On the up: Creating your own style
On the down: Following trends

Miin finds the most fantastic things online. *Clever Miiiin*

Among them is THE COVETED which is fabulously fashionable and doesn't succumb to crap fly-by trends or big boring commercial brands. She posts all these cute outfits that she wears, comments on trends, mixes independent/vintage with brands, and writes about great little shopping, style and art finds in her area.

Then, that led me THIS which is EVEN MORE CUTE. Spins me into total overdrive looking at crazy photos of what people are wearing and it is SO EXCITING to see people wearing COLOURS! (because all you ever see in KL are boring girls wearing black tops and jeans) I'm hyperventilating into my flowered handbag.

After working for the magazine industry, which is totally, entirely, 100% slaves to their advertisers, it is so damn nice to read something that promotes style for style and not because they've signed a fat deal with a demanding client.

There's lots of being
creative
kooky
cute
layered
colourful
weird
experimental
and and and most importantly,
not giving a damn whether what they're wearing is "in fashion" or not. (Man, even that term is so damn overbaked and very unfashionable)

The people in these photos even have amazing hair (as opposed to the overkill of long, straight, rebonded hair here). Malaysians really really really super duper need to take a look at these sites to realise that there exists more than just their single definition of style.

*SO DELIGHTED*

This must be clarified:

Since Rinpoche outed my JP crush about five times, everybody probably thinks the previous post is about him.

It's not. That was a 2minute crush.

Very flash in the pan, 3 months ago!

(note: I still think he's an very ab fab person though in a But-Sometimes-I-Just-Want-To-Strangle-You kind of way. heeeeee)

On the up: love love!
On the down: being too obsessed

Oh dear, I'm all in-lust-in-love again.

Again because I have been infatuated OnOffOnOffOnOff with this one since the word GO. Non Stop, Never-Get-Bored, AlwaysAlways adoration. I think I might actually be in love with him for the rest of my life.

I told Vera today, "I want to marry him! It would be sooooooooo perfect."

The silly moot thought I was being serious.

She was all, "What makes you want to marry him?" and then "What happens after the nice wedding? Are you sure can handle the commitment?" She gets very worried about me, can't you tell.

I said, "No lah! I'm just kidding. I don't really mean I want to marry him. That's just the kind of thing I say lah. Aiyoo."

She seemed really really really really really relieved to hear that. Then added, "Man, I'm glad I managed to last and am not one of your two-minute friends."

That made me think, "Oh yah hor... I'm even fickle about people I know/love/dislike/feel neutral about."

But anyway, back to the boy du jour and how he is not only beauuuuuuuuuuutiful but also everything else fabulous. Like finding a GIGANTIC MILK TRAY where everything inside tastes good and the caramels got left out.

Okay, so no marriage but I do so want to live with him forever in a big airy apartment with huge balconies, vintage crockery and heaps and heaps and heaps and heaps of books. We'd survive on just coffee and chocolates (Milk Tray, no caramel) and give each other beautifully designed tomes (first editions! vintage! or The Very Newest Volume) for birthday presents.

We would have big long conversations at strange early hours of the morning about all sorts of wonderful Things That Matter. And he would always be laughing with splendid eyes. Then, when it was time, he'd go off to work in his very efficient, confident, passionate way to be clever, to be meaningful, to be magical, to change people's lives!

Because he's that sort of person.

See, I've got it allll worked out.

On the up: Sarah!
On the down: How London is so far away

The other thing is that I've had Sarah, a friend from England visiting over the past 2 weeks so have been going out heaps and showing her how incredibly delightful KL is (so much of it isn't though - like the toilets and how all the tourist attractions need a boat of paint).

The most fun has been remembering all the weird shit we used to do at uni and talking about all the people that we loved/wanted to marry/ got on our bloody nerves every day. We really did that old lady thing by talking about the old days.

*feels young and silly*

Reminded me of so many lovely jubly things though.... like:
-Tom Smithard (the other newspaper editor we all loved to hate. I thought/still think he is the most beautiful person in the world, to which Sarah gags and says "I will NEVER understand that")
-Charles Lugton (the politics editor I wanted to marry)
-eating vodka jellies
-British television (Hollyoaks, Blind Date, Cilla Black!, Anne Robinson, Countdown)
-big glam pretentious campus media nights
-trying to get out of student union general meetings
-the burger vans

Okay, but none of this would have any significance to anyone reading this so I better stop being so self absorbed about this minute, little World In The Past.

Sarah's a very clever sort of journalist; especially the sort who's very politically sound and knows all this important stuff about the world. And she's starting an journalism course in London when she gets back which is going to make her even more clever, bright and talented than she already is. Funny really, because I used to order her around on the university paper when I was her editor, and now she's so going off to get journo training that will kick my butt.

Sarah coined the phrased "IT'S CRAZINESS!" at university and she was definitely one of the best people to go out with if you wanted to be silly and not feel silly being silly. Like, absolutely anything goes with Sarah. KL SOOOOOOO needs more people like her.

Sarah-sort-of-craziness includes things like
- running around in the cold in shorts with only a giant bottle of Baileys to keep warm
- making up your own kind of dance
- getting away with wearing lots of purple (in all shades) - not many people can pull off purple
- lots of dress up parties
- writing novels

amongst other things.

She even tried durian and didn't throw up. She ate everything I put in front of her - seriously man, anything goes!

Anyway, little old Sarah is off on a jet plane back home now so things are back to the normal doldrums here...

Back to work (oh wait, I forgot. I QUIT with a big fat Q hakakakakakakakaka!) and all kinds of random silliness.

On the up: Almost Famous
On the down: Being Banned!

*Sorry morry. This is waaay overdue but must be documented, no matter how late!*

Okay, so I don't want to show off, and I know it shouldn't be about ego and all that but

WE TOTALLY ROCKED the Buddhist culture and arts festival.

I mean, most of us got back from Singapore and we were all like "Please just let my bed swallow me up forever" but The Amazing Joe and The Fabulous Shin were all bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bouncing around with their batteries top charged, all ready for the next fair.

A lazy dolly though, let her bed swallow her up for a few days first *shame shame*

Anyway, we were totally a hit. The crowds loved the Neon Lama, even when he wasn't there.

Look err, no offence and all that but this was the corridor next to Kechara...........................


And this was Kechara........

(photos taken within seconds of each other).

To up the ante, Small Fry (the most intelligent 9 year old in the world) and I decided to paint ourselves and pretend for a moment that we were enlightened....

Webbie sloshed on the green paint and made me into Green Tara and Sean became a little mini Dzambala. Who said you can't become a Buddha overnight man.

And just to get Kechara even MORE attention, we took a walk around the fair (oh god, I like SO love attention, ego ego ego!)

Actually, Tara is supposed to look royal, gorgeous, svelte, greeeeeeeeen and pretty like this

And Dzambala looks regal and filthy-rich, zing-bling like this:

And this is our ciplak interpretations of the Buddhas!

I think there's something slightly disturbing about the way I think I look better looking like a green highlighter than I do normally. Poor Tara sitting on her moon disc and lotus must have been looking down from the sky and thinking,

"OH MY GOD, what a fat version of me. Some more got such short eyelashes. What total samsara injustice!" (Okay, not really cos she's full of compassion and no ego).

I was also called A martian, Mrs Shrek, the Swamp Thing and The Incredible Hulk, which REALLY did not impress me. hmph.

We heard later that some people thought we were taking trance and came up to pray to us. OH DEAR. Then annoying little bratty kids danced around in front of me and tried to irritate me into moving. I swear if they'd touched me, I'd have poked them in the eye with my plastic lotus. I tried to deal with it by trying to channel compassionate Tara energy - ommmmmmmmmm - when all I wanted to do was slap them. Evidently, I'm really NOT someone worth coming up to pray to just yet.

Anyway, we got warnings and bans! The organisers didn't like us walking around - we were supposed to stay within the confines of our booth. Like gee, every single booth here is promoting the same thing (Dharma) so what difference does it make man.

Then somebody put a little bowl in front of Dzambala (just to see lah what happens), and someone put in some loose change and the organisers got het up again and took the bowl away, stating that we were soliciting funds and were begging for alms.

Like gee. It's just a gimmick. We weren't even asking people to put donations. If I'm being honest, I'd say I just wanted attention because I have an enormous, self-absorbed ego. So get over all your funny rules man.

Then they kept coming up to our booth and trying to get us to move our posters in because they claimed it was blocking the walkway. Our posters are like 1 1/2 foot wide, and the walkway is about 5 metres across. GEE.

The next day, they rang up good old Henry and said, "I hope you're not going to do anything special today."

HAH.

So no more green and gold paint.

Not that that stops any of us. We shall always endeavour to get attention and so we did.

Fabulous adorable I-wish-he-was-straight Eric Choong turned up to help volunteer. HE IS SO DAMN CUTE and I want to put him in my pocket and take him home.

AND THEN
SOME
MORE

Amber Chia came to visit. She is soooooooooooo pretty man. Next life I'm gonna be Amber Chia's reincarnation and I too am going to get famous doing adverts for Brands Like Guess.

She is also so super sweet and so doesn't have any airs. I think someone just asked her to come by to help support Kechara and she did, AND took heaps of photos.

Irene (the most perasaan person I have ever known, and who only keeps getting more perasaan as she gets older) stood in the middle of the crowds and started screaming,

"AMBER CHIA!!!! AMBER CHIA!!! AMBERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR"

So of course lah, all of us had to join in so big mouth Joy and I started,
"OH MY GOD, is that Amber Chia?!"
"Where where?!"
"I think that's Amber Chia at KECHARA PARADISE!"

We were being totally rude and obnoxious but Amber didn't seem to mind at all. Look how unruffled and darling she looks next to KMP's (equally sexy) books:

Okay, but it wasn't just all ego-boosting and fun and games. The Kechara people worked SO AMAZINGLY HARD all those five days to talk to people about Dharma, Rinpoche's teachings and Gaden. I just can't understand how people like Joe, Shin, Pooh Bear JJ, Webbie and Dory did it. They just talked non-stop and answered heaps of people's questions, talked to them about Dharma non stop.
It's not a competition, of course. Every tradition of Buddhism is fantastic and we're all teaching the same teachings - it's just the approach that's different but sometimes I guess that's what really makes all the difference.

There's still heaps of Buddhists here who just offer joss sticks when they want money or a husband for their poor unmarried spinster daughter and like geeeeeeeeeeeeeeee it's about a lot more than that! (You think Buddha got nothing better to do than find you a husband issit).

The fair was a chance to talk to people about the teachings, how it's actually not about Religion (scary capital R) but about a way of life that brings happiness, and (spiritual) wealth, and health, and peace and okay, a husband too if you really want.

People didn't want to respond too well to me though. I'd open up my big posh mouth with my pseudo-overseas accent and they all run run far far. I didn't even dare try Chinese - that's even scarier. Man, I never felt so useless - I can't sell anything for shite!

So I said to Joe, "Er I think I better start writing more books to make up for my total lack of sales power."

Diplomatic Joe just laughed in his nice way. He was probably thinking, "Yah, damnit. Get working now now now."

I'm so proud of everyone else and how hard they all worked though. The green paint gimmick and having my skin dry out like a lizard was probably worth only about 5% of all that they did.

*so so so loves Kechara* muaks!

On the up: KMP
On the down: Singapore

[Sorry for the absence. It's been a non stop month which has meant no time for writing *boooooo* Here's a madlysuddenly catch-up session]

I am STILL trying to get over how much fun the book fair in Singapore was.

Okay wait, no. The book fair itself was pretty bloody boring if only because Singaporeans are pretty bloody boring, but KMP had a riot, as we always do!!! Heck, there is no other way you'd get me to stay in Singapore for almost 2 weeks at a time.

We absolutely had the best booth. It was so beautiful, even the Buddhas approved and stopped by to keep us company.

It was fun just to see everyone bustling about the booth and having people walk in and out (and challenge us with their funny questions). Nothing feels quite as happy as having a busy booth.

Rinpoche's YouTube videos have already hit a 100,000 mark within just 6 months. He gets an absurd number of hits that go well into the thousands on website every month and we have HEAPS of emails from people all over the world wanting to come visit KL and Kechara (Pak Lah should SO give us a cut for bringing people into the country!) And our books are right up there next to Vickie MacKenzie's Tenzin Palmo book on the shelves of Singapore's Borders. Wheeeeeeeee! Famous Amos!

With all The Many Facets of a Wisdom Diamond, how can we go anywhere but up!!! Hot damn Joy and Justin made a rocking poster - they are so damn crever with their design (Joy, you SO SO SO SOOOOOOOOOOO have to design EVERYTHING for KMP forever and ever and ever. pleeeeeeeeease) ---->

Anyways, it was all fun fun fun right up until the last day when we finally took everything down and kissed Suntec City good bye. It was totally exhausting (I will never laugh at or ever be mean to exhibitors ever again, I promise) but rewarding and happy. Next up - the London Book Fair?!

Now we're back to the normal doldrums - it's time to put noses to the grindstone and churn out lots more volumes for next year. Joe's already got a big list of work cut out for a Dolly - absolutely no rest for the weary?

The most perverse thing is that I'm actually looking forward to it.
More work?
And lazy me is happy about it?
How is that even possible?!!!!!!!!!

On the up: Short hair
On the down: Stylists who don't know how to handle short hair

Mike The Best Stylist in The World has left to a very Faraway Place *cries*

There has never, ever been a better stylist in the history of Malaysian hairdressing and now Shanghai gets him instead and we're left with the rest of the shit ones.

And when I say Shit Ones, I mean it!

The thing is, just.about.every.single.girl in Malaysia has long hair so most stylists DON'T HAVE to worry about being good. I mean, how much can you do with long hair anyway?
Wash
Condition
Snip snip a bit here and there
Blow dry straight

So. The. Boring.
And SO does not require any skill.

Anyway, I really needed a new hair cut, so HAD to find someone good to cut my mad pseudo-Pink type hair properly. I was recommended some dude in KL Plaza. Someone even made an appointment for me, so nice.

I went in and I told him to please cut my hair short but not spikey.
He cut it Short And Spikey.

I told him not to make me look like a durian.
But he cut the spikes all the same length, pointing out evenly all over my head, so I look either like a Durian or Rambutan, depending on which angle you look.

I told him I wanted Natalie Portman type short hair.
I got Roxette.

Like half the city already think I'm a lesbian. Now, I not only look like a lesbian but a really, aggressive, Harley-driving, butch basketball player.

And I have nothing against lesbians at all, but really,
I'm not aggressive
I don't drive a big noisy bike
I don't play basketball
And I am far from butch (this pink blog is evidence)

SO SALAH!

Verdict: if someone cannot cut short hair, THEY INSTANTLY FAIL as a stylist.

FAIL!

I SO want to go shave off that stylist's eyebrows now.

On the up: Having friends visit
On the down: Improper hosting etiquette

I've realised that there are actually people reading my blog. I mean, not as many as like xiaxue or whatever, but hey, some is better than none. *happy*

While out at The Attic last night, I met a million people who all asked why Dollyblog had gone so quiet.

a) I've been very busy
b) I've been very busy
c) I've been very busy

And also, I have a fabulous friend from uni here to visit and I've been trying to do the nice good thing of playing congenial host.

Unfortunately, Sarah is like very intelligent and culturally aware of things and the only things I know about KL are:
where to eat
where to drink
where to shop

And because I've been having meetings all week that she's here (okay, so another reason to quit that vacuous job), I've had to just sort of leave her at shopping malls every day. I think she's about ready to throw up if I show her another shop.

The other thing is that I haven't got a bloody clue about What Tourists Do Here. I know like, er,
Petaling Street
the twin towers
Batu Caves

and that's about it

AND THEN SOME MORE, all the nice eating places I've taken Sarah too haven't been nice at all.

LIKE:
I wanted to take her out to eat Indian food but the only good place is Passage to India and the nice weather gods decided to flood the whole city so that idea was out. We went to another place that Indian people had recommended to me. If Indian people eat there, then must be quite good lah, right? NoNo. I swear I made nicer curry myself using the stuff you get in jars.

Then I took her to La Bodega to have dessert which is always so HORRENDOUSLY GOOOOOOD. We had a chocolate cake that was so hard you could bounce it against the wall. Warm chocolate fudge cake my foot.

I wanted to go with her to Palate Palette, but the night we went, it was closed for some filming rubbish they were doing there.

So we went to Asian Heritage Row - and discovered that half the bloody was closed down because it had flooded!

And that tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiny little patriotic part of me is starting to panic thinking that Sarah is gonna have with a horrid impression of M'sia. Boo.

I'm trying lah, Pak Lah, I really am!

On the up: KL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
On the down: Spending too much time in Singapore

IT IS SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO GOOD TO BE BACK (Okay, so I've been back for almost a week now, but have been incredibly lazy about updating)

I love the chaos
I love the rubbish
I love that there's always time for tea in Malaysia
I love the fact that everything takes longer in KL!

Hurray!

Singapore is pretty and clean and organised and you can get in a taxi without fearing the safety of your wallet and your life but but but it's just tooooooooooooooooooooo proper and a dolly cannot live without a bit of chaos.

Anyway, our book fair was TOTALLY SMASHING. Too bad if you weren't there to see us in action *pfffftt*

We got some seriously strange people coming to visit us, with some SERIOUSLY strange questions. Someone even walked past and called us Devil Worshippers. You've definitely made it when someone starts calling you names, no?! We're totally the kind of people you just love to hate hehe

Now, Kechara is at Malaysia's largest Buddhist Culture and Arts Festival and as usual, we have caused a real stir and managed to rack up two warning letters. We didn't do anything except paint ourselves green and gold, but I suppose people just couldn't stand the attention we were getting.

More on that later. I have photos! Which will be posted up sooooooon.