Quick Russian joke

What is the difference between a pedophile and a pedagogue?
The pedophile REALLY likes children.

My Short and Agonizing Visit to HerpesVille

I don't have herpes, but I do have the Flu.
I just wanted to get that out there so everyone can feel sorry for me. And it's not the bullshit "slight cough/moderate sneezing/sort of a fever for 1 day" flu. No, it's the "high fever for 3 days/throat-tearing coughing/swarm-sneezing" kind of flu.
Anyway, this has nothing to do with the herp, but I just thought that I'd explain my general state of mind at the moment, and also, as previously mentioned the sympathy thing.

So, this post is going to describe in detail my brief visit to what I like to call HerpesVille here in Frozen Hell.

It all began with the night that I went out on Halloween. As everyone knows, Halloween is super fun because it's that special time of year that every girl gets to let her inner (and in my case outer) slut out. So me and my new little friend (I change these on a monthly basis, but I really like this one, so I hope she sticks) dressed up as two goddesses and went out on the town. We ended up at a party, had a fair amount to drink, and naturally I ended up taking some American dude home where we engaged in all sorts of rough'n'fun until the wee hours of the morning. We parted amiably enough when his roommate called him from the afore mentioned party because he couldn't find his pants and needed my gentleman friend's help in locating them. What kind of retard can't find his pants in the morning? And Irish one! That's what kind. Never trust the Irish. Because they'll put a dent in your bathroom door and put you in all kinds of situations where you can get your ass kicked. They're all like Popeye the friendly sailor man, except instead of spinach it's booze, and instead of super strength, it's, um, super retard.

When I got home, still all innocent and doe-eyed, I decided to take a nap. Imagine my totes shock when I wake up to find something not right in my most sacred of sacred places. Yeah, I felt a Dum Dum Dum "blister". I, being a complete and total hypochondriac, immediately think "HERP! » Now don't get me wrong. This ain't the first time that I've mistaken something for herp. This happens to me every couple of years or so. Usually, I handle it pretty calmly. And by calmly, I mean I freak out and run to a doctor, at which point they take one look at whatever it is that's got my panties in a bunch and tell me that it couldn’t 't possibly be herpes because it's on my elbow or something.

But this time, something was different. I'm guessing it's the fact that I'm here in Russia. So this was on a Sunday, and come Monday, I'm thoroughly saturated, and what do I do? The most retarded thing I could have imagined myself doing. I don't go to a doctor. Instead, I call up the last three dudes that I slept with and ask them if THEY have herpes. Yes, I really did that. Including the American that I had just slept with. He couldn't have possibly given it to me but I figured just in case, I should go ahead and include him in on my heart attack (which was now turning into a communal affliction).

Here's how these conversations on the phone went:

Contestant #1 - Blind Diabetic from New Zealand.

-Hey Blank, how you doing? Say, you don't have herpes by any chance, do you? Because I just found something that might be that.
-Oh Jesus P! That's just what I need right now! No, I don't have herpes. So when do you think you gave it to me?
-I gave it to you? Screw you! If anything you gave it to me.
-Well, you slept with that American guy this weekend. He seems dirty. You should call him. He probably gave it to you.

Contestant #2 - Psychopath musician from Russia.
-Hey Blank, how you doing? Say, you don't have herpes by any chance, do you? Because I just found something that might be that.
-Herpes? No, I definitely don't have that. But once you get that all cleared up, please consider me for a permanent position as your Saturday night lover. I'm in the countryside for the weekdays, but I'm here in the city every weekend.
-Seriously? I just told you that I might have herpes. Really?

Contestant #3 - Nice guy from America (Couldn't have possibly given me the herp)
-Hey Blank, how you doing? Say, you don't have herpes by any chance, do you? Because I just found something that might be that.
-Um, no I don't have herpes. I've only slept with two women since I got checked for it 8 months ago, and you were one of them. And uh, I couldn't have given it to you because the incubation period is too short. Can please give me a call after you get tested?


Please note that the only man not completely freaked out by the word "herpes" in this scenario was the Russian. That's how they roll with STD's here in Russia.

Okay, so after doing this completely asinine thing, I went to an expensive VD clinic to get my lady parts checked out. The first thing that I thought was kind of "funny" was that they kept insisting that herpes is not a venereal disease. They don't think of it as an STD here in Russia. They don't even think it's a particularly big deal.
The second thing that happened was that the doctor took one look at it and was like "yeah, that's herpes alright!" And when I said "but couldn't it be something else?" Her reply was "no! This is herpes. We're doing a culture because you're insisting on it, but it's purely perfunctory at this point. I assure you that this is herpes."
Also, she kept asking me what I normally use to treat my herpes. She asked me this twice after I told her that I'd never had it before. Like "what do you normally put on your herpes?" "Lady, I already told you, I've never had herpes before so why and how the hell would I put something on it?" I even asked another doctor in the place if that first doctor is ever wrong and she was like "no, that doctor has been doing this for years, and if she says it's herp, then it's herp."

So, as you can all imagine, I was fairly bummed out by this point. I mean, really bummed out. All I kept thinking of was "Motherfucking Russia gave me Herpes!" Bad enough that it's cold and wet here, but now it's given me a venereal disease. This is bullshit ya'll!

And just as I got used to the idea of living, biking, swimming, and showing with herpes, thanks to Valtrex or whatever, I call this morning to get my "perfunctory" test results back and BAM! it's not herpes. Just like that. I was too relieved to be pissed off about the absolute surety with which that cunt of a doctor was trying to convince me that I had an incurable STD PRIOR to performing the definitive testing.

Anyway, I've done a lot of personal reflecting over the past few (7) days and have come to the conclusion that I'm not letting one more dirty bastard in this country lay a finger on me ever again.

I am, however, going to Iceland for New Years. Iceland is clean and pure, so that's a whole nother matter...

The moral of this story is never believe Russian doctors. Or, don't sleep around. No wait, it's yeah, never believe Russian doctors.

Fuck my Heart! (Or a Handy Guide to the Mating Rituals of the Russian Proletariat)

I have no idea.

Did you people seriously think that after a mere 10 months in this fucking nasty ass, lonely, cold, foul-weathered hellhole, I would even come close to understanding how these people get their date on? Fuck that noise. I don't understand anything about the way these people get together, stay together, or to be more precise, what the motherfuck they want from me.

So this isn't so much a guide, as it is a list of what I've observed, experienced, and learned in what can now be called, close to a year, in this country, as far as dating and fucking is concerned. These aren't in any particular order, so don't bother looking for continuity.

1. Russian women have a shelf life. I think we all know this. They are some of the most beautiful women in the world, but once they hit 28 or so, having already popped out a few babies, they pretty much look like they're 40. A really hot 40, but still, these bitches look way more used than a woman from the States might. What most of us don't know is that:

2. Russian men have a shelf life too. Holy fuck do they ever. And theirs is actually shorter than the women's. Shit, in Russia, their life in general is considerably shorter. So it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that they hit midlife around 24. Yeah, that's cause they only live to like 48 tops. So you start out with these beautiful blond waif boys, that at some point between the age of 23 and 24 go through a physical metamorphosis which causes they necks to become the same size as their heads, their heads to become square, their bodies to become squat like a dwarf's and covered by a dense forest of dark hair, and their pretty blue eyes to become bloodshot, while their skin gets riddled with broken blood vessels. This is also accompanied by pig pot bellies caused by excessive drinking. Actually, I think a lot of it might be caused by the excessive drinking of alcohol, cologne, antifreeze, and all the other creative shit they think is drinkable during a bad hangover. What, you thought gopniks just came out of the womb like that? Discovering this particular fact may be one of the biggest disappointments of my life.

3. Russian men suffer from something that they call "Scared Dick" over here. It was recently pointed out to me that all men have this problem from time to time, not just the Russians, but to be perfectly honest, I've never encountered it among men from other countries with the frequency that I have here. "Scared Dick" is exactly what it sounds like. It's when a guy is nervous around you and can't get his shit up until he feels more "comfortable" around you. You kind of have to hold his hand and pet his head til the ED goes away, or something. I always thought that I was very understanding when a guy suffered from performance anxiety. But Jesus fucking Christ! Get over your dick already. I'm not going to break it. I've handled one before, and it was fine. Still on there. Haven't had any screaming complaints.
I would also like to note that I've fucked plenty of Russian Jews back in the States, and non of them had this problem. So I'm thinking it's not a cultural thing so much as... I'm not racist.

4. A large chunk of Russian men don't seem to understand the concept of a one night stand. They understand hookers, and how you don't need to try to have a relationship with each one of those just because they fucked you, but free ladies? No. They don't get that. The second you fuck a dude here, he thinks it means that you want a relationship, and tries to instigate one with you immediately. Frankly, I don't even know how to respond to that shit. Back in the States, if you had a one night stand and the dude actually bothered asking for your number, and then actually called you, you weren't in a fucking relationship until you BOTH decided that this is something that you want. Here in crazyland, you fuck a dude, and BAM! His ass is calling you the very same day (no two day wait period for these Speedy Gonzales'), and faster than you can say "give me a second to wipe your sperm off of my stomach", you're in a goddamn relationship. And then you have to go to his fucking Dacha with him where he has an axe and it's kind of creepy because you just met 4 days ago. Fuck!

5. Russian men say "I love you" about as often as normal men say "How you doin'?". Yeah, they throw their "I love you"s and "I'm madly in love with you"s around rather freely. This might be their way of guaranteing that you keep letting them put their penis inside of you, but I like to think that it's so that no one can blame them when it clearly turns out that they didn't mean it. So you can't ever ever believe a Russian dude when he says it. He pretty much has to back that shit up with a marriage before a smart woman will actually believe him. Lucky for him, this country is full of stupid bitches.

6. And now to combine the two points above. Once you're in that weird, way too fast, way too soon too serious relationship, he will tell you that he loves you, and if you have really shit luck, he will actually mean it. Or so it will turn out, when you dump his ass after a month and a half of what you thought was casual dating, and he thought was mating for life. Even though you told him, you actually told him with your mouth that you were not in a serious relationship. You told him this WHILE you were dating, on a number of different occasions. So, naturally, when you do dump him, he completely loses his shit and proceeds to accuse you of spitting in his soul, not caring about his emotions, and throwing him out like garbage. Because Russian men are not too proud to act like jilted little bitches.

7. Every Russian man has a baby. Somewhere, somehow, he's knocked some bitch up at least a year before you met him, and has a baby. And he loves that baby, but he's not going to tell you about it when you first meet. You're going to figure it out by looking at his photos on Facebook. Now I'm not saying that this is weird or anything, but I do think that a child might be worth mentioning on the second date or so. If it's not too soon for me to go to your Dacha with you, it sure as fuck shouldn't be too soon for you to tell me that you have a kid out there.

8. Point 7 applies to men as young as 18. They're still pretty and waifish, but they too have a fucking kid somewhere out there.

9. If YOU (ladies) happen to be stupid to enough to actually fall in love in this country, it's absolutely going to be with the one guy that doesn't want to be in a relationship. It's going to be with the guy who thinks love is made out of Satan. He'll tell you that he loves you. He won't mean it. He'll tell you that he wants to spend time with you. He won't. But he'll keep fucking with your head so that you keep waiting for him to do the whole "love/spend time together" thing with you. He'll text you and send messages online, and even send you love songs, just to make sure that you keep loving him. Until finally, you remember how old you are and unfriend his ass from your Facebook account, and hope that he doesn't call you anymore.

10. Russian condoms come in several varieties. Durex, Contempo, Romantic Love...They are all made in China. They are all counterfiet. They all break! Thankfully the morning after pill is sold in every pharmacy here, and costs a wopping $3. Thanks Russia! Too bad the morning after pill isn't also the magic "STD-B-Gone" pill. During my brief vacation to the U.S., a friend gave me 250 Lifestyle condoms. Thanks!!!!!!

11. I'm not mentioning women in this list only because everyone knows that Russian women are disloyal bitches and are not to be trusted. Don't believe Russian women. Also, they all swing both ways. There are no strictly straight women in Russisa. Might be cause they're all so hot, might be because the men are all dirty liars with babies on the side, point is, I can't deal with either gender here.

That's pretty much all of the data that I've gathered so far. I hope that it has been educational, and for those of you planning to travel this way, a warning.

Experimenting with Russian Ya'll.

I actually wrote this when I was still back in the States. It's a poem in Russian. That's right. I can barely write in the language so I decided to try my hand at poetry. So, em, those of you that don't read Russian, read no further. Sorry. I still love you though. Oh, and those of you that do read the language of the Bear, I know there's a line in there from the Pixies. Imitation is the highest form of flattery ya'll.

Also, I somehow managed to come up with this word combo for men in Russian:

Мужчины! Это тайна, обернутая в загадке, задушенной в умственно отсталом.

So here's the poem:

Старомоддия

Ох, это старо как кожа
Руки
Красные пятна, признаки греха
Проживание слишком хорошо
но где была забава в крике?
От любви прибывает мучительная смерть невинности
Она имеет бедра как Красная шапочка
но упала на ее лицо в тех ботинках на высоких каблуках.

Государство Осуществления
Государство Истощения
Граф Допамина и Наркотика
Навсегда преступник, вечно обвиняемый.

Волки все вокруг
потеряя шерсть овец
Показывают клыки
Зубы, которые хотят почву и хотят Море

Ах, любовь

Und here's another short one:

дорогую жемчужину в море нашла
отбросила штучку и дальше пошла
как будто она мне совсем не нужна
подумав " Зачем мне жемчужина одна?"

ведь еслиб было много
то можно продать,
а так, одинокая, не отдать, не понять.

Но встретила смерть домой по пути
И смерть мне сказала "ну где? Покажи."

Concert with Crazy and Joke Y'all!

So I had a fun concert with Crazy last Thursday night. Although, truth be told, I forgot to eat that day, and two pints of beer later that's all she wrote as they say. My memories of the show are, ahem, a bit skewered. These are just some pics from the concert.
Also, Here's a joke that I heard here recently, not sure if the translation works. Let me know:

On a cold dark winter night in Poland, in 1941, a tiny skinny girl in a torn coat with a yellow star sown on the sleeve is walking down the street.
A stately German officer in a great overcoat is walking directly towards her. As he approaches her, he looks her over and says
"Liitle gerl, you must be a jew."
The little girl looks up at him with her big brown eyes and says
"No motherfucker, I'm a Texas Ranger!"

Deep Thoughts by Plusha

Dear Friends,

Today's post is going to be about a new deep and profound understanding that I've recently gained about the country that I currently reside in.

I figured something out about Russia the other day. Being in Russia is a lot like being in a mental hospital. Those of you that have seen the inside of one of those will understand, but for those of you that haven't, I'll elaborate.

See, when you go, or get put, inside of a mental hospital, and you're only marginally off your rocker, it's actually a very therapeutic experience. Because there you are, walking on the outside, feeling all batshit crazy, and then you get into a mental institution and Bam! you get to see real crazy. If you have panic attacks, and you end up in a place where one dude is sure as shit that he is Napoleon, and there's a fat lady that tries to eat her own face on the regular, you start thinking "Hey, I'm not crazy. I'm really sane compared to these nutjobs." And it makes you feel a whole lot better about your own mental state and problems in general.

And as it turns out, Russia is very similar to this. The people in this country are so fucking nuts and okay with it, that me and my little panic attacks are nothing in comparison. I'm the Queen of Sane here.
Specifically, the words "blood pressure" seem to have a mystical effect on the populace in these lands. I think I could probably stab some motherfucker in the neck, and when the militsia show up, just say some shit about a sudden drop in my blood pressure at them, and they would probably nod understandingly and send me home after giving me a shot of cognac.
Sometimes, you see people on the street here, and they look drunk or ill, but it's really BLOOD PRESSURE problems. BLOOD PRESSURE can pretty much explain away any behavior. I love it!

There's nothing like this in the U.S. People in New York are really not into trying to understand other people's mental problems. And there's no acceptable excuse for those problems either. It's like an embarrassing secret that everybody has. I looked at the statistics ya'll. There's more anxiety sufferrers in America than most other countries in the world. And yet it's not okay to have it.

But here in Frozen Hell Crazy Land, they just call that shit "blood pressure" and it's all good. They also call hangovers "blood pressure". And everybody is really understanding about it.

As a result of all the understanding, my own personal crazy has practically evaporated. And for that, I thank you Mother Russia, shit climate not withstanding.

Well that's it for today.
P.S.
I think I just got dumped over the telephone. I feel a little bit sad about it. I swear, it just happened in the middle of writing this post. See? Crazy...

A Day in the Life of...

A picture says more than a thousand words, right?

So, here are my thousands of words:

Armenian Gentleman

Temple

Sibs

Beach Feet

Pillow

The beautiful architecture that the weather is supposedly worth enduring for.

Stray Dog

Another Stray Dog

Biological Male Parent at the Market

P.S.
Be back with the writing soon. There just isn't much to bitch and whine about lately other than the usual.

No it's Not!!!!!

Yeah, okay.
Sure it is.
It's fucking November here again ya'll. What the hell????

A Letter to American Debt Collection Agencies

Dear Debt Collectors,

I really appreciate the diligence with which you are trying to locate me to collect the monies that I owe you for an education that I didn't complete. Seriously, the methods that you used to find that one friend that I had as a contact on my school loan application were probably close to criminal. I don't even have her home number, so I applaud the effort that you must have exerted in order to obtain her contact information. Kudos and good job!

Now Steve, I appreciate that I owe your company 47,000 dollars, but I'm afraid that you're just going to have to get your ass in line after the people that I owe the 60,000 dollars to. They're sort of ahead of you on the "Plusha owes us a shitload of money" list. And furthermore, as I explained to you on the phone yesterday, when I had the courtesy to finally call you back (and thanks for thanking me, that was classic), I am unemployed and living homeless in Goa, India. So no, Steve, I won't be settling my debt with you today, or any other day in the near future. And as I further explained to you, given the current GLOBAL economic crisis, I really think that you need to calm the fuck down about the measly 47,000 that I owe you. Now I realize that in part, I probably contributed to the said crisis, but honestly, it's not my fault that the banks that decided to loan me money for lawschool thought that I would finish it and was therefore a good investment. Motherfuckers gambled and lost. It's that simple.

In conclusion, my dear debt collection agencies, please stop harrassing my friends and former employees. I am currently a deadbeat with debts, and I'm not going to pay you until I'm good and ready to. Until such a time, you need to just slow your roll and keep doing those breathing exercises because as my mamma used to say (my mamma never really said this), "you can't squeeze blood from a stone."

Thank you for your attention,

Sincerely,

Plusha the Deadbeat (from India with Love)
Suckas!

Just a Joke

Hey everybody!

Ok, I don't have a whole lot to write about right now. But I did hear this joke recently. So here it is for your pleasure:

God comes to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and says to them

"I have two gifts to bestow upon you my children. The first gift is the ability to pee standing up."

Adam excitedly puts up his hand and yells "Me me me! I want it I want it I want it!"

So God gives him the gift, Adam pisses all over everything, the plants, the animals, God's foot, while screaming "look at me!"

So after he's done pissing all over the place, Eve looks down kind of discouraged and quietly asks
"Um, so what's the second gift?"

God replies "Brains."

New Complaints!!!!

Alright folks,
I thought that now that Spring is here, my incessant complaints would finally cease, but no such luck. I was going to write about my London trip, but it was actually kind of boring. However, since I promised, Here are the only two things worth noting about London:

1. The British people are afraid of school children. Apparently British school children are like one of the Biblical plagues when it comes to shoplifting. And here is the adults' way of dealing with it:

People, they just banned a whole shitload of customers from coming in to their store. Mind you they don't say "Only two school children allowed in the shop at a time." No, they say "Only two school children allowed." Which two school children are they referring to? And that's why they managed to have, and hold onto, a huge empire for so many years. Cause they know hot to get shit done!

2. All I could think when I was served this for breakfast was "I wonder if it was the British that taught the Mexicans to eat beans with every meal, or if it was the Mexicans that taught the British?" Either way, this was so disgusting that I had to debate whether I should eat it or regurgitate what I had eaten the day before on top of it. I doubt it would have made much of a difference:

And that's all I'm going to say about England.

Now, onto what's really important, the weather. Here are some pictures of Saint Petersburg winter, just so we are clear on the climate here.
So these were taken at the end of February:



This was taken at the end of April:

I went to London right after snapping this shot, where it was SPRING. But as far as Saint Petersburg is concerned, it's still fucking winter and it's perfectly ok to snow it's ass off.

But then finally, at long last, Spring began in good old St. Pete's:

I hadn't seen the color green in so long, I forgot what it looked like. Also, at long last, the ever-elusive sun:

Ok, so Spring is finally here. Great! Now please take a close look at the two following pictures of the Fontanka:
1. So it looks pretty warm. Please note what the woman is wearing. Short sleeved shirt. Clear skies, lovely warm Spring day.

2. And then I literally turn around and take a picture of the opposite direction:

What the fuck!??? Maximize this picture and take a look at what the two dudes are wearing. Jackets. Because Saint Petersburg exists in the Fifth Dimension of the Twilight Zone where two entirely different weather fronts can exist in the exact same space. I was literally standing in one spot and just took a picture of each direction. I swear to god I didn't photoshop the actual pictures. What the hell is this? Wizardry?

Ok, and now I'd like to seriously discuss something that's been driving me batshit crazy over here. See, people here walk everywhere. Because the subway stops are far and few inbetween, most people just hoof it. So naturally, when they tell you that something is just a short walk from your house, it's actually a good 30 to 40 minute walk. Again, reminder, I live in the Twilight Zone where time, apparently, speeds up and slows down depending on how long you've lived here for.

Recently, I was invited somewhere and told that it was literally on the next street over from my place. So I decided to go. I was tired after working all day and wasn't up for a "short" walk. I made the inviter swear to me that this place was actually near by. After walking for 30 minutes down this street, which actually was one street over, looking for building number 50, and noting that I was finally at building 32, and assuming that I'm close to my destination, I see this bullshit:

What??? The??? Fuck??? 32/11? What is that? And how many more of these are going to pop up before I get to 50? In NYC, they just sort of go 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. There's no fucking fractions involved there. I swear I almost started crying. I was so pissed at my mother by the time I got to the bar that I refused to speak to her for the first 10 minutes.
But I calmed down after a while. Here's a picture of me at the bar, just for posterity's sake:

Yeah, I decided that since I already live in a place where time and space don't matter, I'm going to live in 1976.

Another thing that I've discovered with the advent of warmer weather, is this lovely playground right underneath my window, where children like to hang out and scream as loud as they can when I'm trying to sleep on the weekends.

And I thought that I was over my whole child-hating phase...
I'm going to start throwing garbage down on them if they keep interrupting my sleep. Because I AM that kind of person.

One last thing. If you are planning to come here during the summer, be ready to see a lot of this all around the city:

The winters are so rough here, that every single summer, they dig up all the streets in the city to "fix" the pipes, and everyone has to learn how to not get their heels stuck in these little "bridges". I think they do it just to make the "short" walks even more "fun".

Trip to London and More

Hah!
Fooled you!
I'll update the blog this weekend.
It'll be all about how I went to London, with a re-posting of the pics from there, along with some pics of Russian Winter and Spring that I've collected on the old camera, and a cute little story about my first encounter with a Russian Nationalist, or "patriot" as he called himself. For those not in the know, these are not the same as the skinheads. Also, I went to see a psycho billy band and am now completely in love with that style of music.
But all that is coming this weekend. See, the weather has improved, so the hell that I'm living in is not so frozen anymore, which makes it difficult to bitch about the cold. Ok, so we're in agreement. More this weekend. Check back here on Monday and I promise I will post some new stuff. I know that I'm missed here, so scout's honor there'll be some new shit on here come Monday.

P.S.
Are previews allowed in the world of blogging?

Hello Jews! Hello Fashists! (FYI, Two Seperate Groups)

I've recently had occasion to spend some time with two, you might say, completely opposing groups of people, accompanied by some conversation, and wine/beer.

First, for some reason this year I decided to celebrate Pesach and go to Seder. For those of you not in the know, Pesach is the Jewish Passover and is basically a holiday where Jews celebrate how first, God killed an assload of innocent Egyptian children, and then drown a shitload more Egyptians in the Sea. Nice holiday right? Oh, we also rejoice at some other nasty shit that God did to the Egyptians. But the most important part is that we got our freedom. It's just like Amistad, only 4,000 years ago and with a lot of dead Egyptians involved. Also some chel named Elijah is supposed to come by and have a drink during the Seder, but I don't think that he's real. He didn't show up. Asshole...

So, I told my friend Katya (Uberjew who prances around the city with a giant gold star of David nestled in her bosoms. That's just asking to get your ass kicked by the way) that I'd like to do this Seder thing, and you know what she did to me? She somehow supposedly by accident got us invited to a Chabad Lubavitch Seder. Again, for those not in the know, these are Hassids. I wish someone had taken a picture of my face when I found out that I'd be spending 4 hours listening to the gory tale about the dead Egyptians, surrounded by people that I tried to stay very far the fuck away from back in NYC. But "what the hell?" I thought. Might be interesting.

And it was, sort of. First of all, there were only two Hassids there. One older rabbi, and his attractive young assistant. Here's how the evening went. I swear it was one of the funniest things I've experienced in this country to date. The first reason for this being a combination of the fact that the rabbi wasn't Russian and his Russian was "funny", and the second reason is that while the Pesach seremony requires all the participants to drink FOUR glasses of red wine, these being Russian jews, they obviously didn't limit themselves to just the four glasses and were plastered about an hour into the 3 hour ceremony. We're talking about 150 people here. Since the poor Hassid rabbi was struggling with his Russian recitation of our daring escape from Egyption captivity, the drunken Russian jewery spent some of the time helping him pick the correct words (some of which were dirty and totally inappropriate) and the rest of the time was spent giggling like 5 year olds. Just as an example:

Rabbi: God so mad was at Egyptian he (gibberish in yiddish to determine the next word)
Member of the audience: fucked up
Rabbi: yes thanks to you for your helps. Yes, God so mad at Egyptian he fucked up the lambs that was his first.
Followed by all 150 Russian jew bastards giggling their asses off.

And so on and so forth. This was my evening with the Jews. Katya and I spent most of the evening giggling and then when we felt full and like we couldn't take anymore, we made our own daring escape out of captivity.

That very weekend, we went to Ch P. The bar is really called Chort Poberi, but Russians have some weird thing with not saying Chort which means "Devil." Apparently if you say his name, he might show up and eat your eyeballs or something. Whatever...
So anyway, there we are at Ch P when who should we see sitting right across from us? Three whole Fashists. They immediately noticed us and we heard words such as "Shidovachki" (little she-kikes) resonating from their corner. Which we ignored. But then they loudly, while staring at us, said "Didn't they just have Pesach?" At this point I decided to engage them in conversation because honestly, I was just as interested in them as they were in us. So I just nodded and said something like "Actually, Pesach continues until the 16th." This is how our conversation began.

One of them by the name of Yuretz was a very cute litte skinhead and seemed fully harmless, one was extremely drunk and slimy and kept asking me to go home with him and love him. Also fairly harmless. The third one was considerably older than the first two, and a total hater and Katya and I concluded might totally kill us no matter how cute we two little jew girls were.

The highlight of the conversation was when Yuretz first asked me why it was good to be a jew and I had to explain to him that the only cool part was being one of god's chosen people, then told me that he was very excited to speak to me because while he'd seen some jews from afar, he'd never seen one so upclose and actually spoken to one before, and then told me that actually, he's friends with a jew, and he seems like a cool dude. I did not feel the need to point out the contradiction of what he had said.

Then their hateful older friend dragged the two younger ones, that basically just wanted to bang us, away and that was the end of that little encounter. Ah, my first encounter with Russian nazis. T'was fun.

So, first Jews, then Fashists. I'd have to say that honestly, the fashists were more fun.

Gogol's Birthday and Spring is Here (But not reaaally)

So yesterday was Nikolai Gogol's 200th Birthday. Good on him. Damn that niggah is old. And also born on April Fools Day. That's something.
I went to some sort of celebration which was a bit boring (I'm back on the wagon, remember?). But there was decent food and a few people showed up in costumes. Those few people consisted of me and my moms. You know that feeling when some ass invites you to a costume party, but then neglects to tell all the other guests that it's a costume party, and then you're the only idiot that shows up in a costume? Yeah, it was like that, but Russian.

So here's my moms in a costume.

Here's Dr. Zukov. Remember him? The man who experimented on my brain, and then gave me some antibiotics that first made my hands itch a lot, and then I had to spend the last two weeks PEELING ALL OF THE SKIN OFF OF MY PALMS. I don't care. I still love this chel because he's a kind-hearted, if somewhat misguided pussycat who treats me and prescribes me medication for free. Also, it was his party if you all get my meaning. Luv ya Dr. Zukov.

In other news, Spring is here at last! Ya'll know what that means. It's 30 whole fucking degrees instead of 10 now. Yay Spring!

And here's what it looks like.

Anygogol, here's me at the fantabulous (sarcasm) celebration. Happy Birthday Comrade Gogol!

Plusha Loses her Shit Russian Style Thanks to her No-Good Expat Friends

Dear friends,

I know it's been a while since I've last written. I have no excuse other than that I went native for a little while there, and was still sick, and well, needed time to recuperate and let the blood flow back to my brain.

All I can say is that this country is the ultimate perverter. It's very difficult to live here and maintain ones equilibrium. Last Saturday would be a perfect example. I swear to god, I think Russia is Satan right now.
I went to do my laundry at this New Zealander's hostel, which is conveniently right up the street from my building. Sounds pretty innocent, no? NO!

It started with the yet again completely innocent question of whether I'd like to have a beer. I thought "why the fuck not?" Hell, one won't kill me.
People, before you start judging my alcoholic ass, it's impossible, I repeat, impossible, not to drink here at all. It's too cold and nasty and gross and honestly, I don't need to make excuses here. It's not like I was forced into quitting drinking by an intervention. It was my choice to stop, and it was my choice to start again. A little. A little light drinking. So anyway, then this ridiculousness sprang up around me:

You've all seen these pics on Facebook already, but I figured I'd post them again just so that you can all see what I'm surrounded by, and imagine trying not to drink around this. Again, I just went there to do my goddamn laundry. Long story short, or as they used to say on Seinfeld, "yada yada yada" I didn't leave that place until about 3 p.m. the next day. There was insane debauchery perpetrated by all and tons of alcohol imbibed. I needed a week to reflect on how my ass managed to fall off the wagon so hard and bruise said ass on every bottle of beer on the way down. (I never even drank beer before because that slush is fattening. But since I lost all this mad weight here, I figured, why not beer?)

So I guess I'm going for round 2 of sobriety. A week sober everybody. I can only hope that it lasts as long as it did the last time I made the resolution to stop drinking. Worst part is, it's probably the most fun I've had in this country since I got here. Shit!!!
I realize that this isn't really a funny post. It's more of a confession and a record for posterity's sake. Oh, and to drive the point home that I really need to slow my roll with the drinking again, I immediately got sick again. Straight away I got hit with some bronchitis.
Shit, at least I got all of my laundry done...

Cleaned Up!!!

Alright, just for those of you that are concerned that Satan might be living inside of me, here are some pics of me cleaned up. I went to great lengths to go from this:

To this:

So yeah, I guess at least on the outside I'm "better". Still, the trauma, the trauma...
Managed to fix my hair sort of. And yes, I realize that being all "oh my god my hair" is totally bullshit in the grand scheme of things, but what can I say, I'm a girl. I want to be pretty, so whatever.