On the up: Spending money
On the down: Achey feet

Okay, so I love all the shopping here - love love love. But I do soooooooooooo hate that high exchange rate which means everything is so EXXXXXXX!

I've been looking for a cute laptop bag for ages because those big old ugly tired bland boring black bags they give out with every single laptop purchase in the world is starting to make me feel like vomiting on myself.

Black. YUCK.

So then I read in a magazine here that there's a new boutique in a new mall that sells Vintagey flowery laptop carriers!

I MUST HAVE. Attached even before I have it.

I took off to Clarke Quay and hunted and hunted and hunted. The mall is the most confusing maze you could ever imagine a mall to be. Makes Sungei Wang look like a straight line. It took me half an hour just to find the shop, even with the shop address and a floor plan of the mall.

But it was wellll worth it! Now I can pretend to be like what Virginia Woolf would have been like if she had a laptop back then.

Also!
FURRY PINK slippers from La Senza.
A tacky black top for ONLY $5 (okay, so it's not all expensive)
Another tacky green flowery halter dress (that shall be worn with construction books - still looking)
Clothes for a Tara costume
and
and
and
and...
A STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE TSHIRT! (one of them vintagey prints of SS before she became butch)

This is an incredible find because she absolutely my ultimate pink hero. Even more than Paris Hilton, and Barbie Doll put together. Who else can run around in a HUGE skirt, has freckles, wears pink and has best friends all named after dessert?

I want to buy EVERYTHING here. If I don't stop spending, I'm going to have no money left and will have to walk home from town to my aunt's flat in Ang Mo Kio every day, and eat grass.

(But that could be good too - I'd lose heaps of weight and look even better in my new clothes!)

On the up: Books books books
On the down: Being overwhelmed by Chinese

The book fair is in full swing and we have been bouncing around causing (good) havoc in our little corner. Why lah did they go and put us with all the Very Virtuous People when we are actually a publishing house full of deviants.

Never mind. That means we stand out more. So there.

And we DO stand out. There’s heaps of people who come hang around us and it’s such a busy, happy little corner.

I swear like 99% of the people there speak Chinese and since I seem to be able to only speak in some sort of distorted posh way, they don’t take to me very well. The Clever Chinese Speakers like JJ, Shin, Ben, Joe, Chia and YekYee have to do all the hard work of talking to like, e.ver.ree.bo.dee

Really, to say they are AMAZING is an understatement. These dudes could sell ice to eskimos. This whole experience of being here isn't really supposed to be about sales, but it's just amaaaaaaaazing how patient they are to stand there and talk, and they have this HUGE fountain of knowledge in their little heads.

When I grow up I want to be like them!

And so a dolly takes herself off to other corners of the bookfair to hand out free little bookmarks and say, with her biggest, most enormous smile possible, “Hello! Please have a free bookmark. Do visit our booth at the far corner towards the back of the hall. THANK YOU!”

Sometimes the people I approach actually look scared of me. Most of them look fed up of having things stuck in their faces but WHO CARES, our bumpf is the best looking of the lot - it's not just cheap photocopied ugly tat, okay!

I will never, ever take those people at exhibitions for granted ever again.

We’ve had some really strange people come by the booth. Some old dude cornered Ben and went on and on and on at him about why he shouldn’t really do Dharma. Weird, because this guy was Buddhist too. Ben, being Ben, is all nice, and zen and ommmmmm about everything so he keeps getting accosted by strange people who talk non stop at him. He just sort of stands there and looks really polite and smiles all the time.

Another guy asked Shin why Rinpoche has hair so Shin gave him a very long, proper explanation, after which he said, “No sorry, I’m not interested because he has hair.”

WHAT.

I spoke to a guy two days ago who came into the booth to look aroiund. I asked him if he was interested in Chinese or English books.

He said, "Actually, I'm not interested in anything."

But he didn't make any move to leave the booth or anything so I talked to him lah. And really, it was like everything I said, he would have some sort of counter answer about not being interested.

Like, gee, just leave already!!

We've had some really fun people too though. Pretty Pink Valentina from Jakarta came to visit us on her way back from a trip to Vietnam, and lots of cool people stop by to ask questions. We get so damn excited when someone asks us a question because we get to talk. I mean, really, after 5 hours of passing out bookmarks you WANT TO TALK!

yap yap yap yap yap yap yap yap yap yap yap yap yap yap yap yap

People in the other booths look bored to death. We seem to be the only group that's dancing around all the time and laughing about stupid things.

I said to Joe (the only person who maintains any sense decorum in the place), "What did you do in your past life that you ended up dealing with a bunch of clowns like us this life huh?"

He said, "Errrrrr, you know what. I've been thinking that same thing since yesterday." HAH.

Oh. And I'm dressing up in Tara sometime later in the week as a gimmicky-attention-seeking ploy. Green body paint and everything (just not half naked...!) - watch this space!

On the up: Book fairs!
On the down: The heat

Here we are in Singapore!

It was a "preliminary" day of setting up the booth at the book fair today. I've never been so many books in my life man!

The kiam siap Singaporeans didn't turn on any fans or airconditioners in the whole hall, so we had to go lugging round stacks of books and boxes of DVDs and shift posters all over the place without any bloody ventilation.

Like gee, does it cost so much to give us some FAN!

It was nonstop chaos for about 3 hours. I mean, the booth is only 3m x 3m and already we were about to kill each other. There were booths there that are about 10 times the size and I swear they only had about 2 people working there. We're like, hooooow?!

I think there must have been about 10 of us there at some stage and it was as disordered as it was fun. I mean, you don't think putting up a booth can be fun - but it is! (even for posh dollies who don't like manual labour!)

I looked over at Joe, and I swear, for once, he wasn't all peace and calm and radiating-joy. He really, really, really looked like he was going to burst a vein and he kept almost-screaming at Shin (Joe never screams, he just sounds visibly strung). Poor Joe.

Here we are looking like vagabonds in the middle of a corridor, sticking labels on DVDs.




Susan goes, "Oh my god, I gave up working in Intel to stick stickers on DVDs man."
I said, "Yah man. I'm giving up being an associate editor to stick stickers on DVDs."
We both agreed this was much more fun though.

And look! Our name up in big bold letters that you can see far, far away!



The arrangements were a nightmare. All these things kept falling behind the shelves. And everytime it did that, we'd have to move everything out, fish out the book/DVD and start all over again with the arrangments.

FINALLY, we got everything up So Very Nicely and then A Very Stupid Dolly managed to drop something down the gap between two drawers. Again.

I screamed very loudly, "FUCK" which probably made stressed Joe's blood pressure go up even higher.

Sharon was all, in her very lovely, proper British way, "Oh, is that coming from the Buddhist corner?!" before collapsing all over the place laughing.

We're in a section that's allocated to religious publishers and everyone is Very Virtuous so by default, we already look like deviants. The loud swearing, I suppose, does not help. Can you just see it already? All the evil whispering stuffy naysayers tutting, "What did I tell you about those Kechara people...."

Anyway, we finally 100% got everything up and it's sooooooo pretty!



Look how absorbed our first Very Interested Customer looks! (Okay, so it's just Susan, and she's only posing for the photo because I told her to but pfftttt)

I said to Sharon that we looked waaaaaay more gorgeous than the booth next to us.

Sharon goes, "Yah, but errr, they have heaps more books than us."

Like, oh yah. Really, it was heaps more.

But never mind, we totally kick enlightened butts for our amazing display (thank you lovely Ben, Joe and Shin for conceptualising and organising). And just you watch while we become an enormous publisher with one of them enormous booths!

Next year. Really!

On the up: Money
On the down: Finding it

Renovations for Kechara House's lovely new extension is just about to begin and we are running around desperately trying to raise funds - no easy feat for the bunch of us chickens who've never done this in our life.

THEN

I found out recently that there's certain handbag (I forget the brand) that costs over RM100,000. There's even a waiting list for it because there are apparently people out there who have just so much money they can put RM100K on hold as they wait for a handbag.

AND THEN

Whye Mun told us yesterday that her housemate works for La Mer and has customers who spend RM100K a year buying facial products to stick onto their ugly mugs.

Imagine that!

Our entire renovation fund in a couple of tacky handbags and some old hag's dead skin cells.

On the up: Being inspired...
On the down: ... for quite the wrong thing!

This has to be blogged because it's so funny.

We've been reading this book, Dragon Thunder, about Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, one of America's most famous and controversial Lamas in the 1970s who initiated an incredible spread of Tibetan Buddhism and Dharma in the West.

The book is supposed to inspire. Like, you know,
- make you want to be a better person
- push you towards doing more Dharma work
- find your own incredible Dharma teacher
- help your teacher to bring his teachings to the world.

Oh
So
Profound.

JP, on the other hand, read the book, came across a passage where he read something about someone having a fish tank and thought to his little hobbity self, "Oh fish! I feel like buying fish!" and so took himself off to Pet Safari and bought himself some fish.

He was very, very proud of his fish. He even had photos on his phone which he proudly showed off to us. He even told Rinpoche all about it.

And then *cold water*

Rinpoche told him how much work you need to put into maintaining a fish tank. Really, it seems there's nothing that a Rinpoche cannot do! He used to work in a pet shop as a kid, and took home some fish so knows alllll about how to look after them

And heck, it ain't easy.

He spent a good 20 minutes just explaining to JP what it means to maintain fish.

JP didn't look quite so excited anymore. I think maybe he was starting to worry a little bit about how he might come home one day soon and find all his fish belly up.

Chin Li was sitting next to me going, "Yah right, he's not going to look after it. It's going to end up being his poor maid doing it."

Really, JP is just so profound sometimes. It's pretty amazing, you know!

On the up: Weekends
On the down: Thumbtacks

I have been so lazy about blogging - and it's not even like there's nothing to talk about because there's heaps! I'm just lazy!

Okay, well, for now, here's a little story about my attempt to be sociable on Friday.

Alexis in Ampang was having a songwriters evening, and an open mic session after, so I thought I'd go hang out with Miin, who was thinking of trying out for the open mic thing. Vera came along too (poor thing lah, now that she's pregnant, nobody invites her out anymore!)

We thought we would be adventurous and go eat at this Indian place. Miin even made reservations, organised girl!

When we got there, we were the only people in that whole entire huge, huge restaurant. The deco was so damn cute too. I thought so anyway. Before we walked in, Miin goes, "The interior deco here is a bit questionable," but heck, that automatically means I'll love it. And I did!

Alexis was JAMMED SOLID. What to expect lah, Pete Teo was up on stage and like, the whole world loves Pete Teo. Okay, so I know he's a bit old looking but I think he's sooooooooooooooooo lovely! And that whole singing, film thing is very exciting! Artistic boys have far more character than the boring old bankers (they are usually poorer too, but that's what makes it all the more romantic wat)

I swear, the whole world there was being svelte and glamourous and wine-drinking. Vera and I decided to be different and scoff a huge brownie instead. Poor non-drinking Vera stood at the bar and stared at all the alcohol and looked very sad about not being able to drink because of the whole pregnancy thing.

I was like, "Aiya what's the big deal lah, only another few months."
She's like, "Imagine! It's like we put you in a big shop FILLED with pink things and we tell you that you can't have anything."
I was all, "Oh" and shut up real fast.

We couldn't be arsed to wait until 1am for the open mic and/or listen to other terrible singers, so we decided to go back to Miin's house and she played for us instead.

Then she started telling us all this scary horrible stuff about how beef and pork has heaps of worms. But but but I love hamburgers - so hooooow?!

Now Miin is all pretty-vintage dresses and all like well-behaved and virtuous and stuff, but she has some seriously strange stories. She's also a very clever doctor person (the medical kind with stethescopes and stuff) so she told us all these stories about the kinds of people they would get in the hospital she worked at in Melbourne.

Like the one about the guy who got a dildo stuck up his arse and couldn't get it out.

And the other one about a dude who had a glass jar filled with thumbtacks up his arse and couldn't get it out.

And a drug addict girl who ran out veins so started injecting herself in her groin (which then got infected)

Man, it's so gross that it just doesn't seem right to be writing about this kind of thing on a pastel pink blog. And when Miin tells you these stories it's like so totally ordinary. Like, you know, run of the mill stuff you gotta do on the job. Brave Miin.

On the up: Robert!
On the down: Coughing

I can't shake off this horrible horrible evil cold and it's really making me not want to do anything except drink tea and watch E! TV.

BUT BUT BUT the beautiful Robert is coming on board as my Style editor which has totally and completely made my day. It's hard to explain and you'd only understand if you know Robert or if you see him and his beautiful, immaculate style.

Seeing as I dress mostly like a homeless bag lady, it comes as a huge relief that someone with a decent sense of style will be dealing with the fashion pages. Huzzah!!!!

It really feels like I haven't been able to go out and play for a very long time. Mostly, I just want to sleep when I have free time these days... and this is only the beginning! Have been meeting heaps of interesting people though and even though I really look and feel like I've been dragged through a drain, they don't seem to have noticed (or are just being exceptionally nice about it).

I was thinking of growing my hair out so as to look more presentable for the job. I EVEN considered the possibility of buying proper clothes from Well Established Brands and, like, real shoes.

But heck, that wouldn't be fun. Who wants to end up looking like every other magazine editor in the city. Just
you
watch
while a Dolly takes the publishing world by storm with her bed head, altogether-uncoordinated outfits, construction boots* and absolutely no make up.

And let it be known that I do not EVER initiate air kisses nor enjoy posing for society shots that will turn up eventually in the city's tacky wannabe socialite pages. There, everybody looks like a drag-something, or like they're made of cling film.

(Dollyblog is okay for posing though, where photos are candid! fun-loving! silly!)

I've been trying to see how long I get through life without having to buy a suit. It's like once you do, you sell into a whole yucky corporate PROPER world. And who the hell wants to be proper? Yuck. Imagine if I'd actually gone ahead and pursued a journalism career in the UK - it would be suits EVERY DAY *horror*


See, I suppose there IS one good thing that comes out of KL's underdeveloped, tacky, backward writing scene and that is being able to get away with mooching about in Birkenstocks and flower skirts.

Okay, I no long have no idea what this post is all about. Mooo.

*construction boots: I WANT SOME! Where can I get them?! Tell me, tell me, tell me.

On the up: New job, new places
On the down: Incompetence?

Thus began the first day at work! I have a proper desk and you know, the thing that excited me the most was the nice spongey corkboard for pinning up all my stuff. Sure beats the hell out of using blue tack.

After working from home for the past two years, this office thing comes as a BIG FATshock. Like, having to share a pantry with other people (yuck), and walking miles away for the toilet (which wasn't even working today, damnit). And florescent lighting.

The first thing I had to sort out was a whole mass of photos from a recent party (that I was at, no less) and LABEL who were in the photos. The brilliant techy design guy who had to upload the photos onto the website kept asking me who they were and I kept saying I didn't know. He just looked at me like, "Har? You don't know?"

Man, I so don't know what I'm doing. Either they have a lot and a lot of confidence in me, or they were really desperate to get someone on the job.

I'm assuming it's the former because I hashed out this letter in about 5 minutes, got the boss to read it. I was thinking, aiyo sure got heaps of mistakes lah, she's gonna make me rewrite the whole damn thing. But but but, she said it was fine to send out to like, the whole world.

Damn
I'm
good

(one of) The most beautiful boy in the whole world with the most fantastic ability to style beautiful beautiful fashion pages might be my style editor so I'm praying praying praying he says yes.

Also, there was a very lovely boy in a pressed white shirt wandering around the office today. He speaks funny but does a meeeeeeeeean job with design. He asked me opinion on new concepts for the new website so I hung over his desk for a bit and swooned. I'm so easily impressed. Show me something beautiful and I'm all

WOW!!
WOOOOOWWWWW!
WOWWW!

Seriously though, when you see the website, it
will
make
you
scream
(in an orgasm sort of way)

I want to take him home!!!

Okay, so I'm not juggling two jobs plus a million mantras to complete asap. Am starting to feel a bit schizophrenic. And I need to go do more work. NOW.

On the up: The Coveted
On the down: Not getting those fashions here

Everyone go read The Coveted! So many pretty pictures of pretty clothes and POP YELLOW SHOES!

*desire*


When I grow up, I so want to have a huge, never ending comprehensive wardrobe full of vintage, and cute high street and market treasures. (No top brands, because I think that for all that lack-of-personality, the prices are ridiculous and horrendous).



And PS, for my birthday (which is not so very far away), I want I want I want any and everything from Benefit Cosmetics. They're in KL now so you have no excuse not to buy me a nicely wrapped pink basket full wonderfully packaged pink things!

On the up: Fame!
On the down: The responsibility that comes with great power

Dolly got a new job, like a proper one with EPF, a desk and a parking sticker. Where it is and what it is shall have to remain a secret in case my big mouth gets me into trouble and have to shut down dollyblog, so you'll have to try to figure it out yourself.

It's not just an ordinary job though and actually, Dolly looks to be going high places real soon. And with great power comes great responsibility. Soooo Spiderman.

I'm silently freaking out in my head wondering how I'm going to do this job since it involves being NICE to Important People and well, you know a)I'm usually not very nice and b) I wouldn't know an Important Person if he came up and slapped me in the face.

So hooooooow?!

I'm looking forward to the possible freebies and invites to many parties though! And I have a fancy title that I can throw around and demand respect with. HAH. No way, I'm too nice to do something like that.

Somebody RUDE (JP) said to me, "Well, it's time to go shopping."

Stupid guileless me said, "Why?"

RUDE said to me, "Well, you've got to look nice now."

Like gee, What's wrong with what I wear now!

(But okay, heck, any excuse to buy new clothes)

And there sure will be HEAPS of thinsg to blog about. I just hope I got TIME to blog! Haven't even started the job properly yet and already I'm sleep deprived and grumpy! *cry*