Synchronicity and sex

Although I am not a fan of traditional psychotherapy - I think it's indulgent and a waste of time - I could be described as a casual student of Jung. I've read his essays on dreams, and think he understood them much better than Freud. Plus, I found his theory of synchronicity intriguing.

While nosing around belief.net today, I happened upon a similar thinker named Robert Moss. His take on the subject is that "coincidence is said to be God's way of remaining anonymous, an indication that there is an underlying reality that connects us all."

While I don't believe in luck, or fate, or predestination, I don't consider myself entirely closed-minded when it comes to spiritual matters either. For example, when I lived on Windsor Street in Paddington, I had this over the mantel:

But back to current events. The main reason I found the Robert Moss article interesting is that I was thinking about some recent coincidences. In particular, how Obscure Object of Desire* would often call me at the same second I was sending him an e-mail. This didn't happen just once; I lost count after four times.

So, if God is indeed trying to nudge us in a certain direction, what does this say about the synchronicity between myself and Obscure Object? Were we long-distance psychics? Did we simply have similar metabolisms that encouraged us to communicate at similar times? Or was it God's way of telling a member of his Methodist flock that He would look the other way just this once?

* Referred to in previous blog postings; the man Melina yearns for but cannot have.

How dim sum made me a better person

I found out more about the ACD (Associate Creative Director) position in Hong Kong today, including how my name got on the shortlist. This was driving me spare as I haven't applied for any overseas jobs for a good 10 years, and couldn't think of who might have been responsible.

It turned out that a woman named Ana Lee, now a big cheese with Interpublic, put me up for the job.

Back when I worked in the then-small office of DraftFCB - there were only eight of us, and I was the only other foreigner - she was the Account Director. Previously she had been at Ogilvy and Mather in Hong Kong, where she had finally become fed up with the lack of promotion.

One could not blame Ana for being pissed off. Most of the bigger UK ad agencies sent expatriates to the Asian outposts for the wrong reasons, even though the local Chinese were just as capable and more suited for the positions. Either the expat tour came as part of the old boy network, or the expat was shipped out just to get rid of them for a while. Hence their secret acronym/nickname of FILTH - Failed In London, Trying Hongkong. Ana had been passed over at Ogilvy and Mather one too many times, so she took a pay cut and came to Draft Direct in its infancy. It was a smart move.

My boss was Ian Booth. He was the Creative Director, a talented alcoholic from Huddersfield. He taught me how to edit. But I'm digressing.

When Ian first hired me, Ana was introduced to me as the other director of the agency, so I treated her accordingly. Which means that I didn't barge into her office without knocking, or act like some snotty racist gweilo. Even with 1997 a few years away, there were still an awful lot of foreigners in Hong Kong pretending to be part of a bad Somerset Maugham story.

Also, I never turned up my nose at Cantonese food, a common faux pas among expats. Instead I'd try anything passed to me at our dim sum lunches. This helped me make face. And I figured I could always throw up later, although this never happened; I liked almost everything I tried.

During one lunch, Ana actually went as far as to chew out Ian for hating Cantonese food without ever sampling it. I still remember her pointing at me and ragging him, saying "Look at Melina, she'll eat anything. She doesn't sit there with a crappy plate of rice like you do. You ought to be more like her."

But the Ana Lee Seal of Approval didn't come until about a month later.

Ian came into my office one day looking cheerful. This was odd, as it was before lunch and he wouldn't have had a chance to wander down to the China Hand and down a few gin and tonics.

He said "Hey, I have good news. Ana likes you."

I was puzzled. "How do you know?" Most Asians would never be up-front with that sort of information.

"She doesn't call you That Fucking Woman, like she did the three other writers I hired before you. She calls you by your name."

So there you have it. If you're polite to the right people, you'll never be described as That Fucking Woman. At least by one person. And it might improve your karma down the line as well.

A strange Monday

Today's been weird, but not in a bad way.

It started out with a bit of luck. Since the weather was perfect for convertibles, I took the BMW to work. One thing I tend to do without noticing is to drive faster when XM Radio plays songs I like. This morning it was on a roll. The upshot is that an Irving cop pulled me over for going 81 in a 60 mph zone ... and he didn't give me a ticket.

I didn't try to get out of it as I didn't see the point. Instead, I told the truth and he found it funny. I can only assume that the cop is another Beck fan.

Work was ordinary, except that I have a Cole Porter song permanently stuck in my head. A friend of mine sent me a video clip of Elvis Costello singing "Let's Misbehave". I wish he hadn't.

I'm also surviving what I thought was a drastic diet with remarkably few problems. A few days ago, I decided that the only way to shift the rest of my unwanted weight was to get serious. So I cut out all sugars and starches. Since I rarely eat meat, this has left me with a limited menu consisting almost entirely of salads with minimal dressing, fruit, and nuts.

The weird thing is that I don't feel remotely hungry, and I haven't begun having hallucinations of Kit-Kat bars or M&Ms dancing across my desk. And I even managed tonight's kung fu class without any problems. I was half-expecting to have to be carried out on a stretcher.

The last weird thing is that when I got home, I eventually got online to check my e-mail, and found a job offer. Well, sort of. The e-mail was from a recruiter. But here's the kicker: it was for a job in Hong Kong.

I admit I'm sort of tempted.

Dazed and confused

Recently I've been lying in my chaste French Provincial bed at night, staring at the ceiling, wondering how my best-laid (pardon the pun) plans to locate a man went awry.

As mentioned before here, I recently decided to bring my nearly two years of celibacy to an end. Suddenly I missed male companionship. Since I was still technically married, and would rather be burnt alive than to embark upon another Serious Relationship, I decided to shop the married male population of North Texas via the Internet. Certainly there was one man out there who fit my criteria, and one would be sufficient. But my strategy kinda sorta backfired. Well, yes and no.

After the initial shock of my cyber-popularity at Adultery Central - my nickname for one of those Married But Looking sites - I attempted to narrow down the field. This resulted in some wounded egos, which puzzled me. Any of them could have said "no thanks" to me and I'd have kept my head out of the oven. I am not to everyone's taste. In addition to being ordinary-looking, I can be a smartass at times. (That is, when I'm not sitting in silence; I'm bad at small talk.)

So who have I ended up with? Someone who, for all his charm and intelligence (we're talking Master's degree in physics), isn't married. Yes, Delightful Date. Hence, my reluctance to take things past a certain point with him. In other words, if I sleep with him, the paradigm is most certainly going to shift. He isn't shopping any more.

However, that's just half the story. It gets worse. I can't seem to outrun, hide from, or otherwise extinguish my passion for my Obscure Object of Desire (the witty, tall married man who decided to behave).

If I'd known how our single meeting was going to affect me, I'd like to think I'd have canceled. But if truth be told ... nah. My only real regrets are my decisions to play it safe. I make no apologies for damning the torpedoes*.

I still remember the moment I first saw Obscure Object in person. I began tripping over my own feet. I forgot to take my shoes off per Japanese restaurant protocol. I kept trying to take my eyes off him, but I couldn't. I must have looked so foolish. When he took my wrist halfway through lunch, it literally ached with pleasure; something that has never happened to me before, ever. And even now, I have to mentally censor how his single kiss affected me. It's too distracting. I'd never get any work or shaolin practice done if I didn't.

At the end of the day - or night, as it may be - one particular irony keeps thumbing its nose at me:

Melina's initial reason for seeking a married man is because she thought it would be a good way to keep her life simple.

* On August 5, 1864, Union naval commander David Farragut won the Battle of Mobile Bay. Mobile was then the Confederacy's last major port open on the Gulf of Mexico. The bay was heavily mined (tethered naval mines were known as torpedoes at the time). Farragut ordered his fleet to charge the bay. When the monitor USS Tecumseh struck a mine and sank, the others began to pull back.

Farragut could see the ships pulling back from his high perch, lashed to the rigging of his flagship the USS Hartford. "What's the trouble?" was shouted through a trumpet from the flagship to the USS Brooklyn. "Torpedoes!" was shouted back in reply. "Damn the torpedoes!" said Farragut, "Four bells. Captain Drayton, go ahead! Jouett, full speed!" The bulk of the fleet succeeded in entering the bay. Farragut then triumphed over the opposition of heavy batteries in Fort Morgan and Fort Gaines to defeat the squadron of Admiral Franklin Buchanan.

(Oh, all RIGHT. Farragut was a damned Yankee. Nobody's perfect.)

Unexpected but not unwelcome

Today my phone rang about 4.30pm. I was thinking crap, not my mortgage company again (I'd spent most of the afternoon quarreling with various representatives).

Then I realized it was the Obscure Object of Desire's number on the caller ID.

He was kindly checking in with me. Although the conversation remained above-board and only lasted a few minutes, I was squirming in my overpriced office chair almost the entire time. I just hope I didn't sound as paralytically consumed with lust as I was feeling.

(Is paralytically a word? It doesn't look right.)