LAB RAT

Ohayo!

So my days at VIVA Magazine are over. If I stapled together all my bus receipts I could make a full skirt like so:

Reiss. by the way. I probably spent 6 hours of my day commuting. Regardless, I would do it again. I mostly did a lot of research for upcoming projects (the majority of which belonged to the travel and leisure sections of the magazine), and called up companies and gathered information. There was literally one day of filing and no days of getting everyone's coffee. I may also get a chance to take part in their monthly 'Great Debate' section, where a couple women gather to (obviously) discuss a topic. Next month's topic is celebrity related I think. But there's a photoshoot of course, and I may not be around for that. So...here's hoping.

I also got to meet up with some people from Harper's Bazaar Dubai who offered me work experience as well, but I'm not sure when I'll be around again. July brings me to the start of a heavily packed travelling schedule, starting off with China in a couple days.

Anyway, while I was busy swearing at myself for forgetting their 'thank you' card at home, the VIVA team was putting together an expensive and heavy parting gift for (apparently) their longest and most efficient intern.

So I've spent half of my day in the bathroom already, testing out this firming cream, that aqua cream, and smelling like a million bucks, and am about to put on some white nail polish. I have absolutely no use for half this stuff (the avid fan of natural beauty and a good black liner that I am) but it seems by accident the Clinique Repairwear Lift SPF15 has cleared up the damage of some unfortunate spots overnight. The transformation is effing surreal. So...whatever, use it for the wrinkles and lines and the lifting and smoothing, but I just found me my acne medication (someone please tell me why I am now getting acne. My face used to be comparable to a baby's butt cheeks). I also really like the Spa Pedicure Cucumber Heel Therapy. Those babies can become quite dry out here in the desert.

THANKS VIVA!

STALKER

If you've been following me all these months, you will know that best-selling British Asian author Hanif Kureishi dominates my current mental bookshelf. I am about to start 'The Body' this evening, once I round up the last couple pages of Kerouac's 'On the Road'. I'm falling so far behind on my summer reading list for my Developing the Novel class next semester. I'm supposed to be going at a one book a week pace but Kerouac's took me two weeks because of my new crazy/busy schedule (new to the office life, folks).

ANYWAY! I WAS TALKING ABOUT HANIF KUREISHI!!!

Geez, as much as I love my tangential train of thought during my writing process, it kills everything else. So, The Guardian is featuring Writer's Rooms and they naturally chose Kureishi's. Here it isss!

Ahhh...beautiful writer jumble and clutter. This may be of waning interest to you but as the daughter of an interior designer, interiors are just as important to me as wearable exteriors. Besides, a writer's work space must give off the right vibrations and must only have inspiring things within its walls. It's a very key part of the process. Anyway, also required of us for the Developing the Novel class, is that we set up and finalise our writing space this summer in preparation for the long months we'll be spending in them for the class, as well as for the rocky road beyond graduation.

Thank God I came across this because I completely forgot that assignment. But either way this proves tricky for me because I live out here in the U.A.E. half the time and then when I head back to England for school, my accommodation arrangements are pretty much non-existent. I change rooms like underwear. It's crazy. My London belongings are scattered all around London at various friends' and families' houses. And I am certainly not looking forward to the treasure hunt when I get back, of retrieving them and finding a place to rest my head.

Back on track now, I'm not sure how I'll be able to organize a proper work space until I move out to the U.S. after school. AND EVEN MORESO, I find I get more on the page by sitting on a bus from start to finish anyway! I'm set, even if I were a bum.

DIARY OF AN INTERN: DAYS 3 & 4

It's been a really busy week. By the time I got home yesterday and the day before from work, it was quite late and I was quite tired so I have not been posting about my experiences at the Viva office on the exact days. Hence, this bursting weekend post.

Day 3

Okay so Day 3 wasn't particularly exciting. I was told to do extensive research on some articles that could be possible hooks for the features and spreads they planned to produce in the next issue. So basically, I spent the day slurping a take-away Pina Colada from TGIF next door and browsing story-hoarding websites like Digg, Fark, and Pretty Social (a relatively new website where women can 'share and discuss stories from around the web'). For the record, since I love the guy, I found out about the last website from Joe, which means, he made my job at the office even easier. Millefois Merci.


As a result of all that internet research, I stumbled upon my favourite story of the lot: Isolated Tribe Spotted in Brazil. Beautiful. I have a thing for tribes, especially after thoroughly indulging in 'Apocalypto' three times. So great that they're still out there today. It's so fascinating seeing them protect themselves with their bows and arrows from the camera in its helicopter above. Most beautiful thing I've read all week; along with Amy Tan's novel 'Saving Fish From Drowning', which I finished last night, which of course you MUST read, and which is actually quite focused on a Burmese tribe called the Karen tribe.

Anyway, this what I stupidly wore to work that day as I braved the excruciating heat on the way to work. All black.

DAY 4

Apart from the events that happened between 7:30pm and 2am yesterday, I had a great day. Allow me to briefly sum up those unfortunate events before going on about the activities that were internship-related. Finding my way home from a different location other than the usual Viva office (as the photoshoot was elsewhere) resulted in:

me searching for a nearby bus stop which wasn't nearby and had me walking up and down several highways like a prostitute (which some people slowed thinking I was), finding one, figuring out which bus from there would take me to my destination, waiting an hour and a half for a bus to actually even stop for me as they were all packed with workers, finally getting one an hour and a half later, arriving at the bus terminal for the express to Abu Dhabi and finding that there were no more for the evening, calling my dad from a party to tell him I would be spending the night in a nearby bush if he didn't come for me, arranging to meet him just outside the city, getting to the planned location (Dubai Marina) and discovering that the area was so newly constructed that there were no road signs or street names yet, stumbling around in painful shoes looking for a familiar building to stand and wait at, finding out my dad was still an hour away and had no idea where I was, bursting into tears from all the wandering, the crippled feet, the seclusion, the heat, the parched throat, finding a security guard outside a place called La Riviera Towers who said he would talk to my dad, my dad telling me after I was given the phone back that he had no idea what the guy was talking about, my phone beeping saying the battery was low, being fed water and tissues by the guard who allowed me to sit in the blissfully air-conditioned lobby to wait, then standing out on the highway with him to wave at my dad's car as he flew by then turned around and collected me. Yes, we gave him a bloody good tip. I got home at 4am and thanked Allah, God, Buddha and Mother Lakshmi that it was the weekend and I didn't have to get up an hour later for work again.

PHEW! Now the photoshoot! Yes, I went on my first fashion photoshoot (photos posted here) with Viva, which was located at a newly opened club called Alpha, which is part of Le Meridien Hotel Dubai. All clubs and restaurants serving alcohol have to be situated at a hotel in the U.A.E. Alcohol can barely be obtained elsewhere. They don't sell it at supermarkets or anything. So people make a big deal about going for 'booze runs' (which the photographer informed everyone she was going on this weekend) and my dad, as he's a pilot, usually just stocks up when coming through Duty Free.

Anyway, so I helped out the Fashion and Beauty editor Chee, and her assistant Gaby by organizing the clothes, shoes and accessories for the shoot. There was a huge crisis when the steamer refused to work and we had to go ask to borrow an iron and ironing board from the hotel staff. The first one they sent us didn't work, so we had to go back and request another, which took nearly half an hour to come, and tested it out in a nearby outlet in the vast lobby; with the hotel's guests brunching, bozing and smoking eyeing us with amused expressions.

The whole organizing an iron and ironing board ordeal took nearly an hour; the reason being that the immigrant workers who come to this country and apply for jobs barely even know what the job entails or how to do it. They're just grabbing what they can, and fast. Once they are given orders, they follow them mechanically. Anything outside of what they are ordered to do, they know absolutely nothing about. This is also the reason I spent so much time getting more and more lost yesterday evening. Not even the bus drivers knew about the correct buses or directions I should take, around this city they have been working in for quite some time, I imagine. This is also why once when I jumped in a taxi and asked some advice about where a particular building might be on a particular street, the driver (who was hired to drive) barely knew english, could not understand what I wanted him to do and told me 'Cannot showing me where? I'm sorry, no,' opening the door for me to get out.

So what happened when we approached the front desk about the iron TWICE was we were faced with a tiny Indian man, who merely looked at us with bulging eyes, then looked down at the ground racking his brain and muttering 'what to do? what to do?' We could see the doom in his eyes as he thought about impatient Gaby seeking out the manager to complain about him, and him getting fired as a result. Anyway, eventually he talked to someone, and they talked to someone, and so forth, and we received a new iron. All was well.

The photoshoot featured real everyday women with different body types, showing which clothes flattered their body types most. I was the first person to show up at Alpha, then the photographer Candy, next. She was a lanky Australian woman with fried bleached ringlets and thick black glasses.
"Are you the first model today?"
"Oh no, no, no, " I stammered, flattered, staring at her concerning lack of breasts printed through her Karl Lagerfeld tank top. "I'm just the intern. The team's all on their way."

Of all the cool people I met that day, Candy was the most exciting. In fact, I might be harbouring a small girl crush. She had 6 tattooes, blasted Sheryl Crow and Bob Marley songs through her Mac, her butt-crack peek-a-booed over her briefs and baggy surfer jeans when she stooped and crouched and jumped about excitedly to take pictures, and she wasn't at ALL pretty. Actually, when she took off her glasses, she looked the way Carrie Bradshaw might look if she wore absolutely no make-up and hadn't slept in several days. In other words, she wasn't too ugly either. On the breaks in between, she sat reading a book about 'thinking big' while lounging on one of the club's longue chaises. She rolled and smoked copious amounts of brown-papered cigarettes.
"They're licorice flavoured," she told me.

Although we were served an unlimited amount of drinks by one of the bar staff they had provided us with, she asked several times for the only thing they didn't serve; coffee. They diligently trekked up to the hotel to get it for her. And in between tiny porcelain cups of those, she chugged Red Bull, and yet remained pleasantly aware of her surroundings and not maniacally buzzed. I marvelled. She also called me over once and to my surprise (I shouldn't have been surprised. She was satisfyingly crazy), she asked me to help her pick out a model of Jeep Wrangler on her laptop. She was thinking of buying a new car this week. We chose this.

The make-up artist was also quite talented, and the only one who scarfed down as much of the meditarranean food that I ordered for everyone as me. We chatted quite a lot. She gave some of the staff, who were going out afterwards, a new face for the evening. Chee, the fashion director, asked the Plus Size girl they used for the shoot to bring along 6 gift bags to thank all the models for taking part, as she worked at some cosmetics department or other. But the girl brought too many bags, so Chee handed me one. So happy was I for this bag containing the latest DKNY mini roll-on perfume, DKNY shower gel, a mini London Fashion Week make-up set and Sean John's latest fragrance for women called Unforgiveable. I'm usually quite picky with scents, but everything in there smelt FANTASTIC! And they were no longer mine anyway. I knew exactly what I had to do. I presented the pretty gift bag reading 'Unforgiveable' to my mother this morning, asking her to forgive me for forgetting her birthday, which was a few weeks ago. She left the house a few minutes ago, the roll-on perfume tucked neatly into her clutch bag.

FICTION FRIDAY: THE LECTURER!

A spy falls in love...
As often happens, Leone wrote this very quickly, on the edge of a deadline. The word count was 500, which felt very challenging. Draft 1 was over 2000 words, and that was all background. Second draft nailed it: 499. This story is based on a conversation Leone had with her mum one Christmas in New York. The story was published as part of a fold out ‘book map’ and sold at the Commonwealth Games in 2007.

So Leone is my lecturer. She's effing awesome. This piece is great. It was incorporated into our Reader for Writing Fiction 2 class. And now it is being incorporated into Fiction Friday. It's short so...READ!

SHE ROCKS TOO HARD

[Facehunter]

THE GONDRY EFFECT

Just finished 'The Science of Sleep' and wish I hadn't. I am so lame that I didn't realise the director, Michel Gondry, was my God, having done 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind', a plethora of Bjork videos and well, 'Be Kind Rewind' (which was actually really awesome and made me cry!). Scroll down here to check out this disease he's got called Impressivitis. I am so stoked for the arrival of his films 'Tôkyô!', 'Migel Munya' and 'Master of Space and Time', and have kind of decided to study the guy. And OMG his birthday is fuckin' Thursday (May 8th). Have some Gondry Goodness:

'The Work of Michel Gondry' Trailer:


Short Film 'La Lettre':

Levi's ad:

Experiments with Bjork:

Gondry solves a Rubiks Cube:

HAHA This White Stripes video is too funny:

Short Film 'One Day':

Let Forever Be- The Chemical Brothers:

Crash Course in Guerilla film-making:

Short Film 'Tiny' (lol experimentally cute):

'Declare Independence'-Bjork:

THE 8AM ICON

How 'rockin'-it-without-words' is Siouxsie Sioux? For some reason, I never finished Interview with the Vampire and started listening to their epic tunes (yes, the allnighter is still under way). It makes me so mad that Limewire doesn't have 'Forever'

I go to Youtube to hear 'Forever'. So weep-worthy.

IT'S MAY, HUH?

Wow, it just came...I pretty much started the year yesterday. Ao anyway, this means new Book of the Month. Honestly, all I've managed to read is a buncha Kureishi novels (you know how wild I am about him) and I have already featured two of his books. The other books I feverishly read recently were for my course, and I sort of never want to see those books ever again (well, at least for 5 months). Have no fear though, one of the classes I chose for third year (Developing the Novel (GOD HELP ME)) requires that I read at least 10 novels this summer so I'll deliver splendidly in the next few months. For now, have this one:It's called Tracks. I had to read it for last semester's Travel Writing class, but it's not what you think. It's about clearly THE MOST badass woman that ever lived- Robyn Davidson; a psycho city lady who decides to go to Alice Springs, a desert town in Australia, and learn to raise wild camels so she can cross the desert with her own herd. You know those crazy white women, ALWAYS getting some sort of outlandish Calling. Actually, she had me conspiring all kinds of things after I read this (twice), for an essay (that I got an upper 2nd on thank you very much!).

She's sort of the reason I was packed and ready to go to Egypt in January and stay at a hostel in Cairo by myself for a week until my parents caught me. I was going to ride a camel. Next time.

Actually, it is REQUIRED that all demotivated women read this book at some point in their lives. I'm pretty sure I cried, but since I've been doing that tenfold lately, I'm beginning to wonder if it's my contraceptives.

LOVE THIS PHOTO! She was pretty hot too. Oh, for all those lovey dovey types, there's a tough girl love story in here too. It was very sweet. I will HAVE to gather some epic quotes from this book but not right now, as the day's a-wasting, it's sunny out and I need nourishment. READ IT!!!

A DREAM IS A WISH YOUR HEART MAKES

Oh my God, she noticed full stop

hey lovely,

thanks for coming out last night.

what name would you like us to add on the list for tomorrow?

see you soon.

hearts,lo

Hi!!
Thanks for getting back to me. Can you just put Kara Martin and my friend XXXXX XXXXXXX. So, just so I don't screw up again this time, what time are you guys performing and how much is it at the door?

Thanks,
exes and ohs
Kara.

P.S. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE tell me you brought along some of your CYOA! shirts with you from NY? They're awesome!

A BLOG REVIEW?

OH MY GOSH! OH MY GUSH! I. LOVE. YOU. SLACKER. CHIC(K)!

*uncrumples acceptance speech, clears throat* Babe, that's my favourite post too...along with my last one. You should come visit me and we can go see Amy Winehouse snort coke on stage sometime, k? And I don't know what I would do without my iPod either.

exes and ohs,
Kara.

I ENVY THIS WOMAN'S LIFE

[photo credit: Newsday]

I love it when bloggers are making it and getting the postivie attention they deserve. It paves the way for us down here. Congrats to my friend Vera Sweeney (who technically IS my friend because she added me on Facebook), owner of I'm Not Obsessed, the popular celebrity culture blog, for her exposure recently in Newsday and getting featured on CBS two days ago. After all this time reading her blog, I never knew what she looked like. She's gorgeous..and she's a mom! It's good to see someone hot in the news these days, who isn't a celebrity in a scandal, or a regular hot person in a scandal. Positive news. I like. Here's her interview with CBS . OOH! She's even hired some employees. PICK ME! PICK ME!...except I don't write about celebrities.

THANKS VERA! I feel more powerful about my blog now. I think it has a chance of getting some higher recognition. And hey, if it doesn't, it was fun writing the hell out of it anyway and I get a kick out of reading my old stuff and going 'I wrote that?!'

BLOGGERLY LOVE

I say this all the time, but it's never enough for me. I really get excited about comments and Guerreira lurrves me and I lurrve her. Not only does she have an engrossing blog, but an amazing heart as well. She always cheers me up with her comments, as do my other readers with their comments, of course (thank you, thank you, to you all, for your kind words. Millefois Merci!).

I was feeling really down the other day, as you all would've known if you have been following my posts. I wrote one on how my blog had seemed to slowly lose its thrill/gusto/interest-factor. But Guerreira left me a really uplifting comment today in response to it, which I think is great because it can apply to all of you, be you a blogger, or a closet journal writer in the safety of your room:

"hey, don't give up...the beauty of blogs is the mix of great posts and random weird stuff, which reflects life, me thinks... "

THANK YOU HONEY! HAVE AN INTERNET HUG. ALL OF YOU, INTERNET GROUP HUG!

P.S. I like her even more now because she says 'me thinks'.

WHAT IS AMBITION?

SO, in order to win a wad of cash (£1000 actually) from Harper's Bazaar, I have to write a short story about Ambition by April 11th, the same day I am handing in my entries for the Vogue Young Talent Contest for Young Writers.

I decided to look up the word Ambition, as a starting point, to see what pops up in my head. Dictionary.com says:

am·bi·tion /æmˈbɪʃən/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[am-bish-uhn] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun
1.
an earnest desire for some type of achievement or distinction, as power, honor, fame, or wealth, and the willingness to strive for its attainment: Too much ambition caused him to be disliked by his colleagues.
2.
the object, state, or result desired or sought after: The crown was his ambition.
3.
desire for work or activity; energy: I awoke feeling tired and utterly lacking in ambition. –verb (used with object)
4.
to seek after earnestly; aspire to.

I also decided to do some research on the competition and I'll be damned what came up on google. SOMEONE HAILING FROM MY UNIVERSITY WON THE 2006 PRIZE! AND I knew her. She's a very well known erotic writer in London, Debra Mehta, and she did a reading at our University's first major literary event last year (where I sadly won Best Dressed. Whatever happened to winning something for writing? But actually there were no prizes for writing anyways so no biggie.) Anyways, I guess the topic changes every year because I don't see how erotica can be classed ambition.

WHO THE FUCK CAN SAY ANYTHING GOOD ON AMBITION BESIDES CHEERLEADERS?! You guys have to help me. Give me some ideas, some sparks, some starting points. I really need this money*cough* I mean, this recognition. Okay jokes aside, I think daily readers of my blog know I would kill to make it as a successful writer. It's not really about money for me, or else my parents would've forced me to study medicine like I had originally planned. But you gotta admit, winning this competition and that money is a GREAT place to start. One of my favourite authors Zadie Smith won this (if you haven't read White Teeth and On Beauty yet, GET ON IT!). I actually wrote about Zadie Smith in my admittance essay for my University.Anyway, this website is really good for any and everything short and reader worthy (short stories). They've got upcoming competitions and lists of magazines that publish stories etc. You can also download some short stories here for reading pleasure.

I KNOW COOL PEOPLE!

SO, my friend Trisha in L.A. who I lived with for a while, is now a writer for LA Splash and just sent me her coverage article on Nicky Hilton's Fall 2008 line for 'Nicholai', where bondage meets equestrian. Isn't that awesome? (The Trisha bit AND the trend bit lol). I'm posting the article because I am oh so proud of herrr, and because aspects of Nicky's line aren't half bad. I mean, it isn't in the slightest ground-breaking stuff but I would LOVE to be able to pull off latex leggings (you have to be skinny in an almost dead way to pull that off) and I love the equestrian chic trend; riding boots, riding hats, whips...

Reminds me of my horseback riding days back in Trinidad. I used to ride a cute white mare called Starsky. One day, I realised she was all fat, and they said she was severely pregnant and I needed to choose another horse for a while. So I chose one called Pumpkin, who was also white, and very freckly; also very mischievous. Kinda like Lindsay Lohan, huh?

ANYWAY, I SPY RANDOM TANGENTS! HERE ARE SOME OF NICHOLAI'S SPRING OUTFITS (because Trisha's article already shows you some Fall pictures)

I definitely prefer the Fall line but yellow is nice.

NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL REAL LIFE

Forget porn. Read Confessions of a College Callgirl. I'm seriously lesbian for her; the candid raciness in her posts. She's one of the truest characters I've met(read about and wished I'd met) in the Blogosphere. Read her last post on masturbating to the bible if you aren't a Scriptures hugger. Actually, read it even if you ARE one. The vividness and fluidity of her writing style deserves a read from any and everyone; both the people who ACTUALLY do the decades of their rosary, and those who just wear it to emulate Madonna.

Speaking of lesbians (bisexuals actually), another blogger I am quite impressed with is the writer behind The Bunny Blog. RUN, not walk, over to that page and start with the 'My Manic Summer' posts. There are about four....and they are disturbingly comforting. Yes, I mean what I said. Having depression myself, it's quite a relief to read my feelings off of someone else after years of thinking I was surely 'The Only One'. And the detailed clarity of her writing just....just fucking get on it guys!

AND SO TO THESE TWO WOMEN, IF YOU'RE READING THIS, YOU AND YOUR BLOGS FUCKING ROCK AND WE SHOULD MEET UP FOR LUNCH AND GROUP SEX SOME TIME.

A MINOR PARTY PICTURE POST

Since my mom woke me up at 7:30am, three hours after I went to bed, I decided to blog a bit. I went to that 61st birthday party on Saturday that I told you about, the one hours before my flight, which I missed. Here are some of my interesting new friends. As I said in my last post, there will be none of me and my stunning party make-up due to a comment about my grossness in a pink bob wig made by my ex on Facebook. But these will make up for it I think. Also, I'll post some pictures of Abu Dhabi when I actually leave my room. I have not yet recovered and have just been indoors reading Kureishi, writing micro-fiction and watching old Kurt Russell and Nicholas Cage movies, which is probably what I'm going to do now...with food.

Meet Ziggy; the birthday girl among the birthday triplets that night, and the cutest bottle of listerine I have ever seen/met. You should've seen her multi-coloured high-tops too!

A SCRABBLE NECKLACE. This girl loved my party make-up and I in turn ogled her chest lol; because of the necklace. She told me where to get them (they come in all letters) but silly me had alcoholic memory at the time. But luckily, she just tagged my photo on Facebook and I Friend Requested her so I'll have that info for you guys soon!

I had to take a picture of this because Simon actually BROUGHT this with him to the party, his own ice and lemon in a container, along with his own gin for his gin and tonics. He's so strange I love it. He refused to drink out of our humble plastic party cups too.

Okay so this picture wasn't ACTUALLY taken at said party but everyone in here was there anyways and this picture is just amazing.(I hope I don't get in trouble for stealing it) From L to R: Oli, whose birthday it was also. He wore a great frilly mexican shirt to the party with Indiana Jones-eque hat that everyone went around slipping coins into the band of; David, our University's clearly 80's obsessed DJ. He does a lot of Madonna tracks to the annoyance of the guys; And Phil who actually looks like Leonardo DiCaprio and Emile Hirsch together in a tumble dryer. SO HOT!

HOLY SHIT DOT COM

People are visiting my blog from other blogs, like this one, which can only mean two things:

1) I love my Feedjit WAY more than yesterday

2) Other people in the world know of me and like me! WHO WOULD'VE THOUGHT The Lonely Londoner would gather some friends.

So, I just want to say thank you for reading, keep reading, and HELLO! *SMOOCH*

THE GOINGS-ON

I was happy sleeping just now until my mind hovered over my blog for a split second and I just HAD to get up and write something because it's TUESDAY(!) already and I haven't posted anything since SATURDAY! Face it. Sometimes The Lonely Londoner can actually have things to do other than post fashion pictures taken in her white hot bathroom. And this week is going to be a crazy one.

1. I haven't posted much over the weekend because I have been undergoing the long, gruelling process of getting rid of my extensions the cheap way; doing it myself. I'm gonna get arthritis from all the unbraiding. Sometimes thick hair isn't such a blessing. Just know that. I have an Amazonian jungle on my head as we speak which needs to take itself down to The Ginger Group (my stylists) and get itself STRAIGHTENED out. Here's a shot of me just before starting but just after cutting off the excess. I look like a little Jamaican Rastafarian kid.

2. CONVERSATIONS VIA EMAIL WITH MY LECTURER:
I'm swooning and falling over to die. Hanif Kureishi has been featured in the April issue of Vogue!Sorry, you're the only one I know who would understand lol.
Kara.

Ah, chile, you DO make me laugh.You HAVE read the rest of his stuff, right??If not, do so immediately.

Leone

I finished Midnight All Day in one day the other day and am thinking I'll finish Love in a Blue Time tonight. So good. I have a crush on him.

Kara

good taste!

Leone

YA SO, I am lovin' the fuck out of what I see in April UK Vogue; save for the Victoria Beckham cover. It IS packed to capacity with superb fashion and for the first time in Vogue Issues this year, I actually want and will wear everything in there. But I'll get to the fashion another time. I gotta post the essentials and stop because the spacing and paragraphing on blogger is severely ticking me off and I can't stay too much longr on here. Anyways, YES! Hanif Kureishi whose name stands repetitive on my blog, as he is my current favourite author, is featured in it. He is so much older and not what I expected, compared to the pictures on his novels, which is understandable, but his portrait in the magazine looks as if he is just about to hoist himself from his chair and give someone a beatdown. His face isn't very reassuring. But I still love him. Here. Have some stuff I just found about him thanks to Vogue:

a) Every Friday morning he meets at a cafe near the Portobello Road with director Stephen Frears for a chat. (which is basically important, because, my life as a stalker starts now...)

b) He wrote the screenplay for Venus, that british movie with Peter O'Toole that came out last year about a pair of veteran actors whose lives get turned upside down after meeting a brash teenager. However, if you were to ask Hanif what it was about he would say, "It's about two old bastards and a slag."

c) He lives in Hammersmith and has a mice problem.

d) He left his wife Tracey Scoffield for another woman, whom he was having an affair with, Monique Proudlove, and has sons from them with the most adorable names! Yes, I just said he's a bastard but get over it. His short stories are usually about affairs and split marriages and other bastards, but maybe he just really wasn't happy, and love does not cease to exist after one love fails, right? At least he still acknowledges that he has three kids. Okay, back to the names: Kier, Sachin and Carlo.

e) He's actually lived the sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll life. I figured, because it is a lifestyle so commonly portrayed in his books. "I used to love taking drugs and having lots of sex with lots of different people, but now I realise that this isn't the best solution (LOL). We need a system of prohibition and law to make transgression pleasurable and to stop one disappearing down a plughole of one's inner soul."

f) This now 54 year old writer has managed to seduce me to BITS through his writing. There. I said it. What is it with me and old people lately?

3. I AM OFFICIALLY SEEING BJORK IN APRIL! SO sorry to hear about that whole debacle on China, really am. NOT! BUT she's coming to Hammersmith, and I'm there (after having a quick peep around the neighbourhood for Mr. Kureishi). Remember I was busy last weekend trying to find tickets for me and my cousin Becks the Barmaid for her 20th Birthday, which was March 2nd, and failed. Well, when we all sat down to dinner at the Simply Indian Restaurant (so good, so tiny), the sister of one of our friends, who joined us later, with her boyfriend, was offering up two tickets to Bjork because she had a conference in San Francisco clashing with it and her boyfriend didn't want to go with anyone else (AWW). And they actually didn't take the piss and sold it to us for 45 each. The tickets online now are over the top, at 100 or more. We needed one more ticket for a friend after that but she managed to find one on Ebay for 70. I wouldn't have paid that but glad she's the spending type and is coming along, because this is going to be beyond spectacular. ................................................................SHIT! WHAT do you wear to a concert like that? P.S. Download 'Innocence (Simian Mobile Disco Twelve Inch Remix)

4. It only occurred to me that from May I will be stationed in the Middle East, and then the Caribbean and my blog is called The Lonely Londoner. That's okay, right? I'm from different places but the main focus has been life in London thusfar and how I have been coping, as an international student. I am only thinking of this now because my daddy, the pilot, just sent me my eticket to go home for Spring Break! Yay! I decided to go home for the break because I was not able to find a job and London has just not been treating me dearly as of late. Well, shit happens...at the same time. I got emailed the ticket last night and this morning I received this email from a super trendy club in Shoreditch.

Hi,
Please call (number removed) – leave a message – to arrange an interview/chat.
Thanks
John
GM East Village

YUP, I applied for part time barwork there, and out of all the bar jobs I applied for TWO WEEKS AGO(WHY YOU GOTTA GET BACK TO ME NOW, HUH?!) I wanted this one the most. So anyway, live and let die. I am getting on that plane come Sunday and not looking back. What's so funny is that I ALWAYS wanna go home so badly, but end up having such a shit time with my dysfunctional family that after a week out there I am demanding to get an earlier flight back, or somewhere else. For Christmas, I left on the 27th and went to San Francisco. And the Christmas the year before that, I actually passed on going travelling back home with the fam to Trinidad to be back in London by myself. Well, not by myself actually. I realised I had fallen in love with an exchange student who was going back home in January lol. THEY DON'T NEED TO KNOW THAT! But, it was worth it, going back home. Said exchange student and I got together shortly after he left and spent 9 happy months together, and still talk, and still visit and plan on trying it all over again someday, and he's my bestest friend EVER! *beams with blushes*

5. I'm thinking of putting the Japanese Phrase of the Day and the Item of the Day posts separate in the right column of my blog. What do you think? I keep forgetting to post them daily...UGH! I'M A BUSY WOMAN, DAMNIT! *sigh* Okay, I'll go get on it right now.

OLD PEOPLE

I've been thinking about the idea of aging a lot lately....well, more than usual. Every year since I turned 18 (ok so that only makes two years so far) I've been crying on my birthday. 17 will always remain one of the biggest, craziest, best years of my life (I doubt lol). I thrive off of the fact that people admire how much I've already done at such a young age. People over here are constantly amazed that I will be going into my third and final year of University at 19, and graduating at 20, ready to start a life in the US on my own; independent. But that is so useless to me. If only they knew the life I lived when I was younger. ULTIMATE OVER-ACHIEVER! And now that I think about it, I guess that's why I was bullied so much. Then, with my depression, I just stopped...achieving, period. I didn't give a shit. And I was the most popular kid around. EVERYONE wanted to be my friend, and they would still tell me how great I was, which made me even MORE depressed. And now, I feel all washed up. I want it back; the skills, the envy, the admiration. There are kids on here like Miss Couturable who make me feel like dirt. Anyways, I guess, reading this passage over now, I see that it has just been something I needed to get off my chest. I hope it makes me start working my ass off now. I AM NOT OLD. Someone please tell me. People laugh at me for crying on my birthday and I am not even legal in the US yet. Tell me. I HAVE A LOT AHEAD OF ME. I HAVE NOT YET LIVED. I AM NOT. OLD.

Yesterday, my parents and I were having a serious and seriously long discussion on Skype about my accommodation situation here in London. My particular course (Creative Writing) doesn't have exams in it so we finish the school year much earlier than everyone. This year, I'm finishing by the end of April, while people are staying on 'til June (SUCKS TO BE YOU!). But then, it also sucks to be me too in this case. Basically, I'm on campus, and have already paid off my accommodation fees for the Spring term, which means I'm set to fuck about in this room until 6th April. Then, the summer term begins..and we have to pay £868 to stay here from April 7th to June 5th. So...I emailed the accommodation officer to tell her I would be going back home on May 1st, and only staying 3 weeks into the summer term (which at £90/w I calculated would be only £270). She emailed me back to tell me I would still have to pay the whole thing. So I freaked. I started packing my suitcase and everything! Because I WASN'T DOING THAT!

Why is this related to old people? Well, my Grandfather is my only remaining London-based UK relative. The three other families I have to run to in the UK if I ever needed a place to stay are:
1. My aunt and uncle and their 4 kids who just moved to Cambridge
2. My aunt and uncle who live in Derby
3. My aunt and her two kids who finally got tired of London's ridiculousness and moved to Qatar a month later after being offered a job.

BUT! My dad told me his father (my grandfather) was back in Florida where he has another house. 'He told me he would be back since November!' I cried.
'Well, things happen. The house in Florida has serious flood damage so he is stuck there fixing it. Did you know, his wife, your grandmother's birthday is today and she fell and broke her collarbone? So he is staying longer because of that too. Please take some time today to call or email her,' said my dad.

So I do NOT know where I will be living in April, because of old people (yes, the accommodation officer is also old with a stern jaw and reminds me of Glenn Close's character in 'The Devil Wears Prada'). I. Hate. Her.

MORE OLD PEOPLE NEWS!
One of our assignments for class on Tuesday is to take a piece of writing we did back in Year 1 in our Life Writing class and try to re-write it the way we would like it to be written now; with regards to the knowledge we gained in the past year on what would work better for a story etc. So, over the past few days I've been looking at one about my grandfather dying called "A Death in the Family", now renamed "Loss". It was pretty good but I had a lot to change about it this time around. Instead of it being a real life event plucked from my youth, I sort of fictionalized it this time to make it more interesting. Because, really, all it was before, was me talking about my grandfather dying...and....whether we like it or not, people die all the time. So, I've been deep in the past recently, re-thinking that whole incident and what my grandfather's life was like. It's been a sad, pensive couple of days.

BUT he also helped me realise something! I don't think I told you, because I was afraid to do so before, but I am entering the Vogue Talent Contest for Young Writers this year and one of the entry requirements is a piece on someone who has been an inspiration to you, and that's been the toughest bit of the entry for me thusfar. Even though I don't know who the hell I am at 19 with severe mood swings, the 600 word Autobiography bit took me 45 minutes to write! And I am already ready with something to nail the 600 word contemporary arts review. But...now, I'm thinking I should talk about my grandfather as an inspiration.

I have also been inspired...by...I don't know what/who, I guess dead people everywhere, to share with you said short story. I've been so afraid all these years to share my work but Year 2 has really been an impactful, life-changing year for me so it turns out, I am now ready to share! I am now ready to get a move on with life, I guess. Which is great because I thought I would die before I ever got my work published because of my fear. But I AM YOUNG, and there is nothing I can do wrong at this stage. So, why not? What's the worst that could happen? (that was me trying to be positive about age). I'll post it in the next post since this one is dreadfully long.

FEEDJIT LOVE

Boy, do I love my Feedjit. I'm seeing people visiting me from New Mexico, Western Finland, Korea(!), Germany, Athens, Trinidad(naturally, had to bribe the friendies), San Jose, CA(giggles). I better post daily and devotedly and keep my international readers happy! I know I'M happy!

THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG! PLEASE COME AGAIN!

Okay, gotta get back to reading "Midnight All Day" before World Book Day ends. Ciao!