sunday afternoon

there is something undecidedly strange about hanging out with your not-quite-ex-wife, her ex-boyfriend, her ex-boyfriend's mother and grandmother and your own mother. hmm, one might say that i have a knack for these situations to arise in the course of my adventures. a buddhist sage might say that the conditions are right for these situations and events to manifest themselves. i am not quite sure which is the best way of looking at it. i am not sure how i really feel about it except to say that it beyond my understanding and it currently doesn't bother me so i can live with that. in fact, the weirdness of it all is sort of appealing to me, honestly. there is something that makes me feel like i'm a part of something that is improbable or unlikely. in that, there is definitely something cool. haha! as written by gibson, "he took a duck in the face at 120 knots." perhaps this shall become my mantra.

so how did it start, one might ask? mom and i were slated to hang out. and with mom being in town, christine wanted time with her too. yes, by now it is not an odd thing that christine still considers my mom her mom and my mom still likes if not cares for christine to some degree of significance. we have never discussed it really, i probably ought to ask how she really feels. this whole arena in the last several years of having mom as a buddy is still new ground. we are still finding a new joy in occasionally being totally and utterly blunt about things that in the past due to cultural tendencies (or baggage, depending on your view) are never spoken of. part of the two faced nature of being so asian is that when you are able to read those around you and don't have to ask how each other thinks or feels about something it gives you an immeasurable advantage in many situations around others who aren't like you. however, if you think you understand but really don't it could lead to all kinds of interesting complicated misunderstandings that may not even be recognized for years because you are operating on the assumption that your assumptions are correct! and yes, i did say years. i've seen it and still do. it is mind boggling. and though i'm not chinese, i have a better appreciation for why people, intelligent, well informed people agree that on a mass level, the chinese can only change in increments of a hundred years. some of this has to do with the rather ghastly and rarely spoken of bad traits and values born of confucianism and taoism. however highly regarded by asians and the rest of the world for many of the philosophical values that they established, no one talks about their darker side that stemmed from their sad and horrible personal lives that led them to be overly authoritative and misogynists. yup, no one likes to talk of that. they were great philosophers but were also great assholes when dealing with women and in some cases children. however this was put into place by placing high values in one's degree of homage and respect to elders, especially male elders, they are never supposed to be wrong. yeah, whatever. assholes... but i digress.

back to sunday afternoon. christine was unable to meet with us and mom was running late. so somewhere in there, marc decided that he would invite me and mom to his sunday bbq. now, this is a big thing. this is a real big thing cause marc is naturally uncomfortable in regards to me, the idea of me or being around me though we have always been very civil. when it comes down to it, we have no reasons not to be civil to one another. however marc is wary of me because he feels that i had way back then "stolen" christine from him when i first met her and later even after christine and i split up, she still keeps in very close communication with me. so for him to extend an invitation was a 'big' deal. moreover, i kind of feel like it is some sort of acceptance of me in his life if he is to stay friends with christine because as she tells it marc's sister nicole and her mom seem to think that i'm okay. in fact, nicole supposedly told christine some time ago to "dump marc and go back to your husband." ah, i don't even know how to respond to that. in any case, christine and marc's family are very close and, and i don't know where i'm going with this. description should be enough here. i don't need to fully understand. hahah, the irony of it. i'm not even sure i understand the irony but it is surely there.

it's all about context

i once wrote in a journal entry that being back in the city was sort of like looking at a photo album of familiar places. places that had history yet at the time it was out of balance because there was a person missing in the photos. several years have passed now and i have once again returned to the city and have gone ot some of the same places. some things have shifted though, the sames places connect to different emotions now. they are not alien, just different. they aren't bad or good, there is no need to grade them that way.

stopped to see an old acquaintance. we chatted for about 15 minutes. she asked about christine. i caught her up on things and us. she is amazed that christine and i have stayed such close friends after everything. i couldn't imagine it any other way. she said some other sweet things, it made me feel warm and fuzzy for a moment!

later as i sat checking email after getting out from seeing episode III, i chatted with christine and thought about my conversation with barbara then i told her, "i love that you are my friend, christine."

last thursday night part II

so i stay at christine's again because we are going to carpool to sausalito the next morning for a client meeting. i decide to go out for dinner instead of cooking [smart move to avoid all those 'what it was like cooking for you moments']. so we go to shabu shabu. good food, great conversation, nice hip san mateo neo-nipponese crowd and decor. you could almost imagine that you are far away from suburbia. i get distracted by an attractive nihongo-jin thirty-something hipster stand next to our table waiting for something until i notice the gawdy nails. total sensory fantasy bail out occurs in 32 nanoseconds. [it is a strange thing to experience this sitting acros the table from your not-quite-ex-wife. who if i would have asked her what she thought of this woman would have given me a straightforward assessment and probably in a as-matter-of-factly manner. she might even point someone else in the place who seems more interesting. she is very cool that way].

we stop for ice cream after leaving the restaurant. it is funny to see her eat ice cream. she says, since i can't eat wheat at all, a little ice cream isn't going to hurt. well, yeah...it's not like you have to watch what you eat. [she works out everyday. our friend rob jokes, what? as if she isn't skinny enough? i tell him it's better than taking out the excess energy at anger management classes! hehe!!!]

on the stroll back, we walk by this beautiful church. it is an old stone building with beautifully polished huge gothic arched shaped doors. it has a cute garden strewn with a couple of large oaks and beds of newly bloomed flowers. we remark that the church reminds us of the one we got married in. i say that it seems all the episcopal churches i've seen tend to look nicer, none of them are of the late 60's post-modern-post-le corbusier-star-trek-gone-bad-ugly. they seem to be always constructed of stone or brick. there is a moment of mutual reminiscence going on the we are interrupted by her cell phone ringing. it is her ex-boyfriend. i can tell. i was kind of wondering when he would call. we walk and she talks. i keep an eye out for asian-suv drivers as we cross el camino real. we make it back to the apartment building safely and she is off of the phone. she says she'll call later. she tells me it was marc, yeah, i could tell. she adds, i don't really want to talk to him...[trails off].

later she comes out of the bedroom, they shrank it! huh? shrank what? i thought she was talking about the bedsheets or something. turns out it was the cover for the mattress blanket she had sent to get dry cleaned. it was six inches short of its width. i say, it was laundered. not dry cleaned. they screwed it up. that cover is not cheap either. moments later, i am standing across the bed helping her put on new sheets. another one of those remarkable "hey, i've done this before" goes through my head. hmm...the more i hang around her, the more those moments happen.

so we sleep in the same bed again. but different, it is one of those things that you can only describe the experience from the inside and it is in a language that is not made for anyone else but you. yet even then, the vocabulary is something that you feel is just beyond your grasp. language communicates what you feel, what you think and what you sense. but lying there on the bed next to christine the three universes of interaction seem not to be coinciding in my mind.

anyway, the highlight of the evening was christine saying that she really wanted to go to vietnam with me if i didn't mind. [the trip to vietnam is part for work, part for fun] sure, i don't mind. [in the back of my head, hmm...that is where we went for our honeymoon]. this should be very interesting...