Tuesday 31 July 2012

the man who peers into my vagina

sounds so much better than just the Gynaecologist.
Well its been a few years since my last visit.  Yes I know, silly of me not to go keep getting checked.  I had a hysterectomy in 2005 so most of my bits were taken out but the ovaries are still there and those too it seems can get tumours on them and  be cancerous.
I am not going to go all medical in this post although I do believe that we need to look after ourselves to be able to look after our children and for me now, my mother.
The thing is before I go see the man who peers into vagina's, I tend to make sure everything is all trimmed and neat and tidy.  I don't know why, but its like if anyone has to look down there, it better be all nice.
At least I have some motivation to trim and keep it neat even it is only for 'man who peers into vaginas'

Monday 30 July 2012

beauty pagents

After the Canadians allowed a man who became a woman to compete in the Miss Universe/Canada pageant, I guess this was inevitable.  From next year, women who are not natural born females can compete in the Miss Singapore/Universe competition.

This to me is something to think about as on one hand everyone should have the right to participate in a pageant as a woman,  but then its not real.  That 'new' female has had plastic surgery to enhance the face and figure.  Then of course one can state that the Venezuelans have been doing that for years.
Where do you draw the line?  Should a woman be allowed to enhance what is natural to compete in a pageant to find the most beautiful woman in the universe or world?  Doesn't that make the whole thing fake?
Does one really care about beauty pageants?
 I used to love watching the pageants as a young girl, seeing all the beautiful women parade in glittering costumes and dresses and showing off their figures in their swimsuits.  As I got older I realised that they all began to look alike.  they were all too perfect.  I was lucky in that I saw the 'imperfections' of the perfect beauties that paraded  the runways of these pageants.  I didnt believe that to be beautiful I had to look like someone elses idea of perfection.  Now with plastic surgery allowed in the form of non natural born females, would they openly allow total enhancement for the natural born women too?

Where will it stop?



Saturday 28 July 2012

B.O.B

stolen from some cinema toilet
So I was wondering around town and I had as usual a host of errands to run and a whole lot of family things to attend to.  One of my errands took me to a mall where they had one of those multi hall cinemas.  I also had to pick up some movie tickets.  I also had to use the loo.  Now I am not a prude, far from it and actually I am going to go watch this movie Hysteria (see picture) but I object to the posters put up in the ladies toilets.  The picture on the left ( a bit raggedy as it spent the last 2 hours in my handbag) was hung on the back of doors and in the wash area of the toilets.  Its is not appropriate especially if children visit these toilets as well.  And they do, I heard young girls coming into the toilets and asking their mums what that was.  How do you explain to an 8 year old what a vibrator does?
Its a great campaign  for women but it needs to be done with taste and perhaps they should have put these in toilets where children wont go. Like the hundreds of pubs and bars that dot our little tiny nation.

Thursday 26 July 2012

if i was a man

I have wondered if I would be happier as a man.  I have thought about this and have even talked about it in an earlier post about sensuality (where I said I loved being a woman!).  Today I had a conversation with a friend and we concluded that women are crazy lunatics.

Do men ever have imaginary conversations in their heads with other people I wonder?  Do men ever start thinking ahead to every possible scenario that could happen?  Do men ever have a fight in that imaginary conversation and actually get pissed off with the person, all in a stupid imaginary conversation?  Well women do..... I cant speak for all women but I know at least one other woman who does.

No bad hair days, No wardrobe malfunction days.  No mutton dressed as lamb days.  No more being  branded a cougar if you smile at younger men days.  No ducking into the loo if you need to adjust knickers or bra strap days.
Who cares what a man wears.  A man is congratulated when he can woo and bed a much younger woman.    A man can adjust/scratch his balls in public.  A man can wear the same pair of shoes and the same pair of pants for a week and no one notices.  A man doesn't have to shave his legs or armpits if he doesn't want to and no one cares! Oh the freedom in being a man!

Men are less complicated than women as well.  They don't fret over small things and they forgive friends easily.  Women are bitchy, always bearing grudges and finding fault in inconsequential things our friends do. We make a big deal out of nothing and that includes relationships.
We moan and groan about why he treats us that way when we let men do that to us.  If there was no drama, we would not be happy!

So I wonder what it would be like to be a man, perhaps for just one day, a day where my brain would not have a million conversations with itself, a day where my brain wont fret if he doesn't text, a day when my brain wont wonder if he was thinking of me.  A day of peace and quiet.

Monday 23 July 2012

too many numbers

I seem to be fixated with numbers.  31 years ago I got married, 49 &3/4 years old, 34 years since I last saw some school friends and now 17 years being single.
Too many milestones and too many numbers to remember.
Time to stop with the numbers and  looking back to the past.  Time to look forward.
if i made it to 100, I'd do the same! image from google
Everyone wants me to have a party for my 50th.  Another number for my fixation.  I don't want a party, I want to celebrate my birthday the way I want to.  I want to have brunch somewhere, it is after all my favourite meal of the day.  I would like my family to join me but then some of them aren't talking to each other, so that will be difficult.  I don't want a cake with 50 candles on it nor will I blow the fucking things out.
Maybe its just that I am down in the dumps or maybe its just Monday and I fucking hate Mondays.

Sunday 22 July 2012

domestic goddess on speed

kind of went overboard cooking.... Its only me and son no 2 but i now have dinner of Spag Bol
spag bol with cheese
nice chook
Then I decided to make pumpkin soup just because the pumpkin has been in the fridge for a week and I didn't want to throw it away.  Then I thought lets roast a chook, for tomorrow and whenever......Then I didn't stop there
yummy muffins
Thought I'd do another batch of the choc chip muffins just because..................
I think I need to get out of the house more.............................................
** pic of the pumpkin soup wasn't that nice even though it did taste good**

Wednesday 18 July 2012

the dirty word

Once a week  a Pilates instructor comes in and conducts a class for a handful of girls in the office.  Yesterday one of those "girls" was me.
looks more like attack of the zombies but....
It was bloody tough, bending, stretching, pulling, reaching and bending over.  After one hour I was tired, aching slightly but surprisingly refreshed!  The instructor was patient, she helped and pushed me into position several times and did remark that my pelvis was very tight. 
What the fuck did that mean I wonder!
I enjoyed that class, in spite of being told that I had a reluctantly accommodating pelvis and will be continuing this new found interest.  Yes yes I know in the past I have been known to say that exercise is a dirty word, and all the exercise I will ever do is housework and sex.   but.....
I am looking forward to the class next week ....after all,  I will be rewarded with a loose pelvis!

Tuesday 17 July 2012

49 & 3/4

This coming Saturday is a reunion of sorts, some of us from the graduating class of 1978, secondary 4 at St Josephs Convent will be getting together.  We were 16 then, and 34 years later, in the year we turn 50, we are getting together to see how life has treated us. 
I have kept in touch with a couple of the girls but as I wasn't a very friendly person in the first place I didn't have a very wide circle of friends to keep in touch with.  I was painfully shy and didn't make friends easily.  In that area,  I ha vent changed much.  I still find it hard to make friends or socialise!
One of the girls created a facebook page and so far we have at least 40 of us on that page.  Some I remember and recognise and some I don't.  It will be interesting to see them again and  I am looking forward to it.  But I guess we all will be looking at each other wondering if we managed to achieve  any of the dreams we had as innocent 16 year olds.

Have I achieved everything I wanted to do, has it turned out like I thought it would.  No it hasn't.
I wanted to be a history teacher or an archaeologist and I never wanted to marry or have kids. I wanted to be footloose and fancy free, to go where I wanted and do what I wanted.  I wanted to travel to exotic locations and live in mud huts and tents, to dig the earth for relics and bits of pottery from ancient times.

I may not have done what my 16 year old me wanted to do, there are a few regrets but I have grown up to realise that the road we are on takes a few twists and turns and if we manage to come back to the path we originally created ( i refuse to say the "right"path) we should be ok.
Oh God!  I think I am all grown up now and just about to reach adulthood!!

I still want to travel, and see things.  I may not want to stay in mud huts or tents or dig for relics but travelling and seeing places is still high up there on my list of things to do.  I still want to be free, still want to be able to do the things I want to do.  I don't feel very different in my mind as I did all those years ago and sometimes I am taken aback when I realise how old I really am!  Its a state of mind, getting older.  some of us achieve it and some of us just carry on knowing that the body may be getting creakier but in our minds we are still that innocent girl that dreams of doing exactly what she wants!

Friday 13 July 2012

sarong party girl

This is what they call local Singaporean women who only go out with white men.  Its derogatory its wrong and its a phrase we all use anyway!
its supposed to be a local woman who puts on a very fake 'ang mo' accent, who has long straight hair, a tanned lithe body and a pretty face was not always one of the factors!  These women would wear skin tight clothes or skirts that looked like sarongs which display their tight little bottoms to perfection. 
Yes I am being bitchy here but its because I have been called a sarong Party Girl, because of my preference for Caucasian men. 
But the thing is I never went out with any Caucasian man until 2006.  And that was only because most of the local men and Indian men I dated were boring, chauvinists and just plain uninteresting.  They didn't think that my opinions mattered, they didn't treat me with respect, they didn't treat me as an equal.  They didn't have a warped sense of humour like I did either.  I am not saying that all local men or all Indian men were bad, just most of the ones I dated!  It also just turned out that I gave my heart to a Caucasian man and that Mr NZ, another wonderful man who captured my heart, also just happened to be Caucasian.  I never intentionally go out of my way to seek Caucasian men only to date.  Man Friend 1 isn't Caucasian, he is of south Asian origin and the only reason I never got romantically involved with him is because he lives too far away!  

So am I a sarong party girl......No.  I am just a woman who doesn't think the colour of my skin or the colour of the skin of any man I go out with, matters!

** ang mo - is a chinese derogatory term for Caucasian people.  it means red haired.  why would they call all caucasians re haired, i dont know, possibly the first caucasian they ever saw had red hair??**

Wednesday 11 July 2012

if i put an ad out for a boyfriend/partner.....what would i say

Websites and online dating, dating agencies, the whole thing is just a pain in the ass.  So I think I should take an ad out in the papers or even post it online somewhere.....Craig's list perhaps??
It would read something like this

Quirky, funny, gorgeous, sexy confident independent brown eyed girl (woman) wants a man. If you  have the following traits
  1. Sense of humour - and no that doesn't mean just telling stupid jokes
  2. Look good in scruffy jeans
  3. Doesn't think that Led Zeppelin was also an Airship that went down like the Hindenburg
  4. Actually know how to Iron your own shirts
  5. Will stand up in the train or bus for elderly people, pregnant women and generally anyone who needs a seat
  6. Will sit with me and watch tennis, football, F1. motogp and rugby  (or three out of five is good enough)
  7. Thinks kissing me is good fun
  8. Pays attention when I am speaking and doesn't text other people throughout the whole bloody date
  9. Tells me sometimes that I am a pain in the ass but still think I am sexy and beautiful
  10. Will wear black fitted underwear for me
  11. Will look at me and know I am the best thing that ever happened to you

and I in turn will offer you the following

  1. I promise I wont iron your shirts - trust me,  you wouldn't want me to!
  2.  I promise to never wash your jeans
  3. I promise to play led Zep, Janis Joplin often on the CD player (if I had a CD player)
  4. Will be so proud when you give up your seat for the elderly and pregnant or anyone who needs a seat on a train or bus.
  5. Not to tell stupid jokes and will promise to laugh at most of yours.
  6. Will watch monster trucks and fishing programs or actually will let you watch them and I will leave you to it and not bother you while you do.
  7.  Will kiss you often
  8.  Be a pain in the ass sometimes but will try really hard to keep being sexy and beautiful while doing it
  9. I will pay attention when you speak
  10. Will promise to dance for you in my lingerie
  11. Will look at you and know you are the best thing to ever happen to me
and the most important of all...... Must like Holding Hands
so if you think you can do the above and accept what i can do .....call me

Thursday 5 July 2012

confused or not I love being Indian

I do.  I wouldnt have it any other way, being Indian and loving it.  I do wish though that people, and by that I mean some Singaporeans, would take the time to understand how many different types of Indians there are.
I do get asked often if I speak Tamil.  Nothing wrong with that but they usually follow that question with another one asking me why I dont speak Tamil as I am an Indian..........
Ok.....so  heres the education part of this post.....
ok so maybe Punjab isnt so close to Nepal
India is divided into 28 states and according to a 1961 census 1,652 languages are spoken.  Mind Boggling?  indeed! 
So dont assume that if a person looks Indian, they will speak the same language as another Indian.
I may be Indian and I may understand some Hindi, but I am Punjabi, my family  comes from the north of India, close to the Pakistan and Nepal borders.  Punjab is a Persian word meaning Land of the 5 rivers, it is also known as the bread basket of India.  The British ruled India from 1858 to 1947 and in 1947 when they gave India its Independence, they divided her into two parts.  The Muslims didnt want to be ruled by the Hindus, and vice versa,  so the British drew a line and gave sections to each of the two major religions.  What is Bangladesh today was East Pakistan, and when they did draw that line down the map, they also broke up Punjab.  Alot of Sikh and Hindu families from the Pakistan side lost land, basically everything when they had to move to the India side.  In turn the Muslims moving to the Pakistan side also were dealt the same blow.
**If you want to read more on this partition,  my two favourite books on the subject are,  one by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, called Freedom at Midnight and the other by Kushwant Singh called Train to Pakistan.**
 In the years to follow, Punjab was further divided to create Haryana and some taken into Himachal Pradesh.

There are Hindu, Muslim and Sikh Punjabis, I was born a Sikh Punjabi but we all know I am not a believer of religion, so I just tell people I am Punjabi.  Then there is also the caste system to deal with and the different regions in Punjab itself!

So dont assume I speak Tamil just because I am Indian.  There is a whole history of where I come from and what my ethnicity reveals about my race.  I am proud of being a Punjabi Indian Cosmopolitan Singaporean (see how easy it is to be a confused Indian) and I embrace all the differences that make me who I am!


dancing queen

My music tastes veer towards the rock and blues genres and I count Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Deep Purple and the likes as some of my favourite bands and music.  However I harbour a deep dark secret............
I love disco!  I love to dance.  I love the cheesy dance songs from Donna Summer, A taste of Honey, Earth Wind and Fire, Erasure and alot of the silly songs of the 80's.
From as young as I can remember my sisters and I(and sometimes our cousins) used to convert our study room at home, it was actually the TV room come music room come library, into our very own disco.  We danced to the Jackson 5, the Osmonds, yes we had lame taste in music,  and what ever else we could find.

I moved to dancing in the discos at 16, when my ex husband took me out dancing to the one decent adult disco, the Lost Horizon at the Shangri-la hotel here.  I was underage, I was drinking (not much)  but no one checked at that time!  It was fabulous!
As Indians we find any excuse to dance, any occasion and we drag out the music and dance ourselves silly, and yes that includes alot of bollywood stuff.  At every wedding dinner you can expect dancing after dinner is over.  I was appalled at my first chinese wedding dinner that I attended, when everyone left straight after dinner was over.  I was horrified that it ended like that.  Where was the celebration!!
My mums youngest brother who is about 8 years older than me, happens to be my best bump partner.  At all family weddings that we attend together ( he lives in Melbourne) we ultimately do sessions of the bump, for those of you that don't understand what the bump is - its a dance that one does by bumping your hips, bottoms, knees with your dance partner and strange while it may sound is damn good fun! And yes I was in my fine Indian saree while I did this!  The last cousins wedding dinner we had in Singapore a few years ago, saw this very same Uncle start the men off on stage doing a striptease.  Of course they didn't follow through to the end!
I still love to dance, I have my selection of music at home where when I do the mopping and sweeping (before I got the part time maid) I would have the music blasting and end up dancing with the mop or broom!  The last time the office girls and me went dancing was quite a few months ago and it was a blast!  My knees did protest the next day but I loved being back on the dance floor with sweaty bodies, flashing lights and loud thumping music!
Its been a while though that I danced with abandon at home or anywhere, I havent felt happy or wanted to just let myself be free enough to let the music take me to that special place.

Its time though to be happy again and dance till my knees shout,  enough!!

Tuesday 3 July 2012

sensible shoes

Like every woman I love shoes.  I like looking at shoes, I like trying on shoes, I like buying shoes.  But I dont buy really high heels.  I cant walk in really high heels and at my age you realise that high heels actually give you a back ache.  I much prefer flats, or sneakers or sandals or boots,  all with sensible heels and cushioning inside to give you maximum comfort.  A proper cushion in your shoe will help your feet and back.  Good God how bloody boring!  But its a reality.  As you get older one tends to sway towards sensible shoes looking for comfort rather than style.
One of my favourite comedians Robin Williams likes to label women in sensible shoes, as lesbians.  I really dont care what Robin Williams thinks but my back, feet and ankles thank me for my sensible shoes!
Recently I found a brand of shoes that made stylish, low heeled and comfortable shoes!  I have an electric pink pair and an orange pair.   I love those shoes!  I have a brown pair of sensible daily wear shoes that have developed a hole on top where my toe is but I am still clinging to them for dear life.  they are comfort personified!
I also love boots but in this humid and hot weather I dont wear them that often.  Its an attitude, wearing boots.  I swagger when I wear them and feel pretty confident that I can handle just about anything.  I think that each pair of shoes gives you a different attitude and persona.  In my pink shoes I feel flirty and cute.  In my black sensible heels ( all of two inches) I feel corporate and usually wear those when I have to feel sensible and mature. I also have the dainty slip on high heels and I feel ladylike and sweet in those.
Each outfit is completed with the right pair of shoes. I know that some men do own more than one pair of shoes and they are not gay men either, so its not just a woman's thing to own alot of shoes.  My son as well has quite a few pairs of shoes and yes each one is suited to a different occasion.  I used to have one pair of shoes, yes thats right, just one pair.  I couldnt afford more than one pair for work and one pair of sandals for the weekend.  Now I have a collection of shoes.  Some I have only worn once or twice and some that I wear often.
My love for shoes wont diminish I am sure as young or old, we can make a statement with our shoes.

Monday 2 July 2012

a little part of chinatown

So I went to this little tapas bar called Esquina on a sort of date.
This was a dinner date with Man friend 1 (for those that have not followed my posts, Man friend 1 is a friend who happens to be a man and we just have dinner together when he flies into Singapore either for a conference or in transit.  He did ask me a few months back where this was going and I did tell him, just friends)  anyway
He wanted to take me someplace nice for my birthday (which is only in September but he wasnt sure if he would be coming this way again so...)  and as he always lets me choose the restaurant, I chose this tapas bar.
I love this area of Singapore, I used to work one street down way back in 2002, and it has its own colourful history.  When I worked in the area,  my colleagues and I never used to carry umbrellas even if it was raining,  as women carrying umbrellas in this area were "working girls".  The small narrow nondescript doorways with red letter boxes were the place where old men would lurk about waiting their turn.
Man Friend 1 was late that day so I hung about waiting for him outside,  as the bar was full and there werent any seats available.

I havent had a chance to go back to the tapas bar, but soon, I will.   I love the area, and I love old buildings with spiral staircases, the food is to die for and the music, what can I say, they play old style blues and that night they also played Jimi Hendrix.

This place has everything going for it, with the ambience and atmosphere of the area, and of course the added bonus of the great food!

the confused indian or as some say...the anglophile

Definition of the word from the free dictionary online "a person with a fondness for England and things English"

In some ways I think I am one.  The English movies, books, music heavily influenced my younger days as opposed to everything american (would that be an Americanophile?)
My mother was brought up with rules from her grandfather who was an absolute Anglophile, was an interpreter in the British courts in Singapore from 1913.  He was recruited from India where the British were still colonial masters, to come to South East Asia to work.  He was,  when he first came to Singapore, in the police force.  He later moved up into the courts as a clerk and then as an interpreter. My grandfather followed his father into the same profession.

Mum tells stories about her growing up years in Singapore before the war, when her grandfather would come home from the office and expect everyone to be washed, dressed and sit down and have evening tea together.  A very British way of doing things.  After the war Mum was sent to India as there they had farms and the food was fresh and still more than what was available in Singapore.  What her grandfather didnt know was that the war of Partition would soon take place in India as well.  But thats another story!

 My maternal grandfather who was an avid reader, read Geroge Elliot and Oscar Wilde and in school we did do alot of Shakespeare and Jane Austen.  I remember reading all the Enid Blytons books when I was growing up, as well as going through my Grandfathers collection of books.  At home  we were not allowed to speak singlish and my parents and my grandfather as well, were particular about our pronunciation, enunciation and grammar.

So yes my siblings and I did grow up somewhat favouring the english culture and to this day I do prefer English comedies and music to the American genres.  My sons also say I tend to have a very British accent when I am extremely mad and are telling them off!
I have never felt totally Asian or Indian, (see earlier post http://what-adrag-itis.blogspot.sg/2012/01/belonging.html ) we were confused Indians, not quite the same as everyone else here but not English at all either. Cosmopolitan before it became fashionable. Anglophiles!!