Day eighty-seven of The 100 Day Project for 2021.
When I mentioned favourite objects recently, this is the other one. Though it's actually one of five. All identical but for their colour.
I think I had six in my vodka, lime & lemonades that night in June 2005. But one was recaptured by the bar staff at Lambs Go Bar before I bagged it.
There may also have been some ciders consumed beforehand, sans swizzle sticks.
Arguably, these pretty ladies should be, and are, in some ways, a regular reminder of a night I made a poor decision.
It doesn't matter that the decision was made under the influence of so much alcohol. I'll not use alcohol as an excuse for making decisions that hurt others. I wouldn't accept that excuse from others, so I wouldn't proffer it as a way of seeking forgiveness myself.
I did receive forgiveness despite that. Perhaps due to my honesty after the fact.
And, for a while, things were okay again, but that stupid decision was a sign for me.
I hurt him again, twice, but in different ways. Neither was intentional. And the subsequent hurts were more about misunderstandings than bad decisions on my part, at least.
Nevertheless, it's been about ten years since I last spoke with him, which makes me sad.
Despite their tainted history, there's something nostalgic, kitsch and delightful about swizzle sticks that made me bring these with me across to the other side of the world.
Maybe I love them because I'm a '70s/'80s kid.
I mean, swizzle sticks existed well before the '80s, as I found out tonight when checking my spelling and curious about where the name came from. But they seemed to be everywhere when I was growing up. I'm sure my parents had a Tupperware tumbler or similar full of them in the cupboard when I was young.
They're not particularly appropriate for gin balloons or pints of cider. But maybe next time Simon and I mix up a vegan Bloody Mary each, I'll remember to break them out.
The initial sketch was drawn with a 4H pencil and then overdrawn with an HB pencil.
