*~From Durians to Floating Pies~*: Letter 483: Because I Can't Think of a Title

Dinner and drinks with friends is always enlightening, if not entertaining. There's always news to catch up on, stories to laugh at, and different angles of perspective that you can gain from the discussion of casual topics.

I remember one Saturday night at the Dublin. We were lucky enough to be seated at the corner of the balcony, overlooking the beach front where Californian palms danced to the serene songs of the sea breeze, a relatively peaceful enclave away from the ear-shattering music pouring out from the middle of the dance floor. Cascada was telling people to evacuate the dance floor, but obviously, her cries weren't heeded, as 6-foot blondes gyrated to the beat in their 5-inch platform stilettos, knowing full well that the roving eyes of all men in the vicinity were on their slinky silhouettes.

But I digress. I had forgotten about a lot of things after downing 2 Coronas, 1 Cowboy shot, and a Black Russian on an empty stomach-- such as how wonderfully delirious it is to be drunk in the company of good friends, how delectably funny it feels to have your temporal arteries pounding to the rhythm of the night, how rapturously tipsy can one be drinking alcoholic fizz on an empty stomach (even if it was just 4.9% alcohol), and how lusciously tasty can greasy lamb souvlakis be when you have a rapacious appetite after all that booze.

Yet no matter how sloshed I was, I could not forget the table theme of that night-- relationships. In drunken stupor and stupidity, I had angrily exclaimed my putrid aversion to superfluous Chinese wedding dinners, and vowed not to have one, to which, surprisingly, earned a round of plaudits and nods of understanding from the boys. Much as I was a wedding-gown kind of girl, I'm realising that perhaps I'm more of a jeans-and-t-shirt kind of girl, one who rocks up to the wedding registrar's office in leather Dior ankle boots, lashings of kohl eyeliner, faded Ktsubi denim shorts frayed at the edges (studded, of course!) and a thin white G-Star Raw cotton tee with a black-and-white image of Taylor Momsen in the centre, over the top right corner of which the words "Domestic Slave My Ass!" is scrawled an an angle of 30 degrees. When the solemnisation is over, I'd pop a few bottles of champagne on a grassy spot and dance to U2's "Beautiful Day" on the lawn. I'd pluck me those dainty daisies growing in the wild, and wear one behind my ear. Give me a bunch of red-and-white helium balloons, and I'll pirouette gaily on the green, green grass. No need for lavish bouquets, thousand-dollar wedding gowns, or horriedly unappetising catered food. $7.50 lamb slouvakis are much more palatable.

At this point, you may be wondering if my egregious confession was a result of having too much to drink, or being flippantly nonchalant about my LDR/LTR. Frankly, much as I am a perfectionist, I am also an extremist. I'm not an in-between girl. Rather, I'm an all-or-nothing girl. Yes, maybe somewhere deep in the pockets of my humanity, I still harbour a dream of a fairytale wedding, but in the real world, fairytales that are to be as perfect as I'd conjure need to be funded by a fortune, so when the real world reminds me I'm not one of those rich kids from Abu Dhabi who owns 10 gold Mercs Sports since the day they were born and have a personal driver each, instead of downscaling my dream, I'd go casual. A lot more fun, a lot less stressful, and definitely a lot cheaper.

Contrary to urban belief, doctors don't earn very much, although having said that, no doctor can be poor as church mice either. It just depends on how satisfied you are with what you have, and this applies to all walks of life. Having just come back from yet another wonderful dinner with a few mates, where conversation revolved around career and money, I realised that if we all were to win the lottery hypothetically, no one would continue working as a doctor (maybe except for one-- The Workaholic, who, after being ridiculed at by us, relented and confessed that maybe he might pursue his dream of becoming an archeologist, to which further ridiculing ensued-- such sadistic creatures we were!). JT asked what would we have done if we'd won the lottery and decided not to be doctors. I said I'd be travelling the world doing freelance photography and writing, living off my savings and its compound interests. Hell yeah!

(Surprisingly enough, come to think of it now, the possibility of a grand wedding didn't even come to mind when JT asked the question, which, IMHO, affirms my convictions that I have unconsciously re-ordered my priorities in life and put "weddings" down the bottom of my list. Ask me a few years earlier and maybe that would've been in the top 5.)

The world, as I know it, is one big swirl of illogical appartitions, made more complicated by emotive influences. There are a lot of "what if's", and many more "What-If Guys (or Girls)". What if things don't work out? What if I had never wasted my youth in the name of loyalty? What if she's not a Surgical Girl? Would you still consider going out with her? Yes, Surgical Girls happened to be a topic on the dining table a few nights back. There are many misperceptions and preconceived notions surrounding Surgical Girls, though there are always conflicting opinions around the table about this particular breed of female doctors. Maybe one day, I shall tell you about Surgical Girls, but not tonight, for I am getting ready to head out for some grub with a few friends, and to be enlightened by talks about issues gnawing at young working minds these days. Stay tuned.