The Double Standard

When people live we bitch about them. We gossip about them, we complain about them. They are this and they are that. When people die we look at the floor. We say good things. Or we say nothing. Fuck that. Hitler was a jerk alive. Hitler is a jerk dead. Death isn’t the great leveller. Death is the great double standard.

Crappy Crap

I wonder why  my child says 'Crab is the animal that lives on the beach' incessantly. Could it have something to do with my constant cussing? Hmm...

The Simple Life

I went out for lunch in Minsk for the first time in four weeks, after two virus infections, my babe drew Mommy and Daddy on the labels I tore off the brand new lingerie sets I got myself, the cheesecake was cheesy, the child kept saying you are beautiful (I should stop putting off that ophthalmologist visit) and I caught a moment of happiness by its skinny cellulite-free ass.

Looooooser

Today I had left my home at 12.20 sharp to take some money out of an ATM machine across the road to pay for the Nanny’s services because the Nanny wound not be able to babysit the next day and needed her wage before 14.00 I was wearing something I grabbed really quickly, it being March and everything. The first ATM machine was out of order. It began to rain. I froze my nose walking to the second one, which was out of order. The rain turned into snow. I froze my cheeks before I reached the third one, dead too. My ears went as I walked up the fourth one. My hands were curled into the sleeves of my light coat as I banged my head against the fifth one, covered in snow by then. My ass went numb as I slid the damned card into the ATM number six, which spit it out, invariably, and by number eight I was a shivering mess, came home at 13.30 sharp, with no cash, paid the Nanny in green and read here that ATM machines in Minsk were out of order exactly from 12.20 to exactly 13.33 on the 24h of March, year 2011.

Keep It To Yerselves

I would kindly ask all Irish males, having successfully reached puberty, to refrain from sneezing in my presence. Not even through a wall. Not even on the phone.  Much as I love my kid, just keep that damned tissue handy at all times and sanitize bloody often. Thank you.

No Comment

A spotted girl's mac by a global grocery and general merchandising UK retailer in a Minsk second hand store, battered, faded and washed out, costs exactly as much as a brand new spotted girl's mac by a global grocery and general merchandising UK retailer in the UK itself - 12 freaking pounds. 

Science and Fiction

Desperate Housewives, that cursed, flawed but fascinating misnomer series, is on and on in my household right now. Yes, I am late, as always, I don’t live by anyone’s schedule, don’t own a TV, and stumble at things at my own pace. The shit that is hidden in those lives, so seemingly ordinary and insignificant, the madness, the addictions, the secret sex parties, the pure evil, the perversions and infidelities, the false sex abuse accusations, the very real sex abuse, the omnipresent paranoia that surrounds both, the lies, the love, the sex and the passion, the love children, the mind games, the ghosts of the past that haunt the present, the paralyzing fear and the plastic smiles glued on permanently – I have all that, and more, peppered with a pinch of the blackest, wackiest humour around. That’s one of those stories that seem ridiculous when compared to the monotony of our every day…

I wrote a story in Warwick that was pure non-fiction. Just plain facts. The group reaction was: it was too complicated, too far-fetched, never could have happened in real life. I was twenty five then, mental age of a newborn. Four years later, a life later, I can tell you my life is getter stranger than fiction by the minute. Desperate Housewives may be good, but it could never match. When I read the non-fiction of my every day, science fiction is more what it feels like.

Tired

There's another landing strip... tired of the bad brazilian one... trying to stay awake... trying to ss-tt-aayy a... zzz...

I Got A Landing Strip Clear For You

So I wrote a few rock songs. And I wrote a few rap songs. The rap songs the boys said ‘can’t talk ‘bout things like that, you a girl’. One second later, they up on the stage with my lyrics on their lips. Now how in the world am I supposed to take men seriously? (Dear Allan I. Teger, please don’t sue me for using your gorgeous landing strip here, my native country is only catching up on copyright infringement and other bullshit like that). So now as I wrote a few songs for Monsoon Sexy Season and Taninjazz, I can say with dignity I wrote a few pop songs. Turned out, it wasn’t as easy as some snobs would have it.

In rock I found I could be as vague and dark as I wanted. I could be smart. In rap I had verbal mileage of novelistic scope and as long as I rhymed I knew I would do fine. Pop has been a head spinner, at times, not that Taninjazz or Monsoon Sexy Season is straight pop either. With Tania Goroshko I found it hard translating her extraterrestrial Marsian into English with a couple of syllables available at my disposal, with only a half-sigh and two or three moans to back me up. Her instructions to sound ‘simple without being sticky, sexy but understated’ didn’t help either. I’m not exactly the Queen of Subtle, you know.

Some of the best pop song lyrics I know are also some of the strangest. They are simple bordering on imbecilic, like Billie Jean: ‘She told me her name was Billie Jean, as she caused a scene’. There is nothing as poignant here verbally as in the hysterics of Wanna Be Starting Something but it’s the combination of the track’s dancefloor charisma and its dark, fatalistic take on human nature that makes it iconic. Words are interspersed with agitated hiccups, and these hiccups almost become words. Billie Jean is a signature song by Michael Jackson and the most accurate soundtrack to his life. Without the lyrics it would have been another one of his straightforward dance hits. As it is, ‘be careful of what you do 'cause the lie becomes the truth’, which is a tired cliché otherwise, in the context of what we know (the danger of media scrutiny, the lies and allegations that ruin reputations forever and cancel out the glories that preceded them) it becomes almost a revelation. The song strangely foreshadows the ‘swift and sudden fall from grace’ and the catastrophe that was to follow. It does what Michael Jackson does best and his family does best to conceal: juxtaposes mourning and jubilation, myth and reality, danger and innocence, when you don’t exactly know whether he is crying or laughing, having a mental breakdown or having the time of his life, singing or sighing. And the lyrics, their seeming naiveté, come out as silly and eccentric, instantly viral, making little sense, in dizzying contrast to the airy feel of the song that is forever to remain a dancefloor monster.

Easy by Sugababes rides on fat electro beats which buzz like fireflies on hot sweaty nights to deliver lyrics that are saucy, raunchy, fun and borderline inappropriate. The poll-dancing salacious puns and euphemisms (by now you should know my personal favourite – ‘I got a landing strip clear for you at the airport’) are kinky and fun. It’s all about balance so the chorus lines are short and punchy (against pushy guitar riffs adding some style and weight to the sugary vocals) with probably the two most abused words in pop music – baby and common. Banalities rivaling with a few pop-rock surprises make this a perfect pop song for writers starting out to emulate.  

Even though Britney Spears is not a singer and what she makes is not music she has a genius song up her sleeve. Most obviously, it’s Toxic. Against the ssssscreaming sssstringsss and mechanized glisssssandos, alliterated staccato words are slithering like snakes here: from ‘Intok-ssicate me now’ down to ‘With a tasssste of your lipsssss, I'm on a ride, You're toksssssic, I'm sssssslipping under, With a tasssste of poissssson paradisssssse…’ (they look like snakes too, and Britney knows how to move like one). Phonetics are as important as the meaning behind the lyrics here (unhealthy addiction, anyone?), which makes this a cool lyrical fest just like the bipolar Disturbia, the alcoholic It's A Wrap, the animalistic Déjà Vu (I love how Beyonce introduces the members of her mini orchestra: bass, hi hat, 808 and beloved hubby) or strange but pretty Stuttering by Jazmine Sullivan with lyrics that would have looked ridiculous coming out of another diva’s throat.

But nothing beats the opening lines of Smells Like Teen Spirit, of course: ‘Load up on guns, bring your friends’, which is the perfect soundtrack to my pathetic life.

And please don’t tell me it ain’t a pop song.

What about that?

What About That?

We walked along the beach
What a moon lit night
He held my hands in his
He kissed me he said
I wanna spend my life with you
I want you for my wife
Just then I thought

Chorus:
What about the times you lied to me
What about the times you said no one would want me
What about all the shit you've done to me
What about that
What about that
What about the times you yelled at me
What about the times I cried
You wouldn't even hold me
What about those things
What about that
What about that

I took a pause
And then a deep sigh
He looked right into my eyes
As he said
I know I didn't say somethin' wrong
I didn't have the courage to say
But then I thought

Repeat Chorus

Oh

Chorus 2:

What about the times you hit my face
What about the times you kept on when I said
No more please
What about those things
What about that
What about that oh
What about the times you shamed me
What about the times when you said you didn't fuck
her
She only gave you head
What about that
What about that

Don't wanna live my life in misery
Don't tell me you did it 'cause you love me
I don't believe
I'm sick and tired
Your deceptive games
Wonder where
You have been
I can't live life wondering

My heart was poundin'
But the time had come
To stop lettin' my whisperin' heart control me
And tellin' my screamin' mind what to do
I looked him straight in the eye
And then I said

What about the times you hit my face
What about the times you kept on when I said

No more please
What about those things
What about that
What about that oh
What about the times you shamed me
What about the times when you said you didn't fuck
her
She only gave you head
What about that
What about that

Scarred for Life

Boys, so how did you get those nasty scars?

Scraping a tree while stealing apples from a neighbor…

Bullriding…

Jumping off a wall to see if you could do it…

Running away from an angry neighbor dog…

Fighting at war…

Singing in a lonely street at night…

Getting hit in the head with a rock…

Stepping on a broken bottle at the beach…

Melting play dough into your skin…

Protecting good citizens from bad people…

Well, mine weren’t that picturesque, heroic or fun. Not much to talk about, really, but still.

I brought a new human being to the world.

Happy International Bitches Day, y’all!

Big Candy For Big Girls

When my child pulled a pink condom out of my purse in a crowded Minsk bus and said ‘Mummy, help me open this big candy, please’, I should have turned around and hid away at home since it was pretty damn clear that it wasn’t going to be exactly my kind of day. But I like to learn the hard way, don’t I? So I went with the haircut in a beauty saloon way out of my league, where women spend half of my monthly salary just to get hair and makeup done for a small party they are going to, and the haircut, as always, made me feel down instead of up, and the only thing that was going to cheer me up was the usual magic wand – a new dress. That is how I ended up stuck in a dressing room with my almost four year old daughter, her anatomically correct male baby doll (the most useless creature with a dick I have met in my entire life), and three pairs of dresses, one navy blue, stretch denim, three navy style buttons on the chest, one the color of straw with a fake leather belt, one with a busy flower print that looked more like a cheap bathrobe than a dress. But I hope against hope, right? As I am undressing, I am somewhat  encouraged to push the day up since I find out that my jeans feel a little tighter today not because I’ve gained a few pounds, yet again, but because there was a pair of black stockings stuck inside them from the precious day. Phew, I say. So as I put on the first dress that is navy blue, tulip skirted, bell-sleeved and tightly wasted, I am feeling hopeful. As it slides painfully down, squashing my breasts inside, I curse at the booth mirrors that show a fatter, more stretchmarked me, the lighting that makes me look like a victim of a viral disease, and my child, who keeps peeping out of the booth and flashing my falling-out fat onto unimpressed, slimmer and smarter customers. I am going to be critical, I say to myself. So as I try to breathe, I tell myself that the dress shows off my chubby arms too much, is too short and the ass area comes off as a large inflated balloon, and, believe me, I don’t need anything inflated there more than it already is. It is an evident no-no and I reluctantly pull the dress up, I do have two more to go, I comfort myself. Of course as it gets to the boob area, it gets stuck. I pull on it really hard, my skin breaks out in red patches and I am covered with miniscule beads of sweat. In pain, I manage to pull it up over my bra and there, on the shoulders, it is stuck FOR GOOD. I mean, it is not moving AT ALL. I try to pull it down and it’s stuck stiff to my wet body. I try to pull it up and it doesn’t move an inch. It is really hard to breathe, I am thinking of calling the assistant, my daughter is not looking at me, smart girl, she knows in situations like this it is better to dissolve into the background. Finding it really hard to think without air, I pull the dress down and stare at it again. The thought of walking out like this with a ‘love it so much won’t take it off’ smile and cutting myself out of it at home, crosses my mind.  But then again it costs too much, even though this is a kind of store respectful women aren’t to be seen at, and I won’t wear it ever again, not after the number of brain cells it killed.  Reason leaves me completely, so I pull the dress up again, hoping something has changed in the last few minutes, maybe I lost an inch or two around my chest, who knows? So I pull it up over my breasts and they are in agony again, and, sure as hell, the journey stops right there, around the shoulders. I begin to cry, quietly. I say to myself how tired I am of my pathetic life, and my daughter tries to blend with the curtains surrounding her with even more reckless courage. There is nothing else to do. I pull the dress down yet again and rip it down its right side. It’s easy to do. I pull it up, and it gets stuck again. I no longer care by now. So I pull it down and rip it up right in the front. Nothing, again. I open my bra, and fish it out of the dress. Nothing, again.  My face is red, my head is bursting, my hands are trembling. As I am beginning to analyse my life for signs of mortal sins I must have committed to deserve this, my baby daughter grabs at the zipper on its left side and opens the dress up, in one smooth slide. I look at myself in the ‘fat’ mirror, a woman with three fucking degrees. I hide the ruined dress in between the two others, which, obviously, I am not going to look at, put my clothes back on, and walk out. I grab a random dress on my way out the store, because I am a nice person and I feel guilty. I pay, I walk through the gate. Dear Universe, being groped by a square-headed security man because the damn thing beeped, and then beeped, and then beeped again, was not exactly what I meant when I wished for a bit of sexual activity later on that day to battle all the stress… Needless to say, the dress that I barely looked at, was a perfect fit, and I am going to wear it on the 8th of March, when everyone under the sun is going to remind me that I am a woman, as if I could ever, and I mean EVER, forget.

Alien Art

This work by Alexander Nekrashevich is haunting me... it's only 6k $ sugadaddies, you hear me? it has to be mine [sob, sob]...

Ma-ma-material Girl

All my Sugar Daddies, past, present and future, I want this:

and this:

and this:

Anonymous parcels most welcome...