My sister — for better or worse

My sister is coming to Thailand. She has a work contract that will last for two weeks, and after it is completed she will stay for a couple weeks of holiday.  She doesn’t know yet where she will be working in Thailand… it could be in Bangkok or it could be upcountry somewhere.  But one way or another I will see her soon.

I’m pretty excited; I like my sister very much.  We’re good friends.

She’s about ten years older than me — 58 to be exact.  I haven’t seen her for three years, but the last time I did see her we went out shopping together in the afternoon and listening to some live music in the evening.  Even at age 55 she could turn heads walking down the street.  She’s the oldest in the family, and we’ve always suspected that she has a different father than us younger ones.  Whoever he was, he must have been a good lookin’ fella ’cause my big sister has always been beautiful.

She tells me now that she is starting to show her age.  She’s just about the same size as when she was at University, but maybe her hips have spread a bit.  She says, though, that the skin is starting to tell the tale.  Deeper crows feet at the eyes, dry skin on the neck that doesn’t look as supple as before.  I’m not sure how old she looks now, but I’m betting it’s closer to an attractive 48 than an aging 58.

So now I’m trying to figure out what to show her in Thailand when she comes.  She’s been to Bangkok twice before, but she would have been running around to Wat Prakaew and eating dinner at the JW Marriott back then.

She wouldn’t have seen MY Bangkok.

See, Sis is an upper middle class DINK.  She has been caricatured on hundreds of Hollywood comedies and TV sitcoms.  She would have been a Hillary supporter who embraced Obama when it became clear that he was ‘da man.

Basically she’s Mary Tyler Moore.

Sis is very thin, with perfectly groomed hair, expensive clothes, liberal (left wing) politics, a nasal Northern accent and a sense of humor that probably stops just about where mine begins.  If she wasn’t my sister I’d probably hate her (and she me), but somehow our shared history has made us close.

When she’s here in Bangkok I’m wondering if I can put her in a small 500-baht per night room or if she needs a more “normal” western hotel room.

I’m wondering if she can handle eating grilled pork on a stick from the side of the road, or somtam from the street vendor in front of my building.

I’m trying to gauge whether she can handle walking around Bangkok in the heat and rain or whether we need to spend a lot of time in taxis.

And, of course, I’m trying to figure out just how much exposure she should get to Soi Cowboy, Nana and Patpong, if any.

I remember when I was in my late 20’s and my company sent me on a business trip to the Netherlands, and I planned to add a 4-day holiday on the end of the trip.  I told my sister about it and asked her if she had any recommendations of things that were a MUST SEE.

I was dead shocked when she told me that I should make it a point to visit the red light district.

Of course, when she said ‘visit’ she meant ’see’ as a tourist, not as a customer.

But it was an indication that her view of the world wasn’t completely suburban-professional-Mary-Tyler-Moore… at least she had some sense of playfulness.

And I can’t imagine that she is blind to why I moved to Bangkok after a difficult divorce and a heart-rending breakup  with my live-in girlfriend.  She may be upper middle class suburban, but she’s not completely oblivious.

So, I think what I’m gonna do is offer to show her the P4P areas.  If she says she’s interested (and I think she will) then I’ll put them on the itinerary.  If she doesn’t then I won’t.

The one place she has been absolutely unambiguous about is Chiang Mai.  She’s never been there and she wants to go.  I told her I’ll take her.

I got an SMS from my favorite go go dancer today asking me to call her in Europe.  My sister has chatted with my favorite go go dancer on the phone a few times and knows her by name.  I think they would like each other very much if they had a chance to meet.

When I called my favorite go go dancer back today the background was noisy because she’s made some friends at her English school.  One of the friends (a Korean lady with a couple of young kids) was visiting her house when I called in response to her message; and with the kids in the house there was quite a ruckus with the kids playing and shouting.

In December and January (before she started studying at school) she sounded increasingly morbid and unhappy when I spoke to her.  Basically it was the middle of winter and she was home alone 10 hours per day five days per week.  Since beginning school three weeks ago she has sounded increasingly lively and happy since she now has some friends to go shopping with.  Good for her — maybe bad for me.

I haven’t lost my interest in her, and her increasingly frequent messages and requests for me to call her have been giving me hope that she’ll be interested in seeing me when she gets back to Thailand.

Today we were having a lively conversation when I mentioned that my sister is coming to Thailand.  My favorite go go dancer was surprised and excited. She asked the date that my sister is planning to come.  At first she thought that she wouldn’t be here to see my sis, but when I pointed out that she would arrive back in Thailand while my sister was here she was happy… it sounded like she would look forward to meeting her.

One of the places that my favorite go go dancer has never been is Chiang Mai.  We’ve discussed going there together, and before she left for Europe I promised to take her there when she returned to Bangkok.

So tonight on the phone I suggested that the three of us (me, my sister and my favorite go go dancer) could travel to Chiang Mai together.  I’m not sure what I expected as an answer, but what I got was a quick cooling of her bubbly enthusiasm, and she said “I don’t know — I don’t have a plan for when I get back.”

I guess I’d expected either a “maybe” or a “that sounds great”.

I’m guessing that she doesn’t want to commit because she thinks that her boy in Europe may come back to Thailand with her on her return.  If he does, she certainly can’t head off to Chiang Mai with me.

Anyway, I was mildly disappointed at the cool response, but not shocked or depressed.  At this point I’m just trying to be patient and see what happens on her return, without any real expectations or plans.  The only reason I brought it up tonight is that I need to make plans for my sister’s visit; otherwise I would have simply waited till my favorite go go dancer returned to see what’s going on in her brain.

In the meantime I’ve been filling time chasing the nurse.  We’ve been trading email and SMS, as well as a phone call about every other day, just like high school kids playing at dating.

She told me that she would be off work today.  I had a heavy work schedule, but I was going to be passing near her room on my way home tonight so I offered to buy her dinner.  She told me that she wanted to see a drama on Channel 5 at 8:30, so it wasn’t good timing.  She suggested an afternoon lunch tomorrow instead.

It’s sad to know that I’m taking second place to a crap Thai TV show, but that’s the reality of my situation.

Anyway, I’ll tell you something — if another three or four months roll by and the nurse hasn’t attached herself to me and my favorite go go dancer isn’t interested in a permanent arrangement with me –  then when my sister heads back to America the bar girls of Soi Cowboy, Nana and Suthisan Road better be prepared for a sexual onslaught unprecedented in the annals of Bangkok hookers, because at the moment I’m storing up unused sexual energy that will be released in an orgy of unrestrained coitus — most likely crippling dozens of go go dancers (and possibly me as well).

So, if you’re wandering around Bangkok (or possibly Chiang Mai) in the middle of the year and you see a large 50-ish bald guy with a slender and attractive but uptight woman who looks a similar age taking in the sites of the P4P areas — before you wonder why one more idiot brought his wife to Bangkok on holiday, take a moment to ponder whether it’s Werewolf and the Sister of Werewolf making the rounds.  It might well be.

And if you do see me then, know that I’ll be just days away from changing my life.  Because — for better or worse — something is gonna change.  I expect my life to be very different five months from now.

For better or worse….