Tuesday, November 28, 2006

nietzsche

Well so much for the Cleansing Program (which i've been faithfully following for more than a week. Yes - A WHOLE WEEK *pat herself on the head*) for i've been ominously infected with a pharyngitis *sad puppy face*. I am going to shamelessly milk every possible second of this as i can, sleeping 16 hours a day, watching tons of DVDs & catching up on TV time, having ABC soup and milk before i sleep (again). And whimpering about it. Massively.

I've never had a pharyngitis before. And apart from the grinding headaches, numbing limbs, dizziness, cold sweating fever and, of course, the feeling of having a baby shoved down my throat each time i swallow any hard food, it's pretty awesome! Because i can BREATHE! My sinuses - the usual first point of attack - are being utterly spared from the viral damage this time. 'Tis truly wonderful! I say welcome pharyingitis, any time, just as long as you let me breathe [and when i am convieniently set at home with my parents without any urgently productive things to shuffle through]! Yes, welcome indeed.

Sunday, November 26, 2006

fall, fall, fall

And this is why i love Fall...








closer to myself

I need space.
This feels cleaner. Wider. Kewler.

And... i am officialy drunk.

Sunday, November 19, 2006

sisters of mercy

Weekend resumé, resolution and reward, all in bullet-point form! Can it be any more perfect?

  • Astonishing discovery: i am rubbish. I've been out for two weeks (and by 'two weeks', i mean 'two weekends'), and i am utterly wrecked. I woke up this morning with a dry cactus embedded in my throat, i apparently have lost my voice, somebody seemed to have sneaked into my bedroom & drawn dark semi-circles below the two reddened eyeballs that lay inside my sunken sockets, my skin is of a stale greenish yellow, my neck is making a 'chweck' sound as i turn from right to left & a 'toc!' from left to right (which was, i must admit, kinda fun for the first 5 minutes), and my hair looks like it's been chewed by that same nocturnal visitor. I will never be a rockstar.

  • I will have NOTHING but fruits & vegetables, nice good red meat and heaps of water for the next 7 days. And fish. But that's it - no more coffee, no alcohol, no sweets, and definitely no more INSTANT NOODLES.

  • Will also lead a sane, active, good girl healthy lifestyle, which will include running, yoga and reading. Hail to the Gods, let the Cleansing Program begin!

  • Okay, for 5 days.



  • That is a crack in the inner corner of the lens of my glasses. I assure you, it is not due to any Hard Partying on my part. I know this because my idea of Hard Partying usually consists of sitting around & imitating a drunken sloth. Followed by dancing like there's no tomorrow. It could have happened, i presume, when i passed out & hit the floor, but i have no recollection of such unexemplary behaviours either. I am a lady after all.

  • I just bought Leonard Cohen's I'm Your Man soundtrack, and it is absolutely wonderful. I haven't seen the documentary yet, but hearing Mister Cohen's voice have always strangely resulted in me being naked - not really a part of the Cleansing Program, i'm afraid...

  • 3 days...? I mean, it's not like i really need that much bourgeois leisure time anyway... *Chweck*

  • My sister is coming back from her weekly visit to her hubby (who is working away up North at the moment), and a Girls' Night In at her place is well in order & blissfully welcomed. The program for the night: The Wedding Singer, followed by Bridget Jones's Diary, The Grey Cup final, and reruns of the UFC: Ultimate Fighting Championship - with facials & nailpolishing to boot! I'm already gushing with girlish glee!

  • ...Okay, starting tomorrow, the Cleansing Program of 3 hardcore healthy living days shall start! (And then watch out Tomkat 'cause i'll be kicking so much ass your Scientology God* will be worshipping ME! Mouaahahahaha! Think you're too good to invite 'lil ol'me dontcha...?** Just you wait....)


*Is there such a thing as a Scientology God? Or is that Mr. Tom Cruise himself?
**Seriously, who wasn't at that insane wedding?! And doesn't it eerily remind you of that other star-studded whorish of a matrimonial freak show that was the unholy union of Liza Minelli & her playdoh [ex-]groom? When did Tom Fucking Cruise become such a freak?! Are all sexy eye-candy boys doomed to be a circus act sooner or later? First the Michael-Jackson-Sans-Nose-Ape transformation to the Tom-Cruise-Scary-Joker metamorphosis. Will Brad Pitt someday turn into a
three-nipples lady as well? *hands over mouth weeping*

Monday, November 13, 2006

rock n' roll lies

Q is my brother-in-law's younger sister. Of anyone i ever knew, or cared for, she is the most high-strung, high-maintenance, difficult, demanding & judgemental. Why i haven't punched her nice little face in yet is mainly because she is actually a pretty sweet & honest, up-front & unapologetic girl. Which i like. And unlike her brother, i can have an intelligible conversation with her. Plus, i don't really have much of a choice - punching people is very much frowned upon in these necks of the woods.

Q is also one of those girls - who wants to make loads of money, get married, and settle down in a huge mansion. The one with "A Game Plan". I know, i too am quite astonished at our friendship at times. I went to her birthday dinner party over the weekend in her cute new appartment. Although usually, an entire evening spent in conversations about "What-Luxury-Car-I-Bought" and "How-Much-This-Grand-Piano-That-I-Never-Play-Cost" isn't exactly my idea of fun, by my second glass of Riesling it all sweetly glazed over me. Talks of travel & food, interior design, Romain Gary (not even brought up by yours truly!), astrology & terrorism (there was a connection there somewhere...just can't quite remember what it was now...that i'm sober) had even somehow managed to filter through. It turned out not to be half as bad as i pessimistically anticipated. That is, until...

"So...how about you? Do you have a boyfriend?"
Mechanically, i replied, "Oh no! You know, i really haven't got the interest nor the energy for any of that right now..."

And that's when it hit me. Unlike all the other times where i've disdainfully given this same generic answer, this time...i realised i was actually lying.

"...Hmm...yes, really not...". I quickly gulped down another glass of wine.

Then i blacked out.

Thursday, November 9, 2006

everything's not lost

Things To Do To Cheer Yourself [Myself] Up From The [Light] Blues (in no particular order):

  • Bake cookies.
  • Eat cookies. Or candies, ice cream, chocolate cakes, instant noodles, baked potatoes, sushi, anything that tickles the fancy but unfortunately am incapable of making (except for the instant noodles).
  • Watch The Sound of Music, A Philadelphia Story & Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulin - in that order.
  • Clean desk/bathroom/house.
  • Read magazine with pretty pictures & shiny pages. Makes one feel pretty. And shiny. (A skewed transference mechanism.)
  • Cut/trim/dye hair.
  • Shop (though could be tricky as if too much is bought can catalyse into Heavy Blues --> not good).
  • Fuck.
  • Get all purdied up.
  • Meet up with some good friends. And laugh.
  • Dance.
  • Draw/paint.
  • Go sit & read/people-watch in favorite coffee shop.
  • Plan Project London.
  • Read this.**newly added**
A list in progress....

Wednesday, November 8, 2006

pitter patter goes my heart

So it is raining. Again. Only, you cannot see it is raining because it is utterly dark outside. AT FIVE PM. So here i am inside, trying not to focus on this shitty feeling that comes for no other reason than to accompany the clouds and to piss me off, eating this:

By the time this picture was taken, downloaded then uploaded, I had finished the entire bag. Which i got this morning. There were also a bag of candies, and a box of pastries. The evidences of such however were carelessly discarded in the rubbish bin before i realized 'Oi! i have a new swanky camera now to document every moment of my waking day!'. I know, i can hear the moans of disappointment from here. I apologise. They were very good though, but after which i needed something salty. And tadah! That's how you keep on eating for hours on end - by switching sweets & salty alternatively.

Another thing that can help keep oneself lethargic in front of the tube eating everything one owns:

Also known as Curtis Stone and my future husband.

Y'see, i humbly admit i was never the girl who dreamt of marrying a nice doctor or a prince (nor have i actually ever dreamt of marriage per se, but that's just a small detail). I didn't have wild fantasies about fire fighters either, paramedics, nor police officers, cowboys, monks, lawers, the postman, dentists, so on & so forth. No. What i fancy was/is The Cook. Any time. Any day. Yessery Bob. He can look like he had perhaps inhaled the totality of the Mars gaseous elements, but my gosh as long as he can make a mean sexy chocolate soufflé, he can do with me as he pleases. As long as i get to eat said soufflé. So imagine my joy when The wonderful Learning Chanel introduced a show featuring a hunky Aussie who goes into a siupermahket, pick ep a wee lass, bring 'er beck haome & cuk far 'er (yes, that was a taste of my most excellent accent, thank you).

'Fucking genius!', that's what i said, incredulously. It's like they had found my childhood diary & made it into a reality! Here are just some examples of what Monsieur Stone can whip up:

Grilled rib eye steak with semi-dried tomatoes, watercress & crispy potatoes.
(or as i like to call 'Humma-na Humma-na Haa...')



Cajun crusted chicken with creole mashed potatoes.
('Oh yes please! Right here!')


Marinated & grilled bison rib eye with pasilla salsa.
('Ouh! Ouh! Me! Ove here!')



Salad with deep fried manchego cheese & madiera reduction
([gawk - as have lost all words & consciousness])





But can he bake, you ask? Ohhh! Oho-ho hohoh....

Chocolate covered mango & vanilla cream bomb.
BA-BOOM!



Aussie cheesecake.
(as if having permanent sunshine, fairweather & the incredible ocean at their finrgertips wasn't enough...)



Sautéed baby bananas with sour cream, spearmint, chili & lime.
(YESSSS! I know! it sounds awfully weird at first, but as one who completely LOVES cooked bananas AND spicy foods, this just seems like le-perfect!)



(and la pièce de résistance...)
HANDMADE CHOCLATES WITH MARCORONA ALMONDS.


*wipes off trail of saliva*

And he made this, can you imagine? With his own bare hands! FROM SCRATCH! *hands over heart* Mumsie, i think i'm in love!....

**Next up: Things To Do To Cheer Yourself Up From The [light*] Blues.**




* Because we all know that the Heavy Blues can only be cured with massive amounts of drugs and/or a gun.

Tuesday, November 7, 2006

get myself into it

Birthday Gift 2006. From me. To me.
[cf. blog title]

Sleak & sexy.


Sadly, unlike me.
Such is the power of The Strokes.
(Yes, that is my excuse & i'm sticking with it.)







The Venga Boys, yo!

Part of such 90's classics as 'Mr. Vain', 'Pump It Up' and 'Runaway'.


Oi! And there's also a Disco Light!
So 90's it's cool!











To meeeeeeeeee!



Erm...Christmas gift?

Chic new coat.
(It was only 50$, okay! From 169.99! Now who can possibly resist such a deal?!
And look! Even the sun is blessing it with its lovely rays!...
FIFTY DOLLARS!!)



Am now officially poor.
Spiffin'.


**WARNING: should expect more generic photos in posts to come as am much excited to discover such things as Technology. Thank you.**


p.s.: Karaoke rocks the shits!

Sunday, November 5, 2006

pieces of the people we love

Apparently, i am one of those people. You know the kind.

When you go to a concert, and there's that one afflicted person who seems a tad more into it than the others. Not a 'groupie', mind you (or at least not yet. I hope. Oh good god, i truly do hope never ever please...), but one who would start gushing over the band & be a little keener than everyone else there. You see, my name is [Vapidly Vibrant] and i am the girl who falls head over heels for live performers. And i am not proud.

It all started with this chick:

That is Leslie Feist, by the way. Or just Feist as she is commonly & lovingly known.

I can still remember the night. It was in the heat of end of June. We [J & i, not Feist & i - unfortunately] had just had some delicious thai food au quartier latin. Tourists were sweatily bustling on the streets while red, yellow & green lights emanated from the scantily attached lanterns on the sidewalk trees. We hurriedly walked amidst the avid crowd towards the Spectrum where she was playing, just at the outskirt of the Jazz Festival. At 6 o'clock sharp, with no opening act, she walked out, basked in a moody red light. And she was absolutely perfect. She had turned her sweet music into a sometime acoustic, sometime rock n' roll, but always warm & touching version of her record. And she was so tiny and lady-like, like a little Thumbelina, but with an overgrown electric guitar to punch the living daylights out of all those who cross her. By the end of the concert, I got out into the musky night, completely infatuated, thinking "that's the kind of rocker i would like to be [if i knew how to sing & play the guitar]!"

Then, there was Ambulance Ltd: Okay, so they may not be the most gorgeous looking band out there, in my humble taste (also, am not nearly sexually adventurous enough as to actually want to [insert term for 'fornicating' starting with the same letter but is somehow strangely deemed a tad too strong so early on such a holy day despite being what Ms. Ann Coulter would call a 'Godless skank'] all of them. Together. At the same time. Or in any combination, nowthatweareatit & letsmoveonthankyouverymuch). Which is neither here nor there, really, and beside the point, i should specify, as these performers have 'turned me on' on a more 'spiritual' sense rather than in the mere animalistic yearning to make babies that some - obvioulsy - could inspire.... I just wasn't expecting much out of the concert, to be honest. I had listened to their LP a few times before, and though i very much enjoyed it - finding it moody in an upbeat, 70's chill way - i also had an exam the very next day, and was seriously in no position to be seeing a band i did not absolutely adore. But i did anyway because being the Queen Procrastinator that i am means that i had duties to uphold, sacrifices to make and consequences to deal with, which involved surely, i thought, the concert to royally suck in such a level that would make, on top of failing the exam for lack of studying, a perfectly karmalicious punishment.

Alas, no! To my utter surprise, it was a fantastic performance! Their chillin' music was rockin' the freakin' roof off! I'd never had such an expereince before (or ever since)! At the end of the concert, i felt like i was on a high, on cloud nine, or some other nirvana-like state, as if everything was tinted in a soft powder blue & rose, and i was in love! And despite the sound of it & the many successive exclamation points, i was/am not literally high either, i assure you. It wasn't only me, the gorgeous Indian girl behind me & her friends also thought the same (i know this because she poked at us [again J & i, not Ambulance Ltd & i - sadly], and elatedly screamed "That was so GREAT, wasn't it?!", to which we elatedly shouted back "HELL YEAH!").

(Furthermore, to prove that my concept of the Universe is completely rubbish, i did not even fail my exam! Pah!)

The third time this terrible affliction occurred, it was with my fatefully doomed encounter with Interpol:

I was standing in the first row for the first time. Well, actually, the second row: my friend A, who was completely bonkers over them, had stood in the first row, right in the middle, for two hours so she could see them up close & poysenal. She had a thing for the drummer. I, innocently enough, did not find any of them particularly attractive. I'd googled them up the previous night to have at least an idea of what this band that was indeed firmly growing on me looked like, and had thought it was rather funny that the singer, whose voice was so cavernous & deep, should actually look like a scrawny little blondie. But then... the actual boy suddenly appeared in front of me. And he opened his mouth. And i was done. That easy.

The voice, the allure, the silent charm. The fatigue. And he was not scrawny at all. I repeat, NOT. Scrawny. At. ALL. (Mmmmm.) And when he sung 'Hands Away', i fucking cried (yes, i do realize i just used the other word that starts with the same letter as 'fornicating' despite going through a bizarre rant about not using it earlier, but it is not employed here in its true prude-trampling sense but rather in a 'I can't fucking believe i cried in public' sense, you see. Which is always never inappropriate. The using of the word 'fucking' like that. Not the crying in public part). What's important to note here however is, I CRIED! IN PUBLIC! Where there were actual people around! To see me cry! In public! Argh!

So i was admittedly not in the bestest of moods to start out with... They were still quite amazing. Plus, Paul Banks has this whole pseudo-shy-intellectual-with-guitar thing that [sadly] fits right up my alley. Literally & figuratively speaking.

Ahem.

Fast forward to Spring 2006. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs had just released a new album, and it kicked so much tooshies that my Twelve-Year-Old and Seventeen-Year-Old Selves both came together, at the same moment in time, for that one performing night - a phenomenon that should not be taken lightly as most of the time my Twelve-Year-Old Self would choose to completely ignore my Seventeen-Year-Old Self (out of spite more than out of respect, really, as she would much rather annihilate the poor girl but cannot - she is only 12 years old after all), while the Seventeen-Year-Old Self is so concerned with her own issues & what's wrong with the world to ever care about that pesky Twelve-Year-Old anyway. But at the concert, they completely rocked out like the silly little girls they both had forgotten they were - together - and i firmly believe that nobody but the incredible Miss O can achieve such a feat. I mean, just look at her:

So cute. She came out in a wool-feathered chicken suit and wore a discoball hat for crying out loud! *bows to Her Magnificence*

The latest addition to this illustrious list (and the one who confirmed my chronical condition) is The Rapture. Their debut album came out three years ago, if i am not mistaken. I loved it immediately. Underground rock meets 70's disco, with cow bell. What else can one ask for? And it was sexy, and dancy, and unpretentious, and so totally rock n' roll, dude! It was fantastic. They released their second album recently, and i get to see them last Thursday in a little venue downtown, and by George! this is what they look like:

Geeky gents who dance! Huzzah!

[** Note: i am aware that there are lots of geeky bands who dance out there - namely Franz Ferdinand, whom i saw & loved - but they are not exactly 'hot', are they? Behold, completely biased & superficial comparison:

FF:Cool, nice, funny-looking boys, lovely to hang out with it seems, but not exactly shaggable, are they? At least, not while being sober. And/or maybe when one is horny as hell.

vs.

The Rapture:
Guitar-arms & singing-jawlines, who knew? (except perhaps for that poppet in the middle in the back. He kinda looks scary there). And it's not because the picture is in black & white either.

Case in point.]

Anywho. They had this unpretentious coolness about them, and it was so odd to see the singer (the one with the muppet hairdo) wailing in such a high pitch voice it would give Mr. Gibb a run for his money, all while looking absolutely calm & nonchalant about it (am all about the weird and contrast, y'see). And! hewasalsoverycute. They were able to create a mood that saw the entire crowd - even those sitting in the too-cool-to-care area - dancing like it was indeed 1999, where there was nothing left but disco & love in the air. There were no annoying Emo hipsters to make me want to scoop my eyeballs out, no retardo I-Am-The-Center-Of-The-Universe-Set-Aside-elbowing, no overberaing drunk lunatic. Everyone just danced. Like that ridiculous mating ritual scene in The Matrix Reloaded, minus the ridiculousness. Obviously. During the last encore, everyone climbed onstage, and the singer was completely friendly about it and took pictures with them in this most adorable unassuming way. AND!... hewasalsoverycute. *blush* (Just give me a nice little crazy dancing boy any day, really. Pretty please?)

That's the thing with live performances that predisposes me to such an affliction - the mood, the atmospehere (and the alsoverycutesinger). It felt as if we were all connected, friends, brethren, with the same skewed dancing Xanadu vision of what the world should be like....

*sigh*

Now, i've been listening to them - both albums, back-to-back - for the last three days, and bopping my head like a maniac. It is starting to hurt in the neck area. Also, i want to be a rockstar.

Hmm.

In other news, I went karaoke-ing for me birthday for the first time ever (am now addicted to singing really badly in public), was shocked in the brain for forgetting to take Mr. Effexor (again), got into a ginormous fight with J, kissed & made-up, and have been craving for pizza & milk. And fornication. That is all.