going to get along with was going to have an extra hard time.

The fact that my Brazilian Angel is my girl and she asked me to do it aside, she saved my ass when I first got her. So, in the beginning of December, I dropped off a note to say hello and gave him my number. I hadn’t expected to ever hear from him and when my Brazilian Angel asked me about it about a month later, I had completely forgotten.

“That’s strange. He should have called you. I thought he was there,” she said after I told her I had dropped off the note.

I didn’t push the issue as I had kind of been dreading the idea that the corporate party animal would call me. I had secretly hoped that they had hired a cleaning lady to come in to clean before he showed up and that she had thrown away the note.

However, I got a call from the boy who introduced himself on the phone. I had no idea who he was as he gave me no points of reference save his first name, the fact that he knew I spoke English and that my name was “Christina.” Talking with him was exceptionally easy and all I could think was “Whatever the hell I did to get this man to call me, I should do it again.”

He then asked if I was from “Italia” as I “signed [my] note with ‘Ciao’.”

And the rusty wheels of my brain creaked to a slow turn. “This is the party animal?” I was flabbergasted. No corporate sales boy I’ve ever met is this easy to talk to. Frankly, anyone who treats me like a “buddy” or is the kind of guy you “just wanna have a few beers with” irritates the ever-loving hell out of me. Everything about the conversation exuded comfort and I was actually not utterly dreading the plans we made to have dinner on Tuesday.

I decided to take him to my favorite dumpling place in Xi’An, which happens to be quite the little dive. I figured, if he was uncomfortable with this, then we would both be on the same page about the kinds of China we were looking to experience.

So, I took him through the decrepit, ramshackle alley that most tourists think of as “Real, Urban China.” Frankly, most tourists are put off by it. Up close, they want the grandiose Forbidden Palace but the shabby alleys only from the safety of their hired rickshaw while their guides to translate. To be totally honest, I love the alley. It’s cluttered with biked-in fruits and veggies on carts, makeshift tables littered with slabs of meat, children running amuck, dirt and garbage pounded to make the permanent muddy grayness of ground and hole-in-the-wall eateries. It’s kind of a dividing line for me here.

Comfortable with being able to lay down a line, I went to my Brazilian Angel’s old apartment and rang the doorbell. The first thing that struck me when the door was opened was that the smell of her home was still there but she was not. Leaving the apartment like he was comfortably at home was one of the more attractive men I have ever laid eyes on. His tall, lanky frame hovered a head taller than me. His curly black hair was brushed back from his face. He was comfortably, casually dressed and his eyes were those insanely beautiful eyes that makeup companies try to convince women they’ll have if they use their mascara but that you only ever actually find on men; dark blue and rimmed with the longest, blackest feathery lashes. In short, there was the physical embodiment of the sort of French man they sell in teen romance novels who is revealed (through the heroine’s uncovering of some innocent deception around some missing museum jewelry) to be nobility and despite his offence manages to not only remember to shower but also wear cologne as chases her to the top of the Eiffel Tower with a single white rose on New Year’s Eve as snow softly falls and someone plays “La Vie En Rose” on an accordion in the background.

Yeah. Growing up, I liked Steven King.

This charming, gorgeous stranger coming out of the scent of my Brazilian Angel’s home, through not fault of his own, was not winning over this version of Alley Sheedy from the “Breakfast Club.” I am nothing if not territorial about the things my friends cherish and the childish reflex to be defensive about the home she spent two years working so hard on and being so proud of was now being inhabited by the kind of dashing man they write teen romances about. Reflexively, I was back in high school watching the popular kids hover near my gay best friend’s locker. It just rubbed me the wrong way.

But, I’m an adult and I recognize that I should just keep my mouth shut about all my crazy and my prejudice. So, he made pleasant conversation (read: did not talk AT me) with me while we headed to the alley, where, I was certain, he’d do his best to hide his revulsion.

“Thank god! Life!” was the boy’s first response when he saw the alley. “Thank you so much.” He really lit up as he turned, grateful, to me. “I was worried I’d never see this kind of life again. I didn’t know where to find it here and now to know it’s right next to my home is great. Is it always like this?”

I nodded, a bit off kilter that he not only wasn’t uneasy but actually quite comfortable. “Maybe it’s not his fault he’s so well pulled together.” As we passed by the bordellos, I informed him that’s what they were.

“Really? Out in the open like that around here?” He asked, truly surprised but not scandalized (god love the French).

“Yeah and they call them ‘pink houses’,” I explained in French so that anyone passing by with a modicum of English wouldn’t know what we were saying.

“Really? Not red?” He asked.

“Nope. Pink. Look at the light.” I explained as the pink lights inside are from where they get their name.

While we continued through the alley, he told me all about his travels and the things he loves about China. Frankly, he was charming and my cold, cold heart was beginning to warm towards the boy.

Over dinner, we talked about everything; art, life, travel, passions, politics and, of course, movies. He told me he had given away his whole stash of films when he moved from Changzhou (a city peripheral to Shanghai) so he had nothing to watch. I offered him some of mine.

So, we headed back to my apartment to peruse my films. He got excited over all my favorite comedies and then he came upon “The Simpsons” movie. I have been unable to watch the film as my computer and the DVD are fighting so I had put it away and forgotten about it in the crush of things to get done in my everyday life.

“Isn’t this great” he exclaimed like a kid on Christmas morning.

“I actually haven’t been able to see it yet.”

“You were giving me shit about not seeing the South Park movie and you haven’t seen the Simpsons movie?” It’s true. I had given him a lot of shit about not having seen the South Park movie.

“It skips a lot,” I tried to justify my crimes as he shot me a look letting me know just how weak we both found my excuses. “Look, the Simpsons came out this year. South Park has been out since before you were born!” I teased him about our running joke that at a whole four and a half years younger than me, he is infantile while I am roughly his mother’s age.

He smiled in his concession to my (lame) argument. “Well, you have to see it.” He then pointed to the pig that Homer is holding on the cover of the DVD, “’Spiderpig’ that’s all I’ll tell you but just remember ‘Spiderpig’.” In his barely containable glee, he then proceeded to softly sing to himself, what I can only assume is, the “Spiderpig” song. Frankly, it was just silly and, truly, there is nothing more appealing to me than an elegant person with a lot of silly.

It was in those dulcet tones of the softly murmured “Spiderpig” I realized we really were going to be friends.

The future of our friendship firmly rooted, he left, DVDs in hand.

Since then, we’ve spent all of his free time hanging out. The next night, I went to get him for dinner and as we were leaving his apartment, he explained that he had see the South Park movie but he had seen it in French. He then proceeded to sing the “Uncle Fucker” song. In French.

As he was happily reciting a few lines of the “Putain Oncle” song, I was struck by the notion that I was relieved he has a girlfriend. He is lovely and so easy to be with that, were he free, I would have absolutely no restraint. Emotionally and mentally, he is on par with me but nevertheless, he is still physically 25 and being physically 25 comes with hormonal baggage that just doesn’t let up until closer to 30. Refreshingly, he is very open about his struggles being 25 and in a monogamous, long distance relationship. Nevertheless, that does not change the fact that he is in a relationship.

On Sunday, we went shopping at Metro (a German membership, ubermarket chain that is a gourmet version of Costco/Sam’s Club; I have my Brazilian Angel’s card and he has le Francais’) to get him supplies for living in his new apartment. While Metro is very European, it is also in the middle of China and consequently there are a lot of things to the modern Chinese taste.

To understand the modern Chinese taste, one must imagine lace with glitter, plastic flowers, rhinestones and metallic thread. It can be overwhelming for people accustomed to the minimalism of modern architecture, the i-world (macs, pods, phones etc) and real nature (read: not the concrete amusement parks that pass as “nature” in China). The Boy and I have similar ideals in aesthetic and I assure you they are decidedly NOT Chinese; clean lines, simplicity, intentional usage of color, etc. We are both in agreement that adornment should be a bit subtler than what is currently in fashion in China. Frankly, China is in a baroque period and we’re a bit more post-modern.

Which, of course, led to me suggesting that he get every terrifyingly ornate, frilly, god awful tchotchky we passed. He, not being one to be out done, proceeded to get the iron that he needed. He glanced at all of the irons on display and saw the hot pink one.

“Where’s the hot pink one?” He asked himself.

“Seriously?” I said, highly amused.

He shrugged, smiled and said, “Sure, why not?”

I smiled broadly at his silliness.

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s just that I love that.” Which I do.

And, a bit later we were discussing something and I simply jumped in with my opinion, as I am apt to do when I am comfortable enough that I forget myself. The Boy promptly teased me for being so opinionated.

“Oh, sorry. I do that.” I said, highly apologetic because there’s nothing like China to make a single gal self-conscious about letting her strong opinions fly. “Seriously, tell me to fuck off it gets annoying. I know I can be overbearing. It’s fine. I don’t mind ‘fuck off.’ Silent resentment makes me nuts.”

He smiled and shook his head. “No. It’s fine. You’re a strong woman. You’re in control. I like that. My sisters are like that.”

And I took one of my rare, deep sighs. I have a few close friends here and they all appreciate my strength. However, most days my strength is either mocked, ignored or generally disrespected. In short, I am semi-neutered for it. To be with a man who actively seeks to spend all his free time with me and that he really likes the fact that I am opinionated is such a blessing. That he can handle it and give it right back to me is incredibly steadying. That he has a girlfriend rescues me from making a huge error in timing. However, after losing my Brazilian Angel to the ether that is life, it’s just really nice to have a friend to play with all the time again.

The comfort of home hit me with him Wednesday night. We weren’t supposed to meet as it was my Chinese Angel’s birthday. However, she decided she only wanted to go to lunch and so I was left with a free evening. I informed The Boy that if he was willing to hang out with the least popular girl in Xi’An, we would do anything he wanted. So, we ended up making plans to go to the pool hall.

Somehow, in my jackass-itude, I managed to get my first ever Xi’An splinter. Of course it would be in my left thumb as I am a girl with absolutely no right-handed, fine motor skills. It was huge and I managed to get most of it out but there was still a little left. When he got home from work, The Boy told me to come over and he’d get the rest of it out.

And perhaps it’s the fact that we’ve got an unspoken rule about “appropriate” proximity, to say nothing of the straight out ban on touching but there was something so comforting about being taken care of like that. The relationship I have with my father is, at best, nonexistent and the relationship I have with my older brother is, at best, strained. You can be assured that I don’t really have a forte for letting men take care of me. It’s not that I think all men are evil or not trustworthy or whatever. It’s just that I’m really, truly bad at it. (I am, in fact, quite jealous of these women who effortlessly go to pieces and know exactly how to orchestrate all the men around them to care for them. I could simply never do that because I lack that talent.) However, because The Boy is quite a lot like my eldest younger brother and also an older brother himself, he managed to relax me and manage my dependence on him without the usual escalation of masculine opportunism.

So there we were, in the silence of his concentration as he tried to find the very small sliver left in my thumb. Sitting there on his couch with the scatterbrained boy so oblivious to the minutia of life that he puts salt in the fridge if he’s talking while sorting groceries, it was heartening that he thought to sterilize the needle without my reminding him. There is simply something unspeakably appealing about watching grown men do something well.

Before each time he tried to pry the near-invisible splinter from my thumb, he apologized and made sure I would be okay. Unfortunately, I had forgotten my tweezers and so he had to open my thumb up a bit but he managed to wrestle it from me. At last, victorious, he got the final bit out, I resisted the urge to snuggle into his shoulder and then we were off to pool.

During the game, we had yet another surprisingly open conversation. It never ceases to amaze me just how comfortable he is talking with me. Normally, I would just presume that he speaks to everyone this frankly or that I’m doing something to pry it from him but that’s just not the case. He’s far more interesting and profound than I would have ever given him credit for or than I would have ever been interested in prying from him. And, while he’s extremely pleasant and nice with all my friends, he certainly hasn’t been as forthcoming with them as he has been with me.

After pool, we engaged in our nightly habit; he made me dinner, we watched Scrubs, I did the dishes and then around one, I headed home. It’s the simplicity and the ease of atmosphere that he creates that I like most of all. Ironically, in a place where I am allowed to be strong and defend myself, I find myself infinitely comfortable with being as I am; equal parts strong and vulnerable. From the man I would have least expected, I am pressured to be nothing except myself and in return he is interesting, surprising and, best of all, silly. I’d forgotten how much daily exposure to honest-to-god friendships means to me.

THAT NEW BOX SMELL

It will come as a surprise to precisely no one that I am hard up. I’m in the land of perennial children with nary an available adult in sight. Which is fine, sort of. I bitch and moan about it every chance I get, I force myself to believe that someday I might actually be able to couple with someone long-term, believe (with waning ferocity) that I might actually one day make up for the lost lovin’ time and I do my best to ignore my incredibly oversexed (with multiple, extramarital partners, no less) colleagues and get on with my day. Chinese, foreign, American makes no difference; when I’m surrounded by women exasperated with having to have sex with their (multiple) sugar daddies (read: not their husband) every time they are given something, it makes me want scream. Sex is great. Sugar daddies are great. If they’re not fabulous across the board, you’re doing something wrong!

So, not listening in on those bitchfests are generally in my sanity’s best interest.

However, today the two married women in my office were busy waxing poetic about the greatness of being married (they are both married for less than a few months, so they are both clearly aware of the depth and breadth of all that lifetime commitment has to bring) and when people get on their high horse, it’s impossible to get them down (as is often witnessed by bystanders in my everyday life).

Granted, the irony to me is that while they love being married, they actually loathe the “marital relations” piece. To be honest, it’s more or less what most of my married foreign friends say, only they’ve been married for several years. Which brings me to wonder; why is everyone having all this sex if it’s so bad? And, better yet, why am I having none and I like it so much?

There they were, talking about how it’s great to not only have no one to tell them what to do at home but they can also boss their husbands around. From the sound of it, their husbands are just whipped and incapable of doing anything at home short of what my girls command.
They love this. They want nothing more than a man who says nothing at home and does everything in public. Personally, I’d kill him in under ten minutes of marriage, but whatever. It’s their fantasy come true. The only drawback they say is that you have to have sex with him regularly if you want to keep him doing things for you.

Huh?

At this point, you can be assured that the computer chip in my brain seized and promptly fried. There was a small puff of smoke released from my eyelids and my hearing went dead.
I can only imagine the man I will end up married to and, well, I’m pretty sure I’ll never actually say the words “must have sex” within the context of an outside power forcing me to have sex with the man good enough to partner with for life during the first few moments of our solidified time together. I’m quite certain I will utter the phrase “must have sex” directly proceeded by the phrase “or will go insane and kill people.”

And while the women are discussing the horrors of marital relations, I started thinking about all the small children I know. They rarely like what they get in a box but they love the box itself. They love the packaging the product comes in but don’t really care either way about the product. It’s like someone gave all these women brand new macBooks but all they care about is the cardboard around the blessed thing.

Such a waste.