This time last year

I can't believe it's almost another Eid holiday! Happy Holiday you magnificent people out there!

Last year, I spent the Eid's eve in Galeries de La Fayette in Paris, and the Eid day at Eurodisney. This year I'm staying home, doing chores and trying my best to be a good daughter and granddaughter. Which one is better? Well, this year is better. Europe (in general) or Paris (in particular) was no good to spend the Eid holiday in. It will be great for Christmas or New Year's Ever or other holidays, but Eid should be celebrated right here, at home, in Indonesia. I have heard a lot of people's experiences that even in Saudi, Eid isn't celebrated the way we Indonesians celebrate it. They just don't make it the kind of wonderful festivities as we do, there's no such joy in their Eid celebrations. Last year, I had to practice my Eid shalat at my hotel a little on the outskirts of Paris near Charles de Gaulle airport. And it was boo-ring. There was no ketupat and the other foods that just get along with it, there was no other family and there was no new clothes though we did do some shopping. There was only croissant, croissant, et croissant, merci beaucoup. My Parisian hotel wasn't exactly how you'd imagine it would be, there was no proper French cuisine available and even though they did serve that kind of food, it would probably be so horrible even the French themselves can't stand it. In fact, my Parisian hotel was the worst in all the hotels I'd stayed the night in during that trip. (It's probably true that Parisians are... well, Parisian, and when it comes to hotel you have to give it to the Swiss because my Swiss hotel was extraordinaire) Back then, it was September and for some poor little Asian girl like me it was pretty cold that I had to hide my new clothes beneath my usual brown coat and shawl. It was not a cool Eid style, I have to say. But it was Paris through and through, so there was not much I can complain. Galeries de La Fayette, to me, is your usual upscale department stores with the latest Parisian fashion. In fact, I think it would be much more thrilling if in Paris we get to shop in Champs-Elysées instead of a typical mall that's full of Asian tourists queueing for tax refund. And Eurodisney, it was so small and them being French, I don't think that they have done something to improve or expand it so it was another boring day for me too.

This year, though, I'm looking forward to the excitement I'm really familiar with. Eid is a holiday; it should be joyful and exciting, though slightly boring. I will wish you a very happy Eid Mubarak, and for now, let's just be thankful that I'm home and I will celebrate it close from home.

La Nouvelle Jackie

I'm sorry Michelle Obama. You're still the perfect woman to be America's First Lady, you're smart and you got style and you're so very beautiful it hurts my eyes every time I see a picture of you. But you don't make the kind of fashion spreads that Carla Bruni-Sarkozy did, and you certainly didn't make beautiful music and sing it in perfect français. I love you, but perhaps I'm a bit of a Nicolas Sarkozy inside, because I love Carla more. Vive le France.

Happiness Hit Her, Like A Train On a Track

To me, Florence Welch is like that senior in school who always show up late in the mornings---until they can't call it morning anymore---but always look so impeccably stylish and cool in a very effortless way that trying to look great isn't the reason why she was late; she's that senior in school who wears all the tackiest vintage clothes you could imagine but still can pull it off; she's that girl who always wear her style with a little bit of drama; she's that girl who wears things that you would consider as a fashion crime that no one should ever buy it, and looks great in them. She's that girl whose every moves look as if she was having fun and enjoying the day, who smokes like drinks water and drinks water like, well, smokes. She's that girl teachers will tell you not to take examples at, but she will graduate a valedictorian. She's that girl.

Mr. & Mrs. Sawyer

Promise me that when you pick the boy you’re really gonna be with that he’ll be someone who respects you, and treats you well. And it’s someone who makes your heart race. And that he’s someone that you love because of what he is and not what he does. Because that’s how I felt about your mother. And that’s how I want you to feel one day. Use your head, and follow your heart.— Larry Sawyer

Every girl needs to listen to Papa Sawyer :')

A Love Survivor

They say life is short, we can't always meet the best people and love the right person at the right time and watch the best movies or listen to the nicest songs or read the best book. But I'm telling you in this short life time, The History of Love is brilliant. There are Leo Gursky and Zvi Litvinoff and Alma Singer, but Gursky is the one that makes the whole book. It's crazy melancholic and heart-warming story about love. Deeply memorable and touching. Something not to miss.

Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter
was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering. When they
were ten he asked her to marry him. When they were eleven he kissed
her for the first time. When they were thirteen they got into a fight
and for three weeks they didn’t talk. When they were fifteen she
showed him the scar on her left breast. Their love was a secret they
told no one. He promised her he would never love another girl as long
as he lived. What if I die? she asked. Even then, he said.

For her sixteenth birthday he gave her an English dictionary and
together they learned the words. What’s this? he’d ask, tracing his
index finger around her ankle, and she’d look it up. And this? he’d
ask, kissing her elbow. Elbow! What kind of a word is that? and
then he’d lick it, making her giggle. What about this? he asked,
touching the soft skin behind her ear. I don’t know , she said,
turning off the flashlight and rolling over, with a sigh, onto her
back. When they were seventeen they made love for the first time, on
a bed of straw in a shed. Later- when things happened that they could
never have imagined- she wrote him a letter that said: When will you
learn that there isn’t a word for everything?

Excuse me, can you please adopt me?

To live and be a few steps ahead of people is boring and suddenly the world seems so dull. It must be sucks to be Victoria Beckham.

I will not agree with anyone who says there's anyone luckier than Victoria Beckham. I will not. It's just not open for compromise. She has everything every girl could wish for: great style, great friends, great homes, great body, great shoes, great wardrobe, great jeans, great style, great tan (yes, I like hers more than Pippa Middleton's), money that won't be drained until my seventh generation, a face quirky enough to make people never forget (and to appear in magazine covers), her own exclusive clothing line with no tolerance for the term "affordable" (and apparently have the ability to afford just about anything she wants), a brief popstar career as a stepping stone, cute boys and finally a daughter to play Barbie with, and last but not least, the greatest accessory that nobody just can win over: David Beckham. The list could go on forever! Okay she might not be that great, but admit it. At one point in life, you'd want at least a piece of her: either it's her hair, her shoes, her jeans, her body, or her husband. You want an icon for this generation? I vote for Victoria!

P.S.Okay, any one of you who disagree with me, please at least vote for David because admit it, he is so the Man of Our Generation!

Perfection of your face slows me down

Seriously, I could stare into those eyes forever. Had I been able to draw, I would draw his jaw and perfect cheekbones at this very moment. I could watch those lips smile and saying sweet nothings every minute of every day, not to mention those words will be spoken in a lovely British accent. And yeah damn right, he's straight. God only knows how many straight men are actually working in the fashion industry these days. David Gandy is perfection.

Cri du coeur

Because of some friends started singing a Damien Rice song called The Rat Within the Grain and made the song stuck in my head like a cancer, I spontaneously typed his name on Google and found a long, but rather nice interview of him because honestly he's just one of those very arty-farty musicians who hardly ever speak for a proper interview. I was in junior high when I first heard of his song The Blower's Daughter, his repetitive and haunting, cold and bittersweet ballad, on the radio playing again and again. I didn't know what's the thing with the song, because it wasn't easy-listening, not catchy or anything but it just stuck in my head somehow. A couple of years later, I remember it crystal clear that I found his first record O in an HMV store in a suburban mall, on the back of Harrow on The Hill tube station in London, and I bought it along with a P.S. I Love You soundtrack because they cost only 8 pounds for two (O might be cheap because the record had been a few years old at the time, but the soundtrack? maybe because it was too cheesy for the Britons. I don't know, but it was also really good.) I didn't think that it would be one of my all-time favorite record, all I knew was, "This is the guy whose melancholic song magically stuck in my head all the way through junior high." And yet, as it turns out, it was the best 4 pounds I have ever spent in my life so far! (My favorite track of his, Accidental Babies and Desafinado, are not featured in the record, though) Little did I know that The Blower's Daughter was also featured as a soundtrack to Closer, one of the bitterest, coldest, rawest movie I've ever seen. The song and the movie matched perfectly, I can say, both are so raw and bitter and cold that watching it makes me shiver all the time and all throughout the movie. You can read the interview here and find what a sweet guy he really is. Here's a hint before you read:

The last ten years has seen the Kildare singer-songwriter selling truckloads of albums, repeatedly touring the globe, hearing his songs soundtrack hit movies, being romantically linked with an A-list Hollywood actress, and performed with the likes of Christy Moore and Leonard Cohen ("a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, gracious, eloquent man"). You'd think that Rice must be spoilt for choice of momentous moments. But he doesn't hesitate before answering: "meeting Lisa Hannigan".

The lowest point?

He smiles, wistfully: "Lisa Hannigan not wanting to talk to me anymore"

"I would give away all of the music success", he says, "all the songs, and the whole experience to still have Lisa in my life. Like that!", he tells me, snapping his fingers. "No question."

The Waltz Only A Queen Deserves

Above: Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close; Below: Nicole Krauss' The History of Love

I would like to marry a writer someday. I don't care even though they write an article about never date a writer. I would like someone who's literate, someone who can just sit on the sofa with me side to side reading each of our own books while a slow, classic music was playing, like what George Falconer do with his boyfriend Jim in A Single Man. But most of all, I would like my name to be the only one written on the first page of his book, where he'd show off his dedication and love for me to the world by writing such short words. To me, it would be like carving your lover's name on a rock, or make it a tattoo on your body; it's a full dedication and it's really romantic without being creepy or freaky. I wanna be able to do exactly what Foer and Krauss do to each other. I don't care if wanting my name to be written there is selfish. I think it's really sweet, much to the fact that Foer is a romantic himself. If you are so curious, Foer wrote an essay in a book called A Convergence of Birds that became my inspiration for one of my old posts Teenage Dream. Below, you can read the origin of the art museum meeting idea.

Half Evaluation

I'm currently reading The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, which at first was rather difficult for me because Plath was originally a poet and I can say the book started off as being so poetic and dramatic it was not like reading a novel at all. At the moment I've come to half of the book, I just realized how much I can relate to Esther Greenwood and most of her thoughts and the world around her. It's scary sometimes because it's like Sylvia Plath could read into my mind long before I was even born and put those thoughts on Esther. I'm not as depressed as her, though yes, I found several things in life to be sort of depressing. But like her, I enjoy writing and I like the fact that she got a chance to work at a woman's magazine, and the fact that she has someone like Buddy Willard in her life (This is where I'm so not Esther. Buddy is a med student and a handsome, charming, Yale guy. I would forgive him for the fact that he's not as pure as I am) and painfully, also the part where she felt like she's been inadequate in a long time, only she never realized it before. It's terrible that I feel the same way she does, but reading this makes me think that I'm not alone, and Esther is around my age so I mustn't be the only one feeling inadequate in this world. I like the conversation between Esther and Buddy about her being neurotic, and about that Eric guy who thinks that if he really loves a girl, he would keep her from all that dirty business we call sex. I don't really read books written by woman before because they're mostly romance and I don't really like reading romance, despite my deep love for romcom movies, but this one definitely worth the exception.

“I could never settle down in either the country or the city… what’s so neurotic about that?”

Buddy didn’t answer.

“Well?” I rapped out.

“Nothing,” Buddy said in a pale, still voice.

“Neurotic, ha!” I let out a scornful laugh. “If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I’m neurotic as hell. I’ll be flying back and forth between one mutually exclusive thing and another for the rest of my days.”

Buddy put his hand on mine.

“Let me fly with you.”