Date Night

We had a date night. It involved Burger King and Bruno, and so gave rise to numerous jibes from me that we suck at date night. On the way home, we had this conversation:

Alec: I love Hungry Ghosts month. Yesterday when I was walking home with our ta pau [1. Takeaway], the guys at the bike shop were setting up their little altar outside. It had a bike wheel as its centrepiece. The boss was very strict with his employees, very particular about how he wanted the altar set up.

Me: Well of course he was! If the ghosts think you don’t give a fuck then they’ll get fucking pissed off lah!

Alec: Dear, I think maybe the Taoists would have a more sophisticated way of explaining thi…

Me: No lah! I bet if you could just understand what the boss was telling his employees in Hokkien…

Alec: He’d be saying “This altar looks like you pulled it out of your wife’s cunt”?

Me: Your mother’s smelly cunt. [2. Explained in full Hokkien glory here.]

Alec: Oh yah, sorry.

beat

Alec: Okay, you’re right. We really suck at date night.

Valentine’s Whey

They say you’re meant to put in effort to keep the thrill in your relationship and you know, I’ll be the first to admit that walking around the house bedaubed with green facial mask goo while continuously singing the Ponyo Ponyo song is probably not the way to drive my man wild with desire. Of course, it’s also true that said man’s idea of hot hot love these days is opening the oven door to take out his freshly baked bread.

Given the depressing picture of terminal marital decline I’ve painted, it would be fair to assume that we spent Valentine’s Day eating McDelivery in front of the TV and guffawing loudly at some juvenile dude comedy like Blades Of Glory while chugging beers. It would be fair to assume this because that is how we spend many, many days. (Happy happy days.)

But in fact, we had a totally cheesy Valentine’s Day this year!

Literally.

Home Made Ricotta and Whey Bread

The white gooey dollop is delicious, creamy home made ricotta (too wet, I know, I got impatient and didn’t drain it enough). And with the whey left over from the cheesemaking, Alec made bread.

I think we did pretty well at getting into the spirit of Valentine’s Day. This time next year, we’ll be walking the streets wearing matching T-shirts, me clutching a posy of wilting roses and Alec carrying a huge teddy bear with “I Lurv U” embroidered across its belly.

Nuggets Of Love

During some mid-workday emailing, Alec and I are discussing some friends of ours who are migrating to New Zealand and opening a restaurant. We both agree it’s a damn cool thing to do, but Alec mentions that it’s a risky move without prior experience in the restaurant industry.

He continues:

“But then I’m very unromantic about business. I quite like the idea of starting my own business but I’d focus on low cost, high turnover food where start up costs are lower and potential profits are far higher. When I’m manager of McDonald’s Pasir Ris I’ll bring you back french fries every night. I’ll fill a bath tub with their mother fucking chilli sauce.”

Unromantic my foot. Now I’m all choked up.

Warning: Awwwwwful

On days when you’re royally pissed off at everything and everyone because the computer eats the notes you’ve just finished typing, and you’re tired of never having a warm flat, or a TV that can receive more than BBC1, and you’re sick of having to sacrifice your study time while you’re stuck in the flat with a bumbling plumber trying to fix your sink, and always seem to be washing pans in aforementioned sink which you didn’t leave there, on days when this multitude of little flea-like annoyances accumulate and nibble continuously at the edges of your composure, you really appreciate a boyfriend who cooks and serves you chicken rice by candlelight, especially when he’s never eaten it in his life, comes from a culinary tradition of cabbage, potatoes and offal, and is at his wit’s end with the chilli because every recipe he consults tells him different things.

Awwwww.

Affirmation

In conversation the other day Alec told me his idea for starting his own website. It would be called Your Blog Is Shite, and he would write rants about how completely pathetic the blogging community is, with featured links to illustrate his points. He assured me he’d get to mine as soon as he could.

Continuing in this romantic and sensitive tradition, we’re going cottaging (dumb sleazy joke intended) for our first anniversary. Our cosy getaway of love is called The Hole.

Now I Know He Really Loves Me

Alec has earned a significant amount of boyfriend credit (spendable on forgotten anniversaries/birthdays, or uncalled-for “you look fat in that” remarks) by volunteering to buy us Sonic Youth tickets for their gig here in June (can’t wait, can’t wait), and actually following through on that promise the very next day. This from a man who forgot his own 21st birthday and enjoys traditional Irish music rather than my somewhat more abrasive tastes.

[Admittedly this compartmentalizes him too much. He was, after all, walking down the street with me just on Sunday holding a laminated bra in one hand and a lager-soaked jumper in the other. But that’s a long story.]

Knight In Silly Hat

In this day and age, when instructed by one’s boyfriend to look out of one’s third floor window, one does not, admittedly, expect to see him cantering up the street on a white stallion, but one is nonetheless somewhat perturbed by the sight of him in a Santa hat with flashing red stars on it, and waving a pink pig lolly.

All in all, I think I rather like this day and age.

Last night was gloriously low-brow

Last night was gloriously low-brow and frivolous. I started the evening off with Celebrity Big Brother. Then Carl came into the TV room and waved the first two episodes of the current season of the X-Files at me, and so we had to watch those. Then the Italian girls came in and put on Cocktail, and we all had a good time yelling “Bastard!” at Tom Cruise and pulling apart the corny dialogue. It was all very Bridget Jones.

The thing which probably struck me the most about last night won’t be a surprise for anyone reading this who actually knows me in real life, but I’ll go into it anyway because I just feel like writing about it.

The X-Files, or its good episodes anyway, reduces me to a gibbering emotional wreck. I loved this show long before it was hip, while it was hip, and still love it now it’s pretty much unhip. I’ll be the first to acknowledge it’s had some laughably bad episodes (killer pussies, Bride of Chucky, Scully Madonna with limpid-eyed alien child…), a large number of hilariously verbose pretentious voiceovers (Chris Carter, lose the thesaurus already), and don’t even get me started on what they’ve done with the conspiracy arc.

But the thing is, there’s just something about the characters that gets to me. I could rehash the usual Mulder-Scully skeptic-believer unresolved sexual tension spiel but everyone’s already familiar with that. I guess what particularly endears me to them is their ability to do the whole undying trust and loyalty thing while generally avoiding Hallmark moments. People always tell me “Oh, Michelle, you’ll be more forgiving about gross couply stuff when you’re in a relationship.”

No, I bloody well will not. I can certainly see Hallmark moments enhancing any relationship I’d want to be in, but only in terms of their comedic potential. I’d be quite fond of a man who could deliver cheesy lines with an expression just one twitch short of deadpan so I knew he didn’t actually think “I love you always forever till the end of the world blah blah blah” would fool me into falling over with my legs in the air.

Er. I was talking about the X-Files. Yeah, the X-Files. Love it.