Fabulista Adores: A Valediction Forbidding Mourning

AS virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
"Now his breath goes," and some say, "No."

So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move ;
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears ;
Men reckon what it did, and meant ;
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love
—Whose soul is sense—cannot admit
Of absence, 'cause it doth remove
The thing which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two ;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th' other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
Yet, when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th' other foot, obliquely run ;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.

Fabulista Has: So Much to Say...

 
So much
Lying out there
Lying in the wind
Lying in the dessert, barren land
Tried to reach out
Swept and scorched by the merciless sun
Eyes seared by the brightness
Blinded by the light
With too much to see

Absence of light
Tried to say
How much is appreciated
But the wind swept it away
Buried in the dessert, blizzard snow
Tried to stay
Frozen and lost in the unending cold
Mouth bitten and numb
With nothing left to say

- fabulista

Fabulista Wishes: The Newly Weds Well

for the beautiful couple

turning to a new page

stepping into a new chapter

for a beautiful journey ahead

congratulations...!

Fabulista Cannot: Sleep

Can't sleep. Am totally freaking out. Is now 1:30 in the morning and am supposed to get up at 6:30. Is no joke going to a new place of work. Experts have claimed is absolutely one of most stressful event in person's life - second only to death of a close one and moving house. So am totally entitled to be in freak mode.

Am suppose to wake up in 5 hours time... but am too nervous even to shut my eyes. Am so totally unsure of what is going to happen next... aurgh... what can't everyone be clairvoyant or whatever ability it is that allows one to peer into the future...

Right, am being paranoid, but it doesn't mean I am wrong... maybe everything will turn out fine... maybe... fingers crossed.

Fabulista : The ACM Wallet

Finally, a wallet to help those who perennially overstuff their wallets into a chiropractor's nightmare...

 

 

Fabulista Discusses: Layering

As promised in a previous post, this is a discussion with tips on how to layer scents. Why do we need to layer our scents? Layering, as the term suggests, reveals the subtle but important layers of a fragrance. It is what separates the sophisticated urban fragrance user to the generic one who simply splashes on the aftershave or cologne that’s on the bathroom shelf. More importantly, layering a scent extends the tenacity of a fragrance, reducing the need to lug a glass bottle around even when one is on a half-day-about-town trip.

First, we start with clean skin. In the shower, preferably warm, as it opens the pores for better infusion of scents, use a fragrance-neutral shower gel or perfumed shower gel to gently exfoliate with a buff or sponge. Dead skin cells hinder the infusion of the actual EDT and should be eradicated as much as possible. Also, if one is using a perfumed shower product, it should be the same as the EDT. Complementary scented showers are for the experts only. You don’t want to risk the possibility of smelling like a hospital – imagine pine soap with sweet geranium notes. Not a good thing.

Next, moisturise thyself. Fragrance products adhere best and last longest on hydrated skin. In fact, there are oil based perfumes available for people with severe dry skin. For the rest of us who stick to alcohol based products, keep the body moisturised with unscented or same-line perfumed body lotion. As with before, complementary scented lotions are for experts only.

Finally, your body is ready to wear the fragrance. Remember, you are supposed to wear the scent, NOT the other way around. It is not ideal when people know you are in the midst... from a mile away. To make sure the latter does not occur, use this two-step method:

1. Cloud: produce a fragrance cloud with three to four spritz of the EDT into air and walk into it, allowing the vapours to douse itself on your body.
2. Pulse points: spritz on ONE of these two areas, neck OR wrist.

Resist the urge to spritz fragrance on clothes. Perfume evaporates quickly from fabric and without any skin chemistry reaction, the resulting sillage can be a dull, one-dimension fragrance. Besides, some fabric reacts with the alcohol carrying the fragrance to leave an ugly stain – not desirable.

Here’s a final tip. Most fragrances fade and do not last a whole day. Recharge if necessary after every 6 – 8 hours depending on tenacity of fragrance. Do this well (it really is simpler than it sounds) and you’d have people turning heads as you walk; the greatest compliment is when some stranger comes up to you and asks, “You smell great! What are you wearing…?” without a hint or sarcasm.

Fabulista On: The Rise of the A-Gay

They're smarter, sexier, and far more successful than you'll ever be. And they definitely don't speak with a lisp. Meet America's new ruling class—the Alpha Gays.

by Mike Albo
(abstract from Details)

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Last month, sailing off the southern tip of Capri, a group of men including a prominent Manhattan gallerist and a former pro soccer player made for quite the postcard. In fact, the scene was more like a glossy advertisement for an expensive chronographic timepiece: As the 42-foot Norwegian yacht tacked into the wind, the rugged master-of-the-universe types scrambled to adjust the jib. To the casual observer, they appeared to be active men of means on some kind of luxury bonding excursion. And they were. But they also happened to be homosexual.

Make way for the A-gays. Moneyed, successful, educated, and comfortable in their own skin, they're fast becoming the new archetype of cosmopolitan masculinity. The urban man's man. They don't own yappy miniature dogs or time-shares in Fort Lauderdale; they own Labradors and four-bedroom summer homes in Sag Harbor. Instead of cruising in gay clubs, they jet to Gstaad or the TED conference, and party at Sundance with Zooey Deschanel. They don't want to be part of any kind of closeted group or velvet mafia. Their Savile Row suits are impeccable (A-gays tend to go custom rather than buying off the rack), and they furnish their homes with collectible pieces by designers like Claude Lalanne. They drive to Krav Maga class in Lexus hybrids and read four newspapers a day, including the Wall Street Journal, because they're bosses and entrepreneurs, not employees. Often athletic, they're never steroid queens. And they can pull off having much-younger boyfriends without looking creepy. Artists and photographers approach them with new works. Charity committees beg them to cohost their benefits and sit on their boards—and they have portfolios of philanthropic interests that aren't just gay- or AIDS-related. Some, like one couple in New York City, a lawyer and a chef, aren't just avid operagoers, they're benefactors. Others travel in Wasp circles.

What they're not are the guys running around in torn jeans and leopard-print tops telling women what not to wear. "They have actual power that even straights can't deny," says one veteran of the New York-Los Angeles power-gay media scene, "and usually an imposing sense of style and grooming." A-gays supplant the prevailing media cliché: those irrepressible reality makeover icons, style experts, and fashion minions who have thrived throughout the naughts. They are the antitheses of the Carson Kressleys and Steven "Kojo" Cojocarus—they don't want to talk about how to hide your chunky sister's hips or brighten up a bedroom with colorful pillows. They will never say "Just wear it with a belt!" They own the company that manufactures the belts.

Even those A-gays with kids are able to find the time to perfect themselves, becoming the healthier, more stylish, more popular version of you that might have been. The cultural barriers that once held them back have largely eroded, but instead of waving rainbow flags, they maintain a subtle privacy about their sexuality. Out but not loud, proud but discreet, they transcend gayness in much the same way that Barack Obama is said to have transcended race.

"A-gays mark measurable societal progress," says Laura Gilbert, editor of the pop-culture website lemondrop.com. "People can now be out without being expected to swish. It's the Neil Patrick Harris/Portia de Rossi brand of gay."

Those of a certain pedigree have a tendency to stick together, and A-gays are no different. While they don't shun B-gays or C-gays, they tend to move in rarefied circles, and are apt to be found at upscale restaurants among their straight peers—not at bars with names like Rawhide. For the most part, they have opted out of the gay scene and its social networks and eschew the theme parties and bathhouses of the lower castes. They also steer clear of the typical pink vacation destinations; you will not catch an A-gay shirtless in South Beach or at a foam party in Mykonos.

"My favorite A-gay has to be dragged to gay bars," says Gilbert, adding that she sees the breed as a unique torment to straight women: "At first when we meet one, we feel a glimmer of hope for the existence of funny, charming, debonair, clean-shaven men. Soon, though, the reality sinks in."

But for straight men, the A-gay is even more confusing. The average guy might have a gay friend or two, but they rarely represent a challenge to his heterosexuality. The A-gay's success—with personal style, in business, with friends—has a gravitational pull. Often straight guys hope that some of that A-gayness will rub off on them and, before you know it, they've developed a man crush. And that's when their wives start giving them looks.