It started last Monday when the xyf said I couldn’t have my son because I was taking him to places where people she doesn’t approve of hang out. I took him with me to an exercise class that lasts 45 minutes, the last three of which he slept through, because he falls asleep in the car when I pick him up as he usually doesn’t have an afternoon nap when he’s with his mom or grandmother.

Obviously I was pissed off at her implementing this new rule, yet another way she wields the only power, the only control she has over me - our son. At first she said I can fetch him after the exercise class, but by the time that had finished she decreed that I had “thrown my toys outside of the cot” and in the process forfeited my right to see my son.

On Wednesday I was supposed to have him next, but she ignored my attempts to contact her. At first I went to her work place, but they (she and her boss slash boyfriend) were nowhere to be found. I went to her security complex and hung outside the gate trying to phone her. The security guards know me, because I sat there before also when waiting for her to release my son to me (which also never happened). I knew I shouldn’t go in as she would explode and take it out on the poor security guards instead of me, but she wasn’t taking my calls, I was annoyed, so I talked my way inside. We tried to phone her, they escorted me to the apartment, covering their asses. We knocked on the door, I rang her phone a few times (heard it ringing outside the door), and then she must have unplugged it. I left after about 3 minutes. She ignored my attempts to contact her for the rest of the night.

In the meantime I was arranging a party for TLG at McD’s an had already given out a a fair few invitations - I dreaded, more for her than for me, having to explain why I had to cancel - most of the people I invited knew her at some point, and I really didn’t want to involve them in my drama. I decided to not make a decision until Friday afternoon before I do cancel it. On Friday morning I text her saying I would like to take him out for his birthday on Saturday. Later in the afternoon she relented by saying I could fetch him the next morning.

Saturday morning I was up early. I was still going to work and would put him in the Kids Club until I finished at 1. The thought crossed my mind that if I showed up in my work clothes, she would possibly question me and likely try to prevent me from taking TLG. As if honesty with her has not been to my detriment enough in the past already, I again decided not to be deceitful, and went in my work clothes anyway.

As she saw me arrive in my work clothes, her face soured. TLG was happy to see me and bounced over and hugged me. As he scurried about gathering what he needed to bring with, she hissed at me “Are you working?”. I confirmed that I was, and that I would put him in the Kids Club for a few hours. “So why don’t you fetch him after work?” she said again with that tone of voice she has when she feels powerless and wants to get the power back. “Because I’m afraid you’ll change your mind later and not let me have him.”

The exact order of the conversation is not so clear to me anymore, but she said “Fine, then I’ll pick him up at 6pm” and I said “no, you can still pick him up at 7pm”. We had agreed on that the night before. Then she said something about it being good for her that I put him in the Kids Club, as if it’s evidence that I’m a bad father. I then said she puts him in the Kids Club and leaves him with her mom whenever she has to work, and she hissed back “I work in the kids club.” I said I don’t work in a kids club, I don’t have a mother here to leave him with when I have to work, so I will do what I have to do. She reiterated again that she would fetch him at 6pm and I said “No, pick him at 7pm. In fact, why isn’t he staying with me tonight? It’s my night with him.” That reply I can’t recall.

I put TLG in the car, and as I walked around to my door she said “you don’t even have the decency to apologise face-to-face to mom. Instead you only do so over the phone”. I brushed passed her and went to apologise to her mom. “Ask her now if she said you should never come here again”, she snarled. I replied that it doesn’t matter, we already spoke about it and it wasn’t a big deal.

Then on the spot, she insisted to her mother that she repeat what she had said when she told me to never come here again and she screamed at her mother to do so. But I tried to calm her down by saying it doesn’t matter how nicely her mother explains to me, I don’t speak the language that well and simply don’t have the vocabulary.

She tried to phone her brother, but I said I want to leave, there is no need to involve her other family in this stupid argument. She started to dial her brother, but hung up as we argued. Then she did the same for her sister, but hung up again.

As I motioned for the car, she kept on saying she’ll fetch him at 6. I said “Sure, give me a call and find out where I am then”, but she took this to mean that I would do what she does and ignore her calls. Things got heated and she kept on saying “Say 6pm! Say 6pm!” I kept on saying “phone me then to find out where I am.” She grabbed a big spray-paint can and held it up aiming at my car and said “Say 6pm or I will throw it at your car”. I said “and then, I’ll smash yours”. She replied, “go ahead, there it is”, to which I said “ya, but you won’t even notice, because your car is so fucked up already.”

Then her phone rang, it was her sister. The xyf said something to her in Chinese, before she passed me her phone and said “ask her what my mom said”. I took the phone and only said “Your sister is fucked-up”, before I hung up the phone.

With a new intense anger she insisted again to pick him up at 6pm and I again replied “phone me”, and turned towards the car. She cocked back her arm and lunged the spray can at my car. It hit the side of the car with a thud, standing in front of the car I couldn’t see where, but as it hit and I saw the face of TLG at the window obviously not knowing what’s going on, the anger welled in me. It surged up through my arm, which reached high up in the air, flung down again with a speed threatening to break the sound barrier and released the object in my hand. In a split second her phone had hit the tiled drive-way and disintegrated into an uncountable number of broken plastic and electronic debris.

I looked up at her and for a split second there was shock on her face, which quickly evaporated as anger boiled on her face. She turned around and ran to the far end of the balcony where lots of rubbish and heavy objects were waiting to be thrown at my car. I went after her and said “Our son is in my car”. Her mother was going off at her, presumably begging her to calm down and not throw anything else. She whipped around and I grabbed her arms and sat her down on the couch to try and appease her. “Don’t touch me!” she screamed and jumped at me from the couch. She tried to hit me, but I blocked with my arm and she hit my bony forearm. She turned around again and grabbed a heavy, spray unit, the head of gadget used with a compressor to spray cars.

I blocked her way and calmly said “our son is in the car”. She stopped and heaved heavily, the object in her hand above her head, her mother was saying something behind her. Backing away I said, “I’m leaving, do not throw that thing at the car that your son is in”. With a look of hatred flushed over her face, she kept on breathing ready to throw the thing. I turned around and walked away, hoping she wouldn’t throw it. She suddenly said “I want to hug him” and at first I locked the car, but he opened it, so I stood there making sure she didn’t try to remove him. She back off, I closed the door and we drove away.

He seemed ok, but I knew what he just witnessed was no good for him. It was arguments like these that I never wanted him to see, which made me walk out on his mother in the first place. I felt really shit for him, but put on a brave face to try and play it down. We spoke about what we were going to do, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to go to work first, because I didn’t want to leave him alone now and second, because I was afraid his mother would come and take him from the kids club.

We drove for a while when I heard a car horn behind me and looked up to see his mother very near to my car looking like she was about to ram me. I ignored her and drove slowly to a busy area in front of a nearby department store. I parked on a busy road on purpose, she pulled up along side and slightly behind me so as to block my car.

To make a too-long-already-story short, basically, me sitting in my car, she sitting in hers, she insisted through the windows that I bought her a new phone, so I said give me the model number and I will. She couldn’t remember it and then wanted my phone to phone her boyfriend slash boss slash minion. I said “sure, come get in my car, then you can borrow it.” She’s the type who would use my phone and then throw it down to get back at me. She didn’t want to at first, but saw she had no option and came over reluctantly.

So she phoned him, her personality underwent a complete transformation into the sweet and innocent persona with which she traps suckers like me and her current boyfriend. The conversation went something like this:

her: “Hi, it’s me. My phone is broke… I lost my phone”

him (i assume): “What happened?”

her: “He threw my phone on the ground!” (soft voice, some tears for effect)

I interrupted and said loudly so he could hear “Tell him why I threw your phone!”

her: “Because I threw something at his car”

him: “Where are you now?”

her: “In his car, using his phone”

him: “Why?”

her: “Because he didn’t want me to use it outside, because he knows I will break it”

Then some other conversation transpired and she tried to establish the model of her phone, but he wasn’t sure and neither was she. She got out of the car and some more conversation followed before eventually I was allowed to go.

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Had a drink with my boss last night.

My role at work is changing a little bit. Actually, it’s not my role as such that’s changing, it’s my title. I’m the Communications Manager see, and it’s obvious to more people than just me (read everyone) that I’m no Communications Manager - I could be, but currently I’m really just not managing the communications.

I am, however, handy in several other aspects, most notably our presence, or doing something about the lack thereof, online. So they’re thinking of calling me the New Media Manager. I suggested it, and I quite like the sound of that.

Not only am I engaged in the various websites the property requires (and there are various), but I also put together the material for the in-house TV channel, the CD-ROM and now a concierge desk display thingum.

Does this make me a manager? Most certainly not, because I still don’t manage anything beyond my own work. There is this prospect on the horison though that I will be allowed to hire a new recruit to help me with all this stuff and before you know it I will have my own little New Media Department, which will be inside the Communications Department, which is already inside the Sales & Marketing department.

At least then I’ll be managing something and earn my title at least.

Anyway, so drinks last night was basically around these aspects and whether I’m happy taking on that role or not. I’m a computer geek, so obviously I am. We were at this wanna-be-trendy place Mosiac, just across the road from Upperstar (where the exact same drinks are half the price, sigh - but for appearances) I was drinking beer - come on, it was 22:30, and she was sipping tea. It wasn’t exactly a business meeting. So I hadn’t eaten anything, except a bowl of yummy-but-grossly-insufficient-in-quantity noodles at a friends house, but that was way early. So the 3 bottles of Becks got me nicely tickled.

Not one to have fun on my own (not that kind anyway) I persuaded her to follow me to Cocoon for a real drink. She obliged. We sat by the bar and opened our tab with Tequila shooters. Small shot glasses came half full and in hind-sight, I’m actually glad for this token of cheapness on their side. The lady then had Pimms and Coke and I had Bacardi and Sprite. They made up for their cheapness in the half-Tequila shooter with an exceptionally strong drink - maybe the glasses were just small.

We happened to bump into Julia who came over and said hi. She was with the group of girls who were celebrating Salome’s, what, 28th birthday? We exchanged our greetings and she went off to join her group again. I later on went over and kissed the birthday girl and said hi to the others before rejoining the Boss.

We had a second round of small half-full shooters (establishment trademark?) before a friend of my Boss came over and did what appeared to be chatting her up. Nevertheless, a generous bloke he was as he soon bought a round of shooters for both the boss and myself.

This morning I woke up with a cactus, or Algarve Plant if you want to be pedantic, growing on the inside of my skull. Tequila, I have cleverly deduced, is not my friend.

Of course, there are all sorts of emotional storms brewing my emotional self, but I got bored of going on and on about my feelings so I thought today I’d give it a break. Next week is going to be tough for reasons I’ll elaborate on later.

But now I’m going to go over and borrow Julia’s camera so Phyllis and I can take our snaps for our entry into the Amazing Race Asia. Oh yeah, I’ll write about that later too.

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