A few words.
Not dead. Just trying to catch my breath.
Not dead. Just trying to catch my breath.
It doesn't bode well for the day when the first thing you do is burn yourself on a pop tart. I mean, really burn yourself. I've actually got a small blister forming on the tip of my index finger. I don't know what kind of demonic, nuclear-powered toaster we've got going in the office kitchen, but I did not think it was possible to toast a cheap breakfast pastry to malicious temperatures. I stand corrected.
This is in keeping with the theme of late, I suppose. Any minute now I'm hoping things will get back to a normal, only slightly fucked-up state. As it is, I'm still in limbo regarding all things related to the wallet incident, which means I'm still in limbo regarding all things related to my finances. Fun! I hope that bitch is enjoying her Old Navy sweatpants. Seriously, how do you spend a thousand dollars at Old Navy? Is that even possible? Accordingly to my credit card statements it is.
A few acquaintences have cringed at the racist overtones in my telling of the wallet incident. I say, cringe away! I'm still cringing at the $3500 that whore racked up after looking me in the face and stealing my personal belongings. We can all cringe together at the unfortunate results of a pervasive urban culture which values designer handbags and rap music above dignity and education. I understand that assholes and degenerates come in all flavors, but I live in Philadelphia and ignorant Billy Bobs with more shotguns than teeth are not the problem here.
When we finally move to Maine, for example, I'll spend all my time complaining about the immigration of middle-aged white liberals. Few demographics are as annoying as the white Woodstock generation; they had the gall to whine about Vietnam after their parents went through the Great Depression and WWII, and they've been whining every since. But I'll save the full text of my baby boomer rant for another time; suffice to say I do engage in affirmative action bitching, if you will. See what a good multicultipolicorrect doll I am?
Now the question I'm pondering here is whether it's semantically accurate to describe a misanthrope as a racist, or a sexist, or an elitist, or anything else. I don't think you could leverage any such accusation, except to say a misanthrope is an equal-opportunity asshole.
On Valentine's Day, the Russian lover and I grabbed a beer around brunch time. We had no big plans, had just finished a morning of food shopping and figured we'd hole up at home for the rest of the day. We sat at the bar of a busy upscale establishment; I put my purse on a hook just in front of me and slightly to my right, and hung my coat over my purse. Fatefully, the Russian lover sat on my left.
I didn't realize my wallet was gone for another eight hours, when I got a call from the police who had recovered it thanks to a wary shopkeeper. By then the damage was done, and the thieves had already helped themselves to about about a month's worth of my salary on a few debit and credit cards. I try to remain optimistic that I can recover at least most of that, while I dread the next few weeks of beaurocratic hassles.
I remember which people did this. Their behavior inidicated that they are pros, and if I hadn't been so happy and worry-free that day, I might have been been suspicious enough to reach for my purse and clutch it to my chest. I don't care about black people's feelings anymore; not when it costs me thousands of dollars to give them the benefit of the doubt.
I've worked hard for everything I have. I didn't have a baby and go on the government dime when I was 15; I got job after job and then I put myself through college with job after job. Instead of going out, I studied hard and earned scholarships. Now I have a decent job, so that the government can take a chunk of all that work and sacrifice every paycheck and give it to LaQueesha who had a baby at 15, then another at 17 and another at 19 and another at 23. And when that check isn't enough to buy her the things she doesn't need but thinks she deserves, LaQueesha gets together with her third babydaddy Jerome and his buddy Tyrell, and they get dressed up to go out and lift the wallet off a love-struck white girl. Then they take a cab all over town, and load up on cheap jewelry and Coach bags and Old Navy and pimpin' hats and drugstore lubricant.
What's funny is that hardworking, well-educated black people are more offended that I look at them suspiciously and talk shit about their "sister" than they are that LaQueesha has decided to be a useless piece of trash and copiously reproduce with useless criminal thugs. What's funny is that we live in society where people will be up in arms when I call LaQueesha and her boyfriend niggers, but they will not be outraged that these niggers committed theft and fraud. Apparently saying the "n-word" is a bigger crime than any of the criminal acts comitted by these n-words.
I have noticed that African immigrants don't have quite the same conflict of interest as decent black Americans; which is to say, they feel no need to have solidarity with people based on the color of their skin. There is a restaurant near us that always has valets standing outside; we often say hello and sometimes the Russian lover stops to chat. The valets are all African, and some of them are from a country he lived in for years as a boy. One day as they were all talking, a bum approached the group and said to one of the valets "Hey, brother, can you spare a dollar for a fellow black man?" The valet bristled, and in a thick Ivory Coast accent said to the man, "No. And let me tell you that I am black, and he is black" (he pointed to his fellow valet). "He" (pointing to the Russian lover) "is white. But you are not black. You are a nigger."
The bum was too stunned to even protest. A man who was at least ten shades darker than he had not only dismissed him but completely disowned him. He stumbled off confused into the night.
I remember being surprised myself when the Russian lover told me this story. And he was surprised that I was suprised to learn that many Africans despise many African-Americans. And then he asked me if I felt any kinship with white trash rednecks; I said no, of course not. They just happen to have the same skin color, but that doesn't mean anything. And he said, exactly.
You are only as good as the worst behavior you are willing to defend; you are no better than what you refuse to renounce.
This year's Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition cover was revealed this week, to some fanfare and considerably more puerile complaint. The protesting factions are predictable in scope, as there are only two types of people who might have such pressing concern about a prominant bikini photo that they need to come out and say something about it:
1. Women who really wish they could be, or at least look like, the bikini-clad cover model.
2. Men who really wish they could fuck the bikini clad cover model, or at least the kind of women who look like her.
Everyone else either doesn't care about popular bikini photos, or has an appropriate level of appreciation for them.
I do always have to laugh at the indignant women who claim that they would never ever degrade themselves in such a way; that even if they did have that perfect body and that youthful beauty, the last thing they would do is strip down and pose for a magazine.
Bitches, please. It's not like the girl is dancing around a sweaty pole in a dark, smokey dive, wearing only a cheap thong and plastic shoes while plumbers and truck drivers laugh and throw crumpled one dollar bills at her tits.
It's more like she's wearing $900 designer bikinis, frolicking on a tropical beach, and having her picture taken by a sexy European photographer. Between takes, her agent asks her if she'd like an organic salad with mango dressing for lunch, and she replies that hell no, she wants a bacon cheeseburger, and then tells everyone on set about how hard it is having such a fast metabolism. She gets paid a ton of money for smiling and rolling around in the sand on a gorgeous warm sunny day, and when the all expenses paid tropical vacation photo shoot is over, she flies home to her Hollywood boy toy, pricey urban loft, designer wardroble, and red carpet social calendar. In a few years, she'll retire from modeling with millions, and marry a billionaire.
The self-righteous ladies need to admit it; they're just jealous they can't get a piece of that kind of degradation.
"I moved to this city to break into acting." (I will be on this restaurant's waitstaff indefinately.)
"But what I'd really like to do is direct." (I'm an overpaid, marginally talented actress; soon I will be doing porn.)
"Eventually, I plan to go into politics." (I plan to fail at everything else first; then I will foist myself on the apathetic populace as a capable public servant before fleeing in the wake of a scandal.)
"I really want to model." (I don't realize how fat I am.)
"I'm shopping my album to labels right now." (Don't be surprised when you see me still standing behind this bar in five years.)
"I'm in art school studying photography." (I'm an over-indulged child with a camera.)
"I'm a writer." (I have a blog.)
I've been a slacker again when it comes to taking care of my hair...I must have been a bald man in a previous life because I just cannot figure out what to do with this substance that insists on growing out of my scalp. And it's been this way my entire life.
I remember as a little girl, seeing all the other little girls with their french braids. Not only did they have french braids, they had braided it themselves. A few of my friends volunteered to try to teach me; I might as well have been a monkey groping around the back of my head for lice. Later, I had just as much success with blow dryers, curling irons, flat irons, velcro rollers, and bobby pins. And just recently, my hair dresser's assistant even commented that I was washing my hair incorrectly and creating a build-up of residue. Apparently, the only thing I can do right with my hair is brush it. And I'm too lazy to do that.
Maybe I have a gene missing. The one that allows women to contort themseves in all manner of ways with all manner of tools to successfully assemble a hairstyle. This wouldn't be the only presumed gender-wide gene I've got missing, either. I also have never successfully completed a cartwheel. I know. Even today if I confess that to other women, they're all like "Seriously?" and then, if we're outside, they'll do one just to rub it in. "That? You can't do that? Even when you were a kid?"
No. And you know what else? I never got past level one of Super Mario Brothers, either. Why, it's a miracle I survived to adulthood.
Anyway, I feel bad about being a hair-do slacker and the un-made hair appointment I keep reminding myself to make and not making. I even feel guilty when I run into my hair dresser, knowing that I rolled out of bed that morning and walked out the door with my hair in the same ponytail that I slept in and my too-long bangs shoved back with a pair of sunglasses as a pathetic homage to a headband. At least I have not tried to cut my bangs myself; I think if I did she would file for divorce.
Living in a small urban apartment makes it impossible to acquire "stuff." Even if you wanted more "stuff," there is simply nowhere to put it. In any event, the rent on small urban apartments is such that there isn't all that much cash left over, after wining and dining and amusing yourself going out, to spend on bringing "stuff" back home.
This might be why urbanites are credited with aquiring good taste. When you only have the closet space for two pairs of jeans instead of twenty, you're going to make sure you find the best damn jeans you can. There simply isn't any room for things you don't or can't use, and instead of filling a home with the cast-offs of trial and error, or tolerating the proliferation of mediocrity, you learn to come up with the best because you haven't got extra space for hanging on to the rest.
The urban space crunch is most apparent when it comes to closets and kitchens. Ask any formerly co-habitating couple of young urban professionals why their relationship ended, and I guaruntee that whatever else contributed, the fighting over closet space was the final coffin nail.
And the kitchen? Well, there is a reason most city-dwellers don't bother to cook if they can help it. To help suburbanites understand, picture yourselves in your home's half-bathroom. Now imagine whipping up dinner in a room that size. If that makes you feel a little cramped, imagine trying to store all of your kitchen equipment, appliances, and pantry goods in there with you. Uh-huh.
Which is to say that you learn just what is actually necessary for cooking, and just how much you can do without. Those kitchen supply stores? Turns out they are not so much selling people helpful kitchen gadgets as they are selling people gadgets with which to fill up the excess of kitchen drawers and cabinets plaguing suburban McMansions.
While we have no expendable storage in our apartment, the Russian lover and I still took the opportunity to stock up on Lennox wine glasses when the price was right. We prefer very over-sized wine glasses; perhaps because we prefer to put back a good amount of wine without feeling guilty about it, perhaps because in a small apartment you've got to super-size where you can. If you can't presently enjoy a sectional sofa or a king size bed, you can at least have extra-large bath towels and grandiose stemware.
The largesse of our wine glasses does make them more vulnerable to destruction. However, we prided ourselves on not having broken a glass in over a year, between ourselves and several curious and clumsy cats, this was quite an accomplishment. But then, in the space of a week, we managed to break three of them.
I broke the first, and managed to do so after an argument which left the Russian lover fuming in the other room. I was doing dishes (my preferred method of coping with a domestic disturbance) when my overzealous towel-drying resulted in the top of the glass breaking off the stem and falling on the floor to shatter spectacularly. This was unfortunate not only because I had broken a nice glass and sent sharp miniscule shards of it everywhere, I had also timed it in such a way that the Russian lover was bound to take it as a passive aggressive gesture for effect. He was nice enough not to mention if he thought so as he helped me sweep up the mess.
The next two incidents were all the Russian lover's doing. Both times it was his flailing or reaching limb that sent a glass sailing off the table and splintering into a million bits on the floor. I simply helped him clean them up; it was inevitable that a few pieces of our holy-grail-sized stemware would meet an untimely end at our oft-distracted hands. And as we do with most things, we simply shrugged it off and noted the silver linings: We'd bought them on sale, and now we had that many more square inches of space on a shelf somewhere.
Until very recently, I didn't have any kind of tolerance for spicy hot foods. I shunned salsa, feared curry, would not go anywhere near a jalepeno, and had never even heard of a habenero.
Shortly after we started dating, the Russian lover made a lamb curry for dinner. It was delicious...and painful. Tears and sweat poured down my cheeks; the Russian lover felt like a jerk, and told me I should stop eating and let him order out. But...it was delicious. I willed myself to endure the agony of the burning.
And after that, any time he made curry it was significantly toned down. And most of our cooking has stayed on the mild side of things.
But.
Something happened in the past few months, and suddenly I am craving spicy foods. Pregnancy is definitively ruled out, and I am at a loss to explain why the girl who winced at too many cracked black peppercorns is now suddenly looking for excuses to add jalepenos to every recipe. Hot sauce, hot peppers, chili powder. I want to feel the burn, and I want to feel it just at the limit where the agony is exquisite.
I did a google search to see if this portended anything other than being knocked up. Possibilities include:
-My body thinks I might be pregnant; I'm harboring a phantom pregnancy (!?!)
-I'm addicted to the endorphin release; I'm getting high.
-I have bad circulation
-I'm cold
-My taste buds are starting to die off with age
In any event, the internet tells me that I am not the only un-pregnant woman to go through a phase where all I want to consume is fire. I'm assured that this will probably pass before I reach the point where I have to buy hot peppers in bulk.
Or I start bringing the jalepenos into the bedroom...those pricey KY "tingling" lotions? Got nothing on a 25 cent chili pepper.
My palate isn't the only masochist.
How will this cult of personality turn out? Stay tuned.
"The people always have some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness. This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector."
-Plato
"The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits."
-Plutarch
"So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, the Caesars and Napoleons will arise to make them miserable."
-Aldous Huxley
"Communism and fascism or nazism, although poles apart in their intellectual content, are similar in this, that both have emotional appeal to the type of personality that takes pleasure in being submerged in a mass movement and submitting to superior authority."
-James A. C. Brown
"The more one considers the matter, the clearer it becomes that redistribution is in effect far less a redistribution of free income from the richer to the poorer, as we imagined, than a redistribution of power from the individual to the State."
-Bertrand de Jouvenel
"Government does not cause affluence. Citizens of totalitarian countries have plenty of government and nothing of anything else."
-P. J. O'Rourke
"At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to state this or that or the other, but it is "not done"... Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals."
-George Orwell
Some people are good storytellers, and some people have good stories. Rarely is one person a good storyteller with good stories.
I've always been a pretty good storyteller. But I realized that all my stories are unexceptional recollections of an ordinary life, embellished in such a way that the telling becomes interesting. But the stories themselves? Pretty boring.
The Russian lover, on the other hand, is a decent storyteller - he's never harbored any desire to be a writer, or even a cocktail party sensation. But his stories are absolutely incredible. And it's not just the cultural differences; he's had some truly extraordinary life experiences. Four years later, and he's still surprising me by recounting events that don't so much sound like something my boyfriend did at 19 as a scene from an upcoming 007 flick.
The differences in our life stories can be illustrated by the following distillations:
Me: Eventually, he was so drunk he just leaned over and threw up in my lap.
Him: And on this particular jump, we were instructed to land directly on the surfaced submarine. It's harder than it sounds; I missed by a good meter.
See what I mean? He could just tell the narrative of his existence in a dull monotone, leave out all the adjectives, adverbs, and exclamations, and he'd still have an audience enthralled. I understood early on that if I ever wanted anyone's attention at a party for more than a minute, I had two options: Flash them my boobs, or learn to embellish the mundane for effect.
Those who become the best storytellers, I think, are often those who have the least to say. Good stories work like magic, because they are: They are something literally pulled from nothing-- a rabbit out of a hat, a shiny quarter from behind the listener's ear.