The Women Degradation Month

This March is Women Degradation Month. Why is it that all the sudden everybody decided to let their inner sexism out?  Probably sexists were reminded of female existence via the March 3d and 8^th useless holidays. Maybe they were going about their business and, all the sudden, they got a brilliant insight: “oh, tomorrow is March 8^th. Need to buy flowers for the females. Oh by the way, while we’re at it, need to humiliate, degrade and ridicule them!”

Hereby I present to you the plethora of activities planned and implemented in the frames of the Women Degradation Month 2013.

March 8^th. Originally, proclaimed to “promote equal rights, including suffrage, for women”, adopted by Lenin as a public holiday and reinforced by the Soviet government to commemorate women’s patriotism and strength during the WW2, this holiday gradually transformed into a day of celebrating "the weak sex", emphasizing women’s beauty and saintliness. Basically, we took a day that celebrated strong women and turned it into day of celebrating trophy wives. There’s a Russian joke “shut up woman, your holiday is March 8^th!”. Give them one day a year and choke them with it. A FB group that decided to celebrate March 8^th for what it initially was, got virtually attacked by all kinds of people and accused of exaggeration.

The What When Where Female Team Game. I guess the game producers reasoned that because women are different kind of animals, because they think differently (you know, all women use intuition versus mental operations and such) and because it is such an unusual thing for women to actually participate in intellectual games, they need a separate all-female team, because god forbid they actually mingle with the men. Though I believed that this idea is sexist, I am guilty of auditioning for this game. We didn’t know for sure, if they would finally form such team, we could potentially play in other teams and finally, I just really wanted to try and that was the only way. I did not make it but several pretty talented girls did. Now, time after time, the game host does have sexist jokes but nothing too unusual. However, this game was unbelievably misogynist. I did not expect it. I mean, I knew there would be some jokes and shit, but the whole game was full of questions about cooking, getting married, who is smarter in the family, how often do girls use intuition, and such! One sponsor declared that girls play as well as men. Oh really? So they actually measure up to the Male Standard of Excellency? How splendid! The cherry on the top was pretty vulgar question about male promiscuity being normal and female promiscuity being abnormal and the answer to that question pretty much was that the symbols the question involved stood for one penis and six vaginas and one vagina and six penises. Poor girls were so lost, they did not even allow for such answer to be true. They received help from the audience which delivered it in a politer way (they claimed it was about polygamous and monogamous marriage). Anyway, the promo alone was crown jewel of female degradation: Kartli’s Deda is watching you, ladies! OMG! Not the Kartlis Deda!!! Think of the pressure?! I am deeply embarrassed to be associated with this club. I am sorry that my friends had to sit through humiliation. They still managed to play very well. You know, because they are smart and educated.

March of Brides. Rustaveli witnessed an amazing walk this week: women dressed in white dresses flooded the streets in order to support Foundation of Georgian Demographic Restoration, or some bullshit of the same kind. Thus they walked and promoted their uteruses that could produce many, many healthy Georgian babies, who would repopulate this blessed land and spread their seed all over its valleys and hills.

Hence, all the activities were extremely effective in making women feel worthless, weak, pretty objects that are useful only for birthing and flower-receiving purposes. This year’s Women Degradation Month proved to be successful and sustainable. Mission accomplished.

The pic:  the flowers for the ladies...

Anniversary

The weather gods decided to punish me for the sins of my last life, and rained and rained on my head, while I was frantically running all over the town with hand-made posters, forcing friends to hold them. Friends were told that if they refuse to take part in my project, they would be excommunicated forever; they would never receive gifts for their birthdays, or allowed to drink in my apartment. I condemned them to eternal life of sorrow and regret. So, they humbly followed, held posters that made no sense individually and posed with bored faces.

            It’s our fifth wedding anniversary and I tried to make a special gift for hubby. I wrote down the lyrics of Snow Patrol’s Chasing Cars, forced friends to film these words and made a video for hubby. It’s on my FB, if you feel like romance.

            Right now, I am sitting in Batumi Sheraton; just had a relaxing spa day; I am waiting for tomorrow to dawn. I have wrapped a memory stick with the video on it and will wake him up via phone call tomorrow morning. I will hide behind the curtains and watch him open the wrapping and plug in the memory stick. I wonder if he falls off the bed or what.

            Also, life is good at Sheraton. They have Turkish hamam, steam room, sauna and a swimming pool. We have nice view of the sea. I’ll be damned if I get out of the hotel this weekend. Usually, when we travel, there’s so much to do and see that we never take time to enjoy the services and amenities. Actually, we don’t usually stay in such nice hotels with services and amenities. So this time, I will pretend that I am rich and famous and I will spa my ass off.

            On the way here, hubby and I talked about crossing the border and maybe going to Trapzon, maybe closer, doing something, but…not gonna happen! Swimming, sauna, books and films and good food, that’s it. Let’s not to do something once in our life. Let’s just to be lazy. But technically, we already did an activity: we toured Prometeous cave and it was so cool! It’s all lit in different colors and you can see all the stalag/mites/tites, and take a boat ride in a cave river! The only downfall was the tour guide girl who clearly hated caves, cave formations, mineral deposits, geological events and such and walked around with a sour face.

            Are you all wondering why the hell am I writing this instead of relaxing? Well, my hubby IS WORKING , and while I understand that if he does not work, we won’t have the funds to stay in any hotel, let alone a nice one, it makes me mad and restless that instead of dining out (I am sitting in a dress and a full make-up), he is fidgeting with some numbers and graphs. I want to start doing nothing already!

            Finally, thanx friends for your help in the making of the epic epic video. You guys are great.

The pic. Hubby working.

           

Let the Games Begin

For the second time now, we boarded our loyal metal stallion and headed towards rocky kingdom of Armenia. Anything different from my mundane life is good, hence the first part of our trip, when we passed by haunting, monster-like rocks, scary, unlit tunnels, abandoned houses and post-apocalyptic factories is way more interesting than watching this f***in rain muddying Tbilisi.  So we galloped to Dilijan, a cute pine-covered town, to compete with Armenian and several Georgian teams for the title of the most intellectual group of six nerds that have nothing better to do in their lives, but sit through two days of non-stop questions, surrounded with obsessed people. The Dilijan tournament of “What When Where”, sprinkled with Jeopardy and other quiz games was as fun as two days filled with non-stop questions and obsessed people can be.

My morally corrupt teammates bought the whole duty free shop at the border (by the way, we found Armenian border transported into the modern times. My guess is that Tardis was involved). Inevitably, we trashed a very nice hotel room. Thank goodness I had my own room with my own morally corrupt husband. At least I could sleep before the game. Or so I thought.

As I was desperately trying to ignore the snoring, desensitized pile of human tissue that used to be my husband, the voices from the lobby haunted my troubled sleep. I heard piano. I heard swearing. I heard arguing. I finally stormed the lobby in my PJs, ready to tear the enemy apart, only to discover three of my teammates producing all kinds of noises. That night, my honest drunk friends told the Armenians that 1. That Baku was better than Erevan 2. That people who destroyed the gay bar in Erevan sucked (turned out, those were present in the lobby). 3. That Ataturk was a great politician and role model. Unbelievably, nobody beat the crap out of my teammates. I guess our hosts abstained from annihilating Georgian guests and causing an international scandal. Imagine the headlines: GROUP OF GEORGIAN INTELLECTUALS MURDERED BY ARMENIAN “WHAT WHEN WHERE” TEAMS DUE TO THE POLITICAL DISPUTE. CORPSES FOUND IN THE LOCAL RIVER.

Sleepless (me), sick (our captain) and hung over (the rest of the team), we managed to answer some questions the next day. In the end, we placed 4th and even received a complementary trophy. It feels weird to take an undeserved prize, received mainly for showing up (though we did better than some), but hey, it looks cool on my FB. Also, it’s our first trophy, complimentary or not. Ask and ye shall receive.

In the same spirit of wasting our lives, this weekend we went to Bakuriani for a Georgian tournament. Man, Bakuriani looks so depressing with no snow. Trash everywhere and a post-apocalyptic setting of rusty swings and horses with clinical depression. Lately, everywhere I go, it feels like I am visiting remnants of the atomic winter that have been recently rebuilt. That’s the soviet heritage for you.

The level of alcohol went down this time, due to several reasons I am not at liberty to reveal here, we just had this one annoying drunk person with us, who kept bugging people and fell asleep at inappropriate places…my hubby. He managed to piss off other players, make me mad, binge on our food and at the same time, take some amazing pics of night sky. This person can’t walk around straight sometimes, but he can take high-quality pics. Human brain is still a mystery to me.

As for the game, we played really well the first day, I think on the verge of our capacity, yes we could play better, but not much better. We felt like a team and everyone contributed. Second day....nah. No idea what place we have, I believe it’s 15th out of 50, but hey. If that’s what we’re worth, than that’s what we’re worth. We did well. We guessed pretty hard stuff. I am sick of elaborating why can’t we climb higher.

As it always happens, I feel blue next Monday and wish I was away from the raining Tbilisi. All by myself, I don’t wanna be, all by myself…

P.S. The trophy from Armenia. Received for drinking.

I am running, I am running

Do you ever feel, like you have no time to stop? Do you ever feel overwhelmed?

Thinking of the next month, I feel like I will loose it soon.  Next 4 weekends, I am out of town. On one side, I will be doing fun things, I will spend time with my hubby and my friends, though on the other side, if all of my weekends are spent “abroad”, who will do the cleaning, grocery shopping, laundry?

Most of the time, my apartment is a mess. I clean it up during the weekends and feel disappointed that my precious time goes into vacuuming, when I’d rather be doing something, anything, more productive.

And what if I have a kid? How will I manage all this, and take care of a baby?

Thus, I either do not sleep, do not clean the house, do not spend time with hubby, do not see friends, or do not see my family.

Do you guys also feel like there’s not enough time in a day? Do you sometimes write your personal blog during work hours?

Well, at least I will have plenty of stuff to write about every weekend now. And though we’ll be out of fresh underwear, we will be full of new experiences.

So long friends, till the next week, get ready for the stories of Dilijan and Bakuriani.

I am running, I am running, catch up with me life.

Birthday Existentialism

A wise friend told me tonight: twenty-eight is the worst. Twenty-seven, you’re still in the young category. Twenty-eight, you understand that you are headed towards thirty. But when you’re thirty, the fun starts. Cause you can begin an another decade countdown. I shrugged my shoulders. He said:”call me when you’re thirty”.  

These benchmarks are so artificial, but at the same time, they do have a meaning. We ritualize them and celebrate them. So this goddamn time, gathered folks I call friends, put on that dress that is too fancy to wear anywhere and thus has been sitting in the closet for a while, piled on make-up and as, my friend likes to say, I aimed at McQueen and resulted a drag queen.

Actually, I’ve lost weight and looked fabulous.

Now, I am snuggled in new pj’s, thinking about what I thought I’d be by now, and what I’m not and what I’ve left out and what I’ll never get. Of course, at times like this, one is bound to remember the days long passed and shake one’s head and regret that the time has stolen one’s youth. Actually, I kind of regret my youth. I regret being so rule-abiding, so normal, so well-adapted. I should’ve had red hair, I should’ve sneaked out of school, I should’ve had more boyfriends. I should’ve kissed more. I should’ve broken more rules.

In the end, in the real, honest end, I am still ordinary, I have an ordinary job, an ordinary apartment, ordinary hobbies, ordinary looks, everything is well, but nothing is outstanding. I have no special talent, I look cute but not beautiful, I have not achieved any distinctive career position, I have not made a difference, I read, but just enough to qualify for an educated person, but not enough to actually know literature, I watch films, but I am an amateur film-lover, I know little about everything and in the end, I know nothing. There’s nothing I’ve done that differentiates me from others.

When I was twenty, everything seemed possible. College was exiting, I thought I’d graduate to do great things, but I never got to them.

Sometimes I wonder if my life makes any difference, since I am important only to one person and one cat. Which is an achievement. I can’t deny that. Those two mean a lot.

Anyway, done with the blues. Tomorrow, I’m gone to Armenia, to compete with my team in What When Where tournament, I’ve been looking forward to that. God, I wish I could stop being good at this game, and start being outstanding. I miss the time, when I was in ninth grade and won the title of the best speaker in debates, among the whole country. I was such a boring, but such a successful teenager.

Maybe we have rituals to make us look back, to evaluate, even to feel bad for ourselves for one night, feel some sadness, feel some remorse, so that we can improve our life in the next decade countdown. Or what’s the point of sitting around long narrow table, gathering people that barely know each other, participating in this communal eating?

Or maybe, we need these rituals to keep us from sulking too much and to remind us that we actually have a lot of friends that like to give us gifts to keep us happy.

Thanks friends. God knows, without you, I’d be long swept by my imaginary misery. 

An Epic Beating

Our political life continues to amuse us. Just when we thought that life got boring, townsfolk found some dusty forks and damp torches, marched to the national library and beat the crap out of our city Mayor.  Yes, that’s right, this Friday, sane citizens of our fine city physically stomped all over the Mayor.

Not that I like the Mayor. I've been saying that he’s an ass for a long time. Few people doubt that he’s an ass. It is a common knowledge that he's an ass.

But Holy Mother Georgia, does that mean that we should rush and beat up the asses among us (that came out wrong, didn’t it?).

Let’s recap the beating-up event. Saakashvili and friends were to give a speech at the library. Crowd of newly-freed prisoners gathered by the library. They hate Saakashvili for placing them in the prison. They love the new government for taking them out of prison. And as their hate stores up and as their anger erects, Ugulava the Mayor and other similar asses scattered among the masses yell and scream at each other. The ex-prisoners and now proud freemen of the great city Tbilisi grab his majesty the Mayor and shower him with “love”.

If this was a movie about repressed classes bravely revolting against the usurping ruling class, I would be moved to tears. The movie had to be set in the beginning of 20s. Maybe even earlier than that. Maybe it could be of the French revolution time. Then, we would all cheer for the crowd.

We could even make a balck and white film out of it. The sailors find maggots in the meat! Down with the ship’s captain! Let’s push the stroller down the stairs in Odessa park!

However, dear friends, the times of Patomkin have passed. We live in the time of national and international courts, contracts and agreements, I don’t know, civil society, rules, laws and regulations, we live in the time when people pretend to be respectful towards each other.  People pretend not hate each other to the point where inner instincts take over and they physically beat other people. We have passed the time of yelling and stoning and fire-burning at a stake. Alas, not here, not yet!

My salary is late and I am broke. My wounds are healing and they itch. I don’t get enough sleep ever. Maybe, some other time I would've written how uncivilized and horrible it is to actually physically beat the Mayor, no matter how much of an ass he is. But right now, I feel cynical. Beat along, my dear citizens, beat away. Whatever works for you.

And that’s what happens when asses like those harassed politicians don’t legalize peace-inducing substances.

“Everybody needs to get stoned”, sang the great philosopher Bob Dylan.

Burn

As I was complaining about minor shit on fb, a grelka, this hollow rubber vessel one fills with hot water for warmth, burst and sprayed me with hot, just-boiled water.

Life is all about the priorities.  Thus, my first reaction was to save my computer from the water. God knows this keyboard has suffered enough. The second reaction was: holy shit, I am covered in burning liquid! I promptly leaped out of my nighty and my bed, ran to the mirror and saw that half of my face, my neck and my upper body was alarmingly red. Part of my face, on the other hand, seemed that nice blue color of the walking dead hue. Looking like a giant red lobster, I ran out of the room to a computer with a better keyboard and googled further instructions. I kept thinking of that girl in the Girl Interrupted, the one who burned her face after her parents took the puppy away. Anyway, the search engine vomited tons of advices and the giant red lobster dislocated to the bathroom, unwilling to hop into the cold water, as advised by the wise internet. I did put my hands and face under the faucet and took the clean towel, wet it with cold water and put it to various parts of my body, according to the pain signals it sent. I also called and yelled at my hubby to bring me an antiseptic and anti-burn cream.

So, imagine you’re frantic. You rush into the pharmacy and demand antiseptic, anti-burn stuff, quick. And the elderly lady there goes to the back and looks for the medicine forever. And then she comes back with two different tubes of cream and claims that one is antiseptic and one is anti-burn, but you need those two together in one tube, a concept beyond her cognitive abilities. What would you do? Instead of mentioning her mother in a bad way, hubby ran out to the other pharmacy, where another person couldn’t get it that some creams actually carry anti-infection and analgesic effect together, until hubby lost all his patience and explained that when a person with crazy eyes rushes into a pharmacy asking for a burn relief cream, well that means that someone got burned, goddamnit. So move.

He came home after all the pharmacy tours and scared the shit out of me; I was pretty calm before that, planning my own rescue and all. Finally, we went to a center for burn treatment. The wise internet said I couldn’t put clothes on the burn before the doctor dressed the wounds, so I had to wear shirt that is even big for my big-enough hubby, and it kinda looked like a trench coat, which I opened widely, for all the interested medical staff at the hospital and felt like an exhibitionist scaring the kids and old ladies.

The next morning I came back to the hospital, where under all the gauzes a broil size of my breast formed atop of my real breast. I considered the exiting possibility of walking three-breasted, a bit of a bra problem, but the doctors punctured it mercilessly and I will spare you the details.

Anyway, my extremely loyal hubby has been disinfecting and medicating my wound for several days now, and I predict that it would be a long time before he decides to see me naked just for the fun of it. That’s what love is. In about three weeks my skin will return to  its prior state.

Also, I have to wear his shirts now, cause my tops are pretty tight and I can’t stand the touch of a material against my body. I’ve decided to embrace this fashion challenge and pair hubby’s oversized shirts with torn jeans and colorful bandanas. After all, beauty is just skin–deep; in this case, a burned one too.

p.s. gauzes and bandages, my new friends.