Hey Big Spender

Here are my recent purchases courtesy of my personal shopper in NY aka my older sister:

A compact mirror

A Jumbo, Navy Blue Lambskin Chanel Bag

Finally, my YSL babies

A comically over-branded MJ tote to lug around my laptop/books/clothes

+ some Topshop and A.P.C goodies. Needless to say, I cannot wait for her to return with this booty in tow.

A Room of One's Own

Bowls of snacks are imperative when you are working hard.

I'm allergic to nuts so this would probably kill me, but you get the idea.

Books, books and more books.

Ecstasy.

Lesley Arfin writing

I am setting out on the ambitious task of writing a book. I'm not quite sure if I want to write short stories or a whole story, but I am sure I will work it out. At the moment I am gathering snippets of inspiration and collating them in a notebook (a lovely mustard coloured O-Check Graphics notebook that reads "HAUT DANS LES AIR"(which means "up in the air" in French, which is rather fitting considering I have absolutely no idea what form this book is to take, or what I am even writing about).

I am very much interested in writing on the themes of oppression and marginalization with respect to women, and in particular, mental illness. I want to explore female sexuality and the demise of the pysche when it is repressed. It is my hope that I am able to delineate characters that are bursting with reality - anxious, real people who smoke, eat, fuck, cry, etc. I want them to absolutely jump out of the pages and into the consciousness of the reader.

Writing a book, I imagine, is going to be rather difficult and will require immense discipline. It will require one hell of a space with a comfortable chair, lots of bookshelves to house all my wonderful tomes that have taught me how to write, warm lighting and artwork on the walls to soothe and inspire. I'm in the process of redecorating my bedroom/study and writing space and love the above pictures from theselby.com, which is full of great interiors.

Let's Talk About Sex Baby

.... let's talk about you and me?

Peek A Boo

Polka dots are oh-so-charming. They remind me of the 50s and Minnie Mouse. I love this Phillip Lim bra from net-a-porter (it would look perfect under a slightly sheer cami) and this delightful blue cardigan just above.

one of those days

...when you resent having to do work and would rather lie naked under the sun with an ice-cold blood orange juice, or sit on the floor of your best friend's bedroom and tear out pictures you like from fashion magazines, or wander around the art gallery idle and quiet, or sit in a cafe and talk shit over russian caravan tea, or have sex on the floor, or ride trams-cars whilst reading tolstoy, or, or, or -

Relaxing At Home

Truman Capote characteristically kicks back with a book and a cigarette in his hand in his apartment which is, amusingly enough, rather eccentrically cluttered with paraphernalia.

Source: Click here

Easy. Breezy.

Thanks to Global Warming, we have here a heat wave in November. Early November. During exams. Thank you predecessors for screwing up the planet to this extent with your extreme industrialism! Wonderful. Now the only thing we (well, I) can be bothered wearing are outfits that let a breeze in between your legs (oooh!). I'm backing the dress this summer for its airiness and simplicity. I'm going to wear it with big vintage wooden beads and I-don't-give-a-fuck tousled hair.

Hot

Summer has announced its arrival with a radiating 30 degree day of clear blue sky and sunshine. I'm all white tank top-tucked into safari coloured high waisted shorts-with vintage light brown belt-and peach coloured nails to greet the sun and revel in its promises of fun to follow...

Give me a little room to get on with concentration

I have a new-found appreciation for libraries.

Surrounded by others in a similar state of immense anxiety, one finds comfort and solace.

Plus, you can play eye-games with quiet boys with books across the table.

Today I spent all day at the library and it was so much fun, even though I had so many notes to get through.

What I bought today:

- A new nail-polish colour ("Go-Getter" from Kit). Because new colours on your nails refresh your outlook. It's true.

- Ricotta and chicken salad + the most perfect latte

- A book of love poetry. To counteract this growing cynicism.

- A self-help book! For self-helping purposes.

- Floral trainers. Oh yes.

The days were open lately, they went on and on

Stripes. Florals. Bicycle. Mountain. Need I say more?

Source: Click here.

A Reminder

What I purchased today.

- Fake Blood

- Lingerie

- Hayfever tablets

- New Russh mag

Hiatus

I do so like to scribble (well, type) my daily musings and loves all over this humble little blog but at the moment I am absolutely overwhelmed by planning tea parties and halloween costumes and studying for my exams and whatnot that I have little time to do so...

I just bought the Frankie Photo Album to cheer myself up (studying is getting me down) and it is gorgeous (from what I can tell, I have only had a little peak)...I am using it as motivation. If I can finish these summaries, I will allow myself a proper look. This is the carrot-leading-the-horse technique and it really does work.

a visual list of things to do.

Study very, very hard for exams

Bake friands and muffins

Grow hair long and free

Keep a notebook full of comforting maxims

Clean out wardrobe and organise it in a control-freak fashion

Give out compliments to people more often. It's nice.

Cheap Lit Kicks

Was just perusing the Penguin Books site to search their 'Popular Penguins' range. My God, how I love that $9.95 price tag. Honestly, it should be government policy to subside (good) books so that the population may read more. Reading has so many benefits- it sharpens your intellect, exposes one to beauty, challenges one's thoughts, engages the imagination and provides entertainment. Do it in bed, on the train, in the kitchen waiting for your soup to cook...just do it.

My picks include Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (you will DIE of laughter) and the eerie Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde who is by far one my favourite playwrights (he is also excessively amusing).

Innocence

Bicycles, Ice-Cream, Intimate Handwritten Letters and Brides.

Love is a losing game. Love fashion instead.

I'm content to romp around this summer with these high-waisted lovers.

They're the kind of shorts you wear for ice-cream outings/make-out sessions/disco dancing/other.

Bath-time

There must be quite a few things that a hot bath won't cure, but I don't know many of them.

Sylvia Plath

A hot bath is the ultimate panacea for every woe. When you're tired/anxious/distraught or just winding down after a big week, a bath is the best thing for the soul. I love Aesop products and beautiful candles dotted around the bathtub and of course, bubbles. Put this divine smelling hair masque in your hair as you relax and your hair will come out soft and clean and smelling like roses (literally).

Loves

School Blazers and Bare Legs

Beautiful Springtime Flowers

Mustard and gingham combinations

Inside My Diary

Peace

Hedi Slimane for Vogue Homme (Japan)

Oh my God.

I need to stop procrastinating.

500 days of Summer

I am so excited about finally seeing this film.

A cute girl with a cute fringe, a cute boy, young love, kisses in the park...cue joy.

God I want a boy in my life.

Science v Literature

Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.

Lewis Carroll

Reason and Truth: these are both lovely, solid concepts on which our modern, intellectual age is built on. Science, the Godfather of Reason, saves lives, after all. Forces are very useful. Chemistry is wonderful, certainly. But does truth and reason always deliver happiness? Certainly not! Perhaps this was why, as an adolescent, I gravitated away from the sciences, seduced by the whispers of literature which promised one solid truth: that of beauty. Words, give me words, my soul cried out in high school and let me not be subjected to the crude indifference of mathematical equations (although, I must admit, science boys thrill me to bits, especially those who understand physics, the most romantic of the lot with its forces, its atoms, its Stephen Hawking Radiation, etc).

More and more now, I shun reality and escape into my world of books - some playful, some serious, but always beautiful. Books make you believe in seemingly impossible things like, say, true love - the kind that destiny controls.

So I say, goodbye rationality- hello wild romanticism, hello impossibilities.

Veronika Decides to Die

Some books can change your life. Veronika Decides to Die is one of them. You wouldn't think so from the morbid title, but this book can resurrect a life. If your soul is crushed, your spirit worn, your will sedated -- pick up this very readable masterpiece from Paulo Coelho and you will find yourself like Lazarus of bible fame, rising back from the dead.

I can guarantee that you will finish it and smile as you ponder all the beauty the world has to offer you - if only you let it.