About Nude Not Naked

‘Which is worse?’ he asked. ‘To have too many suitors or to have too little?’

‘I think it’s horrible to have too many suitors,’ I replied. ‘Notice my long list of complaints?’

‘Come on. Admit it. It is much better to have too many than too little,’ he said.

‘If you insist, then yes. I guess it is better to have more choices than a lack of.’

I imagined how beautiful the view out of his window. The Petronas Twin Towers must look absolutely majestic against the slow descend of the sun as we messaged each other on the Yahoo Messenger. Mr. Easter Bunny and I were conversing on a daily basis the week before and after Easter. I was searching for some writing inspiration and he was there at the right place and the right time.



*
If you have noticed (which I am sure you do), I have been avoiding writing lately. I must be one of the most boring persons you ever read about. I write only what I am ready to share and I don’t mince my words around. And when I am not ready to share, I don’t. Hence there is hardly any action here in About Nude Not Naked. I have my regular readers but I am no Kenny Sia.

Not that my life isn’t filled with action. It is. It is very much filled with all sorts of actions but I commit those stories to my memory. I did not tell you that I am doing well and how happy I have become in the last year or so. I dare not share how my life has changed for the better and how comfortable I feel.

And how I finally feel some measure of peace in my heart.

I don’t know how everything started. I hate to think it has to do with age. To admit that I changed because of age is like to admit that I have set limits in my life. And if you know me like how MiniBoyFriend R knows me, you will know that I hate limits. I hate the word because I feel it is constricting.

So no, I don’t think I made different choices (drastic ones, I might add) in the last 18 months or so because I feel that I am getting old. I much prefer to think that I changed because I needed to move onto a new phase in life. I have always felt a need to challenge myself, to push myself further and stretch myself wider. This decision happens to be one of them.

I have never been one that is complacent. My mind is always thinking, moving and changing. My eyes are always searching and observing every minute detail of everything around me. And I always listen to conversations and always enjoyed words.



*
‘Hey sexy mama,’ the voice said.

‘That’s hot, sexy mama to you,’ I said as I continued to type into my iBook. Time to change iBook, I thought to myself as it was overheating. The Apple laptop has served me very well in the last 4 years. I am a happy bird if relationships and friendships were as reliable as my trusty Apple iBook.

‘Where have you been?’

‘Working,’ I said

‘Why working so hard?’ he asked. ‘There is a gig tonight. You must come out. You remember XYZ?’ he asked. ‘He asked me to invite you out tonight because he has not seen you since Famosa’s party’.

I gave a muffled non-commitment mumble of some sort. True to form, I did not go out that night. I watched Heroes on TV instead.

One of the first things that I changed was to reprioritize my time. I have spent too many hours with too many people that I should never have spent time with. They were not bad people. They just weren’t good.

Some of you might ask what motivated me to go out in the first place. There are many reasons and perhaps only MiniBoyFriend R understood them. The main reason however was vanity and ego. It was always lovely to go out somewhere and be admired. Who would not like that? Who wouldn't want to feel that she had just lit up the entire room by just walking into it?

All I needed to do was to spend an hour dressing up (which is a therapeutic experience in itself) and head out for the night. It does not matter which night it was. There were always people out there and there will always be people who would look at you and talk. After some years of dealing with bad 'publicity', I have relented and decided that perhaps ‘bad publicity is better than no publicity’.

Think of it like how celebrities do it. They garner attention each time they go out. The more they go out, the more attention they will receive. They do not appear on magazines and TV for staying at home, you know. Now obviously, the attention can be either positive or negative. For example, having the paparazzi taking your photos, landing you on the best or worst dressed list. But celebrities still battle the paparazzo’s daily because they want to remain in the current news.

It used to be the same case for me too. Continuously dressing up to go out is quite an expensive pastime. However doing so keeps me present in people’s conversations, even when I am not around. The attention has blessed me many privileges. For example, girls working in boutiques reserve clothes for me to try on before they display them in the shops. My hairdresser continuously works miracles by framing my best facial features.

And my bowl of noodles nearly always comes with extra goodies, courtesy of the aunties whom I fondly visit and chat with on working days.

‘Aunty asked where you went,’ PY sms-ed the other day.



*
I have gone under the radar. When once I regularly spent weekends in Lola, I now regularly do not spend weekends there. I miss it every once in a while, so I would dress up again and visit the place. Each time I would try my best to relive all those happy memories I have of the place but I somehow no longer feel the same way. It could just be the booze but I swear that something inside me has changed.

When I look into the crowd of people dancing and gyrating to the music, I no longer recognize anyone. The bar tenders are now strangers, no longer weekend friends. The bouncers however still let me skip the queue and allow me to come and go as I please. Something has changed. I no longer feel that I belong in that noisy place.

I no longer crave for the attention and find no necessity to always be on top of everyone’s conversation topics. I still dress the way that I do and I still have the attention (daytime at least) but I do not feel that I have to push myself anymore.

‘Eh, are you unwell?’ my mother asked me one Saturday night as I sat watching Discovery Channel. She placed her hand on my forehead, to feel my body temperature for sure. ‘You must be sick, if you are not out on Saturday,’ she said.

You know, there was a time when I would just pop one tablet of Panadol and head out on sick nights. Nothing comes between the clubbing scene and me. Not even rainy nights. Nowadays it almost feels okay to be at home on Saturday night, watching TV and answering phone calls.



*
So this is why I no longer have too many drunken stories to share with you. In its place, I have collected many happy and sober stories. Maybe one day, when the time is right, I will share my happiness with you.



*
‘Can we talk?’ R asked yesterday. His message popped on my Yahoo Messenger as I was designing some work related stuff. (Remember that I am the boss, the PA, the dispatch girl and occasionally even the makcik cleaner in the office).

‘Of course,’ came my reply. It must have been the shortest sentence I have written him. Some time ago, I had made a mental note to recognize and allow MBF R to express himself without me prodding him. In short, I recognize that I must change myself, to allow him to write at his pace and not crowd the conversation with my opinion.

‘I must confess to her,’ MBF R started the conversation. ‘She has said yes and I think I should say yes too. So I have to tell her about all my destructive relationships.’

‘Your reasons for doing so?’ I asked.

‘I want to tell her everything, so she is prepared. She is such a precious and innocent thing, I am afraid that I will ruin her.’

R met a girl on a holiday trip and they spent every moment together on the trip. Returning home, the immense feelings they felt for each other did not dissipate. They have gone on with their normal lives and returned to work since they came back from the holiday. It was no longer a holiday inspired fling and they still feel as strongly now in KL, working and busy, as they did while frolicking and relaxing during a holiday.

‘I must cut ties with all my destructive relationships,’ he said.

‘Like what?’ I enquired, waiting for him to mention the not so short list of lunch hour buddies, golf bunnies and genuine muses. Which he did.

It was the first time I ever hear him say that he felt that this was it. The girl gave him the feeling of security and total unconditional love. Actually what he mentioned was, ‘I am 28 years old. I feel that this is the right time. I have to do this right. It is now or never.’ Or something along that vein.

So he is going to cut ties with all the unhealthy relationships and friendships he had developed over time. I understand each and every word R said. I have been down that road before. I have straightened some friendships and severe ties with the rest.

‘But what if I can’t do it?’ he asked.

‘What do you mean you can’t?’ I asked.

‘You know, I like the beautiful girls that dressed to kill, flawless skin under heavy make up, willing to open their legs by the end of the night, drive you insane with jealousy and rage – those sort.’

‘Oh R,’ I said philosophically, ‘aren’t all men the same? They all like beautiful girls who dressed to kill, with flawless skin under heavy make up, ever willing to drop their panties by the end of the night.’ I sighed. Men would be perfect if not for the failure to control their lust factor. (I don’t want to even start talking about this topic).



*
I had a similar conversation with BestGuyFriend years ago, when he first met Nikki. So I guess I had the 'My Best Friend's Wedding' experience, though unlike Julia Roberts, I actually gave my best boy friends away. BestGuyFriend in 2006 and soon, my MiniBoyFriend.

BestGuyFriend married in December 2006 and we have remained casual friends since then. I can see that he is happy whenever I bump into Nikki and him. He is far from the person I knew years ago. He is confident and contented since he rescued Nikki during the great tsunami. I saw them last the weeks before Christmas last year and they looked perfect together.

MiniBoyFriend R and I managed to maintain a reasonable and healthy friendship. We make good friends and catch up for breakfast whenever possible. We still walk the dogs, Vodka and Gin. We still debate if Vodka has preferred inclination since he sniffs boy dog’s bottoms whenever we are out walking. But we no longer spend Sundays painting and cuddling up for movies.

I see D and his bunch of boys mostly in the restaurant that he is now in charge of. He’d call every now and then, for supper but strangely I have not felt hungry enough to dress up at 2 a.m. I think he has also grown up and moved on, although he still goes out with a string of girls, promising nothing to each and every one of them. You have to give him credit when it is due. He was fair to all.

My last memory of Adidas Boy is a happy one. We were walking around aimlessly in Mid Valley and settled for dinner in a Japanese restaurant. We went for some drinks somewhere and chatted until morning when he left for work, holding and manning a video camera and lighting. While snooping around my readers’ blogs (by backtracking to theirs) I discovered that some of you readers actually met and knew Adidas Boy. It is just that you did not realize it. The world is extremely small, don’t you think?



*
I arrived at a stage in my life when I feel that I have a firm grip of everything around me. I do not write about it because I am not ready to celebrate my happiness in public. I still grieve over Alex.

The fantastic thing about men is that they are able to move on after some time. That is nice. That is what I want for Alex. I want him to move on and be happy. Nothing saddens me more than imagining him at a house that stinks of Polish vodka. I rather be the person in the stinky Polish vodka house. I want him to be happy and excited about living. It is important to me that he feels so.

I know that he no longer wears the ring I gave him 2 years ago. I still wear the ring he gave me and I still carry the keys to my English home. It is silly, I know. It isn't like I can open any other door using those keys. But I still carry them because they feel precious. They have a lot of memories attached. One look at them whenever I open my purse and I am transported back to my English home and life. I have not seen Alex for 10 months now, so clearly it is over. It was my decision but I still need time to grief. I just need time to tell myself that it is okay and I can be happy. I do not need to feel bad that I am actually happy inside. I can be free and I can let my happiness show.

Because if I really am honest with myself, I know that I am.



*
'When I first met you and again now as we speak during the past week, I thought that I was sent here to save you,' Mr. Easter Bunny said.

He believed in karma, even when he is not a practicing Buddhist. He believed in destiny and reasons for being. For Mr. Easter Bunny, our sudden conversation spreading over days was not a mere coincident. There must have been a reason why we spoke. I have told him several times that our conversations were just that; conversations. I have no other intentions but perhaps he thought otherwise.

(I do suspect that he reads About Nude Not Naked quite regularly and we are playing a cat and mouse game. He had asked me several times if I published my writings in a blog. He had also very casually mentioned that some of my emails to him were very blog-like, which they were published on ANNN as entries. So you know that I know that you know. Now shhhhhh...)

'That is what you always write about - sins and salvation. So I always thought that I am here to save you. But I now know, it isn't you that needs saving.'

He then told me his dark secret.

'We are talking this week because I needed saving. I have burden - a secret - in my heart. It turns out that you are the friend that I needed,' he said.