Miss Moussetache aka Mimimou

At exactly 02.47 PM on 3rd October 2007 in Central Park, New York, I discovered poodles scare me. At that moment in time a perfectly trimmed, white poodle was walking majestically towards me and I swear the pavement cracked underneath his paws: he was so big, he was able to look me in the eye. I used to beg my parents to get me a poodle when I was a little girl, but from that day on, my conception of a 'poodle' had changed. All information in our mind is stored in little boxes, which we then label with a name and fill with a memory, a rough concept and an emotion. My poodle box said 'cuddly; small and fluffy; happiness' but when I saw the poodle mentioned previously, my mind and my senses conflicted with what I thought a poodle to be and I was forced to renew my information box. I changed that into 'scary; BIG and fluffy; fear'. Then I realized there was another box which information was very similar to the giant poodle's, its label read 'monster'. ...

It was rush hour at the Amsterdam railway station and I was on my way to Brussels. The train was running late and as a consequence everybody was walking up and down the platform impatiently, moving in coordinated blocks. That's how I saw her: at one point the mass left a huge gap right where she was standing. At first she seemed motionless like a statue: an elderly lady, somewhere in her eighties, with wavy hair, a soft suede coat, a mohair turtleneck sweater, wonderfully cut pants and lovely flats. All of which was in the purest shade of white. She looked as if she had stepped right out of a Vogue winter fairytale. But the lady was conscious of everybody staring at her: young girls with their mocking smiles, young boys rolling their eyes in disbelief. The white lady's hands clutched more and more to the bag she had pushed in front of her like a shield. I thought she looked amazing. I went up to her and said 'Madame, you look beautiful'. A lovely smile broke her face in...

I was born on an island shaped like a three-legged monster and rugged like an old fisherman's forehead. The sea has always been renowned for its abundance in marine life, especially sword fish and tuna. But the land was poor of animals, except from the usual fauna you can see anywhere: mice, swallows, pigeons, sparrows, lizards and many insects. When I hit the magical age of eight, a zoo opened its gates on our island. I loved animals and could spend hours reading my Animal Kingdom encyclopedia, so my parents took me there on a lovely Sunday morning. We were the first people entering. Trembling with excitement I walked around its cages. Unfortunately the zoo hadn't managed the funding to get enough animals to fill them so most of the structures were empty. Outside the cages mice, swallows, pigeons, sparrows and lizards seemed to prosper, just like on the rest of the island. The largest cage of all was situated next to the play area (one slider and two see-saws). At first glance...

When we are little, grown-ups are always telling us off when we extend our drawing surface to anything that isn't paper: walls, human legs and let's not forget the living room's antique table. So we learn how to not use walls, human legs and antique tables as drawing paper. By the time we have restricted ourselves to a paper sheet, grown-ups our telling us off for coloring outside the 'lines'. Only a face should be pink and not its surrounding sky, dress, house, etc... So we learn how to stick our colored crayon in between the pre-drawn lines. But then WE become a grown-up too. And sometimes we go back to our instinct of coloring outside lines and using the world as a drawing sheet. When that happens... the world becomes a wonderful storyteller who we never want to stop telling its stories. Have you ever heard about knitgraffiti ? Small, usually rectangular, pieces from leftover yarns are knitted together and sawn around trees , abandoned gas stations , light poles ...

Something interrupted me while listening to music and writing away this morning. That something was flapping vigorously in my living room, making it impossible for me to go in. It was a lovely morning so I had opened all the windows and somehow a very fat pigeon had flown into the house. From the glass doors I saw this pompous pigeon flying around and sitting on almost every item of the room: the couch, the vintage piano, my collection of staplers, my boyfriend's selfmade lamps. The beast was also leaving a trace of its body dust on everything. You could easily trace its contours with a pencil and get featured in a biology book. After half an hour I knew something had to happen, it was me or the bird. So I went into the kitchen and broke off a delicious piece of bread. Things went really quickly afterwards. The pigeon immediately saw the bread and started flying in my direction but I was very quick and threw that piece of scrumptious bread outside the window. The pigeon u-turned an...

How are you feeling today? I woke up insanely happy and after my first coffee the melancholy swept me off my feet. Undoubtedly some other mood will knock me down soon. You know what I hate most about mood swings? I have to walk to my iPod and change the tracks every time. I simply can't listen to happy music when I am feeling sad. Probably you feel the same about this. But our sighs and moans have been heard... and inspired someone to create Stereomood , an extremely accurate playlist based on your moods. It's perfect and works amazingly well. My next wish? A genius playlist which automatically tags the moods on my iPod too... PS Talking about mood swings, did you ever hear about emotionally-activated lip gloss ? Yes, it does exist, it's called Mood Swing (really?) and it's an easy way to show the world whether you are feeling sassy, sexy or deliriously happy. Gosh, didn't we all need that? And if the gloss doesn't work - there is always the mood swing pin ...

I never thought I would end up liking this song. He doesn't need weird clothes, sexy moves and a million dollar budget: all Greyson Chance has is his talent and isn't that the only thing you are supposed to need?