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.

Christmas in Gremi

This post is way overdue, but seems like there was always tons of stuff to write about and our Gremi charity event always got pushed behind.

Anyway, if you still care for the Christmas spirit and all that, here's a nice story.

Once upon a time three psychologists spent some time in the Gremi community, preaching bases of inclusive education, as evidenced by this post. It was then and there that they decided to contribute something material and hence, a month later, I started a Candy and Cleaning drive. Basically, we asked the kind people of Tbilisi to bring desserts or detergents, etc. for the Gremi. God bless the FB!

Initially, I planned a low-key, not-too-much-fuss event. Wanted to exploit my hubby, ask him to drive us to Gremi, store several packages of candy in my apartment. But man, the news exploded and candy was raining upon our exaltated heads (I know that's not a word...but that's the feeling). For one week, people kept coming and coming, bringing all sorts of things, I barely had time to run back and forth, locking donations in our office's storage room, involving every co-worker, making it an official work activity. We sat down and actually counted how many Barambos, Milky Ways and Barnies we collected. Fairies, Bertas and Domestos     were fully accounted for too. We smelled like Alpine freshness extra white meets dark chocolate with whole hazelnuts...and people kept coming and coming. The list grew quite large.

On the 25th, our office driver took me to Gremi, the goods were distributed, accounted lists signed by both parties and love exchanged (getting sappy).

The Gremi inhabitants had a little Christmas concert prepared and we watched participants sing, dance and recite poems. We felt so happy. As we watched them, we realized that all of that candy, that multitude of sweetness was now locked in the storage and we did not actually have anything to give the kids right now! So, one of us obtained a miser portion of the desserts and distributed it. Planning ahead would be useful. Sigh.

Anyway, I know it is super late, but I would like to thank everyone who donated those things and everyone who collected and transported them and everyone who thought this was a good idea. Of course, it was just one time and did not make a lasting impact and did not change the world or even Gremi's life for more than several months, but we have to start with little things, maybe we could make it a regular activity, donate to some other place next year?

And so, the kids received lost of laundry detergent and kilos of candy for clean clothing and positive reinforcement. And we felt like we did a good deed.  The End.

P.S. Candy we gave out during the concert.

Activism in the City

We’re marching like lonely soldiers, with our posters up, our heads even higher; we march against violation of privacy and we demand respect and we feel oh, so righteous, and so full of wisdom and then we look around and there’s ten of us and we realize that this country is full of shit.

I’ll make things clear. Last government used to blackmail folks by filming them having sex with men, because they used to use humans as means,then this government aired the footage, hiding the faces but homo-sex-having folks and their co-habitants still got recognized, because, goshdarnit, how could  have anyone guessed that airing human figures, no voice alteration, just faces blurred, will cause anyone discomfort in such a tight, closed society as Tbilisi?

So, a bunch of activists planned a march to the president’s residency and then to the prosecutor’s office—the filming and the airing party, respectively. That morning, I woke up around two in the afternoon and could not get my head off the pillow. The night before I consumed a whole bottle of sparkling wine and here I was, unable to cope with the effects.

I don’t drink. I don’t know what to do when I drink. I don’t know what to do the morning after I drink. I just wanted to lay still and pretend I didn't exist. Or pretend that I were a unicorn…it is always cool to think of yourself being innocent and with long eyelashes and pooping rainbows in the sky…

And then, I thought of the last night, how we all gathered to watch a film and we discussed it with much fervor, and decided that we had to make a stand and  put our foot down and yell--enough!enough!enough! Though I still preferred to be a unicorn, I finally got up, found my pants on the floor and dragged my ass to the president’s residency. I wanted to show my support to some of my friends. I believe this is what my activism comes down to. I want to show friends that I care for them. Every time I argue about human rights, I try to think of the humans whose rights I am defending. Sounds stupid, but so often, we get caught up in the rhetoric and forget that real people suffer. Every day. What is argument for me, is life as usual for them.

Thus we stood, ten or fifteen of us, outnumbered by the journalists around us,giving interviews or just holding posters. Then we went over to prosecutor’s office, stood some more, pranced around for the cameras, packed our belongings and went to eat khinkali.  

We lamented a bit about lazy-ass people who would rather spend their Saturday otherwise, but honestly, if it just about making a stand, who cares how many of us where there? Popularity is for mainstream, man, the less we are, the cooler we feel, man. We’re like hipster activists. We’re proud and lonely.

But hey, we were on all the news, so I guess the goal is achieved.

 Here’s to bright future and citizens who can live in dignity. Here’s to life without blackmail. Here’s to life without headaches and here’s to unicorns and rainbows. Here’s to our country being a country and not prison…dreamers of Tbilisi unite.

p.s. the pic--the activists in front of the cameras. that poster actually shows a person being squeezed between two governments.

Rocking Around the Christmas Tree

As I steer my hot chocolate with a fork (there are no clean spoons left), I am looking at the remnants of the party and making mental notes: need to unstick damp potato chips from the floor, need to sort out clean and used glasses, or better just wash them all anyway, need to fish the cigarette butts out of the salad. The dishwasher is working on max capacity and the vacuum refused to work on New Year’s Day – I guess everybody needs a holiday…

My house look like a Christmas explosion, I have way too much stuff hanging on every wall of every room, and the sophisticated interior decorator (ahem) in me screams “it’s too much, it’s too much”, but hey, friends, when you have to endure three speeches minutes before the clock hits the twelve (two boring and one spiteful), when They do not let you forget about your worries and your strife, overdecorate and overindulge and party like animals.

Which we did.

Let’s see, last New Year’s Eve I was standing in the Museum Square in Amsterdam, high as a kite, the year before that, my friends and I got infused with Batumi cold rain down to our underwear, the year before that penniless hubby and I waited for the freakin ball in Times square to freakin fall for 8 hours, and the year before that we party hopped around Tbilisi. This was the first time we were going to celebrate New Year’s Eve in our apartment.

Which we did.

Several education-seeking friends from abroad graced us with their presence and brought stories from Stanford, Holland, Germany…beware our “foreign” friends, we will visit and trash your respectable places. One friend is leaving for Finland for three months (in the winter! In Finland! She will die!) and declared that she wanted to get fucked up drunk before she left our sunny country. My new co-workers showed up. Hubby’s co-workers showed up. Also, my girls. And the team. Well, I already wrote a love ode to the team, so I won’t go into more details now.

So we sang karaoke and drank and danced and went out in the freezing night to shoot the fireworks and it was fun and we forgot about all the bullshit around us.

We did.

This is a new year now. Last year I did cliff's notes of my annual existence and here’s the 2012 version:

• I quit the Ministry. No, I QUIT THE MINISTRY!!!!
• Got a new job at a disability NGO.
• Visited Baku and Yerevan and Colorado and New Orleans and Netherlands and Belgium.
• Co-organized a huge-ass conference on inclusive education.
• Got stabbed and poked with hormones and received other procedures. If I don’t visit gynecologist three times a month now, I feel like something’s missing in my life. Gotta procreate.
• Had a minor surgery.
• Learned my family member had a cancer.
• Organized a candy-gathering fundraiser (more on that later).
• Gained two freakin permanent kilos.
• Met cool new people.

  I guess that’s it. The year is over.

Funny, I hate cleaning after supras, but I’m fne with the after-party chaos. It reminds me of the last night.

The pic: the best Christmas tree in the world:-)

My Fair Team

Team is a weird thing. Instead of doing what you want to do (like get more sleep), you force yourself to go to the team meeting and sleep through one instead. You spend your time with a bunch of people and give up your individuality for team’s greater good. Eventually, your team starts sneaking into your everyday life, it states its presence on your birthdays, it tags along for New Year’s parties in Batumi, it eats your food, sleeps on your couch and drunkenly sobs at your sad love stories. It’s weird.

My team plays the quiz game thingy called “What When Where?” Before I joined it, the game seemed like smart ass people playing on TV. But then I became my hubby’s team’s groupie. Meaning I followed my hubby around to every tournament and team meeting, cooked for his teammates and spent lots of time just hanging with them. They lost one player along the way and hubby forcefully led me into the team (I thought I was not good enough).

My team consists of different weirdos  First, there is the team captain, a person who invests a lot of his emotions in the game and actually expects us to show up on time.  Whenever we write an incorrect answer, he yells and screams like a little girl, sometime circles our table in bewilderment, demoralizes the whole team and finally rests on his chair like a defeated warrior. Touchingly, he writes summary comments after every game and I don’t know whether he is honest or just tries to keep our self-esteem up, but he notes exactly what we need to hear. He knows who said what and why. He feels our heartbeat. He is aware. And, he is a great listener. If he’s calm. 

The second guy is this fucked up journalist who, through this game, through our conversations on the train while going to tournaments, and our talks on the couch while drinking after games, became one of our closest friends in the whole world. He is brave, restless and full of adrenaline, he chases wars all over the globe; like mushrooms after the rain, he pops up in Afganistan, Libia, Egypt… and then he calls from those hellish places and asks hubby stuff like : “I am in a hookah store in Egypt, what flavor tobacco do you want me to buy for you?”. He is a man of infinite positive energy and when you are with him, he charges you with it like a battery.

The third guy is actually a girl.  She’s been with us for a year and a half.  She is one of the most knowledgeable kids I know.  She came and brought a fresh wave of intellect into our team.  She is my ally on the team – I can discuss Benedict Cumberbach with her! She is nerdy and girly and funny and cooks banana bread. Like what I always wanted to be, only better.

We have a new guy this season.  I can’t really tell you much about him, because his is very introverted, quiet and seemingly innocent man, who does not open up despite my best efforts to poke him out of his shell. But there is some infinite coolness lying beneath his defensive interior, like the other day he posted the most adorable picture of his daughter that made me and hubby look at each other and go awwwwww. He is also a journalist and god save us from all these skewed and corrupt media crew overrunning our team! He has a pretty interesting blog. And, as we all know, blogwriters are cool.

In the end, I just have to mention two guys that left the team, but are still part of our team FB page (hence, they will always be our teammates in our hearts of hearts). One is a hilarious, life-loving, fun-loving IT guy and the other is genius pursuing his careers in Stanford, and I swear when he becomes rich and famous, I will tell everyone that once upon a time, we spent a whole night talking about girls.
And the last but not least is my very own hubby who is the smartest person I know, but writing about him takes more than 500 words and he is so much more than a team member. So I will not write about him.

That’s it. These kids are regular kids, but they know stuff that others don’t know because they are not afraid to actually explore life. They do it through traveling, reading, just plain video-game playing, but damn it, they explore life every second of their living and I love them for it. Thanks guys for being my team! And congrats on a great game tonight!

One last thing: our team has two girls! And thus, our team is one of the coolest teams out there!

The pic: our team (minus one and minus me who holds the cam) celebrating the right answer

The Condom Dilemma

Last week my whole office was discussing a video of politicians talking about what categories of condoms can youth use and which ones should they outlaw. See, our country has no other problems besides deciding whether the nature of a condom is offensive. That matters so much!

They want to outlaw “items that are of sexual nature” (or something like that) and are trying to come up with a comprehensive list. Thus, today the honorary members of parliament discussed the following life-and-death matter (verbatim transcript):

-          I’d like to say, regarding condom, I understand that it is a serious topic, it all depends on a condom, some might have not a precautionary, but a pleasure-giving function…

-          Yes, I also wanted to say that…

-          Some condoms are complicated, with certain technical aids. We do not mean to ban fictional literature, or magazines and newspapers of a general profile, for example, we can’t ban Zaza Burchuladze using this law (average modern writer, has lots of sex in his books – pasumonok).

-          Yes, there are some condoms that have a function of giving sexual pleasure. Those will not be for sale.

So this is what it comes down to: are condoms used for sexual pleasure or just for safety reasons? What about condoms that have small “special effects”, like ripples on the surface but in general look like other condoms? What if one gets sexual pleasure from an average, no-nonsense condom (it is smooth and less messy)? Should we outlaw it too? Finally, why the hell should our honorary members of the freakin parliament discuss our youth’s  sexual pleasure at all? Why is it their business?

I have other questions as well. What if one buys items of sexual pleasure online? Will one get fined? What if someone decides to take a case to court to determine whether an item is of a necessity or sexual pleasure? How will they determine this important matter? Will they ask the witness: did you use this particular condom for sexual pleasure or only for protection? Did you feel pleasure? Was it due to the condom or due to your partner?

Why? Why is this even a matter of discussion?! Damn it, what if I am under 18 and I want to own a condom that glows in the dark? Or if I need a vibrator? Or an S and M outfit?

Secondly, tell me dear politicians, can’t you see other problems that youth under 18 have? Because if you don’t, I can remind you: gambling and gambling-connected suicides and crime, cigarettes available to minors, violent video games and absurd education system, looser and unknowledgeable teachers, absence of support groups and rehabilitation centers! Those are the problems, not the pleasure origins of a condom! It’s just a condom for fuck’s sake! A condom! Get over it! Take care of the problems caused by no regular sexual education! Give out condoms for free! Encourage youths to use them! Go to a sex shop, buy yourself a super-rippled, banana-flavored, glow-in-the-dark condom, go be sexually happy at your house and maybe you will leave others’ sexual preferences the hell alone!!!!!

p.s.the pic: arbitrary object of sexual pleasure I found in a grocery store in Netherlands. Outlaw the big carrots!

Books that Personally Matter

Recently, I stayed up several nights trying to tackle Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. It snuck into my dreams, my thoughts and my Facebook statuses (stati?).  And now that I am done with this book, I keep thinking of others that kept me awake.

Early childhood – Grimm brothers’ fairy tales. I knew them by heart. I read them and re-read them a million times. Also Astrid Lindgren’s Karlson, my first book in Russian. Since then, Russian is my favorite reading language.

Teenage period – definitely Dumas. Read Queen Margot in two days. Could not eat, sleep or play with peers. Stayed in a hammock in my summer house and read until my eyes were sore and dry. That summer I read about 10 Dumas books found in my house, and then proceeded to consume The Count of Monte Cristo once a month.  Everytime I finished a new book, I’d go back go back to re-read The Count. I could literally quote the dialogues between Dantes and Faria in the prison.  I’ve never had such a book fever, as I had in that summer, when I was 13-14. I read more books that vacation than I’ve read in six consequent years.

College years – lots of jewels, I was more picky about the reading material, hence my Nobel list, but what made a lasting impression is probably Dostoevski’s Idiot and Nabokov’s Lolita. Lolita was the book we had to read in my modern literature class; once I got a hold of it, I read it all day long, I remember sitting in a biology class and reading, sitting on a bus and reading, walking in a street and reading and finishing it in one day.

Recent years – among many that I loved, I have to name Dune by Frank Herbert. Not because it is the greatest book I’ve read, but because it is about a desert planet and I was reading it as we were driving through New Mexico desert and every time characters would get thirsty, I’d look up, see the view from my car window and swallow a bottle of water, shrinking with thirst. I peed a lot during that trip...

 Two months ago I had a similar experience: I was reading Life of Pi while sitting in a boat, and well, Pi spends most of the book on the boat! I felt such empathy for him!

And Finally, Murakami’s Kafka on the Beach redefined a novel for me, redefined culture, globalization, identity, love, Freud, mythology and good writing. I was nanny at that time and I took the poor kid for a walk, put him in a stroller and pushed him around for 5 hours, while I had that book sitting on the top of the stroller, swallowing every word. The kid didn’t mind, he liked outdoors.

So, if I had to name books that shaped my world, I’d probably name those, though few of them fall into my favorite style of writing (I like monumental, long novels, like Thomas Mann’s work. Ayn Rand was just my sort of book). But all of them mattered more than anything else at that moment and all of them had to be read or the world would end.  Those are my books that personally matter. What are yours?