All My Friends Look Like Me
Current mood: caffeinated
Category: caffeinated Friends

All my friends look like me. 

Of course I don't mean that they are all six foot tall "well built" mixed girls with curly hair, big lips, straight teeth and facial piercings who own no articles of clothing under two years old.  But there are some similarities.  Among my straight women friends I know approximately zero ladies who would fit an insurance company's definition of height and weight proportionate.  For those not in the know, a woman who stands five foot and five inches tall should weigh about a hundred and twenty pounds.  A lady like that has either no boobs or no ass and probably doesn't consider my favorite hobbies, cooking and eating, sports.  I know exactly one girl with bleached hair but it is short and she has metal in her face.  I do not know or spend time with any Barbie dolls.

Among gay or bisexual women friends I know exactly zero who spend hundreds of dollars or euro on fashionably gay costumes or hang around in exclusive clubs.  They are all smokers and drink like fish.

Among male friends, whose numbers admittedly are few, I know only one who buys fancy athletic shoes, is a jock, and likes blondes.  These men obviously are more attracted to the blonde Barbie clubby set and as I mentioned before I'm not well-acquainted with any members of that particular clique.

While I like to think that my friends accurately represent a happy, shiny, 90s-liberalesque cross-section of the population between the ages of 21 and 30, I've started to realize that I usually have something seemingly shallow in common with all of them.  Sure, we do share some similar views but this is not what brought us together in the first place. 

Have you ever taken a look at someone and said to yourself, "I bet that person and I would be great friends if we got to know each other"?  Conversely, have you ever taken one look at someone else and muttered to yourself, "Not in a million years would I voluntarily sit in that person's presence"?

Is this a conscious decision?  Or are there subtle but visible differences between people which draw us to them?

I really want opinions, so...

...write to me, hoes.

3:48 AM - 22 Comments - 25 Kudos - Add Comment

I WISH I COULD GET WASTED AND ITS ONLY 11 AM. lets listen to some Soundgarden instead.
Current mood: fucking irritated and exhausted.
Category: fucking irritated and exhausted. Jobs, Work, Careers

This blog is going to be about my current situation in life, and its going to be a very selfish blog, so if you want to read about current events or something enlightening this is probably not the place for you today.

I now know why some people listen to really hard rock music.

I always theorized that the reason was because they had so much noise and angst swimming around in their brains that putting a basic rhythm and melody to it gave them some sense of being attuned to the outside world.  I always theorized that people who listen to really hard rock would be fucked-up train-wrecks of human beings if they didnt have access to that particular method of therapy.

I theorized it, but today I experienced it for myself.

Unfortunately for me in my hyper-stressed state, the hardest music I have on my iPod is Soundgarden or Offspring, but a bit of grunge did the trick earlier today.  Next time I feel like breaking someones face Im just going to mosh around my apartment until Im too exhausted to give a fuck anymore.

My contract with my current school is over TODAY.  I have some make-up classes to do, (from when I needed time off to apply for my visa, which is the only time I have called out of work) but other than that, I am finished with the school year.  So you might imagine that when they told me that my least favorite Kita wanted to cancel their last class of the school year and have me make it up some time in the summer I said no.  I hate this Kita, I hate these kids, I am never going back there in my life, and if I lose my chances at working for this company next year because I wouldnt re-do three lousy classes, so be it.

Two weeks ago a friend called me and told me she had a job offer for me and that it was an emergency and that I should call the Boss Lady at this other company ASAP.  I told her that I already have a job.  She told me that there was a lot of money to be earned in a small amount of time and that it would be during the summer so it wouldnt interfere with my current job.  Never mind that I am a chronic underacheiver and nothing sounds more beautiful to me than sitting around watching reality TV and smoking hookas next to lakes this summer.  When she told me how many thousands of Euro I would earn for three weeks.. work, I called up the boss lady.

Boss lady asks me to come for an interview later that week and winds up offering me the job.  Im to work for one week in August, and the first two weeks of September, prepping young adults for a year in England.  I tell her that I would love to do the second seminar but that it would interfere with my other job, especially if I get the office promotion theyve been dangling in front of my face for the last couple of months (but not confirming).

But then I get to thinking, hey, I will make as much in two weeks here as I make in two months at the other place.  And it would look fantastic on my resume.  So I tell my regular job that I cant work there for the first two weeks of September, and anyway, Ive been waiting to hear about this promotion for a month and a half.  As a regular, non-promoted teacher it shouldnt be too much of a big deal for me to take off the first couple of weeks of the school year.  So I email my regular job and tell them that I cant work from the 1st to the 12th of September, and text the Boss Lady that I can work for her.

After waiting for months to hear about the promotion with my regular job, even asking them if the reason I hadnt heard about it was because they offered the job to someone else, they all of the sudden want me to come in and work for them.  They ask me to cancel my plans in September because it would get the year off to a bad start.  Of course I didnt tell them that I needed the two weeks to work for someone else, because I heard through the grapevine that they dont allow their teachers to work for other firms at the same time theyre working for them.  What if I had already bought a plane ticket?  What if I were going home to see my loved ones for the first time in two years?  They didnt ask, they didnt care.  They just knew it would inconvenience them and that cant happen.

So now I have the Boss Lady, who wants a confirmation by today, and my regular job, who have failed to tell me how much they intend on paying me, what my hours will be and so on, but want me to say I will work in their office without knowing any of these very important details.  I am stuck in the middle and I didnt ask for any of this, I got into all this fucking trouble for picking up the phone and doing my friend a favor.

On top of this shit situation, which must somehow be resolved in the next few hours, although I see no possible way for that to happen, all my kids today were on crack, or maybe PCP, or maybe they all went schizo, I dont know, but this was the first time in a long time that I wanted to shake a child.  No need to go into details.  Suffice it to say that the good Lord protected a couple of insane children this morning, and as a result I needed to put some order to this chaos in my head, so I cranked up some grimy 90s grunge, when what I would have preferred was half a bottle of cheap vodka. 

Too bad I dont drink in the morning.

Write to me, hoes.

3:27 AM - 16 Comments - 17 Kudos - Add Comment

Really, Really, Really Bad Con-Artists [UPDATED WITH PHOTOS]
Current mood: currently smoking russian mafia cigarettes
Category: currently smoking russian mafia cigarettes Parties and Nightlife

I wanted to post photos with this blog, but while I have my camera with me, I somehow neglect to carry around its USB cord, so I will post accompanying photos later. 

Necessary vocabulary and pronunciation key:

S-Bahnhof Schöneweide (shoona-vie-duh) - regional train station that transfers to the airport

Verdammte Arschloch (fuh-dam-tuh ahshlock) - fucking asshole

Vollidiot (Fole-idyote) - complet idiot

Kontonummer - Account Number

Bankleitzahl (bank-light-sahl)- 8-digit code which represents your financial institution

Himmel - Heaven.

Schöneweide S-Bahnhof.  All big cities have at least one hub of drunkeness, junkiedom and all-around grubbiness.  Berlin has a couple through which the average tourist can fearfully tread while biting his nails and clutching his camera bag close to his side, but for the true adventurer who wishes to go slumming, you must take the train a half-hour out of the center to Schöneweide.

Twice a week I savour the sights and sounds of Schöneweide, which routinely include:

Fist-fights

Car-accidents (usually rear-endings)

Broken-bottle fights

Russian Mafia Cigarette Vendors

People Protesting the Police Crackdown on the Russian Mafia Cigarette Vendors

Drunken Loitering At All Times of The Day

Public Urination

Tattoo-Faced Ex-Nazis Congregating For Coffee and Cigarettes

Very Fat Women Dragging Along Dirty Babies and Very Thin Husbands

All Sorts of Soliciting, Including But Not Limited To Fools Begging Money for Greenpeace, Saving the Whales/Forests/Wild Boars/Russian Mafia Cigarette Vendors.

As I made my way across the Bahnhof last Friday, I noticed that someone had schlepped a used and banged-up ice cream cart, complete with filthy white parasol, and deposited it near the elevator shaft.  Atop the cart were a couple of DVDs, and delinquently orbiting the cart were some of the comparably most dangerous-looking thugs of Schöneweide.  One of them, in ash-blonde dreadlocks and a dirty denim jacket, motioned to a more clean-cut looking 20-year-old convict who was more in my vicinity to grab my attention.  The motion later appeared to mean, Vollidiot in deiner Nähe.  (Quick, there is complete idiot is in your vicinity.)

Pictured here is one of their workers in a yellow shirt, attempting to swindle some poor lady.  Note that I am not lying about the ice-cream cart.

The young man proceeded to give me a spiel about a catalogue he wanted to send me, punctuated with such quips as, "Dont you find that grocery shopping is way too expensive these days?  I mean, are you a millionaire?"  He said that the catalogue was free, but after I got it for such-and-such an amount of time, I would be charged a meager €39 to get music videos on DVD, for half-price.  Who could turn down videos for half-price?  Especially with the price of groceries and all.  There was no obligation and you could cancel at any time, never paying the €39 unless you ordered like, a buttload of half-price videos.

Never mind that I don..t watch music videos for free on the MTV, much less purchase them.  I asked whether the catalogue cost anything, and he replied, "Mein Gott im Himmel, nein!"  I was feeling pliant and asked to see the form he wanted me to fill out.  Lit cigarette dangling from his lips, he fished out a crumpled-up form, ostensibly stolen from a video-rental store, from an inside pocket of his leather jacket, smoothed it out a bit and laid it as flat as possible on the ice-cream cart.  I pretended to read it quickly, and, noticing that the form asked for my Kontonummer and Bankleitzahl, casually informed the Verdammte Arschloch that I wouldnt be filling out the form and bade him good day.  He immediately became irritated and nearly shouted at me that it was only a procedure meant to ensure my awesome half-price privileges if and when I ordered my videos, which would cost next to nothing when compared with tomatoes.  I told him politely that I understood but no thanks. 

In Germany, all you need to siphon money out of someone..s bank account is their Kontonummer and Bankleitzahl, which is why you must be extremely careful where you leave this information.  The bank has transfer forms that you deposit in a little box.  No one gives you a receipt or checks your ID.  Theoretically, because I have the Stoph..s bank information I can organize a transfer to be made on a monthly basis if I wish.

I noticed later that they were approaching only women.  Maybe chicks who hang out at Schöneweide are particularly susceptible to such ruggedly criminal masculine charms.  Not this broad.

Has anyone ever insulted your intelligence by pitching you a blatantly transparent swindle?

Write to me, hoes.

4:00 PM - 22 Comments - 21 Kudos - Add Comment

Robots Are the New Crack
Current mood: argumentative
Category: News and Politics

An integral part of my Gramma lifestyle is being averse to change of any sort.  I claimed to never, ever want to switch to CDs, DVDs, iPods, the New Coke, Family Guy, the 80s revival, straight hair, or not drinking myself into oblivion seven nights out of seven.  I do own the odd CD now and I do carry an iPod, and unfortunately being a hungover mess until 4pm every day isnt a wholesome state in which to be while working with kids, but I have held my ground against the rest of these popular tides of change.

Yahoo! Deutschland recently ran an article about robots becoming the newest addition to the average household, an appliance as standard in a home as a Foreman Grill or Ron Popeil food dehydrator.  The first image that came to mind was a 35-year-old me hovering over a gaggle of little KBs and squawking, "As long as you live under MY roof, youre not having a robot!"

"But Mom, everyone else has one!"

"If everyone else drank a bottle of Robutussin and played hide-and-go-seek on the freeway, would you do it too?"

"Thats not fair!!!  Studies show that robots are totally harmless!"

"Thats what I told my mom when I wanted to sit around smoking reefer all day, twisting hemp necklaces and meeting strange men on party lines.  Go do the dishes."

"But Moooooooom!  Susie Derkins NEVER has to do the dishes!  Its totally the second decade of the 21st century, NO ONE does their own dishes!"

"When you get a job and move out on your own then you can have as many robots as you want."

Having robots do shit for you in your house is dangerous.  God knows man has already forgotten how to chop wood, strangle a chicken, decapitate a cow, grow tomatoes or open any package without a resealable flap.  Why on earth would I want to spend my days giving orders to a robot, getting fatter, lazier, and more helpless and dependent by the minute? 

While I dont believe in any of this crap about robots developing intelligence independent of their programming and taking over the world (although a robot, by design, would be far more rational and logical stewards of the world than are the present powers-that-be), having robots in your home doing your bidding would be almost as crippling as is our current addiction to prime-time television and microwave food.  We are already ignorant and lazy as it is, why throw retarded and unable to scrub ones own toilet into the mix?  Anyhow, I dont need a robot to scrub the floor.  If I want a slave Ill just have some kids.

What do you think?  Would a Jetsons-style robot-slave be a welcome addition to your home?

Write to me, hoes.

11:33 AM - 18 Comments - 26 Kudos - Add Comment

Quit Playin On My Fuckin Phone
Current mood: chillin like nate mcmillan
Category: chillin like nate mcmillan Friends

I got a couple of messages and comments concerning the near-disbelief some people had that the person I wrote about in my last blog was a real person.  Just to clarify, she is indeed a real person, but she didnt write me that letter.  Although her SAT scores, earned over six years ago, are evidently so fantastic that she would never condescend to tell anyone just how high they were, for fear that someone would believe she was bragging, she cannot compose a simple sentence to save her life. 

Why would I talk trash about a friend you ask? 

Because I am a shady bitch and shes not really a friend.  She is a person who Tells Stories of Dubious Veracity, and who Plays On My Phone.

Nearly everyone who knows me personally is aware that I am a twenty-something geriatric gramma who goes to bed at 10 oclock and needs her beauty sleep.  Like most old people, I wake up before the roosters, drink some prune juice, and do the crossword puzzle.  To complete these tasks of Grammadom, and also to rest my arthritic joints, I need a full nights sleep. 

Simple rules of being a friend of the KB:

1. Do not interrupt me while Im talking, unless youre drunk, or have a brief, and relevant interjection

2. Compliment my hair at least twice a year

3. Let me tell you the same story a few times, if I really like it and have forgotten that Ive already told you

4. Do not call me after Ive gone to sleep, and if you do accidentally because you think that 03:30 is an acceptable time to call, apologize and hang up immediately.

I had just fallen asleep at about 11pm the other night, which happened to be a school night, into a nice, peaceful, restful and well-needed slumber, when my phone rings.

KB: (muffled sleepy person voice) Mmmhllo.

Fool Playing On My Phone [male]: (In a deep and disguised fake gangster voice) Eh bitch Im comin over to your house and fuckin you up.

KB: Whos this?

FPOMP: Yo Yo this is Swayze.

KB: I dont know anybody named Swayze.  Quit playin on my phone.

FPOMP: Is this [my real name]?

KB: Yes.  Who IS this?

FPOMP: Im bout to come over to your house and bash your windshield in.  Thats what you get fo fuckin wid my girl Aiesha.

KB: (laughing, annoyed, but it could be ok if its a friend i havent seen in months who moved back to Singapore) Jin?  Are you back in Berlin?

FPOMP: No bitch, I told yo bitch ass already, this is SWAYZE, motherfucker.

KB: (pissed) Im hanging up if you dont tell me who this is.

FPOMP: bleh bleh bleh bleh

KB: CLEEK! (tosses the phone down, closes eyes)

KBs Shitty Phone: (literally two seconds later) RING RING RING

KB: (rejects the call)

KBsSP: RING RING RING

KB: QUIT PLAYIN ON MY FUCKIN PHONE! DONT FUCKING CALL HERE AGAIN.

FPOMP: Yo bitch Swayze is comin to fuck you up!

Female Voice in the Background, who happens to be the subject of the last blog:  [KBs real name]?

KB: Sophie?  Is that Phillip?  Are you guys wasted?

Sophie: No! We were just calling people up, and Phillip was like, "I really want to talk to [KBs real name]!

KB: Im sleeping, I have to get up hella early tomorrow, tell him to quit playin on my phone!

Sophie: Oh, were sooooooooo sorry!  I didnt know you were asleep.

KB: k

Sophie: Sorry!  Sorry!

KB: So... bye.

Sophie:  OK!  Go back to sleep!  Sorry!

KB: Cleek.

If you dont want KB to come to your house, chop you up into little bits and feed you to a wild hoar, dont play on my fuckin phone.

Write to me, hoes.

3:57 AM - 23 Comments - 26 Kudos - Add Comment

Chicken Aren´t Vegetables
Current mood: chillin like nate mcmillan

As alert readers know my computer is in the shitter and I have been banished to the smoky annals of internet cafes.  Germans don..t use apostrophes and every time I try to use one it shows up as .. so this blog will have no apostrophes.  I apologize in advance.

Dear Konichiwa, Bitches.,

Ive been a vegetarian for almost 14 months, two weeks, six days, four hours and 36 minutes.  As a 23-year-old this amount of time basically equals all of my adult life, and for that reason, it is very important that every new person I meet is aware of my lifestyle choice.  Very rarely do I miss an opportunity to tell a new stranger about my vegetarianism, even if I have to use a lot of hand gestures to explain it to them because they dont speak any English.

I met a new person the other day and while trying to impress them with other important facts about me like my SAT scores, which European cities Ive visited and my many friends of different races, I mentioned that as a Southerner, I love fried chicken.  The new person looked at me with her head cocked to one side and said, "I thought you were a vegetarian?"  I tried to explain to her that if someone makes me some fried chicken Im not going to turn it down just because it happens to be chicken, but she kept insisting that a person who indulges in the monthly or weekly plate of fried chicken can no longer call themselves a vegetarian.  So I laughed in her face, walked away making fun of her, and left her on the street, scratching her ignorant head and wondering what just happened.

KB, this is not the first time this has happened!  Talking to stupid people is difficult for me because my SAT scores were like, really, really high.  What would you say to one of your friends if you decided to go veggie and someone wanted to nitpick?

Curious Of New Demonstrations of Elite-Sounding Counterculture, Eating Non-Dairy and Inventing New Gripes

Dear CONDESCENDING,

Chicken arent vegetables, and no one cares about your SAT scores.  Next time someone questions your vegetarianism, shoot yourself in the face for being such an ostentatious assmonkey.  Also I..m never coming to your house again, because your boyfriend is short and your dog needs a bath.  P.S. Never read my column again.

*CONDESCENDING is a real person, who hopefully wont read this blog.

Write to me, hoes.

3:56 AM - 35 Comments - 40 Kudos - Add Comment

MY COMPUTER IS FUCKED

and so it may be a week or so until it..s running again.  I..m sitting in the internet cafe right now, just to let you know I care.  Joking.  I actually had to do some real world shit.  Anyhow.  Peace in the middle east.

1:02 AM - 1 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

Monday’s Top Ten: Reasons Not To Vote For John McCain
Current mood: hungry
Category: News and Politics

I know that I originally meant the "Ten Stupid Reasons Not To Vote For So-and-So" to be taken tongue-in-cheek, especially because I want to have fun, not to spark off a long and tedious political debate, but some of the reasons I cite for not voting for John McCain will be serious.  The astute reader, or rather, the reader who is more astute than a pile of bread crumbs, will know the difference.

That said, I don't give a shit if John McCain is your hero.  (For that matter I don't give a shit if Clinton, Obama, Nader, Kucinich or Paul are your heroes either.  If you're a Deaniac however I am always keen on meeting a kindred spirit )  For that reason please refrain from a) ranting on about why he's the bee's knees or b) being a big baby and crying about it and unsubscribing.  Thank you ever so much.

8:25 AM - 24 Comments - 25 Kudos - Add Comment

I’m not a lesbian, and other reasons I smile at you
Current mood: contemplative
Category: Romance and Relationships

An ex-pat friend of mine who works for the same ungodly company that I do is forever coining eerily appropriate phrases.  Our newest inside reference is American Courtesy.

This blog is not to be about dissecting the differences between Americans and Germans, or how much the Germans are trying to steal my soul (although they are).  It's about something as detestably hippyish as vibes.

We've got to quit putting that funk out there.  I do it, most people I know do it, maybe you're mature enough that you don't do it.  Example: I'm sitting on the train, someone comes along and instead of asking me to move my shit, saddles their big rude rump on my bag until I move it.  At any given time I am carrying a camera, a sandwich and a Faberge egg in my bag, not that the offender knows or cares.  I then give them dirty looks and feel sorry for myself that I have been the victim of such an egregious crime.  Example 2: A lady decided yesterday that she needed to kick my feet out of the way to get comfortable in her seat, so I kicked her back.  Neither of us would budge so we sat there with our knees literally pressing up against each other, smirking at one another.

What is the point?

Of course, while it's obviously not possible that I was wrong about anything, ever in my life, it is possible that the non-verbal communication we have with strangers result in very real and tangible consequences.  I noticed this a couple of years ago while living in Vancouver.  I would smile at some random person I made eye contact with and not only would they smile back, but they would smile at another person who would smile at another person and all of us went about our days with a little more personal strength than we might have started out with.  Conversely when I find someone scowling at me and I scowl back, I start to question the motives of everyone and everything and wind up a skeptical neurotic mess for the rest of the day.  Sometimes when someone would scowl I would smile and they would realize they were scowling and smile quickly and we'd both be happy.  Sigh.

I made the mistake the other day of smiling at a stranger in passing on the street.  The weather was lovely and I was having a good hair day.  A block and a half later I find that this same man has made a 180 degree turn and followed me so he can ask me detailed questions about where I live and work.  Luckily he took "I have a boyfriend" as a legitimate excuse to decline going on a date with him, but my outlook had now changed.  If I glare at people I feel shitty.  If I smile at them they follow me around. 

If I ignore them I cease to exist.

Absurd as that sounds, it's true.  I'm not good at math or science or personal discipline.  About the only thing that makes me feel alive is communicating with other people.

Anyway.

I took a German course last year with a lesbian teacher I was sure was trying to hit on me.  Keep in mind, I'm convinced that everyone is trying to hit on me.  We hung out a few of times after the course was over, one of these times being with another lesbian friend, at a lesbian event in a lesbian bar.  I felt like I was being initiated.  No.  I kid.  It was very comfortable and we danced and smoked a hooka and I had a ball, apart from the bit where, like a white liberal with a guilty conscience, I tried to make my case about being one of the straights who feels their pain, and thinks that boy dykes are hot. 

We didn't hang out much after that, and the teacher, who is only a few years older than I am, unbeknownst to me, moved towns to take another job.  I drunk-texted her the other day and asked if she was still alive.  She responded that she was indeed alive but working in another city and planning to visit Berlin in the next week and would I like to hang out?  I waited a day or so until making the mistake of drunk texting again.  Like most people I am overly emphatic when drunk and wrote something like, "I would LOVE to see you, when are you coming?  Not that it matters, I always have time for you (wink).  Call me when you're in town.  Kisses and hugs." 

I get a text back that is now very impersonal.  This woman has been to my house and eaten my food, drunk my wine, pissed in my toilet.  We have gone together to a lesbian party with one of the sisterhood.  We are friends.  But now I get a message that says we should get together in a nice, neutral setting and invite a bunch of people from our course, and some other people from another course, and it will be a big happy international party full of weird small-talk in broken German.

Fun.

For those of you with zero sarcasm-radar, when I say "fun" I mean excruciatingly boring and tiresome.  I haven't seen this lady in months and now I have to pretend to have fun sitting with a bunch of Spaniards with their stupid tans and laid-back attitudes and shitty German skills.  All I wanted to do was sit around with a pasty German lesbian and talk about history. 

All, perhaps, because I came on too strong.

What is my problem?  Can I not just be a nice normal person who doesn't put out petty shit vibes or creepy perverted ones?  Can't people just take whatever I say or do at face value?  And by face value when I'm being shitty means "I think you're being shitty so cut it out", not "let's have a battle to see who can be the shittiest."

Ah, a nice Neurotic Tuesday.

What are you up to?  Write to me, hoes.

10:36 AM - 26 Comments - 28 Kudos - Add Comment

Monday’s Top Ten: Reasons Not to do a Top Ten Against Obama
Current mood: in need of a shower.
Category: in need of a shower. News and Politics

1:34 PM - 39 Comments - 40 Kudos - Add Comment