So ladies, in the temperate lands the seasons are about to change and I know this brings great excitement to some people (not me) because it means MORE: more clothes, more layers, more options, more opportunities to show off your personal style. As a quote from the upcoming documentary The September Issue says, "September is the January of fashion!" and once again the New Year is upon us!

However, for my ladies in Trinidad and environs, it raining. It's BEEN raining. That season ent changing any. time. soon.

And Caribbean ladies I understand that you feel cheated. For 6 months of the year fashion magazines, celebrities, all that we look to for the latest trends and style inspiration, everywhere we look, there are clothes that don't cater to our climate. So we rebel. We wear shiny patent leather pointy toe boots to Carnival parties. Scarves had a HUGE moment on the Trini scene around this time in 2009.

But this year I am FORBIDDING (yes forbidding) you to go anywhere near what will be one of the biggest footwear movements of Fall 2009. They will be everywhere. You won't be able to escape them

The over the knee boot will take over.

The usual suspects are already fans. Kim Kardashian rocks hers with flair pretty often (as above, thanks to Glamour.com for the pic).

HOWEVER, (and I am not claiming to be any psychic) if any woman living in a tropical climate is caught in these, I can pretty much guarantee you that you will look like a complete jackass.

RARELY have i seen a trend so wholly IMPRACTICAL for the Caribbean. And yes, I understand it looks fly! But that doh mean when you put it on it will look anything NEAR appropriate. In fact, I will laugh at you. Heartily. Especially because these boots ANYWHERE undoubtedly will cost a PRETTY penny. And I am sure some of you too will want to be wearing these with short pants and skirts and really youu will need to be relegated to a dingy, poorly lit, downtown Port of Spain CORNER!

So what's left for us, then? Oh, so you think I would put you on a ban but not give you a lil leeway? Surely not!

Ladies, please help yourself to healthy portions of the shoe bootie! They come in many shapes and sizes, replete with the latest trendy details, studs, buckles, fringe, cutout, peep-toe, ankle wraps, what have you! And better yet, the ladies of Hollywood made them very Au Courant this summer wearing them to harden up flirty summer dresses, or to compliment patent leggings and distressed jeans. You can sooo wear these in the Tropical Climate, and not look like u have on hip waders, or working a Woodbrook corner. In fact, quite the opposite. You will look most chic! As do Rihanna, Molly Sims and Rihanna again. Look! Sienna Miller and Keira Knightley are Bootie BFFs!

Bootie Inspiration: The Ni Toi Ni Moi by Christian Louboutin! I hear the women in Japan starving themselves to get they fashion fix in the recession (no lie!). I doubt these shoes right here are going to help:

Thanks to the kind ppl at Net-A-Porter! And if you have £775 or the equivalent u can mosey right over here to cop these!

For those of us in the REAL world, I have compiled a nice selection of more affordable priced cute booties for your perusal. Do enjoy!

I am only really able to write about things I am truly passionate about....Although off-topic I just felt I really needed to re-post the first item I ever wrote for a blog about a year and a half ago...and all the same feelings still ring true :)

The Trouble with Love…

Soooo...u know when you sucking on a lollipop and u ultimately bite into the middle of the thing to get to the center for the gum or the tootsie roll or nothing that it have in there and you are left simply sucking on a stick....u know that feeling you have like...I wish this stick was kickier...or at least went with my outfit better...perhaps with some rhinestones adorning it or maybe some Swarovski Crystals....yeah Swarovski Crystallssss.....

Oh no? That doesn't happen?

So can someone tell me WHY this company The Sugar Factory has released what they call "Couture Pops", BEJEWELLED lollipop sticks with REPLACEABLE heads so that you can REUSE your stick. The Candy Store promises that this item "makes candy exciting, fashionable and collectable" as if self-induced sugar rushes aren't exciting in themselves.

Of course some of our favourite celebrities can be found suckin on the Couture Pops notably Brtiney Spears, Kim Kardashian and those trendsetters of taste, the Pussycat Dolls (all featured on the website). However, lately our girl Rihanna has been photographed with her bff Katy Perry enjoying these confections (how i LOVE the free Getty images with ONsugar. Seriously fashion, beauty, entertainment bloggers! GET ON THIS MESS!).

Katy Perry Post Concert Party at the Griffin

NEW YORK - JULY 28: Singers Katy Perry and Rihanna, with Sugar Factory Couture Lollipop, attend a post concert party at The Griffin on July 28, 2009 in...

I think the MOST horrifying part of the Couture Pop "trend" (? i use this tentatively) is the PRICE. For example it is 10:15 am and I jus finish decimating a Blow Pop that cost me 15c at my corner bodega. The cost of a Couture Pop? A cool (and by cool I mean HOT) $22 US (in the vicinity of $123 TT). However, it is RESUABLE and you can buy replacement lollipop heads for $12 US for a pack of THREE! ($72 TT). Using my amazing skills of division...let's see...carry the two... That means I could buy EIGHTY of my beloved Blow Pops for the price of Three Couture Pop HEADS! And I gettin 80 sticks and 80 piece of hard gum included!!

Sorry guys. I'd rather use my $12 and buy a MEAL or something. Tell me what you think of Couture Pops tho.....

(daily photo blogs from Zurich last updated in 2007 and which publish photos without watermarks are the BEST!)

I love memoirs. It may be my inquisitive nature which was honed at so many years at a certain Port of Spain institution that shall remain nameless, but I love looking into other people's lives. I especially love memoirs in which a woman (yeah it's usually a woman) is facing a terrible demon within herself and either overcoming it, or at least realizing it enough to write about it. I just finished the charming Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen last night, ironically enough a BLOG turned into a novel (turned into a movie starring Meryl Streep no less...I wonder who would play me in my blog adaptation...surely Miss Berry! lolol) about a woman finding herself by cooking every one of Julia Child's recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year. My esteem for writer Julie Powell only grew when I noticed she acknowledged Elizabeth Gilbert at the end of her book. Gilbert is the writer of the much-read Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything across Italy, India, and Indonesia the astonishingly relatable and un-preachy documentation of her search to find delight, devotion and balance over a year. I also recently read the HIGHLY hilarious Bitter is the New Black: Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smartass, Or, Why You should Never Carry a Prada Bag to the Unemployment Office depicting a snarky sales exec's (author Jen Lancaster) not so graceful fall to near-eviction. This book was of particular interest because it took place in the post-9/11 recession of 2001 and 2002 and chronicles how, after canceling an unfortunately scheduled interview on September 11th, Jen was then unable to find a job for the better part of TWO YEARS!!!

There is nothing better than a good life-turnaround written memoir to make you grateful for what you have (especially when they have such titles as Loose Girl: A Memoir of Promiscuity).

However, there is nothing better than a good two-hour stint on Facebook to make you feel like utter shit. It is totally unlike memoirs, which have to have some deep low-point in the plot that causes you to rally with the author as they return from what they were convinced was the end of the world. And really who wants to read a memoir that documents somebody's fabulous life (PLEASE take note, Paris Hilton). Facebook however, was made to document all the high points in your life, because really who wants to read how many brands of prescription drugs someone is on in their status update. I have often said that I believe that the generation that grows up with social networking as part of their whole life will have serious self esteem problems. Just like how the kids on My Super Sweet Sixteen always have to one-up each other to make their party bigger and better, so too will your child want to make their EVERYTHING bigger and better because of what their friends just posted on Facebook. Making these statements, I hadn't realized how I too had become obsessed with the wedding pictures, baby pictures, island hopping and other fabulous travel documentation that was thrown at me every day and being a sometimes bitter hater, they reminded me, not to be happy for my friends because they were so blessed, but of what I DID NOT HAVE!!

And these days what I do not have seems ever glaring, especially in one main aspect which I will not go into (in fact, if I can slide into self-pity for one moment, there are MANY main aspects of life that I "do not have" lol but one specifically irks and ails me. Ok I'm done now). However, today I have decided to put it aside and focus on what I do have. My blog posts have been few and far between because I think very negatively about them. "Really who really want to see u talk about frivolous crap in these times Kathryn?" When I have an idea about something I want to write about, I psyche myself out of it because who really reading my blog anyway. To hell. I don't have a huge blog following. But what I do HAVE is one friend who told me yesterday that she checks my blog every day to see if I have written anything and if that's the only person I writing for then so be it! Lol we will be the two ppl laughing Pandy!

I have also decided to try to put more of myself forward in every interaction I have be it virtual or not, because if it's one thing I do have it is personality (if I do say so myself:). However, I have always found myself strangely reserved in my initial interactions with people. Trust issues? Who knows! What I do know is that when I do get comfortable with people they can't get me to shut up! Stories, opinions, exaggerations flow out at a mile a minute until I self-consciously realize that I should stop talking (usually 10 minutes too late). Sure my interests may not extend to most of the population and none of them probably even register on most people's "serious and important issues" radar but they are serious and important to me. I like Carnival, clothes and lots and lots of beauty products. I also loveeee books with plots and storylines and juicy details about other people's lives, theater, dance, movies, and the L Word. If you don't like it, It's a big Internet! Kick Rocks!

Time to stop being an outsider looking into everybody else's realities. Time to start being a whole person!

:)

So all the talk of fashion aside...

Beauty is my true love....

I am trying to make a career out of it however, so I try to leave it out of the blog.

But sometimes I make a beauty discovery SO important that I NEED to share it with the world.

Today, that discovery is Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Fast Dry Nail Colour.

Ok so I am one of those ppl who is TERRIBLE at doing my own nails. Actually no. Not being possessed of ambidexterity I am terrible at doing the nails on my right hand. So much so that I have often done the nails on only my left hand and left the house and when ppl ask me why I didn't do the right I pretend like it's a style.

I am also one of those people who has no patience to wait for nails to dry. I don't pay to get my nails done because it comes more like paying to get my nails smudged. I also work with my hands so in general manicures are just not worth it.

But still I like to play fass...And the hot pinks and neon yellows that are so ubiquitous right now just BEG to be painted on my poor neglected nails!

So I just gave myself a fabulous pin-up red mani-pedi with this nailpolish in "Rapid Red" in under 5 minutes flat! The brush is flat so it applies onto most of the nail quickly and easily and it really does dry very very fast! Better yet, only one coat is necessary! It comes in 24 shades that range from white to black (with some of my favourite brights in between). Check them out here .

In the meantime I'm off to take a typing exam or operate some heavy machinery or knit or something....because I can!

Soooo I was doing my customary celeb Twitter page trolling the other day and came across Lil Bow Wow's page. Oh, I'm sorry...is he just Bow Wow now? Whatever...

Anyway I noticed on his page that he was typing the letters "gnr" in most of his tweets.

Example Post from Bow Wow himself:

AHHHH FUUUUCKKK!!!!! IM TEARN UP SHIT N MY CONDO!! I DNT HAVE ANY **** (HUFFS N PUFFS) THROWS DA TV!!!! GNR GNR GNR GNR GNR

about 10 hours ago from web

(Oh just for personal interest, Bow Wow definitely lists his location as "In Ya Girl"! Classy...)

Anyway, at first I thought it was an error in spelling, or a strangely common typo ("sigh....all that money an they can't send the boy to school? Damn shame...") until I realized that he was using this phrase so commonly throughout his tweets (i swear like 85%) that this must certainly be intentional!

Being an avid researcher I had to know what 'gnr' meant! I wasn't impressed to learn. Please check it out on UrbanDictionary.com.

Yes so apparently, as a black person I am no longer to use the acronym LOL as it doesn't adequately express my reaction to humour. Well sorry to break it to you Bow Bow babes but as I don't generally call myself an N, I can't really get down with your choice either.

Anyway if online jargon separatism is a trend I think we Trinidadians, (being so ahead of the curve with other negative trends such as swine flu cases and Caribbean murder rates) should jump on this bandwagon NOW! Think of how many acronyms we could come up with which are more appropriate to our culture and our experience!

For example, let's start with the same LOL. Is a simple audible laugh enough to address the HILARITY that some members of the Trindiadian online community induce? I think not. And WHO duz really be Rolling On The Floor Laughing Their Ass Off? Yeah sorry, that's not going to cut it either. How many times have you, however, laughed so hard that you threaten to lose control over your bodily functions?

Therefore, we at StepUp propose:

APM - Ah peein mihself!

as an acronym totally and completely interchangeable with LOL.

e.g. I can't believe he really thinks its ok to sport a fisherman's vest with leggings! APM!

Try it...useful ent?

We decided to examine some other commonly used terms, such as the expression of dissapointment, smh (shaking my head). But really, is a simple head shake enough to communicate your disenchantment at the level of crime in our country, the state of our political system, or just your level of unimpressed-ness at that person's stale txt msg forward? No, it's not.

As a replacement here we propose:

RLS - Real Long/ Loud Stewps

In addition, Blackberry users can pair this message with a recorded voice note of an actual stewps to adequately convey to the offender that this type of ballsasserie will not be tolerated at this hour of the morning/night!

e.g. Imagine this man now tryin to convince me that fisherman's vests and leggings is the nex hot trend for men! RLS!

We come to one of the more popular of online acronyms: OMG, the term so massively popular with the American public that young girls have taken to pronouncing the letters when appalled, "Oh EMM GEEE!" (beecause who has time to actually say words any more?) Again, OMG (and it's sacrilegous brother OMFG) are not adequate for the Trini. We need something versatile, yet so exaggerated that our recipient understands precisely our level of shock and chagrin at whatever events are taking place. One of my personal fave alternatives is "Jeezanages" but this does not satisfy the need for versatility, as it is mainly used to express disappointment. It is also problematic logistically. Is Jeezanages 1 word or 3? hmmm

However something like,

OGO - Oh Gad OYE!!!!

can be used to express when one is either elated or aghast, not to mention the other kaleidoscope of emotions it can articulate (e.g. OGO ah tired!!)

e.g. OGO! I now find the HOTTEST fisherman's vest to go with mih leggings! HOTT!

Of course these suggestions are just a jumping off point. Leave comments with your suggestions and we can compile a huge list and perhaps make one of those cool email forwards like "Yuh know you're a Trini if"....ok maybe I'm getting carried away.

Anyway do enjoy, and I shall have another post for you TPG (tomorrow please God)!

(Special thank you to @TeeKay10 for this post!)

OH! In doing this research I came across Cursebird a website which provides a real time feed of people swearing on Twitter. You can also search for names and see where they rank in cussing across all Twitter users. Apparently the ONE TIME I have cussed in my Twitter posts ranks me 1,459,770th worldwide, in the "primary school teacher" category lol!!

MJ sand sculpture tribute in Puri,India. (courtesy www.newsday.com)

I couldn't just start restart posting without a sartorial tribute to my favourite performer EVER! MJ you are missed. It seems almost unfair that you were taken from us right at a pivotal fashion moment for you! Check Mj out in head to toe Balmain here.

Kill these lil upstart divas like Rihanna and Beyonce so dead that they making fashion statements with military jackets with structured shoulders when you were doing that shit twenty years ago!!

Anyway, for those of us who don't have the $8,000 plus to drop on a studded jacket, we can still wear our tribute to MJ on our backs.

Below I've displayed some of my favourite Michael Jackson Tribute T-Shirt Prints for you to enjoy!

R.I.P. Mike.

I know this really has nothing to do with anything...but really? First Ciara, LaLa and Kim Kardashian and now Lo Bosworth (The Hills), Adrienne (winner of America's Next Top Model Cycle 1.....we should have known after the first time that no one who was on this show would ever have been a top model...), uh somebody, and BRANDY??!!!

WEIRD!

pic courtesy www.theybf.com