Blank Doll asks nicely.

To draw a sword on your opponent is as much an act of love as it is an act of death. So reminiscent of the act of love, the clash of swords, yet so frustrated also. How intense the emotion stirred, how the passion brims. Compared to a sword duel, the modern day fracas involving the revolver is limpid. The one is rapine in motion, the other is bland ejaculation.

Oh, and I love aviators. I can't wait for Tom Ford to arrive in Singapore. I don't see how we can have Van Cleef and Arpels and not have Tom Ford.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll talks.

Darling, I win.

Well, maybe not yet.

My first two days as a clerk have been pretty fine. Met a very hilarious person called Leon and as luck would have it, Kai Ming! Oh and there's this guy called Taufik who reminds me of Shafiq. Especially when he said how sia.

I like the fact that I'm using my brains now even though I do sort of regret the inability to work out now. Since it's not in my job scope, the military no longer sees the need to provide me with time to exercise.

Mummy's gone to Hawaii and the house is mine. It's almost ritual by now, how she always goes abroad and leaves the house in my care.

I have so many things to do!

C'est tout.

Blank Doll

Dim sum at the only good restaurant in the Raffles Town Club on Thursday where we not only ordered quite a bit of dim sum but mummy and I decided to order a Peking duck as well. Suffice to say, we managed to finish it and I didn't have to eat dinner at all.

But of course I did. Bbq at Downtown East (surprise!) with my platoon mates. I was late but didn't miss much since everyone was either mashing the xbox or playing cards. Things got better when the rain stopped and we could start the barbeque.

PS is rather good at barbequing chicken wings while Amas disappointingly did not show us his famed roasting skills. We ate a bit, drank a bit and sir paid us a visit later into the night. Leonard brought out his port wine which was delightfully sweet, Marcus made a nice fizzy screwdriver from vodka and FnN.

Talked with Marcus and Zu Wei at Macs until 3 am. Played DoA until 5 am. Lots of burnt chicken and otah in between. Ming Hao, Cedric and a whole bunch went off to lan till 6 plus.

Walked back with Cedric, Inderpal and Zu Wei. The ride home was spent sleeping.

Gala dinner with mummy. I'm so proud of her!

Mummy won Top Cases in the year 2006 in Manulife Singapore. Yay!

C'est tout.

Blank Doll barfs.

Dinner at wild rocket yesterday was quite nice. It wasn't awe-inspiring but it was good. Sarah, XJ and Candice for company because Kris has migrated to Chiangmai, Dee is too busy, Clare is dead, Geri is always sick and poor Val knocked her head on the glass door.

Candice ordered the baked cod, Sarah the salmon, XJ the soft shell crab and I ordered the duck leg confit. The cod was sufficiently fresh and herbed, the salmon gamey enough and the soft shell crab was adequate. I really liked my duck leg though the side dish of yam cake was weird and didn't go too well with it. All in all, the fushion streak was tolerable and the ambience was generally nice.

Desserts were a mix though. The Affagato was uninspiring, the brandied brownie not much good. I liked the tiramisu though I've tasted better and the molten chocolate cake was safe.

Drinks afterwards at Mezzbar. The singer was so-so and the drinks were so cute! Sarah ordered this miniscule chocolate liquor thingie which was like tiny next to my frozen strawberry dacquiri.

It's amazing how you miss people you don't usually talk to and how much you can still talk about with people you haven't seen for ages.

Ok, must get on with preparing dinner.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll eats.

Oh my goodness. I just made my own aioli and then I baked this very fabulous cramique which is huge. Lunch consists of homemade pain au lait (albeit a day old) drizzles with warm aioli and a cheese omelette. Dinner will be parmesan and cheddar souffle with grilled mushrooms.

And you wonder why I think cookhouse food is unfit for the table.

On a different note, I am eating so much carbohydrates by the grace of homemade breads. I think I shall soon begin experimentation with green tea breads and olive ciabattas.

I dream of slowly basting lamb in the electric inferno of clashing electrons and the sizzle of eggs done to perfection in the furnance of liquid nitrogen.

Manuka honey on homemade apple and cinnamon brioche. Buttermilk pancakes with real maple syrup and fig preserve. Chargrilled veal sausages and smoked potato cakes. Fresh bagels with lox and creme fraiche. Iced strawberries and clotted cream. Hot chocolate laced with nutmeg. Warm salad of feta, sundried tomatoes and rocket.

A restaurant that sells breakfast all day.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll sleeps.

I am, perhaps unnecessarily, proud of myself for having baked bread in my own oven without the aid of a bread machine. They were simple milk loaves with a slightly sweet crust and a soft interior. It's really quite easy. You begin with good bread flour and butter, rub the butter in, then add sugar and salt. Now this was where I made a little mistake: you ought to add dry yeast to the flour and then pour the milk in instead of adding the yeast to the milk as if it were fresh.

Suffice to say, the bread was delicious and I wonder at the good fortune of having fresh bread everyday. Today, I shall try to make a cramique which is basically a Belgian brioche with sultanas inside. I first had it when I was in Paris where I bought it fresh off the shelf at a bakery and it was so good!

Anyway, today shall be spent being domestic at home while doing strength training. Tomorrow shall be my 6km run.

I lead a healthy and fruitful life. Amen.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll says it all.

Beauty is but perfect symmetry marred. Noble women from the Heian period in Japan blackened their teeth. Those from the English Edwardian period whitened theirs with white lead. 17th century Roman courtesans tinted their eyes with belladonna to make them more appealing. Angelina Jolie's pillow lips. Cindy Crawford's mole. Marie-Antoinette's round eyes. Cleopatra's nose.

What is this dream of mine that threatens to consume me even as it delivers me from the monotone death of everyday life?

Quotidian perambulations. What a pretty, archaic term excessive in syllables and letters, irrelevant in meaning.

To unearth the phantom connection between the kimono and the flapper dress, the Heian period and the Roaring Twenties. My dream persuades, no, compels me to carry on.

On another note, I'm certainly healthier than before. Running 5-6 km on wednesday, strength training yesterday and 7 reps of 30-60 today.

I need botox at 28, liposuction at 30 and a Woffles lift at 35. Yes, I can feel age creeping on me. I cannot afford the wanton recklessness of youth.

I crave perfection, not beauty.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll sits down.

Where do I begin with my words? All these thoughts incoherent, streams of consciousness spliced and spliced again. Where do the symbols end and the matter begin?

I am more than passing glad that BMT has ended. Some of the darkest days in my life were spent in the duration of the past three months. Yet as we, a species blessed with the ignorant bliss of imperfect memory, are wont to do- I miss the happy moments that I have shared in Tekong with my fellow platoon mates.

I have so many people to thank, so many people whom I hope never to see again. I want to keep the friends I have come to love but I am cursed. Blighted. Doomed. Ill-fated.

I may never keep my friends. My life is but a meandering thread of searing gold in the vast eternal tapestry of people. I like to think of myself as a soul ascendant, casting away the shackles of earthly concerns like love for the purity of my ambition. Yet, and yet. There is Icarus who flew too high and fell from grace for more than the Sun's rays on his waxed wings, it was the intensity of his desire to fly that ultimately consumed him.

Having said what I have said, I am grateful for the gift of simplicity that has been granted to me in the past three months. I am a person unaccustomed to simple pleasures although that is not to say that I cannot appreciate them. The taste of cold water, a bath, the laughter of friends, the queue to lunch, the banter, the shared pain, a game of cards.

Sometimes I want with all my heart to be able to feel youth which is that desperate attempt to grasp every single moment of your life as if each fleeting minute were the last- almost like the deep breath a drowning man takes in full possession of the knowledge that it could be his last. I want to know how it feels like to steal a kiss under the stars as the music plays behind and there's nothing in the world but the both of us.

Each time I am reminded of what I have sacrificed, each time I remember my vow, each time I-

C'est tout.

Blank Doll eats it up.

Yesterday was a most productive day although I was extremely tired in the end.

Managed to flip through most of the significant fashion collections from the people who matter online at both style.com and men.style.com. Followed by chin-ups and then afterwards, the making of a batch of cinnamon biscuits and a vodka-green apple sorbet.

Lunch at Marmalade Pantry with Jessie. Scrambled eggs something of a disappointment, shall stick with the foie gras next time or maybe try the snapper pie. Dessert was good as usual. Raining, took a cab down to school.

Got my results. As expected. All As and and A1 for GP. Merit for Hist S was disappointing but Ungraded for Econs S was somehow expected considering how ill I was for that paper. I'm actually quite proud of myself considering the fact that I went off to Paris and London right before the As.

Dinner at Billy Bomber's with Mummy before which we had facial. Oh, reading Umberto Eco's On Literature which is so damn good. I love a good scholar.

Dreamt of Paris and Coco Chanel last night. My dreams increasingly consume me.

This madness is not over.

C'est tout.