When we dance

Marriage is like a dance or is it the other way around?

I have been married for 5 blissful years and counting. Although it is not as long as some people, I consider I can write some experience about it with some authority. Although I have not been tested with a third person or an apocalyptic fights, we do have our share of sleeping in silence or the occasional shouting match in the car (we live in a terrace house, so we are quite sensitive with our voice level as we can hear our neighbour quite well)

I hate dancing, although I frequented a dangdut once (long story, blog about it later). When you dance, you have to be aware and conscious of your partner's movement. You are supposed to lead, if you are a guy and the girl should be the one who follow the lead.

If you remember the movie "Shall We Dance" with Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez (which was from a Japanese movie of the same name in 1996, which I am still looking forward to see), the dance teacher explained that the man creates the frame and the woman is the picture. You show her off while the music guides you...

Again, I ask, is marriage a dance? One where the man sometimes juggle his ego and his needs. His pleasure and his pain. His demands and his wife's dreams.

I believe it is a form of a dance and I want to keep on dancing. Forever...

That is why I love Sting's When We Dance -

When we dance

Angels will run and hide their wings

I'm still in love with you

When we dance
Angels will run and hide their wings

I'm gonna love you more than life
If you'll only be my wife
I'm gonna love you night and day
I'm gonna try in every way

p/s - Here's looking at you...

Where have the REAL men go

The words of the song by Arville Lavigne gives me pause.

The song that starts with a chanting and then she starts asking question like where the girl has to keep telling the guy to open the door for her and the girl had to pay for herself the drinks they had.

Is chivalry really dead or just that it's an observation by the young singer/songwriter extraordinaire on relationship in general?

Another question, does all girls/women expect this, especially in Malaysia?

I have a few friends who ask me not to forget to hold doors for ladies coming behind after me. I did managed to impress my wife when we were dating by opening the car door for her. I rarely do it anymore.

Very rare...

Opening car door that is. The opening of doors is automatic for me nowadays.

I did try to do it to strangers but most of the time its either they were too surprised or they look embarrassed that someone is doing that for them. Basically most just smile. Then they walk away really fast. Maybe they thought I'm going to ask for their number.

To me the holding of doors is a valid complaint by a lady (girl?) like Avril but the paying for the drinks part?

Isn't that what women has been fighting for? Equal rights and all?

Salty cooking

I went to a food tasting recently for my friend's wedding reception and one of the dish of the 8-Chinese course dinner was too salty. There were 7 people at the table and everyone suddenly started telling the old grandmother's tale in olden time where young girls who cooked salty cookings were told off by their mother and were said to be impatient to be married.

Are these belief still stands in this modern times?

Asian women are always expected to know how to cook and secret recipes since long ago were known to be passed from one generation to another. But nowadays, isn't it cheaper to buy cooked food, be it fast food or full meal? As in my house there are only me and my wife, we rarely cook and if we do, it will involved a lot of other people coming to the house to finish everything up.

Back to the issue of saltiness, does it really matter that when something is salty, there must be a reason. Maybe the grandmother was trying to tell that girls shouldn't have their head up in clouds when they are cooking.

At the end of the meal, we called up the chef so that we comment on the foods served.

Out came a MAN.

The longest celebration

I think my wife still love me due to the celebration that she held for me for my 34th. Maybe these pictures are proof of her love of me. Its nice to be loved...

We stayed at a hotel in town, checked-in on 26.10.08...

...where one of the view is this...

...and had dinner at the hotel's restaurant

..after which my wife gave a card...

..and top it off with a karaoke session on 27.10.08 with some friends in town...

and then was presented with another cake at the office on 28.10.08.

Thanks dear, I need to top this next year for yours...

Who says its hard to make a man happy?

p/s - I Love You

Gifts

My wife has this dilemma when she wants to give me a gift especially on special occasions. This also applies if she is looking for gift for male colleagues. She thinks its hard to look for gifts for men.

As today is my birthday and a holiday due to Deepavali, we are currently holed up in a hotel room somewhere in the Klang Valley, ensuring that at the moment I was born, I am really in my birthday suit (let there be another girl, let there be another girl, please, please - maybe this year she got fed-up looking for gift and give in to my wildest ultimate birthday gift - read no. 7 in http://howmanthink.blogspot.com/2008/10/me-woman-she-man.html).

I have gotten great gifts from her before and I still have her first birthday gift with me as it is an everlasting watch. She went to great length looking for gifts for me, whatever she gives me this time will be as great as her herself.

Here's looking at you, dear...

Divorce

Eons ago, I was a divorce lawyer but it only lasted for 2 years. Knowing syariah does help me from straying after I got married especially when I had handled cases where kids are invloved. There were stories which can break your heart when you see it happened in front of your eyes and you need to have strong character if you want to be a good divorce lawyer.

I remember in one case where I had to grab a child from his father, who looked so angry, that his eyes were red and was shaking from trying to hold himself from throwing himself at me as a crowd gathered around us after the judge decided that the mother would be the child guardian. Thanks to the policeman and the court staff, I was spared from being beaten down by a man who was understandably upset.

In another case, I was handling a divorce matter when I had to find a spectacle shop to repair my spectacle (due to some loose screws). I went down to a mall when the court was on a break and was helped by the shop assistant to change and tighten the screws. He was so nice that I ended up talking a bit with him. When I came back to the court, the mother (I was representing the father) called her children to testify against their father. Lo and behold, in the witness stand, it was the shop assistant just now. This time, he was not so nice to me (to say the least). This was how small of a town I was practising before.

All these was long ago but I still remember them as cases like this can impact you in certain ways.

Although I haven't work as a divorce lawyer for quite some times, I still met people who has connection with the word 'divorce'. There are a few of my friend who are divorcee. Some are still single. Some already got married. Being Hari Raya and all, we got to know a few of our clients or those who work with companies which we are serving as lawyers, who seems to come alone at Raya do and when we asked them or their colleague (usually the latter), for the first time we got to know their 'status'. There was quite a few of my students and chambering students who have divorced parents.

It seems that it is a norm for divorce to happen nowadays. Divorcees are everywhere and as for their status, maybe for appearance sake, why don't they just let the word 'single' be the only explanation that they have to bear with.

Not 'divorced'.

On the phone

I was watching Entourage Season 5 Episode 7 the other night and a classic Ari Gold's line was uttered by Jeremy Piven -

"My wife is in the car and I am on speakerphone".

Have this ever happened to you?

It happened to me a few times but its on the reverse.

In my case, my wife will be on the phone and as I hate putting things be it bluetooth listening devices or wired earphone, I have been using the speakerphone for quite sometime. I sometimes have people hitching a ride with me to conferences and meetings who are sometimes are in the VIP category. I can't be talking to my wife about what are we having that night or if my wife being naughty about what we did last night or going to do that night. So, I would always tell my wife who is with me and cut the conversation short.

If there is ever a need for you to answer calls which you wouldn't normally answer if you have your better half in the car,

DON'T ANSWER IT!!!

Unless you are driving a Lexus or a BMW or a Merc or any one of the luxury car where you can connect to the car speakerphone by bluetooth. It happened to a VIP friend of mine while he was testing a BMW 5 Series in Australia and his mistress called and Datin was driving shotgun...

p/s - Ari was driving a Lexus. Turn it off Ari. That's what buttons are for...

Secrets

I posted a post before about a man getting caught of having an affair when his wife found his phone messages with his mistress (Read http://howmanthink.blogspot.com/2008/10/married-men.html). My friend, who read the post at my Facebook note, commented with a simple "OMG!". I posted on his wall asking him what the OMG! is for. He said, that Oh My God was due to him, who is still single, thinking that was nothing is sacred anymore that a wife would look through a husband's handphone.

I was smiling when I read this and wrote him back "When you are married, there is no secret".

Thinking back, just wanting to get more reaction and for discussion sake. Is my statement true? Come to think of it, isn't that is why you got married in the first place. To share everything, until death do you part.

You shouldn't have and you should share everything,

1) unless you have an affair.

2) unless you marry another (for those who can).

3) unless you give up on the marriage and got separated.

So many challenges for married couple to stay together. So many obstacles to face. But is there really any secrets that you shouldn't tell your wife? I have tried to be transparent with my wife even if it means getting into arguments or giving her some ammunitions in fights. Basically, you will never know a person unless you marry them and even then you will always find new things about someone. Especially, if suddenly someone from the past turns up.

Thanks to Facebook, which I connect myself to my wife by declaring that I am married to her, I am connecting with a lot of old friends and sometimes, I have to explain the 6th Degree of Separation between me and the person who just added me as a friend. Especially those girls who I knew through my work or my university friends or my school friends or those strangers who use FB as communication.

I still believe what I said to my friend, there is no secret when you are married, unless...

Thin

What is this obsession with being thin? "Do I look fat?" When you try to gain symphaty and "I look fat!" when you are alone are the most overuse questions everywhere in the world and have been the subject of jokes about relationship at so many occasion.

My wife and I went to a sale launch a few days back and in the middle of it there was a fashion show. The models which came out were Caucasian and was so thin that the bare back blouse (scarf?) that she wore showed her oh-so-thin figure. As the blouse clearly make us see her whole back, I could see her whole vertebrae bone as if there was no skin at all. It was not even sexy. It was gruesome even.

Of course, she was leggy and all. The clothes she wore were also fits her nicely but there was also one model who was thin but not that thin. I mean, she did have a thin figure but her bones were not showing like the other models. She does have a fuller figure and the clothes also fit her nicely.

Its not that I don't understand modelling at all. All model are supposed to be the vision of perfection of clothing lines designer as they want their clothes to look just nice on a woman's body. I also appreciate the look and the styling of modern clothing that need to be worn with confidence as they are nowadays quite sophisticated that no 'normal' women can wear them except if all they do is to look beautiful.

There were some hoopla last February when Spain banned ultra-thin models (as opposed to thin?). At least even the fashion industry is taking notice.

Why don't they just follow the way of the porn movies where most of the actress are voluptuous and full-figured, so much so that some of them are too full at places where men love to ogle even if it was clothed.

Oh, I forgot, the models were showing clothing for women...

Trust

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