Need dust-trapping tissues - desperately
Even more than sex really.
Given the recent status of "recently-dropped" and "currently-wooed", I should be tossing and turning with frustration in my bed. The queen-sized bed has been indeed, too big for my 101.2lb/46kg frame. Yet, despite the absence of a 160-pounder stealing the blankets occasionally over the past 2 weeks, it's been hardly a problem getting to sleep.
Sure it is comfortable to snuggle up next to something warm and breathing, and to wake up to a morning-breath I could call eau-de-toilette, but it's a luxury I think I can manage without. Especially with the help of whiskey cokes, kamikazes, *cringe* spicy baijiu (chilli oil and 50% alcohol Chinese rice wine in a shot glass), and a marathon karaoke session. Maybe the bottle and the phallic feature of the microphone have replaced my desire for the actual thang.
So perhaps the dust with Ju has more or less settled, with my trip last night to his apartment to remove all traces of my presence in it. I'm ready to embrace all things new in my life, with a vengeance.
The dust in my own apartment however, refuses to go away, no thanks to the renovations in the apartment next door as well as continual construction projects in the whole of Shanghai. And to avoid being too attached to my current accomodation, I had refused to buy a vacuum cleaner. I learnt my lesson well, as I had made the mistake of leaving my Asian condiments, my claypot and favourite sheets at Ju's apartment while we were still together. So I had relied on that magic-cleaner and disposable dust-trapping tissue for my daily sweeping ritual in the last 3.5 months. One problem though - these tissues aren't readily available in your neighbourhood store. Not even the big supermarkets carry them anymore; the retail assistant at Carrefour gave me a disbelieving look when I enquired about the "chu chen zhi" (literally translated, dust-eliminating paper) - "We've discontinued the product: for a long time already." 3.5 months doesn't seem like a long time to me.
So I've been scouring every supermarket/convenience store for these miracle-workers over the past 2 weeks. The floor in my living room got lucky when the bathroom flooded again last Monday - this time it was a tsunami (hello Chinese washing machines and plumbing!) - it finally gave me the impetus to mop the floor on all fours.
But like any habit, sweeping with the magic-cleaner was one ritual I couldn't break. And with SG$2-pack cigarettes in China, it would be a long time too that I stop smoking, although D-Day has been set on March 15th, 2006. Life with Ju was a habit that strangely, I could break. Not that it was a habit per se, but sharing your life with someone who was awesome (though French) for 15 weeks and having to end it the way it did, waking up alone was initially painful.
But I guess that's what people call cold turkey. However, there's no way I am prepared to go cold for sweeping with the magic-cleaner. So I just watch the dust fly whenever I open the door to my apartment.
More dust got stirred up by way of mum's phone-call last night. And so March 15th is in a week's time. To me, I'm sure I'm going to feel no different from any other day. But for the woman who went through 12-hours of labour 26 years ago, she feels that it's time that I "settled down", stop playing around (*snigger*) and buy that 5-room executive flat - complete with 2.5 kids. Oh of course, and the rich and one-foot-in-the-grave husband. Then again, it would be a 5-acre ranch that I'll be settling down in if I bagged a Rupert Murdoch. I told her honestly that I couldn't find that man of my dreams despite belting out at the KTV from midnight till 5am on Sunday.
She couldn't be serious. Actually, she couldn't be more serious. Mum's comments on how Shanghai might not be that good for me, as the conversation went on, really meant "perhaps you should come back to Singapore, find a nice NUS/NTU graduate, and make lots of babies for me to show off to Auntie XX".
Like the dust particles in my apartment when I swing the front door open, I refuse to be tied down. Well, let me find my tissue first and I'll think about it again. In the meantime, I'm celebrating the liberation that comes with being a woman (make-up, fashionable clothes and all) in the 21st century. Happy International Women's Day...
N.B. My co-workers were commenting last week, on the term "san ba" (pun on March - "san" yue and 8th - "ba" hao; "san ba" is also used to described a noseyparker, normally female in this case.) I concluded the discussion, with them and with a chuckle, am I not then, given that I'm the youngest in the office, a "xiao san ba"?
Given the recent status of "recently-dropped" and "currently-wooed", I should be tossing and turning with frustration in my bed. The queen-sized bed has been indeed, too big for my 101.2lb/46kg frame. Yet, despite the absence of a 160-pounder stealing the blankets occasionally over the past 2 weeks, it's been hardly a problem getting to sleep.
Sure it is comfortable to snuggle up next to something warm and breathing, and to wake up to a morning-breath I could call eau-de-toilette, but it's a luxury I think I can manage without. Especially with the help of whiskey cokes, kamikazes, *cringe* spicy baijiu (chilli oil and 50% alcohol Chinese rice wine in a shot glass), and a marathon karaoke session. Maybe the bottle and the phallic feature of the microphone have replaced my desire for the actual thang.
So perhaps the dust with Ju has more or less settled, with my trip last night to his apartment to remove all traces of my presence in it. I'm ready to embrace all things new in my life, with a vengeance.
The dust in my own apartment however, refuses to go away, no thanks to the renovations in the apartment next door as well as continual construction projects in the whole of Shanghai. And to avoid being too attached to my current accomodation, I had refused to buy a vacuum cleaner. I learnt my lesson well, as I had made the mistake of leaving my Asian condiments, my claypot and favourite sheets at Ju's apartment while we were still together. So I had relied on that magic-cleaner and disposable dust-trapping tissue for my daily sweeping ritual in the last 3.5 months. One problem though - these tissues aren't readily available in your neighbourhood store. Not even the big supermarkets carry them anymore; the retail assistant at Carrefour gave me a disbelieving look when I enquired about the "chu chen zhi" (literally translated, dust-eliminating paper) - "We've discontinued the product: for a long time already." 3.5 months doesn't seem like a long time to me.
So I've been scouring every supermarket/convenience store for these miracle-workers over the past 2 weeks. The floor in my living room got lucky when the bathroom flooded again last Monday - this time it was a tsunami (hello Chinese washing machines and plumbing!) - it finally gave me the impetus to mop the floor on all fours.
But like any habit, sweeping with the magic-cleaner was one ritual I couldn't break. And with SG$2-pack cigarettes in China, it would be a long time too that I stop smoking, although D-Day has been set on March 15th, 2006. Life with Ju was a habit that strangely, I could break. Not that it was a habit per se, but sharing your life with someone who was awesome (though French) for 15 weeks and having to end it the way it did, waking up alone was initially painful.
But I guess that's what people call cold turkey. However, there's no way I am prepared to go cold for sweeping with the magic-cleaner. So I just watch the dust fly whenever I open the door to my apartment.
More dust got stirred up by way of mum's phone-call last night. And so March 15th is in a week's time. To me, I'm sure I'm going to feel no different from any other day. But for the woman who went through 12-hours of labour 26 years ago, she feels that it's time that I "settled down", stop playing around (*snigger*) and buy that 5-room executive flat - complete with 2.5 kids. Oh of course, and the rich and one-foot-in-the-grave husband. Then again, it would be a 5-acre ranch that I'll be settling down in if I bagged a Rupert Murdoch. I told her honestly that I couldn't find that man of my dreams despite belting out at the KTV from midnight till 5am on Sunday.
She couldn't be serious. Actually, she couldn't be more serious. Mum's comments on how Shanghai might not be that good for me, as the conversation went on, really meant "perhaps you should come back to Singapore, find a nice NUS/NTU graduate, and make lots of babies for me to show off to Auntie XX".
Like the dust particles in my apartment when I swing the front door open, I refuse to be tied down. Well, let me find my tissue first and I'll think about it again. In the meantime, I'm celebrating the liberation that comes with being a woman (make-up, fashionable clothes and all) in the 21st century. Happy International Women's Day...
N.B. My co-workers were commenting last week, on the term "san ba" (pun on March - "san" yue and 8th - "ba" hao; "san ba" is also used to described a noseyparker, normally female in this case.) I concluded the discussion, with them and with a chuckle, am I not then, given that I'm the youngest in the office, a "xiao san ba"?