not the beach & bruno

Me and my not-so-crazy ex-girlfriend left her room early this afternoon heading for lunch and the beach. I was dressed in what I perceived to be the Pattaya farang uniform: sleeveless tee shirt, flowered bathing suit and flip flops.

For her part my not-so-crazy ex-girlfriend was dressed rather sedately in a pair of shorts and tube top that were appropriate for a day at the beach.

We ordered lunch which turned out to be a rather poor effort at Khao Phat Moo Kai Dow — an oily and largely tasteless concoction that shouldn’t even be found in Thailand. The cook should have been shot.

While we were sitting there, mn-s-c e-g got a pouty look on her face and complained lightly that she would end up with “black” skin today. She mentioned that since she doesn’t live with me anymore she’s been trying to keep her skin “white”.

Her skin will never be white. If the average Thai girl’s skin tone is 50, and zero and 100 represented lily-white Chinese porcelain and brown-as-a-nut respectively then mn-s-c e-g would probably rate around 40 or 45… slightly lighter than average.

Of course, that’s as long as she stays out of the sun. An hour or two of bright sunshine can turn her about the same colour as 100 year old mahogany.

So I said we didn’t need to go to the beach.

“Then what we do?” she asked in her best bar girl English.

I suggested a movie.

She pointed out that she wasn’t dressed for the movies, and I mentioned the obvious; that we were only two blocks from her room and we could go back and change. She brightened at this idea, so that’s exactly what we did.

I was pleased to see that her inappropriate attire on her trip to see me in Sri Ratcha a few months ago was merely an abberation. She put on a pair of well-fitting jeans and a nice tee-shirt. She looked as un-hooker like as a 25 year old Thai girl with a 49 year old farang in Pattaya can look.

For my part I put on a pair of wrinkled khaki pants and a San Francisco tee-shirt with a long-sleeved Ralph Lauren Polo shirt hanging open overtop, aiming for a casual businessman at the beach look that came off more like a lost American who couldn’t afford an iron.

We went to Central Shopping Center (dunno if there’s more than one in town). We bought tickets to see Surrogates, and with an hour up our sleeves, went to get some ice cream. I didn’t realize until we were sitting in the ice cream shop that we were right next to the ocean. We sat staring out a floor to ceiling glass window that offered a beautiful view of the water and the many activities happening on or over it; jetskis, parasailing, speedboating and the like.

The movie itself was probably not as good as I’d hoped or expected. The concept was really interesting, but the plot a bit less so. While it’s okay for novels to be very intricate, my own opinion about cinema is that it is a fairly limited storytelling medium that needs to be fairly linear, and things need to be pretty clear and simple — good guys, bad guys, lots of action.

Surrogates was not really that tightly put together and — while I wouldn’t exactly describe it as “confusing” — I just didn’t think the plot moved from point to point cleanly. I would look to the Terminator movies as the positive example of how to tell a different or complex story very simply. Surrogates was less complicated, but more difficult to follow, especially in terms of the motivations of different characters.

But it was better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

Our second choice had been to see The Ugly Truth, but both the show times and my own desire to see Surrogates worked against us. If the girl still wants to stay white skinned tomorrow we may go back to see this romantic comedy that looks pretty funny in the trailers that I’ve seen.

For dinner tonight we ate at an outdoor spot with plastic stools and aluminum tables. We shared three rice dishes and a bottle of water. I handed her 120 baht to pay the bill, and she and I were both shocked when the waiter announced a total price of 220 baht. Amazingly expensive for street food.

My not-so-crazy ex-girlfriend said she wanted to stay in the room tonight and watch Thai drama on TV. That’s cool with me. By ten o’clock I should be able to start plowing her furrow again.

I noted the comment on the other blog entry from MSB offering a free drink at Babydolls. I asked my not-so-crazy ex-girlfriend if she wanted to go, but she said that since she stopped working in a bar a couple of years back she doesn’t go to Walking Street at all. She professes not to like going there, and indicates that she’s happy with her quiet home life.

Apparently her attitude towards sex with me is more loneliness between sponsor visits along with a little bit of “for old times’ sake”.

Or she’s lying.

Either way it looks like MSB will be carrying on without me tonight.

But I suppose neither of us will be carrying on alone.