Mine, I can promise, is far more devastating, heartbreaking, awe-inducing, and downright fucked up than those of my peers who were like, so totally pissed that O.J. was found innocent. See, I blocked out that 10th grade loudspeaker announcement, and brushed it off as just another Tuesday I would piss off some teacher asking something brutally unfair of me (i.e. my homework) while wearing some shitty poly/cotton blend. Years later, I would come to terms with the feeling of having my beating, bleeding heart ripped from my chest while Life danced upon its remains. So I did what I knew was right.

“Krista? Hi, this is Nicole Sonsini. We were in English together. No, high school. No, the other girl. Yeah, the one with good hair and good pot. Listen, I know I rolled my eyes at you the day we all gathered around the P.A. system. No, not when we were saying afternoon group prayer. No...well...I’m sorry for that too. But remember when we heard O.J. Simpson was innocent and you cried and raised your fist in the air to rally for the rights of blonde women done wrong? Well, yeah, listen. I know what it feels like now. I don’t know if you heard, but I really need someone to talk to about this. Are you sitting down? Okay...well...Jay-Z and Beyonce are dating. Can you believe this! I mean, it seemed like...hello? Are you there?”

She wasn’t. I am positive she died instantly, peacefully, from the shock and horror of my Bad News. I, however, live to tell the tale.

Hearing the whispers, reading the accounts of their trips to sunny, far off locations, seeing the grainy photos in Star Magazine of all that ass in hands better suited for microphones and throwing our diamonds in the sky if we feel the vibe (we do!), was my version of the Kennedy Assassination–the ASSassination of Jay-Z. I wanted blood. I would not sleep until Beyonce and her stylist mother packed up the trunks of sparkly and unflattering stage costumes and headed somewhere far away from the arms of the man with whom I was destined to live in perfect Biracial Couples Harmony. In the beginning, my lust for revenge was as personal a matter as her stealing my #1 (I take no responsibility for paranoia, send the bill to my doctor), but soon, I felt it my mission to save the music more than myself. I mean, it was only a matter of lunch dates before Husband Carter would be singing about love and ride or die chicks, and every thug needs a lady, and Nicole who? Nope, don’t know her even though she sends me fan mail weekly with clippings of hair and days-of-the-week underpants.

My militia was strong. Thousands of girls and hip hop fans across the World (er, Wide Web) were on my side. We’d overthrow this blessed union of souls and create timeshares to wine and dine Jay-Z, leaving only a distant memory of oiled thighs and expensive hair in the wake of “What Could Have Been (Destiny’s Child Remix, ‘06)”. And then it happened. The blessing and the curse. The beginning or the beginning of the end. Our outlook was dimmed by the Craziness In Love, the shaking of bottoms in fur wraps against our Happily Ever After--the collabo that could possibly lead to The Collabo, signed and sealed by only God and Matthew Knowles.

Spirits broken, summers passing with no signs of relationship termination, and a canceled subscription to Star Magazine, I threw in the towel. No, literally, the towel I caught at Summer Jam ‘99 saturated with the sweat of her true love forever? Totally burned in a bonfire ceremony commemorating the love lost to the ass heard round the world. I was ready to date again and what better way, I thought, than to strive for the bitchiest of low blows. His arch nemesis, Nas As Nasty As I Wanna Be, would become the new recipient of pen pal adoration, locks of love, and sassy under things signed personally by his Wife To Be, “I hate him too.” And believe me, all was well in The Land of a Thousand Love Letters--I renewed Star, fired up the Internet Explorer, and scoffed at the cozy candids of what’s his face and her royal thighness. But given my track record with men, I had A Feeling, one of those feelings you get in the pit of your gut when you know that page was not from his mother, and you know that perfume on his neck is not the product of an overzealous sales girl at Macy’s. And there the feeling was--black, white, and gold all over.

“They did what? Matching gold what? In their mouths? Are they...are they...permanent? With the girl? With the Milkshake? The one that brings thousands upon thousands of boys to the yard? Krista, number one, I thought you died, and number two, are you friggin’ joking me right now?”

She wasn’t. Dead or joking, sadly. Kelis’ Milkshake not only brought horny 16 year olds knocking down the gates to her yard, but it had also brought my new fiancé to a point of irreparable hysteria. There they were, smiles blinding more than the sun that once shone in my heart for the man with the same matching gold teeth of the woman with dairy product so good it caused grown men to dump their faithful lovers. Gone were the days of innocence when rap stars would bed their fans and assorted oily women in videos. The men who other men lauded for their sexual prowess were now registering for weddings at Crate and Barrel while I was perfecting my most daring of come-hither eye flutters in order to record my own sexual duets. Surely their music would suffer. It was the only restitution satisfying enough to dull the sting inside my heart. But, like Jay-Z atop a handsome white horse, dressed in armor, hands clutching dozens of red roses to lay me down upon, it never came.

50 Cent sold millions with Vivica warming his bed, Nas and Jay-Z reunited on stage, beef nowhere to be seen, Paul Wall became the face of Successful Icy White Men soon after wedding his sweetie, Eminem married Kim (again) while the public applauded his Responsible Dad demeanor, and Lil Wayne recorded the greatest album of his career by day, and laid up in bed with Trina come nightfall. Nick Cannon would host one of MTV’s most successful shows before breaking it off with a sexy Christina Milian, and Nelly, who may or may not still be dating Ashanti, resurrected his career one mouthful of expensive jewelry at a time. Where was the justice here? Yoko Ono successfully ruined the world’s most notorious rock and roll band, yet rappers, the once rare, rough, and rugged butterflies unable to be pinned down by neither ass nor titty, were selling out stadiums with powerful albeit evil man-stealing women by their sides. The same men who denounced and degraded women on and off record were becoming the most powerful forces in music, fashion, and business.

And so the question is raised: Is love an all-consuming force that no bad boy can escape? And, further, is this infatuation one that fills the voids that fame and fortune cannot? Is love all we really need regardless of who we are, where we live, what jewelry we wear on our wrists, or what amount of money, exorbitant or meager, we earn per year? Some things, believe it or not, even I’m unsure of, but I promise on this stack of Jay and Nas glossies that once Kanye returns my calls and stops loving himself long enough to love me, I will testify in favor of old fashioned romance. Until then, there are Google stalks to be done, magazines to be avoided, and a stack of letters to be sent in hopes that one day, somehow, I, too will find love in the least likely of places--the heart of a man willing to turn a ho into a housewife.