Dolly Mixture

BLACK: The end

2005-10-16T22:48:00.000+08:00

Alright folks. It's been rather slow and painful but Dolly Mixture definitely seems like it's headed towards some sort of sad demise. In between chasing boys and amassing enough freelance work to last her the rest of the decade, Dolly has no time left for writing and she thought it was high time she tipped her fancy beret to her most loyal (and dwindling) fans and readers and said goodbye.

It's been fun and thanks for reading, those of you who've stayed on from the beginning. Dolly'll miss you all. She might reinvent herself somewhere else on some other blog if she can be bothered. Catch her if you can; if not, send her flowers and long emails telling her how much you miss her.
Love,
D x x x

RED: Horny!

2005-10-09T01:47:00.000+08:00

There are JUST TOO MANY hot boys everywhere and a Dolly wants to jump all their bones. JUST so many fantasies to fill the time - how's a girl ever going to get anything else done!?

BLUE: So many beautiful boys

2005-09-15T19:45:00.000+08:00

Truly. They've sprung up out of some void and Dolly is getting most amourous, excitable and very horny, of course. Hot boys are just everywhere - either Dolly's never noticed them before, or she's suddenly developed incredibly bad taste in boys.

It's not the latter, she can assure you.

So: beautiful hot boys at the gym, at the shops, in carparks, across cashier tills, at Starbucks, in Dolly's parents' house (!) - the last one because her mother counselling a most exquisite boy and he's oft found lurking about the living room whenever Dolly pops back home. You know, even the boys she's known for a while have suddenly taken on some sort of beautiful new charm.

And they're not just beautiful mind. They's also incredibly charming. They throw marvellously bright smiles. They speak well, or if they speak badly, they make up for it with sharp wit. They write poetry. They flirt with enough energy to run a mill. They're full of proper joyous laughs. They make you laugh. They're well dressed and wear matching coordinates. They tease. They cajole. They wave and grin like they want you to look at them. They pay you flattering complements that you almost believe. They blush when you speak to them. They look at you when you're talking like they actually care, even if you're not talking to them. They stop their conversations midway to give you their attention.

Yes! Attentive, witty, funny, charming, intelligent, beautiful boys!

All these splendid testosterone-fuelled bodies around her, have of course made Dolly feel most itchy, horny and suddenly desirous and desiring. All day long, as she ploughs painfully through overdue articles and old newspaper clippings for research, she entertains grand visions of sex standing up, sitting down, lying down, against a table, against the gym mirrors, bent forwards, bent backwards, legs up, legs down, giving head, getting head, threesomes/foursomes/ fivesomes full of amourous men and sweaty biceps.

Of course, all this temptation arises only when you've made that rather committed decision to be a faithful little monogamous girl. Surely, if Dolly were single right now, Sod's law would dictate that all those boys would suddenly disappear back into their holes again.

PINK: Slip

2005-09-07T23:06:00.000+08:00

As shew as rummaging around for a nightie the other night, Dolly rediscovered a little pink slip she bought a few months back. It's slinky, satiny and falls just below the waist, enough to show your knickers.

Once, when the boy was in town, she decided she'd wear that to bed, with the matching pink panties. She very desirable indeed and was all ready to turn on the seductress charm.

As she walked into the room, a foot poised slyly outwards ready to shimmy forward, the boy broke out in a huge happy grin and said, "Oh! You look like a giant peach! How lovely!" And he wasn't even trying to be rude.

Well, Dolly still got to have sex that night anyway so it can't have been that bad. Gives a whole new meaning to juicy fruit.

BROWN: Propositions

2005-09-06T12:15:00.000+08:00

So Dolly's got this column going and apparently, according to her editor, she's being too intellectual and the columns don't have enough oomph. Dolly and the other writer of the column, Trisha, are beginning to think that the rest of the nation think that too.

Their inaugural entry was hashed up in five minutes in between drinking tea, gossip and playing with jewellery. They received lots of fan mail - from men, from women, from happy Malaysian readers who applauded them for doing a great job.

Subsequently, Trisha and Dolly each wrote entries that were slightly more intellectual. Then, the fan mail dwindled down. Instead, they got men writing to give them his phone number, men "wanting to get to know them better" and in one especially weird case, the offer of a "very big penis, 7+ inches, head also very big." (To which Trisha exclaimed, "But... 7 inches isn't even that big!")

So much for journalistic integrity.

RED: Stalkers

2005-09-04T21:53:00.000+08:00

Hello! *kiss* Dolly's returned after a stint away doing work. In a bid to whore herself out to all the fashion columns of the world, she took on a temp freelance job only to discover that it would take up more time than a full time career. And she's had to deal with the two most unfriendly people in KL, including a receptionist who refuses to smile and believes herself to be very important indeed. She greets all visitors through the door with pursed lips and a scowl, as if you'd just intruded upon her very busy work schedule of sorting out faxes. Dolly made it her mission to make her smile, and she did eventually, even if it was horribly forced. Anyway, Dolly's met her deadline and now she's got her life back again.

Lesson learnt: money isn't everything. Sometimes temporary unemployment beats having to be courteous to miserable office clerks with a complex.

More interestingly, Dolly and her adorable friend Little Diva have discovered new fun pursuits at the gym. You see, of late they have become frightfully obsessed with working out. It's almost like those sick pacts that teenage girls make to become anorexic together. Also, Dolly seems to have developed a bit of a monster infatuation with a gym instructor, H. Yesterday, Dolly, Little Diva and two other girls in their class spent the whole hour giggling like little girls whenever his back was turned to them. The school playground all over again.

After class, Little Diva in her hugely loud flirty way decided to find out if H had a girlfriend.

"So. Tonight got plans with your girlfriend or not?" (subtle, but also hilariously not!)

"No lah! I don't have a girlfriend."

Little Diva looked suitably horrified, which she does so wonderfully. "HAH!? Awwwwwww. We must hook you up with someone!"

"No lah, no lah! Dun wan!" protested H and then ran off to the locker room.

"No! Must! Must hook you up." She had to have the last word.

After that, Little Diva and Dolly trotted off to the carpark and Dolly decided to sit in LD's car for a while to chat (they hadn't met up in ages). Because she's lazy like that, Dolly got LD to drive down to the next level to her car. While they were still sitting there, parked in LD's car discussing the catastrophes and miracles of their lives, who should they see but H walking towards his car. They freaked out, in the way only stupid hysterical girls do, utterly paranoid that he would think they were waiting for him.

Dolly shrieked at LD to "JUST DRIVE, QUICK" so she sped off down to the next level. Unfortunately for them, the carpark is split level, so H could see this crazy silver car swerving away down the carpark. Then just to make it worse for themselves, Dolly and LD strained out the side of the car window to look up at H, just to check if it really was him, only to find him stooping down to peer at them through a gap in the wall.

And this was an empty carpark they were careening around, so actually the decision to "just drive, quick" served only to make them look even more like fools than they already were. Remember that this is all after LD had propositioned H like a hyperactive child with ADD outside the locker rooms.

They spent the next five minutes driving round and round before hiding out in the bottom most basement level and screeching through giggles at each other. Dolly hadn't had that much fun since she was doing her IB, aged 17. Funny how quickly you forget the things you resort to doing for the sake of a silly crush.

Well, keeps you young. And a nice reminder for Dolly that, if nothing else, she's living it far more than that stroppy receptionist with the pursed lips.

WHITE: A strange vacuum

2005-08-22T14:14:00.000+08:00

Well, the darndest thing happened. The people paying our wages over at work decided they would withdraw funds so we're not being paid anymore. That doesn't mean a lot in terms of work - it just means Dolly can now legitimately do nothing without feeling guilty. It does, however, mean quite a lot in terms of the sudden pay cut she's suffering.

Fortunately, as luck will have it, lots of other jobs have popped up along the way that pay well and give her the excuse to eat, watch movies and shop for a living (literally!). It may not say much for the credibility of her career, but then, quite the same could be said of dubious, though very rich businessmen everywhere!

[Coincidentally, Dolly's been reading Belle de Jour's book which is leading her to believe that life as a high class call girl may just be the next best alternative to writing trashy fashion columns. Then again, she couldn't bear the thought of having sex with something old, grey, smelly and/or fat. She's also a terrible liar - it would be difficult to feign interest and the likes. Hats off to those who can - they must be given more credit than they get. Evidently, this may be one instance where being a choosy perfectionist is not a desirable trait for employment.]

In the meantime, Dolly's biding her time by writing about make-up, Angelina Jolie's boobs and the dilemmas of dating, having long lunches, lying in 'til noon and reacquainting herself with the pleasures of a pink vibrator (all things, you must admit, that can't really be done on the time and money of a proper job).

This pay-cut: perhaps it's a blessing in disguise!

ps don't worry, will put a stop to writing about the dilemmas of work. Sorry it's been a bit of a dry patch of late. Blogger's block and the general staleness of life.

BROWN: Nipples II

2005-08-16T00:16:00.000+08:00

There's thing about sleeping naked that I just can't appreciate. I've tried it many a time, trying desperately to enjoy it (makes for less laundry, after all) but it just doesn't work. (And it makes no difference if I sleep alone or not).

First, that's that thing about feeling colder than usual which can be solved only by wearing something. Perhaps it's psychological - nighties and slips after all, are made up of scant material which don't actually do much to stave off the cold but it does provide the mental illusion of warmth.

Then there's that second unpleasant thing about waking up in the middle of a nice dream with cold, hard nipples which doesn't ever, in a half sleepy state, feel sexy. It's irritating, cold, almost hurts and brushes against cold bits of the duvet are quite the "touch sense" equivalent of hearing nails down a blackboard.

So. Nothing desirable about that at all, I'm afraid. I could just turn the airconditioning down, but then it gets too hot and I can't sleep. How do those Hollywood people (or women in French movies) make it look so comfortable, so very fun? Those of you who do sleep starkers, please explain how you make it work.

BROWN: Chocolate!

2005-08-12T18:19:00.000+08:00

Dolly has been terribly spoilt of late... and all because of work! Last night, she was treated to an excellent free meal, where the chef cooked up 10 different dishes just for her to sample for a food review. After she stuffed her face with fried calamari, butter garlic prawns, pasta, creme caramel, bread and butter pudding and a chocolate banana smoothie, she went home to slumber.

When she awoke this morning, it was time to trip off to a press screening of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (for a film review). Waking up for Johnny Depp and a chocolate river is no hard task, not even for Dolly who loves her sleep.

That said, it was absolutely splendid. Chocolate, candy, Johnny in a red velvet suit and horrible rightful punishment for rude impertinent children is the most wonderful way to spend any morning. What can she say? Much of Dolly's love, life and being of now has been largely influenced by the fiction of Roald Dahl (which in her opinion, kicks JK Rowling's behind far beyond any parallel magical universe). Anyone who grew up without reading Dahl should feel ashamed; Dahl fans know that there is something missing, something not quite right about The People Who Never Read Dahl.

Anyway, for those of you who did miss out, you can do your catching up with the movie at least. It never hurts anyone to have a bit of magic in their lives. If nothing else, indulge your chocolate longings.

PINK: Nighties and nipples

2005-08-11T23:13:00.000+08:00

Having your high beams on can be attractive some of the time, but to her great distress Dolly has realised that it doesn't quite look right through pastel-coloured satin nighties. Instead, through baby pinks and corals, the shadow of two rudely protruding nipples isn't actually at all sexy anymore. It just looks plain ridiculous and gross, like you kind of forgot something.

This is about the only time when Dolly does not fully enjoy flouncing about in pink. In fact, it's the only time that she'll nod in the direction of blacks and reds - after all, they do the best tricks in the bedroom and (perhaps ironically) work most efficiently in getting you undressed, no?

GREEN: Vegetables

2005-08-08T23:03:00.000+08:00

I know I'll sound like my mother when I say this, but isn't there something slightly gross about people who never eat vegetables? (Kids excluded - no kid likes vegetables).

WHITE (and other colours): Cock

2005-08-08T22:09:00.000+08:00

Have decided to alternate between first and third person. Am far too self-absorbed to completely denounce the "I" completely.

Alright alright, I'll make up for the neglect by writing about (almost) everyone's favourite topic. There seems to be rather an excitable discussion about cocks. Hence:

Let's be a bit controversial and say, well, they're a bit ugly really, as most bits are. You know, the whole dangly, veiny, shrunken look can be quite frightful, some even repellant. And yet we remain endlessly fascinated by it! Dolly remembers that a night out during her younger uni once ended up in a longconversation with some sailors about a girl's fascination with cock. They were quite amused but probably regretted having spent their only night out talking to someone so very sociable but in completely the wrong way (The folly of being 21...!).

It is true that at the height of passionate encounters, there mere sighting of a hard, swollen cock is excitable. Indeed, visual stimuli can be entirely responsible for the stirrings of bodily fluids. As I've said many a time before, I feel sadly for girls averse to blowjobs. I find there is nothing quite as sensual as feeling every crevice of a cock against lips and the insides of your mouth, or the swelling pressure building against your own softened fingers. Here, the veins turn into something enticing, its pressing up against taut skin an indication that whatever your lipshandslube are doing is quite what it likes.

And having it inside you: that initial breaking past of a tight wall, almost resistant and so very willing at the same time. That cossetted, electric feeling of such close friction and pressure of skin as it fights tough against each other. A cock movingthrustingslowfast inside you forms a funny sort of dual feeling that is both comforting yet desperately urgent: Comforting for the spaces that are filled, expanded and hugged, and urgent because there is that subconscious awareness that it might-will-haveto stop, eventually...

...Until next time.

Wouldn't you all agree?

BLUE: Possibly maybe

2005-08-06T01:42:00.000+08:00

There are two meanings to possibly maybes:

1) An unsuspecting male friend who you force into promising marriage if/when you're both 40 and find yourself depressed and alone. In Dolly's case, it was a very smiley obliging boy, Al, she knew vaguely through a friend of a friend of a friend... A bottle of wine and a raucous university party made her think thought it would be funny to ask him to marry her when they're 30. Strange thing was, even after she sobered up, it still seemed an alright sort of idea. Al wasn't so bad, was splendid company and great conversation and he had an interesting last name.

2) The boy(s) you hold forever dear in your heart. Let's not kid ourselves. All of us, whether we're single or not, have someone like this - a possibly maybe that is vamped up in your fantasies as the ideal other you want to spend your evenings with. S/he's never near perfect of course, but you believe they are or might be. They certainly never seem to do anything wrong. It's a way, thinks Dolly, to keep you on your toes so you don't get too complacent wherever you are. If nothing else, it makes for more interesting friendships. It especially helps if they're far away - allows for much greater idealisation. Distance makes the heart grow fonder etc.

Anyway, interestingly enough, Dolly's possibly maybe #2, SF, is one of possibly maybe #1, Al's close friends (ah, we all move in circles). Dolly's has worryingly frequent sex dreams about SF, all of which are of course, as with all possibly maybes, decadent and utterly blissful at the time they're happenning. Let's hope they never ever actually have sex proper, it may be so disappointing.

It's never just about sex though: Possibly maybes are ideal and perfect in every way. Dolly has managed to convince herself that SF understands her in a way no-one else ever would. This may be because they spent many a long rambling Sunday doing nothing in particular together (much can be learned about someone that way) or just because he seems to remember and be excited about everything she's ever doing at any given time. He thinks she's wonderful and vice versa so they have spent much time just delighting over each other's mere company.

It helps of course, that he is exquisitely beautiful and standing next to him, Dolly looks delicate, thin (and anyone who can do that must be worth something) and more fabulous than normal.

Dolly's most recent dream involved SF writing a long letter from afar confessing an undying love for her. As luck would have it, she only managed to glimpse a few lines before she was called away to something else and she never did get round to reading the letter in the dream.

Then again, it was just a dream and quite possibly maybe a "never" for real life.

YELLOW: Birthday cake

2005-08-02T20:45:00.000+08:00

Dolly has turned a ripe old age of 24 - there were cake, candles and a blissful day at the shops. Having spent the last three birthdays quietly, she has decided that birthdays are best spent just pottering around on your own. Note that Dolly never uses this day for any sort of serious retrospective thinking, 5 year goals and all that gloomy rubbish. She thinks it should be a day to drink coffee where you want, be idle, go shopping, stuff your face with cake without anyone seeing. There's something kind of nice just having that one day of the year entirely to yourself and not feel guilty about neglecting anything or anyone.

And so, Dolly spent the whole day buying mini skirts and then the boy cooked a big pot of pasta full of cream.

PS, Been shit and lacksadaisical about writing in here. You see, suddenly people at work realised she wasn't actually doing any work so she had to start doing some before they took away her cheques. She hasn't forgotten you, and as a way of making up the absense will next write about cocks, since you're all so terribly keen on willies.

PSS Dolly has a new column - if you missed it in StarWeekend, it's here

WHITE: Nightie

2005-07-22T01:54:00.000+08:00

Sometimes, I lounge about in sheer nighties, done up just below the breast line and splitting apart in the centre to reveal the midriff. Often, it's far more decadent when done alone than when with someone - feeling near naked by yourself can be much more titillating, sensual, naked like you're opening up more of yourself through translucent material that separates just where the line of your stomach begins. Often, going to sleep alone in a slinky, dinky, black number sinks far softer playtime and into more delicious slumber than when with an(y) other. Paradoxically, this heightens a girl's feelings of being at her most desirable, most sensual, most sexed-up. A shame that boys (or others) can never really be a part of this for it is actually the aloneness that makes it everything it is.

RED: Knicker photo

2005-07-13T19:19:00.000+08:00

On second thoughts... Dolly thought she'd take down the photo. Many reasons which she won't go into now because they're dreary. Things are so very uninteresting at the moment - just work and the sorts. Will try to dredge up something fun, or imagine something into being. Sorry, darlings.

RED: Sex!

2005-07-08T18:42:00.000+08:00

Dolly's dear friend, MiMi, has trolleyed himself off to Sydney in hopes of higher education qualifications etc blah blah and... SEX! Poor thing hadn't had sex in about three years (which only goes to show just how much of a desert KL is) and it was all getting a bit bleak. Today, Dolly got an email from him with great details about his recent sexual romps - all within three weeks of having landed down under. Bless!

Of course, this has just brought back fond memories of the initial thrills of romping. While sex is not anything near bad in a long-term relationship (monogamous because Dolly is old-fashioned and prim like that), you can't help but feel itchy now and then, and wonder what it would be like to run off and have sex with a hundred different people all at once, just for the hell of it.

Damn, it's even started to infiltrate her dreams - last night she dreamt saucily of kissing an American boy while lying on some horrible wooden floor (not all dreams are like the ideal ones in movies). It was still enough to make her wet but she remembered feeling a bit guilty in the dream because she had (apparently) abandoned her husband and two kids (!?!?!) while on a romp with The American. Let's hope it shan't be a premonition of things to come, although Dolly's own dear mother has pointed out many times that she worries that Dolly is quite capable of being the betraying sort.

Dolly likes to think it isn't possible as she isn't really the sort (hasn't got the guts, or is a sweet old compassionate soul that doesn't want to hurt and wouldn't do what she doesn't want done back to her) - so for now she's living vicariosly through MiMi and her recurring wet dreams.

WHITE: Learning Chinese

2005-07-07T11:09:00.000+08:00

Sorry, it's been a while. Dolly has been down in Singapore over the past week (and what a long week it was) and suffering quietly among the more anal retentive of our pleasant (!) neighbours. Really, they have great clothes, great style and, admittedly, have a far greater idea of what it means to look good down on Orchard Road than they do on Bukit Bintang but they're in rather severe deficit of soul. Most Singaporeans find it terribly difficult to smile, don't they? That's what happens in a country that tries to air-condition hawker food, and where oral sex is banned unless it's used only as a form of foreplay.

Anyway, Dolly went to visit the boy who is currently studying mandarin, 7 hours a day, 5 days a week in a bid to become fluent. This meant that Dolly was treated to monologues of Chinese while she was there and since her own Chinese is terrible, conversations usually went something like this:

The boy: (pointing) bi zi
Dolly: What's that?
The boy: Pencil

(a few minutes later)

The boy: (pointing) la zi tong
Dolly: What's that? The boy:
Rubbish bin

(a few minutes later)

The boy: (pointing as Dolly was on the phone) Ta shi shui? (who's that?)
At which point Dolly decided to ignore him.

You see, Dolly herself had three years of one-on-one Chinese tuition when she was little. This resulted mostly in crying fits every time she had to do homework and the sort of boredom that feels very great and painful to seven-year-olds. You know the kind of homework: writing the same Chinese character over and over in notebooks lined with squares. She would cry into her book, get all the pages wet, and accidently tear holes in them as she wrote and erased things. After three years, she was still unable to differentiate between the words mother (mu xin) and chicken (mu zi), and the only characters she could remember how to write were her name (only because she had to write it every lesson).

You can imagine that the boy's sudden fervour for Chinese is like a frightening karmic deja-vu of Chinese lessons coming to pull ugly faces at her. Dolly's trying very hard to start anew and perhaps give it another short but really, all she sees when she closes her eyes are pages and pages of blank squares. Distressing.

WHITE: Ice cream

2005-06-29T00:15:00.000+08:00

Sometimes all a girl wants to do is walk around town at twilight, eat gelato and go dancing in soft shoes.

BLACK&WHITE: Column

2005-06-23T00:08:00.000+08:00

Dolly has been invited to cowrite a lifestyle column over at one of the national papers with an adorable favourite friend so she's quite pleased with herself and is already envisaging book deals, book parties, big boxes of presents and a nice hefty royalty that will provide for manicures and lunch until at least her mid-thirties (maybe she'll have a proper job by then).

Keep your eyes peeled dear readers. Dolly's on to big things.

GREEN: East Malaysians

2005-06-20T15:33:00.000+08:00

All East Malaysians should get a medal just for being East Malaysian. They're all so adorable and, think about it, you've never met a horrible East Malaysian have you? They're so nice it almost makes you sick!

2005-06-18T23:20:00.000+08:00

Oh for chrissakes! Won't you all say something? Even if it's to say how fabulous this blog is or how much you'd rather Blogger to ban it forever from their webspace

It's getting far too quiet in here for a noisy Dolly.

RED: The simplicity of sex

2005-06-18T16:05:00.000+08:00

Sex does not have to be complicated. Forget the kamasutra and being suspended midair. Sometimes, the most pleasurable of feelings can be got just from fingers on an inner thigh.

Sometimes, wet lips wrapped over the tip of a hardened nipple.

Sometimes, a sly tongue round your earlobe.

Sometimes, after brief moments of teasing around a shaven triangle, the tip of a moistened index finger landing suddenly firm but slow on an impatient clit. And often, that explosion of nerves from an initial touch can feel more ecstactic than any orgasm. You can have multiple orgasms, but there can only be one momentary shock of bliss in the beginning when you are most desperate, most ready for anything.

Keep it simple. It can be most exquisite.

BLACK: Before you die...

2005-06-17T18:13:00.000+08:00

Great conversations come out of sitting at the mamak. Far from being grubby dark little places, mamaks have become hugely commercialised, almost cosy (got MTV samor) and are fantastic places for cultivating fabulous theories, the insights to our insane thoughts and grand ideas for the future.

The other night, the Queen threw up an age-old question about what the one thing was that everyone would want to do before they died. Cliched, but fun anyway. It's not as stupid as it seems and a lot can be told about the state of someone's head from how they answer this.

The Queen, being adventurous as he is, said he'd want to travel to at least 100 countries in the world; SniperGirl said she'd want to sleep with 1000 people (at least); Dolly said she wanted to write a book that would change readers' lives profoundly and transcend time ("Like the Bible" piped the Queen).

The last one, Jack-in-the-box (for he is full of surprises) hadn't been paying attention so the Queen had to pose the question again. He didn't think twice. In the bat of an eyelash and with great resolve he declared, "I want to clean up the whole world. It's so dirty everywhere!!" before scrunching his face in disdain at the dirt around the mamak.

He didn't mean "clean" politically, socially or anything deep like that; he meant "clean" with a mop and brush. "I just want to scrub out everything. And then Febreeze all of it!" This is a boy who goes insane at the sight of dust and spends much of his time polishing bathrooms so he can see his own face in the taps. His was the most definitely the most physically, humanely, utterly impossible dream.

WHITE: Girls have wet dreams too

2005-06-12T16:34:00.000+08:00

Some things are best said in first person:

There's this dream that keeps floating around my head. It fills out the spaces of dream time and rocks each pore to a delirious sort of frenzy. Always, always, it starts in the middle where there is suddenly a guy - often someone I know, sometimes odd celebrities, sometimes just-anyone - pushed against me, his breath heavy against my neck in a way that makes me feel totally desirous and desiring. Everything feels raw, dry, wet, hot all at once, the closed circle between my thighs screaming to be touched.

I always feel it, half asleep, half awake, in between dreaming, as he touches me exactly where the throbbing gets stronger, and as he enters me, as I sit astride him, as his weight fills out the dips within my body, I feel almost-always close to coming. I am always almost awake, half wanting to get out of slumber and touch myself where it feels so desperately good. Never that easy. It's like sleep paralysis where you're caught in one of those sex games that people play on you. To touch, not to touch, come, not come, moan for more, try to wake up, fall back to sleep to finish the dream.

Mostly, I finish the dream, grinding up against his thighs in a way that presses most closely, tightly, exquisite against a swollen clit until I come and the rush of blood feels real enough to wake me. I find my thighs pressed tight against each other and the tips of my fingers held taut against the fabric of knickers, over a clit that's still almost throbbing.

RED: Mohamad and marriage

2005-06-07T14:40:00.000+08:00

Dolly's father has a driver called Mohamad who has taken it upon himself to be rather like the guardian of the family. He has said that he panics when, upon driving her father home late, he sees that her car is out and realises she's out all alone without his bodyguard assistance.

Mohamad has also taken a keen interest in the betterment of Dolly's life. Now he speaks to her only in Malay as a chance for her to practise speaking; gives her career advice by telling her to quit her writing shennanigans and do accountancy (!); and, most recently, how to make a man really love you.

"Next time, when you're married, you must wake up half hour before your husband and make coffee for him. If you do, he will love you very much. If not ah, he will go away with someone else."

Dolly, feminist and great advocate of long late lie-ins in the morning, roared in laughter and said in between her chuckling, "No lah, cannot! I cannot wake up early wan. And I make coffee very teruk wan... he make himself lah!"

Mohamad was aghast at her indifference. "No lah! You must. Must make him coffee, sit with him when he is eating breakfast and then say bye bye when he go to work. Then he will love you very much."

This was much too much of a 1950's picket-fence ideology for a progressive bra-burning Dolly but she just couldn't get upset at him. Ordinarily, sexist comments would get Dolly up in flames, red hot under the collar and pissed off at the injustices of the great inequalities. But Mohamad, she figured after some thought, believed in in all that entirely, a hundred and ten per cent. It was difficult to be angry for it was so much a part of his life, so simplistic and ordinary that it made Dolly's feminist view on the matter completely inexplicable and out of place.

It's had no effect on Dolly of course. She still slumbers til noon, while the boy gets up and potters about to make his own breakfast.

RED: Lipstick

2005-06-03T21:13:00.000+08:00

You know you're out of the loop when you're all dolled up on a Friday night with your favourite Stila lipgloss ready to go in your Furla handbag, and you don't know where to go. Thus ensues long discussions with friends, cousins, boy about what to do now.

Dolly must get out more often.

BLUE: Beautiful men

2005-06-02T16:50:00.000+08:00

Shame really, that the the word "beautiful" is use largely for women as beautiful men can be just as stunning, if not more than their female counterparts. Beautiful men are a league all of their own. They're not just merely good looking, attractive, fit, or men who have become beautiful women; in fact, it's an entirely different sort of 'beautiful' from what women are. Sometimes they don't even fit what is considered attractive for a men - they could be short, too thin, a bit stupid. It's difficult to envisage what a beautiful man looks until until you see one, but when you do, all you can think of is the word, "Beautiful."

You may be attracted to a beautiful man. Most of them time you are, but it's not necessarily the case. Often, he's just so beautiful you want to stand around him; the same sort of feeling as standing next to the colours of one of those giant soothing Rothkos. And people will ask you what that means, what a beautiful man could possibly look like that makes him different from any other hot guy? "For god's sake, what do you mean, beautiful?! Does he have pink lips?" And you search your entire trove of vocabulary to find ways to describe him but eventually all you can really think of is, "beautiful." The more endearing fact is, beautiful men do not know they are beautiful.

Take note that this sort of beauty is not subjective. It's the sort of beauty that everyone, men, women, child alike recognises as beautiful: the Elizabeth Taylor sort of undisputed beauty. In this day and age, the closest you can get to a beautiful man would probably be something along the lines of Jude Law, or that Thai boy who used to lived in the flat below Dolly (she stalked him for a year and only got to talk to him on the last ever day at uni). But even then, they aren't fully beautiful contain only elements of being beautiful. They're rare, mind, and hard to come by, like Vintage Diors. Keep your eyes peeled and blow him an extra kiss from Dolly when you do see one.

WHITE: Bed

2005-05-30T21:47:00.000+08:00

There's something much more comforting and delicious about climbing into an unmade, ruffled bed than a neatly pressed, tidily made-up one.

PINK: Sexist jokes

2005-05-29T16:53:00.000+08:00

Mid way through dinner last night with the boy and some other friends, the conversation veered towards sexist jokes. The usual lot about women in the kitchen etc came up and everyone had a good chuckle, especially the boys.

Dolly turned to the only other girl, the Tooth Fairy, at the table and said, "Okay, well here's a girly version of one of these jokes. It goes, 'What do you call that little bit of skin at the end of a penis?'"

"What?"

"A man!"

Dolly and the Tooth Fairy roared loudly and rowdily, sputtering brownie sundae all over the table. Even Dolly, who's told the joke hundreds of times still finds it completely funny and laughed all over again like it was the first time she'd heard it.

The boys looked most unimpressed and seemed unable to see anything funny about it at all - a reaction which, Dolly would like to point out, is the same of all men she's relayed the joke to. Bless.

BLUE: A rather thin boy

2005-05-23T23:08:00.000+08:00

Hurrah! The boy is up in KL so Dolly is a Jolly Dolly. However, once she'd gotten over the hugs, the kisses and the general joy of having the the boy about again, she had a fright when she realised that he'd gotten really rather thin. Even her mother had a bit of a shock.

It turns out that he'd lost 10kgs in 4 months. Dolly was all incredulous and very jealous indeed. she spend the weekend plying him for diet tips. "How, how, how did you do it?" He shrugged in that sort of annoying knowing way that boys do and said that he cut down to two meals a day and started to eat more healthy Japanese food. Also, he cut out sugar from his drinks; now it's only Nutrasweet tabs and Diet Cokes. No mention of any exercise.

This doesn't help Dolly in any way - she only ever eats two meals a day anyway, doesn't drink anything sugary or fizzy and works herself to a near death four times a week at the gym. And she's hasn't lost any weight in years.

She moaned about this to her dear friend The Little Diva whose husband once lost 6kgs in a week just from running 20 minutes a day. "If there's one thing you must never do, it's to try losing weight with your partner," she reminds Dolly over and over again over La Risata lunches. "Men lose weight so fast, so they lose all the weight very quickly and get fit very quicky. Then because you get depressed from seeing them lose all the weight, you start eating more as a comfort thing. And after three months from when you started, you're still fat."

Ho. Dolly is find ways to add lard and crush weight gain supplements into his food as a way of fattening him back to before.

RED: Celebrity crushes

2005-05-21T17:33:00.000+08:00

Generally, real celebrities are getting boring. Brad Pitt, Russell Crowe and Orlando Bloom are just so 1990s. The new wave of hot for the day, thinks Dolly, are a lower rung of pseudo-celebs who find their 5 minutes of fame on reality TV programmes like The Apprentice and Survivor. There's always something a bit weird about the people on these programmes, but it makes them likeable - a bit closer to 'reality' than the red carpet. We think, "Oh my god! I could so be better than that Kendra woman off The Apprentice" or more importantly, where does one find a man just like Kelly Perdew (off the second season).

Thing is, these B (even C) list celebrities aren't ever as blown out of proportion as much as Brad and Jude and Orlando because the tabloids and gossip rags don't really find it worth their time to make up stupid stories about them, or trail them to find what brand of soap they use. It would be naive of course to think that what you see of them on TV is what you get... but they do at least have the chance to keep one foot on the ground, as opposed to being elevated to the heights of gods or demoted to the hells of unlikeable demons. And that way, it's easier to imagine them into your life, if say, you were to run away and marry one of them!

Dolly has taken on an unhealthy obsession with The Apprentice, mostly because she is decidedly in love with that Kelly man (what? you thought it was because she had high aspirations of the joining the corporate world? pffft!) . It was love at first sight darlings! straight off a Mills and Boons. See, he's enough of a celebrity to make you blush and want to touch his hand, but not too much to distract from the question at hand, which is that he's very clever indeed, good at all that complicated wealthy corporate work stuff and has a body built for war. And he's not just a pretty face, styled for front covers of Style magazine or GQ. He's got a proper job too, aye! something to do with buildings. It sounds impressive enough.

Today, the last episode of Season Two, on which Kelly is hired was showing on 8TV; Dolly was called away to lunch so she put the show on record. She was dismayed, distraught!!! when, upon checking the tape later in the afternoon, discovered that it hadn't recorded properly. Sesame Street had found its way onto the tape instead. Big Bird has never been so horribly irritating.

A most distressing afternoon.

RED: The prospect of sex

2005-05-17T14:40:00.000+08:00

Last night Dolly was over a friend's place having long, complicated philosophical debates about the Dalai Lama and the like. She ended up sitting to Dharmaboy who she has a most giant crush on (you may remember her mentioning him a few months ago) but it helped that she was facing away from him so didn't have to keep blushing at her own embarrassed fancies.

Anyway, some way through the conversation, when Dolly started getting restless and fidgeting, someone shouted from across the room, "Oi! If you don't behave, we'll make you have sex with Dharmaboy." Dolly felt her face get terribly warm and tried very hard not to look around. She thought, "Oh, you have no idea!!"

But perhaps the worse part of it all was that Dharmaboy choked on his drink upon hearing it. Everybody noticed and bent over in half laughing.

You see, it's bad enough that Dolly hasn't been getting any of late; it is so much the worse when the proposition of sex with her makes someone else choke on his own breath. Dolly thought perhaps there was chance that he was actually thrilled at the idea and couldn't contain his excitement. A big voice in her head told her in a big way that this was just big wishful thinking. So much for fantasy then, when in reality you're just making people asphyxiate!

PINK: Single girls

2005-05-16T15:13:00.000+08:00

Poor Thai Boxing Girl (TBG) has been getting quite the barrage of the "Why are you still single?" questions. This harked back a few years to when Dolly was still single - holidays back to Malaysia, in between university terms, would always meet with the expectant, "So do you have a boyfriend yet?"

Interestingly, Dolly's friend, Blondie, once commented that people are never interested to hear about your personal achievements. "I get distinctions for every paper, of if I get my Masters, or if I got onto the national team for volleyball, nobody says anything; then when I write in an email about some guy I might be seeing, everyone writes back: 'who's this guy? where did you meet him? where's he from? what's he like?'"

Seems we haven't quite moved away from the 19th century where a girl's best and most attention-worthy achievements are the "boy-of-the-day". It is a matter of concern for everyone, particularly in this part of the world, where everything is everyone's business. (In a place where people take it upon themselves to comment regularly on your weight, it seems almost natural that your marital status should be of grand importance.)

Anyway, after much rolling of eyes and exchanging of woes, TBG and Dolly concluded that there are three standard responses to "the boyfriend question":

1)Often, when the question was asked and Dolly replied "no boyfriend," they would cluck sympathetically and then say with forced joviality, "Don't worry, there's bound to be someone out there for you. He's out there!" Note that this response is never limited to the older generation. Dolly's friends, the same age as her, all share this same little bit of cheery wisdom in attempts to reassure away the prospect of old-maidenhood. Most condescending. Dolly doesn't quite like what it suggests about single girls not being good enough on their own and that they should anticipate the arrival of this other half "out there!" for them.

2) Notice too, the association that people make between looks and having-a-boyfriend. Comments like, for example: "Aiyoh. She's so pretty and still don't have boyfriend", followed by sighs, or "But you're so preeeetty. Must be so easy for you to get boyfriends what!" It's quite funny really, that candid assumption that good fulfilling relationships happen easier if you're beautiful. It suggests that, "It's ok darling. You're beautiful. You'll get someone. Nevermind your personality or intelligence. You're pretty. It'll do." Does it work the other way, wonders Dolly? Do people stand around and say, "Aiyaaa what do you expect? She's so ugly what. Of course cannot get boyfriend!"

3) TBG has also been told that in order to get a relationship she has to "lower her expectations," as if settling for less is all it takes and that settling for something you don't quite want is better than being single. Considering you'd sort of expect a significant fulfilling relationship to last quite some time, you'd think you wouldn't just "settle for any old guy"... but try telling that to the relationship gurus.

And don't think the questions end when you're attached. It moves up a grade and now there are "marriage questions." But that's another story for another day. That's why Dolly now surrounds herself with beautiful gay friends whose mottos are quite the opposite. "Didn't I teach you anything Darling?!" cried Honeytom when she told him she was still with the boy. "Relationships should never last more than a night!" Not all gay men think this way of course - Dolly doesn't want to stereotype - but Dolly just finds all the ones who do! Makes life much easier.

YELLOW: Morning pill

2005-05-13T17:41:00.000+08:00

Pardon the absence - Dolly has been down with flu, which was aggravated by her insistence on going all out on a step aerobics mission earlier this week. Tip of the week: don't jump about big elevated blocks to Kylie Minogue when feeling ill.

To top that, it's been a tiring week involving long trips to Putrajaya and children. Wednesday was spent babysitting a friend's two kids, aged 8 and 4 - and everybody knows how much Dolly can't stand children. These two were actually quite well behaved and charming enough for children but Dolly just doesn't have the patience for the incessant questions that children have. "What is that? Why do you have it? Why did you buy it? Where did you get it from? Can I see it? Why does it look like that? Oh, what's that thing up there? Why do you have it? What is it for? ... "

There are people who are good with children, who actually enjoy talking to them. Dolly admires them for their tireless patience because she hasn't a shred of skill in dealing with the under 12s. The fact is, she really doesn't care and finds it very easy to ignore them or walk out of the room and abandon them. The only thing she was slightly concerned about was whether or not their prying fingers would open drawers and find condoms and pink dildos - imagine of the questions that would follow that discovery and bear in mind that all 8-year-old girls love pink things...

Under the veneer of cuteness, the 8-year-old (who is actually beautiful and Dolly hates her because she will grow up to be more stunning than Dolly could ever hope to me) turned out to be quite the demanding must-have-it-my-way-NOW little madam. Her trick for getting what she wants is, apparently, to force her face in front of her victim's and bat her eyelids ferociously. The 8-year-old that she believes this to be endearing and irresistible; Dolly thinks she deserves a slap for every bat of the eyelid, for being so high maintenance when she hasn't even hit her teens. There's a very fine line between being lovable and being just plain irritating... but try telling that to kids!

Still, there's something to be learnt from every experience. In this case, the five (very long) hours of answering neverending questions having to mock-laugh at things that really aren't funny unless you're 8 has given Dolly a much deeper appreciation for the wo/man-who-discovered-the-pill.

Thank god for contraception. Amen.

BLUE: How boys sometimes deserve what's coming to them

2005-05-09T23:23:00.000+08:00

Dolly's friend was telling her a story about how a girl she knew recently discovered that her boyfriend of 7 years had cheated on her. The brave girl plucked up the courage to meet 'the other girl' and a good natter over dinner soon revealed to both of them that the little creep had been lying to them both. Now they're great friends, to the great loss of "the boy who deserved what was coming to him."

Dolly chuckled and was reminded of her own experiences back at uni. When she first started going out with this boy, AA, he had only just dumped his ex, Big Curly (she had enormous hair), a week ago. (His fickleness should have been a warning sign to stay away perhaps but you don't tend to think of these things when you think a boy is cute). The night after they first pulled, they went out to dinner where they would bump into Big Curly. She was in red, glaring like a traffic light and furiously het up as she stormed over and demanded to talk to AA.

Big Curly never spoke to Dolly, but it was traumatising enough as a first day, first date experience. AA and Dolly didn't work out and split after about a month but campus was small and Big Curly would always be just around the corner. She would continue to frighten Dolly for the next year which she mentioned jokingly to AA one day in French class. "You know Big Curly, she's terrifying! She still keeps giving me evils," to which AA snorted a sort of amused response.

A year later, Dolly ended up talking to a drunken Big Curly - scuzzy college bars have a way of creating intimate bonds between strangers. They would each discover that they had been terrified of the other (though why anyone would find Dolly frightening is beyond her) and that they had both told AA how scary they thought the other was.

"Ahah!" slurred Big Curly. "He's been playing us off each other and keeping us scared, to keep the upper hand."

They decided, over the bonding of vodka, that it would be fun to turn up at AA's house together . They bounded over, rang his doorbell and screamed, "Guess what?! We're friends!" when he answered the door. They settled cosily into his bedroom after ordering pizza and watched him squirm in his chair. He looked a bit ill and kept shaking his head - it wasn't even like he'd done anything that bad, like cheat on either girl, but he still looked worried enough.

"It's like someone photoshopped you two into the same picture," he mumbled when Dolly said chirpily, "Are you alright?!?! Don't worreeeeee. We're friends now."

After that, Big Curly walked home with Dolly since they lived in the same area and bitched all the way back about AA. It seemed a little bit evil, like they were in cahoots to ruin his (admittedly) fabulous reputation among the many, many girls who couldn't wait to sleep with him. It didn't work - he still got all the girls - but Big Curly and Dolly had the satisfaction of letting AA know they had figured him out.

Watching a boy squirm - it's always worth it.

BLUE: Miss Prim and the case of the doormat boyfriend

2005-05-08T22:44:00.000+08:00

There's this girl, Miss Prim, who Dolly has tea with once in awhile but tries to avoid as much as possible the rest of the time. Miss Prim hilarious as a character, but is perhaps more important for the type of girl she represents - having met her, Dolly has realised that these freakish high-maintenance princess nightmares you hear all about really do exist. You may remember her from an earlier entry about wedding rings, where she went on and on about diamonds. She is also the sort of girl who talks incessantly about the presents that her boyfriend gives her, as if that is the most special thing about him, and boasts endlessly about the trips to Europe that her new boyfriend is paying for.

One day, she asked Dolly who paid for the meals when they went out for dinner. Dolly said they took turns to pay when they were out, to which she almost choked on her own horrified expression. She is also the sort that finds it strange that Dolly and her boy don't buy each other things for Valentines' day or that the boy didn't pile presents on her for their anniversary (they had both, in fact, quite forgotten about it until a few days after).

Once, she told me, she shouted at her boyfriend when he offered to buy her a Zara shirt she had her eye on "since it was her birthday that day." She got mad and promptly told him she "didn't want him to buy her presents just because it was her birthday; if he wanted to buy her a present, he should just do it anyway, whether it was her birthday or not." Dolly just nodded her head politely, because that's all you can do with people like this - they can't understand otherwise.

She wouldn't be able to understand, either, the things that Dolly finds most precious in a relationship. Things like: the other day the boy told Dolly that if they were ever to go paintballing together, "You'd have to be on my team so that I won't have to shoot at you." And that means a great deal more than any old diamond ring, or him paying all the dinners bills. Shan't bother telling Miss Prim that though - in the first place, she'd wonder why they were out doing something quite so "unromantic" instead of hanging about Zara with his credit cards.

PS: Dolly has no sympathy for Miss Prim's boy, or any other boys who get themselves stuck in a relationship like that. She is of the opinion that they bring it all on themselves and there is little to be respected in boys who allowed themselves be stepped on by tacky Nine West high heels they've probably been forced into paying for.

GREY: Old men

2005-05-08T03:07:00.000+08:00

Dolly and X were driving down Jalan P Ramlee near Beach Club when one of those very ugly old men you see everywhere crossed in front of their car with one of those sickly little sweet young things.

Dolly grimaced, to which X said, "Oh well, what you gonna do about it anyway?"

"Yah yah, I know, I know. The thing is you know they're always gonna be around and you can't do anything about it but it still just doesn't stop being gross," said Dolly, and smirked to herself.

Even X, who's a very open-minded little girl couldn't dispute that and laughed evilly in agreement into her steering wheel.

2005-05-07T11:40:00.000+08:00

Dolly heard a story the other day about a friend’s housemate who threw up after watching porn. Dolly thought perhaps it was one of those terribly graphic ones featuring any and everything out of the usual vanilla norm.

No, no. It was "just the usual normal boring sort", her friend assured her.

Ah, well, surely it must've be something dodgy she'd eaten then. An ill stomach playing up?

No, no. It was just the porn.

Poor thing. To be traumatised over sex - oh my! How does she cope with the real thing?... (if at all)

PINK: Barbie doll

2005-05-05T17:08:00.000+08:00

Dolly once read in one of those nutty feminist texts that Barbie is the direct antithesis to the feminist cause because she spreads a very specific and damaging concept of idea of beauty to young girls - an impossibly thin torso, proportions that would make any real person topple over and, among other things, feet that are permanently pointed and curled, as if she's always having an orgasm.

Why that should be such a bad thing Dolly can't understand. Barbie knows how to have fun, has pretty clothes and is always in bliss. Perhaps she's actually an enlightened being and we should all aspire to be her.

WHITE: A whole new level

2005-05-04T02:00:00.000+08:00

There are moments when you realise that there is really someone out there who is always doing something more exciting than you. Dolly's friend, X, was just telling her about how she has just turned down fabulous sex. The closest thing Dolly was getting to 'stimulation' was a bit of intellectual masturbation.

A few hours before, Dolly was on the phone having a deep discussion about religion. You know you've reached a whole new level in a relationship when you start discussing the origins of the Crusades, interpretations of the Qu'ran and the significance of joss sticks. The conclusion was that, ultimately, the Buddhist and Hindus ruled the religious roost for not declaring big wars on other people and being content with hanging out at their colourful temples.

After, a tense dissection of the ins and outs of religious fundamentalists and why people interpreted religion the way they did, the arrival at this happy conclusion about the Hindus was rather like an orgasm. Afterward, Dolly was exhausted and dizzy in a way that she never is after sex.

RED: Salsa

2005-05-02T18:34:00.000+08:00

Dolly's going dancing! Of late, her only experiences of dancing have been random bopping about at clubs and the attempt at hiphop dancing at Cardiodance classes at the gym. Today she went to BodyJam and all she did all hour was stomp her feet around, about 2 beats behind everyone else and out of sync with the moves.

But anyway, she's going to join salsa classes with the boy when he gets up to KL. Dolly and the boy have divergent interests and salsa has been one of the only things they've both agreed on. Normally they disagree on everything from what bathroom fittings look best to which country they would most like to travel to. Opposites really do attract but it poses a problem when you can't find common ground for hanging out and having fun (and you can't just be eating, sleeping and having sex all the time). It's quite exciting to have finally found something in common.

Anyway, the boy has already got a headstart and is relearning the full range of his hip movement now by sashying about his living room. And meanwhile, Dolly's sussed out the best place to learn salsa in KL ('best' because it's 5 minutes from her favourite mamak and supper is always essential), and put her frilly, twirling skirts in order. She will have to get the choreography bit in her head slightly sorted soon though or may end up stepping on rather a lot of toes. It may scare off the boy and/or sore toes may make either of them lose interest, and then they're back at square one with nothing to do.

Actually, she must confess that the biggest draw of this whole salsa thing is being able to hang out at Spanishy places to drink sangria and eat tapas. When she gets good enough, she'll throw a little salsa party where everyone must come dressed in red and carrying bottles of wine in baskets. And they shall twiiiiiirl until the sun comes up.

BLACK: Invasion of privacy

2005-05-01T22:15:00.000+08:00

There is a particular Malaysian habit that Dolly absolutely cannot tolerate. It goes a little something like this:

Dolly answers: Hello?
Annoying Malaysian (A.M.): Hello. What are you doing? [or] Eh, where are you?

Dolly fails to understand why it is at all necessary to start a conversation like this. What is it to you? she wants to know, and why is it so important that you know what she is doing or where she is at at that precise moment? The fact is, even her own dear (rather protective, anxious) parents and far-away boyfriend don't ring her up and ask what she's doing so why it should matter so much to everyone else in Malaysia remains a fact quite elusive to her. It is intrusive, invasive and goddamn bloody irritating to have your privacy nosed upon every time you answer the phone (and people wonder why she often doesn't answer it). More horrifyingly, this has become such an integral part of phone conversations that Dolly is now starting to find herself asking the same questions to people she has on the phone. She cringes at herself and feels incredible disgust at the slip.

Apparently, as it has been pointed out to her, these two questions is just the Malaysian way of asking after you and your well-being. What was wrong with, "How's it going?" or good old "How are you?" Why did it have to morph into the specifics of your whereabouts and activity? You see, it isn't just a one-off question like "How are you?" is. The conversation continues:

A.M: Where are you?
Dolly: I'm out [she refuses to answer trite questions properly]
A.M.: Yah, where are you?
Dolly: Out lah
A.M.: Yalah, but where are you going? What are you doing? Who's there with you?
The conversation continues for a bit.... then....
A.M.: So what are you going to do now? [or] Where are you going after this?

ad nauseum until they ascertain exactly what you're up to, who you're with and your plans for the rest of the day.

Dolly acknowledges that these questions do need to be asked in certain circumstances, but only in the right context and reworded to sound much less intrusive. For example, you might ask "Are you too busy to talk right now?" instead of "Oi. What are you doing?" And the question "Where are you?" should only be asked if relevant to what you will say next. If you're giving directions ("Where are you now?... Ok keep driving straight, it's at the end of the road...), the other person is incredibly late for something ("Where the fuck are you? I've been waiting for an hour!") or you're trying to find someone ("Where are you? Upstairs or downstairs at Zouk?")

Note that this is not the same as ringing up a friend who you haven't spoken to in a long time and asking, "What have you been up to?" This is more general and indicates an interest in the other person's general (good/bad) news and/or well-being. It is more a way of conversation that will eventually spark off a discussion on what both parties have been doing since they last spoke. It is quite different from ringing someone up and asking them what they are doing right now for no other reason than because you are unable to appreciate the concept of respecting personal space.

Asking "What are you doing?" "Where are you?" or any variation of the two just because you want to know whenever you feel like ringing is just irritating. Quite frankly, it's none of your bloody business and Dolly doesn't have to explain what she's doing and where she is everytime she answers your call. If you have something to say, say it. Don't waste her time by ringing up just to find out what she's doing with her time or which jalan she happens to be traversing.

So, if you do, in fact, have the good fortune of having Dolly in your phonebook and are still stupid enough to ring up and ask her these irrelevant questions after reading this, be quite prepared to be hung up on.

WHITEtening lotions

2005-04-30T15:53:00.000+08:00

Chinese girls in this part of the world have a funny sort of fascination with being white. And "white" doesn't mean "fair;" it means "white" like a washed out sheet of photocopy paper. Every cosmetic dingle dangle out there in the market promises whitening effects and tacky adverts of ugly girls abound which promise a bleached face like death.

You see, they fail to understand that being "white" suits white people because the pinkish tones in their skins lends better to a healthier overall look; in some cases it actually becomes them to look white. The Chinese, however, have much yellower tones in their skin and, more often than not, being too "white" only results in looking either quite green and reptilian, or sick, like they're suffering a bad case of tyroid.

Also, because most Chinese are cheapskate (or perhaps just oblivious) they only allow themselves a ration of the evil whitening stuff: it goes only on their face, leaving the rest of their neck and body in a differential shades. Dolly's own aunt is famous for turning up at family dinners with her face bleached a deathly white from too much cream-and-foundation, revealing a big ugly line running across her neck where the rest of her natural colour begins.

Often, the Chinese are also terrified of the sun and go to great lengths to avoid getting a tan (they call it "getting dark"). They drive with long-sleeved shirts and gloves, use umbrellas when walking outdoors and slather on SPF45 even while indoors. This leaves them with a distinct deficiency in both sunshine and Vitamin D, making them look even more ill than they already do. Thus, the white-and-ill look sees a double-whammy effect: Firstly, a chemically-induced "whiteness" bleaches out any sense of colour in the skin and secondly, the lack of any sunshine turns them sallow and washed-out.

Poor darlings - they do so think they are beautiful. Somebody must tell them that the white ideal found in a large series L'oreal products isn't half as attractive as the healthier, glowing alternative gotten from free sunshine. Personally, Dolly prefers a bit of a tan and thinks the whitening thing is all quite funny. She spends many a rewarding afternoon spotting the number of girls whose bleached faces don't correspond to the rest of their "dark" bodies - makes for great coffee conversation. Anyway, we could always do with more ugly, ill-looking people in the world - it makes the rest of us tanned beauties all the more stunning.

WHITE: Bliss

2005-04-27T12:38:00.000+08:00

There is something very much like the sensation of an orgasm in a sneeze, don't you all think? This makes life just that little bit more bearable for girls who are oft prone to sinus problems like Dolly. Itchy, bloodshot eyes are something else to reckon with though.

BLUE: BMW

2005-04-25T22:19:00.000+08:00

Dolly would love a BMW Z4. Her father's driver pointed out a Z5 to her today which isn't as nice but it would do. She said, "Aiyo, damn cute lah. I want!"

So driver said, "Pinjam lah."

"Pinjam from who?"

"That guy lah. The one driving." (He has a strange sense of humour like that)

Dolly and driver came to the conclusion that she must find herself a dateable boy with a Z4 who will let her pinjam whenever she wants. It was the only way.

YELLOW: Lazy Sunday

2005-04-24T21:21:00.000+08:00

Dolly has been feeling most unmotivated the past week. The only thing she has been motivated about is going to the gym and bouncing around until she can't breathe.

The rest of the time has been spent evading work and finding excuses not to go to the shitty library at UM (Malaysia's premier university - HAH! tell me another). She still cannot get over the fact that there is a dress code at UM - nothing above the knee, nothing revealing a midriff, cleavage, shoulders or arms and no cute sandals. This is on top of the very large no smoking sign that greets you as you enter campus grounds and that segregation of sexes between different dorms. Dolly tuts in sympathy for the poor students there who will obviously never have the chance to really live while at university.

Anyway, she digresses... Ah yes, lack of motivation. As a researcher/writer normal days of the week don't really apply. Which means that technically, weekends should also be spend working if weekdays were spent playing. This doesn't apply to Dolly who ends up taking every day as a playing day and definitely does no work on the weekends.

Today, Sunday, she had plans to wake up early to go for a weightlifting class, head to the library and then make it back in time to go for a Dharma class. She ended up sleeping in and woke up only in time for lunch (had a ham sandwich). She then talked on the phone with the boy for while - he was off to the shooting gallery so rung off when he friends came round to pick him up. Dolly ended up lounging about in bed again and fell asleep. When she woke up, she continued lolling about between the sheets, spending a few hours reading Vogue and Haruki Murakami, listening to an old Miles Davis CD and eating expensive chocolates.

She went out to dinner with her mother where she gorged herself stupid on tempura prawns, then hopped across to Bangsar Shopping Centre where she spent RM22 on trashy magazines, refilled her chocolate box and is now settling in to an evening of more senseless reading.

We all have our indulgences... Dolly's friends and especially her father are forever grumbling at her about her iredeemably lazy trait. They claim she is dulling her mind and wasting youth. She justifies it by saying that it has never stopped her from getting ahead in life or doing the things she wants; and despite the endless sleeping hours she has achieved everything she has wanted to and exceeded even her own expectations (And has even managed to lose weight in the past month).

Off to idle, my darlings. Have a lovely week ahead x x x

BLACK: Boss

2005-04-22T15:25:00.000+08:00

It was an oversight on the part of Dolly to have taken up a job where her boss would be one of her father's old friends. It makes it that much more difficult for her to be her smart-ass lippy self in meetings because of that extra irritating respect thing that everyone Chinese kid is brainwashed into having towards their parents' acquaintances.

It doesn't help either that Boss is not the easiest of people to work with. Not that he's difficult; he's quite an accommodating sort of person actually, but is incredibly highly strung and suffers an acute case of ADD that wears out everyone else around him. Every Friday, Dolly and the other research assistants gather all the way over in Putrajaya for long extended 2 - 4 hour meetings, where Boss dominates the entire discussion with endless soliloquys on his ex-girlfriends, his trips to Europe, how much he hates the Americans/British/Jewish/Singaporeans and the conspiracy theories of the world. He wears oversized glasses and oversized mustard-coloured suits which, if you might imagine, makes it very difficult for anyone to really take him seriously.

Dolly's colleagues pretend that they don't enjoy these meetings and that they can't bear Boss's long monologues. In actual fact, Dolly is sure they are all secretly in love with him because at every meeting they are perched eagerly on the edges of their seat, egging him on with very interested questions about his life and laughing at all his ridiculous jokes.

The other thing about having a boss who is a family friend is that you tend to know more about their personal life than is comfortable, especially when what you do know about him is that he's a big fat greasy sleazeball. The other day, Boss dragged everyone out for lunch. After the teppanyaki had sizzled to a stop, someone asked him what he thought of extra marital affairs (it was tempting, perhaps, as he talks incessantly about women, girlfriends and affairs). He gave a long lame discourse on how it wasn't considered cheating as long as there was no love.

Dolly doesn't want to judge others' concepts of cheating or relationships but she does think that people should at least walk their talk. She knows from her father that it is common knowledge among social circles that Boss, in fact, has a second wife and teenage son. Dolly wonders if in fact, this constitutes 'cheating' on the first wife? And if so, then wasn't this long 1/2 hour justification on momentary affairs just utter crap? She sat back in her chair and rolled her eyes quietly behind the eager backs of the other people all leant forward to listen to his justifications for 'cheating'. The long spiel on "meaningfuless affairs" and how he was being so very good to his first wife was just so very tired.

WHITE: Bodies

2005-04-21T00:43:00.000+08:00

Dolly herself has fairly short legs and spends much time tottering on high heels to create the illusion of longer calves. Then the other day she saw a girl with legs long enough to make the whole world envious. But then... she noticed that in fact, this girl was all legs and only legs. It was like her legs came up to her neck and you could strangle her with her own knees. It was quite unsightly and made Dolly sigh a sigh of relief for her short (though perhaps more proportionate) legs.

This made her start looking more closely at people with long legs. This does sound like a deeply ingrained habit of sour grapes developed at a young age, but Dolly must point out to you that there are quite a lot of people (girls, mainly) out there with very long, very shapely legs to kill for, but a torso the size of a stump. It can look quite unbecoming and awkward on some.

This threw up another question: Which looks odder? A short torso and disproportionately long legs; or short legs and disproportionately long torso?

Well, it's not the most complicated conundrum of the year but a fun one to ponder as we reconsider what we find most desirable in others. ie. long legs are not always what they're cut out to be, perhaps, especially not if the rest of you looks like a stork. Dolly is paving the way for short legs to storm fashion runways of the future.

WHITE: Wet

2005-04-20T01:02:00.000+08:00

Good god! Remember Dolly's post a few days ago about wanting fingers down her panties? (Sorry, don't know how to do the fancy link thing).

She didn't know it would be possible but she's actually found a blog entry on Rentboy Diaries that's rather satisfied the cravings. Now, that really is the way to do it. A girl's cravings must be satiated, after all!

PINK: Storybooks

2005-04-19T23:54:00.000+08:00

Dolly has decided to throw of the shackles of a past life and start a new one. She decided that she would start by redecorating - this entails ripping out all the horrid inbuilt furniture that was put in 12 years ago, reorganising where everything goes and starting all anew. And so the past two days have been spent furrowing through drawers, shelves and hidden compartments to unearth everything she's accumulated since age 11 and throwing away the baggage.

But hey, spring cleaning - especially after this long a time - exceeds just the dusting of shelves and throwing away of unwanted birthday presents from distant friends. Almost inevitably, spring cleaning will always throw up memories that make your heart recoil (in delight or sheer shame), just like the corny flashbacks they have on movies. Today, for example, Dolly found her diaries from university days. Mostly there are just boring notes about meetings, essay deadlines and birthdays; but also, during a particularly lucid period, the joyous scribblings of a silly 20-year-old about this boring party, that great party, that cute guy, falling in love - that sort of thing. It made Dolly chuckle and roll her eyes at younger idealistic herself.

She also found love letters (okay, not really - emails that were printed out), several loose condoms scattered about her stationery drawer (bonus!), a stickerbook and hideous photos of her ugly fat teenage self (sent her into a small bout of depression the rest of the day). The highlight of the afternoon was a rediscovery of her entire well-preserved collection of Sweet Valley books. This is cringeworthy - Dolly takes a big risk in even admitting that she used to read Sweet Valley Twins and its more grown-up version, Sweet Valley High, least of all own two drawerfuls of the books.

Dolly put aside a few minutes to reread one of them and relived the days when she was 10 and the highest aspiration was to be like the Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield. She couldn't help but scoff at herself and at the sheer crap of what she was (re)reading. On hindsight, Sweet Valley definitely contributed to stunting her intellectual growth between the ages of 10 and 12, and has probably had a damaging knock-on effect thereafter, even when she stopped reading them. (Eventually, Dolly decided to buck up and exchanged underdeveloped chick lit for the more serious pursuit of a literature MA - and even then, just ended up theorising Vogue).

However, as full as crap as it is, Dolly has fond memories of the time and effort spent scouring bookshops to amass this grand collection of candy-coloured volumes. It's something to be proud of in much the same way that sticker collections form an integral part of many girs' childhoods; you can't help but remember the funny sort of seriousness that those silly passions had at the time.

It feels rather a shame to give them away, all 200+ volumes plus limited special editions...

YELLOW: Being contented

2005-04-17T23:16:00.000+08:00

There are many things for a girl to be contented with which don't necessarily cost time, effort or that much money. Today, as Dolly was driving around PJ (not very exciting, she knows, but it is a Sunday after all) she found herself purring cosily as she took in that nice after-rain feeling of comfort in the air and the dusky trail of evening sun bouncing off the bonnet of her car. KL and the Klang Valley is an exceptionally fun place to drive around on a Sunday - roads are wide, traffic is sparse and there's always something interesting to see. Bad road planning makes for terrible spaghetti junctions and roads that go nowhere but it also makes for a great spin for a Sunday afternoon just when you're feeling lethargic.

(You know the traffic and the drivers in a place are getting bad when you get excited about driving on empty Sunday roads).

There was a tacky 70s CD in her car stereo. Singing along to Night Fever and More than a woman makes any drive fun; the BeeGees cures any form of loneliness. And lastly, just before going home, Dolly stopped off to buy yow char guai - fresh, hot and greasy enough to choke an artery. There's often satisfaction enough in eating tasteless fried dough, isn't there?

And so, next time you're feeling that awful shade of navy blue they put on suits, having one of those miserable weekends of self-loathing, take note that there are few pleasures that compare to driving around in empty Sunday traffic, listening to cheesey dance music and eating oily bread sticks.

2005-04-16T19:04:00.000+08:00

Names to fall in love with (in no particular order lest Dolly be accused of biasness)

Damien
Chloe
Andy
Oliver/Olivier
Thea
Seth
Vaughn
Daniel
Sean
Giselle

BLUE: Lonely

2005-04-16T01:44:00.000+08:00

This freelance/research thing sometimes means that Dolly ends up playing while everyone is out working and working when everyone else is sleeping or out playing. Which is why she is sitting here feeling really rather pathetic on a Friday night trying to write an article about libraries (she's such a serious writer!).

There were plans to go out but friends were stuck at work until late, other friends were down with week-long migraines and cousins were held captive in Klang by their laziness. So Dolly has had to resort to listening to Hint and trying very hard to get through that freaky Alice in Wonderland computer game (she's just as bad at it as she remembered being 4 months ago)... in between her hard work, of course.

There are moments when the old geek from yonder puberty days makes a guest appearance. Tonight is one of them.

PINK: Blushes

2005-04-15T01:40:00.000+08:00

Just the other day Thai Boxing Girl (formerly known as X) and Dolly were catching up on rubbish talk and gossip over MSN again and TBG started talking about other KL bloggers who she knew and met up with regularly. She pointed out rather glibly that in fact, Dolly had quite a little following of admirers among these other bloggers. Dolly was all *blush blush* over the other side of MSN and then wondered what they possibly thought of her (same goes too for readers who hate her!).

Which recalled to mind a little discussion over at Rentboy Diaries (do read - he's hot and hilarious), a few days back about how truthful or 'ourselves' we are over our blogs: the masks we use and the embellishments we make to the memories we have or the stories we tell. Does being anonymous let us be more truthful about ourselves and what we do? Or are we more inclined to hide behind a character and spin out yarns of fiction? Perhaps a bit of both?

And what about the readers? Do they get caught up in the mask = truth thing and think it's all literal and real? Or do readers nod their heads sagely in acknowledgement of fiction and take it with a pinch of salt? For starters, there are far too many readers out there who take blogs too literally and get far too excited about it for their own good. Shweet Young Thing for example, is having to fight off a huge moralistic debate going on over at her place, headed by a sad man who's getting far too riled up over the moral implications and well being of her sexual escapades. Oh dear. Dolly herself has had hilarious run-ins with readers who get unduly irritated, almost offended by the vacuous persona of her blog (no really, she is actually this shallow so get over it!)

Bottom line is, nobody can really figure you out through a blog. The only ones that are true-to-life and reflect entirely, honestly about the writer are the truly boring ones that give point-by-point accounts of what they had for dinner and the very long conversation they had with their best friend about their boyfriend while eating at that-place-in-town. The mask thing is more fun, definitely, and gives the reader a chance to imagine you into being, what they'd like you to be - good or bad, true or not. Readers only get snippets of a blogger and his life from the writing so they may as well fill in the blanks with their own fantasies/happy imaginings/frustrations/general bitter views with the world. The conflicting mishmash of perceptions that readers out there have of you would be a funny one to sit down and find out about.

Anyway, what were we talking about? Ah, yes... Dolly's growing host of admiring KL fans. She hasn't yet amassed enough of a following who hate her (for you know you've really made it when people start bashing you) but is working on it - there must be many more intellectuals out there who cannot bear such nonsense! She thought it might be fun to meet these darlings for real, sign a few autographs, kiss a few cheeks, you know... then decided that that would only spoil the illusion. It is much more fun to be admired (or scorned) from afar - leaves more for the imagination which, as this whole post has been about, is always more exciting than real life.

In the meantime, thanks for the flowers and for reading. *Wipes a tear and curtseys*

PINK: Bottom

2005-04-14T15:30:00.000+08:00

Dolly has been trying to figure out the best way of taking flattering photos of her bum and posting them all over her blog.

.......No, not really. Don't get too excited just yet.

From what Dolly has seen on her whistlestop tour through a blogland however, that does seem rather the way forward in upping the traffic on your blog and gaining points in the blogger popularity contest. HAH! She's in a quandry now as to whether she should just keep writing naf rubbish or heavy up the tacky toll of this blog by adding gratuitous shots of body parts in an attempt to be... ohhh..... so artistic.

She's getting so trivial and so adept at wasting good time that she's even starting to make herself sick.

WHITE: Rings

2005-04-13T15:44:00.000+08:00

It's quite distressting: Dolly and the boy have recently had to contend with a barage of questions of the marriage sort. It's the furthest thing from their mind, she can assure you - they like to think there's still plenty of things to be done before settling down. They've only just hit their mid-twenties after all! There's much to be won and lost before saying vows and painting the picket fence.

The other day, ss they were bemoaning the incessant stream of enquiry into their marital status, they got onto the subject of rings. Diamonds are overrated. Dolly cannot bear stupid girls who gush and coo over diamonds and bloody big rocks: it's so dull and, she thinks, reflects how very unoriginal the girl and her notions of love are.

The other day she was talking to a friend about how, if she really, absolutely had to have a ring she would want something that was different. "Yaaaaahlah!" agreed the primmest, most demanding, high maintenance girlfriend any boy could imagine. "Solitaire is so boring lah. At least you want a different cut, you know, like baguette cut or heart-shaped or...."

She went on and on while Dolly chortled into her drink. She didn't even know these sorts of cuts existed. A rock is a rock is a rock, no? She rolled her eyes skyward toward the Petronas Towers and said, "No, no, no, no, no, no! I don't even mean that. No bloody diamonds! Something different like big, pink and plastic or a mad thing from a flea market." Miss Prim tried very hard to conceal her distaste.

Dolly repeated this to the boy and trying hard not to make references to the M word, did point out how, if she absolutely had to do the ring thing (and it was in no way a must to complete her life) a big plastic bauble, dusted with cheap paint is so much more endearing than Tiffany's. It would be much more personal and Dolly-oriented than something every other unoriginal engaged girl would be toting on her fourth finger... even if it did only cost AUD$2.

"Aren't you the luckiest boy in the world that your girl likes something so very cheap and easily available!?" she whooped down the phone.

He agreed and after a pause asked if, in fact, she also liked onion rings. Of course she does! and so they chuckled merrily about the possible new trend of proposals over a bag of onions. (Burger King does the best).

RED: Little devils

2005-04-13T01:40:00.000+08:00

The other day, the boy came up close to Dolly and, bundling her in a hug, stroked her hair and told her how much he loved her. "You're such a good person," he cooed... At which point Dolly felt she couldn't be so deceptive and let someone who loved her so much think she was a darling. She can't seem to lie, she just can't.

So she confessed that, just the other day, she scrubbed someone's toothbrush in the toilet after they had pissed her off.

He was appalled, told her he thought it vindictive and immature and that he didn't want her to ever do something like that again.

Dolly tried nodding in between fits of hysterical laughing and gasps of acknowledgment that it really was spiteful, pointless, immature and mean. She admits it was a nasty thing to do, but it did feel entirely satisfying at the time. And more importantly, she recommends it to you all as an antidote to pacifying your anger of the moment.

WHITE: Birthday cake

2005-04-12T02:28:00.000+08:00

Ho ho! Dolly has only just realised that she'd missed Dolly Mixture's first birthday, which was two weeks ago. Oh my, it's been a whole year! Just for old times' sake she went back and had a read of the first few entries and decided she's come quite a way since then: it was really quite awful when she first started.

Anyway, there's cake in the parlour and plenty of champagne to toast in another brand new year of blogging and mischief. Thanks to everyone who's kept reading and turning her on.

YELLOW: Warm people

2005-04-12T02:12:00.000+08:00

There are people out there to whom everyone flocks to. You know them: people want to sleep with them, be their best friends, hang out with them, have them on their speeddial, be them. Yesterday evening, the boy was telling Dolly about a friend he recently met up with for coffee who he described as "disarming; she really knows how to get to know people" and said he could understand how his best friend had been smitten with her for years.

It got Dolly thinking about what makes someone so charming, so delightful that you want to wrap them up in muslin and take them home; it also made her take a good hard long critical look at how (un)sociable she was or could be. The thing is, she reckons, that the most charming of people take a decided and heartfelt interest in the things that you're saying: they really do (or are adept in feigning that they do) want to know what you think about the recent rise in bankcruptcy or your strange interest in bacteria They have the uncanny ability to resist wrangling your wine glass out of your hand and pouring its contents on you when small talk gets unbearable - in fact, they rather thrive on Small Talking.

Dolly, on the other hand, can't bear it and she hasn't yet developed the art of being sincere and kind. If you're boring her with your talk on conspiracy theories, she can't help but look bored - her eyes start flitting over your shoulder at the more interesting looking boy across the room or she just stops talking, often without even realising she's stopped. Mostly, she finds it easier to fill the time with the thoughts in her own head than engage in conversation she doesn't care about. She tries to justify this by claiming that it's more honest this way, for it is against her high sense of morality to be insincere and pretentious... Whatever... mostly, it's just because mostly she just can't be bothered.

She's also of the opinion that if you don't click with someone in the first 10 minutes, it's unlikely you're going to have fascinating conversations the rest of the evening. Dolly already has fabulous friends wherever she goes, whatever she's doing, and time is too short to waste on trying to figure out someone boring. (Conversely, if she takes a liking to you and finds you fascinating, you won't be able to get her to shut up. She'll want to take you home and talk at you for hours.)

That's not to say that Dolly thinks ill of people who do make that splendid effort of taking an interest in talking to any, and everyone. She admires it thoroughly in fact, but the whole old dogs, new tricks thing... yah, it gets rather in the way and Dolly is content with the well-ingrained habit of being a snob. She likes to think it adds to her charm. And from what she hears through her well-established web of grapevines, it seems to work. People, apparently (cough) think she's very lovable: the boy's family and friends adore her; mothers in their 40s try to matchmake her to their fabulous sons; and strange people enquire about her randomly through her friends.

So there you go, no need for aimless conversation and that tiring effort of being interested. Just shut up and look adorable. Women are to be seen and not heard. *chuckle*

BROWN: A weekend away

2005-04-11T16:32:00.000+08:00

KL has no beautiful place to escape to for the weekends - nothing like the New Yorker's Hamptoms or a Londoner's country house in the New Forest to which one goes to recuperate from the toils of being in the city. KL has Port Dickson, to which one goes to for illicit affairs and beaches littered in oil.

Still, Dolly and 7 friends trooped off there for a night. They found two apartments to rent for the night, something one of them found through an ad in the papers (they should have known better...). The directions for getting there were, "When you get to the Mobile station, count for twenty seconds then turn right." They counted to twenty and missed the bloody junction. After a perilous U-turn, they were back on track. How exciting! they thought. It was secluded and idyllic, but as they trundled down a badly paved road they would soon see a dilapidated block of flats, badly in need of paint. They turned in, roaring hilariously at dinginess of their chosen accommodation. It was a moment where that hint of Paris Hilton that resides in everyone reared to the fore and barked in disdain (The Simple Life, indeed! How fun it is sometimes to be the condescending urban dweller descending upon simple folk).

They had to wait for one of the apartments to be vacated as there were still other tenants there. When they rocked up in a raucous rumble, they saw a couple emerging from the apartment, looking furtive and dodgy. Ah well, Dolly and friends nodded silently to each other, this was definitely a place of hidden affairs, or the dream holiday getaway for those with hideous standards. They would soon discover two delightfully fresh condoms left in an ashtray, a bathroom that resembled the public toilets that were frighfully featured in Dolly's distorted recurrent dreams, a bed that folded someone in half when they laid on it and a swimming pool that contained incredibly chalky water.

It was gross and grotty but made for hysterical laughing for hours - they had made peace with the fact that this was PD and everything there would always be slightly off-the-mark. They would have been disappointed it if wasn't. They made up for it by stuffing junk food down their greedy little mouths all weekend, watching tacky programmes on 8TV and running around trying to expose each other's underwear. There were also ghost stories (which scared everyone), meaningful girly conversations about sex (which made everyone horny) and friendships bonded over tubs of icecream and cheap tasteless cake.

Ah, the simple life...

RED: Sangria

2005-04-08T01:51:00.000+08:00

Dolly went drinking in town today which is something she hasn't done in a long time since she's started turning into an old lady. It was terribly exciting - it was like she'd been brought out from a cupboard and fully dusted off of dustballs.

She was at Qba which was disappointing for the disproportionate number of cute girls and terribly ugly old sleazy men (that's to be expected in most places in KL anyway. The darling hot boys are all hiding themselves). She did, however, spot a most splendid man in a pink shirt who bore a frightening resemblance to darling Honeytom. Unfortunately he seemed rather deep in conversation with another man, who also bore a striking resemblance to Dolly's ex. He seemed rather too good to be too straight. It was a moment of confusion but Dolly felt lustful nonetheless and her heart did a little flutter for the rediscovery of another Honeytom all the way out here in the East.

She thought she might go up to him and say, "Hello, you bear a striking resemblance to one of my best friends - you don't happen to be gay do you? No? Oh splendid! Take me out dancing!" But he seemed inseparable from the other guy, and Dolly didn't quite get up the nerve before he suddenly disappeared.

Anyway, the upside is that Dolly has rediscovered the joy of going out. Having been stuck at home working at strange hours of the night, she's rather forgotten what it means to be a social butterfly. Going out for silly nights and wine spritzers must be added to her list of new year's resolutions: if anyone fancies taking her our for a twirl and a drunken glass of sangria, do send a pretty embossed invitation her way.

BLUE: Yoga mat

2005-04-07T14:28:00.000+08:00

Dolly has started a set of new year's resolutions even if there are three months overdue. She reckons it's never too late to start them, never too late to start being a better person blah blah.

Top of the list is a bid to loosen her hamstrings by doing endless amounts of stretching with her propped up against her desk like a ballerina. The competitive streak inside Dolly hates it when she is not the most flexible girl in her yoga class so she is in a bid to turn herself into a pretzel. It would make for more interesting positions in the bedroom too perhaps, although right now she's making the effort just for the sake of showing off and attaining that airy fancy feeling of feeling light and bendy.

Also, 100 kegels a day. This has been an ongoing promise for months but never quite happens because she can never remember to do them; and when she does, she can't make it past about 20. She is considering putting up large post-its in her car to remind her to kegel kegel kegel! when at a traffic light or stuck in endless KL traffic. Trips to Bukit Bintang would become rewarding for the tight PC muscles she would develop from being stuck in Jalan Imbi.

Wake up before 9. This hasn't worked at all unless Dolly's had meetings to attend. Instead of getting up early to work when she has her mornings free, she dozes obliviously until 11, then rolls out in time for lunch. The rest of the day is spent in panic, acute stress that she has so much work to finish and not enough time. Her own fault really, but try telling that to her at 8 in the morning. Nothing seems so important before 11 as finishing off that last instalment of dreams.

Do a face mask (masque?) once a week so the pores on her face will close permanently and the community of blackheads move to another neighbourhood.

So there we go - a girl must have High Aspirations in life! If you can think of other ways for Dolly to improve her already rather charmed life, do drop a note.

RED: Mary Poppins...

2005-04-06T23:18:00.000+08:00

... is on telly! Julie Andrews, flying tea-parties, magic carpet bags and pink merry-go-round horses. And childhood favourites are always fun to watch for the sarcastic witticisms that you never understood when you were 6.

The most amusing part though - the children's mother, a suffragette fighting for the women's vote in 1910 who sings this about men: "Though we adore men individually, We agree that as a group they're rather stupid!"

Delightful, no? Sharp!

YELLOW: Hokkien-lang

2005-04-06T22:20:00.000+08:00

Nothing in the past six months has got Dolly laughing so hard to herself as this, a blog written entirely in hokkien. It won't make a lot of sense if you don't speak it but if you do, it's worth a tremendous giggle. (Dolly doesn't speak Hokkien well at all and was still chuckling for hours).

Grandmother will be so proud that Dolly's found something hokkien to learn from.

PINK: Desires

2005-04-06T01:04:00.000+08:00

She knows she's said this before, but good god the stirrings are strong today: Sometimes a girl just wants her nipples licked and someone else's fingers down her panties.

BROWN: Good things come in small packages

2005-04-05T23:17:00.000+08:00

As a child, small greedy Dolly would always pick the largest presents out of the lucky draw box and always, somehow, ended up with the crap presentl; she learnt early on that the best things come in the smallest packages. Some of you may have read her previous account of how she adores having a boy the same size as her and she'd like to reiterate the point that she does so love small boys.

Oh stop it! she knows what you're thinking. Small does not mean children, underaged or under-endowed). Also, not that there's anything wrong with tall boys or large boys (and she certainly doesn't mean to offend people who prefer bigger lads.) She's chanced upon many large, tall boys who she's fallen rather desperately in love with before. It's just that right now, Dolly prefers them about the same size as her. This may have to do with the fact that boys in Malaysia seldom make it past the 5'8" mark anyway, so she has had to readjust her fancies.

You see, the trick about small boys is not just to fall in love with every small squirrel that flitters past. The point is to discover what the package contains... Looks can be deceiving, as you well know; a preemptory glance at a small boy may just show you a, well... small looking, nondescript boy. What is fun, is realising that within the smallness is a reasonably hefty package of deliciously toned biceps, a pert bum, well-hung bits and bobs (yes, that can be important) or generally a great solid, chunky body overall.

And so, Dolly presents to you a small sampling of small boys:

- Dolly's boy is the smallest of his three brothers, but definitely the most adorable - all the goodness compressed and compact into a handy little package, almost the same size as Dolly. He's very much like a gummi bear in the way they're small but strong little buggers full of magic.

- Dharmaboy who Dolly has had a most desirous crush on - he is the sort that never quite grew out of that stage of knobbly-knees. He is seemingly small and frail under overwashed Calvin and Hobbes tshirts (yes, she knows, it is very unlike Dolly to like something or someone so very unglamorous). Then one day he rocked up in a sleeveless t-shirt and Dolly's lusty loins did a little jump when she saw that he possesed, in fact, the most splendid arms. The skinny-facade was just a red herring, meant to throw amourous girls like Dolly off the tract of a rather desirable physique.

- Dolly has recently discovered a BodyCombat class at the gym with an instructor the size and power of a cili-padi. He's so small you're afraid you might step on him but like most small boys has the might and energy of a small explosive. As Dolly kicks her ungainly way through a heavy hour of cardio and bad techno music, she imagines what small powerful punchy hyperactive boys like that are like in bed.

That last point actually applies to all small boys. The pursuit of small boys could of course, backfire and you discover that they are in fact just puny lifeless little bastards. Usually, members in this camp of small boy know they're rather lacking and try to make up for it by being extra loud, obnoxious and generally unlikeable. It's your luck really, much like the lucky draw.

BLACK&WHITE: Comments are on!

2005-04-05T13:05:00.000+08:00

It's been quite quiet in Dolly's world of late. She didn't quite like the life of one-sided conversations so she's put back the comments box for everyone to add their two pence worth (and/or throw the proverbial egg at her). So say something!

PINK: Fantasy

2005-04-04T00:34:00.000+08:00

Much truth is discussed over MSN - the in-betweeness and idling that comes with having your chat switched on while at work. It is always easier to air one's chest while typing than speaking - no worrying about what the tone of your voice reveals, or the blushes that might arise (this can always work to a disadvantage when sentences are misintepreted, but you really have no-one to blame but yourself for ill-chosen words).

Anyway, when Dolly was online with X the other day, the talk swung around (as it quite often does) to masturbation, which led to an interesting discussion of what one thought or didn't think of during playtime. X said she didn't think of anything, and just focused on the pleasure. Dolly was all, "What? you mean no stories?" but was intrigued by the thought of a new technique to take on board.

But the story thing: Dolly can't help it. She grew up on stories - bedtime stories, many of them! self-created tales told to an imaginary friend; incredible lies told just for the fun of creating a tale; the embellishment of minor incidents into the most fabulous fabula. Naturally, this carries into sex (you must all have learnt by now that mostly everything finds a way back to sex). Formulating sex scenarious over the limited space of text messages is incredible fun, for example - Dolly adores it, both receiving and sending.

But that's another story. We were talking about masturbation, weren't we? Yes, and a good story is always good for getting the juices flowing. Dolly imagines that the stories in her head function in much the same way that porn does for most others: (imaginary) visual stimulus accompanies physical stimulus to double the joy. Sex-for-real is great for the immediacy and the intimacy of touch of course, but being on your own allows for the creations of alter-stories that you wouldn't mind figuring in as the star, no matter how tacky. You know, pretending in your head that you're 16 again and having sex on the teacher's table, that sort of thing. Silly no? But such fun for the impossibility of it ever happening, seeing as Dolly is now 24.

The advantage of stories-in-your-head is that you're directing everything all the time, so you can jump to all your favourite bits and favourite positions without the hassle of compromising for the other person(s). A chance to be entirely selfish and be rewarded by it too. A vibrator is entirely selfless, bless!

She does wonder about X's method but imagines it would be hard to keep her mind blank. That being-in-the-moment thing seems too Buddhist zen for Dolly's flighty distracted mind. She is much better suited to thinking of something, or someone. And everyone loves a good story, after all. Formulating stories seems a convenient way of killing the two proverbial birds with a hefty big orgasm: you get extra excitement in your head and a chance to exercise your creative skills. Indeed! all the more reason to get out the dildos.

*Pray do tell though, what it is you are all thinking off while off in your own little playland? Dolly is intrigued and wants to hear stories.

BROWN: Simple pleasures

2005-04-03T23:00:00.000+08:00

Often, there is nothing nicer than lying about in bed eating chocolate and talking to the boy on the phone.

YELLOW: Young, youthful and really quite stupid

2005-03-23T23:15:00.000+08:00

Dolly has been horrible hasn't she - lazy and neglectful of her blog. After promises to write much, she deteriorated into a lazy mess all week while she was with her boy. The boy was glued to the computer for 5 straight days anyway, slaving over an MBA assignment so Dolly didn't have access to her beloved writing. (So she carried on the lolling about sofas and eating chocolate and grew very fat very quickly).

On her last day there, she watched a beautiful, simple Chinese movie with the boy about teenagers falling in love. It was nothing particularly special: the main story was a boy who was falling in love with a girl who eventually tells him she's gay. Dolly's boy sighed and said, "I wonder what that would be like? To fall in love with someone and find out they're gay". Dolly chuckled, and remembered the biggest high school crush she had on her best friend, who (oh, can't we guess? Gimme a break) came out to her in the most spectacular way over the phone on New Year's eve. She was crushed, entirely, and not only did she have to "cope" with the devastating news that this boy thought "naked women just sort of, well, looked like trees" and fancied boys instead, but she had to help him stay rather hidden in the closet and keep up the pretense that he was still snugly straight. Now, that's quite a lot for a 16-year-old to bother with, especially at a time when she should have just been experimenting with lipstick and boys bits.

Dolly told her boy all this the other night and it seemed so very silly all of a sudden, as with all teenage angst (Dolly would hate to be a teenager again - it was good for nothing but eating disorders and boarding school). But oh! It was terribly upsetting at the time and felt like the whole world. That thing about teenage years being the best part of your life - it's really about the masochistical pleasure you get out of self-created angst isn't it? Life isn't quite as exciting later when things are more settled! Oh wasn't it fun to be young and naive and stupidly self-absorbed? Well, Dolly would like to think all this makes for good stories now and later and has led to her being as adorable as she is today.

BLACK: Exposed!

2005-03-16T00:35:00.000+08:00

There is something delicious and sultry about walking around only in your underwear. Isn't there? Dolly is unable to do this at home, because of something called Father, and because the unfortunate location of her house allows guests at a nearby hotel to look through their windows and see activity within. A shame really – it puts all the pretty La Senza clobber to waste.

The boy, however, is now living on his own since his flatmates moved out in January so while Dolly is here for the week, she spends as much time as she can wandering about in her underwear. She wants to add here that she doesn’t just do this for the boy, but also for herself and her own ego as she catches flattering glimpses of herself in the bathroom mirror.

Now then, she’s sure that some of you are wandering why even bother with the underwear… why not just be completely naked? Well: a chance, first of all, to flaunt all the new lingerie that she’s been furiously signing for on credit cards. Dolly finds a matching bra and thong set (in satin, in lace, in plain comfy cotton) much more sensuous, sensual and indulgent than being naked. Having softcosyslinkylaced fabric pressed snugly against your most sensitive bits, while the rest of you is naked, is a sensation in itself, you know. In visual terms, the knickers accentuate bits, she thinks, which is more flattering than just letting everything flop about (personally Dolly and her ego prefers seeing herself decorated than “neat”). Also, the thought that you’re sort of wearing something, when really you’re not wearing much at all, can be a bit of a turn on to yourself (and others). After all, you need to have something on for taking it off. And of course, with there being so much more skin exposed, your touch senses are on a much higher alert. Night air, sofa fabric, a boyfriend’s casual hug and the accidental brushes of your own fingertips against thighs are far more titillating when there are more skin receptacles exposed to feel it all.

So, well, Dolly is typing this in a black set, with the feelers all over her skin standing to attention against a slight chill of midnight air. It’s nothing risqué but cut and fitted just right to feel so nearly like a second skin. It’s almost like being naked, and as Dolly glances up from her laptop to catch her own near naked reflection in the balcony window feels rather a wave of frolicking and playtime. Too bad the boy’s asleep already.

RED: Sex on the brain

2005-03-15T13:25:00.001+08:00

Dolly apologises for being so amiss with writing entries. She was badly striken with gastric last week and spent 5 days reeling around the putrid heat and haze of KL with stomach wrenchings and a persistent headache. Most days, when not spent trying to appease her clients over email (computer screens do little for migraines), she spent languishing on a sofa trying to quell the throbbing in her head.

All is back to normal now though. She has also, in her typical irresponsible way, run away from KL for a week to spend with the boy and, a library that has its archives in order (see, Dolly isn’t just all about play. She takes her job very seriously too!) For the moment, she is idling and spending much time being lazy and indolent again. The sudden shock of work over the past two months have tired and bored her so Dolly is out to play again now while she can.

Past three evenings have been spent sprawled on a sofa (legs dangling heavy over the sides, head lolling against makeshift pillows) watching American drivel on TV, the sort that stars Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock, working her way through a large stock of Lindt chocolate. The low-carb diet that she’s been struggling hard to follow over recent weeks has been temporarily stalled. You know what they say about diets and depriving yourself: one day you lose control and gorge your face stupid. And so, in only two days, Dolly has devoured only starch: cereals, fried rice, huge tubes of pasta, eclairs, thick wedges of Turkish bread and chips. Time to shop too though typically, Dolly has arrived here just in time for the Autumn fashions – everything is wooly, brown and ugly which is bad news for the consumer fairy that dwells within her, but probably good news for most other financial reasons. Still, she managed to furrow out a miniskirt with tulle and a pair of pointy pink rubber shoes that smell like strawberry.

Dolly has also caught up on porn, which together with her more relaxed state of mind has led to a significant perking up of an insatiable sex drive and horny impulses. (And thank god, because the flurrying about between writing research, and the impending horizon of Tibetan monasteries had almost turned her chaste and celibate – and that would never do for Dolly Mixture). She anticipates that as she plays housewife again for the next 5 days,– washing dishes, doing the laundry – there shall be many orgasmic thoughts, and plenty of time to chronicle them. Stay tuned and turned on.

YELLOW: Things could always be worse

2005-03-14T15:22:00.000+08:00

Just as she thought things couldn't get worse (bad deadlines, arguments with librarians, gastric and a headache so potent even chocolate and sex couldn't cure it), Dolly got a ray of sunshine from her friend The Queen who told her about his new assignment.

On Tuesday, The Queen is off to a tiny town in Negri Sembilan, to give a workshop about newspapers to 433 9 to 12 year old Brownies from all over Malaysia. He shall have to leave home at 6 in the morning with a colleague who has incurably bad breath, drive down to the middle of nowhere and talk to 400 screaming young girls. And all this for a grand subsistence fee for going outstation - 22 whole ringgit.

See, things could always be worse.

WHITE: Weddings

2005-03-07T15:59:00.000+08:00

Dolly's cousin officially got married in October but the two schmancy dinners and traditional tea-ceremony thing only happened in the last two weeks.

Weddings are amusing for the spotlight they put on the single people. Oh, Poor Single People! At the tea ceremony, at which newly wedded bride and groom, splendid in traditional Chinese garb served tea to their elders, everybody asked Dolly when it would be her turn. She hissed under her breath and changed the subject. Then, when all the elders had had their bit of chai, the bride and groom got on the magic chairs and handed out red packets to their youngers, the unwed.

"It's a blessing," chuckled a friend, on seeing Dolly's cynical smirk. "You know, for the poor unwedded. You'll have to put it under your pillow every night."

A second bout of humiliation and shame, when the single girls were herded up like sheep into the lawn for the bride to throw her bouquet to. Dolly's cries of refusal went largely ignored and she was shepherded to the front of the group. "Quite awful," she thought, grimacing and trying to look everywhere but the flowers. "All the marrieds are looking at me." The bride threw the bouquet and everybody heaved themselves away from it. Dolly's cousin reached out for it at the last possible second - and she only did it because it would have looked bad for the bride if it'd hit the floor completely. The poor thing didn't look very pleased at all that she'd had to catch it and spent many minutes after muttering that the bouquet had in fact, landed in front of Dolly.

After the shenanigans, everyone sat around a table and drank chrysathenum tea from packets. Just as Dolly was thinking that the pressure was off, the groom's grandmother cosied herself into the seat next to Dolly's mother. "So, when's it going to be your turn?" she asked Dolly, wily glint in the eye. 82-year-old grandmothers can look surprisingly alert when they want to be. Dolly shook her head, while mother explained that Dolly had no marriage intentions. "She doesn't want to get married," she said. "She's quite happy to just 'live together.'" (Dolly's mother is understanding and jovial, bless her).

"Not get married?!" huffed the grandmother. "Live together and not get married? There's no such thing!" The poor thing looked horrified; it was something most unheard of. She tutted quite in shock at the notion as Dolly chortled quietly into her packet drink.

And the finale: the grand ballroom wedding in the evening at which the question was again posited several hundred times over by the curious marrieds. Several variations on the question, in fact: "When it is your turn?" "When's is your big day?" "So? When will we see you up there?"

By the end of the day, as Dolly rolled back home - still unmarried, still single - she felt she had to concur with what the boy had uttered a few days back: Married people suck.

BLACK: Granny pants

2005-03-05T22:44:00.000+08:00

A girl is often faced the prospect of having fabulous, mind-blowing, incredibly desirable sex but knows she shouldn't, or can't, or most definintely won't for various reasons. It is essential thus, that one takes the necessary measures not to have sex (sad. Dolly never thought she'd say this).

While it is more often the case that you doll up and look your sexiest best for potential boys-and-sex, in this case it is best to do quite the opposite. Make the effort, rather, to look so frightful even you wouldn't dream of sleeping with you. It keeps you out of trouble that way, and ensures you won't sleep with the wrong, ahem, decision.

Hence, tips for staying chaste:

- take a leaf out of Bridget Jones' diary and wear granny pants - you'll be so undesirable to yourself, and so embarrased as to never even tilt your cheeks up for a kiss.
- leave pubic hairs and bikini lines unruly and untrimmed
- never bother with perfume or anything that will stir anyone else's lusty loins
- be entirely unflattering to yourself: don your baggiest wardrobe, leave stray eyebrow hairs, pick your spots
- appear as asexual and disinterested in sex as you possibly can. Speak only of undesirable things like ghosts and your ingrown toenails
- repeatedly say things that make it obvious you can't have sex right now: mention boyfriends, that abstinence vow you took at church, the fact that you still live at home and the walls are porous, the bad menstrual cramps you're having now.

Oh dear, this is all very sad - What has it come to? Dolly plotting how not to have sex? Tsk! T'is a complicated story but in the meantime, Dolly is being good.

BROWN: Poop

2005-03-02T15:30:00.000+08:00

It must be a universal truth, written down somewhere that one of men's greatest pleasures is taking a dump. (And this refers to men as is men, not men as in mankind). It has never failed to amuse that almost every man that Dolly has known will have, at some point or other, shared the extreme satisfaction of just having had the biggest shit in the world this morning/afternoon/last night.

Dolly's friend came round last night after dinner and proclaimed loudly, "After I saw you for lunch just now, I went home and took the best dump." Few months back, after she had said hello on MSN, he replied with, "I just had the biggest shit. I dunno where it came from, it came out of nowhere but felt so good!" Second to blowjobs, which he also talks about on a continuous basis, shitting really is, believes Dolly, one of his most treasured forms of pleasure.

And so, a slight alteration to the old saying: The way to a man's heart is through his stomach, and then out of it. Should you invite your favourite boy to stay the night after a hearty dinner, ensure your toilets are comfy and there is plenty of good quality loo roll.

2005-03-02T15:15:00.000+08:00

Words to be intelligent (pretentious) with

1) use juxtapose whenever you're comparing two things
2) serendipitous (to mean happy)
3) Dionysian, Medean, Platean (or reference to anything Greek)
4) diaspora (to talk of immigration)
5) facetious (to mean sarcastic)
6) ostentatious (...when all you really want to say is 'ugly')
7) ubiquitous (Dolly read a food review that referred to "the ubiquitous cheesecake" - so utterly ridiculous, she had to quote it here)
8) refer to everything as postmodern
9) discuss the nuances of everything
10) foreign words - (say, "Oh, I can't think of the word right this instant, but the French have an expression for it that goes.....")

RED: Surprises

2005-03-01T01:09:00.000+08:00

Cheap thrill: Realising that a boy with a quiet demeanour who looks thin and ordinary is actually rather too-desirable in the right tshirt, and with arms splendid enough to eat.

WHITE: Closer

2005-02-23T23:55:00.000+08:00

Dolly has spent a most distraught evening last night watching Closer and is now duly distressed. The whole movie - it was awful. So very sad and so full of that hurt, manipulation and loneliness that threatens at the heel of relationships. Dolly doesn't have the stomach for sad movies about people tormenting each other - it makes her imagine things and feel too much. All that rubbish about it being "real life": Yeah yeah, but why indulge in more sad things, shouldn't we be aspiring to higher, more joyful things! It's all gone a bit masochistical, thinks Dolly.

From now on, she stamps a new new year's resolution to watch only silly, feel-good movies like The Incredibles.

It's more fun to laugh.

PINK: Run of luck

2005-02-22T23:34:00.000+08:00

Dolly has a rather good run of luck with boys in recent weeks. Suddenly, as the new year dawns fresh, the beautiful boys of KL are emerging from their rocks and coming out to air! Most happy coincidences of late: usually when Dolly least expects it which just makes it all the more a bonus.

For starters, after 1 1/2 years at Fitness First she finally got herself a hot trainer. The past few have either been daggy looking women or skinny men with moustaches. Most unappealing and hardly the inspiration for working hard. This last Sunday though, as she rocked up to the reception and discovered that ooh! this boy was her trainer, she worked extra hard and is now suffering severe muscle over-strain. The things that are done for cute boys. But it was just the antidote to feeling fat and lazy about the gym.

Today: a meeting at a hip up-and-coming fashion institute, with the college manager who is perhaps epitomises everything most unfashionable. Dolly was disgruntled when her alarm rang, and felt so very asleep and bored with herself she almost ran down a Proton on the way to town. Terrible start, she thought. But as Dolly entered the college reception and enquired after the manager for her meeting, a most Desirable Boy marched off authoritatively to look for him and then sat in on the meeting too. Dolly found him so beautiful and distracting she didn't look at him the entire hour they were all cramped in the tiny meeting room. Now she worries he may think her snooty and difficult.

There are adorable indie boys at the dharma centre too, and because they're such nice people without even trying to be, it makes them all the more appealing. One of them also has a cute car; nothing fancy (Dolly is not duly impressed by OTT flashy bling) but the cutest little Honda City in a delectable shade of blue. Of course though, they usually seem quite occupied with fairly important things like contributing to the centre and generally being of those sickeningly good, selfless people who genuinely do things for the good of others. Usually they just sit there with their malas dressed down in their nonchalant grubby indie tshirts oblivious to their own sex appeal. It makes Dolly's flirting seem really rather self-absorbed and ridiculous. (This is also true of the girls there, all of whom are gorgeous but unaware).

Also, abundant episodes of Jamie Oliver getting his hands dirty on the telly. Wonderful.

Well, all this has made for good distracting gazing but really doesn't add well to Dolly's distracted mind of late and her inability to work properly. Imagine, she shall be called up for negligence and will have to blame it on beautiful men!

2005-02-20T00:21:00.000+08:00

Words to be obnoxious with

1) ghastly
2) Wall Street Journal
3) facetious
4) Charing Cross
5) yah (the way the posh British MPs would say it)
6) gorgeous
7) extraordinary (pronounced ex-TRAW-dinary, and not as the Americans pronounce it)
8) abysmal
9) distraught
10) common (as in "those people are so...")

WHITE: Zen

2005-02-17T20:19:00.000+08:00

Oh dear, it's been awhile hasn't it? You wouldn't believe it but Dolly has actually been busy. No more lie-ins til 2pm and idle lunches: she's now rushed off her pretty bubblegum pumps in a bid to do everything all at once. It was a new year's resolution to 1) wake up early and 2) make the most of the day. She still finds it hard to rise before 9, but is definitely taking steps to make the most of everyday. One of out two. Not bad.

You also wouldn't believe it but her trip to Nepal has changed her utterly. She's got a foot firmly on a dharma path now and almost on her way to being a Tibetan nun! No no. Not really. Don't panic. Dolly shall forever be Dolly, just with purple mala beads and the promise to practice compassion on a daily basis (or at the very least, not to harm as many people with her sharp tongue). She must point out to you though that it is harder than you think. Not being a bitch, not taking part in salaciously delicious vicious gossip, not screaming at the clueless sales assistant, not exploding at a boyfriend over the phone - it's the hardest thing Dolly's ever had to try doing. And that's without having to do things like 100,000 prostrations and 10 million mantras that traditional lamas do in their training.

But the promise at the end of this? Enlightenment! Which apparently feels something like 50, 000 times better than an orgasm. No more pansying about with this worldly-existence malarky. Instead, discos in heaven with deities with fabulous names like Vajrayogini, Manjushri and Vajyapani. Dolly is all for it! Also, the boys at the dharma centre are cute, the girls are beautiful and Dolly has realised that there actually is something nice about being nice.

RED: Gong xi gong xi

2005-02-09T23:55:00.000+08:00

Happy new chickeny year, dear readers. The entire city is on holiday, away to celebrate the long, long, long weekend (Wednesday to Sunday!) which means the roads are freeeeeeeeeee and Dolly is speeding around pretending she's queen of the highways.

She had a thought that most of her friends in yonder parts of the world don't get holidays and CNY passes by quite unnoticed, as it did when she was at university. They probably also don't get lots of money in pretty red packets, or the chance to eat so many oranges they get sick. Shame. Dolly spares a thought for them at work, moneyless and without large masses of orange peel growing in neat piles around their homes.

On the other hand, they don't have to suffer that awkward family reunion dinners where one uncle is consciously avoiding another at the kitchen table, and where you are likely to forget who that relative is that is talking so loudly in your ear. Great embarrassment, especially as they would have just given you money. Also, not having to be subjected to the endless Chinese new year tunes that spin on repeat at supermarkets and malls - there is really nothing pleasing to the ear about shrill cymbals, but Dolly supposes that perhaps it gets on in the mood of some imagined Forbidden City? )Personally, she knows she'd prefer it when piped in music returns to its usual Mix FM radio compilations.)

Oh dear, Dolly's being a right whinger isn't she? On New Year's day too! How inauspicious! A new year's resolution hence, to stop complaining. May your chickeny year be filled with lots of golden eggs, pretty feathery things and happy clucking (and the joy, happiness, peace, harmony, wealth, good health, good marriage prospectcs etc etc that the Chinese love so much in their new year cards). And do please, if only for this year, spare a thought for the poor battery chickens every time you're scoffing a KFC family bucket.

RED: Smiling beautiful people

2005-02-05T14:19:00.000+08:00

Dolly is back from Nepal and had a most fabulous, eye-opening time. The people are beautiful there - gentle and full of peace in their eyes. The Nepalese embody that real sense of that cliche of inner beauty, where people are radiant with their own inner joy and the beauty that develops of wisdom, old age and the simple happy times of their own lives. It is admirable, truly, that in spite of the poverty, and a stark bare life stripped of the habitual comforts we relish, the Nepalese remain stalwart and smiling. Plastic surgery? Botox? Expensive Chanel creams? We should all be taking the lead from the Nepalese: live in the mountains, say prayers into your mala beads and, as one man told Dolly, make being happy "our habit".

WHITE: Cold places

2005-01-26T21:35:00.000+08:00

Dolly is off holidaying in Nepal tomorrow so you shan't hear from her for awhile. But don't be distressed! She will be visiting a few spiritual sites so shall bring back lots of zen and pashminas for her dear readers. In the meantime, stay well within the near reach of trouble and don't forget to floss.

BLACK: The box

2005-01-25T21:24:00.000+08:00

Dolly and colleagues had many laughs today about the way many people they've encountered here seem quite incapable of understanding things beyond very tightly memorised prescribed rules. Not that this is a case of breaking the rules, for there were never really any to begin with. Just a bit of common sense really... and thinking slightly out of the box.

Hang on a minute. What box?

S had rung up a government department asking for directions to their office in Putrajaya. Repeatedly, the lady said it was in "Parcel B" (Parcel is Putrajaya-speak for Block B) and became entirely confused when S asked her which precint (section) it was in. The lady didn't understand. She put S on hold, asked around the office; laughter; and finally something much along the lines of "tak tahu, lah cik" (I don't know, Miss). It seems odd that someone shouldn't know which part of a city they happened to be in. Just as most things are around here, the lady on the phone only knew about the building she was in; once specific locations and directions were raised, she seemed really rather incapable of thinking beyond the parcel. The only headway that S managed to get was that "it was on the way to the mosque." There are many roads leading to the mosque.

It is not just questions that baffle, however, but requests too. Such as: ordering a set meal in MacDonalds but stating that you don't want the drink; the girl (or boy) stuck behind the counters can never understand this. You must have the drink. Or, explaining to restaurant waiters that you don't want mayonnaise in your sandwich; But it's all like that. Only mayonnaise, or Thousand Island. You must have one. Or, telling any salesgirl that you don't really need a copy of that receipt she's writing out so very slowly; Must lah, Miss, we have to write it wan, so you have to take. Sometimes you want people here to be polite - but maybe this odd sense of courteous customer service taken too far to its extremes. The idea is that they want to give you things! you see, and cannot understand why you wouldn't want it.

This isn't just about venturing out of the box, but an inability to even open the damn thing (and no wonder it's so dark in there). It's not always the case of course. And when someone does at least try to understand your request, (taking a bit of initiative, as S calls it) it is a treat for the day. Eventually one day, after much repeated instruction (and reassuring smiles) the girls at Watsons may stop looking so stunned when Dolly says she doesn't need a whole plastic bag for a tube of lipgloss. This is a classic case to prove Dolly's point that things in M'sia do get done, it just takes a little longer. Meanwhile, grin and bear it as the MacDonalds girl packs in that coke you didn't want. Terima Kasih!

WHITE: No win

2005-01-25T18:40:00.000+08:00

Dolly Mixture wasn't anywhere near the Bloggies this year - oh well... Try again next year, or perhaps go straight for the Booker!

Anyway, voting is on now - check out the finalists and vote here.

PS and thanks for those who nominated Dolly!

BLUE: Tragic

2005-01-24T21:01:00.000+08:00

Several terrible things:
Dolly is tired and worn out from the excessive grotty KL heat.
She's convinced her legs are too stumpy to look lovely in any of those short frilly things that's in La Senza's window display.
And instead, she had to go shopping for a thermal vest today, which was so unglamourous she felt nauseous and had convulsions.
Every little Kancil or Kelisa on KL roads is out to get her by swerving unexpectedly into the side of her car and insisting on travelling between two lanes - it is ridiculous for such small cars not to stay in their lanes.
She's been having strange but very desirable erotic dreams - this is all the more desperate and unfulfilled because her terribly desirable boy is far away and there is no-one suitable or near at hand to please her.
And she's so out of inspiration she can't even write a decent blog entry.

Quelle tragedie.

BLACK&WHITE: Creative masturbation

2005-01-23T20:18:00.000+08:00

Now don't think that Dolly just spends all her researching (working) days in bed, at lunches or in La Senza. She also contemplates Very Important Matters. Today's topic of destraction, to keep her occupied between history books, are words. Words are words are words, you think, but to a Dolly who adores prose, and poetry and the general art of talking, words must be held near and dear for the sensations (physical/emotional/spiritual/mental) they evoke. And so, she has decided to formulate weekly lists of particularly impresionnable words, each based on some sort of loose theme. She'll leave it up to your own clever, wily ways to figure out why the words are there, or to add to them. The point is to read them out (or in your head), think on how they sound and hopefully, get really rather aroused (literally or otherwise)! This week,

Words to get naked with

1) denouement
2) liquorice
3) downy
4) bad
5) tulip
6) loll
7) pout
8) boudoir
9) scoundrel
10) petulant

PINK: Luck

2005-01-21T13:25:00.000+08:00

Superstition runs high this time of year - Chinese New Year is less than a month away, and there is always that tiny part in Dolly that loves to play along with the luck and happiness fantasies of all Chinese, all over the world, as the year switches from one animal to the next. It is oft the case that the more practical, logical younger generations turn their noses up at superstitions and traditional old beliefs which can't be explained scientifically. Pish. Dolly thinks this is silly, for why turn away good fortune, no matter how small the probability? (though it doesn't work the other way; Dolly refuses to believe in bad things and believes that an insistence on being joyful does in fact, promise happy endings).

And so, every year, Dolly's mother drives down to a Kwan Yin temple in Klang for prayers - don't ask details, Dolly doesn't know. After the formalities, the nuns pull out their large astrology book and chat to mother about her family's fortune for the new year. Over tea back in the Doll House, mother conveyed the most important part of Dolly's horoscope for this year:

Dolly, apparently, has Peach Blossom Luck (toh fah wan) this year which brings her many suitors and male admirers. Splendid, thinks Dolly. But Mother went on - If Dolly was single she shouldn't commit to any relationships this year (though she didn't say why); and if she was attached (which is she), then she shouldn't get married this year. Splendid, splendid. Either way, she'd be adored, which sits nicely in Dolly's resolution to live joyfully. It shall be a year full of love and beaus, and none of the shackles of marriage to worry about yet. Everything else, (and imagine a darling 70year old Chinese nun saying this) "OK!" - no financial, career, health, family worries.

Dolly, whose year this (and you might figure out her age if you're clever enough) fluffs up her feathers, cocks her head and squarks in celebration.

BROWN (or pink): Nipples II

2005-01-20T22:49:00.000+08:00

Incidentally, Dolly has just chanced across an online quiz titled What nipple do you have? which, upon completion, told her that she has a tasty nipple. This is confirmation if any that she knows what she's talking about when it comes to nipples - and the quiz has confirmed that she entirely deserves having hers licked!

GREY: Hair

2005-01-20T15:36:00.000+08:00

Dolly's hair was starting to resemble a mullet (and we know how awful those look) so she hurried off to see Eric, her fabulous hairdresser, who chopped off her locks and turned her into the most happening hedgehog you'll ever see. And you know what happens when you get one fabulous look done to you - you become addicted and need to go back for more! (like how it is when you get carried away with piercings and tattoos).

Today she went back for ash highlights, only on the long fringey bits in the front. She had hoped more for a Morticia Addams transformation with evil streaks of white, but has turned out looking rather like a Bukit Bintang girl instead. Ash, as fashionable as it purports to be (and it can look spiffy in the right light), can also give the appearance of premature aging. Dolly had thought this a delightful way of thumbing her nose at age; deliberately putting grey into her hair seemed a nice little ironic gesture made in the name of fashion. As it turns out, it does work - if you're of the very small number of people who understand Dolly's upside-down way of thinking; if not, then it'll just look like she's covering white hairs with an erratic dye job. Hmmm she's not sure about this. The abundance of volumising hair-drying and crunchy hair-spray didn't help either. As is always the case when Dolly first steps out of the salon, her hair is of extra-big proportions and completely rebellious in its attempt to look like a datin. She'll have to just wait it out over the next few days as it calms itself down and starts to look more like spikey, fun-loving Dolly than Lillian Too.

This, she warns, is what happens when you place too much trust in your hairdresser because you adore him, his biceps and the cheeky boy at the front desk who flirts decorously with you as you pay.

BROWN (or pink): Nipples

2005-01-19T17:19:00.000+08:00

Nipples are underrated and Dolly thinks it is her duty to pay them the attention they deserve. Nipples! ah! fabulous little things that, apart from serving well as everyone's first biological milk bottle, also makes for great conversation over drinks and jollies up every second of foreplay, sex, and thereafter. The only thing keeping Dolly from getting a boob job is the fact that patients might risk losing sensation in and around their nipples after surgery. Terrible no no: Dolly values the nipple factor highly in the overall sexual experience and thinks that the trade-off between being small-chested and the pleasure gotten out of nipples is a small one she'd be willing to live with. In fact, for a small, though significant percentage of (tres fortunate) girls, nipple stimulation is all that is needed for them to reach the big O - splendid, no? Something for everyone to aspire towards. New year resolutions etc...

Now while most boys go for the kill with their mashing and grinding of girls' breasts, it is actually a common complaint among girls that they're too rough and uncouth with their handling of a dearly beloved bosom. Not to mention its possible contribution to quickening the sagging process (Dolly is not entirely sure about this, but thinks that all prudent girls should take whatever precaution necessary to delay the sagginess. She's guessing that perhaps constant, excessive pressure lends itself to wearing away the collagen in breast tissue, thus sagging.... Or something like it. Well, she's not taking any chances.....

..... and hence proposes that TLC and much due attention should be given more specifically to nipples instead. Not just on them, mind (though they are two of the most highly arousing erogenous zones), but also the area just around them, and all along, around, up and down the breast for this is just as titillating and causes as much desired shuddering as the nipples themselves. Also, please, no excessive chewing. Nibbling in small doses can heighten arousal enough for a back to arch pointedly in pleasure, but applying too much teeth is just plain inconsiderate, and shan't earn the giver many bed points at all.

When it comes to breasts and nipples, (and listen well), less is more. For those boys out there who haven't yet realised this: the over-excited squeezing, pounding, kneading so heartily promoted in porn and in your probably fantasies is, in reality, seldom pleasurable for the poor girls. Rather, it gets tiresome and eventually numbs down to feeling nothing much at all. If indeed you are one of those nice considerate boys who are trying to pleasure her (and not just your own libido), then take a lick of advice from dear Dolly when she tells you that soft sucking, the slight moist pressure of lips and barely-there flicks of the tongue will get your girl (and therefore you) to a little paradise of pleasure far more divine than the rough-n-tough.

*PS: politically (in)correct addendum: Dolly realises that this entry (among many others) could be read as a very heterosexual, boring straight boy-girl thing but it's just easier to write from experience and with a gendered/sexual template that applies to her. Feel free to mangle and change pronouns to suit the particular sex you'd prefer it to refer to. In any case, boys have nipples too - so could just as easily be applied the other way around. Not being a boy herself, she can't write on behalf of boy-nipples or purport to be a spokesperson of man-boobs (erm, pecs) and their sensations, but would be glad to hear what her boy readers all think of/want in the chest area. D x x

BLACK: The rude Malaysian

2005-01-18T15:15:00.000+08:00

Following a national campaign to turn Malaysians into more civil minded, polite people, The Star have done one of their busybody questionnaire-type projects to find out what the general public think are the most undesirable traits of M'sians. Dolly thinks this is terribly droll for this day and age, and as she skimmed the list of 'undesirable traits' to rank them in order of which she thought were worst, she decided that really, they were all just as bad as each other.

And so: inconsiderate driving jumping the queue spitting in public cutting into people's conversation not saying sorry's or thank you's asking people how much they earn in public littering using mobile phones in cinemas taking other people's things without permission taking excessive food from buffet lines boasting about wealth among less fortunate people etc

Apart from the official list of rude habits that the The Star have so nicely compiled for us (thank you), there's also the less obvious (Dolly hasn't yet figured out if these things are rude, or just plain odd):

-people who maintain a running commentary on your weight each time they see you - "Eh, you put on weight issit? You're quite fat now lah."

-the relatives who insist on bringing their entire extended family, maids, second cousins and their partners and their families to wedding dinners, and then get stroppy when they discover they've not all been invited to sit on the main table with the bride and groom.

-people who take themselves on a tour around your house when they visit - stroll upstairs, open bedroom doors, open kitchen cupboards, and in a particularly lucid incident which Dolly shan't ever forget, a lady who on her first visit to Dolly's family home, opened the freezer, stuck her head in to inspect, opened a box inside the freezer, checked its contents and mumbled her comments to herself. She had to decency to put things back where she found it, at least.

Malaysians are not just rude, but also apparently find it difficult to be friendly to anyone (unless of course you're a white-boy matsaleh, in which case everybody bows to you like the colonial governor). Dolly, in her usual bouts of over-enthusiasm, cannot help but to tell you if she likes your shoes/handbag/funny-looking top if she's standing next to you in a lift or the bathroom. In KL though, this doesn't work - the ah-lians turn their upperlips up at you, throw one of their delightfully fake smiles and turn their backs on you. Dolly was paying a compliment, she wasn't about to rob you of your precious Vincci shoes! And because she's a chatterbox, she likes to talk to random people, in clubs, in bars, behind the cashier till - but this isn't usually reciprocated either; most Malaysians get het up and defensive like you're after something. How ridiculous! Dolly is the most unthreatening of people really, for how vicious could a girl in pink tulle and dangly earrings be?

As it turns out, the discourteous, unfriendly behaviour is infectious. After a year of being back in KL, Dolly has begun to realise that it now requires effort to say 'please' and she never holds the door open for anyone anymore. Sometimes, on a particularly good day, she surprises herself and the sad, underfed girl behind the cashier when she smiles and says thank you. And that's how it's become, a real treat for the day when people are polite enough to thank you from their cars as you give them way, or when someone lets you get out of the lift first.

But anyway, the overall rudeness is absurd and distressing for Dolly who usually considers herself to be a very courteous, friendly little miss indeed. She's wondering if she should stop bothering with her Ps and Qs? Or perhaps champion the way forward for happy, smiley, courteous behaviour with her winning smile and gracious personality? Dolly's mother, in an endearing attempt to bring joy to the world has taken it upon herself to stand in front of the grumpiest of people in shopping malls and smile at them. She says it works: they are usually baffled by the show of goodwill and though it takes a second or two, they usually smile back.

So, yes, as readers of this blog, Dolly urges you all to please smile at the stroppy people and be charming to the rather 'uneducated', rather ungracious Malaysians... even if they do slam the door on your face. It's all got to start somewhere, doesn't it? And Dolly Mixture is all for politesse and curtseying.

PINK: Porn

2005-01-18T01:42:00.000+08:00

You know how Dolly spoke earlier about that scene in American Psycho, where Bateman misses a meeting to jerk off? Well, it struck a particular chord you see, because she does think it immeasurably splendid... and also because Dolly herself has begun to take a few pointers from him.

Admit now, do, that the urge does often rise in the middle of a work day to have a few delectably sexy moments on your own. Dolly's previous line of work meant that she was often doing interviews, or stuck in a factory line of computers which afforded little in the way of encouraging erotic fancies or doing anything to satisfy them in the middle of the day. Popping off to the loo for a quick one-or-two-fingers doesn't appeal - Dolly needs the sensual comforts of downy bed, that nice combination between fingers and toys, and the entirety of being naked enough between sheets to ahem fully touch herself.

So this is what features in Dolly's new job schedule: The thing with research and freelance work is that there are no office hours and no office so Dolly spends much of her time working from home....which provides for ample time, space and privacy to watch a bit of porn when the fancy takes her (she's begun to appreciate it in small doses).... which leads eventually to a bit of playtime in bed... which then leads to a nap until dinner time. All in a day's work!

PINK: Harajuku

2005-01-16T18:10:00.000+08:00

There are Harajuku-type bags in 1Utama - hurrah! Pink ones too. Dolly's dearest friend The Queen rang up just to tell her. She has no idea what Harajuku bags would look like but it's all very exciting. It's all gone a be haywired, and Dolly, who is suffering a bit of an identity crises at the moment, has been looking to adopt a new one. She hasn't yet decided what she wants to do, but under the influence of Gwen Stefani in her car stereo, she thinks it would be a riot to be one of those Harajuku girls for a day and wander up and down the streets of Tokyo decked out in hideously exaggerated makeup and outfits. Look here for inspiration and surprises. *Nod* She thinks that the Dolly-persona-outfit thing she's got going would go down very well with the Japanese. All she needs are painted-on freckles, extra rouge for the cheeks, and ribbons in her hair. Super kawaii!

WHITE: My fair lady

2005-01-16T01:13:00.000+08:00

There's that song in My Fair Lady, where Freddy Eysnford-Hill (sp?) walks up and down Eliza Doolittle's street (well, Henry Higgins' street since she was staying there) professing his love for her and singing, "I have often walked, down this street before... "

Dolly has loved the idea of a man in a top hat and tails walking up and down her street singing desperately hopeless love songs to her. A few things get rather in the way though. In this day and age, it would be considered stalking and much as she thinks the idea enchanting,Dolly would, in reality, be quite frightened if a man had nothing better to do than loitedr about outside her gate after dark.

Also, she has a father who can't bear that sort of public nuisance, and is likely to hang a very angry head out of bedroom window and tell him quite directly to "oi! shut the fuck up, you farking idiot."

It would spoil the illusion of romance entirely, and scare the beau off from wooing Dolly. Let's stick with an SMS then. That'll do.

RED: American Psycho

2005-01-14T18:16:00.000+08:00

As Dolly sat in another very serious meeting today, a remnant from American Psycho (the book, of course, for Dolly is of the elitist opinion that books are forever better than their movie adaptations) crossed her mind. She hurried home and tried to find the quote but couldn't, because skimming Psycho is akin to falling down a deep well - you can't get out again. Anyway, it went something along the lines of the main character, Bateman, telling us that he missed a morning meeting because he his favourite talkshow was featuring teenage lesbians and he had to stay home to jerk off twice. Wonderful. It was apt, for though Dolly had the good fortune of sitting in a meeting room with one of the most beautiful Mediterranean-like views, she couldn't help but sit there thinking of sex the whole hour.

But Dolly digresses. She wanted to talk about Patrick Bateman. In a fit of academic nostalgia and with the inspiration of this morning's mental wanderings, she decided to reread a paper she'd written about Ellis back in the old days of student intellectualism. It was splendid, she thought (again), and gave herself many pats on the back for writing so lucidly at the time. (In actual fact, Dolly had run out of ideas, was bored of a term's worth of Narrative Theory led by a very boring man with a sleepy voice, and was determined to get a distinction for a paper which would feature the words "cunt", "asshole" and "Listerine". If you'd like to read her modest attempt to analyse Bret Easton Ellis, Dolly would be glad to send you a copy of the paper HAH).

You see, Dolly thinks you should all drop everything and spend an afternoon curled up with Ellis and his very disturbed novels. He seems not-right, and highly sick, but American Psycho is fascinating for its reflections on the violence that a very superficial, empty postmodern live can inflict upon us. Her boy raved about its hilarity for months and it's been the only book he's read in two years. A ll the boys she knew at university read it just for the kicks of reading huge-chapters-without-paragraphs about long rambling sex scenes. Dolly scoffed in her pretentious intellectual way. No no, they'd got it all wrong. Ellis was saying something smart, dontcha see, with his clever-clever narrative tricks and visions of an impersonal society that got so out of hand, it made people quite literally kill each other.

(A short summary if you haven't read or seen it: there's no real story; instead, the book chronicles the exaggerated behaviour of young top personalities in Wall Street in the 80s. It gets increasingly horrifying for its violent sex and murder scenes and resulted in the book deal being withdrawn from his publishers, and banned in several countries. When Dolly tried to buy it in Singapore a few years back it was banned which is highly funny and ironical, for anyone needs to be alerted of the grossness of impersonal societies, its the Singaporeans!)

There's everything in it that would result from people going crazy and losing all sense of plot and identity. Bateman tries to cook a girl (and starts to cry because he doesn't know how to cook); he maces girls and hacks off their heads; he covers a toilet cake in chocolate and feeds it to his fiance; and he masturbates endlessly. Everything becomes confused and before the first 50 pages nothing makes sense anymore. But it is the maddest book you shall ever read, will forever make you think twice about buying branded clothes and value that wonderful sense of personal identity. Go on, read it, be entirely disgusted, frightened and horrified and totally inspired. And on that note, have a lovely weekend - don't follow any strangers home. D x x x

BLUE&BLUE: Like father... like boy?

2005-01-13T21:29:00.000+08:00

Dolly worries sometimes that perhaps she is dating her father, as the likeness between boy and daddy is becoming increasingly apparent. A bit too Freudian for her liking perhaps, she thinks, furrowing her eyebrows in slight distress and getting a bit scared.

It is a hard thing to explain and is more an odd feeling of a sort of deja-vu, the sudden shocks when the boy responds or reacts to her in almost exactly the same way her father would. Often they both talk to or tell her off in the same way, with the same tone so she can't quite figure out whether she's being chided by father or boyfriend.

More disturbing though, was when her father declared the other day that he is going to grow his hair out and maintain it like the boy's. A few days later, as he was decked out in his favourite ludicrously golden-coloured elastic pants he'd bought from Thailand (you know the sort) he insisted the boy take a pair for himself and try them on. Not wishing to offend, the boy trotted off to put them on, then reappeared and sat in the den, like a small version of father. Dolly, sitting in between the two, looked from left to right and flabbergasted silently in her head.