Intelligence and how being an "intellectual" does not always make you a good person.

I have a monster pet hate which drives me slightly insane and rabid at the best of times.

Now this does not apply to all people with high IQ's because Murasaki is one of the most intelligent people I know but she has never done this. (And I thank you for that!)

Speaking to a person who is considered "intellectual" and no doubt will leave my "tiny" IQ in the dust and they make you feel like you are an inbred, lacking, tiny little spec of a moron.

You know who you are. You speak with your big words and throw in terms like asynchronous, saxicolous and concupiscent in a normal everyday conversation. 

My problem is not with using interesting words as I love words and meanings. It is when you can see the person uses it to ensure the other is aware of just how clever they are and try to gain the upper hand. It is all just a power play, now isn't it? I have met a few of these people who try and belittle you in little ways just to show you how "superior"" they are. You are not a wordsmith my dear. You are an asshole. 

I also find that the conversation is always one sided. With their opinions always taking the forefront and your ideas being discarded as silly or dismissed. They are not really interested in your opinion, just merely how great you think theirs is. Emotional vampires are what they are. 

These creatures are often bursting at the seams to tell you what they have achieved and it may or not be the actual truth. Strutting like peacocks so you can get a glimpse of every facet of their "magnificence". 

These conversations are always so blindly irritating because instead of just having a conversation and bouncing ideas off one another, you find yourself in a headlock by this vampire who is unwilling to let you go. You attempt to escape and they follow you, like pilot fish underneath a Great White belly. Unwilling to relinquish you just yet because they want to converse in even bigger words they have undoubtedly Googled and studied. Complete with facial expressions and snarky smiles. 

I abhor people who try to make out like they are better or more clever than what you are. True intellectuals who also have an emotional maturity about them never feel the need to do that. And I salute you, sir and madam. Thank you for having a normal conversation. One where we can be silly and discuss things that are not even remotely possible but it is fun nonetheless. 

Most of these very interesting specimens who feel the need to belittle others, do it so they can feel better about themselves. They must have incredibly low self-esteems. 

That is all I have to say on this subject. If you need me, I will be busy Googling some words. You know, for research purposes.

Le Strange

Cocktail Hour - Countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed

Because it’s Halloween I decided to have Countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed (also known as the Blood Countess and Countess Dracula) as our guest for our fantasy cocktail party this month. Born in Hungary on the 7^th of August 1560, her childhood was anything but normal. She was instructed in Witchcraft and Satanism by her nursemaid who reportedly sacrificed children for their blood and bones, her aunt introduced her to sadomasochism and her cousin was Prince Stephen of Transylvania who was well known for his savagery and is just one example scholars have used as evidence of the derangement in the Báthory family’s lineage. Reputed to be a lesbian, a witch and one of the first true vampires she is reviled as the worst serial killer and the cruelest monster in history - said to have murdered more than 650 young girls.

After she was impregnated by a local peasant boy she was married to Count Nadady at the age of 15 and they settled into Csejthe Castle where the Count reportedly built a torture chamber to please his wife, perhaps because of her legendary beauty. She would spend hours each day admiring herself in the mirror and demanded constant praise. Her vanity and narcissism were only overshadowed by her cruelty and pettiness - if a maidservant made made the slightest mistake she would be sent to the dungeons where Elizabeth would take great sexual pleasure in tying girls up and torturing them; jamming pins under their fingernails, whipping them, cutting them, burning them and smearing their naked bodies with honey so that bees and ants would attack them. One young girl had her hands and breasts chopped off for stealing a pear! 

Although the Count participated in her deviant activities and taught her how to freeze the girls to death in the winter by pouring water over their bodies until they hardened and froze to the ground as well as teaching her the art of beating them until they were on the brink of death, many believe he restrained her too because after his death in the early 1600's she became far worse. She would rape the girls with sharp objects, shove oiled paper between their legs and set it on fire, force them into performing deviant sexual acts with her, sew their mouths shut, cut off their fingers, stretch their mouths so wide that the skin would split all along their jaws, bite chunks out of the girls and make them watch her eat their flesh and sometimes even force them to strip their own flesh and make them eat it. One of her favourite activities was draining their blood to drink and bathe in it because she believed it kept her young. She was not alone in her activities, one of her cohorts was a nobleman with long dark hair and very pale skin and many believed that he was Count Dracula himself.

At first her victims were all peasant girls and despite reports of all the missing girls in the area authorities were turning a blind eye because she was of royal blood; that is until girls from noble families started disappearing and eventually during the Christmas season of 1610 King Matthias ll of Hungary sent a party of men to investigate. The men were very careful and took a priest along with them as they had been told that she was a witch and could put spells on them but what they discovered was horrifying. Upon entering the castle the first thing that hit them was the smell of decomposition and in every room they ventured through they found bodies of young girls drained of blood. Some girls were barely alive, and chained to posts showing signs of intense torture, some missing limbs and eyes. They had all been tortured and ‘bled’. While half the men helped lead the captives out the rest went higher up into the castle and found an enormous orgy room where the Countess was caught right in the middle of her foul activities. Her cohorts were put on trial and their punishments included being beheaded, burned at the stake and being buried alive. Because she was a royal she was never put on trial but locked up in a tower of her own castle that only had slits for air and food and she was found dead there 4 years later. Or so they say…

Obviously the thought of drinking blood is rather gag-worthy so I’m using cocktails that look a bit on the gory side this month…

BLEEDING HEART MARTINI

60 ml dry vermouth

250 ml premium gin

Ice cubes

4 pickled baby beets, each placed on a cocktail skewer

Chill 4 martini glasses in the freezer or fill with ice water and let sit until frosty, about 5 minutes (pour out water). Add the vermouth, dividing evenly; swirl to coat the glasses, and then pour out. Add gin to a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake vigorously until chilled; divide among chilled glasses. Garnish each with a skewered pickled baby beet, and serve immediately.

RED SANGRIA

1 cup brandy

1 orange (ends cut off), thinly sliced

1 red apple, halved and thinly sliced

2 bottles well-chilled dry red wine, such as Rioja or red Zinfandel

1 cup soda water

3/4 cup fresh orange juice

In a large pitcher, stir together brandy, orange and apple slices. Let stand 15 minutes. Add wine, club soda, and orange juice. Serve over ice.

SLIME RICKEYS

2 cups seedless green grapes

2 cups sugar

1 cup fresh lime juice (from about 10 limes)

8 cups soda WATER

1 cup gin

Freeze grapes until firm, about 1 hour. Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, stir together sugar and lime juice; bring to a boil. Simmer until sugar has dissolved and liquid is syrupy, for about 2 minutes. Let cool completely, about 30 minutes. In a punch bowl or pitcher, stir together lime syrup, club soda, frozen grapes, and gin. Serve immediately.

PINA GHOULADA

FOR THE "BLOOD"

3 tablespoons corn syrup

1/4 teaspoons red food coloring

FOR THE DRINK

600 ml pineapple juice

1 can cream of coconut

1/2 cup heavy cream

1 cup orange juice

100 ml good-quality rum

Pour the corn syrup in a shallow bowl. Dip a toothpick into the food coloring, and stir a very small amount into the syrup to combine. Hold a glass by the stem, dip rim into the syrup mixture, and turn glass, coating entire rim. Turn the glass upright, allowing mixture to drip down sides. Dip the remaining glasses. Set aside.

Whisk together drink ingredients. Place 2 1/2 cups ice in a blender, and add 1 cup drink mixture. Blend until smooth; add more pineapple juice if mixture is too thick. Repeat with remaining ice and mixture. Carefully pour into prepared glasses; serve.

Cheers Bitches!!

GeeGee Curtained xx

‘Time has no respect for beauty’ ~ Elizabeth Báthory

7 August 1560 – 21 August 1614

Pastor Advocates the Execution of Homosexuals

It's rare that I am truly shocked. I believe that, in most part, I have seen and heard everything. However, every now and again I am taken a back. A pastor advocating the public executions of homosexuals was one of those moments.

As you will recall, a couple of years back, I reported Pastor Oscar Bougardt for hate speech to the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC). The matter was escalated and taken further. Bougardt was found guilty last year of hate speech and the discrimination of people on the grounds of their sexual orientation. The matter went to the Equality Court and was referred to mediation. It is there were an agreement was reached and a court order signed prohibiting Bougardt, among others, from publishing further statements that are discriminatory or incite hatred or harm on the grounds of sexual orientation. In recent weeks Bougardt transgressed the court order and continued to publish such statements on the internet.

The statements published on public forums which transgressed the court order by Bougardt are:

* Gay marriage is from the pit of hell;

* People in gay marriages will end up killing each other;

* South Africa is cursed for not having anti-gay laws;

* God will punish South Africa with natural disasters for legalizing homosexuality; 

* Pope Francis is gay;

* All Catholic Priests are pedophiles;

* Homosexuality is an abomination;

* Homosexuals should be locked up in cages;

* Demond Tutu and homosexuals are going to hell;

* Homosexuals are worse than animals;

* All homosexuals are perverts;

* Insinuating that Sharia law should be upheld in South Africa to punish homosexuals; and

* Advocating the public executions of homosexuals in South Africa by Isis.

I must admit that I was shocked to read his comments and even more shocked that he is making a mockery of the SAHRC and the Equality Court. I did contact the SAHRC informing them of Bougardt transgressing the court order and to lay a new complaint.  Bougardt proudly admitted that he is willing to go to jail for his backward believes and hate speech. Perhaps this time he will get his wish.

Till next time.

Me and my Monkey

Addiction. Such a loaded subject, innit? I mean, there are all sorts of addictions if you think about it. Robert Palmer had a hit song back in the day called 'Addicted to Love' and I can't help wondering if that's where the biggest bullshit addiction ever started. Sex addiction. "Oh, I'm sorry I'm a man whore who can't keep my dick in my pants but it's not my fault honey, I'm a sex addict. Please help me get through the 12 step program and I promise I'll never stray again..." Pfffttt... Michael Douglas was the first infamous sex addict and after that there were sex addicts popping up all over the place. I wonder if there was a live-in rehab they could go to? Must've been a shitload of shagging in closets going on there, you know - what with all those sex addicts in one place. What a crock. Anyway, enough about ho's with the perfect excuse.

I have always had an incredibly addictive personality, which is part of the reason I've never tried cocaine. I'm afraid I'll like it and end up spending all my shoe money on blow. I've met a lot of poeiermeide in my lifetime who use it to lose weight and give them personality but it really isn't for me. Sure, I'll lose weight but the pay-off won't be worth it because I would hate to start acting like those irritating eejits who think they're über-cool when they've had a snort or two. So thanks but no thanks, I prefer my ever expanding ass to stay the way it is... Ever expanding until I won't be able to fit through my office door to go down to the basement to whip all those poor bastards I have chained up in there and working for me for free, according to my stalkertroll. Which reminds me, I best tell Precious to go and dust the cobwebs off them again and chuck some dry bread in there - it's been a while. As for personality? I reckon I'm too old to change who I am and fortunately I stopped giving a crap about impressing people the day I waved goodbye to my 20's.

I've never been into hard drugs or even tried any but marijuana and I used to be very good friends. The first time I had a joint I thought I'd found the answer to the meaning of why and not a day went by that I didn't have my morning puff before I went to school but at least it made things interesting and more bearable for me. I know the kappie kommando would have me tarred and feathered for this but I honestly don't think weed is addictive or a gateway drug. If it was I wouldn't have stopped the very day I found out I was pregnant and my son wasn't born with fused toes, a learning disability or an extra head. I didn't touch it for years and I think that my built-in mommy paranoia had kicked in so hard that when I eventually tried a toke it wasn't fun at all so I never bothered with it again. Maybe it's because back in my day all we could get our hands on were matchboxes filled with Majad and if you ever managed to score Durban Poison or Swazi Heads you were a hero. This new shit grown in pods or whatever they're called is far too much for me and I think the ridge I had on my forehead for a week from hitting my head on the edge of the toilet seat is proof enough of that. Bottom line is if you choose to sit on your ass getting stoned day in and day out it's a decision you make and that doesn't make you an addict, it makes you a lazy shit.

When I was a teenager the only thing that was readily available was weed but nowadays there are far worse drugs doing the rounds thanks to the bane of society, drug dealers who should be strung up in public by their nutsacks and left to rot. The problem is that drugs are fun. If they weren't nobody would ever become a drug addict but people don't look down that road and have a good think about the consequences when they make the decision to try something. I've seen friends slowly lose everything they've built for themselves until they've got nothing left, not even a home to call their own. I've driven a friend who was a heroin addict to rehab 6 hours away, watching him eat methadone like smarties and crying all the way there. I've seen families destroyed and people lose their lives and unfortunately the truth is that drug addiction usually ends in tragedy. I'm happy to say that my buddy is finally clean after many stints in rehab and I am also completely unapologetic about the fact that I don't allow people who are on hard drugs in my house and anyone who takes issue with that can quite frankly go and fuck themselves.

I must admit my curiosity got the better of me a few years ago, so when my son was away on a trip to Holland I decided it would be the perfect time to see what the fuss was all about and we planned a night of Ketamine with a doctor friend of ours. I reckoned that taking it under a doctor's supervision would be one way to make sure it went ok but thank fuck I chickened out. You see, a few months later I was diagnosed with a brain tumour and after having long talks with my neurosurgeon - to the point of confessing even the things I thought of doing in the interest of full disclosure seeing as the man would be slicing into my brain - he told me that because of where the tumour was situated I would have died if I had taken any drugs. That would have been one helluva buzz kill for everyone else, especially considering the fact that since Ketamine knocks you out my body would probably have been decaying by the time everyone else came round.

Just to clarify, I'm not sitting here on my high horse going on about something I know nothing about. Granted, I don't know a damn thing about being a crack whore or a poeiermeid but I am an addict. After my brain surgery I became hopelessly addicted to codeine and morphine based pain killers - or the 'crack of the suburbs' as a friend referred to it once. The thing with prescription pain killers is that they suck you in slowly. So slowly that by the time you realise you can't function without them you're already fucked. Nobody chooses to go down that particular road, it's not a decision you make, like deciding to smoke your first crack pipe. When you start taking them it's because you're in so much pain that you're not even human - you're a sniveling snotball of misery who's only coherent thought is wanting the pain to stop and you will take anything your doctor gives you. I hadn't felt pain until I had bleeding on the brain and a fat hole sawed out of my scull. I'm sure there must be worse pain but trust me when I tell you that the pain scale doesn't exist when you're hemorrhaging blood out of your nose and you feel like you're bleeding out of your ears and eyeballs too and there is a mini midget in your brain taking great big bites out of your grey matter. Having a lekker old nom. When you honestly feel like you would rather die than endure another second of hell on earth. By the time I got home from hospital I was still on morphine based injections and the strongest codeine tabs on the market. I wasn't allowed to drive for almost a year which suited me just fine but being housebound didn't help much either. My days passed in a hazy bubble, measured out in the hours between when I could take my pills and when some kind soul would bring me a cuppa. Hence the song below which was my anthem.

After almost 2 years of this I slowly started gaining the realisation that I was losing myself and the day I started panicking because I only had 27 tabs left I had a moment of clarity and decided that enough was enough. By then I'd become an expert on what pills could go with what booze, I mean really, only rock stars get to drown in their own vomit. Anyone else is just kinda pathetic wannabe shit. I had a bit of a dilemma though, I really didn't want to go to rehab because there ain't no Betty Ford Clinic around these parts I'm afraid. At least there you have a minuscule chance of running into the Johnny Depp's and Benicio del Torro's of this world but in South Africa? All I could envision was Frikkie from the Vrystaat with dirty fingernails and an all day Klippies and Coke habit. Clearly a no brainer for me then that I decided to go cold turkey. I won't lie, it was HELL! Weeks of wanting to rip my own skin off my body but I did it and I'm superfuckingproud of myself for it, even more so when a friend told me about all the codeine addicts he met in rehab. I suppose part of the reason I did it was because all the pills were screwing up my liver and I need that for drinking. I still have that bloody monkey on my back and I always will. There have been nights I've turned this house upside down looking for something I may have stashed away for a rainy day and the worst was when I came across some leftover vials from my morphine based injections. I felt so desperate in that moment that I almost broke a vial to drink the contents but I took a beat and realised how very fucking idiotic and pathetic that would be. I may be a stubborn bitch and very opinionated but I have never been a victim and I'm certainly not pathetic. If I take codeine again it will be a choice and then I am no better than anyone who ever decided to smoke a crack pipe or chase the dragon with heroin.

Yes, I smoke like a chimney and drink like a fish - a girl's gotta have some vices. Besides, we all have to die someday and I may as well do what I enjoy on my journey to the grave. I'll be one pissed off ghost if I die while jogging or some such shit. Who knows. maybe if I reach the ripe old age of 80 I may decide to try everything. It could be kinda interesting to see what an 80 year old crack whore looks like seeing as they never live nearly that long, so technically I will be doing it for science. For now though I think I will stick to beerwinevodkarum as a friend of mine has so aptly named our valium in a bottle...

Live well, love much, laugh often and always remember to dance!
GeeGee xx

Almost 40 and Ancient

I am almost forty. It's like I woke up one day and went "What the fuck?! Where did time go?" To most of the young gay people forty is ancient: ancient like you were part of the creation and saw the dinosaur extinction. I think being about to turn forty is more traumatic than actually turning forty. They say your forties is the best years of your life; you know who you are, you're settled in your career and you have disposable income that you actually can enjoy spending. I hope all this is true because if it's not I will hunt that person down, who said this, and threaten to kill them to their face. I won't actually kill that person because I am too pretty for jail and have terrible food allergies. Ok, I just made up the food allergies but still, prison food I assume is really bad.

A lot of things change as you approach forty. You realize that you're no longer in your sexual prime, you're sprouting grey hair (even your pubes which is stark reminder that your penis is old too) and you tend to become set in your ways. It's like you have reached a point in your life where you no longer are willing to tolerate shit from other people, you re-evaluate your friendships and attempt to have an uncomplicated life free of bullshit. In essence you are cleaning house in preparation for the next phase making sure you no longer have excessive baggage.  Because frankly who needs it.

The most obvious reminder that I am almost forty is when I drop off or pick up my son from kindergarten. Most parents there have just started their families and are young. Every time I am there I am reminded that I am one of the older parents. You know the ones that had little oopsies. However, I don't particularly care. We are all going through the same shit with our kids and we can stand in solidarity with just a sympathetic look or a nod of the head. The scary thing is that when my son finishes school I will be fifty six. That sounds ancient to me now but I guess only until I turn fifty. Oh dear god, the thought of that makes my head and Botox hurt.

Being almost forty and having a two year old also comes with both positives and negatives. The positive side of it is that I have more patience and have learned to pick my battles. The negative side is that I have never been a person who yells or even raise my voice, but now I am. I have patience but it is constantly tested. After the forth "No, don't, stop it" I tend to go into angry dad mode and my commands turn into "NOOO! STOP IT!!! I AM GOING TO COUNT TO THREE!", but three always come and everything calms down. Then five minutes later we are at the exact same situation. I am now a screamer.

I have also caught myself saying things like "Just wait until your dad comes home" and then immediately thought 'God I sound like my mother!".  

I am now at the age where I don't take myself that seriously anymore. A good example is when my two year old throws the mother of all tantrums. Depending on my day I will throw a tantrum as well mimicking his. Usually he reacts with total confusions like he's thinking "What the fuck is wrong with you?" normally this reaction causes his tantrum to seize out of pure shock. After all I'm the parent. The good thing is that we both got rid of our frustration in a "healthy" manner and I still maintain a small degree of parental control. I have not tried this in a shop yet. But when it happens I am sure it will have the same effect.  I just hope when it happens the people who witness it have children because they will be the only ones that would understand.

Almost turning forty also meant that I lost a couple of pets that I had since my twenties. In the last year I lost my two cats due to old age. It was sad as I had them for fifteen years. This also reminded me that life is short.

Turning forty has also seen my body go to hell. I got fat. Loosing weight is fucking hard. Diets can only do so much but you need to exercise to. I am not a fan of exercise at all. However, I did start. You see I don't want to fall one day and break a hip. I also don't want the get obese and have to be removed from my house with a crane. So I do my thirty minutes on my stairmaster every day. I despise that machine more than I hate homophobes and I have a mostly hate relationship with it. But the machine that was designed by the devil himself is yielding some results and I continue to torture myself daily.  Its like I am atoning for all my sins of my twenties and thirties.

I am thirty eight and two years away from the big 4 0. In a strange way I am looking forward to it. I have come to accept that I am ageing and that Botox and facial creams can only do so much to reverse the ageing process. I have no wrinkles or frown lines on my face but I am going grey and packed on a few pounds. As I am preparing for forty I hope I will be older and hopefully wiser. I am determined to enter that phase of my life with enthusiasm and glee. Well, I will try to anyway.

Till next time.

The Illusion of Willpower

So I should have stopped smoking a year ago. But I haven't because I have the willpower of puppy having a treat waved in front of it.  This is not to say I don't have any willpower whatsoever because I do, just not with things I have to give up though. This is also why I suck a diets.

Making me give up carbs (anything potato or resembling a sandwich) is like asking me to stop breathing. Sure I can survive for a while but then I start to negotiate with my body and/or myself. For example, the Irish went through a potato famine and potatoes were the only thing that helped pull them through. Do I really want to punish potatoes now after all the good they have done in the world? Or, if a potato chip is broken it looses all its calories; AND, my favorite excuse - carbs don't exist on weekends.

Willpower is something you need when you have kids. You must be able to stay focus while there are chaos around you and stick to your guns when things get though.  Also, you need to stay strong and follow through on the kinda threats your mother use to make which you inadvertently now inherited from her.  Sometimes the following through on your threats is the tough part.  This is also not the part when you say ahhh because then you're just as bad as he is.

My son is a little charmer and manipulative little shit. He knows exactly how to twist my arm in getting what he wants and getting away with murder. When he knows he is about to get a hiding he will look at me with those puppy eyes (I'm using this reference again because I really want a puppy) and just as you are about to spank him he would say "I love you" in that adorable voice he has. Now I ask you, how do you give your child a spanking when he does that?

My son is also a great analytical thinker and plans his mischief a head of time. He has a red "time out" chair because sometimes a spanking is not appropriate (if you're a parent you will know exactly what I mean). He's really good with timeouts because he has had a lot of practice. When he is now planning on being naughty he goes and fetches his red chair before he does what he is not suppose to. Yes, I know most of you are going "ahhh" but it really is, again, not an ahhh moment when he breaks something or spill juice all over a table and your iPhone. He then gets a time out for two minutes during which he is suppose to think about his sins.  However, I know that is exactly what he is not doing as he is probably planning his next mischievous adventure.

The other area of my life where I lack willpower is with animals. I have had a whole zoo of pets until half of them died of old age. We now only have three cats left and I am suffering from empty-nest syndrome. However, my husband has said if I bring one more stray home or makeup a story that a perfectly healthy animal was abandoned, when it clearly isn't true, that he will divorce me. He won't really. I think. Sure he will be fucking pissed off at me first but he always gets over it and falls in love with my strays. However, this time I am applying my willpower. How long it will last I don't know.

In the past I have gotten away with lies. I would tell my husband a cat or a rabbit was homeless or about to get killed. He would then ask me where the animal in question was and I would say the pet shop. At this point my husband would point out, in grievous error, that they then are not homeless. However that argument is technically flawed because if an animal is in a pet shop they are 'technically' homeless and in danger. How come people don't understand this logic is because they in all probability hate animals and can't stand puppies and kittens. AND they should be ashamed of themselves!

These days I apply willpower selectively as all of you should. It's quite liberating not always being sure how your day or week will pan out with my philosophy but hey, living dangerously has never killed anyone. Ok, realistically it has but I am not talking about those people because they did stupid things. Y'all should not do stupid things that will get yourself killed and if you do, I take no responsibility whatsoever for your actions. Just saying.

Till next time.

Emily Le Strange

I have not always been mad. I have had some encounters of normalcy throughout my childhood ans even showed some 'promise' that I too would become part of the white picket fence dream that our parental units try to install in all of us. That dream shattered progressively as I grew older. Statements such as "I am not getting married" when my siblings and cousins were swooning about their wedding days, started shortly after I turned 14. They had these cut outs of dresses and all in a scrap book. I had pictures of severed heads. They wrote poems about love. Mine had detailed descriptions of what it must feel like having finger nails ripped from bleeding fists.

No, I have not always been mad. Madness was the white rabbit I followed down the hole, escaping life and that little box society always attempts to cram you into. 

If you are reading this blog, please don't excuse my language, ideas or other things I may post. I don't care if I hurt your bleeding little heart. My thoughts are not supposed to change you or affect your morality. That's your responsibility. If you want to discuss or read something different, please proceed. If not... You have been warned. 

Emily Le Strange