On the up: Marriage ceremonies
On the down: My fear of commitment

This is waaaaaaaaaay over due - they got married more than a month ago... but okay, hey they're gonna be married for awhile yet, so never too late!

Vera and Ed got registered at Tien Hou Temple in the middle of the hottest day of the year. Heck, I didn't even know people got married there, but there's this whole marriage registrationg office and everything. Get married under the Buddhas, sweet!

Ed got Vera the most ENORMOUS bouquet of flowers, which totally kicks ass over all the other piddly pathetic tiny handheld bouquest. Big is better. Definitely. See look, it's even bigger than Vera!




There were a few other sad looking underfed brides walking around who looked completely miserable. Like gee, isn't this supposed to be a happy day?

But there's good in everything, and it's always good to have ugly people so that you look all the better. So Vera was trulymadlydeeply the most fantastic bride there that day.

Edward still looked underwhelmed. Like, nothing surprises him man. He's always just chiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiilling. He always looks like he's just smoked some weed and listening to some invisible Bob Marley, even when he's just about to go get married. He is absolutely The Dude.



Well, did you know you have to take a number and wait your turn, even when you're getting married?! It's like some kind of lucrative banking business or something. Gee!

Anyhoos, it was finally Vera and Ed's turn and I swear, I wasn't even the one getting married but it freaked me out just going into that office (fear of commitment issues, I know). Look how serious it looks; I mean, even Vera was being totally serious man!!!!!



But...

CONGRATS!!!!!!!! You're now married!!!! Huzzah!!!!!!

And well, we don't need any excuse to be camera whores, but this was as good an opportunity as any to run around a temple and pose pretty.

But.

There's this strange sort of ruling that dictates that married people always look better in wedding photos than the unmarrieds... So just to give the rest of us some face, I won't post our ugly shots.

But don't Ed and V look super gorgeous!! (Note: Ed still looks like he's on holiday. Just coooooooool. He is the most unruffled, zen, chilled-out groom I have ever met)



Ohmygod, this last one is so romantic it almost makes me break out in hives!!!!!! (but very the cute also lar)

Congrats darlinks! MUAKS

Even this huge commitment-phobe is super happy for you both. The only thing that will make it better is some huge fluffy white fatty cake!

On the up: Weekends
On the down: Early mornings

My biggest bestest most favourite friend in the whole wide chocolate galaxy is baaaaaaaaaack in KL after a long long time away at a very faraway place. Shan is my absolute partner in crime for absolutely everything and I feel a bit more complete now that she's accessible on a Maxis phone line again and living driving distance away *dances*

She is the super cutest, most adorable, witty, fun-loving, chocolate-complexioned person you will ever meet.

PLUS, she's Indian which means two things:

1) immense eyelashes
2) drinking capacity of a very large Irish man

So we went out drinking tonight, hurray :)

But first dinner at my new favourite place in KL, Max Kitchen in Tengkat Tong Shin which does greatgreat food for not very much $$ at all. Super duper. And the owner/head chef (called Max, surprise) rememebers my name so I can feel a bit important when I go eat there.

He even pulled out some special Polish vodka for me which errrr tasted a bit like disinfectant, but never mind. After my adventures with Chivas a few months ago, everything else tastes like Rainbows.

Speaking of rainbows...

JP came to join us a bit later for drinks and he was dressed as the complete 21st-century male emanation of Rainbow Brite. Actually, to be more accurate, he looked like one of those fuzzy, furry friends that hang around Rainbow Brite all the time. Like this:



Anyway, just as we moved over to Palate Palette (and you MUST go, if not I cannot ever be friends with you again) Rainbow Brite and posse had to leave halfway because of some emergency at work. Poor Bitch.

That left me drinking with Shan and Julian (her husband, and my most favourite Indian guy in the whole world)... and I hate drinking with Indians because they drink an entire vat of ethanol and they can still walk straight and calculate logarithms in their head. I had two drinks and I turned into a beetroot with wobbly arms and legs.


Poor Julian had to put up with all our rubbish chat all night. Okay, I mean, my rubbish chat since Shan is so decent and clever about things all the time. Naturally, I started to talk about boys again (see, poor Julian), at which point Shan said to me,

"I think I'm in your life for a reason: to upgrade your taste."

She thinks the state of affairs in my head is totally appalling and forever saying, "Well... somebody's got to love the ugly people." That's the second person who's said that to me within a month.

I DON'T CARE!

On the up: Moving up
On the down: Being permanently sleepy

I'm not just being lazy, I promise. There is just so much going on!

Went in to meet someone about possible contribution to a new magazine the other day... and walked out of the office as their new assistant editor - looks like I got my work cut out for me! eeep!

It involves being fashionable though so I'm slightly worried about how I look like the dog's dinner on most days... and the editor is EXTREMELY fashionable and darling. Well, we can always make a statement by being exceptionally different, can't we. Not everybody can be Anna Wintour.

Anyway, we need (very good) writers so anyone interested email me email me email me!!!

It's Friday! I need to play!

On the up: Housework
On the down: Being a spoilt princess

While at over at Rinpoche's Ladrang (house) today, someone spilled Coke all over the kitchen floor, and all of us walking around it did nothing but smear sugar all over the floor.

Sticky floor and sticky feet will not do.

So I thought I would be helpful and mop the floor so I found the mop, the pail, the floor cleaner and started to mop.

Tashi walked by and said, "We should take a photo of you mopping the floor" and laughed and laughed.

Then Joe came in and said very loudly, very surprised, "OH MY GOD You're mopping the floor!! We have to take a photo. The princess is mopping the floor."

Then they all stood around and watched me mop the floor - JJ, Wendy, Jenny, Joe, Tashi. 5 people finding great entertainment in a Dolly doing housework.

I was like geeez, I can do housework you know.

But apparently not because after watching me flounce around for 5 minutes, Joe couldn't stand it anymore and took the mop out of my hands to show me how to mop the floor properly.

He just shook his head, 'Aiyoooooooooooooooooooo," and then left to go back to the office.

Shame. I'm just soooooo glad Rinpoche didn't have to see me massacreing his floor.

Aiyo what to do. I make a shit housewife/daughter-in-law. 100 years ago, nobody would have wanted to marry me.

On the up: Looking gorgeous, being fashionable
On the down: Badly matched bras

I am starting to think that maybe I’m a little, tiny bit important since I managed to foray my way into the M-IFW launch party guest list (only because I wrote for the Mifa magazine). It only goes to show how little I actually get out when I get excited about being invited to just ONE party the whole year.

(Okay, that’s a lie. I was invited to some posh Royal Selangor thing last week too but I errr…. FFK’ed on Su Ming last minute because I got caught up in a conversation about Gurus being psychotic which I couldn’t (didn’t want) to leave).

Anyway, it was really quite a pretty event, done at One Bangsar. Such a nice bloody change from the usual boring launches at Zouk and Maison and all those other overdone venues.


Anyway, I’d been at KMP all afternoon and by 7pm was knackered and ready to go to sleep liao. I was SO not feeling glam enough to bother with that whole party thing. I went anyway only because I had to do two stories about the event, remember, and couldn’t possibly just ring up the editor the next day and say, “Oh, I didn’t feel like going, so no story. Sorry”, especially not as they were about to offer me new writing jobs.

So I put on my fluffy bubble skirt and dragged Pooh Bear (JJ) along with me. We arrived so late that it wasn’t even fashionable anymore… and it was only because we spent ages eating dinner (greedy!).

They were doing all the speeches when we arrived, so we had to squeeze our way past everybody. I noticed on the way that I was possibly the only girl in the entire room that wasn’t wearing makeup so I started feeling very Peppermint Patty. At some point, I thought, oh fuck it, at least I’m making some sort of statement even if I look crap doing it.

ANYWAY, William Kee found me and said in a panicky way, “Why you so late?! Come, come, you’re a contributor, we're giving you a present. You gotta go on stage.”

STAGE?! WTF. There were cameras and cameras and cameras and like 500 people all looking at the flipping stage. I like cameras, but only when I get to go behind it or tell people what to take, not when it’s big fat floodlights.

Why didn’t they tell me so I could have made some effort not to turn up looking like such a rag.

I tried to run away but William kept saying “STAY HERE OKAY” and okay, I admit, I just really wanted my present.

When it was finally my turn (they even called out my name – just like being in school again, going up to get a prize), I ran as quick as I could, hoping to get off as quick as I could. The lady presenting the gifts was Aileen, who I only ever remember as “Hey, I went drinking with you, remember!”

I tried to just grab the present and leg it out but she wouldn’t give it to me, damnit. She was being super nice and was all like “Hey! I know you!” and wanted to give me a hug and all that and there I was perasaanly trying to take the bag from her.

They caught my whole greedy behaviour on film. Eeech.

I finally got off. Whew.

I dragged Pooh to go sit down in some quiet corner so I wouldn’t have to pretend to be nice to people I didn’t know that well. I’m so antisocial sometimes that I really don’t know how I end up writing lifestyle and fashion stories.

Some guy came up wanting to take pooh and my photo. We shooed him away in a BIG way, like no no no no no no no no no no go away! There’s nothing more humiliating than finding your face plastered somewhere like the Tatler or one of those tired social rags ewwww.
We took our own silly DIY pix though, which gets aired on Dollyblog instead - so much more fabulous!

At some point, I realised that not only did I have no makeon except chapstick (and only because my lips felt dry and horrible), but that I also had incredibly flat, ungroomed, growing-out hair. It was looking so bad that people had even started to ask me, "WHEN are you going to cut your hair?! When?!"

I did, however feel very proud of myself with my fluffy bubble skirt. There were actually lots of them around so I felt a bit clever about the fact that even though I hadn't bothered with a shred of eyeliner, I did seem to have psychically tapped into the big NOW of bubble skirts.

Syeba (Mifa founder) was wearing the most Dolly outfit ever *covets* and even though she had like a million people to be photographed with and to kiss (both cheeks), I dragged her away for a photo, so our bubble skirts could meet each other.

Okay okay. My bubble skirt is more Bjork than Syeba, and more soap suds than bubble, but damnit, it's still pretty.

Also, WHY is my ugly white bra showing through so disgustingly?! Biggest fashion faux pas: not checking what colour bra you're wearing on the inside, which only goes to show what kind of totally Un-Bothered mood I was in yesterday when I chucked the my clothes on.

Let's pretend for a moment that I was trying to make a statement and hey, the crudeness is probably to be expected of me, isn't it?

Syeba is wonderfully offering me work with Mifa, even though I never seem to turn up to meetings with her on time, and turn up to one of the city's most important fashion events wearing an ugly old white bra that shows through.

AND she has a daughter that looks like a cabbage patch kid. She is SO DAMN CUTE, it makes me wish I had one just like that (saying a lot, since the only thing I normally want to do with children is cook them).

Finally, eventually, whew, I found people I knew which relieved the boredom hugely. See, there's just no point in being invited to one of these events where everyone is at when you don't actually know anyone.

Kyan from The Attic was there, of course. I would be surprised if he wasn't, seeing as he knows, like EVERYBODY.

I asked him, "Did you try my cupcakes?"
He said, "Yah yah yah!"
I asked, "Hey, did Lorraine get any?"
He said, "No, I ate them all."

Aiyo, the reason I made cupcakes in the first place was FOR Lorraine, since everytime she sees me, she talks about cupcakes.

Never mind, Kyan has this face that can get away with anything, like eating all the cupcakes.

Pooh and I also found our most favourite boy in the whole world - KIN!

Actually, Kin found me. He stood in front of me and said hello and I must have had my WTF face on again because I couldn't figure out why or how I knew him.

He said, "You don't know who I am, do you?"
I'm a very honest sort of person. I said, "Errrrrr, no wor."
He said, "I'm Kin lah! We went drinking together!!!"

Oh yaaaaaaaaaaaah. It's only cos he was wearing glasses the last time and looked like Peter Pan, and now he looked all grown up. He was trying to get drunk but obviously wasn't since he could still tell us all the different drinks he had, and in which order. Doesn't he look fed up....

But he's not the sort to stay sad for long...

He is officially the cutest person we know and it's so so sooooooo sad that he's leaving to Melbourne booo! (ps, Kin, do you think you can pass me your writing jobs when you're gone?!?! - oh gawd, freelance writers are just perpetually out of work and trying to scrounge from other people's cast offs!)

Then I suddenly realised that I was actually supposed to be interviewing someone for an article - some famous model or something but damn me if I knew who that was supposed to be. Uh oh. And since I can't tell a celebrity from a fruit loop, it was going to be a bit hard.

Thank god for unjudgemental friends like William who told me who to talk to (although I couldn't hear what he was saying properly and so, still don't actually know what her name is).

Such a hardworking, attentive journalist I am.

Also a bit hard since the dude who gave me the story didn't give me ANY direction. It was literally just, "Oh, by the way, can you interview this Singaporean model?" and then rang off before I could ask him anything. No name, no information, no history, no pointers on what aspects to look at, no nothing. Does that mean I can just ask her anything I want???

Like, "Hi, what's your name?"
And "What does it feel like to be so tall?"
And "Does it irritate you when short guys try to pick you up?"
And "Since your legs are so long, do you fit all the trousers at Zara?"
And "Were you mean to the ugly kids when you were at school?"

Meh. I left the party early and went home to sleeeeeeeeeeep. I'm so not very good at this social butterfly thing. Just not in the mood, and anyway, I've told myself I won't havefungomad and party until I finish an article I've been writing for the past two weeks... it's taking FOREVER!

Meh. Fuck it. I'm sleepy now, off to bed x x x

On the up: Being blissfully self-involved
On the down: Being self conscious

All these things happened in the span of 4 hours last night that made me feel like Eve with a fig leaf. *Cover up and blush!*

JP said my blog entries now aren't as good as they were before because apparently I'm being more self-conscious and censoring myself now.

Being the neurotic, worried, paranoid sort of person I am, I decided to go read things I wrote From Before... and really don't think there's any difference.

So he can fuck off lah.

Went to a Dharma talk last night and one of JP's friends, Gary came. The first time he met me at karaoke a few weeks back, Gary thought I was a man, and I know I'm supposed to be non attached and peace loving
but it's so irritating and
I
can't
let
it
go.

I wanted to go smack him and say "I heard you thought I was a man" but didn't get a chance to because he came late and left early and sat on the other side of the room from me.

Halfway through the talk, Rinpoche started talking about JP, and said, "JP's great, he dresses well, he speaks well, he's organised, he presents himself well and Paris was in love with him for four weeks (but she's over it now)."

So now like, EVERYBODY knows. Geeeeez. (Chin Li said I am very obvious when I crush on someone though *shame* like, I can't even stalk people in a classy, subtle, modest way).

Before, (several times) Rinpoche also announced to the whole world that I was infatuated and in love with David for ages. That's not technically true. It was only a crush. And only for a while.

Once, DollyDad said to me, "Don't you think you're a bit old to be having crushes?" Pffft, never too old.

Anyway, it's not like you want to marry them - you just think they're cute, and want to put them in a box so you can carry them around in your car all day!

I'm starting to worry about this distinctly nonsensical state of mind at the moment.

Am off to the MIFA launch party tonight and feel about as glamourous as a dishcloth. Starting to think I'm just not ever gonna be suited for this fashionable darling thing - takes too much bloody effort for not very much return.

They totally conned me - invited me to the party, and then rang me up the day before it happens to ask me to write two articles about it. I perasaanly asked straight out, "DO I GET PAID?!?" (you gotta check cos people seem to think writers can survive on water and grass and therefore never pay them). They said "Of course!", but I'm going to make sure I eat and drink everything I possibly can anyway, just in case I don't.

On the up: The Purification Process
On the down: Everything going wrong

It's only 2.30am, I haven't got pressing work and I finally have time to blog!

I know I still have to write about Bangkok but that is going to take a very long time and I freak out just thinking about it. So I'll tell you about my disastrous day on Thursday. Really, it was like one of those movies where everything bad happens, except it wasn't even scripted.

In the morning, I dropped a thermos mug and the lid broke... which of course totally sucks since the whole point of a thermos mug is to keep things thermo-hot and the lack of a lid doesn't exactly help it stay that way.

Then, I went to KMP to spend the whole day editing a book with a couple of other writers. At page 30, my laptop (which we were doing all the edits on) just totally died. It wouldn't turn on, it wouldn't charge, nothing. But okay, never mind, we used Sharon's laptop instead.

The next day, I found out that it was only because I had accidentally flicked this switch on the side that keypadlocked the whole damn keyboard. What a totally stupid, unnecessary switch and I drove all the way into Jalan Raja Chulan just for them to tell me that.

Then, after 6 hours of editing, I thought I'd go buy myself a vanilla milkshake, which I had been craving the whole long day. When I tried to drink it, I discovered there was a big hole in the bloody straw.

At 3am, just before we finally decided to go home, I had to transfer 5 HUGE boxes of tsatsas into JP's car. I parked my car behind JP's, right across the middle of the road (never mind, it was 3am, there was no traffic) and we heaved and ho'ed everything into his car. In the process, I dropped one of the boxes (which must have weight at least about 20 kilos each) on my finger.

Okay, it also just so happens that the autolock system on my car has fucked up recently. Opening any of the doors, except the driver's seat door, central locks the whole car.

After we had moved all the boxes, I realised I had temporarily left my keys inside the car and now all the doors were closed. Opening the wrong door would lock everything and trap the keys inside.

I said, "Okay, wait, my keys are inside" and just as I was trying to figure out which door it was that I could open without it locking, Shin reached forward and said, "Okay, let's get them then"

I swear, it was like a movie. I screamed, "NoooooooooOOOOOOOOOooooOOOOOOOoooooo" - I could even see it happening in slow motion.

And just then, Shin lifted the latch of the back door.

The whole car locked even before Shin managed to get the door open.

So now we had a locked car, with my keys inside. And I don't have a spare key because whoever it was that we bought the car from didn't ever give us spare keys, and stupid me never bothered to get one.

Aiyo.

Fat Monk, one of the old dudes from our centre, and his mates got out all this steel wire and tried to open the doors from the inside. It was so like a legit carjacking heist. Typical that that my bloody car is so damn safe that even when they managed to pull up the lock from the inside, the door still wouldn't open. This anti-theft thing is good!

I finally had to call a locksmith and pay him RM300 to spend two minutes to open my car. I could have bloody bought a new pair of shoes with that. Oh well, it's my own stupidity so I can't even blame anyone for that!

On the up: That blond girl
On the down: The lack of media opportunities here

A lot of work has suddenly exploded, and it's all due, like, YESTERDAY. I sort of panic because everything has to happen NOW, then I get into this state of paralysis and end up not doing any of it.

I've been proofreading a book this whole evening. Feels like I've worked through an entire encyclopaedia already, and then realised I'm only halfway through. arg.

So I took a break, put mud on my face (because I looked in the mirror recently and saw that my pores are as big as Hoover dams) and got on Facebook. Again. Because I'm so addicted.

I found this girl that I worked with for two terms on our campus newspaper. She, effectively, taught me everything I know about journalism (which is probably not very much, but at least helped a few non existent skills to grow somehow, secured me a job at a newspaper and got me job offers from Bazaar).

She was totally scary, because she had this way of telling you how to write a news story in under two minutes, and then expect you to go out and do it 100% polished and find some real exclusive shocking angle. I'd never written a news story in my life, so it was a big massive confusion for the first two months and I dared not ask her to repeat anything twice for fear of her giving me a scornful look.

She really knew her shit though, and had been writing for newspapers since forever. She knew all the right questions to ask, who to ask, how to dig up the dirt, how to corner people, how to write, what angles to write, how to be controversial, how to up the ante for a boring story about university facilities.

She was bloody amazing.

And when you wrote a good story that she liked, she smiled and said, "Good job!" which would TOTALLY MAKE MY DAY. Even more than getting a first for an essay for my degree. (Really, what with the 16 hour days on campus because of the paper, you would think my three-year degree was the extra-curricular activity).

And you know how you always sort of picture journalists as real low-lives, with no lives, bad mousy hair, dowdy clothes and yellow teeth from all the smoking? Well, the annoying thing was that she was also totally gorgeous. All blond, and freckles in the right places, and a perfect size 8, and big boobs. And dated this hot, hot Brazilian guy. And had heaps of friends, who were also all gorgeous and popular and were the captain of this, chair of that, head of this, president of that.

I think I was probably really infatuated in the way that I just totally wanted to be her because she was just this totally fabulous journalist and could always get away with being rude and almost-obnoxious because she had this nice face and because the whole campus knew she really knew what she was doing.

Now I find out on Facebook that she's the news editor for a paper in England. And she's only 27. I am so insanely jealous!

PS, go look at the newspaper we worked on here Isn't it gorgeous? And so much more creative and intelligent than the stuff we get here!

On the up: Being awake
On the down: Falling asleep (very often)

It's been feeling a bit like spiritual boot camp lately what with the strange (though adrenaline-fuelled and enlightening) irregular nights and hanging out with the Buddhas all day long. Other things are starting to feel a bit mundane. Meh.

There was the Bangkok trip but that is going to be a really really long post because there was so much that happened in 3 days. When you're travelling with a Rinpoche, it's not likely you'll sleep much, but that's the whole point, isn't it!

Got back on Saturday and on Sunday (yesterday), Joe had scheduled another meeting

*stabs him in the head when he's not looking*

Okay, no lar, not so violent. Rinpoche's long time mentor from his early early early days in Thubten Dargye Ling centre in LA is in KL for three weeks, and the writers were invited over to spend the evening with Rinpoche and Mamie - sort of reunion thing lah.

Oh my god. Mamie is a walking diary. She remembers absolutely EVERYTHING and has more stories inside her little head than all the bookshelves of all the children in the whole entire world.

And now, SHE is the ultimate zen high priestess. She's just all trippy and happy and fun and nothing ruffles her feathers. She's like a walking Dharma dolly and she has plenty to tell and breathe.

I just wish I wasn't half asleep from trying to recover from BKK and the past two weeks of non-sleep.

By 3am, Mamie went off to bed but we all stayed downstairs talking to Rinpoche about all sorts of fantastic stuff (and I mean "fantastic" in that 19th century sort of way where it's all about things Not Of This Realm).

Got lots of my nigglybiggly questions about practice and yidams (meditational deities) answered and we all turned a slightly sick shade of green hearing about JP being oh-so-soooo Vajrayogini and getting the hell out of samsara faster than the rest of us (Okay, not really. No envy, no jealousy, I promise. I'm veeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrry happy-smappy for him and the new plan is to hang around more so the positivity might rub off).

Weird though, how your mind does all this strange shit to you. Like how I was sitting there thinking, "Damnit why don't *I* get to be special and have Vajrayogini practice toooooooooooooooo? *cry ego ego ego cry*"

Then mentally smacked myself because hey, trust that your Lama knows what will or won't suit your path best lah, you stoopid hollow bell.

Isn't it disturbing how all this ego just sort sticks up its knobbly hand and waves insanely when you actually think you're all floating on a lotus cloud, all compassion and ego-free... But maybe sometimes the doubt can be good though because it makes you think properly instead of just going completely agro and/or doing things totally blind???

Anyway, during one of the breaks when we got up to stretch legs and eat cake in the kitchen, I WhisperWhispered to JP so the Buddhas couldn't hear, "So you think we're going to be here until 11am again hahahahaha" And he just gave me this look.

By 6am, Rinpoche showed no signs of flagging. You know what, like JJ said so puuurfectly, "They don't call them the AWAKENED ones for nothing!" I swear, Rinpoche is the energiser bunny, except even the energiser bunny runs out of batteries at some point and Rinpoche NEVER.

Anyway, at 6ish, he said, "Okay folks, big bad Rinpoche is going upstairs to do his sadhana now!"

Okay, I confess, though I LoveLoveLove being around Rinpoche and getting all these amazing teachings, a little evil exhausted part of me thought, "Oh yay. Pillow!!! Enfin!"

7 hours later, we were still there.

Sharon had to leave early.
Then Susan had to leave early.
Then Ben had to leave early.

I could have left with them but then thought I didn't have to go for anything so had no "excuse" to leave really and thought it owuld be rude in the face of Enlightenment. Anyway, I was kiasugreedy and didn't want to miss out. So brave me stayed, oh-so-unattached-to-sleep.

Ommm...

Of course, pick games again. This time some real gems.

Joe got to pick:
- Go up to Gaden Tri Rinpoche (the highest ranking person in the Gelugpa school of Tibetan Buddhism, and the only other person in the entire Tibetan Buddhist tradition that can replace the Dalai Lama for teachings) and punch him, put it up on YouTube and say how much you hate him.
OR
-Marry JP in Australia, and you have to be Mrs. JP.

JP got lots of Bill Keith picks again. Many, many, many variations on:
Have sex with Bill Keith or all the animals in zoo negara?

Ben got:
Perform the 64 arts of love with Bill Keith in front of your mother
OR
Go to Tianamen Square in broad daylight, with a Falungong tshirt and vandalise Chairman Mao's picture.

At some point, JP asked, "Why don't you ask Paris?!"

Rinpoche said, "Paris? Because she's not resistant. She's like, whatever!"

haha!

I asked Rinpoche in Bangkok why pick games were always horrible options. "Like, why don't we ever get to pick between two really, really nice things for a change?!"

He said, "Because it's about getting rid of your attachments and hang ups. Those options aren't disgusting on their side. They're disgusting because you think they're disgusting. So I'll keep giving you those things as options until you stop being hung up about not liking them."

Also, the deal with the pick game is that if you don't pick one, you have to have both, so having two good things doesn't work, of course.

I guess it's not just torture then. It's a big fat lesson to get over yourself!

I still totally utterly completely dislike You Know Who though (okay, *some* of you know but I will show face a bit by not publishing his name in black&white).

As it started to get really bright through the windows, Rinpoche was talking to JP again about spiritual responsibilities, where he hopes to take us all in our paths and how he's training us up to take the hard stuff later.

He said, "Why do you think I invite you out to hang out and spend all this time at weird hours together?"

By then I was really feeling like old lettuce, all soggy and brown round the edges. I thought, "Well, gee, good for JP but what the hell am *I* doing here still?!"

Then right then, he said to JP, "And why do you think we've got Paris here? It's definitely not to look at her clothes!"

Oh dear. You mean, it's going to get tougher in the future!! (why else the "training?")

At 7ish, Mamie had woken up, came down for breakfast and started telling heaps of stories again. My head was really getting all *FUZZ* and soon everything just started to sound like random white noise.

I was trying to concentrate. I WAS! But she kept blurring out into a distant blob and everything she was saying started to sound like how a TV sounds when you fall asleep in the living room. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Everyone had left by then and Rinpoche had started doing his sadhana so it was really up to me, JP and YekYee to pay attention and engage. Thank god for JP and his Eyes Like Teacups, which makes him look more awake than the average person at any given time.

Finally, at 1pm. Rinpoche jumped off his seat and announced, "Okay Mamie! I'm going to sleep now. Bye bye!" and disappeared as quickly as the night had been long.

*Blink* He was gone.

Labels: Rinpoche, Vajrayogini

On the up: Travel
On the down: Last minute-ness

I took this week off for a retreat. I spent all my energy on the first two days just trying to stay awake. They say obstacles always arise when you're in retreats - all the rubbish from all the way inside that clogged up sewer mind comes out and, hopefully, gets purified alongside all the other karma-crap.

My biggest obstacle, then: most definitely sleep. I've never felt so asleep as I did the last two days.

Anyway, typically, just as I am starting to get the hang of this thing (not a blink of drowsiness this morning!), the Buddhas - and Rinpoche - spring a surprise... and we're off to Bangkok for three days.

Forget the retreat, I'm hanging on a lotus cloud til Saturday! And there'll be lots of stories when I get back...

On the up: KLILF
On the down: Un-literary people

Spent two and a half days languishing at the KL International Literary Festival, pretending to be intellectual again.

Am I just being a snob or did people at the festival just not get the point of it?!

Went to a session with journalist Conor O'Cleary on writing biographies. He's writing something on Chuck Feeney, one of the world's richest men who has decided to give all his wealth away to charities.

Anyway, the session was about writing biographies, right? So I thought that what we'd discuss. I was rajin-ly asking all these writerly questions about the voice of the biography, and how to remain authentic in writing, and fictionality-versus-accuracy etc etc for the purposes of my own writing and because it's about "writing biographies," damnit, so shouldn't it be about that?

Other people were asking questions like:

"Was Chuck Feeney poor when he was young?"
"How did he decide which charities to give his money to?"

and the best question, following an excerpt that was read out from the prologue of the biography:

"I'm just wondering if the weather is always that bad in Honolulu?"

*slap*

Later, I went to a session with Dina Zaman, who was discussing her new book, I am Muslim. I'm not well-versed in local lit (mainly because I'm too damn lazy to keep abreast and because I'm still stuck on trying to finish my infinite list of Classics-I-Must-Read-Before-I'm-30) but Dina's book is a hoot and really quite daring.

Anyway, she read out a chapter from her book which was all about sex. So funny, but apparently, So Very Shocking for older people in the audience.

What followed was poor Dina being interrogated by this old biddy about what it meant to lose your virginity
And why had Dina placed so much importance on sex?
And does she always write about sex?
And why does she use sex so much to define Muslims Nowadays?

Gee, it was only ONE chapter out of a whole book. Dina said, "You'll notice, if you read the rest of the book that I do talk about a lot of other things other than sex." But that lady seemed to have got it into her mind that Dina was just some slutty trash mouth. Actually, with all her questions, it was starting to look like the old woman was more obsessed about sex than anyone else was.

I also went to see Benjamin Zephaniah whose stuff is JUST FANTASTIC. Poetry never seemed so alive.

I did my pompous writerly thing again and asked a pompous writerly question. (I was writing a feature on the festival so I had to go ask some semi-intelligent questions to get fodder.) As a very try-hard, wannabe writer, there were many things I wanted to know anyway, so when I asked the questions, I actually wanted to know the answers.

So I asked Benjamin a question, and just as he was answering the question (and I started jotting down notes), this absurd little batty 70-year-old German lady sitting across me, started asking me random questions.

Benjamin was looking at me while he was answering my question, but then saw me half-engaged in this conversation with this German lady, and soon the whole entire room was looking at me and the Frau. I was trying to gesture to her that Benjamin was answering my question and that I would answer her later but she was a persistent little old dame. She kept right on talking and talking, completely oblivious to the fact that I had just asked a question and Benjamin was trying to answer...

and since I didn't want to seem rude, I pretended to listen to her, while also trying to listen to Benjamin's answer, while also taking notes for the article, while also trying to look like I was NOT starting up my own conversation and being rude to Benjamin.

*fail*

Man, you meet some odd sorts when you go to these sorts of things.

Went to Tash Aw's session too and he
is
just
so
damn
beautiful

and speaks in a wonderful British way
and writes!
and has great clothes
and is well versed in literature
and can deconstruct Nabokov like its second nature
and has won book awards
and is small, fair and hairless
and went to UEA (famous for its creative writing course)

I'm in love!

Thing about the arty types: I remember how the boys in our english department at uni were either incredibly beautiful or totally gross.

After graduation, it seems that all the incredibly beautiful boys just sort of disappear into a vacuum, only to reappear in literary festivals when they're already very famous and unattainable. Pish. We'll just have to settle with the remaining dregs.

(I have to say though, I've been quite good about not blogging about boys for awhile cos there's been so much else going on. Kennie was right about how being really busy with work etc makes you stop thinking about sex!)

On the up: Beautiful people
On the down: Not being quite as beautiful enough...

I went to see Whye Mun sing at The Attic on Friday. Whye Mun has the best smile in the whole world and also a voice that makes everybody cry because it's just so fantastic. (Why is it that I know all these people who can sing so damn well, when I can't sing for shit. choy.) I mean, heck, she sang this Norah Jones song (forget which one) and it sounded bloody better than Norah herself. She also sang Sarah MacLachlan *screams!* Anyone who sings Sarah MacLachlan (and doesn't butcher it) wins many dolly points in my little pink dolly book.

It seemed like the whole world was there on Friday. Bumped into Charlene again (I seem to see her all over Bangsar!). She's the celebritee that appeared in Dollyblog a while back and has these fantastic big eyes like buttons.

I hate her because she's so adorable and cute, and has this amazing wardrobe. She's so small I don't think I could even fit an arm through any of her clothes.

Anyway, I think I was being really boring that night because I was just so damn exhausted from not having slept in ages so I remember I kept zoning out and staring at the piano. Poor Charlene had to keep asking me questions if not I would start to go quiet and ignore her (and if I go quiet, it definitely means something is wrong!)

Chin Li was also there but had run off with some guy that she keeps going on about being hot but um, so isn't. A while later, she came back and told me how she also passed out, how she kept bashing into the wall when she was walking and how everything suddenly went black. Uh oh.

So I ordered her tea and cake and made her eat. Everything becomes right when you feed Chin Li.

Then, there was this girl sitting in front of us with amazing hair and Chin Li kept saying she wanted to ask the girl where she cut her hair, but was too shy to ask. Aiyo.

So big mouth me tapped her on the shoulder and told her we loved her hair. Now that I think about it, it was probably totally rude of me because she was sort of hugging her boyfriend and looked like she just wanted to spend time with him, and there was this loud, intefering girl with bad hair and big eye bags talking to her about her hair.

She was so super nice about it though, and soon I found out that it was actually Xandria Ooi. Ooh, like how Tatler and Hello! magazine of me to be randomly talking to celebrities.

Okay. Time out. I need to get on my soap box and say something IMPORTANT.

Having met Xandria and the current Miss Malaysia (Adeline Choo) within the same week, I have to say they both looked so much more fantastic in person than they do on print/on tv.... which either means they are just far too stunning for the cameras to handle or Malaysian media is deliberately ugly-cising our beautiful people!!!!!

(Also, meeting two very gorgeous people in the same week doesn't really do a lot for a paranoid, self-obsessed girl like me who has such complicated self-esteem issues! But okay never mind, save the neurosis for another time.)

Earlier in the night I also spotted the kinkybluefairy whose blog is my most favourite read in the whole enormous cyberworld. Now, my MSN nickname is Faery, but this one really really really looks like a fairy and whenever I see her, I start to feel a bit like a fraud.

I thought I'd be a bit perasaan and go say hello.

She was having this very animated conversation with some people but I went up to her and tapped her on the shoulder, like three times before she finally turned around. Then I got all stalker fan-like really embarrassing way:

"You're the kinkybluefairy, aren't you?! I just wanted to say I really like your blog, and I know how you hate people coming up to you just to talk about your blog, but I really like your blog."

Yah, yah, I really did sound as dumb as that.

The kinkybluefair was very nice about it though and even talked to me for a bit. She had this great new red hair which made me feel even more stoopid, because I've wanted to do the whole-head-in-shocking-red-dye thing for ages and ages and now that she's gone and done it, I'm just going to look like a copycat fraud. AGAIN.

I told her I liked the red anyway though. We talked about red dye for a bit, and she was even being nice enough to encourage me to go do mine red too.

But okay, now I definitely can't do it without looking like a fraud.

Su Ming was there too and made me a mean Mojito. She was complaining about it not being a real mojito but I remember it tasting better than any of the other mojitos I've had before (and I don't usually like mojitos). Her beautiful boy Terence was also there and he came over to talk for a bit. He always talks so damn fast though so I can never understand what he's saying, and it was even harder that night with all the people and music. I always feel a bit bad because he says something, and I have to ask him to repeat it about 3 times, and when I finally still don't get it, I kind of just nod, try to feign the appropriate reaction and hope I got it right.

The Most Beautiful Interior Designer in the world was also there.

When you see him, you wonder how it is possible that there could exist someone as sublime and gorgeous as that. I'm scared to look at him directly in the face in case he cracks and disappears and I wake up and realise that it was actually just some warped figment of my over active imagination.

Also, you know how there's this English lady who works at The Attic? She's always so damn nice to me and makes it a point to come over and chat, but I can't remember her name AT ALL. And I've been there so many times, and talked to her so many times that it would just be plain damn rude to ask her what her name is now. So please tell me her name if you know it!

I still hadn't dinner by about 12 and Chin Li was hungry (again. She eats every half an hour and still never puts on weight. I think she stores it all in her feet). So we went to Safiz and talked about boys for an hour (well, what's new).

Okay, I've run out of things to say now but I'm going to be away all of next week and I'm trying to make the most out of blogging tonight before a big long absence.

On the up: Dollygirlblog!
On the down: Revealing all your secrets

I was CC'd this email today:

I for the first time came across Paris's great, fun and down to earth blog site...please mass email this to our group and have them take a read...she is really today's cyber-dharma-girl....caution do be advised as she is a no holds bar...hehehehehhe

It was from Rinpoche, sent out to, well, everybody.

For the first two seconds, the tiny little part of me that is modest and ladylike felt very shy shy, malu malu and went, "Oh my god, how?!"

But okay, let's not even bother to pretend. A much bigger part of me which loves attention was all, YAAAAAAAAY!

I love that the note came with a little warning ("do be advised as she is a no holds bar"). For a microsecond, I panicked and had to think real quickly about who I had bitched about on here.

Then I thought, "Oh, well, who cares. TooLateNow." And anyway, it did come with a warning, didn't it?