BYE BYE SUNDAY.

The rain has stopped. A glimpse of sunshine appeared this noon letting people know it was Sunday. The last day of weekend has always been the most beautiful day for me. It's the day I'll wake up to without panicking and checking my phone for the time. Sunday's beauty remains unchanged in my heart due to the fact that's it's my one day off, the only time when I get a chance to sit calmly at a cafe for a croissant and cappuccino, or stay lazy in bed until lunch.

But today, I enjoyed Sunday differently. I woke up at 7.30 with no proper breakfast in the same outfit I was wearing yesterday. You know where I've been. The walk of shame strutting for a few meters until I got in a cab. Before that, couples of eyes couldn't stop staring at me. Was it the black outfit from head to toe of mine with their unavoidable volumn? Or was it because those people'd been through what I've been through to know the face of a guilty early riser? Beats me. All I knew for certain was that everyone wanted their decent breakfast warm and their usual coffee served right whether or not my outfit mattered. As for me, I couldn't wait to go home and make up to the loss of my beauty sleep.

The process tunred out to scatter until afternoon, which reminded me of the weird dream I had while struggling to fall asleep last night: Audrey Hepburn was on top of me with a knife sparkling in the dark, she stabbed me once, I grabbed her blade with the palm of my hand, she stabbed me twice, I opened my mouth and locked it shut. However painful the dream was, it left me with a strange feeling of victory as if I had conquered evil.

It has been a while since I last remember having a violent dream. It would be rarer to spend the whole Sunday talking about it. Maybe the rain of a typical March in this city is not the main reason for a character swing. The call of summer with its boldness must be. It's pushing the inner gloom of our personality to the edge once and for all so as for us to wake up in a new skin. Andrey Hepburn must have heard the calling and was there to help me shred last night.

If only I could wear the new skin quickly enough.

Before saying goodbye to the last minute of Sunday, like an uncharming, farmiliar, ironic joke of life, I don't know if I'm longing for the new me or missing my old self. In fact, I may have ruined a good beginning of a writing with a doubtful development of it, which convinces me it's time to go to sleep.

Sophie Calle 1981, The Hotel.

THE WOODEN NECKLACE.

Hot chocolate. 

Let me acknowledge to type again. These few weeks have been rough and exciting in an oddly unpredictable way. I've been hyped, blind, and weirdly enough, calm after a long while of disappointment and discontent. When it hits the deepest it could get, something rises up in return. 

I cleaned my room today. God knows what the heck I'd been stocking. Everything was dirty, messy, some covered in stains, some stunk, some even stroke me with surprise for their unbelievable uselessness. However, some reminded me of home, the one I had ten years ago. In that exact corner of the room, with that exact jewelry, I was looking at myself in the mirror, wearing a cheap wooden necklace, and thinking: "Nope. Never again." It went straight to my childhood box for years and years, so one day, one random day, to be discovered again. That day was today. Sunday, 11th July, 2016. I stared at the wooden necklace for minutes, held it tight in silence, and put it in the throw-away box. In the process of cleaning, certain things are meant to remind us of ourselves and be placed proudly on top of the shelves, some, however, should be remembered in our heart not as an object but a dearly memory. Therefore, its past belongs to the trash. Its presence stays. Its future remains unclear. 

I threw away a lot of 'wooden necklaces' today. I also kept plenty. New 'wooden necklaces' will soon fill this room. A piano, a white table for pattern cutting, a sewing machine, perhaps soon, a mannequin.

A picture book of artist Bui Xuan Phai was found next to my old bookshelf. Such a beautiful product of technology and dreams. Written in English and French, full of paintings and sketches. I wasn't surfing the book. I was detaching it. Chunks of paper were glued by moss and dirt. The end of it had an ancient corpse of a young brownish spider. As if the grief of ruined beauty couldn't get any sadder, a Japanese notebook came up in the same condition. Goodbye friends. I will find you in another copy and we'll soon meet again. 

Tomorrow will be busy. I'm up for it with all my heart. Today has been a ride of sweat and smiles. I rewarded myself with a bowl of ramen, Earl Grey, and hot chocolate at Tadioto. You know I'm happy. Now is the time for a good sleep and a definitive enter. I'll hit Publish and on this side of the globe, we'll go to bed, while on the other side, people will close this post and go on with their lives. Some of them will clean their room today and find their own 'wooden necklaces'. Such random happiness, don't you think?

Earl Grey.

Miso, the saltiest option.

Reminds me of an African cult.

Is it some kind of mother goddess worshipping? 

An illustration in the Mekong Review.

I found it under this. Will try the yellow bottle next time.

They put a branch of leaves up there. Lime leaves?

MOVIE LIST FOR MOVIE DAY.

What happened on my movie day? 

Last Sunday was my personal treat with a movie list of four. I began the morning at 12, having the ideal breakfast, scrambled egg with a glass of iced water, and dipped myself into Coco & Igor. I wouldn't say it was among the best movies I've watched. It's even somewhere near the bottom. But the movie did stir my sense of fashion and interest in Coco Chanel, which had never happened to me before. My issue with Coco & Igor is that the movie was flat. The music wasn't memorable. The costumes were predictable. What it did was giving me an impression of Coco, which is a combination of independence and decisiveness I've had the occasion to know, something cold on the outside and stormy, full of passion on the inside.

I'm about to become the same.

And stay late at the studio the same.

Isn't this romantic? Btw, Igor was led by Hannibal.

I then washed my brain with What We Do in The Shadows. I'd watched this movie before and every time was hilarious. It's witty, carefree and silly. The costumes were beautiful and the actors were charming. You'll find it quirky at first, then normal as human after ten minutes. In my point of view, those vampires were even better than the human I know. I have not much to say about this movie. It's too good every one should watch.

Like I said, they were quirky and normal af.

I like this guy the most. He was so nice and fun.

Look at that. Come on.

Vampires with class.

At 6:30, I made myself some tea and fries for Frank. It's about a young man desiring to find his core in writing music but ended up re-defining someone else's. An eccentric band, in particular. A group of weird people led by Frank, who always wore a big costume head even when he ate and took a shower. The young man's name was Jon. Jon played keyboard and quit his job to stay with the band for a year to write an album. They were so closed to be famous, so closed that it almost ruined everything. But Jon fixed it in the end. I'll spoil you with the fact that Frank will remove the big head and you'll get to see his quite handsome face, you won't find this detail the best in this movie though. There's no bar to tell whether Frank is good or bad, just eccentric enough to watch.

You know they made such a movie just by looking at them.

That head haunted me.

That mouth. No, you won't be able to delete it.

I still don't get Frank's vibe in music.

10:30 and I switched to Only Lovers Left Alive. My kind of movie, everyone. This movie is about an artistic, sophisticated vampire couple led by Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston. The woman, Eve, lived in Tangier, Morocco and the man, Adam, lived in Detroit, America. Eve reunited with her depressed musician husband just so as to leave Detroit without any plans due to a bloody incident and get back to Tangier. Here, Eve and Adam went thirsty. After giving up Adam's source of type-O-negative blood in America and learning that Eve's source had run out for getting polluted, they were closed to give up on a pavement of a street. What happened next was between romantic and not so romantic. Wasn't bloody at all. I like Only Lovers Left Alive for its cast, costumes, locations and script. So you can start with this one first before the rest.

Now that's what I'm talking about. 

Everything was beautifully and meticulously thought of.

Romantic enough for me.

The cast, my dear, the cast.

I can do this all day. Look at her coat. Look at the color.

I'm Eve in Only Lovers Left Alive. I'm still more like Wednesday in Adams Family, of course.

Here's my rank of last Sunday:

1. Only Lovers Left Alive.

2. What We Do in The Shadows.

3. Frank.

4. Coco & Igor.

Now, I'll let my dry eyes rest and dream of Tangier. If you want to listen to some good music after chilling with those four above, I can give you Bethena: A Concert Waltz from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Joplin wrote this after his wife died. I'll quote some of my favorite lines from the movie for you: 

Some people were born to sit by a river. Some get struck by lightning. Some have an ear for music. Some are artists. Some swim. Some know buttons. Some know Shakespeare. Some are mothers. And some people, dance.