Johnny Be Adulterous

While we’re still being frivolous and lusty (music posts which take themselves entirely too seriously are IMMINENT, be warned), this is from last night, out of nowhere.

Alec: I must say, if you ever meet Johnny Depp, full permission. Total green light. I admit he’s really hot.
Me: And you waited an entire 24 hours [the time elapsed since the combined sensuality of Johnny and a Scottish accent writ large in the Finding Neverland trailer reduced me to a babbling horny wreck even before the movie about sex research] to tell me this? I could be on a plane now!

Addendum: From earlier tonight –
Me: I did a blog entry about how you’ll let me cheat on you with Johnny Depp.
Alec: You do realize I’d cheat on you with Johnny Depp too, right?

One thing is leading to another. Next thing we’ll both be on a plane in hot pursuit of a threesome with Johnny Depp. Poor Johnny.

Ya Think?

Me: I just don’t get how she keeps raving on and on about her boyfriend, but she never makes fun of him! What’s up with that?
Alec: I don’t know, maybe she loves and respects the guy?

New-Age Sensitive Man

We were trying to figure out what the movie on TV was.

“That’s Denise Richards,” Alec declared with an air of certainty.

“Ew, she looks bad. Was this, like, before she became famous or something?”

“I don’t know,” he said, “I can’t say for sure until I’ve seen her cleavage.”

* * *

Monsoon skies opened during our drunken chicken noodle lunch on Jalan Alor, which confirmed that a mall was the easiest place in the vicinity to spend the rest of the afternoon.

After two hours of wandering around after me, Alec was getting silent and morose.

“Oh, I’m sorry, dear,” I said, “Are you getting bored of shopping?”

“No,” he said, furrowing his brow, “I’m just really disappointed. The stuff on these floors just isn’t anywhere as good as the stuff you were buying yesterday.”

Speakee The Singlish

During a meal at Sibu, I was explaining nasi lemak to Alec, saying that lemak refers to the coconut used to infuse the rice. “If you’re having curry and there’s loads of coconut milk in it,” I mentioned, “you might hear someone say the curry is very lemak.”

After we returned to Singapore, I’d bought Alec a cooking lesson at Cookery Magic to learn how to make laksa, satay and peanut sauce, which are all dishes he likes. (My mother can teach him most local dishes he’s interested in, but she doesn’t do these.)

During the lesson, the teacher was encouraging Alec and the other woman attending to taste as they went along. Alec tasted the laksa gravy and remarked that it was “mmmm, quite lemak“. Cue sudden dropping of jaws, as the cooking teacher and other student (a Malaysian woman) stared at him dumbstruck.

Cross-Cultural Potty-Mouthing 101

In conversation the other day, Alec described how one of his colleagues’ favourite jokes was to gradually wind him up by piling on more and more stressful tasks and demands until he’d finally lose it and let fly with a flurry of curses. For some strange visceral reason (given that his Irish accent is mostly so Anglicized that I can actually understand most of what he says these days), this swearing would occur in his broadest Irish brogue.

A phrase that featured often in these outbursts is one I wasn’t previously familiar with, but must now share with everyone. “I will a’me bollocks!” is apparently short for “I will, in my bollocks!” which is apparently short for “No, I won’t do this thing you are asking me to do!”

Such elegance and charm, these Irish colloquialisms. I think Alec will pick up Singlish/Hokkien more easily than I first expected.

(While searching the Talking Cock dictionary for the above definitions, I came across this glorious expression which I must confess to having never heard before. Am I just hanging out with the wrong people?)

Going Native

Me: So before I bought the camera, we walked around all the different shops selling it to compare prices, and see who would throw in more extra stuff.
Alec: Like a free travel bag?
Me: No!
Alec, stifling laughter: Or, say, a free radio alarm clock?
Me: NO! Relevant stuff like CompactFlash memory cards!
Alec, chortling out loud: But wouldn’t you prefer a free calculator watch?
Me: RRRROWR.

Even given the fact that Alec reads Talking Cock more than I do, the scary extent to which he is in touch with the Singaporean psyche still suggests he has not actually been in Ireland these past few months, but has instead been living a secret existence in a 3-room flat in Toa Payoh.

Even More Un-PC Than Me

I was discussing upcoming holiday plans with Alec, specifically the Eastern Europe part of the trip. We were considering the cost viability of a railpass by trying to see if all the places we wanted to see were actually on good train routes.

Alec: Well, we all know you can definitely get to Auschwitz by train!
Me: ……
Alec: ……
Me: Okay, next topic of conversation.

My Funny Valentine

There are worse ways to spend Valentine’s Day than waking up to lilies delivered by Alec, going out later that evening to meet Terry for dinner and cocktails on the NUSS terrace balcony, then being presented with even more lilies, going home to videoconference with Alec, and finally arranging my big combined lily bunch in a vase before going to sleep. There really are.

[In case it looks like I’m two-timing someone somewhere, rest assured that I’m not. I’m merely lucky enough to have a great guy friend in Terry who knows how to treat girls but doesn’t have any designs on me, a secure boyfriend in Alec who knows how much he is loved and therefore has no problems with my multitudes of close male friends, and the very pleasant coincidence between Alec and Terry of good taste in flowers.]

And that’s not all. Those of you who’ve been reading this site for a while may remember Bellagio, the inflatable, anatomically correct sheep Alec presented to me one night in Italy. When I had to leave for Singapore, we decided Bellagio would stay with Alec, since I didn’t think my mother would be particularly receptive to her charms, and she’d have lots of sheep friends in Ireland anyway. (There was, of course, the mild possibility that the other sheep could ostracize her due to her inflatable nature, but we hoped showing them her orifice would be proof enough of her essential sheepness.)

So as a charming epilogue to this tale of Valentine’s bliss, Alec, ever romantic, decided to show me just how much he appreciated the planter full of spring flowers I’d sent him. The best way of doing this, he thought, was by sending me a photo of Bellagio, posing shyly next to the planter, with a trowel in her fanny.

Two Years

When Alec was in South Africa recently, he sent me a postcard.

I quote:

“I’m afraid that, in characteristic fashion, I’ve managed to make an ass of things. When I first saw this stamp I thought it was a particularly ugly bird.”

The rare South African soreconihr bird

Today marks two years with Mr Ass. I still don’t understand how he continues to make me laugh, or endear me so much, or love me warts and all. I still don’t understand how I ever got so lucky.