M.I.A.

...for the next three weeks since I'll be out of the country. I'm too tired from running between travel agent and work and bank and home to actually be legible or sensible in trying to explain why I'm leaving so suddenly.

Just know that I've not decided to join the travelling circus (although it sounds exciting and I might just be interested), neither am I on the country's most wanted list (last time I checked), nor am I on a covert mission, secretly training to be a Kamikaze pilot for Uzbekistan.

But I leave tonight and I still need to pack.

See you soon.

Oh, and...

An update

Yesterday's very unexpected valentines present made it to my top five, all time greatest gifts.

*drum roll* I got a digital camera!!

Finally! After years of wanting one, but never really bothering to actually go out and buy one because I always had something I wanted just a little bit more, I got one! Sleek, slim and silver, its magic. My memories will finally be pixelated.

Strangely enough, quite a few of my more valuable possessions have been gifts. The phone I currently use, my rarely used iPod, a Gucci watch, and now the camera.

So my new motto in life: If you really want something. Wait it out. Eventually, some kind soul will feel sorry for you and buy it for you.

I heart valentines

I don't believe there should be only one day dedicated to love, but if it makes men nicer (more generous), who am I to complain? Although seeing my sister with her husband makes me all dreamy-eyed and cheesy-grinned. When I met her today and asked what her other half was giving her for the special occasion, she said she didn't want anything. Since everything she's ever wanted or asked for, he's given without question, everyday is valentines as far as she's concerned.

Sigh. I want that for me too.

A rich sucker who'll give me everything I want.

But since I have nothing exciting to report, seeing that I have no special date lined up - which has been the case with many, many past valentine's days - and which, in all honesty I have absolutely no problem with, because its actually fun being single on valentines. You get the attention of all the other single guys out there, and can just possibly get more roses and chocolates and other little gifts than any other coupled-up woman, even if you do have to have a pretty lame single girl's night out that night. (Which can also be fun, because you can meet a whole bunch of single guys who are also on a pretty pathetic guy's night out. True story that.)

So anyhow, as I was saying, because I don't have anything fun planned, I will post about my favourite ever valentine's surprises. So if anyone out there is looking for a tip, here are a couple you can't go wrong with.

The nicest may be a little cliched and maybe a little unoriginal, but it was incredibly sweet all the same. A huge bunch of gorgeous red roses - 49 to be exact - delivered with a cute little note that read, "If you stand in front of a mirror with these 49 red roses, you'll be looking at the 50 most beautiful things on earth." While I may not like being called a "thing", I will not hold it against someone who thinks I'm beautiful. Vain? Never denied it.

The second sweetest thing ever was a very inexpensive but thoughtful basket of chocolates. Three big bars of regular candy with a note that said, "The Bounty because you have a head like a coconut, the Snickers because I think you're nuts, and the Mars, because I think you're out of this world."

Cute right?

When the going gets tough...

The tough get going.

Straight to the boss to ask for a raise.

Tales of horror

I was working late into the afternoon last Saturday... one of those few unfortunates the world over, who has to come in to work on a weekend. (Modern day slavery I tell you.) And I saw the most awful thing. I'm still in shock. Outraged speechless by what happened.

Just as I was putting some finishing touches on a deadline, I heard a huge commotion outside by the lifts. A woman screaming bloody murder and the sounds of a violent scuffle. All of us still at the office ran out to find an office driver beating - as in physically brutally battering - the mother of his child. [A lot of the local men, usually lower income earners, tend to have what is called in Swahili, Little Wife. Usually a second or third girlfriend kept on the side, out of wedlock. Basically mistresses who 'complement' their 'real' wives.] She was lying on the floor while he kicked wildly at her face and chest. Their six year old son looking on, crying desperately.

When he saw us running towards him, mouths open in shock, he stopped. The woman shakily got to her feet, still screaming. She thrust the young boy towards him and yelled that she was leaving, that he could take care of his child, that he wasn't responsible and wasn't making child payments. They shoved the kid back and forth, each furiously bellowing they didn't want him.

Can you imagine the effect that scene may have on the child? How he could grow up thinking this savage behavior was a norm? How it could lead to a vicious cycle of abuse, generations on? And to think this goes on in homes all over.

This comes a close second to the most horrifying thing I've ever seen.

The first being an accident I saw many years ago on a dark, unlit highway; where a drunk man was knocked to the ground by a speeding drunk driver, and before anyone could do anything about it, run over and crushed to death by three other cars. It still gives me goose bumps.

So, while on the subject, I'm going to take this opportunity to spread an important social message (and hopefully add a dose of humour to this otherwise gruesome post.)

Don't drink and drive. Accidents cause people.

Different

This past weekend I met up with a cousin who's back home for a meet-the-parents holiday. (Although I'm not sure how much of a holiday that can be). Recently wedded and still full of the excitement of a new bride, she was bubbling over with happiness. Now a recurring, predictable theme; and the beginning of every conversation I seem to have; she hugged me and exclaimed, "So what's goin on with you? Any plans to settle down on the horizon?"

Off we go, round and round that same weary bush. While I pull my hair out in frustration.

After I'd told her my long mournful story (read: whined about the quality of guys in this town) she put on a serious face and lectured me for over an hour about how there was no such thing as Mr. Right, (D'uh. You think?) and that I should look at her own past and learn from her experience.

My cousin, now in her early twenties, was in a relationship for 3 years before getting married, which then rapidly ended in an ultra quick divorce. Not interested in the dating game and it's accompanying heartaches, she settled for an arranged marriage. A guy her parents introduced her to, four days before their engagement.

She was terrified ofcourse, afraid that emotions and sensitivities from her failed first marriage would somehow influence her second. On her wedding day she cried on my shoulder, wondering if she'd made the right decision because, she'd said, she had absolutely no feelings for him. Just a high opinion of his gentle kindness and an admiration of his impeccable manners.

Now, barely six months later, she's over the moon.

So with some encouragement from her (and more than a little resignation), I did some thinking (yay me!) and realised that the Z is not everything and the earth. Sometimes you just have to allow yourself to be swayed into a relationship. Mr. Good Enough may not necessarily sweep you off your feet, but he can certainly make you stumble. (Which is a given if you, like me, live in heels.)

Thinking back, there are some regrets... chances I should have taken, opportunities now lost. I remember this one guy I'd met a while ago who, on paper, had it all - confident and charismatic, he was decent enough to look at, and his family owned an empire. The woman who'd set us up told me he was a great catch, that he would quote "drape me in diamonds" unquote.

Annoyed that she thought I was a scheming gold digger, I didn't take the bait. I wasn't attracted anyway, and our conversation had been peppered with how he sailed his private yacht at the weekends, and how he holidayed at exotic islands every few months. Since he trumpeted his wealth in every other sentence, I felt he couldn't possibly have much else to offer. Plus, he sat like a girl.

When I finally turned him down though, during the course of our last conversation, he mentioned how different I was compared to other women he'd met. I've gotten that from other men over the course of the years, always wondering what exactly they meant. Different good? (you're extraordinary), different bad? (you have three eyes.) But I always put it down, a little uncertainly, to my independent, I-know-what-I-want spirit.

Now in time; still single, not getting any younger, and having let slip some really good men; I realise what they meant. Different really means incredibly fucking stupid.