in mongolia...

it snowed last night, at around 11 o'clock. though it's not the first of this winter, it's the one that announces the arrival of winter. and perhaps all the excitement plus the miseries of it. my life in mongolia has been thrusting along, at times slowly but mostly bumpy at an uncomfortably fast speed, since i moved here in august. adapting to the weather and now the smoke, the traffic patterns and now the slippery roads are all proving to be refreshing, yet misguiding. initially it seems a breeze, as long as you are aware, listen well and not let on that the language is difficult to muster, i should slip into this society unnoticed. however, this is not the case. my office under the peace bridge is shabby and cold, has people in it that i'm not particularly keen to spend my whole day with and the damn desk keeps scratching my silk whenever i get up for water that is half there.
having a certain amount of income of course helps me to feel that what i'm doing must not be a complete waste of time, and it's worth someone paying me to go through all these doubts and insecurities on a new job, fresh out of uni. however, it's still enough to make one feel as helpless and useless as a rich little girl with time to kill and no brain to spare. do i need a validation? maybe. do i want a new job? no. as much as it seems hard, perhaps with the words of a woman who sees things and the belief of a loved man, i still have the face to, and thus the will too, check my e-mail once more before bed time and prepare for the next day.

how does it make you feel?

a friend asked me a while ago how love makes me feel? this was during the warm up gig before the klaxons at the brixton academy, two 20 something girls amongst a bunch of 15 year olds feeling rather old with our pint of stella. not a topic of conversation best held in this current circumstance, yet we feel it's the most appropriate. if pretending to be as young as 15 and listening to obnoxiously loud music is a sign of growing old, talk of love was definitely a sign of growing up.

and i told her exactly what i thought, and more importantly, felt. i said that no matter how sad, difficult, impossible and sombre things may seem, love makes you feel that everything will be just okay, and even better. there are some emotions that you feel which immediately has consequences: jealousy, anger, excitement, bravery, passion. whatever you end up doing because of feeling these emotions you feel guilty about it or it hits you in places like the purse or the heartstring. but love, whatever you may have had to go through in order to get there (and that's including all of the above mentioned) once you get there, love makes you feel that sense of calmness and stillness and complete ownership of your feelings of contentment and happiness without feeling guilty about it or trying to hide it. it doesn't shake your world upside down to a point where you don't know what happened because it always keeps you balanced, it makes you a better, a whole person and that makes me want to be the best of myself without other distractions of emotions and details.

so there you go, my honest opinion to my friend and myself. for those who needs to feel a rush of tingling excitement at their knees everytime, i'll say give it some time and soon it'll settle down you you'll most probably start to recognise the feeling of love, however it may materialise within you.

Jungle Red

I've been obsessed with red lipstick of late. Wearing the perfect shade, texture, look and price, to be precise. When one says 'red lipstick' many, and including myself, will say or think of the movies, tumbling waves of blonde or raven hair, Hollywood and the perfectly applied, over the top, dramatic paint job. But when you think about wearing it yourself...not so eager.
However, recently I've started to hanker after the other kind of red lips. Smudged, slept in and bleeding, without the shine or the gloss. The one where it looks like you were born with it...however unnaturally red.

These lips, seen mostly on the French rather than the American woman (I see smudged lips, eyes and lives as a more French idealism symbolised than the US mass gloss), with a cigarette between them-be it plump, thin or hiding a gap tooth-and not giving a damn. For me that's the ultimate red lips, lips with a life not a photo shoot. Let's face it, once you have the smudgy red puckers, the act of kissing and being kissed will not only be insinuated but encouraged, making lips sexy and raw.

The red lips hold a sign of freedom-from norms and societal code of behaviour. Women who can wear red are women who can get away with it, and they can get away with it because they don't care. Red lips thus shows a carefree side-but only when worn smudged mind. Otherwise how high maintenance would the perfectly lined and filed and twice blotted before glossed would the other kind be? It's the equivalent of comparing Jane Birkin to Grace Kelly or Julie Christie to Jackie O...all women are gorgeous but one kind looks like sex, whilst the other is having it. One has to read Jackie O's "sex makes the clothes crumple" quote to know what I mean.

Either way, today I've found my smudgy red lips courtesy of Shu Uemera. I have to admit, I had my heart set on Jungle Red by Nars, but apparently there quite a few smudgy lips wearers out there in London (quite satisfied and simultaneously bummed with this knowledge that it has sold out-funny how a tube of red lippie can affect a girl so). So I venture forth and find myself in another extortionist beauty department of an even more so extortionist but undeniably desirable department store. At last RD134 screams at me: "own me!" And I do just that. I am now quite unsafe in the knowledge that I look good, especially as it looks like I've just enjoyed a steamy snog-a-thon behind the bookshelves.