"sex and the city" third round

It is Tuesday night, I am watching "Sex and the City", which was "banned" by Hao, --he is worried that a "bad" show like this is going to pollute the mind of his girlfriend.

The name does sound a little tempting and wild-- in Asians' eyes, not a show a "good girl" should watch. I remember when I mentioned the show to one of my Chinese classmates in UU, who was around 35, her face flushed and changed the topic immediately.

The "bourgeois tone" depicted in Sex and the city is quite alluring for an idealist dreamer like me, but the more I watch the show, the more immune I am. The first time I watched it, I was amazed by how fabulous a single woman's life could be; the second time I watched it, I deeply sympathized with and was a little scared by how desperate and at loss a woman could turn into without finding her happy ending with the "Mr. right"; this time, hehe:)...I have been checking out how they are dressed to look professional during day time and sexy at night.

No matter how biased Hao is toward this show, my values and world views didn't turn out to be messed up by the "sex" part of it. The only message passed to my heart is that I want to be one of the modern "white collar" office lady, represented by the four characters, who are self-confident, rich and attractive.

Girls' night out

I woke up at 7:24 AM with sore bones and muscles all over my body. It is from the Yoga and Pilate class I took on Wednesday and yesterday. I tend to exercise harder the week after my period to try to make up for the lack of activity because of the monthly embarrassing situations of female body.

Being upset at the fact I woke up so early on Saturday morning, after making myself a cup of coffee and scanning through my new ELLE magazine, I decided to cancel the plan of going to office and working on the unfinished project.

I still feel strange from last night's girls' night out with Viva. We went to a sushi bar. it is one of the most under-decorated Japanese restaurants I have been to, which is probably good considering that I wasn't dressed up for a fancy place (I looked casual yet pretty, probably a little sexy in a unique way). Viva was all dressed up --halter top and skirts (she likes to wear skirts in special occasions), with her favorite brown high heeled party shoes. Her hair was curled and bumped around her neck sexily, her tangling earrings were swinging around to catch attentions. I guess it was her way to distracting herself from missing her husband and being moody because she couldn't go with him on this 3-day trip to LA.

We decided to share a shot of Zinfandel--I feel safe to order alcohol with Viva: firstly, she knows more about wine than me and can always recommend something good; secondly, I know I can count on her to finish it if I don't like it. The Mexican waitress asked our ID immediately, and was really taking her time to check out our age. This was quite complimentary since she must have thought we were around the legal drinking age borderline.

shortly after I thought we were going to have a relaxing girls' night, a south Arabian family came in. An old man teasingly asked whether he could sit down by me, but before I said anything he was already seated. He looked very open-minded and introduced himself and his family (brother and sister-in-law and their kids) to me. Being polite, I smiled and introduced myself as well although I don't really like the fact that we had to sit close to each other--I value personal space and take it for granted since I came to USA. I would rather it was the little girl who was sitting beside me.

Viva came back from the lady's room, she seemed a little excited to see the bar table get crowded. She started to chat with the old man. They both are pretty out-going people and seemed to carry on the conversation very happily. I was sitting in the middle, feeling uncomfortable--I was disgusted by the fact that the old man had to lean his body over my side to talk to Viva, and didn't understand why Viva didn't end the boring conversation with this old guy soon. 10 minutes after they sat down, our sushi rolls were on the table, he still kept talking to us, (more to Viva, I just had to say something from time to time because I am sitting between them). I finally found a chance to point out that he should start to focus on the menu, hoping that his saliva wouldn't get on my food.

I noticed that Viva is a gal that guys like to flirt with: she has big round eyes that can smile, she always looks into their eyes while talking to them, and she knows how to tease them and implant a hope for them that she is thinking of the same things that they are thinking. She is not traditionally beautiful, but she looks wild, sexy and with definite views of her own.

The old guy turned to us again immediately after placing his order. He asked "I can't understand, why are these two extremely attractive and beautiful girls sitting here alone tonight ...why? where are the guys?" He repeated "extremely attractive and beautiful", and measuring Viva's cleavage with his eyes. I felt gross and the only good impression of him because of his Ph.D degree (he bragged about it and his success in business) disappeared immediately. His words offended me in two ways: first, why do attractive girls have to be with guys? Are women born to be accessories of men? second, why we are here "alone" is none of his business. If not because of Viva, I would have kept a straight face and stopped talking to him.

Viva kept talking to him, pretending not to know that he was taking an approach on her. He bought her a drink and invited her to Las Vegas "on his own expense". He made it clear to Viva that she can "have her own room" and still "enjoy good time together' with him. Up to that moment, I felt the whole night was kind of ruined, not only because I didn't have chance to talk to Viva during this whole "girls' night out", but also that I had to witness this naked and disgusting intention of this old guy (he is about 60 by the way, older than my father if he was alive). Maybe it is a game that many people play here, a place I don't fit in and never will. I didn't blame Viva for not giving him the red light at the beginning--Viva seems to enjoy this kind of situations, and told me she had control of herself.

Viva and I finally agreed that it was an interesting experience...after all we were safe and sound back home. Everything except the old guy was fine. The chef played a wonderful show with his cooking utensils, which reminded me of Speed, a friend of mine who works in a Japanese restaurant and is really good at the "knife playing" show. I should go to his Sushi bar next time I go back to SLC, and enjoy some really good Sushi, I told myself.

Mourning rice cooker

I miss the taste of baked sweet potato and decided to do it for the first time using the Oven. I started to preheat the oven to 400 F (no recipe, just play by ear), and totally forgot that I use it for storage, since I only used my oven once since I moved in. It wasn't long before I smell the strong bad smell of burned rubber, and that was the end of my poor rice cooker, which I use to make hotpot from time to time...I feel sad and a little mad, and wanted badly to call Hao and tell him what I did so I can feel less guilty, but his cell phone was off and he is in lake Paul, Arizona, enjoying fishing and boating fun. Well, before I tried to dial the number again after 30 minutes, I realized it is selfish to spread a bad mood around, and after all it was not a total failure, the smell of the baked sweet potato came out, (mixed with the burned rubber smell still), and it was not bad as the first try. Everything has a cost, I told myself.

Perfect sunday

I woke up after 9 when the sun shined on my face softly, instead of getting up, I kept my eyes closed and indulged myself in a good mood brought by the vague memory of my favorite sweet dream. This was the dream repeated many times in my life, the only character I remember is the boy, by looking into whose eyes I feel peaceful and sweet. I sometimes think he is the boy I went to the same class with from elementary school all through high school. He never was my boyfriend or my date or even one of those who said anything like "I like you" to me, but he had a special place in my heart and I hope I was something to him too. I felt puzzled for a long time about the fact I keep seeing him in my dream, maybe as the old saying goes: distance creates beauty...but recently, in my dream, his face often became blurry and blended with Hao's face. I was for a moment a little overwhelmed by joy, I know I see my true feelings in dreams, and the things that I have always tried so hard to look for in life is actually so close, so close that sometimes I can't see.


Knowing that I am actually a safe and lucky woman that many women should be jealous of, I turned on my favorite music of this month, made a pot of coffee and sit in bed and continued the reading of a novel that I should have done in my college days, letting the music and coffee smell play the background.


Sunday is worry-free day for me, I don't have to think of work or what to eat, I always store plenty of my favorite snack in my apartment to keep myself from hungry and satisfy my glutton for delicious food. Watching people going to church across the road, I almost feel I am in my own heaven.

Life in glass

I like the idea of alcohol. I said "idea" because it is beautiful mostly in my imagination.

I rarely touch alcohol and never physically tempted by it. For the whole "twenty-something" years, I have been actually drunk twice. I got drunk the first time when I was three, it was over something called "jiu niang" in Chinese, which is also known as sweet wine, or rice wine. It is usually used as dessert rather than alcohol. I don't consider that experience as alcohol drinking, because I didn't know anything about alcohol and didn't intend to get drunk. The second time I got drunk was a few years ago, when I wanted to know what it feels to be drunk. In the same fashion I took Chinese traditional medicine, I closed my nose with fingers and took 3 or 4 shots of Tequila within 15 minutes, then I ended up puking for 8 times within 40 minutes and sleeping for half a night around my toilet. It served my purpose: at least I now know what being drunk feels like--not so good:P

Those are not some drinking experience to brag about, yet I never stop imaging myself gracefully holding a uniquely shaped, tall, elegant and stylish cocktail glass, with rich and colorful liquids inside it, half gone.... sometimes, I am dressed in my favorite skinny strap cotton dress, standing in the balcony under a cool starry night, watching a busy city becoming quite and peaceful...other times, I am lying in a hammock hanging between two huge coconut trees on a beautiful beach, feeling the cool and moist wind from sea kissing my face...Life gradually thickens into my glass, while I take a small sip, and another one...

Mad about you

Before anyone gets too excited at the title, I am actually talking about my passion for clothes.

I consider myself a reasonable person when it comes to spending money: I am content with my 10 year old car, I rarely dine out just because I am too lazy to cook despite of the fact I am not crazy about cooking, I even cut my own hair a few times when I first came to USA and my mind still stayed in the Chinese cost system...However, I shop for clothes almost every single weekend, and most of the time manage to come home without empty hands.

My persistent collection of clothes over the years goes beyond the full occupation of my big walk-in closet, a dosen of drawers, and two huge luggage cases, which Hao brought with him when he first came to USA to carry his whole world...A couple of times a year, I pack a big box of clothes to donate. This hopefully helps some people, but more importantly, it gets rid of the embarrassing evidence of my once-in-while so-so taste in fashion and makes room and excuses for new purchase.

Among the clothing that survived my wardrobe, every single piece was carefully chosen and well maintained (I do feel guilty that I normally don't have chance to wear every one of them at least once in a whole year). They add to my confidence, bring out my personalities, and distinguish me from everybody else in the world. (Believe it or not, I give extra credit to one who can dress himself/herself descently and uniquely.)

Although my reputation of "dressed killing" started early in middle school, the real introduction that lead me to fashion was shortly after I dated Hao (my boyfriend at that time, and life-time love still ^_^). He is still the only man I know that truely enjoys shopping with girlfriend for clothes and have an incredibly unique taste in fashion and trend. (Of cource his fashion sense for my clothes never beats me because most of the time he enjoys picturing me without clothes:P) Maybe inside he is not any more fond of watching girlfriend hunting for the perfect shoes than other men, but he is smarter to know that when a girl has plenty of clothes to change, she doesn't have to change boyfriend instead:D

time to write

Noticed that I haven't posted anything for two weeks. It is not even surprising considering that I started a manuscript on my master's project a year ago and I still haven't sent it out...

I constantly have thoughts on lots of things going on in my life, and thoughts about putting them down in words (my thoughts occur mostly when I am told to "meditate" in my yoga class, I am supposed to "let thoughts go", but I found it easier to let them be if they don't bother me:D), however, most of the time, I found my life (which I have thoughts on), is too good to allow me enough time to sit and write!! Take this past week for example, Hao got me a camera that I really liked, and among the countless pictures I took with it immediately, there were a few that even reflects some of my actual beauty:D; Then on Sunday, I went to BBQ with my Chinese colleagues and had a blast; I even enjoyed most of the following weekdays! ...after the biggest project came to a period, which I had been working on since the beginning of this year, I was able to sit down and do some real self-study; I also found out proudly that I don't look like a beginner any more in my advanced steps class; and it is weekend again!!...I could continue for a while if I want to bore you away:)

Maybe the best time for writing is when I feel blue, but those moments pass too fast--by the time I have sorted out my feelings and thoughts and felt ready to put them in words, I feel all good again and that is the time I go out and shop till I drop:D