…. “It’s amazing all the things Ryan Gosling can do with his eyes.” He sighed. “The emotions he can convey, with just a look. I could watch him in anything.”
Atticus is a discerning cinemaphile who re-watches his favorite films the way some people re-read books. He is particularly compulsive when it comes to movies about outsiders trying to connect. Matt Damon in The Bourne Identity. Ben Affleck in The Town. Clint Eastwood in anything. But his affection for Ryan Gosling is unparalleled.
I grinned. “You have a man crush on Ryan Gosling!”
Atticus scoffed. He’s 150% guy. Drives a bright yellow sports car with black rims. Rides a red motorcycle. Has my name on tattooed on his bicep. Checks sports stats on his iphone several time a day. And if not for my relentless prodding, he would never even have considered applying product to his unruly hair.
Atticus won’t admit he has a man crush on Ryan Gosling, but it’s true. Recently, he came home with a smorgasbord of Ryan Gosling on Blu-Ray. I sifted through the DVDs. Blue Valentine. Half Nelson. Lars and the Real Girl.
“The Notebook?” I glanced from the swooner responsible for Gosling’s permanent warm, mushy place in the hearts of women the world over to my stridently non-metrosexual husband.
“Best Buy was slashing prices,” he shrugged, sheepishly.
I’m glad Atticus has a man crush on Ryan Gosling. Because I can be open about the fact that I also think he’s one smooth drink of water, and Atticus totally gets it. In fact, we seriously considered changing the date of our camping trip last weekend so we wouldn’t miss the opening of The Ides of March.
In case you have just relocated from Siberia, Ryan Gosling mania is now ruling the zeitgeist. The media has latched on to the actor’s statement about female sexuality being sublimated due to a “patriarchy-dominant society” and has positioned Gosling as a feminist-approved love object. The fervor officially tipped over into satire last weekend with the creation of the uniquely hysterical spoof web site, Feminist Ryan Gosling.
But my husband is proof that Ryan Gosling is not just for women. Or girly-men. Gosling has a brazenly iconoclastic masculinity–an I-am-who-I-am-wounds-and-all-and-I-don’t-give-a-f**ck-what-you-think-ness–that appeals to the most alpha of Alpha Men.
“I kind of think he should only be in indie films, where he’s a crack addict or in love with a doll,” he said. I nodded. But it didn’t matter. There is no question, that as long as we both shall live, we will watch Ryan Gosling in anything, even if it’s Mouseketeer reruns.
1) everyone wears them here. (well, almost everyone.)
2) there are a lot of elderly people. (they too wear boots.)
3) i’ve clocked in more time on the public train system here than i have the entire year in sg.
plus a load of other specially-packaged candies, chocs, biscuits, I even saw a beautiful tin of marks & spencers xmas cookies that you can wind up and it turns into a musical carousel. sooo nice.
and this would be in izad’s xmas stocking if we did celebrate the yuletide:
do you remember playing with this? surely it’s better than Angry Birds. right?!
… discovering i actually fit into and like Uniqlo’s pants.
this phenomenon does NOT happen as frequently with me as it would other people of normal height and thigh proportions. me and pants in general do not get along.
also, how insanely comfortable and soft and cheap are those fluffy fleece jackets?! the children stroke them lovingly as if they’re rabbits. (and i am spared from keeping pets.) they also said it’s exactly like in this Charlie & Lola story:
was teaching the brother how to swing (“kick the ground with your toes! point your legs up!”) and the sister how to, well, not be scared. she may be a lil fiesty and will be all “hiak! hiak!” complete with air-kicks when engaging in ‘pretend’ combat with her brother, but sometimes… she can be quite the girl.
(and *i* gotta be less of a girl and learn me how to ride the damn bicycle, once and for all. then again, i say that EVERY year as a new year resolution for the longest time, and yet…)
in other news, the girl’s turning three in a few months.
their daddy works on some weekends, so i’d wrangle them myself on such days, and pretend to be an elder sister bringing my tiny siblings out to lunch and the library and the shops and all the indoor playgrounds i can think of (so far, fidgets > polliwogs)……
oh, who am i kidding, am already feeling matronly (also, just realised how eerily veiny and wrinkly my hands are now, kinda like madonna’s, and she’s what, 93?), and the alleged ’siblings’ go around addressing me as “mummy! mummy!” at the top of their lungs, so that’s a dead giveaway…
btw, omg, countdown to the big 33 begins – 3 more weeks.
(on another note, yey, i’ll be seeing bono on my 33rd!)
(on another another note, the latest episode of grey’s anatomy mentioned bono at least 3 times, coz they thought he was the very secret patient of seattle grace hospital. hilarious.)
google ‘kebaya’ and you’ll land on an entry in – where else – wikipedia..
“History
The name of Kebaya as a particular clothing type was noted by the Portuguese when they landed in Indonesia. Kebaya is associated with a type of blouse worn by Indonesian women in 15th or 16th century. Prior to 1600, kebaya on Java island were considered as a sacred clothing to be worn only by royal family, aristocrats (bangsawan) and minor nobility, in an era when peasant men and many women walked publicly bare-chested.”
*cue chuckles at last line*
“Modern Innovations
Apart from traditional kebaya, fashion designers are looking into ways of modifying the design and making kebaya a more fashionable outfit. Casual designed kebaya can even be worn with jeans or skirts. For weddings or formal events, many designers are exploring other types of fine fabrics like laces to create a bridal kebaya.
Modern-day kebaya now incorporate modern Western tailoring innovations such as clasps, zippers and buttons- zippers being a much appreciated addition for ladies’ requiring the bathroom, without requiring being literally unwrapped by a helper- to the extent the true kain is near unanimously rejected.
Other modern innovations have included the blouse baju kebaya worn without the restrictive kemben, and even the kebaya blouse worn with slacks or made of the fabric usually for the kain panjang.
Modern kebaya blouses are also zippered at the back- for practicality and for larger frame women’s busts not to literally burst out the front of their blouse.”
seriously, WHO WROTE that last part??
and also… would anyone care to edit that wiki entry with an even more updated ‘modern innovation’? ;D
“Silence and solitude are universally recognized spiritual practices, and there are good reasons for this. Learning how to discipline your speech is a way of preventing your energies from spilling out of you through the rupture of your mouth, exhausting you and filling the world with words, words, words instead of serenity, peace and bliss.”
and that’s how it feels like exactly, rupturing out of my mouth – exhausting.
i’d dived into liz gilbert’s ‘eat pray love’ with little expectations that it would create even the tiniest affect on me, yet it surprised me with the little nuggets of wit, wisdom, and colourful descriptions that she served among the pages of her constant neuroses, self-absorbed whines, and incessant prattle on self-discovery.
(i’m still midway through the book, so i don’t know how she ends up. well, other than being extremely rich, with an A-list hollywood star to act as her in the movie to boot.)
bedtime conversations sometimes meander into the mystical (oftentimes murky, in my case), realms of the theological…
A: “Tuhan… Tuhan is… everywhere?”
M: “yes, EVERYWHERE!”
A: “Tuhan is here? in the room? on my bed?”
M: “yesss, he’s EVERYWHERE, aniq.”
A: “everywhere? inside the body? inside my heart also?”
M: *pause – i never thought he would think of his heart, or his body for that matters, as a physical residence, but…* “YES, of course he’s inside your heart, to protect you. that’s why you don’t need to be scared when you sleep! see, you are not alone, because he’s always watching you. you just say Bismillahirahmanirahim and don’t worry, no bad dreams, no nightmares. just say that before you sleep. (and must wash feet also.)”
A: *thinks* “then, Tuhan got watch tv or not?”
M: “no lahhh, how can he watch tv? he has to watch everyone. EVERYONE, aniq! how is he going to watch you, and auni, and mummy, and daddy, and your friends, and everybody if he’s watching tv??”
A: “ohhh. then can teach me how to say again… bis-mi-yah…?”
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