Friday 13th.

Usually tonight is one night which stretched into tomorrow morning, tomorrow evening, tomorrow night and the day after tomorrow morning. For lovers, that is. That's what February the 14th is for. But tonight is Friday the 13th. And it's suddenly become so cold as if the Anemoi have a nasty coughing attack, with which they're attacking poor old Cupid. Maybe they should just check themselves at Mater Dei's casualty department, seeing that the average waiting time over there is 7 hours and in 7 hours Cupid could do a whole lot of work unhindered. But why are so many people saying they're spending the whole of Valentine's day under their duvet. And with a wicked smile? Is some fairy going to put Baci chocolates under their pillow? Or Euro?It couldn't be about sex, sex requires space and sex under a duvet might work ok for cats. Not for humans. Sex in a freezing cold room under a hot duvet will make any girl mistake the duvet for something else. Or maybe the headboard, Or maybe the four poles if you're lucky enough to get a four poster. So the more sophisticated will turn to something like Westin's Heavenly Beds. I never quite understood the Heavenly trademark. Do they provide Heavenly sleep or perhaps they're a big form of a sex toy and start vibrating the minute you hit them. And do they come with a remote control? Whatever it is, it's still Friday the 13th, I wouldn't want to push it. I'll keep low-profile because the Gods will be around watching.

The Men's Bar

So, it being so cold today I had to resort something hot. And since my job as a forever nomad means I can never have coffee anywhere, I just drove myself to the Church Square in Zejtun. I do not know Zejtun very well, so I figured I would maybe find myself a coffee over there. And I did. In a men's' bar. One of those shady bars which our mums have always warned us never to walk by let alone walk in. But the dire situations in life, such as freezing cold, makes us go against mummy's warnings. If it was the only place I was getting myself a coffee, then so be it. And I gingerly made my way in. Top marks to this men's' bar for welcoming me in, with an "Ghaddi Sinjura". I never got that not even at Giorgio's in Sliema. Another thing was it seemed the man behind the bar knew exactly what I wanted, just asked me if it was tea of coffee I wanted, and produced it in no time, with a smile, and a parental sort of way as in, "Ixrob hi ghax il-bard, u issa naghmillek iehor ukoll." Wow. As for the other men in the bar, which my mother always portrayed as being ill mannered murderers, rapists, frauds, criminals and pimps, they were absolutely nothing of the sort. They talked to me as if I were an old friend, and since one of them recognised me as 'oht t'Arani Issa', they suddenly were family. Now I don't usually like that comment, but this man bragged on how he used to watch me on 'Nies ta' veru' during my piano spots, and bragged as if his life depended on it... that I was a pro, and a maestra. That's what he said. Finally, I had found what I was looking for, the exact ambiance I wanted... in a what was supposed to be a shady men's' bar. One coffee turned to three, and my time was up. I got up to pay, and the barkeeper didn't even want a Euro cents because as he stated, "Hux inzommlok sabiha, inzommlok ta' naqa' cafe'?" Oh God this must be heaven on earth, as I said to myself. I get three coffees on the house, some decent conversation, I get wooed and respected and called beautiful. Ok I'm trying to see if there is some form of vacancy over there. And all this in a place which I had mean warned a million times not to frequent because my delicate feminine ears might hear some heavy swearing. Oh dear mum, you have it all wrong. There was not on swear word in sight. And no, I don't care who saw me go in there either, even if it means that I do not have the title of a lady anymore. I don't even know why it's called a men's' bar and why we girls have given the very wrong impression of what goes in there. I was treated like a lady. Which is a lot more than I can say for a lot of other places. I'll go back next week, and the next, and the next.

Friday night

It's another Friday night, and thank heavens. I get two days to smoke myself silly, sleep myself beautifully, and blog here to my heart's content. Today come 2.30pm I got a liberating experience, the kind of when you light up a fag and drag on it as if it were the last one in the whole world, stand up against the cold and the wind, and march yourself to your car, i.e. to two days of not bothering to look at the clock. It was that liberating, I was feeling too stuffy on the inside, I needed the air, no matter how cold. I loved the cold wind blowing my bang all over the place, I couldn't care about my bang, all I cared was coming to the place I call home. If only I could work from home on an online something then it's just what I do. I caught a glimpse of myself in my car rear-view mirror and was taken aback. That couldn't be me, so white, looking really ill. It's not as if I was feeling on top of the world, I still have to try harder at managing my strained tonsils. But I need a little bit of colour, a little bit of glamour. Nigel's been, that boy is as good as gold, my hair is so beautifully sleek. And I'm getting all the war paint out, I don't like looking deathly pale as I'm doing. So it'll be some black here and there, perhaps a touch of blue, and some pillar box red. My nails are forever pretty, probably the reason why I smoke so much. Because hands like mine have to be holding something for attention. Back soon.