queengilda.com

hallelujah!!!

i finally imported all my files over to queengilda.com!!

it's still gonna be a little glitchy (because i stayed up 2 nights trying to figure this out and my poor brain isn't working anymore), but basically, this freebird has flown away. catch up, honeys!

it's basically functioning, but i still have to import all my comments over from haloscan. i don't even know if it can be imported... there has been so much spam comments recently, i think i'll have to go over one comment at a time and copy and paste! if any of you spot anything weird with the new blog, please let me know.

well thank you blogspot! it's been a good year. it was good while it lasted.

update your links, y'all!! it's http://queengilda.com! (god! am i a nag or what!) go see it already! shoo!

i know i know

i know what you're thinking. "where they hell is this girl!"


i am
1. sleeping and growing roots to my bed
2. trying to learn wordpress to move my blog to my own url.

i always thought i was quite average in terms of the technological world. i mean, i know how to operate both a pc and a mac pretty well, i taught myself html and java stuff when i was 14, etc etc.

of course, html seems quite obsolete now and no one is even using it. and wordpress is supposed to be really easy but... i must have either grown dumb or everyone's lying and it ain't as easy as it's supposed to be.

UGH.

i wanna hire someone to do it but i have 3 dollars in my pocket.

by the way, school's out! woohoo!!! i give myself a week to get this show on the road so i can upload all the great pictures that i took with my fabulous class. it's been a really exciting week! 2 fabulous internships with seriously cool companies (more on that later), meeting the great gala darling, and a super exciting party to go to next week!!! ooooh i hope richie rich of heatherette is gonne be there!!!

*crossing my fingers*

till then, kisses and emails please! :)

25

i just celebrated my 25th birthday yesterday, the 19th of april. it was also freebird's 1-year old birthday. whoopee!

i started freebird a year ago when i turned 24, just to blog about my boring life which is really quite drama-filled sometimes. it was an avenue for me to put my thoughts into words, to share what i had to offer, and to update my friends and family from back home about myself.

i think i have quite a different take on life, as compared to other people. i get emotional about things, but i try not to take it too seriously. i bitch about stuff, but then by making a joke out of it, it lightens up the entire situation and sometimes, i manage to make myself laugh. heh heh. so i think freebird has actually been pretty good to me.

there are a lot of things i want to achieve with this blog, but unfortunately i haven't been able to blog as much as i would like to, ever since i came to new york. i guess life takes its own course and sometimes you just can't pre-determine stuff. but i'm finally getting better with managing my time, and yeah, i definitely have bigger plans in the future! (although i have to come up with the money for it. hmmmmm...)

so anyhow, it has been such a busy busy week. so much happened and there was no way i could really plan a real party, but i did want to have some dinner with friends. i was dead tired on friday the 18th. after all, i hardly got any sleep that entire week. i came back home and really just crashed into bed at about 5pm, and slept all the way till about 11pm or so. i woke up to shower and watch some tv, but crawled back into my glorious bed.

i mean seriously, when you're that tired, who cares if it's your birthday. all i could think of was my mattress, pillow and snuggalicious comforter.

however some friends decided that birthdays are not meant for sleeping, and called me on my phone till i picked up (even though i tried to put it on silent and ignore them for a while. hahaha!). i went over to their house for a few drinks at about 4am in the morning, before coming back home to sleep even more!

just in case you're thinking, "oh my god that pig slept through her whole birthday!", well, yeah and i loved it. sleep was the best present!

well, actually i crash into bed for hours every friday.

but anyway, some of my classmates and my roommate came to have a cheap dinner with me. i had invited some of them out for greasy fried japanese food and when i wanted to pay for dinner (i mean, there were just 6 of us and the bill was waaaay cheaper than i thought it would be!), they were like, "honey you're so asian! this is america, you don't pay on your birthday."

ahahahahahha it was so darn funny.

the cheap joint that we went to had a cotton-candy machine outside, and when we paid up, they gave us little cups with sugar in it to make our own. it was hilarious. two of my friends were making it for the 6 of us, but my guy friend turned out to be such a super pro at it, they all turned out perfectly shaped! we decided it was a career opportunity he should think about.

right after cotton-candy, i found out that they were so sweet! they had actually bought a little cake for me, so we decided it was best if they just came over to my apartment. we also pretended to be cool adults and drank some champagne. (hey! i AM 25 ok!) and from like 10 pm to 3 am when they left, we spent the hours bitching about parsons and other random stuff.

ooh it was so fun. it's amazing how much there was to bitch about. hee hee!

we've been so busy at school, this was the first time this semester we ever really hung out (besides all those group projects and stuff). this section has been really fun and i'm a little sad that we're all splitting up into different classes soon, but hopefully we get to hang out again during summer, when school isn't making us into zombies with bad tempers.

so! it wasn't a big birthday bash, but i don't like those, so i'm happy. it's nice just to get together with friends and sit down and talk. some of my other friends who were supposed to come, couldn't make it in the end. i got messages later saying they were so so so so so so sorry but they slept through the day. hahahahah i don't blame them; i can totally understand.

i wanted to sleep through my own birthday too!

so happy 25th to me, and happy anniversary to my little baby blog. i've made some friends through freebird, who i hope i manage to keep, and i want to thank those of you who constantly check back to see if i've made new posts!! i'm sorry if i've disappointed you on more than one occasion, but i promise i'll be posting more!

i want to leave you with this photo, which proves that even trash can be inspiring.

"become your dream, y'all!" (in a trashy, southern, britney spears sorta accent!)

back in tokyo

hello my darlings. it's been while since i wrote in... but actually i've left singapore and am in tokyo now. woohoo!! i flew in yesterday and will be here until the morning of the 15th, tuesday, tokyo time, and then leave for new york.

it's been crazy, and i have a week left of my break before school starts.

coming back to japan has been rather difficult.

i miss it so much, i really regret leaving.

oh well, depressing stories are boring. i'll upload photos (i have tons. no, really. tons.) once i get back to new york. hopefully i'd have finished all my stupid holiday homework by then!!!

in the meantime, take care!

love, gilda
xoxo

happy new year!

it's the new year! i can't believe 2007 went past so quickly. i was in japan till may, then i came back to singapore for 3 months, which was my longest break back home since i had moved to tokyo 4 years ago. then i moved away to new york, and now i'm back here in singapore again for my winter holidays. it all seems so surreal.

i made some new year resolutions at the start of 2007, and, if i may say so myself, i think i did pretty well in making most of them come true. here are my new ones for the year:

1. practice my japanese relentlessly and never forget it!
2. pick up french.
3. stay in touch and not get lazy about keeping in contact with friends
4. learn how to cook better!
5. sleep.
6. eat healthy.
7. laugh. and laugh.
   
8. be thankful for each day.
9. grow up and act my age.
10. love myself more so i can love others more.

i also hope to start my own business on the side, and hopefully not burn out from lack of sleep or poor time management. i'm really hopeful for this new year.

i'm going to turn 25 in a few months. it's kinda scary. when i was younger, i had envisioned all sorts of things happening by the time i was 25. but things don't always go according to plan, but i am quite happy to say that i'm really satisfied with how everything has turned out.

i have had opportunities that would never be available to most people, and how many people can really say that they are really living their dream? i know i am, and i'm really grateful.

one thing i need to think about though, is that after over 4 years of getting used to living alone, i have gotten used to being by myself. although i have had relationships in that time, i still kept my own private space, and i like it that way. now i'm thinking, am i ready and willing to give up my space and time, and open up my heart to someone else? i don't open myself up very easily; i've always had problems doing so. i take a while to warm up to people, and i don't openly show that i care even when i do.

do i go all out and reach for my own personal goals, or do i take a step back and let myself enjoy life a little more with someone else? i can't be bothered with childish, trivial relationships with a person i don't see a future with, hence i don't and never have gone on casual dates. i hate clubs where proper conversation is impossible, and on the extremely rare occasion that i do go, i find myself with an amused scowl and thinking, "all these kids rubbing against each other - thank god i wasn't brought up like that."

maybe i do need to change my mindset. but then again, i was brought up with a very certain set of values that i do treasure, and i'm not sure i'm willing to give that up for anything. i'm not someone with a super high IQ, but i know i'm not dumb and i believe myself to be intelligent enough. i'm stubborn and when i want something i find it hard to listen to others, even if i know i should. i love to laugh and i love to make others laugh, and while my sense of humor may be rather sarcastic and crude sometimes and offensive to some, at least others think it's funny! i know what i want in life and i know i can make it happen for myself without having to depend on someone to lay it out in front of me.

maybe when i get older, i'll regret going about on my solo goals and leaving no space nor energy in my life to find that perfect someone. but then again, i don't wanna slow down or wait around for that person to appear.

people always say that "the one" is always right there when you least expect it. i look around myself and all i see are people that i do love and have built great friendships with, but no, "the one" isn't there. maybe i am being really picky, i'm not sure. what i do know is that i am looking for someone who shares a similar sense of humor, and needs his own space and gives me my own to breathe, and who is really smart and intelligent, someone i can respect and learn from. i don't think i can spend time together with someone who makes me think he isn't all that smart, which is a mean thing to say but hey, at least i'm being honest.

so although i'm in a holiday mood now, in just 2 weeks, i would be back in school and busy with my life. a friend once said that one shouldn't be too satisfied and happy with his single life, or he'd never go out there and find a partner. my reply was that i can't be bothered to go out there and "look" for someone, and yes it's too much work and i don't have the time for all that. to which he said, "well you don't wanna grow old alone, do you?"

i couldn't reply.

maybe i'm not giving myself, nor love, a chance. i've grown up with a whole lot of stubbornness, self-pride, and perhaps a little too much independence. if you knew me personally, i'm really a huge tom-boy and i think i have more guy-is traits than some guys themselves - so much so that when i see some women who just pretend to be helpless when they really aren't, i absolutely scorn and detest them for whining their way through things.

ah well. the new year has begun and i have all sorts of plans for myself. i'm enjoying life now, although i have to admit that it gets lonely from time to time. hopefully, i would be on my way to greener pastures by the end of 2008. hopefully, i would be one more step to achieving my ambitions in life. hopefully, as i hit 25, the only lines i would get on my face are those from laughing too hard.

i am optimistic for the future. i know i will become the person i want to be. hopefully, there will be someone to share it with, somewhere out there. beneath the pale moon light. someone's thinking of me, and loving me tonight. somewhere out there, if love can see us through, then we'll be together somewhere out there, out where dreams come true.

and all that kind of mushy, positive stuff. heh heh.

"if you do things well, do them better. be daring, be first, be different, be just."

by the late anita roddick, the body shop founder, who passed away at 64 from a brain haemorrhage in september 2007. it's a really beautiful thing she said, and something we can definitely live by in 2008 and beyond.

christmas and purple eyeshadow

it was a really, reeeeally long flight back to singapore. after a month of trying to get a seat onboard any flight heading back home, getting a direct flight proved to be fruitless and i had to settle for a seat on a NYC>FRANKFURT>SIN plane.

it was such a drama. first of all, my dad decided to order himself some stuuuuupidly huge industrial-sized waffle-making machine, and of course, i had to cart it back for him!!! when the box first arrived, i was so mad because it was ginormous. i called home screaming, "are you opening some cafe!!"

fast forward to december 21st. school was finally over and i had been stressed out; my skin was in trouble and i had broken out in serious zits. i went out with some friends and spent the entire evening and the rest of the night sleeping. on the 22nd, i went around doing last minute shopping and not much else. then on the morning of my flight, on the 23rd, i started packing my suitcases. first thing i did was to take that waffle machine out of its box and try to see if it could fit into either of my two suitcases.

no such luck. it was too long for my smaller suitcase, and too wide for my regular one. i was so mad that it wouldn't go in, i tried squishing it in though i knew it wouldn't work!! it was also quite badly packaged, so i had to go out to buy some tape and tape the whole thing, to make sure it didn't jiggle about and break. then i taped up the whole box and bought some string to tie up the box as well. when i finally finished packing both the box and my clothes in my suitcases, i was exhausted.

it had also started to rain really heavily, and there i was with a huge suitcase, another huge and difficult to carry box, and an equally heavy bag over my shoulder containing my 14x17 inch croquis book and my macbook. i thought my shoulder would break. i was quite drenched by the time i managed to get a taxi, and spent the half-hour in the cab praying i wouldn't be too late to get an aisle seat in the plane. (i hadn't been able to get it online)

when i reached the airport, the rain had ceased to a drizzle, but the winds were still howling. i got out of the back seat and reached back into the cab to pull out my bag and the waffle machine. and just as i straightened my back, the winds blew the door shut and the first thing the door hit, was my left eye, just at my eyebrow where the bone is.

OUCH.

but! no time to think about it. i tried to hurry in to check-in, only to discover that i had in fact, been too late, and of all the worse seats to have, i got myself a middle seat on an overbooked flight, which was nothing to look forward to.

by the time i boarded the flight, my eye had swollen up pretty bad and i had a throbbing headache. i thought i'd get some ice from the stewardess once the flight took off, but i was out of luck. they turned off all the lights and had all of us strapped to our seats, then announced that there were 50 planes ahead of us and we had to wait for our turn on the tarmac.

it was two hours before we finally took off, and two hours for my bump to grow even bigger.

by then, i was also famished as i hadn't had anything to eat all day and it was already 11pm. "serve me food! serve me food!" i thought, as the stewardesses came around first with some drinks, the moment the seatbelt signs came off.

as i sipped on some orange juice, the plane started jolting and the seatbelt signs came on again. "ladies and gentlemen, due to the weather, we will be experiencing rather rough turbulence and will thus be suspending cabin services."

the plane rocked pretty hard and i held my juice in my hands as it shook involuntarily, and tried to gulp down every last drop before it spilled all over me. i somehow managed to drink it all up but also had some traces all over my mouth!

22 hours of flight time, and 26 hours after i left my apartment in new york, i was finally in singapore and it was hot hot hot on the morning of christmas. after some local grub for breakfast and a very i-feel-good kind of shower, i climbed into bed and refused to wake up till it was 5pm and time to get ready for dinner. we all went to my aunt's house, and had a very non-traditional dinner. my aunt had prepared popiah, a very singaporean dish, kinda like a wrap. it was a very diy kind of thing so we all hung around the table, dumping whatever we wanted inside our own popiahs onto a thin skin, drizzled some sauces then wrapped it up. i hadn't had the chance to eat it in years so although it wasn't very christmassy at all, it didn't matter and i had 3 whole rolls.

yum. haha!

my sis, cousin, and a friend, alex, and his girlfriend, all went for drinks after that. a japanese friend of mine who lives in new york was also in town for some business, so we decided to meet up. i'd never seen a quieter singapore. there was like, absolutely nobody in sight, and the streets were so quiet we could have walked on the roads. the bars and clubs started closing at 1, and we decided to go to wine bar at zouk, thinking it's one of the nicer places that open till late. we were wrong!! it was closed!! it was kinda embarrassing with a foreign guest in town. plus, he had been to singapore many times for short business trips, but was used to only having drinks at his hotel or somewhere near his office. so when we decided we could only go to the balcony at heeren, the only place my sister knew was open 24 hours, i thought i might die of embarrassment. i'd never been there myself, and it was filled with kids and we aren't that young.

my friend insisted it was his treat, and proceeded to point out his order of champagne to the waiter. when i flipped to the page on the menu that he was pointing at, my eyes popped a little. he had ordered dom perignon. at $380, it wasn't that expensive since it was a cheap place, but still, it's not something i would have ordered for myself.

two bottles later, my friend was pretty drunk and was doing a drunk dance. it was kinda funny since he couldn't keep still and was spinning all over the place. another two shots of tequila later, i was pretty high myself. when we got the bill, my friend had to sign 4 times before his signature was even legible.

we sent him back to his hotel, thinking he was completely drunk. but it was hilarious because even though his head was like rocking to-and-fro, and his eyes were closed and he definitely could not walk nor sit up straight, he could still tell us his room number, and could navigate through the passageways towards his room.

he's what i like to call, an intelligent drunk. not the drunk and irritating type. pffft!!!

so although i had a really unconventional christmas, i had a superb time. there was good food, great alcohol, and i spent it laughing with friends and family. who could ask for more?

when i woke up this morning and looked into the mirror, my eye was still a little swollen with a bump, but the bruise was starting to show. "oh no!!! i look like permanent purple eyeshadow!!!"

my brother, who heard me screaming from my room, decided it was quite funny and started laughing. i, however, was not impressed. i've got a small spot right under my eyebrow from where the impact was, and my entire eye area is a light green with a purple shade at the outer corners. when my eye is opened, it looks like i have a... black tear.

stila's eye concealer has been a godsend. perhaps tomorrow i'll try going out with green eyeshadow and a very smudged, black-kohl-panda-effect-kind-of.... errr..... maybe not.

the saga continues.....

psst: i wonder if there is an eyeshadow or liner out there called "bruised", that is actually of a great purplish-black color. it sounds pretty cool... but i guess looking bruised isn't a great idea!! hee hee~!

please update your links

hello my darlings.

going on from my previous post, most of you know by now that my google account was previously hacked and hijacked by some b*stards whose necks i wanna wring.

something else very unfortunate has happened since then:
for reasons unknown to myself, google has disabled my account, so i can no longer access this blog from my original log-in id.

i originally thought that this blog was lost forever, but by the grace of god, i had meddled around with this account after it got hacked, and had added another blog author to it, so i could use another google id to log in!

you have no idea how ecstatic i am at this moment, because ever since google disabled my original account a few days ago, i thought this blog was seriously lost forever!!!!

so!

i will officially be moving my blog away from this blogspot address. it's very depressing and a long process, but i just hope you guys bear with me in the meantime. so please update your bookmarks and links to

http://queengilda.com

at the moment it is just a forwarding url that forwards to blogspot, but within the next couple of weeks i will be figuring all that out and starting my blog afresh on that url.


psst: i'm going back to singapore on sunday, 23rd dec!!! i'm super excited. then before i come back to new york, i'll be stopping over for a few days in tokyo!!! yahoooooooo!!! more on that later. in the meantime, have a merry merry christmas! hug everyone in sight!! take care everyone!!

4 days of hell

some of you already know what happened, but here's a quick rundown of the nightmare i had experienced the past 4 days.

all was well and i was living life as usual, but early saturday morning at about 2 am new york time, i got a few calls from my parents and a friend, saying that they have received an email from "me", saying that i was stranded in africa and had no more money, and to please send some over immediately.

what the real situation was, that i had been so tired from all my final projects that i had knocked out and was asleep in my apartment in manhattan!!

while i was sleeping, someone from africa/nigeria/benin/wherever, had hacked into my computer and then to my email account which is linked also to my blog, and then to my bank account.

so cut the long story short, i just went to hell and back and it wasn't a fun ride at all.

this guy had emailed every single person that i have ever emailed before, which includes all friends and strangers, impersonating me and asking them for money. some were pissed off with "me", thinking that i, the real gilda, was trying to extort money from them. some were really worried for me and perhaps almost fell into the traps of those identity thieves.

they had also hacked into my paypal and online bank account. i hurried to the police precinct to make a report, and tried all sorts of ways to contact google but for 3 to 4 days, i was left stranded by myself, and trust me, i might have been joking all about it but i was a total wreck.

not only was i worried that they might wipe out my entire bank account, i was worried one of my friends might actually transfer money over to them before i found a way to warn them, and i was worried they might find more personal information about me and god knows what they could do with that. identity theft is really scary.

(i was also worried i might lose this blog, and that's like months of thoughts, lost forever!!!)

i just managed to get back control of my account, and in the meantime i have reformatted and reinstalled everything on my macbook.

add all that to the stress of my final projects, and i was ready to explode. you know how you get so anxious sometimes, you can't even breathe?

that was me.

anyway, it's 5 am and i've been up trying to contact and explain the situation to as many people as possible since i got back access to my account about an hour ago, and what i really should be doing is my work that i'm supposed to hand in tomorrow!

thank you, all of you, who were so worried for me the last few days. some were worried that i was really trapped in africa and needed money, some were worried that i was getting too stressed over the whole situation. whatever it was, thank you, and i'll only get better from now.


well, back to more sketches i guess!! more updates and a proper post on what happened in a couple of days. in the meantime, take care, of yourself and of your computer and of your identity!!

learn from my mistakes, people, and make sure your computer is a secure as it can be.

once you go black, you won't go back

or so they say.
haha.

no, i've never done that type of black before. (this is not a racist remark.)

what i have done, is colored my hair black! woohoo!

my hair had been pink and purple for some time now, and for over a month, the color was still extremely neon and vibrant. but around the start of the november, the color started fading and it wasn't as bright and vivid as i wanted it to be.

well, i also got slightly sick of it. you know me, i can't keep one look for too long. i needed change.

so change i did.

bye bye miss faded and jaded, hello miss rock-star black!

i did it myself in my bathroom. it was horrific. i haven't colored my own hair for a long time now, especially black! so when i was done with the color, my entire neck was a disgusting muddy black color. not to mention my ears and even shoulders, even though i had rubbed in a huge amount of vaseline to protect my skin! i freaked out! for a moment, i thought i'd have to wear a knit cap and scarf until the color faded. i spent like an hour in the shower rubbing the hell out of it.

and after all the rubbing and scrubbing, my skin was no longer black. yay!

but it was red. boo.


anyway the last couple of weeks have just been crazy. i decided to drop out of one class because i just couldn't cope. it was too much and it's just not worth killing myself over school. this means that i might have to take it in senior year (when i really want to be concentrating on my final collection and not taking other unnecessary things), but ahh, heck. i just can't do it now.

on the up side, i'm finally getting the hang of what my fashion concepts (where we basically draw and design clothes) teacher wants out of me. she's really nice and funny but honestly, she's crazy and has been loading us with so much work, all of us are stressed, exhausted and basically dying. we get so much more work than the other classes!! it's crazy! and she hates everything i do because it's apparently too costumey and over-the-top.

well i love over-the-top and i refuse to let new york jade me.

another teacher of mine, for my studio methods class (where we do sewing and all that), is like the cutest funniest person ever. i love greg. he's so damn smart and cute and so darn funny i wanna pinch his cheeks. hahaha. get this: he's 28 and has worked for people like karl lagerfeld before!! and, get get this this: i don't know what his exact position is, but he's either head pattern maker, or one of the pattern makers, of the victoria's secret fashion show!!!

yeah, you know what i'm talking about. i'm not talking about the stuff they sell in the stores. hell no. i'm talking about the famous victoria's secret runway show. some of their most famous models include heidi klum, naomi campbell, tyra banks, gisele bundchen, alessandra ambrosio and so on. they are the women whom men wanna lick and women wanna be.

and greg is one of their pattern makers. WOW.

he told us that when we first started the semester, and all of us just went wowowowow and that was it. but then the "wow-ness" of it all finally rubbed in last week when he told us, "i won't be here for class next week because i'll be in l.a. for the victoria's secret show."

holy crap.

how exciting is that?? he says that heidi, gisele and (i think he mentioned) karolina, are the most-est nicest people ever and he loves them to death. ooh ahh. i hope he comes back on monday with juicy gossip to feed my inner paparazzi.

greg also has his own menswear line that is really classy. he always wears his own shirts and i really like them because he pays attention to the smallest detail. and it's called godspeed the well-dressed man. how can you not love him.

wait, back to the victoria's secrets show... i wonder.... doing what he does, does that mean that he gets to touch their boobs and knows all their real measurements? wahahaha. i'm dying to find out.

my friend, mr jew

before i start, i just want to say that all smart-aleck comments by yours truly, is meant only as a joke. it's meant to be funny. so don't take it to heart, because i love jews just as i love you.

--------------------

ever since i came to new york, i have been stuck at home doing work most of the time. i haven't had the chance to make any friends outside of school, and all my friends from school are just as busy as i am. really, it's completely opposite from any glamorous lifestyle.

so when i complained how bored i was, andy told me to come to his apartment building's halloween party. i didn't think we're really go, until about an hour before the party was supposed to start.

obviously, i had nothing to wear.

so i just went as me.

BORING.

on the other hand, when i reached andy's place and met him, i could not stop laughing. when he told me he was gonna dress up as an orthodox jew, i thought he was joking. (andy is jewish himself but not orthodox.) when the elevator's doors opened and i saw him standing there, i went into hysterics.

it was so fucking funny.

it was even funnier when we reached the party and there was another "orthodox jew" in the house.

ok. i giggle everytime i see that photo. hee hee.

obviously, the look doesn't suit me. boo boo. i should have tried on the glasses and a beard too. shucks.


well, the fun kinda ended there. the party was a little boring and full of people who couldn't speak english. where the hell did they come from. so we left, had take-out in his apartment, and decided that we were both really tired. he took a nap in his room, and i fell asleep on his couch. fast forward to 2 hours later, our plans to go bar-hopping changed and i went home to do work.

my life is just full of exciting moments.

i wonder when it will be my time!

when i was younger, i used to imagine that i'd get married when i was 24, have kids at 26, blah blah blah.

well i'm 24 now dammit.

no boyfriend in sight either.

boo.

some of you might remember me mentioning that i was going to a wedding. that was on the 20th, and was held in hartford, connecticut. i only knew the family that was getting married, and andy, whose mom grew up with the bride's mother. andy's parents were kind enough to offer me a ride up to connecticut, so i took the car together with the 3 of them.

they were so cute and bickered all the way. i miss my family. except that in our case, we'd be really fighting with each car ride. 5 stubborn people can't get into a car together. it's war.

anyway, i brought like 4 different things to wear to the wedding cos up till the very last minute, i couldn't decide what to wear!! i had so much work to do that weekend, i brought my macbook to the wedding and was working on it till about half an hour before the ceremony was to start. it was pathetic.

then it was major panic mode. i think i took off and put on each dress about 5 times. seriously. i need to lose weight and i need boobs.

i'm fat and flat. what kind of deadly, very turn-offish body type is that!! pooh.

it was the first wedding that i have attended in the last... god knows how many years, and my first ever jewish wedding!!! now, i know nothing much about the jews and their customs. the only exposure i've had to jewish weddings was on sex and the city when charlotte got married to hairy!!

i mean harry. but i got to see first-hand all the uh... i don't know what it's called, but the cute dance, the couple being lifted up in chairs (looked like a totally scary rollercoaster ride!), stuff like that. it was all so exciting!

god i hate my camera. it's so lousy. but can you at least see the last picture? that's the chair-lift thing. it was so fun!!! i was gawking and smiling with my mouth so wide open, two flies could have flown in.

the wedding was gorgeous and the couple looked so happy. the two of them were childhood best friends!!! they've known each other and been together for 12 years now. can we all say, wow?

andy and i had a discussion about this, if we would ever marry our childhood friends. seriously, i just can't imagine it. i mean, i tried to imagine alex and myself, and i almost shuddered. (no offense alex darling, you know i love you xoxo. heh heh.)

but when you know all sorts of crap about someone, and they know all sorts of crap about you, and if you're just so comfortable with that person you could (almost) fart in their face, and if there were seriously zero sparks, i could never get married like that i think.

although i'd have to say that if there was an attraction since you were kids, that's like a fairytale come true, very disney-cartoon worthy, and totally romantic. i would get totally jealous of people like that. especially if they could fart in each other's faces, roll over laughing and still kiss. now that is what i call true love.

going to the wedding really made me think of when it might be my turn. at the moment, i seriously can't imagine myself getting hitched. i think i need to learn more about myself, love more of myself, (and start by getting a boyfriend) before i can even think about that chapter of life.

*major sighs*

i felt so out of place at the wedding. i was one of the extremely few asians there, uh, i had bright pink hair, i just felt so out of place. as the night wore on, i realised how bad i was at communicating with people. i couldn't start conversations, and i just felt like an idiot. i don't know whether it was because i was tired, or was i more shy than i thought i was...?? most of the people there were close friends or relatives, all distant cousins of each other... there were kids and then there were the older folks. and all those people who looked around my age were either bridesmaids and best men (and were hence busy running around), great friends of the couple (and were thus squealing and hugging permanently), or were the regular stuck up typical bitches. yes, that bitchy girl in every american movie.

• black satin dress with jewels by betsey johnson. i bought this at the betsey johnson sample sale. 80 dollars!! woohoo!!
  
• black heels by irregular choice
• turquoise hair feather thing by me
• spoiling soon camera by sony (i will miss you)
  

(why did i decide to take photos in front of the toilet bowl like that. how gross.)

anyway around midnight, the party was still going strong and i was just about dying of boredom. everyone was dancing disco and while i loved all those old songs, i just needed to have more friends around to be able to go wild and enjoy myself. andy found me sitting outside the ballroom texting and talking on the phone with my classmate. i think he was bored too. so we got the hell out of there and decided to go out to town and "discover" hartford.

there was nothing.

the whole town had like 4 bars, filled with regular college frat boys and girls who were rubbing up against them.

i don't understand how they do that. call me a 50 year old prude, but i couldn't do that. a few guys tried to chat me up but they were so young and immature i basically smiled and walked away. ugh.

the bars and clubs closed at 2 am, and standing outside in the freezing cold and no jacket, guess what happened?

for the first time in my life, i heard gunshots from a distance.

i'm not kidding.

they were real. i know you are thinking, "how would you know?"

because it was different from anything i have ever heard before. a total of 5 of those pierced through the air, and then i saw a group of 4 black guys running towards us and to their cars nearby. then i heard police sirens, and then everyone started running. it scared the fuck out of me. i was already blue with cold but hearing that, the color really drained from my face. andy is a native new yorker and it was his first time hearing gunshots too.

and who would have thought we'd hear them in no-one-land, hartford?

here's the only picture that andy and i took together. he was my saviour that night, i would have died if he weren't there, seriously. i hate this picture of myself though. i look like garfield.

ahaha.

oops

don't worry, i haven't died or gone to heaven nor hell.

i've just been busier than you can imagine and getting zero sleep!!! i got back home from school today at 4 and slept till about midnight. after days of not sleeping or getting just 2 to 3 hours of sleep, i feel soooooo good!!!

anyway i'm so disgusted with myself for not updating often enough. but a whole load of pictures coming up tomorrow so hang in there and don't abandon me. :)

mom comes to visit

so my mom was here in new york for a week from the 4th to 11th. it was her first visit to new york but i guess she came to see me more than the city, just to find out how my living conditions are, and stuff like that.

problem is, i am just soooo busy with school, that we hardly had the time to go out. so most of her one week was spent like wandering around by herself and then we'd meet up for dinner. good thing we managed to squeeze in some tourist-y things to do during the weekend!!

we started off in times square and boarded the double-decker open-top tourist bus that takes you around the city. before we got on the bus, we wanted to take pictures at the famous times square buildings.

but the naked cowboy was there, so we thought, heck we'd go take pictures with him. i mean, that's what a tourist in new york would do, right? i've seen him there a million times and have zero interest, but he was standing where i wanted to take photos from, so it was a "might as well" situation.

he is basically a character who parades himself on the most prominent corner of times square dressed only in his cowboy hat, boots, and underwear. i think he looks retarded and sure ain't good looking if you ask me.

well since it was just my mom and i, i thought i'd get someone to help us take photos. turns out that the naked "cowboy" has a manager who was handing out leaflets for his website, so i asked rather politely if he'll help us take some photos.

guess what he said?

"are you gonna tip me?"
"uh, okay." and i reached into my wallet.
"are you gonna tip him too?"
"uh...okay..."
"so you are tipping me right?"
"yeah."
"ok. just making sure."
"if this is a paid service how come you don't have a sign for it? isn't tipping like a gratuity thing? are you supposed to ask for it?"
"well i ask for what i want."
"what?"
"so yeah tip me and him."

i got so pissed off i put the 5 lousy bucks i had in my hand back in my wallet and took out two bucks. the way he said it, the tone of his voice and all that, was just disgusting.

then we took our photos with the cowboy and we got robbed - totally molested and it's not like he's some gorgeous dude that i'd even want to get molested by, you know?

i might be smiling in those shots but trust me i wanted to kick him in his balls. actually i'd rather kick his manager's, since he was the real bastard. then i took my camera back from that slime and gave him his two bucks. i mean, that bloody fuck isn't even worth a ten cent that had dropped on the pavement that i wouldn't even bother to try and pick up.

he took it and walked away but guess what i overheard him saying to the cowboy?
"she gave me one lousy buck. how the fuck does she want me to pay for my kids through college with one lousy buck!"

well i've got one thing to say to you, asshole. buy yourself a better attitude. and if you can't afford that then you've gotta sell your ass to the gays cos with that attitude of yours, that's the only way you'll probably ever make money. bloody dumb ass.

so if you EVER come to new york, don't even go near that stupid prick. it's NOT worth your time, nor your two bucks.

anyway.

it was really hard juggling schoolwork and going out with mom. like on the weekdays i'd be at school till evening time, then we'd go out for dinner or something, then i'd come back home and while my mom slept, i'd stay up till like 4 or 5 a.m. to finish up my work that i needed to get done. i was really tired and i was getting like 2 or 3 hours of sleep maximum, each day.

i brought my mom to la bonne soup, which alex and i had gone to twice when he was in the big apple. my mom loved it too. i'm telling you, it's really good. we went there for dinner once and then for a late lunch again! haha!!

with my lousy schedule, we only managed to have one great dinner, and that was with some really old family friends - ron, debbie and laura sheiman, and andrew. ron and debbie have been friends with my parents since like god knows when; i think before i was even born. i met laura before many years ago when we were still kids and the sheimans came to singapore, and i remember her and her sister, jill, so well because they taught us this really hilarious, full of hand actions, song. it was called "joe and the butter factory". have any of you heard of it before?

it's been years and i can't remember exactly, but it goes something like this:
"hi... my name is joe... and i work in a butter factory. i have a wife, a dog and a family. one day, my boss comes up to me and says 'hey joe, are you busy?' and i say 'no'. so he says 'churn the butter with your right hand'." then left hand then right leg and so on, you get the picture.

ok it's so corny but hey, when you're like six, it's the coolest game ever.

laura's getting married on the 20th, and if you recall me saying, it is her wedding dinner that i'm gonna be attending and i still don't know what i'm gonna wear!! help me!!!

andy's mom grew up with debbie, so she introduced him to me, just so i'd know someone in manhattan. she can't stop singing his praises and that's because he's smart and funny and at 23, doing really well in the real estate business. when i found out his age, i immediately felt old and like a failure. ugh.

well that dinner was so fun and i had such a great time. it was SUCH a pity though, that the waiter who helped us take a picture, did such a lousy job!! i'm so disappointed that the photo turned out blur.

after dinner the sheimans drove us around the city to show my mom how it is at night, and we stopped by grand central station. check out what i found on the bins!

Gilda's Club is a free-of-charge, non-profit organization that aims to provide meeting places where men, women and children living with cancer, along with their families and friends, can join with others to build a personal network of social and emotional support as an integral part of cancer treatment.
i made a small donation, and if you can, please do so too!!

my mom left at 6 a.m. on thursday, the 11th. on the 10th, the weather had gone really funky and it went from hot and humid to really windy and cold! summer to start of winter in one lousy day! where did my autumn go?!?! i haven't even had the chance to wear any light jackets and coats that i love!!

i walked my mom out to the cab and came back to sleep, but when i woke up, i had the worst headache ever and my nose was stuffy and my throat was itchy. i thought to myself, 'this is just great!!! my mom leaves and i get sick when i'm stuck here all alone and can't have anyone cook for me!?!?'

i guess all the stress and lack of sleep finally caught up with me and my body was telling me that it can't handle all the shit i'm doing to it. i was really tired, but getting sick now is just making the situation worse. i don't have time nor the luxury to lie back and rest!!!

my flu and sore throat quickly went from bad to worse and i'm really quite sick now. i had to force myself to go to school on friday morning cos we were having a quiz. but in the middle of it, i suddenly felt so nauseous i had to run to the toilet to puke. i was feeling horrid, but i think the toilet was so gross that i puked more than i was supposed to.

then this girl asked me if i was pregnant.

". . . . . . . . . . . ........."

huh? no i'm not. does my tummy look big?? ack! my nose is stuffed up and my throat hurts and i've got a temperature and i sound like a toad but no i'm not pregnant! and does my tummy look big!?!? ack!

so i'm on this antibiotics now and it's really helping a lot, although i still sound like crap and i carry my own box of tissues even when i leave the house. somehow i felt well enough on friday evening to go do my shopping report downtown, and i went to the patricia field store again. (more on that later!!)

today's get-up 04oct2007

my classmate, ramona, and i, had talked about how much we love betsey johnson and heatherette, then the next day when we get to school, we see this sign on the notice board outside of class:

so we went to my first ever sample sale together yesterday (thursday), bright and early in the morning. i was ecstatic. betsey johnson dresses for $80. ladies and gentlemen, it doesn't get much better than this. we were one of the first few there, and when we got into the huge warehouse, it was like i had walked into a room of cotton-candy. i was deeply in love.

and here was what i wore!

• black teeshirt
• purple gingham jacket by comme des garcons
• black skirt by comme des garcons
• black tights
• pink rabbit brooch by hinagiku @ tokyomade
• dark purple boots by maison martin margiela

my god i hate my fat legs.
make that my short, fat, stubby legs.

hello-oh i have a major formal black-tie wedding to go to in less than a month and i have nothing to wear, so i need to lose some damn weight cos nothing's worse than having 'nothing to wear' than 'fat and nothing to wear'.

and to all my doubters who emailed to check how fast my pink and purple hair is fading and how much my pillows are staining, i have this to say:

my pillows aren't pink nor purple, and although the color isn't as vivid as it was, i still get people stopping me in the streets about my hair. so there!

i went to a musuem after the sale, then as i headed home, i walked past the studio for the david letterman show, and saw this whole horde of people crowding around an exit.

i walk past and while looking at the door and grooving to some song on my iphone, this woman gives me the thumbs-up sign. i remove an earpiece and say, "sorry?"
"cool hair. and nice skirt."
"oh! thanks!!.... who's everyone waiting for?"
"rihanna."
"who?"
"rihanna, you know, the singer."
"oh rihanna! was she on the show today?"
"yeah she's supposed to have come out at 4:30pm and it's like six now and she still hasn't appeared."
"are you a fan?"
"yeah i am. are you too?"
"uhm...no, not really, i was just walking by on my way home."
"oh..."
"it'll be cool if i could catch a glimpse though."
"you really should."

i told myself i should stay put and wait a little. i mean, how easy would this celebrity sighting be, right? and i could put it up on my blog, log, log, yeah, yeah, yeah. (you better know what i'm talking about.)

but after i waited there for like, 5 minutes, i decided i was too tired to even bother, and walked away.

i detoured to buy a drink from the nearby drugstore, and when i came out moments later and turned to look, the crowd had dispersed. oops. rihanna has left the building!

while i was buying my coke.

oh well.

today's get-up 03oct2007

boy, it's been a hectic week. i'm mentally and physically drained. i've been so busy i haven't even had the energy to feel homesick or lonely. pooh!

if you can't tell yet, i absolutely love these pants.

• turquoise hairband
• super avant garde jacket by balenciaga (bloody genius)
• sarouel pants by comme des garcons
• red and blue heels by irregular choice
  

i was walking around soho with a friend and found the irregular choice store!!! it had opened just the day before!! i was so surprised to see it and it was SO damn cute. i walked in and exclaimed that i was so happy to find them, cos i've always only been able to find them online. then the salesgirl says, "cos it's the first shop ever and we opened yesterday!!!"

woohoo!!

and this pair of shoes were chanting my name and calling out to me. i tried to stop myself from buying them but they voodoo-ed me. it's not my fault.

how cute are they?? just HOW CUTE ARE THEY!!! they have ankle straps too but i have short enough legs and don't need to make them look even shorter, so i took them out. i wore them for the first time today while carrying my bag that (really) weighed a ton, and it was so comfy!! absolutely amazing.

i am not a 'heel' person and the last time i wore a pair of heels, i think it must have been more than 6 months ago. i love heels, but it just doesn't suit my lifestyle. so yes, i walk like a bear in heels. but these were so cute and cushion-y. i almost felt special.

hee hee!


quick life update:

1. my mom is coming to new york to visit me tomorrow and i'm insanely excited.

2. coming soon, my dresses collection! keep a lookout for that!!

3. i finally purchased my own domain name. queengilda.com!! i've been waiting and trying to buy gilda.com, which is an empty domain parked lifeless on cyberspace, but it didn't work out and i'm so disappointed. so i went with the next best option. haha! eventually i'm gonna move this whole blog onto my own space online, but for the moment, while i'm too busy to even scratch my bum (eww gross), the url will be a forwarding url to this blog. so lovebirds, remember to change your bookmarks!

i heart patricia field

i haven't put much pictures of myself up recently, so you might not have noticed, but my hair has been taking a break - it's been a dark shade of purple for the past 3 weeks or so.

i got sick of that though, so today, i made my way to patricia field. yes, the patricia field, famous stylist to the stars. you might know her as the fabulous lady who styled the clothes on set for sex and the city, and the devil wears prada. let me just say now that i watched the devil wears prada, like 4 times. and i do not know how many times i've watched sex and the city. i watched seasons one to four about 5 times each, and i must have watched the last two seasons like ten times! i'm swear! there was a time when it was all i watched!

so anyway, patricia has a fabulous shop in the lower east side, filled with gorgeous things that i have to stop myself from buying.

there is also a little hair salon in the corner of the basement of patricia field's, and since i wanted to get my hair all bright, where better to get it done, than at pat field's?? it's a place filled with energy and individuality, which i love.

i went for my appointment today with hair guru, ayumi. she's a japanese girl who moved to new york 15 years ago and from what she told me, she seems to be doing really well there!! she's worked in the shop for 14 years! wow!!

i told her i wanted to put back the bold pink streaks into my hair, so she bleached it and then convinced me to put some purple below the pink, so that the pink blends and graduates into the purple color.

I LOVE IT!!

it's a little hard to take pictures of, but i hope you can see it. ayumi was really nice and i had such a great time chit-chatting with her.

and yes, i am forgetting a little of my japanese. i can still speak it pretty fluently, but i stumbled on one or two words and boy, i was not happy about that.

just as my hair was almost done, guess who walks in and sits down on the chair behind me?

yep.
patricia field, the lady herself.

i'm telling you, i've met my fair share of stars. i've gone up close and personal with my favorite men on earth, smap, and many other major famousness, and i've always managed to keep my cool.

but for some stupid reason today, i met patricia with her two white toy poodles, and i go dumb. like i literally could not talk. i was smiling and wanting to say something, but all that came out my mouth was, "hello~. oh i love your glasses!"

how fucking stupid is that?!!?!?

i wanted to slap myself!

patricia just smiled back, and that was that.

stupid stupid STUPID!!! it was such an opportunity for me to introduce myself and to say that i am a design student and that i really admire and look up to her.

but what do i say? i love your turquoise glasses!??!

UGH!!!

patricia had her hair colored by ayumi right after me. ayumi was laughing that i'm making her boss wait ten minutes. for a split second i was like, "oh my god will she get angry!?!?"

and ayumi goes, "of course not!"

phew.

i stole a shot which made me feel like a sneaky thief, but all i got was the back of her red head. shucks.

alex was here

well he still is.

alex, my childhood buddy and one of my best friends, has been living in boston for the last 4 years now. he left for boston just a few months after i went off to tokyo. and it really sucked because our holidays back home to singapore, never really coincided. by the time i got back, he'd have been back for months already, and we'd have probably just a week to meet and catch up.

while he's back and i'm still in tokyo, he usually meets up with bib, my sis, and stella (my sister's friend who became a friend too and is equally bitchy as me hohoho *double winks to you, stella*)

i've known alex since i was about 9 and he was 10, so we almost grew up together. i won't say we know each other inside out, but yeah we know us pretty well.

anyway his neighbor, hilton club member, had a free week's stay at the hilton club hotel on 6th avenue, over the labor day weekend. but they could only stay a couple of days, and told alex he could stay there the remainder of it.

so alex took the hilton bus from boston to manhattan, and i moved into the hotel with him on the 4th. woohoo. no commute!! always a good thing.

the first night, he took me to this yakitori place called yakitori totto [251 west 55th street, between broadway and 8th avenue; 212.245.4555]. now i've been totally missing japanese food and i love love love yakitori, so i was so pleased to have found this place. it's pricey - twice the cost compared to what i pay in japan - but hell i was diggin' in.

on wednesday the 5th, the fucking cab drivers in new york city decided they all wanted to go on a strike to oppose getting the gps system installed in their cabs. so after going to the art supplies store and buying a ton of stuff that's just impossible to carry, i decide to take a cab back to the hotel after a long day at school. it's just 15 blocks back to the hotel and the cab driver says that because of the strike, they charge by zones - and i'll have to pay $15. *gasp*

and he only told me that when we were approaching the hotel.

all that was swimming inside of my head were swear words and various curses in different languages. yes, i can swear in english, mandarin, japanese, malay and korean. i like to think of myself as multi-lingual.

we went to another great place the next day: a pizza place called lombardi's [32 spring street, at the corner of mott street; 212.941.7994]. the pizza was excellent. the small one gave us 6 slices. i was full after one, and expanded my tummy on the 2nd slice. for the quality and service, it wasn't expensive either!! i'll definitely be going back there.

(totally irrelevant, but i just realised now,
that my camera is still set on tokyo date and time! shit!)

as we walk around soho, we went past the adidas store and i spotted the cutest pairs of shoes.

i totally love them. i love checks and i love polka-dots and i wish i could get them all but i can't so since i saw them i've been thinking and thinking about which one to get!!! what do you think?? i hope they have a red and white polka-dot... whee!!

alex had been yelping (and calling and messaging his girlfriend) practically nonstop on his stupid blackberry, there were times i wanted to snatch it and stomp on it. especially when we both had this huge craving for chinese dumplings and he spent the whole afternoon finding a place for us to go, only to lead us to this major dodgy, filthy and not at all yummy place in chinatown. eeks!!! we originally wanted to go to this other place called dumpling house [118a eldridge street, near broome street; 212.625.8008]. but when we got there, it was so crowded and there wasn't anywhere to sit. we should have known that crowded=good. the prices were dirt cheap too. but we turned around and went to option number two, that should really have been option number zero. fried dumpling was a complete letdown. it might have been cheap but the only way i'd say the food was any good was if i was completely starving.

after that terrible dinner where i ate just 3 dumplings and basically dumped the rest, pun intended, we wandered around and found ourselves in little italy. damn that stupid fried dumpling; why the hell didn't we eat anywhere else in little italy?? the place looked fantastic and i actually felt like i was in italy!! (although i've never been there before so it was just make-believe.)

every single restaurant was packed and looked so good. hell, even the parking meters and fire hydrants were so cute, painted in green, white and red! i loved it. we decided to go to a cafe and console our stomachs with some great dessert but the chocolate cake i had, called fuzzy wuzzy, contained 4 zillion calories.

this picture just doesn't do little italy any justice.
i need a better camera!!

on our way back to the hilton, we walk past radio city. fashion week has started here in new york, and at radio city was the fashion rocks event. amongst other artistes, aerosmith was performing. what i'd give to get a ticket!! when am i gonna be famous enough! bah.

on friday the 7th, the day started off in times square. i went to school in the morning, and alex went to get us tickets to see a musical show on broadway. we also had to check out of the hilton. bye bye to comfy sheets, a huge bed and room service. i think the best thing about staying in a hotel is going out and coming back to a super neat and clean room.

we moved into my new place!! i've found a place, finally, that suits my budget and is overall, pretty nice and decent. it's an apartment share and my room is actually pretty big and there's decent wardrobe space, and space for me to get a work table as well. the lady i'm renting from seems pretty nice and fun, and she has a super cute pomeranian, the smallest thing ever with a real fat tummy.

we went downtown to the east village after that, where i did some cheap shopping and found a fabulous belt. and we also found these 2 brilliant japanese drinking bars on st. marks place called izakayas!! the first was called kenka, which translate into 'fight' in japanese. haha! but it also says "delicious! cheap! fast!" on it's sign, which is what most japanese izakayas would say, but it looked SO japan!

just a few doors down was another place serving yakitori! it is called yakitori taisho, which turned out to be a branch of a chain that my friends and i actually used to frequent when i was staying in tokyo. i was soooo stoked!!! i didn't think i'd find it here in new york! i thought i'd died and gone to heaven. i have to email all my friends and send them this picture! it even has the same tattered and torn "taisho" lantern!!! i definitely have to come back here asap. it's quite up there in my to-do list!

later that night, we went off to broadway. it was alex's first musical and my third. avenue q wasn't what i expected it to be. the guy at the ticket booth did say that "it's sesame street, but for adults." but i honestly did not expect muppets to appear. it was an amazing 2 hours and i think every last penny was well spent!! i think it was one of the funniest things i've watched in a while. it touches on many taboo subjects, like racism, sex, drinking, porn, and hmm, even politics. we were definitely glad to have gone to see it, and if you're in new york i definitely recommend it!! the cast that night was amazing and it was wonderful being in the presence of people with such talent.

after the show, we took a cab to la bonne soupe [48 west 55th street, between 5th and 6th avenues; 212.586.7650], a cosy french restaurant. it was fantastic. we ordered the set and i had the french onion soup, rib eye steak and chocolate mousse.

i swear, i have never ever had french onion soup that good. it was rich in flavor and you could actually taste the onions - a far cry to the watered down clear soup with 3 stringy onion slices that i'm used to. the steak was also perfect, not overcooked, and was tender too. then came the chocolate mousse.

i am a (self-proclaimed) chocoholic and if i could eat chocolate for a living, i would. the chocolate mousse i had there was ab.so.lute.ly fabulous!!! i was so full after the steak, i thought i wouldn't be able to finish it, but no, i cleaned it up and licked my spoon in 2 minutes flat.

it was a great meal and all for just $24!!! super value for money!! definitely worth heaps more, but dear monsieur picot, please don't ever raise the prices!!

after spending all saturday morning cursing at paypal and amazon.com while i ordered my school textbooks, i joined alex in soho, where he had been shopping. my cab went by the armani exchange store and i told the driver to let me off there. there was a huge crowd outside, but what caught my eye were the models in the window.

there was a new underwear launch but i don't think anyone was buying underwear. i think everyone was snapping pictures, licking their lips and thinking how tight those white things were. by everyone, i mean women, gays, and jealous men.

there was more eye-candy inside the store, and too many turned-on people ogling at the male models. the security guard kept trying to get people to clear the doorway and was shouting, "you're either in, or out!! in or out! in, out, in, out!!"

then this woman shouted back, "give me some of that in-and-out!!"

i totally burst out laughing.

now, don't get me wrong, i really behaved myself, unlike several women and two gays, who couldn't stop shrieking, and went up to the models countless of times to take photos together, and to take close-ups. one woman pointed her camera at a model's you-know-what, another couldn't stop touching this model's pecs, and one gay man just stood in the corner, smiling and salivating.

besides, i had a new assignment for school and we have to do a shopping report on underwear and swim suits. so hello, this was totally not my idea to snap like 10 photographs. it was all for the sake of research!!!

saturday was also art parade day in soho. i missed part of it but did manage to see some glorious things.

as the parade trickled off, alex and i were both sweating buckets in this stupid heat, and decided to escape into any cafe that had bloody cold a/c. across the street, however, i notice this guy in a fabulous hat and even better hotpants. or is that just underwear. i love how he catwalked down the street but i wish he was wearing nicer shoes. i wanted to walk over to ask for a picture but he just hurried on too fast.

psst. i seem to be seeing a lot of close-to-naked people today. must be my lucky day.

inside the cafe, i also notice these 2 guys, who dressed and looked exactly the same!! they spent the whole time standing up and talking to their two friends, i couldn't interrupt and ask for a photo either. i couldn't figure out if they were twins, or if they were a couple, taking the couple-look to new extremes. it's not a good paparazzi shot but they had the same hair, the same white glasses, the same red scarf tied around their necks, the same white shirt and pants!! it was amazing!! they looked amazing! i was very amazed!

later, we walked towards bleeker street and guess what i found???

a gilda radner way! how cool is that!!! i wish i could climb up the street sign and scratch the "radner" out, but i was pretty stoked with it.

it was alex's and my last dinner together in the island of manhattan, and guess where we decided to go?? yep, we loved la bonne soupe so much, we headed back there. haha!! we ordered the cream of vegetable soup, ham, egg and cheese crepe, and smoked salmon with cream cheese crepe. it was gorgeous. you can tell i'm totally hooked and plan on making myself a regular.

alex leaves for boston tomorrow. i'm a little sad, although i know i'll be seeing him soon again. but i'm also a little relieved, because i have 2 million assignments due in a couple of days and i need to get rid of him! hahahah! just kidding alex, you know i love you.

i end this post with something i found scribbled in one of my notebooks. that nincompoop must have written it when i wasn't looking. it's something he used to do: sign his stupid name all over my books, back when we were kids having classes together. every page i turned, i'd see a "alex was here" sign. so i did a "tsk" just like i always used to do, whenever i found one of those scribbles.

boys will always be boys.

but it seems that years apart from good friends, can make them just slightly wiser. his "alex was here" scribbles have upgraded to a version 2.0.