Film: Coco Avant Chanel *****

It’s Kirsty’s birthday today. Everyone forgot to make or bring their Spanish themed dish for the lunch party we were hosting for her. I was the only one who brought a dish – Gazpacho (will post recipe tomorrow). So, boss decided we all go out for lunch instead. We went to the local café, which serves both English and Thai food. The owner Richard is English, they make excellent builder breakfast and a good strong cuppa, his wife is Thai, and she makes authentic delicious Thai curries. The lunch was good, but I was quite annoyed that it has totally blown my budget for the week with the present, my hour off for not working and ingredients to make the gazpacho for the entire office.

I had to waste time at Westfield before going to the Barbican screening for “Coco avant Chanel” at 20:45. Bad idea. Sales on and not feeling great = retail therapy. To pay respect to Chanel screening, I dressed up Chanel-esque – I had my hair up, red lipa ¾ sleeve thin black and white striped bodycon dress, a black and gold Chanel like tweed jacket and loads of pearls. As I was walking through the mall, I had one of those Carrie Bradshaw moments where one of the strands of the pearl broke. I froze as I watched the faux pearls scattered to the floor like heavy raindrops. It was a tragically beautiful moment. Not quite sure what to do, I was too embarrassed to get on all fours to collect the pearls, the lady next to me who witnessed it not sure what to do neither. She smiled at me as I said, “so… that’s that.” I managed to savage some of the pearls left on the necklace, good thing that I make jewellery I can get extra to make and re-chain it.



***** France. 105 min. Colour 2008. Directed by Anne Fontaine.

01.03.08.09 @ 8:45 pm The Babican Cinema 1 E13.

I arrived just in time at the Barbican as I was a bit late and had to find where Cinema 1 was, it’s a maze that place. The theatre was pretty full, mostly women of course, the Trojan gays, and a few who got dragged along by their girlfriends. The film was absolutely stunning! I’m not saying it because I love French films and Audrey Tautou. The clothes, ahhh the clothes in the film were just stunning, even the young Gabrielle Chanel’s crochet shoulder cape she wore at the orphanage was carefully designed. And of course, Stephen Jones designed all the hats in the film, including Chanel’s first millinery shop. I loved the story of Gabrielle, especially the tragic love affair between Coco and Arthur "Boy" Capel and how she transformed to Coco Chanel. The ending was a bit rushed I thought, everything was quite slow moving leading up to Capel’s car accident then she suddenly she was rolling out fabrics and next thing you know there were models coming off stairs for a fashion show. I must admit too, the models and their hair and make-up were too modern looking. I thought the film was well captured on how she has developed her own sense of style, how she revolutionise fashion in France and the major inspirations to her signature key looks: the Chanel jacket, the stripes, the signature Peter Pan collar black and white dress and of course, and of course, the LBD – the Little Black Dress.

The film made me wonder on the topic on love and marriage, as it was one of the occurring themes. Coco said, "the best part about love is the making love." She vowed that she would marry no one as her mother married because of love, who also later suicided because her father's infidelity and his abandonment of her and her siblings. In her society, marriage was to gain social status, real love was through love affairs. When a couple is in love, does the label of someone's "girlfriend" or "wife" matters? To me it does. Sure, love affair has the attraction of danger, thrill, lust, the unattainable love, the longing and all the other exciting bits. Marriage to me is sacred (I know, I'm old fashion), it's a life time commitment of love. Of course, one doesn't get married to get divorced but at the same time, one shouldn't married for financial and social status gain. Is marriage just a business contract?

Old Lover, Office & Flatmates Massacre

It's been a shit week.

It all started in the weekend when I met him for lunch and then it all went downhill from there. I don't know what it was, I didn't have good vibes from him for the past week. I'm hoping it was his work related stress and not because he didn't want to see me. I pushed slightly on the subject on he slots me in again for being his last stop before going home and his "last minuteness" – again, I'm being the "tag on". It's not going to change is it? Seriously, why do I even bother? I'm contemplating on ending the friendship again.

At work, I had to deal with demanding annoying clients (aren't they always the case?), it was too busy, work has called in extra help to ease my work load. I've been so overwhelmed with my own thoughts, I couldn't be creative, I just wanted to do my brain-dead artworking tasks without dealing with other people. On top of all, my colleague decided to listen to HEART FM ALL WEEK!!! I decided to be anti-social and wore my headphones to listen to my normal LBC talk radio. Ugh!

The night of the office massacre climax, Nat broke my port glass. I've only used them once. A pair, now just one left. I've lost it. I admit that I took it out on her a bit, I shouted at her, I completely lost my cool. "It's not my fault." Then who's is it? So it's MY fault that I like buying nice things for my flatmates to break? Money wasn't the issue here, the items were irreplaceable anyway, it's the fact that she's NEVER made any attempt to replace the things she's broke of mine. It's a matter of principle.

I met up with an old lover last night, he was in town on tour. I showed up to the venue unannounced, he was surprised to see me as he didn't know I was still living in London. He's still fat, he aged a bit, still crazy, still my monkey yet still married. We went for dinner at a Vietnamese place in Camden (surprisingly good and decently priced). He thought I looked fit. We reminisced our past meetings and such, he told me he's a lot different now. I questioned if he's more domestic, and if any kids are on the way. He choked. He asked if I have a boyfriend. He couldn't see any reason why I'm still single. Post dinner, he had things to do before the show, so I let him be. The show was great, high energy and the venue was packed, the crowd was rough but they were into it. We made plans to meet up afterwards as he planned to party out but my friend and I couldn't wait around. Waiting around is lame enough, it was a bit cold, I was still feeling shitty and had to work the next day. I was rude and left without saying goodbye.

Had the mistake of coming home instead of going to Oxford to see him again. I was still feeling foul and couldn't be bothered dragging myself all the way up to Oxford to wait around again, so I thought perhaps to treat myself with some retail therapy and a nice dinner – a big fat steak with frîtes and aöli followed by Gü chocolate pod. Yum. I was hoping to be alone, but the other flatmate was home, so I went out for a run instead. As I came back and started to prepare dinner, she confronted me about the other night about the port glass. She addressed that what I said to Nat was inappropriate. I said it wasn't her first time breaking my things and not attempting to replace them. She said it was no one's fault, she just opened the door, and said it could have been her own fault as she pushed the other cups to the side. Fine, it's no one's fault but mine because I bought the glass and no matter how you calculate, I'm still at loss here (Eckhart Tolle wouldn't be pleased – I'm re-reading A New Earth again, I just read the chapter on possession and ego... aghhhhh). She also said that I have no right to make Nat feel uncomfortable in her own home, as if they have the right to break my things and making me uncomfortable in my own home too. She has spoiled my appetite. I stormed up to my room and cried and cried and cried...

I hate living with people, I've never lived with other people before until I've moved to London. I know I'm quite uptight about having things a certain way, I like buying nice things and kitchen gadgets and my absolute hatred of mould. I can't wait to buy my own place, hopefully I can do so by the end of the year.

I'm hungry, I want my steak.

I saw her...

For the first time, I saw her face to face... she is beyond oatmeal, just as ugly as her pictures.

I look damn hott, I won hands down.

Fuck it! His lost.

This is it.

Enough.

The Aftermath...

Oh dear.

Life: All Too Familiar!

It was difficult time for me to pull myself together two months ago. With encouragement from my friends, I've decided to stay and give London a go. Things were looking positive for a while, made some great new friends, Great Escape experience was excellent, a budding romance but it seems I'm back to square one again. Still struggling to find a job, and the littlest excitement i've had has gone down the drain as well...

I really thought things will finally start to look up again last week. After sending 90 job applications, I finally had an interview last Thursday, not only that, it was also the position I wanted the most. It was with an international PR/Marketing company called Octagon. The interview went pretty well, i was there for almost an hour. The girl at the interview shared the same background as me as she was on Holidaymaker initially from Australia. We had similar design background as well, hopefully she'll emphasised with me. I should hear back from them this week if i made the 2nd cut or not. Fingers crossed.

Been casually seeing someone as well, i was hesitant at first but thought to give it a chance. He's honest (too honest?) and he makes me laugh. I enjoyed spending time with him very much even though we don't see each other too often. I was very excited about it, even though we're nothing serious I've started to grown to know and care for him. Thought things were going well as we had discussed a week before but it took an unexpected turn this weekend. Ironically we went to the same places we've started on our one month. Okay, so it's not a very long time but it is for relationship phobes. I haven't been in any for a very, very, very long time even though i've dated people in between. I was fine with us being casual.. i didn't think we were rushing into anything nor have i forced us to be in a relationship, he just wanted us to be "friends" for now, so i dunno. I just dealt with the ordeal of the whole "just friends" bullshite for the past 2 years with another guy. One minute we're "just friends" the next we're "more than friends" to being "not friends". I'm not a light switch, i can't just flick my feelings back and forth, it's totally mind fucking! I really hate being dick around like that and the other guy was never honest with me. It's these fuckers that made me relationship phobe!

To be honest, i didn't expected to be this upset about it, but if i haven't any feelings for him, i wouldn't be upset right now would i? I'm not sure where we'll go from here... we're both not ready to take the next steps but can we go backwards? he said he doesn't want to add more complication to my life right now, having said that but being this upset doesn't do any good to it neither. I'm not sure what to do really...

Contemplating of going to Tack!Tack!Tack! tonight, a friend isn't feeling well so she backed out... but I'm not sure if i want to be home alone at this point, I'll just be crying my eyes out...

I'm going to be bad, i'm going downstairs and buy some Fanta..