swirl swap swop

Ladies, are your wardrobes close to bursting point? Are you discovering long-lost clothes that you will never again wear in this lifetime? And would you like to swop them for something pretty -- without spending a cent?

Then the Swirl Swap Swop is perfect for you.

This is how it goes:

-- Spring clean your wardrobe. Be ruthless.
-- Stuff a shopping bag full of clothes you no longer fit into, fashion disasters and impulse buys. Someone else will love them, we promise.
-- Come by the Swirl boutique on the day of the Swirl Swap Swop.
-- Empty your bags into a giant pile with the cast-offs from other swoppers, who, needless to say, have extraordinarily good taste since they are Swirl Girls.
-- Rummage through the pile and grab those items you fancy. No cat fights, please.
-- Return home with fabulous finds. Mission accomplished.

Swirl Swap Swop
Venue: Swirl boutique at 02-05 Stamford House
Date: Sunday, 10 December
Time: 2pm
* Registration required as the event is limited to the first 30 respondents due to space constraints.

Sounds like a fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon? Get your girlfriends all excited too and sign up together. Just drop us an email at shop@ilovetoswirl.com to let us know how many of you are coming, and we will send you more details.

Remember, waste not want not. A penny saved is a penny earned. One woman's cast-offs is another woman's treasure -- or something like that.

Happy shopping and happy swopping!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
S W I R L
stamford house 02-05
39 stamford road
tel: 6338 5020
monday ~ saturday
12pm ~ 830pm
www.ilovetoswirl.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

parade of wanted things II

Contain yourself! How much do I covet these useless kitchen doodads from The Container Store. No more resting spoons while cooking and dirtying the countertop. And no more guessing if that frozen piece of mystery meat is worth thawing.

i scream

When three pints of Ben & Jerry's -- Magic Brownie, Chubby Hubby and Fossil Fuel -- in as many days still don't work, you know it's serious.

parade of wanted things

I'm so in love with the paintings of Kendra Binney. So pretty, yet with a tinge of the morbid and a touch of sadness.

She sells on Etsy and I can't stop looking at the prints, especially It's A Secret Only We Know (above) and Parade Of Unwanted Things II (can't post the pix, for some reason, but go admire it on her site. Vaguely Dali with the ants on it).

So tempting, because it's not pricey at all. Am I on the verge of buying my first piece of art?

[Note: I have shelved my grand plans of being an artist-slash-fashion-designer-slash-writer. It is impossible to learn to paint from a library book. And I don't have time for classes.]

half hearted

For dinner, I had half a pint of Ben & Jerry's Magic Brownie, half a punnet of raspberries and half a bar of Morinaga dark chocolate.

One tummyache, coming right up...

i want my tintin back*

The two of us were playing tourist around Covent Garden in the autumn cold, when we chanced upon a Tintin** shop. After agonising for the longest time over which characters to buy, we both decided on Tintin and Snowy***.

That was the last time I saw him while he was still attached. The next time we met, back in Singapore, he was living the too fast too furious lifestyle of the swinging "eligible" bachelor.

Somehow, we ended up making a pact, which I'm sure he has forgotten by now: Whoever got attached first would have to buy the other the complete Tintin collection****.

And somehow, as every year drew to a close, we would end up commiserating about hitting our year-end slump -- stuck in a rut yet running around like a headless chicken at the same time, going nowhere with work or relationships or life in general, another year over with nothing to show for it. No one else seems to hit the same slump, which starts right about November.

Just a couple of weeks ago, we were still going on with our annual lament. But how quickly things change.

He's seeing someone new, someone serious, for once [ie. not some random "pussy" he picked up]. And I'm left with a sour taste in my mouth.

Not because I have a thing for him -- We are so not each other's "type" -- but because I had counted on him being as moody as I would be over the festive season.

Because we're so purely platonic, he completely understood when I blurted out, "I'm jealous. I'm not jealous of her. I'm jealous of you. Because you're happy. And this makes me a small small person. I don't like this feeling. This year-end slump is going to be so bad for me."

* He whines all the time, "I want my car back." His Paul Smith car, which is supposed to cure text addiction, is still hanging on my mobile phone.
** Tintin the boy journalist was a serious crush of mine when I was too young and stupid to realise comic book characters can't quite requite.
*** Snowy is still with me, but Tintin was nicked from my desk some months ago.
**** My Tintin collection lacks 16 titles.

what was his name again?

A couple of weeks ago, I came across a common name attached to an even more common surname, and I found myself asking M, "What was Daniel's surname?"

To my horror, I found that I couldn't remember my ex-boyfriend's surname. Or that of the Daniel who came before him. [Yes, I dated two consecutive guys with the same name. I have issues.]

Yesterday, I was having dinner with an old friend J, who knew me when I was with Daniel the Second. She related how, right after we had broken up, she and her now ex had run into him at Borders and waved most enthusiastically at him from afar.

But as they came closer and closer, she realised she had committed a faux pas. What do you say to your friend's recent ex?

"How are you doing?" just opens up a can of worms. Your only common friend's name can't be mentioned, for obvious reasons. And you can't even say, "You're looking good", cos you'd be lying.

I found it hilarious, even when she told me she felt so bad because he looked so sad.

Today, as though by merely remembering him I'd conjured him up, he called me out of the blue.

It was nice to have a conversation with someone who can drop words like lambasted and flabbergasted without sounding like he was trying to use big words. And it was nice to hear the pride in his voice when he told me how cute his 19-month-old daughter was.

I now remember his surname. It was Ong. And the one before that was Choo.

call me god

The endlessly entertaining Poison Ivy has come up with a completely unscientific personality test: If you could live your life over, and were given a choice on what kind of person you could be, what would you choose?

1. Being a millionaire with the ugliest face that even a mother wouldn't be able to love
2. Being a great beauty who is destined to live and die alone
3. Being with the love of your life, but afflicted with a chronic illness, which may or may not be diabetes and may or may not involve your leg being amputated
   
4. Being a genius inside an obese body
5. Being a workhorse who is blessed with good luck in little things, such as always being able to find a parking lot
6. Being well-loved by countless friends but living in a two-room HDB flat for life
   
7. Being powerful and influential, but short as a midget, not unlike Deng Xiaoping
   

What you choose reveals what you value. Most of the lunch kakis didn't mind being ugly millionaires. Me? I'm willing to live with one leg for love.

who's that boy

I'm well pleased with my new haircut. Now, I just need some cheekbones to go with it.

down with dunkin donuts

Why is Krispy Kreme called Krispy Kreme, when it is neither crispy nor creamy?

But I don't really care, since I just had a surprise delivery of them this morning to my door at 8am.

Just 8 seconds in the microwave and it almost achieved HOT NOW status.

Thanks, lurve, for the morning sugar rush!

fool me

HE: How are you feeling?
ME: You must be psychic. I just saw a doctor cos I'm still not well...
HE: please just take two days to rest. REALLY rest. instead of trying to use it to do other things
ME: Im at work, actually. And I rejected the offer of an MC.
HE: you fool
ME: There's too much work. And I need the money, And you're supposed to say poor baby instead of you fool...
HE: Poor baby, you fool

i don't care if monday's blue

For days now, I'd been feeling crappy, for numerous reasons which will make me seem silly/superficial/selfish if I list them here, so let's just leave it at my feelings of utter and complete crap.

I was so surly that the Girl Next Door could tell from just exchanging two sentences that I was in a bad mood.

My mother didn't dare to even talk to me, much less nag, and my father felt compelled to, awkwardly, say something along the lines of, "You can tell us if you have any problems".

And I almost snapped, "Unzip it and pull it over your head, lor!" when a clueless customer pointed to a vintage dress and asked, "How do you wear this?"

But let's focus on the happy things which kept me from going completely over the edge (in order of appearance):

-- Downloading Sudoku onto my phone so I can now feed my latest addiction wherever I go
-- Jay Chou on repeat mode
-- Clarinase ["Poor baby" he said when he found out I was sick, but now I know all too clearly that that's all he can offer, so that's progress for me]
-- Totaling October's sales figures and, more importantly, finding that they tally
-- Tangy tomato soup from The Soup Spoon [Mushroom's good too, but then I'm partial to soup, especially when ill and feeling sorry for myself]
-- Managing to drag myself out for a nice quiet drinks after a long Friday and going to not one, but two new places at Dempsey Road [That's a major accomplishment for someone with zero social life]
-- Resisting the urge to party and imbibe on Saturday night and sleeping early instead [See above, about zero social life]
-- A clean house after three weeks of not cleaning [My laundry is another matter altogether]
-- Napping with a warm body next to mine on a Sunday morning [Memphis loves me only when the Girl Next Door is not around]
-- Confirming that there are only expensive and ugly bras available in Singapore [Good news for the Swirl Girls, who have exciting developments in the works]
-- Recovering from the nasty flu bug
-- Instant noodles and luncheon meat at C-Jade [which suaku me hasn't been to before]
-- Deciding that I want to take up painting, so that I can call myself a journalist-slash-dsigner-slash-artist [nevermind that I can't draw]
-- Cute buttons from TopShop which I can still afford
-- Productive production meeting for this month's designs, which includes a ultra pretty top I can't wait to wear [currently it only exists in my head in a buttercup yellow chiffon]
-- Tako for dinner at Sakuraya [yet another new place I haven't been to, so that makes it four over one weekend. I need to get out more]
-- Conquering last-minute panic and banging out a 10cms piece of fluff that doesn't even qualify as a story, let alone a column [I need all the peanuts I can earn]
-- A brand new episode of Grey's Anatomy [Semi-spoiler: I finally understand the "ham and eggs" relationship analogy]
-- And finally, finding this just before I was going to go to bed: Feeling popsicle?

Have a good Monday!

abandonment

The Girl Next Door is looking for baby photos for a public service announcement.

Also, she's looking for volunteers to write some stuff for the website and newsletter, so lemme know if you can help out.

first love, last rites

In death, I learnt more about my grandfather than when he was alive.

But first, a "What It Should Have Been" [known also as a WISHB to journos].

His "companion" -- as my very proper school teacher aunt discreetly informed me, when I asked her about the identity of that skinny auntie waiting with us for the body to arrive at the casket -- did not have a family with my grandfather, as I'd thought [that would be my grandfather's philandering younger brother, but more on him another day].

Instead, she left her presumably grown children to be with him after her husband died. While my grandfather left his wife and children for her.

They had, perhaps, less than 10 years together. Or perhaps they'd always been lovers, meeting in secret, regretting their choices but trying their best to keep their respective families intact.

There's no polite way of saying it: They'd shacked up together, but as two old folks well past their retirement age, it could hardly be for the red hot sex. So, in the immortal words of Roxette, it must have been love.

I expected her to look like a femme fatale, some floozy with a poodle perm and red lipstick smeared on her lips. But she looked like one of those tiny wrinkled aunties who regularly elbow me in their bid to be the first to board the bus whenever I try to get out from Chinatown.

As we shuffled round the coffin while the Buddhist priest chanted the last rites, I saw her hand reach out, as if in slow motion, and tenderly touch his face.

No one heard her silent sobs. And there was no one to comfort her. Because he was gone.

till death do us part

My grandfather is lying in a hospital bed, dying of lung cancer.

His wife -- my late grandmother -- threw him out when she found out that he not only had a mistress, he also fathered an entire brood of children and grandchildren.

So all these years, he's been living with his "other family". We only see him once a year during Chinese New Year, and when my grandmother was still alive, she wouldn't even glance at him when he sheepishly turned up on the first day of Chinese New Year.

But when she died, my uncles and aunties prepared a tablet with two slots for photos -- one for her, the other for him.

So even though the dirty mistress -- as known on my current fave show, Grey's Anatomy -- had him for a few years, the legitimate wife will have him for eternity.

There is a lesson in there somewhere.

the curious incident of the ninja in the night-time

Somehow, I always dream of being back at my old house, in my old room with its peeling wallpaper, in my old bed with its snagged satin blue sheets.

It was late at night, and I was dozing off, when a ninja -- yes, true blue ninja who can scale high-rise buildings -- came in through my ninth-storey window.

Like lithe lightning, he was standing over me before I could even blink. In his hand was a sliver of a blade, sort of like a barbecue skewer, only sleeker and deadlier.

He then stabbed me in the stomach. Once. Twice. And then back out the window.

As I lay there, my hands pressed against the two puncture wounds, bleeding out, my Mum came in and I managed to gasp, "Get...help..."

But while she was calling for an ambulance or the police or the seven samurais, the masked ninja returned.

With short staccato moves, he proceeded to stab me over and over while I tried and tried to scream, even as my throat closed over and no sound came out.

I woke up with my mouth wide open in a silent screech -- and stabbing period cramps.

are you ok?

I'm sure that, like me, you have walked past this Singapore's OK Sculpture Park before. It features these pint-sized bronze figures of indeterminate sex with titles such as:


Keep Public Toilets Clean


See Doctor, Avoid Crowded Places If Unwell. Spit, Cough And Sneeze Into Tissue


Do Not Litter. Bag Your Rubbish And Place In Bin


Wash Hands With Soap Frequently


Eat Healthily, Exercise Regularly

I was grinning like an idiot while trying to get the best snaps of these Sculptures With Very Serious Messages. Bet the residents of Holland Village who were on their way home that night were wondering, "Is that girl ok?"

reality bites

He texted to say he was within spitting distance of my place.

I told him I was still closing up at the shop.

Later, he told me he was at Michaelangelo's.

I told him I just got home and was dying for good pasta.

He felt it was just wrong to tarpow Michaelangelo's.

I couldn't resist asking who he was with.

He said they were ex-colleagues.

Later, he asked me to join him at Wala.

I told him I was going to Cold Storage to get food.

He said me he'd help me with my groceries.

I thought he was kidding, until I crossed the road.

He was waiting by the entrance.

I wandered down the aisles under the harsh fluorescent supermaket lights.

He carried the shopping basket.

I decided to send him back to his friends, while I had Burger King alone.

He drove past my place after having some drinks and decided to come in.

We fooled around -- no, no, not that sort of fooling around -- with Photo Booth for five minutes.

He suddenly got up and said he should go.

I saw him out.

He described Friday night as "so surreal".

I can only agree.

heavenly creatures

My fave White Dog Bobby painting, currently proudly displayed in my shop. It's supposedly for sale, like all the other paintings, but I refuse. Cos this is "our painting", my sissy and I. We were travelling in Italy and, somehow, ended up posing as Raphaelite angels. I'm always on the left, she's on the right.

I'm still waiting for the artist to get back to me on the price.

lazy hazy daze

I have been getting dirty looks when I tell people I like the haze.

Yes, I agree that there's a acrid smell in the air, but it is not altogether unpleasant. Sorta like a barbeque, no? And don't hate me, but I don't get difficulties breathing or eye irritation.

And I love the way it imparts ordinary roads and buildings with a soft-focus, Christopher-Doyle feel. Even having lunch in the office canteen seems extra special, like we're in some highlands resort instead.