This might be the most inconsequential post ever! I’ll be attending a wedding in July when I’m in France. Basically I’m Tongs’s ‘plus-one’ and I have never attended any weddings (save for my cousins’ wedding dinners, local or foreign. I’m kinda worried about appropriateness of my choice of attire. I’ve also given up on the idea of wearing a cheongsam (although it might be fun to play the role of the submissive Chinese woman) because it’ll be hot and uncomfortable to be in for a long period of time.

I’ve decided to wear my copy of this dress to the day/churchy bit. I think I can pair it with my white peep-toe heels, so it’s not a problem. However, is it inappropriate to be bare-shouldered?  Tongs’s extremely taken with the idea of me wearing a hat but I don’t think I can get a nice one without spending a fortune and I’m not a fan of buying an expensive hat which I’ll only wear once (or wear it ad nauseum to all your future weddings!) Advice, anybody?

I’ll probably wear this for the dinner bit and despite my inclinations to be coordinated from head to toe, I really don’t want look like I’m going to the (hypothetical) office or a funeral so I need a pop of color somewhere. The problem is that Tongs seems to be determined to drink and dance till the wee hours so I need a pair of comfortable shoes (unless I want to kick them off and risk losing them).  Blah.

Houston, we have a problem. I desperately need to go shopping but on a very tight budget.

Last Sunday at the Botanic Gardens for a free concert by Thomson Jazz, followed by a dinner and Ironman at Lido. I want to boycott Lido! Its halls are dilapidated and the toilets smell of a mix of diarrhoea, vomit and popcorn. However, it was the closest to the Botanic Gardens so we just settled for that before it got too late. The movie was surprisingly good, perhaps I should refund Tangs the cost of the ticket.

After looking at the tons of barely used stuff crowding my toiletries shelf in the bathroom, my vanity table and my cupboards, I’ve decided to stop buying crap, create less waste and hopefully save some money.

My current obsession is with DIY skincare, namely oils; olive, coconut, tea tree, castor, and the newest member to my happy family – jojoba.

I bought the coconut oil last year or so and I’ve great success with coconut oil as a conditioner. The key to avoid having greasy smelly (Not a problem if you like the smell of coconut – I don’t) hair is to use it as a pre-shampoo conditioner. All I have to do is to soak my hair in coconut oil for as long as I can tolerate it before shampooing it away. As it’s time intensive and I don’t like to plan my showers in advance, I do this less often than I should. On days when I’m too tired to wait an hour before showering, I still use regular hair conditioners after shampooing to smooth out my hair. I’ve also experimented with applying coconut/olive/jojoba oil in minute amounts when my hair’s damp for the times where I’m too lazy/in a rush to mess around with regular hair conditioners. This works great in a pinch but it gets disgusting after a day. As I don’t seem to be able to shampoo my hair daily (scary amounts of hair falls out + really dry hair) that can be a problem. Once in a while, I also use a clarifying shampoo to get any leftover gunk out. Neutrogena makes one that leaves my hair squeaky clean but not extremely tangled.

I bought tea-tree oil (TTO) after I got what seemed to be my very first cystic zit of my 20s in April. To be totally honest, I probably caused it by trying to squeeze the life out of a zit. What I ended up with was a large throbbing zit which strangely resembled Australia. TTO dried up zit Australia eventually but I had a problem with extremely dry skin where the zit was, so much so that Australia formed a hard shell which then fell off. I tried TTO with my current zit (not cystic, doesn’t throb but stubborn as hell) which I’ve named New Zealand and the same thing happened. I think I’m going to mix the TTO with some other oils the next time before applying it to any zits.

My favorite thing to do these days is experimenting with/using the oil cleansing method (OCM). I tried it with coconut oil only (as it was the only oil on my vanity then) and then olive oil only (after bringing some up from the kitchen). After reading up on the things castor oil can supposedly do, I decided to buy castor oil off Ebay as I couldn’t find any here. The mix seems to be working fine, not a big difference from using coconut/olive oil alone. Since the extra virgin olive oil is pretty thick and castor oil is like a heavy syrup, the mix feels a bit scary, to be honest. However, I haven’t had any outbreaks yet, although I’m expecting one during my adjustment period to OCM. What’s fascinating about OCM is how you can feel gritty stuff coming out as you massage the oil in. Apparently they’re the comedones from the clogged pores.

I had problems finding a good moisturizer without any SPF in a bottle for night. I need it to be in a bottle as I’m kinda paranoid about accidentally contaminating stuff that’s in a jar. Besides, bottles fit better into my toiletries bag. Finally I decided to buy jojoba oil since it’s also multi-purposeful – OCM! Hair conditioner! Skin moisturizer! OK, so while the money-saving aspect of my plan is not working out yet since I bought all the different oils, the best thing about oils is that they’re multi-purpose. If they don’t work out eventually, I guess I can dump it into an unwanted shampoo/conditioner.

Given that I’ve sworn off facial scrubs which contain non-biodegradable scrubby bits, I think perhaps the next thing I’ll try is a baking soda/sugar facial scrub, that shouldn’t be too difficult.

The next change I want to make is to reduce the huge amount of waste generated by periods. I have extra absorbent tampons, regular ones, sanitary pads and liners. It’s ridiculous! I want to save money to buy a menstrual cup so I can eventually stop relying on these wasteful products. Perhaps if the gynae recommends going on the Pill to control my PMS I can stop/reduce my periods! Speaking of which, I should really get off my ass and book an appointment because my PMS is getting really out of control, I’ve to take part in a PMS lottery every month and because I’m the only participant I end up with all the prizes – gastrics! bloat! cold! peeling skin! wild mood swings! severe backaches! headaches! fatigue! cramps (which can begin as early as a week before my period)! constipation! diarrhoea!

Tangs and I finally got to spend some time together over the May Day period. We more or less holed ourselves up in his room, armed with snacks, a bunch of bad movies and great food.

We kicked off our long weekend with a walk down East Coast beach on Thursday evening, dined at Scruffy Murphy’s. As I tucked into my Big Breakfast, I suspect that I don’t really like cooked button/shiitake/portobello mushrooms all that much anymore, they’re just simply too succulent and musty-tasting. The food at the cafe wasn’t that fantastic and Tangs’s fish & chips looked really dry. However, they get a thumbs-up from me for offering a greasy fried breakfast at 7pm. The table in front of ours had 3 middle aged Caucasian males, a Malay woman in her late 20s or early 30s and her young daughter. I wondered about their relationship and thought of Discuss Disgust by Bonny Hicks.

We made our way down to Parkway Parade and picked up some videos from Videoezy. The problem with our frequent visits to the theatres and rampant piracy meant that we’ve watched most of the films available. Nevertheless, we made do with the meager choices and picked up Idiocracy (our choice), Year of the Day (mine) and Rogue Assassin (his).

Idiocracy was so lame that it was good and besides, I believe that Uhh-merica already exists, growing in middle America like a cancer. Year of the Dog rambled off and reached destination pointless while Rouge Assassin was a joke of a movie; it managed to have 103 minutes of runtime with a paper-thin plot and zero story. It’s as if Jason Statham and Jet Li acted in it just to renew their action heroes’ club membership but it was a half-hearted attempt on their parts as the action bits sucked.

Friday we spent a hot and sweaty afternoon by the pool. I finally read Douglas Kennedy’s The Dead Heart and it was not his best work, unsurprisingly since it was his first novel.

On Saturday I finally got to meet Tangs’s new housemate, N, and as a special, unexpected treat, N’s girlfriend-on-this-side-of-the-globe, M. I was beginning to think that N was a figment of Tangs’s imagination as he had moved in about a fortnight ago and I didn’t see him. The only evidence of him being around was a tiny copper kettle in the kitchen. Although perhaps last Friday there was a whiff of cologne in an empty apartment and a shout of Salut! one evening while we were watching a film in the bedroom.

M was pleasant, humorous and intelligent and I had a positive impression of her except for the bit when she revealed that her ex was French, then I briefly wondered if she was a Frenchfucker (i.e. a person who specially seek out French people, not necessarily for sex). Anyway, it was clear that N&M were in their own world and thus Tangs didn’t offer them any dinner even though we bought 4 perfect steaks from Jason’s earlier on.

Our long weekend concluded with a bloody good dinner of steak with a cream cheese sauce (we bought a different kind of blue cheese this time which was even more odiferous than our usual Roquefort), fried potato cubes and broccollini. This was followed by the result of the hard work we (13% me and 87% Tangs) put in on Sunday afternoon, a beautifully browned lemon tart with meringue.

As much as I like traveling with the special boy, he doesn’t make a great mascot although there are advantages like how he is able to transport himself around and there’s no chance of me losing him. However, he isn’t pocket-sized, he needs to eat and rest, and have a tendency to get grumpy when you try to wake him up in the mornings.

Little Man’s a great mascot but once he ran off to live in the chocolate museum in München and the other time we lost sight of each other in Wien, I’m running out of Little Men and it’s difficult to get a hold of more. Thus, I’m going to start traveling with Little Man’s evil-looking cousin who has a soft heart inside. It helps that he comes with a handy ball-chain keychain so that I can attach him securely to the strap of my bag.
voilà - monsieur domokun

three quarts of a year on and one missed concert, listening to tb&tb album still gets me in the wriggly sense of exhilaration that was my deutsche bahn ride from berlin to hamburg hbf.

my dress is here, lying on my bed!
all i need now is a suitable occasion to take it out for a stroll =)

i am missing special boy, body part by body part.

the first is his pair of impossibly long legs that no doubt, contributes to our 28cm difference which is of no great significance to you until i tell you that it places my nose in line with his armpits and when you see us together you will recall this number and laugh with me, at me, at us.

the second is his nose. i started missing it when i saw him over the webcam in his jumper on an impossibly bright and cold winter day. the nose which was the second thing i noticed about him on our first chance meeting after craning my neck to look up into his face. i want to poke it after he comes home from work and squeal with triumph and disgust.

inexplicably i am missing his eyelashes today. long, curly and surprisingly alive while he sleeps.

i’m fashionably late in doing the past year reflection post.

2007 is going to be one of those milestone years i suppose. and that’s the end of my reflection.

anyway, i present the holiday booty:

 
2 riotous tees from the threadless sale. thanks – dad (he financed my purchase), serene and bob (who ordered 8 tees together and made it feasible for me to order from the site)

much needed salad spinner for the budding domestic houseplant who’s sick of cannibalizing on soggy salads. thanks girls, especially chels! i’ll spin all of you some salads someday.

much lusted after elamite ring from the met museum shop from T who got my not so subtle hint!

tatiana – my russian whore.she is here thanks, in some part, to zot, my trusty nokia which decided to hang up on T more than once while we were conversing on it, and of course, big big thanks to the bf who overpaid for it. now i can annoy my fellow commuters by blasting music on the loudspeaker.
hey, at least it’ll be good music unlike the nasty techno i keep hearing. ok i don’t have the courage to do that, i’m just quietly playing games myrony sent me while i travel.

cadbury fudge duets, the third (soon to be non-existing) member of my jetsetting candy team which arrived with the lovely vonvonne from NZ.

i ♥ milka erdbeere-rahm pralinés, the fourth (existing) member of my jetsetting candy team, direct from germany. in case you’re curious, the second (no longer existing) member of my jetsetting candy team is i ♥ milka nuss-nougat-crème pralinés which michi brought on his holiday last november. anyway, the erdbeere-rahm pralinés arrived with…

a mini glow-in-the-dark rubber duckie (cruelly taped on my whiteboard for photo-taking) and a friendly sperm folded by the master pornorigamist via the ever efficient and reliable deutschepost.

i bought myself a very cheap pair of black pointy patent flats from mondo for the upcoming interview(s). ok, so i’m just taking that as an excuse to own yet another pair of pointy black shoes. i could pay for this thanks to my really nice boss at my import store.

keds willow in expresso, thanks in advance to my dad (or rather one of the supp cards from him). of course it wouldn’t be possible to buy the new shoes without his great idea of buying a third shoe rack.

i have to stop shopping and start saving for thailand, france and beyond. will do that after i recover from the buying fever. first, i need to get the satin top which caught my eye in F/W ‘07, a pretty blouse, dresses (but then i can never recover from wanting to buy dresses) and innerwear.