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At The Lighthouse: Pre-Postscript

To everyone who's left comments, written emails, called on the phone, or spoken to us in person, thank you so much for your enthusiasm and good wishes. We're really overwhelmed by the response and are grateful for any suppressions of "About bloody time!" that some of you might have bitten back. You are all classy, classy people!

A postscript to the proposal entry will be up some time in the next few days, to share some amusing glitches that occurred in the planning (sometimes due to me being a difficult nagging bitch) and to thank a dear friend of mine who was an amazing help to Alec through all of it. But because I wasn't privy to the weeks of planning and need to get details from Alec, who's intrepidly studying for his professional exam on Monday, it's taking a little time to get written.

In the meantime, thank you all again for your kind words and rest assured that I have slapped patted Alec heartily on the back for every one of you who asked me to do so. And for those who are asking about dates and places, unfortunately the sum total of our decision-making so far is as follows:

Michelle: So, how do we organize wedding celebrations across three cities in two continents which are fun, meaningful and affordable for everyone attending, while keeping the romance of the occasion alive for us but not grossing everyone else out with schmoopiness?
Alec: Donno.
Michelle: Hmm...
Alec: Hmm...
Michelle and Alec: WAAAAUUUUURRRGGGGHHH!

At The Lighthouse

Last Friday night, Alec informed me that he would be picking me up at 8.30 am the next morning, and taking me away for the weekend. I wasn't allowed to know where, and didn't need to bring anything special, not even a passport. And I didn't have to tell my parents anything - he'd already told them more than he was telling me.

The next morning, he was at my front door at 8.30 sharp, with a yellow rose. The waiting cab took the expressway towards the city, but bypassed it totally. We were on Clementi Road going past the university, and I was perplexed. We were far away from any hotels worth going to, but we weren't leaving the country. WTF?

We finally pulled up at West Coast Pier and Alec hauled a big styrofoam icebox out of the boot along with our bags. As far as I could see, I was the only female in a bunch of middle-aged men with fishing tackle. This was not quite Casablanca.

We cleared immigration, which required nothing more than ICs and waited at the pier. When a boat arrived for us bearing the logo of my company, I finally realized where we were going. Sultan Shoals is a tiny island off the west coast of Singapore. It's got a beautiful old colonial lighthouse, 2 chalets owned by my company, 2 fishing jetties, and nothing else. I'd mentioned it to Alec a long time ago, in the context of maybe organizing something with some of our friends, but nothing had come of it. Now I found that we'd have this whole island to ourselves for the weekend.

Alec asked if I'd mind waiting outside the chalet for a little while. He wanted to do some things inside. He'd got me a book to read while waiting: Truman Capote's decidedly unromantic In Cold Blood. If anyone else had done this, I might have dived into the open seas and swum back to the mainland screaming; however, Alec happened to know that I'd been wanting to read this book for ages, but hadn't been able to get my hands on it in the library. I opened it to start reading, and found this inscription:

Inside the chalet, Alec had put flowers and candles everywhere, brought laboriously from the mainland the previous day.

 

In the icebox, he'd brought lots of my favourite food and drink - salmon sashimi, steak, Coke, Hoegaarden, a baby coconut. Hash browns and eggs so he could cook us the weekend breakfast fry-ups we'd loved so much at my corner caff in London. My favourite childhood snack, Bee-Bee, for me to eat while watching DVDs (which he'd also brought).

 

We settled down for a sashimi lunch (to continue the random serial killer allusions, I put Calla's Strangler on the stereo) and an afternoon of lounging, reading (for me), studying (for Alec, who has professional exams in two weeks' time), napping and strolling round the island. This is us in front of the lovely lighthouse. (Note: Photos linked instead of displayed in this entry have our faces in them and are viewable only by my Flickr friends. If you know us in real life and want to see these, just add me as a friend so I can authorise you.)

You're probably supposed to have fancy cuisine and wine at dinners like this, but we like steak and beer. Also, it just feels right to sear a steak while growling along to Nick Cave on the sound system.

 

After dinner, we watched Before Sunset, which I was happy to find was still as wonderful as the first time I saw it.

 

While the credits rolled, Alec excused himself and went into the bedroom. He came out several minutes later in a tuxedo, and asked me if I'd like a walk round the island. In front of the lighthouse, he knelt down and asked me to marry him. Of course, I said yes.

* * * * *

And so we prepare to move from almost 5 years of easy, constant bliss, into the rest of our lives. I'm not generally an envious person, but there have been various times during my 26 years when I've observed the good fortune of other people, be it in physical appearance, capability, resources, or just dumb luck, and wished I could equal them. Within a few months of going out with Alec, I knew that where love was concerned, I would never envy anyone else.

Spoons, Forks And Sculpture

For Nabokov fans, this random gem from a Craig Raine article in the Guardian about Ron Mueck's current Edinburgh exhibition:

Vladimir Nabokov once asked his protégé, Alfred Appel, how academe was weathering a period of widespread student unrest in the 1960s. Appel reported that things at his university were quiet: a nun had complained that couples were "spooning" at the back of lectures. Nabokov pounced: "You should have told her to thank God they weren't forking."

I'd love to go to this exhibition. There were only a few Ron Mueck pieces in the Saatchi Gallery when I went, but they captured my attention more than skanky beds and stuffed sharks.

Incidentals

Three things that caught my eye on the walk between our hotel and Siam Square on the one Bangkok day I did bother to stop for photos.

Components of a street stall. Some assembly required.

 

Check out what I think is the only anti-Singapore graffiti I've ever seen in my life. [Backstory]

 

You're A Shopfront, Charlie Brown!

 

Hips Don't Lie

In a small Siam Square boutique selling office wear, I noticed that the friendly sales assistant serving me had a prominent Adam's apple, low husky voice, and gargantuan feet spilling out of her strappy heels.

I picked out a top I wanted to try on. "This one, got my size?"

She approached me with a tape measure, encircled my shoulder blades with it dramatically, and measured my bust. "Okay," she nodded.

I picked out a skirt I wanted to try on. "This one, also got my size?"

She approached me with a tape measure, encircled my butt with it dramatically, and measured my hips. "OOOOO!" she giggled, covering her mouth as her mascara'd eyelashes fluttered in alternate shock and glee.

"Sorry ma'am, this one don't have large size."

He Was As Long As His Song Names

While I try to find the time to write about the Bangkok tranny who laughed out loud at the immensity of my hips, and the go-go boys who played soccer with their dicks, you may wish to partake of some rather more refined knob jokes. I present to you hipster erotica:

"Sufjan Stevens and I sat on the edge of my bed and talked for hours about everything. It sounds dumb to say it, but he actually gets me. He said that I was one of the most genuine people he’d ever met, and that I was actually cool, not like one of those people who obviously wants to be cool, but who just is, like a coolness that comes from deep within and is as much a refutation of cool as an embrace of it."

Blip

The quick news, which is all I have time to write in my free 15 minutes Internet in the Changi departure lounge, is that Fay's bald head has now raised over $10,000, Mogwai was pretty amazing and played Xmas Steps which is my favourite song on my favourite Mogwai album (EP + 6), and today I'm off to Bangkok for a bachelorette party. And of course, I haven't finished writing about the Kuching trip, the Vietnam trip, last summer's Europe trip, any of the music I've been listening to lately, any of the books that make my commute bearable, the Singapore Idol greatness that is Mathilda D'Silva singing Led Zeppelin, the Grey's Anatomy hilarity that is Dr Bailey saying "O'Malley! Stop. Lookin'. At my va-jay-jay!", my attempts at combining a weight loss regime and Japanese all-you-can-eat buffets, and of course nothing at all, at all, about how work is reducing me to a pale shadow of the person I once was.