Learn to Drive, Son.

Defensive driving class was a long six hours. I expected to be in a room with a drop-tile cieling, watching safety videos and learning about the points system. I did not expect the air conditioning to be permanently set to “Baltic” or for the building to smell strongly and unmistakeably of poop. Had some brazen DUI student taken a dump behind the drywall out of spite, I would have been impressed, but not surprised.

My instructor showed up a few mintues late, having been pulled over on GA-400. Glad I’m not the one paying for this, I thought. He was from Togo and worked another job at a psychiatric institute downtown. About an hour into the class, I realized that these two lines of work aren’t as disparate as they initially seem. As he is neither a cop nor a judge, I didn’t feel the need to argue my citation with him, but just about everyone else gave it a shot before it was all over.

The instructor had us go around and say our names and our “offenses”. My classmates looked deceptively normal. A pretty, pregnant school teacher. An elderly German couple. A Yoga Instructor. Georgia State students. All with 15 points on their licenses. I wasn’t sure what to say when it was my turn. “My father is an attorney who managed to move my court date back two years,” is another way of saying “I’m a rich white girl who can’t do anything for herself,” so I just said “interstate accident.”

Truth be told, I don’t really remember what happened. I was cited with an improper lane change, and somehow my SUV ended up under an 18 wheeler that ultimately drove away. I remember speaking Spanish at one point. Whether the family of illegal immigrants who called 911 before speeding away out of fear was real or a figment of my concussed imagination, I guess I’ll never know.

Three hours into the class, it felt like a lost cause. Most of the time I drive as if everyone around me is on Meth and there are cops everywhere, specifically trying to catch me for something. The only time I’ve ever been pulled over, I was on a small island on the Georgia coast, being tailgated by a police car. He sped up. I sped up. Was I between him and something important? An elderly person setting off their own alarm system? And why on earth was that asshole holding a hairdryer? Wait, shit. Lights came on. Motherfucker. Fortunately, I kept the profanity to myself. I got off with a warning that remained wadded up in the back of my mother’s car for days. When I found it again, I noticed that the cop’s name was George Bush.

In the end, defensive driving class wasn’t worthless. I now know how to get out of a car submerged in water, escape from the inside of a trunk and effectively beg my way out of most traffic citations. Of course, in about a month I’ll be back in a city where I’d rather be drawn and quartered than get into a car. I miss the New York public transportation system dearly. Granted, the subway map looks vaguely like two fighting squids, and I’ve spent hours underground because of “service changes”, but for the most part, it’s pretty mindless. Not the case in Germany, where there are no turnstyles, just your stamped ticket and your word that it’s valid.

Disguised police officers often check tickets in train and subway compartments, and in Berlin, they’re hard to spot. Gay guy in cutoff shorts and rollerblades? Guess what’s in that fanny pack. Elderly Muslim woman? Her, too. The fine for “Schwarzfahren”, riding without a valid ticket, is about €40,00, but there are ways to get around it. A friend of mine who is also American, but works in Germany, was caught in the spring. He pretended not to speak any German or have any cash, so the officer copied information down from his American drivers’ license and had a ticket mailed to his permanent address in the States. Pretty easy to ignore.

Wow. Lying to strangers is one of the things I do best, I thought. If I study abroad here… I imagined my father checking the mail in Atlanta, all kinds of possibilities filling his head as to why I was so popular with the German government. As it turns out, I am neither as cute or convincing as I would like to think. A few days later, I got caught in Magdeburg and I had no excuse. The policemen were in uniform and looked like poorly drawn Soviet cartoon characters. One was about 5′ 4″ and the other was about 6′ 3″. Neither of them had seen a dentist in decades.
 ”Fahrschein, bitte.”
“Oh, God, I’m so sorry… I don’t speak any German.” 

I wish I could say this ended in a nugget of slick acting and monlinguistic victory for America. I just felt like a complete asshole. Instead of a fine, they gave me a warning in very weak English. For a moment, I missed George Bush with his hair dryer. Mostly, I missed the ability to roll up the window and drive away. When an East German man wearing half-jeans-half-khakis (the mullet of pants) is laughing at you, you’ve hit a whole new low.

Sorry I can’t describe that turtle for you.

A smattering of recent search-engine strings leading to this website: 

1. “people who are full of shit”

2. “old treadmills”

3. “shtetl menus”

4. “plague + squirrel + lawnmower”

5. “soviet union recipes”

6. “hunting with bare hands”

7. “bosnian boyfriend”

8. “fluorescent leotard”

9. “treadmill skinny asian”

10. “power ranger shower curtain”

11. “weasels sucked into jet engines”

and my favorite,

12. “how to say turtle features in Ukrainian”

Sorry I couldn’t be more informative.

Thirsty Georgia.

I have no doubt that I undo all of my environmentally friendly efforts by taking unnecessarily long showers. (Who doesn’t like standing around with nothing to do other than be warm and clean?) I didn’t give it much thought until late fall, before I went home for Thanksgiving.  Home… Georgia… wait, is that drought still going on? I was about to take a shower. Standing around in a towel, I put my voicemail on speakerphone. There was a message from my dad. ”Lake Lanier’s down a few more feet, a lot of the docks are dry…” Well, that’s just too bad, isn’t it? This was not upsetting news for me, because (and anyone from Georgia will understand how genuinely unintelligent this is) when I heard “Lake Lanier”, Atlanta’s major water source, I thought “Lake Burton”, the ultimate yuppie weekend-destination north of the city.

I’ve been to Lake Burton a number of times, mostly with my high-school boyfriend and his family. Having grown up with the lake, nothing about it seemed weird to him, but my first experience was  surreal. As I sat there on the pontoon boat (with a glass of wine in one hand and a brie-laden cracker in the other), I thought, normal people don’t do this. I wore a pilling, oddly-patterned, ancient L.L. Bean fleece that I found in the garage, and the wind had restyled my hair into a giant tangled wad. My teeth were Barney-purple from the wine, and I was covered in crumbs. Coppers, the elderly Springer Spaniel, curled up on the floor of the boat next to me. I slipped off my flip flop and started petting her with my foot. I may have been a bit drunk. My image certainly did not match their hospitality.

On my last visit to the lake, we went to ”the bridge”. About 40 feet off the water, it was the site of many ritualistic jumps. These people have thousands of dollars worth of boating equipment, yet they jump off a bridge for fun? Ok. In a deeply misguided attempt to be impressive, I decided that I, too, would take the plunge.

 I separated the cartilage between six of my ribs and couldn’t laugh for two weeks.

Normal people don’t do this, either.

That was my last memory of Lake Burton. I’d almost forgotten about it completely until I misinterpreted my dad’s message. I tried to imagine the lake short of several feet of water.

A little boy in tiny Sperrys, with one hand in his mouth and the other down his miniature J.Crew lobster-pants, stands on the dock. His father, wearing the adult version of the same outfit, walks up behind him. “Hey there, Sport. It looks like we can’t take the waverunners out today.  I guess we’ll just have to go drive the golf cart instead.” The boy begins to cry. In his rage, he picks up a Power-Rangers action figure and hurls it off the dock to its untimely death. His mother tries to pacify him with a packet of Dunkaroos, but the child is tragically inconsolable.

I stayed in the shower for a good forty five minutes.

A few recent thoughts.

I. I am in Yoga class, with my head and left shoulder awkwardly tucked under my hip. As I try to un-contort, I lose control, and my face very nearly collides with the crotch of my instructor, who happens to be walking by my mat. “That could have been so unfortunate.” I thought. And then, “There should be a line of racy Yoga-clothing called Kiss My Asana.”

II.  “Phenylketonuria” is only worth 28 points in Scrabble. I found out today that they make Scrabble boards in various languages, and, contrary to my expectations, the German Scrabble board is not roughly four times longer than the English edition. In the Swedish edition, that O with the slash through it is worth five points.

III. Speaking of Scandinavia, Yahoo.com claims that Denmark is the happiest country in the world. Surprising, considering how close it is to Germany. This must explain why I have never met a Danish immigrant in my entire life. (I picture Hans Christian Anderson petting Marmaduke and eating a pastry.)

IV. I just found out yesterday that the girl who sat next to me every day in Spanish last semester was Miss Telemundo 2005. She is also astoundingly articulate and probably a foot taller than me. God must give with both hands, but clearly not to all of us. I feel so pasty. Pálida, rather.

V. I tried to coin a new slang term: “Lent Filter”– altering one’s behavior, habits and speech based on what they’ve given up. It’s not catching on. Most of my friends are agnostic. Or Jewish.

VI. Donald Duck is a horrible role model for children. He sounds like a chain smoker and never wears pants. Think about it.

Schöne Kommerzfeiertage!

My only Valentine this year was a check from my grandmother.

Booze money!

Recent Nighmares.

I. (Recurring) My identical twin sister has been in some kind of obscure, terrible accident and needs a kidney transplant. As an exact donor-match, I’m obligated to give her a kidney. I’m frightened by the idea of losing an organ, but the surgeon informs me that as a special promotion, Apple is going to install a “KidneyPod” in the cavity in my back. I agree to the procedure. The USB outlet in my side gets funny looks whenever I wear a bathingsuit.

II. An abandoned apartment building in Munich is a magical gateway into Narnia. It only works once. I can’t get back to Narnia, and I’m just stuck in a run down flat eating Ramen noodles with some people who look conspicuously like elves. Not Lord-of-the-Rings elves, though. Christmas elves.

III. I get a job babysitting Matt Damon’s children. I realize how old he is and decide to stop hanging around the Starbucks underneath his apartment building. Does Matt Damon even have children?

Going green, turning yellow.

Yes, I thought, as I struggled to maintain a balanced “tree pose” while humming like a Tibetan monk, If I do this every day, give up diet soda and continue to eat Macrobiotic Vegan foods… I will live to be a hundred and thirty. I violently fell out of tree pose, but the class was over anyway. I scraped up my mat and grabbed my bottle of water. Not just any water, eiher. Melted Himalayan Snow. So crisp. I made my way back to my ”studio apartment”/psychiatric penitentiary cell and shoved my dinner in the microwave. “What’s that?” My roommate’s boyfriend asked. “Oh… uh, vegan Thai dumplings.” “Oh, so it’s made of, what, cabbage and nothingness?” “Yeah, that’s pretty much it.” Expensive nothingness, sizzling and collapsing in a recyclable plastic container.

This is not the first time I’ve been deluded by the promise of extremely healthy habits. This time last year, I was militantly vegan, not to save cute animals or the planet, but rather, my waistline. Instead of eating normal, human portions, I would fast throughout the day and then cook “Blinner” (similar to ”brunch”, only with all three meals combined) out of tofu-based, environmentally friendly items. For a short time, this worked. I lived near a Whole Foods and had access to a seemingly endless parental credit card that financed my addiction. My vocabulary of obscure vegetables grew exponentially, just like my anemia. I told myself I was healthy, quietly ignoring the fact that I was eating enough soy ice cream and tofu-puffs to cancel out my efforts altogether.

I had a real come-to-Jesus moment when I first went to Germany, a country where “vegetarian” dishes often include ham. Having eaten nothing but bread and coffee for several days, I realized what an unrealistic lifestyle I was imposing upon myself. Besides, it’s impossible to be fiercely anti-dairy in a wonderland of cheese and chocolate. I think my pancreas thanked me in the long run. And, considering how overwhelmingly retentive Germans are about recycling, they could probably kill cows until the end of time without changing the size of their carbon footprint.

I’m glad I ultimately chose to eat the occasional animal, since being a vegetarian on the meal plan isn’t exactly buckets of fun. One of our better dining halls recently did away with it’s “vegan night” (“the one night a year I get some protein,” according to my friend Emily). There are still options, technically, but one can only eat wheat pasta and cheerios for so long. Just like blinner. We’ll see how long the yoga lasts, too.

I’m getting my money’s worth from these free Yoga classes.

At a friend’s suggestion, I started going to yoga classes on St. Mark’s Place. The studio is “donation based”, which for someone on a budget like mine means “pretty much free”. I enjoy it. It smells like the checkout counter at Whole Foods, and the soothing sounds of ”Pure Moods” (which I tried to order from an infomercial when I was in the seventh grade) waft through the dimly lit studio.  I will never be flexible enough to do half the poses, but I take comfort in knowing that at least I will never look like that strange, fat girl in the sparkly-green American Apparel thong leotard. Jesus.

The problem with exercising is that I sweat, in un-ladylike amounts, and the problem with sweating is that it dirties my clothes ever so much faster. Typically, the number of days I wait between doing loads of laundry is more or less equal to the number of pairs of underwear I own, since that’s the only article of clothing that can’t really be Febreezed and recycled.  That has changed now. In this building, doing laundry is an event. Say what you will about the theatre programs here, but I think the best actors at NYU are the washing machines. They appear perfectly functional and innocent until you’ve dumped in your clothes and detergent, at which point they fill with murky water, gurgle, and give up entirely. (Assuming the machines dowork on some rare, celestial occasion, they only take “Campus Cash”. For months, I was convinced that the underlying purpose of campus cash was to provide a way for parents to give their children money that they knew wouldn’t be spent on weed or alcohol. Then I discovered a liquor store that accepts campus cash without question.  Clearly the employees are not concerned with the graduation year printed in giant, yellow numbers on the side of every card. Had I not been broke from the laundry room, I could have bought myself a nice box of wine.)

As I clumsily pulled wads of prissy, lacy underwear and a Nelly Furtado t-shirt out of the washer, I discovered the unique shame that comes from unloading one’s clothes in front of other people. You can assume a lot about someone by their clothes, and we often do. For example, when people leave their laundry in the dryers, they usually find their clothes in a heinously wrinkled pile several feet away, removed so someone else could use the same machine.  ”Wow, girl, you have a lot of fugly cardigans and conservative-looking American Eagle underwear.” I thought, as I did exactly that. “ I’m guessing we won’t be friends.” Another load in the dryer next to me was about 60% American Apparel glittery tights. “Shit, that girl from yoga lives in my building.” But no, a tall boy of questionable sexual orientation quickly and daintily collected his spandex, then left. The worst part of this entire process, though, is cleaning out the dryer filter. My hatred for lint is… pervasive, nay, ubiquitous. My towels are a hideously bright, honking yellow (purchased before I knew I had my own bathroom, in the hopes that no one would steal them), so whenever I dry them, I inevitably pull out multiple gobs of hairy, yellow fuzz.  It looks like I murdered Big Bird.

And after doing laundry here, there are only two things that can take the edge off: boxed wine and killing muppets. Maybe yoga, too. That’s one I haven’t tried.

The NYU Bookstore accepts three types of payment. Cash, credit cards, and firstborn children.

It’s pretty expensive to maintain the illusion of actually doing work. Then again, it’s even more expensive to maintain the illusion of actually going to class. Eventually, NYU tuition becomes really, really expensive rent.

When I came back to New York after Christmas, everything was just as I left it, including my haunted bathroom. If we weren’t extremely likely to drunk dial them, my roommate and I would probably have the maintenance hotline on speed dial.  I pray for my toilet as if it were a chronically ill child. It’s overflowed and leaked so many times this year that I’ve considered making myself a little punch-card. For every ten times someone comes by to fix the toilet, we get one free visit where they promise not to curse profusely and obscenely. I mean, dredging up the used toilet paper of obliviously privileged children isn’t my dream job either, but still… how can plumbing conjure up such vulgar, vivid, sexual imagery?

The housing and maintenance listserv politely informed me the other day that all of our rooms are being inspected for fire hazards during the first two weeks of February. This means I have exactly two days to figure out how to hide my fake Christmas tree. If there were ceiling tiles, I could punch one out and lay the tree across the brackets. Could I put it behind the shower curtain and wait in the bathroom during the inspection, pretending to be sick? Could I find someone else whose room had already been inspected and stash it there until I knew it was safe? What bothers me the most is not that the tree might get taken away, but that I’m legitimately spending time trying to conserve and protect fake wildlife. There are innocent trees in Washington Square park being mercilessly uprooted, and yet, I fear for the loss of my out-of-season, forty-dollar KMart purchase.  Hmm. Priorities.

I suppose nature-related happenings in New York are few and far between, but my floormate’s younger brother spent most of Christmas break catching about thirty squirrels in New Jersey so that he could release them on Staten Island. I suppose there are crueler things one cold do with squirrles. I certainly don’t envy anyone traveling with forty five pounds of squirming, chattering, pooping, chewing live animals. My google search for  ”Staten Island wildlife report” didn’t bring up many results, so I’m left to wonder… will these be the first squirrels to grace its parks and ravage its trash cans?

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