Happily ever after.

It was hot.
As it had been for months.
Ramadan was almost at its end. It had been a beautiful Thursday.
We got into the car as fast as we could; all of us feeling a mix of exitement and angst.
All three of us knew that at any given moment now, our lives would change.

He drove the car off the mountain road as fast as he could, still in my head, it was in slow-motion; everything looked different to me this time.
The road, the views, especially the clear blue sky: I knew after tonight Damascus would be a different home to me, and one of the stars that I was mesmerized by would be falling from heaven right into my arms.

I was surrounded by love and compassion; yet, in my head I was alone.
This was something I had to do by myself, with a little help from God though, I knew everything would be fine.

Eight hours from the beginning, we were no longer three, and our titles had changed.
We went from mother, husband and wife to becoming grandma, father and mother.

Talia Emina.
So small you were. A little bundle of sweet.
A miniature vision of the love that your mother and father have for eachother.
A big heart of hope in a tiny body, expecting to be sheltered by her parents.
A face filled with fear for the unexpected; an expression which faded with the touching of our skins.

Named Fate, with a reference to a dearly loved grandmother, whom you would tragically enough, never meet.

Today, it has been 3 years since you were born into our life, on that peaceful Friday morning in 2008.
It's as if I'm of equal age, as I can't remember clearly, how days were before you came.
You are the sun, revolving around my world.
Cliche as it may seem, there's no other purpose with a larger significance since you arrived.

The only wish I have for the future, is for you to grow up to become a beautiful person harbouring those features that you had the day you were born, and for me to live long enough to enjoy them.

That would be the true meaning of living happily ever after.
Happy birthday to you, my beautiful fairytale of a princess.

I love you,
X

Does insane come from the Arabic word for human; Insan?

'Could it be that in ancient times, wise Arab teachers knew that all insanity is within human kind?'


It's funny how we all know that hating a person eats and needs more energy than loving one does. With that knowledge in the back of your head, it's evident that people in general must be a pretty energetic species, if you think of the shape our world is in now.
From east to west, we are killing eachother for the sole purpose of having more, being more and foremost: staying more, than those opposing us.
We have forgotten te meaning of the word sharing a long time ago. The only thing we share nowadays are our the pictures and statuses through various social media.
We, the people of modern day, have taken the word ignorant to a whole 'nother level.

While we are trying to figure out which meal we should order at McDonalds, every second a little baby starves to death in the Horn of Africa. While we women 'kill' eachother to ensure we bring back enough fabric from the sale, somewhere in the world a woman is persecuted for not wearing enough fabric on her body. We kill our own, our neighbours of decades, to conquer back land we perceive to be ours, instead of continuing in sharing and living together.
We claim to understand and accept eachothers differences, but only until those differences become annoying to us or when other people convince us that they are a threat to our way of life.
And we are very easily persuaded into thinking that we are not the ones to blame.

In trying to better ourselves, we establish co-operations to ensure that all peoples are safe under their laws.
We call it 'uniting the nations' but in fact its influence stops right at the point we need it the most.
We keep track of those who do not abide by these international rules, forgetting to include the enforcer into the equasion.

The point is, when all's lost, we are ready to invest our last energy into hating; even if it means we are hating what we once knew to be a friend.

We can hate because we don´t want a man to love a man; we can hate because our white is not found in black; We can hate because our tribe has different colours than yours.
Hating is what we seem to do best.

We have an alternative energy going through our vains.
If it would be possible to turn that energy into electricity; we could light the world forever.
Can we not light the world, forever.
We could you know.

The right to choose: choose right.

What do you do?
I’m so jealous of people that know from scratch what their calling is.
Would be lovely to like one thing over the other, and be good at one thing in particular.
And be the best at that, while you're at it.
I’ve gone from wanting to become a professional goalkeeper, tennisplayer and judge, to REALLY wanting to become a singer/songwriter who played the piano and violin, fashion designer, shoe designer and writer/journalist.
Do you see the pattern? Unless you are a schizophrenic, I doubt you will: for the simple fact that there is none.

What about me?
I’ve done ok for myself, I don’t know whether it’s a 30ties thing or something (obviously I mean thirty as in AGE, not the decade: I'm not thàt old), but I feel quite overwhelmed with daily life for some time now.

I love a lot of stuff. Even making this blog I couldn't decide if it would become a blog with stories only, or also a site that carried stuff about fashion.
As you can read, I tend to use the word 'stuff'  a lot, because it compiles all the different topics that interest me, and again I avoid having to name one thing in particular, chicken as I am.

But I am almost ready to panic now.
There comes a time in your life when you really need to choose your path; you can't just do everything! Unless you want to do everything less than perfect. Which also doesn’t agree with me. What do you mean there’s no such this as perfect? Maybe not in the flesh; but surely should be an option in writing?

Sabotage
I seem to make my choices in the same way that I do my shopping: If you don’t know which way to go: go all the way in every way!
But unless you have super powers that allow you to be every place, any time and wear every style in all sizes, you’re bound to be screwed big time.
Somewhere along the line you have to move a certain way.
Isn’t there a way that you can change the signs on those crossroads?
Or would you be sabotaging yourself?

One way of sabotaging yourself is by making your choices thinking and looking at what other people around you do or think.

You should really celebrate your individuality though. At least, that's what I preach, but reality tells a different story.

The people that are strong enough to look past what society thinks is acceptable or 'normal' are usually the ones that are very succesful in the thing they choose to do. Or are absolute lunatics, which is also a sure possibility.

Someone once told me to do my best to think outside of the box: there's way more space you can dive into.

Which is obviously a very good point: Why would you settle down for a dull small box when you can dance around like a mad, but happy crazy person, in a large garden called 'Life'?

Just what the doctor ordered

There I was, in the midst of all these fans who were screaming and waving to the large stage. The energy was unbelievable. The loud bass was pumping into my heart…it was just what the doctor ordered.

I entered the stage and the applause was so loud I could hardly hear myself speak.

The place was packed. Crazy litt'le fuckers, they did it again. I was flabbergasted by their sight.

Did anyone have eye for the dancers? They might have catched a glimpse, but it I felt like ten thousand eyes were piercing right through my body.

I instantly got a massive attack of goosebumps  (or chicken skin, as one of my Dutch girlfriends always called it) when the crowd sang along with me on one of my fave songs. It only takes a minute to be overwhelmed by the sound of that, I can assure you.

I couldn’t believe that after 20 years they still remembered every word, but they did; could it be magic?

Eventhough I felt unbelievably sick, I had to hold on: I had no choice but to sing out loud, run on stage, do a little impersonation of Beyonce shaking her bootylicious arse. A million love songs couldnt match this feeling.

There was no way I could let this totally wild pack of fans down by taking it easy!

They knew me; they totally knew my style. I had to be me, I had to show them how deep my love was.

There was no other choice.

After a few songs, the boys came to help me out, and I could read from their faces that they were equally grateful for this kind of attention.

The electrifying energy was palpable.

We proved our love through song, and it returned back to us: Our voices were echoed by a few thousand frantic fans.

I felt very small, humbled. And a big fat lucky bastard.

We reminisced about the old times together; but didnt refrain from our latest either.

We gave our all, and so did they.

Thanks for letting me entertain you.

Cheers, Robbie

Friday, I´m in love.....

There are shitty days, and then there are days that just make you wonder why on earth you are ever negative. Yesterday, was one of those days for me.

Part I
I had to drive about a million miles to get to my first appointment of the day; with the managing editor of Talkies Magazine. Knowing myself; I brought my dress with me in the car, to avoid looking like´wrinkle wrinkle little star´ on arrival. I got to their office half an hour early, as I had calculated, and parked my car nearby for the finishing touches. I felt kinda like a cop getting ready for an undercover job, with the big difference that I was trying to change into myself instead of into another person.

I don´t know about you ladies, but I´m not one to manage driving with my platforms on, so the first thing I had to change was from my flats into my hot colour-block showstopper-pumps; after doing that I put some lacquer on my nails; left my new OPI-colour to dry for a few minutes and off I re-started and maneuvered the car to the automated barriers.

Ofcourse I stopped the car way too far to push the button for entering (which also always happens to me when I have to slide-in the card leaving a garage), but with an unbelievable arm-extension only a Harlem Globe Trotter could imitate, I managed to push it and up went the bar and in went my car.

Inside
As I told the receptionist my name, she looked at me with a I-feel-sorry-for-you-look that said as much as ´OMG, you´re actually called like thát?´ and then smiled at me when she said ´I´ll just tell them their guest has arrived´. Meaning that she felt bad for me that I had to pronounce and probably spell my name a minimum of 6 times a day, but obviously she wasn´t going to.

After a few minutes the editor came to get me: a tall, slim, beautiful girl with long hair in a colour you know is natural, and you will never get, no matter what dye you, or your hairdresser uses. She was dressed in black shorts and a white t-shirt; very simple but still carrying a certain kind of model-like sophistication; totally natural, which left me, and my grey empire-waisted satin-linnen blend dress, looking like an overdressed vampy-woman on her way to play bridge with her gin-tonic drinking permanently drunk-ass housewives-club, known for wearing nothing but really bad Roberto Cavalli leopard print outfits and loud Kenzo shawls knotted around their necks.
Apart from me feeling like an old tart, we had a supernice meeting and I´m positive you´ll hear more about the outcome very soon!

Part II
After this fruitful meeting I had to hurry my fabulous overdressed ass back to the city for a last-minute search of the perfect it-dress for the SuperTrash party at Club AIR.
I couldnt believe my eyes when I found the magical black laced baby doll dress by French Connection almost immediately: this was another sign that tonight was going to rock for sure!
I was all set to dance the night away; I changed and refreshed myself at my sister´s, and off my hubby and I went to get some AIR.

We entered the club and ofcourse I had to be frisked by the lady-bouncer.
She touched the fabric in between my bosom as it looked evidently tightly encaged, and asked what exactly it was she felt; she actually asked me what I had stashed there. Before I knew it I was telling her upfront that there was no space whatsoever left to insert anything other than my breasts. ´Trust me girl´, I heard myself saying, `there is no spare space left up in there`. She laughed out loud, which I was happy to see, as female bouncers still scare the shit out of me.

Ms SuperTrash
Inside, Ms SuperTrash was almost immediately in sight. Wearing a white mini dress with open back that showed off her perfect figure, her hair hanging from her shoulders in sultry long curly waves and her  bedroom-eyes combined with her signature perfect smile; she was a sure sight for sore eyes, as always.
I adored her.
I went up to her, and after the initial relief that she recognized me ( I secretly thanked God 34 times  eventhough I knew she knew me I wasnt sure if she would remember that she knew she knew me, am I making any sense?!) and before I knew it I was inside the VIP-area sipping drinks with LaGulsen and I cought myself silently singing ´Fuck You´ to every envious bitch that didnt believe I had met, sat, talked and laughed with Olcay before. We talked and her magic touched me once again.

As I looked around the room onto several female faces full of fury; I suddenly realised that my happy day had become another woman´s shitty day.....I was more than pleased to lift my white SuperTrash Gloved hand to raise a glass to that, and so I did....

Weight on, weight off (The Krash diet Kid)

Panic

I can’t help but wonder when the struggle will be over.

When will I reach my perfect weight? Is there such a thing?

I’m like the next diet-guru by now; in the sense that I know just about every diet there is to know; not that I actually get them to work.

Dieting is exhausting.

Every time I think ‘I’m pretty happy with myself, I look fine, actually better than fine; I look kinda’ very good’  some woman appears like *PING!* looking way better than I do.

Competing is bullshit I know, but immediately you feel you have to better yourself.

So I toss out my Micky D’s and eat a tasteless salad instead.

My panic usually starts about two weeks before an event of some kind; I imagine myself parading on a virtual catwalk and heads turning my way as if some royalty goddess just appeared.

I guess you could call my kind of dieting ‘Event-Dieting’ or something like that; seeing as I only apply the method when there is an obvious reason for losing the weight.

I’m pretty much content with myself in daily life and am totally into the 'celebrate your flaws' thing, but whenever there's an upcoming party of some kind, all signs of a confident Canan leave the building faster than you can say Elvis.

With the range of diets available, almost none of them seem very exiting or successful to me.

Snacking allowed

I just can’t manage to do those diets where you get to eat small snacks.

You have to buy those wanna-be chocolate bars in cartons which contain at least 12 of the little f#ckers.

Who’s going to keep me from eating the lot?

They should come with a supermodel that whispers to you in a deep, low  and sexy voice “Stop, you will never look like me if you eat more than one today”.

And then there is the diet that makes you weigh everything you stuff into your face.

Come on, if you were that keen on weighing stuff; you would have weighed yourself timely and made sure you didn't get your fat arse in the first place!

The people that tell me that the key to slimming, and keeping that figure, is eating regularly should know better than to tell me what I know best.

If I didn't do the eating-thing regularly, how on earth would I have gained!?

What about those calorie, carbs -and whatever other excuse for a word that I don’t understand- counting diets?

If I were thàt good at mathematics; I would be ugly and wouldn't care about what I looked or weighed.

How did your math teacher look? Mine didn’t really look like she even owned a mirror let alone as if she had ever glanced into it!

The Gospel of Exercise

Don’t forget ‘The Chosen Ones’ that try to preach The Gospel of Exercise.

Please stay clear of them; they are the worst kind in Slimming Land!

Those training twats try to infect you with their obsession for movement.

Sorry, the only movement my body carries, is my watch on my left hand wrist.

They claim long-term success. Say what?

I want to look good and tone down now, yesterday, not in the future!

 Did you not hear me say I was going places?

In my case I suppose the best solution is to zip-up into some control wear.

If you can’t zip up your appetite, it’s the best way to go; you can eat, and eventually even get to breathe.

All’s well that ends well, ey?

Paris Hilton for V Magazine

Beautiful Bride Beyoncé

Is there anyone in the world that doesn't love Beyonce?
If you don't because you're an envious b*tch then don't look at these pictures, taken from her latest videoclip; you will want to commit suicide, since the woman is all gorgeous up-in-here.

Pictures courtesy of Sony

August Vogue UK cover: Kate Moss

Patterns en Vogue: Thank you Missoni!

Steven Meisel for Jimmy Choo

 Tamara Mellon & Steven Meisel= guaranteed success. See the pictures of the latest Jimmy Choo ad campaign and see if you agree with me!

Valentino Couture winter 2011/2012

I love lady like Valentino. Looking so rich and fabulous...well you need to be somewhat rich to afford this..