From Russia with love

Until a few weeks back the only things I knew about Russia (ns) is what I picked up from television and a few well known stereo types i.e.

·         Siberia is deserted and no one lives there, except for polar bears

·         Everyone drinks vodka

·         All Russians wear felt boots and play balalaikas

·         Russia is cold all year round

·         Russian women who are married to foreigners (and live in foreign countries) must be mail order brides

·         Russian women are tall and beautiful

I’m yet to meet a Russian woman to confirm but I have met at least one man, who loves vodka by the way, coincidence? I think not!

Grigory is a visiting work mate, born and raised in Russia but now living and married in Canada… sadly not to a mail order bride.

Gore, as he likes to be called, is one of the brightest minds I have met this year, especially one with an appreciation for liquor.

 Being new to Kenya, and conveniently staying in lavington, I offered to take him out for dinner on Tuesday night; during which I learnt everything about his life history and he learnt how to pronounce my name and to call the waiter “vipi bwana”; sounds like a fair trade to me, I do have a pretty difficult name.

Gore told me a lot about himself, his childhood years in cold Russia, his varsity years in dreadlocks in the Caribbean, his marital life in Canada and his work life travelling all over the world.

He spoke a lot that man, and I listened to most of it, though I must admit I had a few zoned out moments trying to figure out which movie mafia character he reminded me of, with the strong accent, the hand gestures and the husky low tones. Now if only his name was Dmitri and he had a cane.

Anyway Dmitri, I mean Gore, taught me a lot that night. It helped that he had once worked as a taster in one of the refineries back at home. He said that out of all the places and positions he had worked in, that had been the most instrumental time in his life. Then had he learnt to really appreciate life. His training and experience taught him to be aware of all of his senses, not just his taste buds; you had to smell the purity of the liquor, feel its burn, see its clarity; you had to taste it with your whole.

He said something that entirely changed my perspective on a lot of things and answered a few questions I had been gnawing at. Mainly, what is love or rather how do I know that I am in love?

He said,

 “Crystal, a day will come when you will meet someone who will have an impact in your life so great that you will barely realize that he has changed you, you will merely blend into his world oblivious that he is the center of it. This is a person whom if you are in a room full of people, you can feel his presence without seeing him. If he walks behind you, you will turn because you can feel his scent around you; if your eyes are closed and he touches you; you automatically recognize the feel of his touch; if he kisses you in the dark, you can undoubtedly recognize the taste of him, if he walks past in a poorly lit room you will recognize his silhouette; you can easily single out his voice in a room full of conversations. That is love.”

It’s not about finishing each other’s sentences, that’s just familiarity… I bet if I had a dog that could talk it could probably finish off all my sentences after years of being around me.

 Love is about being so infused into the other person such that every nerve in your body is subconsciously aware of him/her at all times.

 Love is when you realize that the entire time you were reading this he/she was on your mind and now you’re either smiling because you know it’s true or you’re hating yourself because you wish it wasn’t true.

After writing this i realise that it doesn't sound quite as profound as it did on tuesday night. The best thing to do is to grab a bottle of vodka, preferebly one that is distilled atleast more than once, take a few shots, then start reading again from the top in a russian accent.

from russia with love,

Crystal.

First 99 problems: Last round

l'aventure continue...

Ideally, the problems should only begin once he has made his claim on you i.e metaphorically peed to mark his territory, when the boys in the hood know not to hit on you, and the hood-rats know that the man is taken so what happens in Vegas-stays in Vegas, except for chlamydia and herpes of course.

But for most girls, its start right at the doorstep during the first date when he doesn’t open the door for you, or doesn’t bow every time you curtsy. (If that’s you’re thing, then don’t settle for less).  Luckily for men all over the world, Crystal isn’t crazy so I don’t need all of that; I had pretty sane parents who taught me how to open doors and that walking in behind him doesn’t make me less of a lady. My list is a bit more realistic, and more personally suited to my taste:

THE FIRST DATE:

No, you don’t need to come in a pumpkin/horse drawn carriage but there are 6 things about this initial wooing attempt that must be perfect

1.       It must be an established date. i.e if we were previously friends and you invite me for coffee then I will automatically assume that I am there as you’re wing man and vice versa. If we are strangers and you happened to ask for my number then you’re in luck, I know when you asked for it, you weren’t looking for a play mate for your baby sister.

2.       It must be at night/ any time after working hours: if you ask me out on a day date I will be forced to assume that you have no life, no job and in turn no chance of being the next Mr. Crystal; either that or you are assuming that I too have none of the above.

3.       It must be during a weekday: because again, weekend date implies that you don’t have a life. Plus first dates are a chance to get to know each other and weekend dates usually involve crowded noisy places

4.       The date must strictly be drinks, not food or bungee jumping: this should be simple, if you haven’t already guessed the reason why… how exactly do we get to know each other when am struggling to chew like a lady and keep the chicken from jumping off my plate while at war with my fork and knife?

5.       The date venue must be in my turf: which means it can either be around where I work or where I live. Don’t ask me to come meet you at your favorite joint. I’m the one being wooed; hence I should be in my comfort zone. This also ensures that you won’t try taking me to your place afterwards. Good girls don’t give it up on the first night.

6.       The first move: after the date, as we part ways I expect you to at least try to kiss me. I need to know that you’re not a biter or sloppy with the lips or worse still… too shy to initiate.

DETERMINING HIS DAMAGE

This could be during the first date, maybe even earlier. I must figure out what major problem the guy has and whether I can deal with it if this ends up being a longer term relationship. This ‘damage’ could range from

-          He has bad breathe

-          He smokes/ he drinks too much

-          He is married/ has kids/ crazy ex-girlfriend

-          He has a small dick/ its bent

-          He doesn’t call regularly

-          He can’t spell/ he doesn’t speak English

-          His ancestors held your grandparents as slaves

If this is the kind of thing that you won’t be able to live with then its best you just walk away coz chances of the man changing are close to nil

THE FIRST SUSHI FEST:

The first time we have sex is as epic as breaking my virginity. Mostly coz it’s a new feeling each time. Unlike the first date, the sex date should be completely outside my turf; take me to your joints, meet your people and eventually, your bed; not mine! Never mine! In fact a cheap hotel room would rank way higher than a guy who asks me to take him to my place the first time we have sex. Have you no pride?

UNCOVERING MY DAMAGE

Once he has seen the sweet, flirty, non-manic side of you, it’s good to give him a taste of the witch that could be you. This may mean calling him when you’re on a major mood swing and telling him why he is the reason for the impending 3^rd world war, or the reason you’re thighs are suddenly a different shade than yesterday. It could also mean getting crazy drunk and letting him see you in a not so graceful light. However, take care not to warrant a trip to an asylum, or to go overboard and drive a good man away. But you can be sure that a man who can survive your crazy is definitely a man who will stick around.

First 99 problems

First of all, it’s pretty sad that a drink containing Malibu should have such a name; there are no problems with Malibu only solutions; I bet the only reason global warming hasn’t rendered us all impotent and bald is because there still lies some hope at the bottom of that sweet rum bottle.

Forgive me tequila; for I know not what I speak of.

The first 99…

When you’re new to the dating world (and by that I mean you’re either nine, make that seven, or recently divorced) it’s very common to find yourself falling for the completely wrong guy; that guy/girl that will put you off dating and generally all other sexes except your own for a while.

People often wonder, how did I not see that he was wrong for me? Was I blinded or stoned for the entire time that I was with the said fool?  

Maybe the guy had you under some sort of juju spell, though if you ask me, I would probably blame it on compromise.

They say that for a relationship to work, both parties must be willing to make certain compromises; and I agree entirely… however, before you declare yourself to be in a relationship there should be no compromise whatsoever. What do I mean?? Well, seeing as I have only ever been a pussy-carrier, I can only speak for the females, at least the sane ones who understand proper use of leggings (i.e. to start or spread fires)

Every girl has an idea of how they want to be swept off their feet; some like to be air lifted, some like to be wind-blown, a few will even settle for the good old fashioned broom as long as there is a prince charming involved. Personally, I wouldn’t mind miniature jets, Chryslers and gold mines; but seeing as those men are busy snorting coke in Hollywood I will settle for nothing short of my well thought out,  future Mr. Right condition list.

Not every guy who takes you on a perfect first date is bound to be the father of your unborns; but then again, if he can’t get the first step right why should he be allowed a chance at all?

PS: I’m not talking about the tall dark and handsome conditions. Why would you give him your number in the first place if he didn’t fit the profile? Let’s say, you have found Mr. T.D.H, or equivalent depending on your preference, what makes him qualified to be a future Mr. Crystal. Find out after the break…

Smoke and Mirrors

If what they say about breaking mirrors and seven years of bad luck is even remotely true then I am in for a hell of a decade (minus three years of course). I guess that means I am either going to be married for the next 7 years or I am not getting married for the next 7 years; depending on which of the above represents my awaiting hell on earth.

I am guessing my ill luck already begun; preceding the breaking of the mirror and the cut on my foot that I am hoping will not prevent me from wearing heels next week.

I have had the longest two weeks imaginable. My parents were visiting and being the thoughtful people they are, they decided that the best place to bunk would be their single and obscenely lost daughter’s house. I guess I should have expected it considering they left me the house when they flew out.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my parents… to bits; at least one of them… the one that raised me into the wonderful law abiding citizen that I am… (Don’t laugh). The other, I consider as just a sperm donor and not even a good sperm at that… all I got from it was a very hairy epidermis and an insatiable need for sex and alcohol. So the alcoholic nympho has daddy issues… no shock there, right?

I may not be fond of the man, but I will at least be grateful. Even with his shortcomings he still provided us with a pretty decent life, no complains there. Though if I do die of tuberculosis or lung cancer in spite of never having smoked a cigarette all my life, I blame it on you daddy, I blame it on you and those strangely nicely scented things you have been smoking all my life.

If there is one thing that the man taught me it is… well not much comes to mind; unless promiscuity and alcoholism count as life lessons… I love him all the same…him and the house, the car the insurance… (so am just a lil bit spoilt, shocker??? There are plenty of problems in this world, we can’t all worry about rent; though I still worry about fuel prices and recently I hear I should be stocking up on maize flour) Anyway, turns out money can buy love so for all you absentee dads out there; there is still plenty of hope if you have a fat wallet and a giving heart.  

So the highlights of my weeks away; you haven’t missed much: the folks moved in, moved out and left behind the unmistakable scent of daddy’s cigars. I swear the house seems cloudy ever since he stepped in. I just dropped them at the airport, came back ready to dive back into my life, broke the bathroom mirror, got a glass cut and now… now am headed out to haven… my little paradise on earth aka the wines and spirits at lavington shopping centre; imma grab me a bottle of wine, maybe something stronger… who am I kidding; am definitely going for a bottle of tequila.

Guns 'n' Roses...

The height of generalization…

So now Kenyan MPs are killing young varsity girls. Have I been watching the news wrong? According to my sources; one MP got one girl killed; why the rest have been pooled into the stereo type… I don’t know. Of course there is the eminent fear that probably this has happened before and the culprit has gotten away but really if we are going to generalize we should say, “Rich old men getting young gold-digging girls killed”. It’s not just MPs, we all know that; it’s just that they are in the lime light and their crimes always make it to headlines.

Though I must agree this whole vibe has sort of shaken me up. I remember my days in campus, dating married men and going out with all these rich men… anything for free expensive drinks and nights of care free fun. I can’t help thinking that this Mercy chick could have easily been me. Worse still, I may be out of that phase of my life but Sheila, my best friend, is still way deep in it.

It scares me to think that she could be next in line of dead bodies on waiyaki way. But forget all this negativity; I still remember the good all days of dating the rich older guy. Plenty of perks to it; I definitely don’t blame Mercy and Sheila and all the other girls out there wining and dining at the expense of some rich guy somewhere.

Though if you are reading this and are a victim/ culprit… I should warn you… it’s not all smiles, cheques and roses. Yes, it is a hell of a lot fun and god knows I would kill for some of the parties I attended while I was in campus but history teaches us to learn from the mistakes of others and trust me, the regret that follows is not worth the fun.

As you’re sitting next to that man/ woman who’s footing the bills try picturing the same situation with your father/ mother or sibling in their place. It’s probably happening… karma tends to be a bitch like that.

And one day you too will be in love with your own cash-bucket and it hurts to think that while you’re at home staring at your saggy boobs from breast feeding his implets, he will be somewhere spoiling some other you. Not so much fun now, huh???

So friends, lets live right… and while you’re doing your grand transformation be sure to drop all those numbers of your previous cash-buckets in my inbox…

 don’t look so disappointed, its either I give good advice or I follow it, can’t do both at once.

The Last Straw

It has been so long since I went through a break up that I have almost forgotten what that feels like. On the other hand for Sheila (my Cherie, partner in crime and best-frenemy) it has been just a fortnight. We are almost past the soft landings, now we even joke about it. She is obviously not yet fully mended but at least now there is some hope ebbing in, in the form of another man… possibly just a rebound… and worse still, also married! The girl seems to have a type; I don’t know if it’s the money that attracts her or she just likes her men taken. Guess she missed the lesson on once bitten twice shy.

Break ups are different for everyone, the pain experienced during a break up is as individual as the trillions of people who go through it, with the only common factor being... pain. Which is why people will linger in abusive relationships for decades before finally calling it quits. Knowing the pain that lies ahead makes one more than fearful of taking that next step towards walking away. Something about the devil you know being better than the angel you are yet to meet.

At times I wonder, have I gotten so deep into my relationship with T.B that I wouldn’t know if things got out of hand. Where there is no physical abuse, what are the markings of a bad relationship?

Like all other couples I know, T.B and I fight… we at times go for days without speaking but when we do make up, things go right back to honeymoon phase. People say that T.B and I are more of best friends than lovers, this is probably because we don’t have that clinginess of most dating couples, we don’t use pet names (if I wanted to be called baby or sugar or pumpkin I would have quit campus and become a stripper), we don’t have to see each other daily a simple call will do for me, as long as it’s not absolute silence. Also, there is the eminent issue of the l-word. So just because he won’t tell me he loves me, does it mean that he doesn’t?

Shouldn’t love be more about the actions than the words? And if so, what are the actions to look for in love?

I have about a million and one questions racing through my brain about this issue but the only one that is really bothering me is… am I looking for a way out? Why am I all of a sudden so unsure? Is it that I want to be assured of his commitment or am I just looking for confirmation that this relationship has reached its threshold? All I know is I am not ready for the pain of letting go. T.B I may not really love you but I know I want to and I sure hope that that is reason enough to make this work.

Obsession is feeling fearful that you may be losing him; detachment is knowing that he may be losing you; and apathy is the past tense of both. I don’t know yet where I lie, but I hope when the time comes, if it will come, and hoping it hasn’t already come… I will be able to realize when the relationship is ready to end and have the strength to walk out head held high, with a pair of jimmy choos and a wallet to match, ready to take on the world; broken hearted but alive.

Bloody Shame

recipe for Bloody Shame (non-alcoholic)

3 oz V8® vegetable juice
2-3 drops Tabasco® sauce
1 pinch salt
1 pinch peppers
1 celery stick

Pour V8 into an old-fashioned glass, add tabasco sauce and stir with a celery stalk. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and serve.

(A non-alcoholic drink???? Is crystal going sober??? Find out why...)

Men love to lie, but they are absolutely horrible at it. Women rarely lie, but when they do, it's a story so good that it could be the basis for an entire Spanish soap opera series. Women hate lying; but unlike men, when they do, they carefully craft a maze of stories, alibis and twists and turns.

So what exactly have we learnt thus far…? Men lie more but women lie better… except me

Case in point:

I have always considered myself a good liar, one of the best actually. If there is a book on how to lie convincingly I probably wrote it and pinned the blame on some poor unsuspecting author. I have been lying my way out of and into things ever since I discovered that I could.

There are 10 crucial steps to making a good lie:

1.       Make peace with your decision to lie

2.       Consider the likelihood of being detected

3.       Get your revision of events straight

4.       Use your imagination, envision the lie

5.       Bring the lie up before you are questioned about the matter

6.       Avoid elaborate stories that create a need for corroboration

7.       Play dumb

8.       Appear indifferent

9.       Follow through

10.   Know when not to lie!!

This weekend I chose to tell a lie, and a very dumb one at that. I obviously got caught and the worst part is… I didn’t even have to lie. There is nothing as bad as losing your credibility with a very senior member of the company and to add insult to injury, making an utter fool of yourself when he catches you lying.

I am in coast for the weekend for a work thing with a few colleagues. My boss being one of them. He happens to be a very strict Christian… the non-alcoholic church elder type so I have always told him I share in his sobriety. In fact only a handful of people in the office know about my inebriations…. I am a typical wolf in sheep’s clothing except that this wolf wears short skirts and heels.

I broke the two main rules of a good lie… knowing when not to lie and more importantly… following through with the lie. After a long day of heat, humidity and boring seminars; once I heard that there was an open bar I absolutely forgot that I was playing Virgin Mary only to get caught in a very drunken stupor by Mr. Boss. He obviously didn’t mind that I drink… only that I lied to him about it; makes him wonder what else I have been lying about.

Oh well, crystal caught in a web of her own lie… who would have thought… what a bloody shame.

The Devil's Cocktail

What is love…

Falling in love may feel like a meeting of hearts and minds but really, it’s just a kind of temporary insanity driven by hormones.

Believe it or not, these words were first said by a scientist; learned and presumably wise; and more recently they were said to me on a Saturday night over drinks by a man I supposedly love. (I did mention before,about saturday nights, alcohol and the L word…. It’s a curse I tell you… a curse!!)

The boyfriend was in one of his moods, (not the good ones). I don’t know why, but he asked; a question I thought I was extremely prepared for. “Do you love me?” I almost smiled at the mere thought of where this conversation was headed, so of course I said YES, boldly and surely.

“Crystal, what is love?”

I did not see that coming. In my head when we had this conversation this was the part he says, I love you too/ more… but the question, that, I was not ready for.

The first thing that came to mind was… love is true, love is kind, love is patient, love is wise… bla bla bla something about keeping record of wrongs etc but I doubted that he was looking for a bible passage; so instead I asked him, “T.B what is love to you? And hence the learned and presumably wise response… “Falling in love is a temporary insanity”  The key word here being temporary

Since them I have dedicated my entire weekend to stressing, nail biting and more importantly finding an answer. What is love?

Personally, I view love in three entities… lust, enchantment and attachment. The three can occur in any order and in any combination. You can fall in love with someone before you sleep with them, you can deeply fall in love with someone then become attached to them, and you can also have a sexual relationship, fall in love then get attached as I did.

Lust here implies the craving for sexual gratification; enchantment is expressed in the romance, the flirtation the fascination and the passion; and attachment is that sense of calm and security that you feel for a long-term partner.

Is it temporary? Maybe, maybe not… that is all up to how resilient and persevering you are willing to be.

Is it hormonal? I hope so… at least that is something more tangible as opposed to perceived feelings. In fact studies show sudden rises in oxytocin and vasopressin after certain acts of love e.g. sex, holding hands, looking into each other’s eyes etc

Is it insane? Of course, no human in their right mind would blindly choose to give another dominion over their heart, soul and mind. In fact the same learned scientists have said that certain parts of the brain become deactivated when we are in love, including areas linked with negative emotions, planning, critical social assessment, the evaluation of trustworthiness and fear.

Note that my love has nothing to do with the heart or any other particular organ. The only role I can accredit to my heart here is keeping up the beat so that I stay alive to be more and more insane and hormonal with each new day.

So next time T.B ambushes me I will have an answer for him, maybe not a good one but it is a true one.

"Love is the ultimate balance of three perceived evils…  Lust, enchantment and attachment. It is... the devil's cocktail”

upside down pick-me-up

 Every so often, actually once a month, almost like clockwork; I go into a bout of depression. I am not sure if it’s what they call PMS; there are no mood changes or anger episodes, just plain sadness. It only lasts about a day or two but it hits hard, and after wards I will feel rejuvenated. It has become such a normal part of my cycle that i almost can't do without it.

You know the expression, ‘having a dark cloud hovering over your head’? It is nothing like that. It’s more like death flew over my head, dropped a load of shit smack in the center of my freshly permed hair and no matter how much I try to shake off the poop the smell lingers; anyone passing by me gets more than their fair share of a whiff of the sorrow.

 Have you ever felt like everything in your life is completely going wrong? Everything that seemed perfect yesterday is all of a sudden feeling bleak and dark. I feel like  I am the girl with an upside down smile in the million dollar painting as the center piece of the art gallery, my life seems beautiful, priceless even, from the outside, but its beauty is only seen in the very things that make it pitiful.

Remembrance…

All of a sudden, I seem to remember things I shouldn’t. I heard somewhere that remembrance is the hearts own way of staying in touch; keeping alive the flames of passion of loves lost; corroding the scars of hearts broken; retracing the steps of paths taken. Remembrance is the hearts own way; the body heals, the mind forgets, but the heart lingers. A broken soul burns in hell, a broken mind withers in foolishness, a broken body limps in pain but a broken heart remembers.

And for now that’s all I can do…remember. At times it feels better to just live in the moment. Enjoy each passing second without having to consider the repercussions in the future. Just pick up the bottle, empty glass after glass until you can no longer remember what the boss said or what the boyfriend didn’t say or what you should have said to either of them.

Just like a yawn, or seeing someone apply lip balm, grief too is very contagious so I should warn you all to stay clear of me for the next 24 hours or so… in fact you should probably stop reading like right now before you are tempted to sneak into bed and cry yourself to sleep.

Molotov cocktail...

 Anyway, at the very least i am grateful for my bouts of misery, it is the only thing, depressing as it may be, that is real. Tomorrow i will be happy, a cocktail glass in my hand a toothpick in the other; but today I see me for who I really am; holding a bottle of Molotov and a match to go. I am brittle but I’m not broken, scarred but I’m not torn, neither half empty nor half full, I may be the girl with an upside down smile... but it is beautiful and a hell lot better than no smile at all.

The GOLD, The Bad and The Ugly

Like every other phenomenon under study, human beings have their positive and negative characteristics. There is no absolute when it comes to humanity. Am guessing some people should be considered exceptions to the rule eg Hitler; though if you look at it from his point of view, he was working towards what he considered a greater good.

I am no exception to the rule; in fact my personalities can be so opposite and diverse that I consider myself borderline bi-polar. I can be a good person; I give to charity… in the form of old clothes, and coins in the tins at the supermarket till. I can be bad; I lie, I cheat, I steal. But I can also be downright ugly; I am a bit racist when it comes to dating, I have a bit of a superiority complex and needless to say, I am an alcoholic.(forgive me liver, for I know not what I am doing)

Basically, everyone in my life falls into their own perfectly knit weaving of the  good, the bad and the ugly.

We are now at that point in the ‘mourning’ process where Sheila is trying to reminisce on how it all went wrong. How she even ended up in this mess in the first place. She can’t seem to quite figure out what it was that initially attracted her to her man-devil, Jay.

Of course this had to somehow be twisted into being my fault, in this case because I sort of introduced them. I was also casually dating a married man at the time who happened to be Jay’s friend. I wonder what became of him and his overwhelmingly fat wallet. hmmmm…  Not to digress… back to Sheila.

She was/ is hopelessly trying to figure out what good there ever was in Jay. Sure he wasn’t bad in the sack, and yes he was so rich that he probably shits cash and as for the looks… better than average for a man his age; but nothing so spectacular that a girl should dream of him naked on a beach serenading her.

But when it came to the bad and the ugly… oh, boy! Was the list long? Their relationship was turmoil after turmoil. He wasn’t abusive or anything like that but he is the kind of man that thinks he can pay you to keep your mouth shut about everything that’s going wrong, and Sheila happens to be the kind of girl who will take a gold ring in place of a heart to heart conversation about feelings and all that mush. It was a whole year (give or take a few weeks) of girl gets spoilt and man gets a pretty young thing by his side to flaunt to his mates.

So we can’t exactly sum it up as all bad… no one would stick around for such torture. But when you spice it up with a few weekends in five star resorts, add a lil’ good sushi and fry it in a pool of VIP passes; I guess even I would definitely be tempted to settle for an all you can eat buffet of the gold, the bad and the ugly.

I Left My Heart In San Francisco

You know that saying; ‘all the way to Timbuktu”? It’s usually used to refer to something that is inexplicably far. Sadly, out of sheer ignorance some people use it without considering that Timbuktu might actually be right in their back yard. For instance people in West Africa and all of Africa for that matter shouldn’t use Timbuktu as a point of reference considering it is a place situated right in Africa.

I prefer to use ‘all the way to infinity’ or ‘from here to Andromeda’ or even  ‘from here to December’ depending on the month of the year. If you are going to exaggerate at least do it right!

But for the purpose of this blog and its affiliation with the cocktail, we have… San Francisco… that’s far enough, right?

Recipe for I left my heart in San Francisco

1 oz Patron® silver tequila
1 oz cranberry juice
1 oz triple sec
1/2 oz lime juice
1 cranberry
1 heart-shaped Cranberry Juice ice cubes

Make frozen ice cube with Cranberry Juice and 1 cranberry. Shake vigorously in cocktail shaker Patron Silver Tequila, Cranberry Juice, Triple Sec and Rose's Sweet Lime Juice. Strain into a cocktail glass, float heart shaped cranberry ice cube and serve.

The things we do for love…

This week has been all about the heart break. My schedule has been reduced to work, lunch with Sheila, work, drinks with Sheila, stopping her from drunk-dialing Jay, blacking out on her couch or mine, work... and the carousel continues. Which means: no real sleep and no face time with the boyfriend.

He has made a point of staying clear of the sobbing girl. I can’t blame him though, I am also about this | | close to bailing on her or throwing her in front of a moving toy car… lol.

The worst thing about this phase is that I am not allowed to be in love or act like it, every mention of The Boyfriend just starts another hysterical bout of tears. So for now, I am restrained to only one feeling towards men… HATE! 

Last night the boyfriend called me while I was at Sheila’s joking about how I had dumped him for Sheila.

T.B: Don’t you miss me? I could also go into a crying frenzy if that’s what it will take to get you here.”

Me:  I am not even allowed to like you, leave alone miss you right now

T.B:  you girls are just weird, how do you just shut off your heart just because your friend got dumped

Me:  it’s only fair; when you finally dump me she will be right here shutting off hers for me

T.B:  ok, but for now I need to see you, so go get your heart wherever you left it and meet me for lunch tomorrow

And in as much as I love my best friend; I can’t forget that I still have a boyfriend who hasn’t dumped me yet. So today Sheila, you’re on your own. I need a break, and I need to feel again…

I miss the untainted smell of tequila without that underlying smell of salty tears

I miss drinking for fun and not to drown the sound of sobs

I miss joking about the silly things that T.B did or said

I miss my unbroken friend

I miss sex

And most of all…

I miss my heart

Heart Breaker's special

The basic needs of woman hood

There are 5 things in life that a girl cannot do without; call them the basic needs of woman hood; food, shelter, clothing, education and a best friend. In fact a few have made it through so far without an education so we can scratch that off the list. Forget all the sensible stuff i.e. a shoulder to cry on, sound advice etc anyone can do that but there are those things that only someone who is willing to share a cell with you will do. 

1.       Bitch about the next girl

2.       Shop; whether its clothes or drugs or dildo’s

3.       Smack you in the face when you are being an arse

4.       Get drunk with you and yet make sure you don’t get carried off by some strange boy toy looking for a good time

My best friend is broken…

I have one of those; she would probably take first prize if there was a best friend competition. But as luck would have it… someone went and broke my best friend. Not just someone but a man she loves… those are the worst. The almost divorced father of two, Mr. Jay is now the recently ‘making up with his wife’ scum that broke her. 

Mirror / echo effect…

I am almost tempted to tell her that’s what you get for dating a married man. It’s true what people say… no matter what bullshit they feed you that ring is a yoke and they will always go back. But being the good friend that I am I will keep my opinions to myself; at least until she is sober enough to reason again. I hate this part, the crying, the banging of things on the wall… it’s almost too feminine for me. 

But I devised the perfect way to deal with the broken friend. All I have to do is mirror her, if she wants to throw a tantrum, I am right there with her, if she chooses to drown her sorrows, I get the glasses and get fucking soaked whether or not I have a meeting at dawn, if she grabs a shot gun I will get my shovel.

I have suffered my fair share of heartbreaks and now know that for at least a week that’s all one needs… to vent. After that we can start the quiet sobs and talking about how we will move on.

Soft landings…

I have a newly found respect for Jay; he had the nerve to tell Sheila that he was offering her a soft landing. That it was better now than she find out later that he is humping the wifey again. Anyone who has ever been in love or a semblance of it knows that there is no such thing as a soft landing. No matter how prepared you are for it to end it still hurts as bad as if you had walked in on him with your mother. 

Right now I’m busy preparing the ultimate heartbreak playlist on you tube. I am calling it SOFT LANDINGS

Tonight we will sit down to a bottle of whatever will be nearby, my best friend and I, and do whatever comes naturally; whether that means crying till morning for lost loves or carrying out a voodoo curse on them.

This one goes out to you Mr. Jay, for broken hearts, wasted tears, empty bottles and most importantly; soft landings.

 Cheers!