Charmin-Ultra: Don't Squeeze Me

我的初戀是ㄧ個沒有網路的遠距離戀愛。

現在的小孩可能很難想像，沒有網路，怎麼談遠距離戀愛。

今晚跟ㄧ群朋友去參加ㄧ個朋友的新書簽名會。

之前我們ㄧ起吃飯。

Bored, the bikini girls wiggle their bodies against the poles. Neon light and crystal ball dye their skin eerily crimson. There are mirrors everywhere, on the walls, on the stage, and on the ceiling as if you can’t see enough of them or yourself. An announcer is saying something obscene but nobody seems aroused.  

Looking at the mirrors around them, the girls are actually admiring their thick-lined eyes, layers of foundation, and carefully painted scarlet lips. They carefully place their number plates on their breasts or on the string of their panties to attract attention.  The audience includes mostly foreign men and some women. Men are the regulars but women? Must be some feminists who wanted to ‘experience’, or some researchers collecting information, or like me just wandering. With or without the women, it makes no big difference to the girls. It was merely another night selling their bodies on stage, like animals in the zoo.

“You are not alone and you are not crazy.” was something I was told over and over again when I complained about being here in Bangkok. At first, I was ashamed of talking about my problems with other people. They were personal issues like ‘interviewing maids”, ‘marriage’, ‘rising children’.

My ex-husband who graduated from Kellogg, Northwestern (one of the best business schools in America), once a head of the first American company in Vietnam, got recruited by Wall Street Journal despite lack of formal journalistic training, Far Eastern Economic Review’s favorite, ‘lured’ by Time magazine, after two months of a new born baby, and after I quit my beloved job the second time for moving to join him for his new job assignment, called me and told me that he QUIT his job. WHAT?? Idiot, was my reaction. However, trying to be a loving and supportive and cool wife, I swallowed my fear, wiped my tears, and told him, “oh, honey, I will support you no matter what and I can get a job there and everything is going to be all right.” But everything was not all right. For one, I was the one who cried over my prestigious job, agonizing leaving family’s support for my new born baby, fearing of challenging upcoming life, and now a future with uncertainties. Scream, in fact, was the only thing I had in mind. But no, I had to be cool so my parents wouldn’t think I was out of my mind and my ex-husband wouldn’t think I was not supportive.

最近一口氣訂閱了大量的部落格來細細品嘗，隱隱覺的體內寫作的動力又蠢蠢欲動了起來。

今晚，耳機裡放著 Gymnopedie，只差沒泡一杯香濃的咖啡（明天不想死的話），好想好想就這樣一直寫下去.....

Among people who are against globalization, expatriate wives are most eligible.

These days, you don't get a job in your town, but in another country. It is very likely that one day your husband comes home and says, "I am home, honey. Oh, by the way, I got transferred to Brussels and company wants me to get ready by next month." Next day, you will be packing and next month, you will be in a totally different country where you don't even know a soul, not to mention to speak the language. There is never a course or any manual of "how to be an expat wife" and I bet many just never think about it.

很多人在到美國之前都會取個英文名字

接下來兩三天，大家都鬼鬼祟祟的。平時交頭接耳，米太太 (正式改變身分)一出現他們就停止談話，或者用一種米太太聽不太懂的腔調說話。【後來知道是Pig Latin(註)】。米太太心中開始出現問號？？【他們是不是有事瞞著我？是不是他們不喜歡我？】米太太心中很沮喪。

因為米先生長期住國外，而王小姐又是米先生千里迢迢帶回來的女朋友，米婆婆本來就計畫約親朋好友幫我們開個Welcome Party。誰知道極度害羞的米先生竟然先下手為強，米婆婆立即決定把當天的Welcome party 改成訂婚party！

米先生做事一直都是溫吞溫吞，連米太太和米先生的婚事，也是在米先生溫吞中被米太太逼婚成功的。(參考王小姐逼婚記)