Issuu

Written by 傑森龍 GS Jackson Taken from soulparking.com/blogs/2010/03/1

“What’s For You, Won’t Pass You.” Said Irish (Hong Kong) I SMS’d Isra before showing up at Cicada to drop Daisy’s stuff there. First to warn her that I was coming and also to see if Daisy was already there with her new date. Isra replied back, “So you and Daisy aren’t together anymore? I am confused.” “She has a new boyfriend.” I texted back. “Wow, she is just like you! How does that feel to meet your woman equal?” Isra responded back. “Look, is she there?” I asked directly. “No.” “I am coming now,” and like that I had Daisy’s stuff in my hand and I was out my door. When I got to Cicada, I was too late. I saw Daisy at the table near the front entrance with her new guy. She was talking to Isra and they were laughing about something on the menu. I pushed through without making eye contact. When I got to the back one of the other waitresses said hello to me because I frequented Cicada often. “Isra told me I could leave this here,” I said with a smile. The waitress smiled. “Sure. But you know she is up front.” “I know. But she was busy. I will just leave it back here.” I said quickly. “No problem. I will tell her.” And quickly, I turned around and headed toward the door. Isra started making her way towards me. She put on a genuine smile. I hugged her and kissed both cheeks. She looked at me. “You okay?” “Yeah,” I shrugged. “Of course why wouldn’t I be?” Isra motioned with her eyes to the front of the restaurant. “Daisy is here. She is here with her new boyfriend.” “I saw that.” I became a little impatient. “Hey, I left Daisy’s stuff in the back.” Isra nodded. “Okay.”

And just like that I almost tore off into a run. And I was nearly down the stairs away from the front of the restaurant until I heard Daisy’s voice, “Hey Jackson! Jackson… I want to introduce you to…” And I kept going and I let the words pass. -While perusing Time Out Magazine Hong Kong and reading the latest Angie Wong, I read about an event Time Out Magazine was sponsoring called “Date Our Friends”. Basically it was a group of single friends to the people who worked at Time Out Magazine Hong Kong or either interned there, and Time Out Magazine wanted the readers to find the single friend that they liked the miniature, web-sized picture of and send in 150 words why they would be a perfect date to them. I was bored. I was in-between. So I saw one of the single friends was a kindergarten teacher and she was cute. I still remember my kindergarten teacher and to this day I still have a crush on her. And I thought maybe this was my chance to go back in time and make a connection. Not really love. I already had that and let that slide through my fingers. I didn’t want sex. That was too easy in Lan Kwai Fong. But I guess I just wanted to meet a stranger and communicate about what it meant to be roaming the earth without a partner. Or maybe laugh about why is it so important? What is love? Or we could ridicule that “following your heart” is good for screenplays but not good for real life. “Following your heart” often led you to dark alleys and dead ends. So I submitted 150 words. And I emailed Angie Wong that I did it. She emailed me back just as quickly, “Good for you.” -I looked across the comedy audience and saw the couples smiling at each other and one or two holding hands. I started into my usual, repeatable bit, “Dating in Hong Kong is scary. To find a woman who is beautiful, funny, engaging, ambitious, intelligent, and…” And I waited for a beat. “Not a transvite is scary. Right? Because if a woman looks perfect she is usually a man.” And the audience broke into chuckles.

I saw one couple near the back – right where the glare of the spotlights above me made the comedy club turn black – the Nepalese woman turned to her Australian boyfriend and grinned. He grinned back and leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “Right ladies? Because if a man is perfect he usually likes men. It’s just a vicious, vicious circle…” And the crowd joined together to laugh. And there I was. I stood on the stage under the glaring stage lights with the microphone in my hand. Suddenly it became clear. This was my future. Making people laugh through my mistakes Forever saying the words that I really didn’t listen to myself but saying the words that others needed to hear, connecting others to others. But I stood on the stage – I stood alone. “I thought about being gay,” I started again on my next bit. “But I am too lazy to be gay. You have to iron your clothes.” I looked around and caught those smiling. “You have to work out.” And waited for my last jab, “And control your sphincter. That’s just too much work for me.” I let the futility pass. -After the show, I joined the comedians for our free complimentary drinks at Fat Angelo’s. Some of the audience had wandered in with us. I stood by the bar with my hand raised for two minutes or so – with no response. Then suddenly, ““Great show.” A woman’s voice said beside me. I turned it and it was the Nepalese woman who had been in the audience with her Australian boyfriend. I smiled sideways and said, “Thanks, I really appreciate that. You were pretty lively yourself!” Her boyfriend was on the other side of me, “Yeah, I think we upset one of your comedian friends when we were talking.” “Well, he has a bad pet peeve about audience members talking – it throws him off. Don’t worry. He’s not mad.” I said and finally the bartender came up to me and asked what I was drinking. “White wine please.” The bartender nodded and walked away. “I am Ambika,” she said holding her hand for me to take. I took it and then quickly put my hands together and said, “Namaste!”

She laughed. She put her hands together. “Namaste!” I turned to her boyfriend. “The name is Julian,” and he smiled and shook my hand hard. “You know I have always wanted to do that. Get on stage and do standup comedy.” “You should do it. You only live once.” “Yeah,” and his eyes wandered off. I turned to Ambika. “So you two are married or just dating?” Ambika gave me a weird look and Julian spoke up quickly. “Neither. We are just very, very close friends. I mean we used to date – years ago – but now we are just good friends.” I raised my eyebrows. “Really? Wow. You two really are just friends?” Ambika nodded. “Yes. Very close friends – that’s all.” Then Julian looked at Ambika and asked, “You want a Chardonnay, right?” She nodded again. “Where are you from in Nepal?” I asked. “Pokhara.” She answered. “Do you know where that is?” “I never have been but heard it was beautiful. I just got back a couple of weeks ago from Kathmandu.” Ambika raised her eyebrows. “Really? What were you doing there?” My eyes went blank. “I would rather not talk about it.” “Oh that good, huh?” she said smiling. “No, it was a beautiful trip but just not ready to talk about it yet.” And then my white wine arrived. Julian used my bartender to order their drinks. And then he added, “Yeah, I loved Kathmandu – Nepal in general. Beautiful country.” “So you went with her?” I asked. “Yeah, we went together.” He said quietly.

“Did you go often?” “He only went once,” Ambika said once. Then the two of them went quiet. “Wow, I must have stirred something up.” Julian fidgeted. “Well, I…” Ambika answered for him, “He was supposed to propose to me. But he never asked.” Julian waved his hand across the bar to push off the conversation. “Look, let’s talk about something else.” Ambika said sarcastically, “He was already married with kids, so he couldn’t.” Just then when the two of them got the quietest, their drinks arrived. I grabbed my wine glass and lifted it up in a toast, “This is for you – brave enough to be best friends after all that.” Ambika clinked her glass against mine. “Yes this is for us – best friends and new friends.” Julian tapped our glasses and drank first. -Late Friday night after being alone and drinking I did my customary drunken Facebook friend adds. That’s where I fish through all my friends’ friends and add all their hot friends who say they are single or their relationship says ‘It’s complicated’. That’s when I happened upon Natalia’s profile picture. She said she was from Mexico City. She was gorgeous. And she was vain just like me. She took a lot of self-portraits holding the camera straight in front of her. I looked at her other pictures and saw she was mutual friends with two of my closest friends from both South Africa and Manila. So I sent her a message, “Hey! I noticed we have the same mutual friends. I love your profile.” And with Red Bull and Vodka still buzzing in my head I typed out, “Hook a brother up!” I then hit Add as a Friend and Okay. Then I drunkenly tossed myself into bed.

I woke up around lunch Saturday. After peeing out the same fluid that smelled and looked just like the Red Bull I had consumed the night before, I went to check my Facebook and saw there was a message back from Natalia. “Funny, I have been wanting to add you for months. I have been reading your SoulParking blogs. I would love to hook a brother up!” she said. I replied back and gave her my real email address and told her to message me sometime. Almost instantly she replied back asking if I had Skype and gave me her account name. Without answering, I double clicked on Skype on my MacBook and added her. And there we were my Saturday noon and she sitting in my yesterday, Friday night in Dallas, Texas, her drunk and alone, we began to chat and suddenly we were talking over microphone. And I let a stranger know everything. I had nothing to hide because we were on the other side of the earth from each other. After we had been chatting for nearly five hours straight which I had not done since the late 1990s, I typed out, “I think my problem with my relationships is - I think I need to forgive my biological parents.” She waited for a second before typing anything. But then the pencil icon showed and it began to scribble. Then the text came, “El odio q tiene una persona por dentro quema y destruye el Corazon de esa persona antes de poder liberar ese odio a los demas.” I was just about to go to Google.com/translate when Natalia translated for me: “Hate burns more in the jar it is contained in than the one it is thrown into.” “So you agree?” I asked. It took her awhile to answer. But then finally she said, “Yes, and I just fell asleep on my keyboard. I think I need some sleep.” And I agreed and that was the end of our first conversation. But she and I agreed that suddenly the world had become a little brighter. The next morning, Sunday checking for messages from Natalia’s I saw an email that I thought at first was spam. It was sent from a woman named Beth. And it said simply, “Jackson, I have picked you for a date for the Time Out Magazine Hong Kong ‘Date Our Friends’ contest. I am available next Tuesday if you are. And I hope you are good at ice skating! We won two

free tickets to “The Rink” ice skating at Elements in Kowloon. Let me know if next Tuesday is good for you.” -I got a message from Isra to meet her for a glass of wine at Cicada. I had nothing to do so I agreed. I hadn’t seen her in a couple of weeks. She was all smiles when she saw me and already had her customary red wine in her hand. She was out of her restaurant uniform and led me to a table near to the bar. One of her waitress friends took my white wine order and poured my new favorite, Aspen. “So how are you doing?” she asked. “I feel cursed,” I said. “But don’t get me wrong. I deserve this. But I know deep down I am a good guy. And I will become him one day. I just need to figure out how.” Isra took her glass and leaned it towards mine. I tapped hers back. She took a small sip as she customarily takes hours to drink a glass of red wine and then Isra said, “You have to win yourself before you can win someone else.” “But I have to figure out that I am worth winning.” “Well I think you live a life to write your blog on more than write a blog about a life you live out.” “You are wise beyond your years.” Isra smiled at me. And we sat there at the table looking at each other. “Well, I will do whatever I got to do to break this curse.” I said. That’s the moment I knew I knew my next blog on SoulParking would be my last. -I almost felt like canceling. I hadn’t been on a blind date in years. And I definitely had not been on a date organized and orchestrated by a city’s major arts and entertainment magazine like Time Out Magazine Hong Kong. It wasn’t actually a true blind date. Beth had emailed me that I had won the competition that Time Out Magazine created called, “Date Our Friends.” She asked about more details about me. I invited her to be my guest to our second show of Comedy Dim Sum. She could come anonymously.

However, on the night of the show, there was a smaller than anticipated audience. So it wasn’t hard to figure out who she was. She was easily the most attractive woman in attendance. Besides all the comedians in the Green Room came up to me asking me who she was or if I knew her. “Why?” I asked. “Jami said she was a friend of yours,” the male comedians said collectively. So after the show, I cornered her as she was coming down from the stairs from the toilet. I thanked her for coming to the show. We exchanged pleasantries but her two girlfriends who had accompanied were stamping their feet – pushing her to go. “I will see you on our date.” And Beth smiled and I saw her dimple. “Sure.” And with that she was gone. So here I was. I was on the Kowloon side of Hong Kong which I hardly ever visited. I was standing beside the glass wall that surrounded “The Rink” as they called the Ice Skating Rink in the massive mall called Elements. I was the only foreigner around – and I was early. That was also a first – I normally am always a bit fashionably late. My Blackberry buzzed. I looked down and it was Natalia on my BB Messenger. “You nervous?” she typed out. I wrote back, “You nervous?” I said alluding to her first day teaching at her customer site in Mexico City. “No.” she said back quickly. “Me either.” I replied back. Then I stood there for awhile looking around. Then I typed back and at the same time Natalia replied back, “Okay a little.” When we both saw that we typed the same thing we both typed at the same time, “LOL.” I was quick to say back, “Jinx on you!” Then I looked up as someone approached, but it was a man who worked at “The Rink”. I let out a long breath and then leaned down to type on my Blackberry. “Man, what am I doing here? I shouldn’t do this.” “Why not?” Natalia asked with her message.

“What time is it there?” I asked changing the subject. “6:27 am.” She said. “Why are you up so early?” I pushed back. “I went to the gym.” Then the BB Messenger said she was writing something. “Don’t change the subject. So why not?” “My heart is not in it.” I said. She repeated, “Why not?” “Well,” I began to type and then again felt someone walking towards me so I looked up. But again, it was not Beth. “I just wonder what the point is. I chatted to Sophia today. I helped her with her boyfriend problem. She was blaming herself. But really it was my problem. I had screwed her up. Made her afraid to give her entire heart because she was afraid of getting hurt.” I looked up and then continued typing. “I hurt her first. And I had to tell her the issue was me. Not her. And her new boyfriend cares for her deeply. He won’t let her go.” The BB Messenger said Natalia was typing something. And then finally it showed, “Everyone learns from their mistakes. You are learning yours.” “I hope so. But I am wondering what the point is. Meet another person and hurt them?” I looked around again but the escalators had no new passengers. “I am scared of myself.” I typed out. “Just don’t repeat the same mistakes.” She said. “Besides, consider yourself lucky. Out of all the men in Hong Kong who entered the contest she picked you. That’s got to mean something.” I smiled. “Yeah, I am very honored. Or just incredibly, incredibly lucky.” Natalia and I went quiet on your BB Messenger and I stood there looking awkward. Finally I said, “Okay wish me luck.” “Be careful.” Natalia responded back. “Why be careful? If she might kill me and then write about it in Time Out Magazine?” I said. The BB Messenger said she was writing something for a couple of minutes and then finally it came out, “Hahaha. Good point.”

“Okay, going quiet. Talk to you afterwards.” I said. “Have fun,” Natalia said. Then I shoved my Blackberry into my black jacket pocket. I tried to dress up but yet be casual. Instead, I just felt awkward. It was then after 8:30 at night and started wondering if I went to the wrong place. I also thought because she was a kindergarten teacher she was used to being punctual. Or maybe she was already here and inside sitting beside the skate rental counter. So I moved inside, but there were just parents and little kids. I found an empty seat that faced the entrance inside “The Rink” in order to see if someone was coming in. Then I started wondering if we should have kept it less anonymous and Beth and I should have at least exchanged mobile phone numbers. I pulled out my Blackberry nervously to look like I had something to do to check the time and see that only one minute had passed since the last time I checked. But when I looked up, Beth in a pink blouse was coming toward me. Her smile came out and there was her dimple. -Beth and I had skated around the rink like lepers trying to avoid contact with all humanity without contaminating them with our non-ice skating abilities. After three loops, we took a customary break to take the pressure of our new muscles that were developing in our legs. Then after ten minutes we would wobble up and do our three loops again. It felt just like a first date – a little nervousness, but excitement – random conversations that went everywhere. And she fit the mold of a kindergarten teacher I would have had a crush on in kindergarten – especially with the one dimple. “Why did you do this?” I asked. “You mean let myself be pimped out by a magazine?” as she bobbed on her legs as she tried to move forward. “Yes.” I said trying to keep her speed without crashing into her. “I don’t know. I just thought it would be fun I guess. Different.” She nearly slipped but caught herself against the wall. “Whoa.” And she smiled. “How about you?” “I guess I was just doing it as a fluke. I didn’t care if I won. I had already put my chips in on a relationship and came out bust – so who cared?” We skated shakily by some seven year olds pushing plastic skating Penguins that helped them steady themselves. They looked more professional than us.

“Really? What happened?” I swallowed. “I would rather not talk about it,” I said. “Okay.” And we skated in silence for a couple of seconds. “I know this is a corny question – but what do you think love is?” She laughed. ‘Remember I went to university with a major in Psychology. So I got the scientific answer for this.” “No tell me your emotional answer. The one from your heart.” “I guess its finding that right person to see the world with. A best friend.” She skated a little faster by accident and I hurried to catch up. She then asked suddenly, “How old are you by the way?” “Yeah, how old are you?” I asked back. “You are not supposed to ask a woman her age.” “Okay, well, I am old.” And that’s when I saw her face change. “Really? How old?” “Guess.” “I suck at guessing.” “Guess.” “Okay, you said old so… Thirty-six?” I was floored. “So old means thirty-six?” I laughed nervously. “Why are you thirty-six?” I nodded. She went quiet. “Yeah, you never told me your age with your 150 words.” “And how about you?” “Twenty-three.”

And suddenly, I realized where we were. I was already jaded by what I thought love was. And she was just beginning. -I sent an email to Beth after the date thanking her for a good time and saying if she wanted to she could add me on Facebook. The next day I got an email back from Beth she also had a good time but she said she didn’t know me well enough to add me on Facebook. That’s when I decided I would pass on Beth. But I guess that was after I realized she had passed on me. -I was sitting at Café O writing my skit for the March 2010 Comedy Dim Sum show. Suddenly, I felt someone touch my shoulder. I turned and there was a woman who didn’t realize she hadn’t touched me as she was gripping her way up the stairs to the second floor of the Café O. But she was turning away looking for the bathroom and I recognized her. “Irish?” I said. Irish turned surprised. “Oh my god!” and she put her hand over her mouth. “I was just about to text you downstairs!” And she leaned quickly in and hugged me. But then she added quickly, “Shit I am going to pee on myself if I don’t visit the bathroom first. Can you tell them to bring my tea up here?” “Of course,” I said. A couple of minutes later she returned, and said quickly, “You know if I didn’t have to piss I wouldn’t have seen you! We would have texted each other thinking we were a million miles away.” She sat down in the chair in front of me. “It’s good to see you!” I said. “Yes, when was the last time we saw each other? Before Christmas?” “Yes I think it was just before our birthday when we devised a joint birthday party together.” She blushed a little. “Yeah, I fucked that up. I fell asleep and missed it. I was so fucking tired. I hope you were not that mad at me.”

“Never! You know because were born on the same day we get each other.” “Yeah we float into each other’s lives when we need the other one and then float out.” “True.” And I was quiet for a moment. She looked me in the eyes. “You look sad, what’s wrong?” And she reached her hands across the table and grabbed my hands squeezing. “I am okay.” She attempted to change the conversation. “So how was your trip to Nepal? I was so proud of you following your heart.” I laughed. “I hate that saying.” “Well what happened?” I was quiet. “I would rather not talk about it.” And I looked away. “What’s for you, won’t pass you.” Said Irish.