No, I Will NOT Have Sex With You, Smeagol!

I hung out with my grandmother yesterday for several hours. I had asked her to take me to an eyeglass shop she knew, so we took the bus to Namdaemun Market and strolled through the light rain, picking up various things here and there: a power strip, scissors, munchies.

The eyeglass store in fact did offer a much better price than the place I went to last weekend with Etsuko -- almost alarmingly so: last weekend I was quoted a price of 115,000 won (USD$99) for a pair of wire-framed glasses with mid-range priced lenses; yesterday I was quoted 150,000 won (USD$130) for TWO pairs of glasses (one plastic frame and one wire) with (as far as I can tell) equivalent lenses.

There's a saying in Korean which, directly translated, means someone has a "wide foot." It's used to describe someone who is well connected. My grandmother informed me later that the owner of the store was actually her cousin.

Grandma has a very wide foot.

Grandma is also 75 years old, and on Thursday I woke up to find her vigorously cycling away on the stationary bike in the corner of the living room, and that night I was most amused to find myself sitting across the table from her as she cheerfully announced, "Well, I can't seem to fall asleep tonight, so I think I'll have a drink." And then proceeded to take out the 21-year-old Ballantine's that J1's dad had bought for my dad, and pour out two fingers or so. And drain it.

What can I say? Grandma is cool. I asked her how she looks so young (really, she looks more like she's in her early 60s, and that's only because her hair is gray), and she said, "Oh, from living stress-free. Just accepting things and people for what they are."

I like my grandmother.

After we got home from the market, I loafed around for an hour or two, trying to decide whether to go to this party. I'm often reluctant to go to parties on the best of days, and yesterday it was pouring rain as Typhoon Dianmu (named after the Chinese goddess commanding thunder and lightning) moved from southern Japan toward Korea. About 200 millimeters (7.8 inches) of rain hit the southern part of the peninsula; Seoul got much less, being inland and closer to the western coast, but it still rained cats and dogs starting from the late afternoon.

The party was organized by an employee of the Spanish embassy, and I'd received the invitation through Olga, the Ukrainian woman in my taekwondo class (her boyfriend works at the Spanish embassy as well). Since most of the people were likely to be Spanish speakers, I had invited Curly, KB's old roommate, a couple days ago; Curly majored in Spanish and French in college.

After sending Curly a text message around 7:30 pm, I waffled some more, but finally decided to honor my old maxim: "Shut up and get out there." After all, as BC is wont to say, you're not going to meet anyone by sitting at home. (And if you do, you should probably run.) So without hearing a confirmation from Curly, I pulled on a skirt and tank top and headed out.

I was standing at the entrance to my building, staring glumly at the rain, when the phone rang. Curly said he'd meet me at the metro near the party, and I hung up and stepped out resignedly into the downpour.

The party was in the top floor of Hannam Tower, the tallest building in the Hannam neighborhood. With nothing more than that to go by, we spent 20 minutes floundering around in the rain before finding the place. In the lobby, I changed out of my rainboots into a pair of strappy heels, put up my hair, and we went up to the penthouse.

The elevator doors opened, and the first thing we saw were two plastic mannikin heads sitting on a side table. With a fluorescent light stuck through their foreheads.

I looked at the man who had shared the elevator up with us. We both raised our eyebrows in the international symbol for "thaaaaaaat's interesting."

Just to the left of the elevator, the doorway to the large, airy suite had been draped with two squares of hot pink fabric that read: "I HAD SEX WITH SMEAGOL."

Thaaaaaaaat's interesting.

We entered the penthouse. There was a tall box in the middle of the room, covered with paper stating "I had sex with Smeagol," with another head on it, also stuck through with a fluorescent light tube. (Later I realized that the box was in fact the refridgerator.) On the far wall, two full mannikins were pierced with light tubes through their breasts and rear, respectively. And on the wall behind us, a red neon sign declared that it too had had sex with Smeagol.

For the first several minutes, Curly and I stood around drinking our sangria, the way that you do when you don't know anyone else at a party except the person you came with. I caught the eye of a guy sitting and smoking, and introduced myself and Curly, offering conversation starters such as, "Oh, you're from Boston? I'm going to be living there this fall!" and "You're interested in living in L.A.? I grew up there!" and "You arrived in Korea in late 2002 and you have family here? How funny, so did I?" Now I admit, these aren't the most scintillating comments, but they are perfectly servicable beginnings to party chatter. There are times, however, when you come up against a perfect lump of a log who doesn't understand the social contract. (Later, with a couple of shots in him, this same guy was much friendlier. But really.)

Curly and I split up at some point, and I made my way through some people, starting with the man who had been in the elevator with us. He turned out to be a Brazilian chef. He introduced me to his wife, who is a professor of Portuguese at a university here. She then introduced me to one of the other two Americans at the party, who happened to be sitting by a gay German embassy guy. And then Olga (the Ukrainian woman who invited me) showed up and introduced me to the host of the party, one bald artist/diplomatic attache named Cesar, who wore a black tank top imprinted with the message that -- yes, that's right! -- he had had sex with Smeagol.

Curly, in the meantime, had been sharing shots with Lump On A Log, and by the time we met up again, he was on his way to being happy. As you probably know, when some people get happy, they tend to get touchy-feely. It wasn't entirely unpleasant to have an arm around my waist or shoulders, but I started worrying about his expectations.

Around 11:30 or so, my feet were screaming at me "Why the three inch heels, hk? Why why why?" and so I sat down in a corner and watched the crowd. Because of the rain, there were only about 50 people or so in a room meant for 100 (or 150, since we're in Korea), but there were plenty of characters to watch: a sullen-looking Korean woman in all black, sitting alone and chain-smoking; a European-looking woman in a red jumpsuit with slits up the sides of the pant legs up to her knees, who was dancing with a couple of her friends; a tall black Brazilian gay man dancing sexily. And the room alight with Europeans, Koreans, Latin Americans, and Americans speaking in Spanish, Portuguese, English, Korean.

As I was watching the fray, the Brazilian chef came up to me and took my hand. He leaned toward me and said, "You arrrre verrrry beautiful! A beauuuutiful girl! Do you have a boyfriend?"

Thinking, "what IS IT with this week?" I smiled politely and said no.

He looked at me with drunken eyes. (At least, I hope he was drunk, and you'll see why in a sec.) "This is impoooossible! You arrrre verrry beautiful!"

I shrugged and smiled, and he, smiling back, left to talk to someone else.

A few minutes later, he came back. "I wannnt to talk with youuuu, but my Engliiiish -- it is not so good."

I indicated that his English was a hell of a lot better than my Spanish, which I demonstrated by saying "Hola." "Donde esta el bano?" "Yo tengo hambre." (Hello. Where is the bathroom? I am hungry.) (Which is not, now that I see in in print, the most fortuitous of phrase combinations.)

A bit out of the blue, he asked me for my phone number, which I gave, and gave me his. And then: "You will call meee, yes? Caaaaall me."

Um, sure, I said.

He leaned in conspiratorally. "My wife," he said, "she is going oooouut of town next month. Caaaaall me then, yes?"

Utterly dumbstruck, I stared.

He smiled and winked. "Caaaaaall me, okay?"

I managed a half smile before he left to talk to someone else.

I sat stock still for a minute before doubling over with laughter. Then I sought out Olga and, out near the elevators, told her that a Brazilian man had just asked me to have an affair with him. She doubled up in laughter too, and said, "Those Brazilian men, they're dangerous! That's why you shouldn't get married to one."

"Don't worry," I said, as we flung the pink squares of Sex With Smeagol aside and strode back into the suite, "I don't think there's any danger of that."

After that little interlude, I started chatting with the other taekwondo student Olga had invited, the English-born Alan, and finally met his bubbly and generous dancer girlfriend. Curly joined us, and while we were talking, a short Korean man whom I'd met earlier in the evening, took my arm and pulled me away from the group.

"Mumble mumble mumble." (At least, that's what I heard.)

Sorry about my lack of Korean ability, I apologized and said I didn't understand what he was saying.

"Mumble mumble why are you with those foreign men? I don't like that."

For the second time that evening, I stood stock-still. Then, realizing that he was still holding my wrist and that he had no fucking right to be, I wrenched my arm out of his grasp, smiled icily, and said, "I understand." Maintaining the smile, I bowed slightly, turned on my heel, and marched back to "those foreign men."

I told Alan, his girlfriend, and Curly about that little exchange, and a few minutes later, when the Korean man came up to our group, Alan tried to divert his attention by handing him a beer. When the man tried saying something to me, Alan's girlfriend very nicely tried to deflect the tension by toasting "Cheers!" and clinking glasses. Curly came over to me and murmured, "If you need any help with this guy, just look my way." I looked at him and replied: "I can handle him."

The guy did apologize, but again, I lost what he was saying due to language barriers and the loud music, and I only got the barest gist of what he was saying. At a bit of a loss, since I didn't understand him, I looked at him and suddenly said in Korean, "Okay, I'll just forget about it, all right?", clinked his beer can, and walked away.

Yeah, I don't know either. But how would you have handled it?

There were no other unusual incidents, unless you count the half hour-long "conversation" with Julio about the difficulty of being married to a Korean woman (he's actually very sweet, but I might as well have been one of the mannikin heads), or meeting my first Korean-Brazilian (I'm gonna collect 'em! already have a Korean-Danish on the shelf). The party wound down around 1:30 or so, and Curly and I went with Alan and his girlfriend to grab a bite to eat in nearby Itaewon. Curly nearly fell asleep at the table, and barely spoke a word, so I proceeded to have a very nice conversation with Alan and his gf about living abroad. At one point, Curly, clearly looking for the bathroom, wandered outside, and Alan's gf said to me, "You should go after him -- he's your fella, isn't he?"

I clarified that point emphatically.

After a lovely meal, we were set on going to another bar, but it turned out to be closed, and seeing that it was nearly 3 am, we called it a night. There was a bit of an awkward moment when Alan's gf asked how I was getting home, and I said, "Well, at this time of night, I'll probably go to Shinchon too" (where Curly lives). I should have explained that my dad had advised against taking cabs so late at night by myself, because she got a confused look on her face and said, "But where will you be staying?" I jerked my head toward Curly. "With him."

"Oh!"

I looked at her. "Not what you think," I added. But probably to no avail.

The ride to Shinchon was much shorter and much cheaper than a cab to my house would have been. As we walked the familiar streets back to Curly's house, I was assailed all over again by memories of KB. (I know, KB again!) Saying goodbye to KB at the end of June last year when he left Korea for the summer. Slipping and sliding and smiling beatifically through the thick, heavy surprise snowfall of March to hang out with KB, Curly, Borough, and Borough's girlfriend. Walking to KB's farewell party by myself nearly four months ago, and practically hyperventilating out of nervousness. That awkward moment at the end of the farewell party when everyone else left and I (cough cough!) said that I'd be going a wee bit later. The big hug after everyone finally left.

You get the picture. It was like going back to the scene of a crime.

But! Another time, another party, another room, another bed. At this point, I still didn't know what Curly's expectations were, but those were made pretty clear when, in the dark, he put his arm over my stomach. Oh dear, I thought, and in what I hope was not an unkind voice, I said, "Go to sleep," and simultaneously shifted myself and his arm to separate positions.

I woke up early, as I always do in a strange place, and debated trying to fall asleep again for about half an hour before giving up and getting dressed. I shook Curly awake and said, "I'm leaving." He turned over onto his back, smiled, and -- oddly -- touched my face with his hand. "Okay, see you," he said in Korean.

"Yup, see ya."

While walking to the subway, I suddenly remembered the old Sinead O'Connor song, "Nothing Compares 2 U," and softly sang the few lyrics I could recall as I headed down the stairs of the station. I missed KB all the way home.
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In one of those odd coincidences that keeps me guessing about the existence of fate or God (and just how much of a jokester fate or God is), I happened to check my appointment book from last year today, and I realized that on June 22, 2003, I had woken up in the same house, in the room next to Curly's, after partying too late to catch the metro. The first time I spent the night at KB's was exactly a year ago.