MATRIMONY

“Stumble” is probably the best verb to use in describing the oeuvre that is my life. I stumble into most everything. I’ve accidentally stumbled into walls, jobs, lovers, careers, languages, hobbies and even the occasional engagement (or two, to be totally forthcoming). I have never stumbled into a marriage, however.

As they say, “There’s first time for everything” and really, considering the overreaching arc of my life, it’s only appropriate, really.

The Boy and I have stumbled into a marriage of the first degree and it’s entirely unsettling for precisely how not unsettling it is. There are no butterflies, no nervousness, no freezing up and no jitters around him. It’s all just comfort and ease. Granted, to be fair, I did loathe the poor thing at first meeting, so perhaps that took the place all that moony-eyed crap that I loathe. Nevertheless, we’ve skipped all the foreplay, all the dating and gone straight to married.

All of my friends have become his friends very quickly and, despite the larger circle of foreigners I have exposed him to, I find myself at dinners with precisely the same people I’m normally with in the precisely the same quantities I’m normally with them, only he’s always there too. In short, I spared no effort to make his experience here as broad as possible but he actively chose the things, places and people that I chose. I figured he should spend time with me and my circle not because I’m the only game in town but because he actively wants to hang out with me and it would appear that that is the case.

Regardless, it’s a bit odd having a go-to person; suddenly being part of a non-existent couple. The “I,” “Me,” “My” and “You” has become “Us,” “We,” “Our” and “You guys.” Oddly, a byproduct of one of the most natural and honest friendships I’ve had in years feels unbelievably dishonest. To be fair, this byproduct hadn’t really occurred to me (or him, I think) until I got back.

The Boy picked me up at the airport and he was adorably giddy, being social and silly with everyone around us from the toll takers along the way back to the guards at our complex. Being that it was late at night and I was beat, he left me laughing and headed home to his visiting guest to whom he was [insert eye roll] “married.” (read: an anti-social friend he had to babysit) He had mentioned the friend was leaving on Sunday and I was meeting some of “our” friends for coffee on Sunday, so I sent him a message to extend the invitation. It turns out the coffee was for precisely when they had to leave for the airport so I let it go and figured I’d see him later at some point.

Friday night, I went out with some friends for dinner and drinks and I asked if one set of my married friends were going to the West Egg party in two weeks. I asked the woman of the married couple I knew the Boy liked the most because it will be his first West Egg party and I wanted to make sure he’ll have a good time.

“Are you going to the business dinner?” I asked.

“We’ll go if you guys are going. Are you guys going?” She replied. Not, “Are you going?” but “Are you guys going?” Only I had asked- hell, only I was there- but there was only one person that could turn the “you” into “you guys.”

There was just something about the “we will” if “you guys will” that stalled me out. I mean, that’s what married couples do, right? That “I’ll wager with my camp provided your camp wagers too” stuff just doesn’t apply to singles. If you’re good friends with one half of a married couple (or hell, even both halves), you’ve only got a single person’s company to wager with. Suddenly, it was socially understood that I speak not just for me but for the Boy as well (something I am never comfortable doing even when I’m in ACTUAL relationships… it just seems so Married). Suddenly, I had become the go-to person in terms of the final say of his personal life. I had passed over that invisible line from singledom to marriage and it was beyond weird.

What compounded the weirdness was that the Boy had said he was interested in going but only if I was going. As a result, I had RSVPed for us together, which felt a little weird in how utterly natural it felt.

“Uh, yeah, [the Boy] and I, we’re uh, yeah. We’re going.” I stammered through the dumbest affirmative reply ever. You know, because pulling his name from the first person pronoun really would stop the snowball effect of our friendship amongst our all our married friends.

My idiocy aside, Sunday’s coffee rolled around and I got to see a bunch of my friends that I hadn’t seen since before Christmas. (They work for international companies that give their workers Christmas/New Years off and I work for a Chinese school, which gives its workers Chinese New Years off.) So, it was nice to see my folks again.

While we were finishing coffee and about to adjourn to another friend’s for drinks before dinner at a restaurant, the Boy called me. “The divorce was just finalized. Where are you? I’m coming to where ever you are right now. I don’t care what you’re doing or who’s there. Just tell me where I can meet you.” I told him which Starbucks we were at and then told me he was still at the airport, on his way.

Now, I’ve been really upfront with him about the fact that everyone thinks we’re together. I even warned him that if I spent any time in his apartment without a chaperon, I would be marked as “his” because, well, I would. Frankly, he found it entertaining to no end that I might be seen as his possession. I even told him about the fact that my boss knows which apartment he lives in because everyone now knows who the foreign teacher is “dating.” I’m not sure why I do this but it just seems like I need to be forthcoming about that sort of stuff seeing as his actual girlfriend will be coming to visit in a few weeks. I think I do it because I’m afraid it hasn’t occurred to him and he’s going to have that same “ew! Gross!” reaction that boys have in middle school when they’re told people think you’re together. Desperately, I want to avoid that “ew! Gross!” reaction in public, were somebody to say or do something to “tip him off.” Granted, his reaction has always been one of a mild shrug with a vague reference to flattery (which is always nice). However, upon realizing that the first phone call he made upon his liberation was to me when he now has a phone book of people to call and the way he presented the idea that he would go anywhere necessary to be with me (he gets lost walking in our compound, much less driving around Xi’An) regardless of who else was around, it suddenly dawned on me that perhaps he was really and truly courting my company.

We arranged a pick up by the Drum Tower and were off to another couple’s for drinks before we all headed out to dinner.

At dinner, the Boy asked one couple about how to get to a jazz bar that “we’re going to on Friday” as he gestured towards me. First of all, these were not plans he ran by me, and, while I know a girl’s supposed to throw a shit-fit over that sort of thing, I’m not bothered by it at all, provided he’s not upset if it turns out I’ve already got plans. I was, however, surprised that anyone would make plans on my behalf. Even in my longest relationship, that boy never even made plans for me. To be totally honest, I’d prefer someone else taking the reins every once and a while. Hell, how many women can claim to have a boy around who takes the initiative to find a jazz bar for a Friday night? (I told you, he’s the sort of boy in teen romance novels.) Frankly, I’m not the kind of girl that anyone takes liberties with, so I kind of like that he does. Secondly, I was stunned that the Boy had been researching things to do while I was away, despite the fact that he claims to have done nothing but watch dvd’s without me. Usually, either someone researches and attends or doesn’t research at all. He researched and waited for me to return. Finally, it settled in that he was using couple-speak about us and I was surprised that it didn’t bother me in the slightest. I hadn’t really thought about it, but I was staring at him throughout the course of this inner unpacking/monologue. He looked at me and in that moment we both settled on his phrase “we’re going,” though for different reasons, I suspect.

“I mean, I’m going and you can come if you want to. Do you want to?” He backpedaled hard and looked at me sheepishly.

I smiled and laughed. “Yeah, sure, whatever.”

After that, there were a few more “we should go” as he was told about various things going on in and around Xi’An all followed up with his backpedaling of “if you want to.”

And then last night, we settled back into our weekly routine of going to Metro (that ubermarket) followed up by dinner and a movie at his place. (As a side note, as we were leaving Metro, he said, “Let’s bounce” which just about killed me with laughter. I explained that if he was going to say things like “Let’s bounce” he needed to call me “bitch.” “I know, but I figured I shouldn’t push it by calling you ‘bitch’,” he explained.) Once we reached his house, he switched out of his cardigan and tie and into his pj’s to make dinner. Again, total “marriage” area. Very strange but very nice.

We watched “The Island” which was decent Michael Bay fare (and, if you want to know what it’s like to live in China, watch the first half of the movie where everyone is speaking with perfect manners, diction and grammar and then Ewan McGregor’s character says, “Don’t you ever question anything?” The essence of living in China is summed up in the very kind, endearing friend saying, “Why would you ever question anything?”) but Ewan McGregor’s accent just killed me. It wasn’t so much an American accent (which I THINK was the route he was trying to go) so much as every-accent-but-not-Scottish. It really made me nuts and we had a small aside about English speaking accents where I elucidated a variety of American accents (all of which McGregor cycled through, often in a single sentence). Then I elucidated the various British and South-of-the-Equator accents (to the best of my Peter Sellers ability). I then explained that he (the Boy) thinks Scarlet Johansson and I (both native New Yorkers) and most American actors have no accent because he speaks a very good, New York English. As his father is a New Yorker and he grew up (part time) in New York, he wouldn’t hear our English as anything but the standard. I explained that, despite appearances, inside America, the neutral New York accent (often called the “Neutral Northeast accent”) is actually quite rare (see the multitude of “What American accent do you have” tests on Myspace and Facebook if you doubt that), the fact is that most American actors have trained in New York and it is Hollywood that makes the most public use of that training. Consequently, neutral New York English has become the international bar for English standards.

After the movie he thanked me because, apparently, he hates watching movies more than once and had already seen “The Island.” However, he claims that my explanation of the accents helped him enjoy it the second time around. In fact, he’s now decided he’s going to find it dubbed in French to see what they do with the accent issue (it plays into a crucial plot point).

I suddenly realized it was close to two in the morning and beat a hasty retreat. I had spent much of the movie saying if he was tired I could leave or just straight out asking if I should go as it was getting late. He had just spent the past week having his home infringed upon and the last thing I wanted was to continue the abuse on the poor boy. However, I got the sense he was relieved that I stayed for the movie and the scatterbrained boy even remembered that I had left some yogurt in his fridge that he fetched for me without my asking. I do like that sense of partnership.

Well, no marriage is conventional and it would appear that mine isn’t either.

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.

FAMILY

That family of which I was speaking earlier has reared it’s (not-so) ugly head. It’s just heat breaking.

One of my girls here has had her heartbroken. The man she has loved since before she understood love has left her entirely. His parents have deemed her “too poor” to marry, despite the fact that they come from the same town and have less money than her family. They told her they would reconsider after she wrote his father a letter explaining that her drive would change her familial destiny of “poverty” and that she would be a success.

And it’s true. She’s worked her whole life and she’s dragged herself up to make it in the “Big City” of Xi’An. In a world that values women who strive to be Paris Hilton, she’s gotten herself from “farm girl” (the Chinese equivalent of the Indian “untouchables”) to “Xi’An English Teacher” (the most respected type in a highly respected profession). She works twelve hours a day, seven days a week and rests only during a few days every New Year. She is an amazing woman and has accomplished so much in her life. I can only imagine how much she has left to accomplish. Were I in a position to bring anyone to America, I would choose her as she has never depended on the gifts of others to accomplish.

Nevertheless, the patriarchy that views woman as mere receptacles for the abuse of men has deemed her unworthy of the love of her life. And the love of her life, being a coward and a repugnant human being, has kowtowed to wishes of his parents. I find it morally repugnant the way that the Chinese lack the will to ever stand up to their family. It’s not that I necessarily advocate the American style of always standing up to your family for everyone but in this situation, he truly needs to grow a set and be a man.

Actually, in the long run, he needs to do nothing. If he is, as I originally estimated him to be, then he needs to wallow in his cowardice and reap what his cowardice sows. I find comfort in the idea that anyone who could do that to my girl will always live knowing he had perfection and because of his cowardice, he let it slip away. For that reason alone, I wish him an eternity of crystalline, lucid thought. May he never know a moment’s senility and on his deathbed may the memory of having been loved so completely and allowing his castrati-like behavior to turn it away be as fresh as it is now.

IN WHICH I BECOME A WHORE

I’ve been, done and see a lot of things in my almost-thirty years on this planet. The one thing I’ve never been is a whore; in the bad sense of the word. The fact is that while I’ve compromised, been promiscuous and been disingenuous, I’ve never felt like I’ve sold anything essential to my core being.

Now I can check that off my list of “never”s.

For Christmas, the school decides to break my contract and make me work the day. However, the night before they take me out to dinner for what they deem to be appropriate fun. In other words, this means a banquet dinner followed by KTV (Karaoke TeleVision… yeah, I know). Last year we had the banquet but were too far from KTV to go to KTV. This year, however, they chose a restaurant I know well (in fact, my Brazilian Angel and the Jude hosted my birthday dinner there) and it happens to be right next to a KTV.

I find Chinese banquets remarkably unsatisfying as basically all your food is on a Lazy Susan in front of you and you have to pick at your food while you make small talk. Usually, by the time you’ve sampled everything and find something that you like, it’s eaten, cold and certainly not swinging back your way anytime soon. Also, most of the dishes are meat laden as banquets are the time to break the bank but frankly, I don’t like Chinese meats and my stomach has adjusted to a more or less lacto-ovo (eating milk and eggs) vegetarian diet. So, I get very full very fast but you’re supposed to just keep eating and eating. Physically, it’s just unpleasant.

I guess I’d like the set up better if I could understand the conversation but being a guest of honor in a situation where I can’t understand the “praise” being heaped on me is a bit disconcerting as there’s a TON of toasting (read: lots of drinking and very little eating) and I’m supposed to look grateful and appreciative as the each person sitting at the table stands and gives me a long-winded speech.

Which brings me to my whoredom.

Last year, I could get away with being overwhelmed but not this year. I knew I had to toast. So, as the last of the people finished their toast to me (15 people in total; imagine 15 shots of hard liquor on a relatively empty stomach) I knew I had to say something and it had to be good.

I had been sorting out what to say most of the day and some of that evening. I kept circling around the idea of “family” as, for them, it’s the most important thing… to the razing of self. With the help of my former boss I gave my toast to the table.

“I just want to thank you for your generosity and being my family away from my family.”
And, as the toast was translated, I was greatly cheered and applauded. And, it true form, I found cheeks flushing and myself unable to look anyone in the eye.

They would have seen my reaction as my “innate” shyness. I’m by no means a shy woman but they have all decided that’s what I am. My reaction, however, was one of shame.

I realized that I just sold out the most important thing to me; my family. My family is not a conventional one, nor is it all blood, nor is all blood included in it. It is, however, distinctly and very separately mine. It is the one thing, the one place on this planet where I am seen, for better or worse, as what I am. My family is strewn about the globe and they don’t all know each other but I love all of them desperately and would do anything for them.

The more I think about having offered up, as a point of business, something as precious as a position within my family disturbs me and I am, fundamentally bothered by what I did. However, I see no way to right it. I don’t know what to do about it. It is the Chinese way- to blend so permanently business and family to the inability of extraction- and it seemed to be the most appropriate concession to make. Instead, I found myself a million miles from home telling my John on Christmas Eve (to me, one of two days of family) that I did in fact love him and it wasn’t about the money. Being a person who values her passion and earnestness above all other traits it greatly upsets me that I so easily and casually forfeit all that I value for very little discernable reason. Hopefully this “feeling like a whore” thing will fade soon. I’ve certainly learned my lesson.

JEALOUSY

Jealousy comes in all forms and I am suffering from one but not the one everyone expects of me.

Everyone I am surrounded by is stuck in a (relatively) miserable relationship. No joke. And this is not sour grapes. In all honesty, I love to see healthy, happy, contented, long-lasting relationships because they give me hope and strength for the long haul of the brutality that is being "pushing 30 and still single" for a woman. However, I can name all those relationships that I know of on my left hand.

Out of the blue, my Italian friend has ditched me. I had no idea why and he had bailed on me for numerous plans for coffee. Now, I wasn't hurt by his discarding of me so much as irritated. Any man who spends the vast majority of our time together asking me to agree just how beautiful and perfect his rather boring, tedious, self-centered and obnoxious ex-girlfriend is certainly is not bound to grab my lust, much less my heart. Nevertheless, it was nice to have some male company and not feel pressured to go anywhere with it. However, as I discovered yesterday when my French friend and his obnoxious wife showed up at my house (I'm dog sitting), it turns out Italy has a new Chinese girlfriend. It also turns out she's less than thrilled with him but she's essentially sleeping her way to the top and he's more or less interested in proving to his ex that he too can fuck someone after their relationship.

It's not that I begrudge them their dysfunction- lord knows we all need some in our lives- but what I do begrudge them is their condescension. My French friend and his obnoxious wife invited me out as a "Thank you" for dog-sitting for the next two weeks and they invited Italy because he's my +1 in such settings. However, they invited him out and only just discovered that he has a new girlfriend. So, when the new couple wasn't making out at dinner (dear god that always makes me uncomfortable; I just don't need to know some things about my friends libidos) Italy was shooting me apologetic looks as if he knew that I loved him and this was breaking my heart.

Which, in turn, made me want to punch him in the face.

Frankly, it's fine. I'm not jealous that he has someone because I want him. I'm jealous that he has someone because I want someone. Desperately. Frankly, the only thing I want more than a lover is not to be with the wrong person. Nevertheless, I'm unclear exactly when I was supposed to have fallen in love as he never listened to me, only talked about his ex and treated me like one of the guys with no regard for either my ego or my femininity. I'm not particularly insulted by any of his behavior as I was merely looking for company but I am infuriated that this would make me the subject of condescension. Whenever he would shoot me one of those groveling looks of "Can we still be friends" I wanted to put my fist through the back of his head. Really, where do men get their egos?

Also, where do men get their taste in women? I don't get it. Men I find to be perfectly reasonable human beings are married to the most obnoxious and inane women simply because they think the women are beautiful. I can understand an affair based solely on the physical but a marriage? What is that?

I don't know. I'm just having a bad day compounded by a dinner that was supposed to be a "thank you" that somehow morphed into a "poor you." So, please forgive the irritation. I'm sure it will wane soon.

WHEN DID LIFE GET THIS HARD?

Answer: About the fifth grade. And “hi” by the way.

The following conversation was held by me with my first love over IM. I- as I am apt to do when in a funk- opened with the rather direct “when did life get this hard.” His response more or less sums up every reason I ever loved him and why I still have faith in menfolk. The usual response to a question like “When did life get this hard” is some sort of pity-fest. I kvetch about the problem, my friend consoles me, we work on a solution and the conversation comes to conclusion.

Not my boy.

He knows there is no real solution short of allowing me to run my moods. He also knows there is great validity and universality to my quandary. And best of all, he knows how to admit he’s listening, thinking and unable to answer the larger issue but he does it with humorous truth. I think I have no dearer friend than he. Our time has passed and there are a great many things about my life he will never overtly know because, considering our history, I simply cannot speak to him about them but there is something so distinctly precious to me about what is left between us.

I’m in a funk because I’ve got what I want romantically on paper but not in life. What I want in life is not to be mine, my girl is leaving and I’m in domestic limbo with my home. And last night, I slowly came to realize that all my friends will do everything in their power to make the paper-perfect man my lover because they like him and they like me and so the two of us as a couple would be perfect for them.

The paper-perfect man is a lovely gentleman who would care for me and do anything for me until the end of time. He has the means and the will to provide me any lifestyle I would like to grow accustomed to. He is European, elegant and smitten with me. He is kind, smart and self-effacing. He sees me and he is simultaneously elated and at ease. He is does and says things with great regularity with the express purpose of making me feel good about myself. There is nothing creepy or unsettling about him. He is truly, genuinely lovely.

However, there is no spark for me. And somehow, I understand implicitly that he would always be little more than my slave because of that. I have absolutely no desire for that. I crave an equal and it gets damned lonely without one but even lonelier with a servant. The notion of having to hurt this man is truly unappealing. However, my friends are going to make it damned hard to extract myself from the situation because they’ve all clearly decided we’re to be together.

This certainly is not one of life’s great horrors but it has left me notably blue and feeling markedly guilty. The guilt is only compounded by the fact that while I should have been fully present with the paper-perfect man, I kept drifting to the man who truly has my attention; a man I may never see again and a man with whom I could never be the platonic friend his girlfriend would demand. An artist friend of mine, J, to whom I have confessed my smitten state said, “I thought so.” Of course, hearing from him that he could tell there was something between us only deepens the guilt as it strengthens the attraction by confirming its less-than ephemeral existence.

However, I am resigned to this state so well captured by Cesaria Evora’s “Besame Mucho” because of the dinner I had on Sunday night. I had dinner with my French friend married to the Chinese woman alone in their home. She made the decision she wanted to go out and tango dance with a single man friend of theirs and so I was invited to their home for dinner to keep my French friend company. In short, they’re both still dating, despite the fact that they’ve just married. That may work for them but it wouldn’t work for me and if I were to take up with the paper-perfect man, it would be the only way our relationship would survive.
So, instead, I have Cesaria on repeat and take comfort in the greatness I once had and may have again.

RED’S REALLY NOT MY COLOR

For Thanksgiving, I spent the evening with three of my favorite people in Xi’An; my newly discovered French Canadian girlfriend, my Italian friend and my fellow American, J. We went to the Thanksgiving dinner served here at the Sheraton and had quite a good time. We talked about music and art and life and work. My Italian friend tied a few more than expected on and ended up kvetching about his ex-girlfriend a little more than he should have.

Then Friday night, KLM sponsored a free dinner at the Hyatt in Xi’An to celebrate 35 years of serving the European and Chinese community for the West Egg crowd and I got invited. My Italian and Canadian friends were both going away on Saturday, so they decided not to come but J and I decided to make an evening of it.

J, of course, was lovely and quite honestly, my favorite +1 ever. I had such a great time and being that our relationship is solidly platonic, it such a relief to be around an equal without having to worry about cultural landmines. Sitting with us were my favorite couple who hail from Bristol (he is wonderful and she is everything I hope to be) and Mr. Bristol paid me the best compliment I have received in a very long time; “You and [Mrs. Bristol] are the very same kind of woman.” You see, Mrs. Bristol is singularly minded, got married in her mid-thirties, had children in her late thirties and is the only woman I know in Xi’An here on her own dime keeping her husband company because she’s earned a full retirement. She gives me hope and she’s just a wonderful person to boot.

After dinner, a Korean woman (who clearly began life as an anatomical man) insisted that Mr. and Mrs. Bristol, J and I join she and her husband at the bar on the ground floor.

Along for the ride was the most delicious looking man I have seen since I first laid eyes on the Turk. However, unlike the Turk, his energy was more simmering than explosive; the Turk burned hot and bright but this man is slow and steady in the way that made me recall a conversation I had with my Canadian girlfriend. We were both speaking about how neither of us can relax in situations where everyone else is relaxed; we need to be surrounded by people who are more capable than we are in order to relax. This new man has the energy of someone capable of being more capable than me. And, despite this delicious man’s English accent, there was something indefinably familiar about him. There was some underlying something that felt like common ground.

Nevertheless, I got rather wrecked by the fallout from the Turk, so despite my hormones, I made the decision to avoid the very thing I want because, well, the things that I want never turn out to be all that good for me. I took a seat across from my Korean girlfriend and Mrs. Bristol took the seat next to me. And, the Mr. Delicious took the seat next to Mrs. Bristol and proceeded to have an intense conversation about the NGO work that he does here in China that Mrs. Bristol is desperate to get involved with.

Every time I stole a glance at Mr. Delicious, he was looking at me and it was lovely. And, I would be lying if the fact that he could fill out his suit and has body hair wasn’t remarkably appealing. I’m so sick of hairless men swimming in cavernous, worn out suits tacky suits that are always inevitably feminizing. However, Mr. Delicious’ suit was clearly chosen with European taste.

After a brief conversation about his travels around the world and experiences in America’s “Heartland,” it was revealed that he was Jewish. And then I was able to place the familiarity. The two deepest loves I’ve ever had were with men who come from Jewish families and I don’t think that’s a coincidence. It’s something about the focus on life-long education for education’s sake and the quite, reasonable approach to everyday life. And, there’s something about the sense of humor. It just all comes together in a way that I understand and at last I finally understand when my secularly Jewish aunt told me that she didn’t care about marrying from a specific country but she only wanted to marry a fellow Jew. There really is something common and easy about the basics, despite the country of origin.

He then excused himself to go to the restroom.

“I quite like him.” I told Mrs. Bristol.

“He’s got a girlfriend from Australia.” She told me, god bless her.

“Oh well,” I shrugged, determined to push him from my mind, which proved rather easy as he then went into the snooker room and started play with the other men as Mrs. Bristol and I talked about her upcoming trip back home.

And then that fucking Titanic song. The bar band started playing that fucking Celine Dion Titanic song and that was where I drew my line.

“Let’s go into the snooker room. It’s much more quite in there and there’s a couch we can sit on.”

Mrs. Bristol consented immediately and we fled for our lives.

“Celine Dion finally did you in, eh?” Mr. Delicious teased, smiling as the door opened up.

“A girl’s got to have her limits,” I said.

And all I got in return was the sort of smile that makes your toes curl.

Mr. Delicious then left mid-snooker game and pulled a chair up to our couch under the pretext of talking to Mrs. Bristol but he proceeded to watch me for most of the conversation. There was something distinctly lovely in his observation of me. There was no tinge of desperation or escalation. He was simply trying to sort me out.

However, he’s got a girlfriend and I’m all sorts of gun-shy, so I certainly made no efforts to make things easy for him. Nevertheless, he was not to be deterred and he pushed through my inattention.

Finally, he managed to get a real conversation going and suddenly he broke left and the conversation went down the loveliest non sequitur road possible; his status as a “single” man.
“I have the worst problem in this country. I’m 25 and not married- single- and everyone here is asking ‘What are you doing with your life?!’. They all think it’s a waste.”

“Oh honey, I’m 29, female and single. They think it’s a medical emergency.” I held up my left hand with the jade ring on my middle finger. “Why do you think I wear this? Since I started wearing it, no one asks anymore.”

Clueless, he shook his head. “I have no idea.”

“Jade in China is the stone of marriage and any woman with a ring on her middle finger is engaged.”

“Oh, I had no idea.”

“Yeah, it’s the equivalent of wearing a big diamond on my ring finger in the West.”

We all continued to chat while he watched me some more. I always find being watched like that so amusing because, really, what you see is, more or less, what you get. There’s very little to sort out. It’s quite pathetic, actually but yes, I am that simple.

And when it finally came time to call it a night, he ducked out and while saying his goodbyes would shoot me looks whenever whomever he was talking to would look away. It was quite charming. However, he did not ask for my contact information, which I kind of liked. If he does have a girlfriend, I like that he’s not going mess around on her and if he doesn’t have a girlfriend, he’s not escalated anything. “Slow” is a nice thought.

While I was happily settling into the warm glow of a simmering man, trouble was brewing elsewhere over my friendship with my Italian friend. The fact is that, while my Italian friend is lovely, I simply don’t view him as an equal and therefore he will never be an acceptable candidate for lover. He’s too naïve and too gullible for me. I want to have children; I don’t want to date them. I adore him and I adore tending to his fragility because I need to get out my mothering impulses in ways other than sorting out the phrase, “Teacher, he hit me!” Designs on him, I certainly do not have.

However, my friend from France married to a Chinese woman has mistaken our companionship for dating. Apparently, his Chinese wife (a beautiful girl who makes me nuts and, unfortunately, is best friends with the putrid ex-girlfriend) was infuriated by the idea that my Italian friend might be getting on with his life and she insists that though the ex-girlfriend moved back to the US to move in with an old lover (and resume said love affair), the ex-girlfriend and my Italian friend are still exclusively dating. Which, apparently, led to her tearing into my character. Which, in turn, led to her husband (with whom I have a closer-than-should-be relationship) tearing into her for tearing into me.

“You should have heard him defend you,” my Brazilian Angel related to me after she explained the whole story. “It was really sweet of him. I tried to explain the situation so that she wouldn’t tell [the ex-girlfriend] but he thought she shouldn’t say anything bad about you to begin with.”

Which split me in two. I am touched that the people I value defend me even when I’m not around and- my god- to the exclusion of their spouses. However, the inevitable has finally begun to happen. I was always concerned about being the only single woman in the area as I would eventually get labeled the adulteress.

And here it comes.

Granted, I find irony in the fact that on the very night I met another man who- despite a possible girlfriend- I would absolutely say yes to anything asked of me, a single man whose bed I would truly choose second in a contest between he and my own brother is gaining me a very large, very scarlet “A.”

WATER WATER EVERYWHERE

Everywhere I turn, there are gorgeous men and lots of whom want to sleep with me but none of whom are available. It’s killing me.

Last night, I went on my first pub-crawl since I came to China. I got super hammered and had a great time. All of the most gorgeous men I know in West Egg were all distinctly aware that their wives were away and that I am single. The night ended with me being propositioned for a threesome with the most beautiful Francophile couple. It was a difficult decision but ultimately, I decided that even though the Parisian is one of the most gorgeous men I’ve ever seen, I really don’t want to test drive him, being as he’s not for sale.

Then, this morning I was invited out to lunch with some of my Chinese friends. There was a PLA policeman at the lunch. Dear god he was delicious. He was super aggressive and an amazing dose of testosterone. He was, in fact, so single minded about getting my attention that our mutual friends apologized on his behalf. It was fantastic and very dangerous. The last thing I need is to hook up with an aggressive, PLA special policeman running high on testosterone but dear god, it’s hard to turn down a handsome, solidly built man’s man singularly focused on seducing me. There’s just something about a man with the right swagger. I seriously need to be manhandled.

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.

CULTURE CLASH

It’s a difficult thing being a tomboy in China. First of all, I’m not at all what they recognize as female. However, they are willing to grant me leeway on my androgyny for the political advantages I would provide as a wife. Secondly, the rules between men and women are far too isolationist for my good.

My masseur is a lovely man who is hell bent on marrying me. I have time and time again turned him down. I have even told him in no uncertain terms that we will never be together. I have tried to switch to another masseur at the gym but he keeps switching me back. I would stop going all together but I have a highly painful pinched nerve in my neck that needs regular treatment. And, frankly, I’m tired of switching masseurs. I’ve switched several times before this masseur and it always ends up with the masseur asking me to marry him.

Nevertheless, I went to my massage session yesterday and this time he asked permission to kiss me. Yet again, I told him “no” and I even went on to explain that we want different things. He wants to me to be his knight in shining armor and rescue him from this life, marry him, protect him, support him, bear his children, and adore him. Forever. To be honest, I’m so sick of being the physical embodiment of “The American Dream.” It is a dream that is so over-hyped that it can only disappoint in the end.

Frankly, I have come to find the notion of marrying a Westerner less intimidating because my divorce of a Westerner, while devastating emotionally, isn’t devastating politically. Our union would be about us and it would remain together because of us, not because he needed it to work for his parents, society and country. I don’t know that I can live with someone who needs me because his society tells him he’s nothing if one of us leaves and not because the thought of a life without me is too much to bear. It’s too much of a burden to make the whole of China happy with the inner workings of my marriage when I’m not sure I even want to get married in the first place.

But I digress.

Nevertheless, I finally understand where the line that I’m crossing is (in the “I’m leading him on” sense) but I find myself, well, screwed because I’m just not constantly conscious of that line. As an American tomboy, I’m accustomed to speaking with my male friends about all sorts of things, including sex. I’m simply not self-conscious about my male friendships. My super feminine Chinese girlfriends, however, would never dream of having a social relationship with a man who wasn’t related to her (or about to be). And, while most of the time I can maintain those limits very well, when I’m on a massage table with the express purpose of relaxing, it’s a bit harder to remind myself to remain vigilant. When I relax, those filters simply come down.

And I don’t know what to do about that. Ultimately, it’s simply a place where the two cultures don’t mesh and it’s simply what is but I loathe coming out of the very relaxed state of having my pinched nerve released to overly polite sexual requests. (A man who literally asks my permission to make sexual advances nauseates me, as I am one for the slightly more confident/brutish type. I’m not in high school anymore. I’ll say “no” when I want him to stop.) It’s really getting on my nerves to come out of a state of high relaxation to revolting sexual advances.

And, I can’t complain because he’d get in some serious trouble.

It’s days like this when I wish I was just a super feminine girly girl.

BLAH

So, I had an affair (by "affair" I mean romantic relationship with someone single, not married or even partnered up in any way) with someone and despite the lovely pillow talk, the light of day has withered and dried any promises and, in short, I have been discarded like rancid garbage. In the grand scheme of things, that's fine. Frankly, either he knew what he was leaving and, well, there's no point in flailing about screaming "you'll live to regret this" or he didn't know what he was leaving, in which case, well, there's no point in flailing about and screaming "you'll live to regret this." And, either way, I don't want to spend my time consumed with someone who would find it so easy to leave me.

Drama is always remarkably unsatisfying to me, in real life.

Nevertheless, I've been unceremoniously ditched and now I have to deal with the "mutual friends" issue. On principle, I refuse to speak to any of our mutual friends about what happened as he asked (while I was still in a giving mood) that I promise never to speak of what happened to anyone because (for extraneous reasons) he would have gotten in a lot of trouble for the timing of our affair. (Let's just say days of attonement are not usually best spent in the licivious arms of me if you want god to think you're truly repentant.) At the time, I gave my word because I would do anything to protect the people I care about. Now, I keep my word because my word is not worth sullying over someone who can discard me so easily.

However, our mutual friends adore him as a wonderful and fantastic boy. They cannot praise him highly enough. They insist upon knowing what has happened between us (as everyone knew we had a flirtation) and upon my supressing the urge to shriek at the top of my lungs "He used me and then threw me away" and toss dishes acros the room, found myself capable of smiling pleasantly and saying, "I think I'm just not for him."

What took the wind from me and has left me in a bit of a funk was the constant dismissal I have received as every woman who praises him so highly shrugs dismissively at my modest explanation responding with something like, "It's true, I think he likes girls who are, ah, DIFFERENT from you," in the most patronizing tone ever. Frankly, it feels like I'm the one they feel falls short; as if I were dating out of my league and they're not in the least bit surprised that he wouldn't want to be with me.

Never before has being an independent, strong, single woman felt like such a pity case. All these women are married and it's clear that their opinion of me is that I'm just not appropriate "wife" material. Being so effortlessly discarded is rough; finding out people you were close with aren't surprised as said disposal just stalls a girl out.

Thank god for my Brazilian Angel. She is the one confidant here who knows all about what happened and she has been kind enough to not say anything. As it was becoming clear that I had been disposed of and I told her how sad I was, she said to me, "Chris, don't think like that. He's the one who has to spend the rest of his life without you. He had you and walked away? Feel bad for him." And then, after the first such rough meeting with mutual friends and their declarations of how he likes "different" girls and resulted in me crouched into a ball, weeping openly in an elevator, she said, "I'm sorry, everyone says he's so wonderful but I hate him. He's a wonderful jerk. Fuck him. It makes me sick the way they talk about how wonderful he is. I've never met him but I hate him."

I'm still floored and breathless at having been treated like garbage once again but thank god for my girls.

PRESTIDIGITATION

I had been depressed about the vanishing of the Turk (the Turk and I had a wonderful time and then something shifted in him the last time I saw him, he wouldn’t talk about it and I haven’t seen him again), the homesickness of coming back from Beijing (Beijing is just like home in that it is a huge, international city complete with too much shopping and people all over the world) and the suckitude of the returning home of the Jude (having mom around is nothing short of comforting and having her return to the other side of the planet, well, frankly, blows). So, I did the only thing I could; I fought the urge to never leave the house again, squeezed my ass into a nice outfit, resisted the urge to bend to the crappy weather and headed out to see my friends in the West Egg community. I did my best to turn off my brain and just let the auto pilot take me to the Oktoberfest that West Egg was having but it was, nevertheless, super hard. Had my Brazilian Angel not been around, I probably would not have made it to the party.

And, of course, I’m glad I did.

I got to see a close girlfriend from Bristol and her husband, drink lots of beer, eat lots of bratwurst, be horrified by the lederhosen-wearing four-piece band and flirt shamelessly. And most wonderfully, I got to flirt shamelessly with a fellow West Egger who is getting over being left by his girlfriend. There’s nothing quite like being distracted from depression by flirting with a gorgeous Italian with a passion for life and then watching him get on smashingly with my favorite English girlfriend. It was such a nice reminder of life as I recognize it.

And it was such a lovely moment.

MYOPIA/UTOPIA

“If you love yourself, no one else will have to,” the Jude always said. And, by and large, I agree; unbridled narcissism tends not to breed what I recognize as “love.” However, the constant self-dismissal I was raised to cherish has become somewhat of an issue. Frankly, I’m just me and one of the many reasons I loathe discussing my past with strangers is because there is the inevitable moment when I run through my litany of experience when the person’s eyes get big and I cease being human and start being larger than life. I always feel like “I” must be such a let down. I don’t have any particularly fascinating stories to tell and I really, truly did Forrest-Gump my way through most of my life. I have been incredibly lucky to be given the gifts I was given and those gifts just seemed to compound themselves. To me, the true delineation between myself and “interesting” people is the day we September 11, 2001 disaster relief workers sat in a conference room and had a frank discussion about why we came to work every day. Clearly, it was not the paycheck, so our leaders wanted to understand what our motivations were so we sat around and discussed it.

“No one would come to this job out of pure virtue. No one would come back day after day simply to help people. We all get something out of this. There’s nothing wrong with feeling like you’re a better person than most for doing this work.”

I sat in that room full of bobbing heads and thought, “No, I really just want to help people because I know that no one else will do it. When people leave this job, no one comes to fill in for the missing.” My whole life, the most powerful poem I ever read goes through a long list of “They came for the Jews and I said nothing, They came for the gays and I said nothing. They came for the…” and so on and so forth. It ends with, “And then they came for me. And there was no one left to speak for me.” After two weeks in the recovery efforts, it was clear that they had come for some of us but most of the rest of us were not about to take a stand.

Frankly, the thought the job might make me “better than you” struck me as odd but I was fascinated to be surrounded by a room full of people all in agreement. The idea that you might want to be above humanity while toiling at its underbelly seems odd to me. That mixture of motivation is fascinating. Virtue born of vice; it’s truly complex and interesting. I’m just pretty nakedly obvious; I’ll carry the load that must be carried if no one else will do it because I’m part of a community and to be so is to have a responsibility to something larger than yourself. I am very cut and dry. I don’t know why that would be of even the slightest interest to anyone. I’m certainly not the thing of revelation or revolution. And I’m certainly not a person of weight.

However, it would appear that my self-dismissal needs to be reconsidered.

Recently, I was given a gift at extreme cost to a close friend and little cost to me. The friend merely asked that I never reveal it, and that I will not do. The act of faith, the leap, the trust that the gift took to give was beautiful and it has made my life a better place. And really, the gift while it had the nice element of feeling good about doing something for someone else, it really was about the act of make this sacrifice for me. It wasn’t done as a gesture of self-sacrifice for my happiness either. It was truly a gift.

For the first time in my life, it was a clean, loving, profound gesture from a friend whose singular motivation was my happiness.

And it has forced me to reevaluate my own sense of self-worth. If this friend, capable of this kind of gift, that kind of selflessness, has deemed me worthy of such a gesture, perhaps I should reconsider how I see myself. Not that I will ever (or would ever want to) be above humanity but that perhaps I should accept less toil. Perhaps I should draw the line sooner and show myself more respect.

I’ve always considered the notion of karma to be a valid one and perhaps it’s visibly manifesting itself. That gift was a bit of a watershed moment. I am surrounded by people I adore, love and like (all together) and I’m infringed upon by very little.

OY VEY

One of the most common phrases in my lexicon is "Oy vey." It simply pops out whenever I'm rendered utterly reflexive by benign disappointment. It just happens. I grew up surrounded by Jewish people in my family and in New York City. It's safe to say that of the major religions, Judaism is the most pervasive in my life. And, while I am not Jewish (my mother is not of Jewish descent nor was I brought up in synagogue) religiously speaking, it is more than clear to me that I am Jewish culturally speaking. In fact, most of my Jewish family and friends have said that they have never thought of me as goyem but rather as one of the tribes... though my particular tribe may be the lesser-known (outside the Upper West) Zabaar's.

The friend of my Brazilian Angel's who I happen to want as my Mentor invited me out for lunch a few weeks ago. My Mentor, my Brazilian Angel and I all went out to lunch at one of the thousands of malls downtown.

We took our seats with my Brazilian Angel and Mentor facing me. Just as we were about to start eating, my Brazilian Angel looked up over my shoulder.

"Oooh, look at those American girls," my Brazilian Angel said in the tone of voice that teases the recipient about the fact that they look sexy.

My mentor looked up at the women behind my back and raised her eyebrows. "Oooh, yes. Look at those American girls!" She exclaimed.

I, being one to rile against presumptions that anyone is from any country given the state of history and how bloody it has been, was about to get all riled up and lecture my two friends on how "It's not nice to presume someone is from somewhere! What if they're Canadian? They wouldn't appreciate your assumptions very much." To make my case, I turned around to take in what I knew would be a myriad of visual cues that might imply another country.

At which point I saw precisely WHY my girlfriends thought the girls were American. They had "Paris Hilton" scrawled all over them.

Defeated, I turned around and said, "Oy vey." I didn't think about it. I just said it.

"What did you say?" My mentor asked.

"What," I said, not realizing I had spoken outside of my disappointed sigh.

"Did you say 'Oy vey'?" She asked, determined.

I paused and replayed the moment in my head. "Yes. Yes, I did."

"Why did you say 'oy vey'?"

"Because those girls are SO American. I mean..." I spoke and was cut off.

"How do you know 'oy vey'?"

"I'm from New York. My mother's first husband and their son, my older brother, are Polish/Israeli Jews. My brother's grandma was in New York when I was growing up so I think of her as my grandma too. Not to mention, that whole extended family was there too. I never went to synagogue but all the holidays we celebrated with my grandma."

"So, you are Jewish."

"My mom's not. So, no. I'm kind of a proud shiksa."

"But your grandmother is Jewish. You practice the customs, so you are Jewish." My mentor said in the inclusive, familial way that my Jewish family has always embraced my mother, my brother and me despite what should be outsider status.

Shyly, I smiled. It is how I see myself- a secular Jew or "Jew-ish" as many of my friends say- and it was really nice to have someone else who understands the rules see me like that too. "Yeah, that's true."

And then we had the inevitable Shoah discussion.

After that, my Mentor apologized to me about not having included me in the past year's worth of Jewish celebrations and she promised that I would be invited to anything happening during Rosh Hashanah.

Reflexively, I was about to demure when I thought how nice it would be to have those customs back in my life. I had figured all references to religion, no matter how secular, were simply to be checked at the door in China. Now, I not only had the chance to re-embrace the cycles I grew up with but I would be re-embracing them with nomadic, secular, Polish/Israeli Jews; my kind of Jews. What can I say? It's family to me. "Okay, that would be really great. I would really like that." I said and smiled, really, truly happy.

We talked a little more about family and history and then my Mentor laughed.

"What?" I asked.

"All because of 'oy vey'!"

I smiled too. I used to get teased that it made me sound like an old rabbi when I said "oy vey" but it's always just felt natural. It has always served me in good stead and now it has even served as some sort of secret handshake.

Having discovered a Jewish circle in China felt really good and I have since been making friends within that circle that has been marked by one distinctive trait; we are all very similar. It's amazing to have so much in common with foreigners. I've been out to lunch with several of the Israelis and we've all just clicked. I never knew how much of my temperament I owed to New York, my extended family and the Torah in general but my god, it's a lot.

The day before the sunset marking the beginning of Rosh Hashanah, I texted my Mentor to wish her a happy New Year. She called me right back and invited me to dinner to celebrate. I immediately accepted, finished work, hopped in a cab and did my best to find the restaurant.

My cab driver didn't really know the area so he dropped me off on the right street but with a street with several different restaurants on it. I had the exact address but there were no numbers on the buildings and no one around (it was a busy street) knew the numbers to the buildings either. Unfortunately, my instructions were in pinyin, not characters, which narrowed down my search to three different restaurants on the street.

I ended up walking back and forth on the street once and then I called my Mentor. We tried to sort out where I was and finally we got me found. I went into the restaurant and up to the room where we were to be seated.

Upon entering the first room that had been reserved, I was met with a flood of gorgeous twenty-something men who were all Western of varying countries but all of whom were "single." I was introduced as "the girl from America I have told all of you about" by my Mentor. It was really lovely and I was in heaven surrounded by all those single men curious about me.

And then, about thirty seconds after I was introduced to one man from Turkey, he looked at me and said, "I saw you outside, on the street" with mild surprised.

I took one look at him and all I could think was "I fucking hate meeting single men so far out of my league." My mouth, however, said, "Yes. I was lost. I wasn't sure which restaurant and I couldn't find my way."

He looked at me in that way that made me realize he wasn't really talking about the logistics of my finding the restaurant, more that I had struck him. "Yes, you were outside," he said again, more to himself than me.

Tearing myself away from a man I'd never have a chance with, I turned to meet the other unbelievably gorgeous men. We all greeted each other warmly and I settled into the comfort of common social rules.

It was just about then that the man from Turkey's large, warm eyes and steady gaze struck me. He had not stopped watching me since we shook hands. He was watching me to take me in, not simply to see me. "Shit. It's that gaze again," I thought and knew immediately that I was in trouble.

I flushed and looked away. I'm not very adept at handling these sorts of things at first blush so I just sort of avoid them. Usually, my nerves assure that he will quickly lose interest.

Not so much this time.

Our party, having grown too large to be accommodated by the original room was switched to another room. I made the conscious effort to speak to the people other than the man from Turkey because all I wanted to do was talk to the man from Turkey. I always figure my desire will be more than self-evident and that I should make every effort to counteract my selfish drives. I'm also terrified of being labeled "that girl" you invite to parties and always spends her time hooking up with some dude instead of being social and entertaining. My social life is so fragile and new and this social circle is so precious to me that I don't want to ruin it by turning myself into some brazen hussy on the first major get together with everyone. However, it would appear that you can't fight your own nature.

When we got to the new room, the Turk immediately gestured for me to sit by him and I did, out of pure reflex. We sat down and started talking. He informed me he was starving as he was in the middle of a fasting.

"Really? How long?" I asked, as it seemed odd to me that a Jew would be fasting during Rosh Hashanah being that Rosh Hashanah is sort of like Mardi Gras before Yom Kippur and Yom Kippur being the time of fasting.

"29 days" he told me.

"29?!" I know some Jewish people fast for more than a single day but that, to my knowledge, is all around Yom Kippur, not Rosh Hashanah. "That positively Catholic," I declared, teasing him.

"Really? Are you Catholic?" He asked clearly ignorant of all things Catholic.

"No," I said, confused how a Westerner wouldn't get the overly-self-punishing Catholic reference.

"Are you Jewish?" He asked.

"Secularly." I said. "And you?" I asked, suspecting there might be more to this conversation that I originally thought.

"I am Muslim," he said smiling.

"You observe Ramadan?" I asked, inanely, trying to cover my surprise at having just met a Muslim at this Zionist feast. I can't help but have the somewhat inappropriate question, "Why is this boy different from all other boys?" pop into my head.

"Yes," he answered, smiling again at my curiosity.

I was stunned, nay FUCKING FLOORED, that he was there and that he was neither arrogant nor apologetic about his religion. Clearly an observant Muslim as he was refusing to eat meat or drink beer once the sun was down, I was left to wonder how on earth it was that he didn't find anything amiss in a sea of Israeli Rosh Hashanah.

"Yes," my Mentor said. "When is Ramadan this year?"

The Turk answered her as I drifted out of the conversation. Here I was, amongst the Chosen people and my company was a Muslim who actively chose to sit with those of us with intimate ties to Israel. He had said, "I am Muslim" like Allah and Yahweh are brothers whose kids love to hang out together. I glanced around the room, uncertain why he was completely unaffected by the room full of Israelis. Rationally, I know that the Qu'ran is quite supportive of the Chosen people; most commonly treating them like cousins. However, that is not quite how things have played out in the current political climate. And yet, this man was there, hugging and kissing and embracing like family, Israeli Jews. In fact, our Chai-wearing hostess was his adoptive mother, declaring, "he is my son" and the Muslim who lost his own mother at 13 gratefully accepted with a big hug. He even went so far as to explain "I can eat meat killed by Jewish people or by Muslims. Both are okay but if the animal is not treated the way the Jews and Muslims do, then I cannot eat it." His comfort with the fluidity of religion while remaining comfortably, clearly in his own just amazed me.

"I have so much left to learn." I thought.

As my Turk and my Mentor finished their conversation he turned back to me and smiled the sort of smile that makes a girl's toes curl. We went back to talking and joking with each other. He is quite the prankster and he told me about several of his hilarious pranks.

A few moments later, the waitress showed up to add one more seat to our circular table, placing the chair right between the two of us. Before she managed to get the chair in place, my Turk deftly took the chair from her and planted himself in it.

"May I ask for your phone number?" He then asked quietly, not five minutes into our sitting together.

"Sure" I smiled, probably a bit to eagerly but dear god, I'm only human.

As I dug into my bag to hand him my cell to have him call himself because I never remember my phone number, we started talking about the ways we learn. Quickly, I learned that he knows a multitude of languages and can learn a language quite fluently in a single year. He speaks Turkish, Arabic, Mandarin, English (all quite fluently) and starting next year he'll learn Russian. It's been a long time since I've met someone whose brain I just wanted to crawl into and poke around for a bit but every time he opened his mouth, that's all I wanted with increasing urgency.

Unable to think of anything but him, I made the conscious effort to occasionally engage the table in conversation. At one point, I had a cross-table conversation with one of the wives about my history. She asked the usual what-do-you-do-in-real-life questions and then she dropped a bit of a bomb.

"And how did you two meet?"

I paused for a moment. "Huh," I asked as she gestured to my Turk and I. It seemed an odd question to be aimed at Turk and I. After all, we had just met. I was quite certain she must have meant my Mentor who was sitting to my Turk's right while I was to his left.

"You two, how did you meet? I was wondering what the story behind you two meeting was." She made it very clear she meant Turk and I.

Surprised, I turned to Turk wide-eyed. I was pleased by the notion that people were certain we were a couple but also a bit nervous because as soon as I think things are going well, that is precisely when they fall apart.

He smiled broadly, not taking his eyes from me as he answered her, "Here. We just met tonight." Had he not been projecting his voice, I would have thought he was talking only to me.

It was just enough to pull me from my nervousness and regain my composure. "Yes, we've only just met." I said, smiling and returning to the lovely woman.

Her eyebrows shot up in surprise, "Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you two came together."

Smiling I shook my head, "No."

"Oh." She said and then promptly turned to her husband to let us have more time together.

After that, the evening was a blur of intimate conversation and jokes with Turk. Every once and a while, I would turn back from an outside conversation to see him check me out. And I must say, there's nothing like a cute boy's attention to boost a girl's ego.

At some point he took of his jacket to reveal that not only is he smart, kind, handsome and funny but he has a body to end all bodies. It's not so much that he's very well muscled naturally (which is nice, I gotta admit, but it never last much beyond the momentary, "Dear god, look at that!") but that his bone structure is broader than mine. My hands disappear in his and his hands are stronger than mine. His shoulders are broader than mine and he's not appropriately sized by Chinese standards. Seeing the breadth of his shoulders was breathtaking and as he slid his jacket off, he spoke.

"I should be a gentleman and give you my jacket but I don't think you're cold."

I smiled and shook my head. "No, but thanks for the thought." Though, rest assured, had the room not been sweltering, I would have taken him up on it just to be wrapped in his dizzying scent.

After a year of being surrounded by beautiful works of art that I would worry about my capacity for hurting them if I ever really let go, here was a man built larger than I. There's nothing delicate about him. He's all sorts of rugged and for the first time in a very long time I felt distinctly, physically feminine even with my tomboyish tendencies. It was the first time in a long time that I didn't feel like I was looking at an equal but at someone who could keep me safe, even if he's five and a half years my junior.

What a lovely thing.

He made lots of self-deprecating jokes and lots of comments about how I "will see" about various aspects of his life. It was such a relief to once again be around a man taught to be aggressive. I'm so tired of the men here demurring at the slightest suggestion that I won't commit to marriage upon the first conversation. The women in China really need to be the aggressors, hacking themselves to bits in order to prove their willingness to marry even before the first conversation. I'm just not built for that. Hell, I'm not built to make the first phone call much less lay myself out to prove I'll do anything to marry him before I know his full name.

"Have you ever been married?" He asked quietly and awkwardly towards the end of the evening. I got the sense that he knew he might be crossing a line but his desire to know overcame his sense of propriety. It was, in fact, the first really intimate question he had asked me all night.

"No." I answered, laughing at the absurdity of me having done something so profoundly monumental as get married. I can't commit to a career; how on earth could I have committed to a man on such a grand scale? My relationships all nose-dive long before romantic whisperings of commitment have had a chance to take root. Frankly, I'm such a fucking mess and far too willful for my own good that it's not a surprise that I haven't gotten it together enough to be married/significantly coupled/whatever before 30.

I then thought how much I thought about myself in that answer. I have not reflected on my relationship state in public for quite some time. To be fair, it was the first time in a long time that question was about me. No one here wants to know about me; they want to about the opportunities I will provide them. It is literally the second question asked of me by everyone here. (The first being, "Where are you from?" People only get around to learning my name after extensive, intimate questioning aimed at me, followed by a solemn swear that I'll knock myself out to be friends.) That he waited until he had laid a fair amount of groundwork, waited until I was comfortable with our conversation and then even had the tact to be nervous about prying made the question feel far more intimate than it should have been.

Then he nodded, followed by the smallest, warmest smile for reasons I have no interest in guessing but I do know it made me glow.

At that point dinner had wrapped up and people were moving about to talk with each other and I had to use the restroom. I excused myself, found the restroom, splashed some cold water on my face, fixed my hair and tried to regain my senses. I did the usual stare-at-yourself-in-the-mirror-in-order-to-will-your-reason-back thing.

It didn't work as well as I had hoped but I figured it was time to get back to my seat before they sent a search party looking for me.

As I came back to my seat, Turk was surrounded by my Mentor and our Hostess. They were smiling broadly and patting his shoulder happily. I was curious to know the conversation so I checked in as soon as my Mentor and our Hostess saw me. I was, however, to Turk's back.

"eh... dui... wo gao xin" ["Well, yes... I'm happy"] He replied in Chinese as Chinese seems to be the most comfortable language for he and our Hostess to use.

As I sat down, I caught Turk's attention. "Hello," I said to break the sudden silence that fell over them.

"And look at you! Now you're blushing!" Our Hostess proclaimed in English as my Mentor pinched his cheek. Nervously, Turk nodded and for the first time he didn't look at me but focused on the table.

We all talked a bit more and then he leaned over to whisper into my ear, which, let's be honest, made me swoon. I was actually glad I was sitting. I have a thing, a big thing, about my neck. It just makes me stupid when the right man (hell, even a not-too-wrong-man) puts his lips anywhere near it. My head spun so much it took me a moment to realize the hand he was using to support himself on the back of the seat of my chair was definitely pressed against my rear.

Ah, demonstrative action, how I have missed you!

"Do you think it would be very rude of me to leave now?" He asked as were finishing the end of dinner conversation. "I have to get up at 3 for prayers and food and it's already 10 and I have class tomorrow."

"Don't be silly. Go! You have class and have to get up very early. Go." I insisted.

"Really?" He asked, unsure.

"Really! You need your rest, especially if you're fasting." I pushed, making him smile.

He took one final look at me and then turned to our Hostess whispering that he needed to leave.

She looked at him and stroked his face, "Yes my love. Go. You must get up early tomorrow." It was such a lovely gesture between the two of them. I really wanted to hug them both right then and there. Turk stood to leave and I stood to say goodbye.

As I'm American, everyone shakes my hand at first blush so Turk took my hand and shook it. He then shook his head to himself and leaned in to bisous me and was met with my eager reception.

And then he said a fond farewell to the table. After a brief explanation for his need to leave posthaste, that's exactly what he did.

I sat down again to lots of conversation with my friends as our Hostess's husband came over to me.

When our Host finally had a moment alone with me, he spoke. "Welcome to the Middle East," our Host said to me quietly, as he looked at me knowingly. For a moment, the notion struck serious fear into my heart.

Nothing scares me like the Middle East because I, and all of us, have so much to lose there and I have seen what the horrors of the Middle East have to offer the people I love. But then, I realized what was going on at dinner was precisely what needs to be going on; a laying aside of differences and a sharing of life. The Rosh Hashanah feast was dictated by Turk's Muslim dietary restrictions. Turk's first food after sundown was my apple dipped in honey with the wish for a happy, healthy New Year; the symbolic food of the Jewish New Year. That tolerance and blending is precisely what the Middle East needs to be. Granted, it's rosy and idealistic but the future needs to start somewhere.

"L'Shana tova" I said to him in Hebrew. It is the traditional blessing of the New Year. It is a hope that your name shall be written in the book of life, as is what happens to all people who lead a good and exemplary life. Having the Jewish and Muslim faith break bread during the mutual New Year certainly seems like a monumental step in that direction.

As my Mentor and I were leaving the restaurant with her arm around my waist and my arm around her shoulders, she laughed, "All this because of 'oy vey'."

I laughed too. "Yeah, who knew?"

"You should write the story of how this was all because of 'oy vey'."

And so I did.