Hahahahahahahahaha

This is the funniest thing I've read to today:

From NYTimes

Vice President Cheney said in a statement that he had accepted the resignation [of Lewis Libby Jr.] with "deep regret."

"In our system of government an accused person is presumed innocent until a contrary finding is made by a jury after an opportunity to answer the charges and a full airing of the facts," the statement said. "Mr. Libby is entitled to that opportunity."

Um, so what about all those people in Guantanamo Bay?

Choo choo trains

So I have this gripe with the subways. Well, not the subways particularly but a phrase that I heard someone say. I can’t remember when this happened or who said it, but a person once told me that subways are a true form of socialism because everyone rides the subway and it doesn’t matter if you’re rich or not, everyone is equal.

Well, I would like to offer my counter argument.

First of all, not everyone rides the subway. The truly filthy rich people have a car with a driver. After all, parking spots on the streets and garages are not that easy to find nor are they cheap. Also, it’s a pain in the ass to drive around the city, especially during rush hours. It’s not the slowness as much as having to watch out for annoying cabbies, messengers on bikes who tend to squeeze in everywhere and those pesky pedestrians.

Actually, let me back up, the truly truly filthy rich have helicopters.

So back to those suckers who have drivers. Well, the layer below those with drivers are those who driver their own cars. But chances are they pay for a spot in a garage which are expensive. Then there are those who drive cars to work but park them on the streets. These are mainly people who live and work in Brooklyn and Columbia students who drive late afternoon for evening classes (I don’t think I’ve seen so many luxury cars on one street before).

Then the following layer is those who can hire a car or cabs. Ok, maybe these people don’t cab every time but during those times when having a cab is crucial, like say late at night or during a fire that shuts down all major subway lines, they can afford a cab.

Then we have walkers. These people are just as irritating. Mostly because their jobs, grocery stores, bars, favorite restaurants etc etc are within walking distance of their apartments. Being able to walk to a place that requires you to be there daily is a luxury in New York. Of course, these people also take a subway but maybe once or twice a week.

I am not sure where to put bus riders but I am sure they would fit above regular subway riders.

And then you have regular subway riders. These are the people who don’t have a car or cannot afford gas/parking spot in the city in order to drive their cars. These are the people who cannot afford to take a taxi when something is happening that disrupts their morning commute. They are the ones who are stuck waiting on a platform for 30 minutes at 11:30pm on a weekend (a fairly reasonable time for somewhat regular subway service!).

Now, even among subway riders, there are social layers. On top, you have the ones who have to take only one subway to get somewhere and it takes them less than 30 minutes. Then you have those who live on shitty subway lines and they often require 2-3 transfers but can still make it to central spots within 45 minutes. Although if you live on the G** train, which runs never from nowhere to nowhere, I’ve created a special category just for you. Then you got suckers who live in bumble-fuck Brooklyn and Queens and it takes them an hour to get into Manhattan alone. Of course, then you have people who are even worse off, they have to take a bus to a subway stop. And then there are suckers who live in Staten Island and gotta take a boat. And, last, although I suspect not the least, you have people who can barely take a subway and limit their trips on the subway for essentials only.

Oh, I almost forgot. Train conductors. Those people must think they are czars of the world or something. I am not talking about the people who drive the train, I mean the ones who press a button to open/close doors and they make station announcements. How many times have they shut the door right in your face? For those who live on the G, how many times have you seen them snicker as you dash down the platform at world breaking speeds and they still shut the door in your face? I would comment about their announcements but I don’t understand them half the time so when they make one, I pray to God that the train won’t run express out of the blue. Or worse, just stops running.

**The G train is really not a subway train, it’s only four cars long instead of the regular eight cars. It’s some sort of little choo choo train that thinks it can. That is if it ever comes. They train conductors on that thing. So it takes them extra long to figure out what button to press to open the door. Argh!

Meningitis? Nope. Flu? Nope. Hmm, I guess a cold.

Yea, yea, I know I haven’t written in a while. I blame it on never ending midterm papers, feeling sick and plain ol’ laziness.

Believe it or not, I really was sick for a few days. This happened a couple of weeks ago. I was heading to Brighton Beach with a friend to a Georgian food restaurant and during the trip, these mysterious lumps developed on the back of my neck. They weren’t huge or anything but noticeable enough that I started to freak out. My friend inspected both and refreshingly assured me that they weren’t tumors. The following day, a Saturday, I woke up, sweating profusely. It was weird, I sat by my desk in a long sleeved cotton shirt and shorts and my face was covered in sweat and my shirt was soaked. Being a trooper, I went out that night and I am sure drinking didn’t help because the following day, a Sunday, I woke up shaking. And I continued to shake for several hours. On Monday, I woke up feeling really dizzy and nauseous but since the communists engraved forever their work ethic in my brain (which actually doesn’t make much sense - despite all the communist or socialist messages about how work does a person good didn’t penetrate most of the population in the Soviet Union as the majority lingered from day to day in their factory jobs while drinking home-made moonshine – no wonder communist planned economy failed miserably), I headed straight for work. I am not sure how I managed the hour long subway trip, several times, I really wanted to jump out of the subway and sit on the platform so that I would feel less dizzy. I also contemplated passing out on the floor of the subway but then I realized that I would probably mess up the morning commute for hundreds of other miserable subway riders. So the combination of being a nice fellow subway rider and communist work ethic lead to my arrival to work. Which lead to me sitting in on a two-hour conference call to Kazakhstan during which I fidgeted non-stop and drank insane amount of water so that I wouldn’t pass out. Then I went to the student health center where the doctor’s diagnosis changed from meningitis to flu to a cold with flu like symptoms. Yea, I have no idea what a cold with flu like symptoms really means, but heck, he told me to stay in bed, and I happily followed the doctor’s orders.

But that’s all a side note. Because the true story is that Georgian food really wasn’t so good. We ordered salad Olivier which had egg in it! I’ve never seen salad Olivier with egg in it! The khachapuri (bread with cheese baked into it) tasted like a grilled cheese sandwich and the khinkali (meat-filled boiled dumplings) must have sat out for a while because the part that rested on the plate was really mushy. Needless to say, don’t go to the Georgian food restaurant in Brighton Beach. There is another one on Kings Highway, called Tbilisi, one of these days, I’ll make my way there.

Um, him. Wait, no, never mind. Ok, well, him, I guess

Last night, my friend and I played my recently most favorite game called “You have ten seconds, quick, pick a person you would sleep with.” The rules of the game are as follows: (ideally to be played on the L train as it is packed with hipsters, some who tend to be somewhat cute and most are fugly) your partner counts off to 10 during which you look around and pick a person with whom you would sleep. The trick is that you need to spend all 10 seconds looking for a person even if you spot someone attractive right away. You keep that person in reserve in case you find someone hotter and if by the end of 10 seconds you are unable to find anyone hotter, you can go back to your first choice. But in order to keep your first choice, you need to look at that person again. So if that person walked away and you cannot see him/her, you start freaking out, scrambling around to find him/her. The fun of the game increases proportionally to the amount of alcohol you had ingested previously.

We were returning from a rather overpriced bar in midtown therefore our route back to Williamsburg was to take the E or C to the L. Since the E and C pass through Chelsea, I was syched as I thought the train would be packed with hot gay boys. Unfortunately, it turns out that around 10pm, the E was marginally full of the ugliest men I’ve seen in my life. I am not sure if it was direction that we took or time of our travel but my choices consisted of either short Italian types or fat balding Queens types. It was horrible. I think I settled with some Euro looking dude who kept running his hand through his shoulder-length hair while he kept flashing his smile at the girl sitting next to him. My friend settled for a woman who, judging by the amount and color of the make-up that she was wearing, clearly was legally blind.

The L train platform brought me a little more luck, although it seemed that most of the riders from the E transferred to the L as well; fortunately, there was a somewhat good looking guy. He needed a little of “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” action but overall, cute as a dickens. I spotted him right away but since I had another 8 seconds, I walked around the platform a bit. Unfortunately, Friday night at 10pm seems to be a bad time for spotting hotties so I went back to my original choice and looked at him again. The worst part was that every time I looked at him, he was looking at me so I must have looked like a psycho, running around a platform while saying: “ew, no. Oh, maybe him, oh wait, no. Definitely no.” My friend picked a girl who, at a closer look, turned out to be like 40. That really confused me because all of the sudden, I started to wonder what kind of girls he liked. I guess old ones. Anyways, we got tired of playing the game and proceeded to have a debate whether it is possible for a guy to get crabs in his beard if he goes down on a girl who has crabs. Any thoughts?

Robert Zimmerman

Any guesses on how many people are listening to Bob Dylan today? I am one. Then again, I’ve been listening to Another Side of Bob Dylan for the past week. It’s comforting at 8:30am when the G is not running and I am way late.

Bob’s a funny man. I must admit, I didn’t want the whole 2 hours, around 10:30 I got really sleepy and needed to go to bed asap. But nevertheless I was highly amused at his attempts to say something deep and profound yet after a pause of thought, he would just say “…or something.” Except that one time, when he was describing his first two girlfriends and he said something along the lines of: “They brought out the poet in me” which was followed by him looking straight into the camera with a playful smirk on his face. It was almost startling and hilarious after watching him for an hour with a dead-pan stare to the side while he spoke.

Boring McBoring

I am afraid that I am becoming really boring. And I don’t mean it in the context of this blog (which, I am sure, is quite boring), I am talking about me being boring in general. I realized the other day that my pop culture knowledge has dwindled to two recent facts – that Renee just got a divorce and Britney gave birth. The thing is, no one really cares so it’s not like I can sit around, shoot shit (is that even a saying) about recent pop culture events. When my friends start talking about some band, everyone chimes in with some opinion. I nod and smile politely, pretending like I know what they are talking about. And it hasn’t been always like that, I remember distinctly being able to chime in myself.

I can’t talk about politics because I’ve lost track of what is going on. And I stopped reading the Times about five months ago. Mostly because it’s a repetition of the same news and there is no progress. Well, I check the front page of nytimes.com but that’s not really being on top of the current political events. Although yesterday I heard about North Korea’s disarmament agreement. Very exciting. Wonder how long that will hold up in this administration.

I can’t even talk about the weather any more because Sam Champion keeps blabbering about some tropical storm off of Cuba. Who cares, I live in New York, gimme New York weather!

The only two things that I can really talk about are merits of buprenorphine program over a methadone program. And how sex workers are always looked at in the context of public health, as if once they step off the streets, they magically become like anyone else. The thing is that I don’t have any friends who are looking for a drug treatment program and whenever I talk about sex workers, everyone starts the “sex worker or prostitute” debate. Or ask me for their numbers. Now, I can imagine that who ever is reading this is already dozing off or hitting the next blog button.

There is this person that I know. Secretly, this person has been voted the most boring person in the world. When I am with this person, I get bored. And I wonder, is this what it is like to hang around me? It’s really kind of depressing. Hmm, I should go out and buy the latest Spin to read up on Chuck Closterman’s skewed and not so interesting or even funny pop culture observations. And then buy a latest edition of People’s magazine.

Then again, maybe I got it all completely wrong and in reality, I am just bored with everything. I noticed the other day, there was a conversation going on and I was listening to it but it was kind of boring so I had nothing to say. There was an awkward pause, followed by a silent moment which felt like a signal for my turn to speak. So instead, I turned around and walked away.

oh man

it's friday night at 11:30pm and i am sitting at home, writing my report on sex workers. i am such a loser.

Call me Carrie

So I am really confused about “dating” etiquette in New York. Well, not even ‘dating” as much but I’ve noticed that there is discourse on when sex should occur.

You have your school of thought that states that a girl should never sleep with a guy on their first “date” or meeting in a bar. Apparently this gives the couple a chance to get to know each other and also it makes the girl look less slutty. For example, I know someone who said that he sleeps only with girls once they have become friends. But apparently, oral sex is not part of the sleeping deal, it can occur whenever. Then someone else said that he sleeps only with his girlfriends. What defines a girlfriend, I have no clue. I am not sure if oral sex is ever involved in this situation.

Then there are others who think that if mutual sexual attraction is there, doing it right away is just fine. This, although fine with me, sounds way too optimistic because it seems to me that people who sleep together right away generally don’t end up seeing each other again. Then again, I am not sure if this is due to the fact that either party is so horny (or read drunk) that he/she fails to notice the night before that the person next to him/her the following morning is physically repulsive or, even worst, turns out to be a Republican.

Then again, I remember talking to a Swedish girl who told me that in Sweden, it’s quite normal to sleep with someone the same night you meet. And apparently this often results in people seeing each other again. Somehow of my own experience of “dating” outside of United States brings me to the same recollection – there were never wishy washy lame excuses.

So the question really is – is this city full of freaks who are just too afraid to show their sexuality? And in order to preserve their own integrity or embarrassment, do they wait a certain amount of time to sleep with the other person? Am I not aware of these norms/rules that people follow? Or is there an intricate hierarchy of horny winners and losers (people who can separate sex from affection/love, people who associate sex with affection/love etc) who have repeated one night stands?

Ok, this post merits a lot of eyerolls. Clearly, it’s a manifestation of my own insecurity (Oh, crap, am I too slutty? Was this too soon? Will he call again or was that a one night stand? Am I a horny loser?). But I just don’t understand why sex has become such a big deal.

Actually, my own admission of my insecurities is a lot less embarrassing now that I realize that this post is an emulation of some lame Sex and the City episode.

if you're offended by shit or maggots, don't read this

I am beginning to realize that since my return back to the city, this blog will become extremely boring. There is not much write about. And I am not sure if I want it to become one of those stupid philosophical crap blogs that everyone tends to have. Then again, there are people who care for that.

Anyways, for something completely different, I will carry on with a continuation of my previous theme – shit. So my stomach is still feeling funky and in order to figure out whether I have maggots living in my stomach, I decided to go to a doctor. The lady ordered me to collect samples of my shit before any diagnosis. And I am not allowed to eat dairy for about five days. So, following the doctor’s orders, I proceeded to head to the laboratory where a nice lab technician with a Caribbean accent told me to: “take da poop and put it on da plate. Then take da spoon and scoop da poop.” I left the student health center with seven (!) shit vials in a brown bag. As I crossed Broadway with my shit bag, I started thinking about scooping da poop with da spoon and I could not stop laughing. I must have looked like a total moron, waiving a brown bag of vials for shit, laughing hysterically.

That evening, after harassing my friend about the content of the Korean dinner which he made for everyone, I made sure there was no dairy in my food and explained my shitty situation to everyone around me. Then for dessert, I asked for extra ice cream. Of course, only after I finished my two scoopfuls of ice cream did I realize that ice cream has dairy as well. So there went my ‘no dairy’ diet.

Fortunately since my stomach is going topsy turvey (hmm, is that spelled correctly?), I have had no problems filling seven vials. So I have a brown bag full of shit sitting in the bathroom, waiting for its trip on the subway, back to the upper west side.

Ugh, it’s the first day of school. The round trip subway ride to school will be as lengthy as my only class today. I wish I could stay home and not put up with awkward intros: “Let’s have everyone go in a circle and tell us your name, what you are studying and what you did this summer. Yey, social work!” Actually, I take that back. I don’t want to stay home. I would rather spend another week in Montauk. Sleeping in until 10 (I don’t know what’s going on, I’ve been waking up before noon lately), rolling onto a beach, rolling off the beach to an ice cold beer and a lobster roll. Hmm, I don’t know what else a human being really needs. Well, maybe a surfing lesson because laying on a beach gets a little boring after a while.

So what did I say? 

Oh Katrina

What annoys me the most about the Katrina devastation is that media is comparing the disaster area and its inhabitants who were unable to leave in time to a third world country. I think it's a shame. Mainly because when one refers to a third world country, most don't think of white people. And the people shown in New Orleans, for example, who are now stuck and trying to leave are mostly not white either. I can see how easy it is to make the comparison to a third world country but it also shows how racist media is.

I am also not sure why all these people are referred to refugees. Yes, they are seeking a refuge but generally, when people are called refugees, it's because they are fleeing from a war, political oppression, or religious persecution. Call me crazy but there must be another word to describe people seeking a shelter.

And, of course, the last point - so why is Bush appointing Bush Sr. and Clinton to head the recovery effort? Can't he appoint them to run the country instead?

And my little sister just got maried

Aw, they make a cute little ol' family

Mmm, Polopian food!

I realized today that I’ve really neglected the blog lately. The thing is that not much has been going on. At least nothing noteworthy. I spent last week laying on my back and occasionally getting up to eat some food. Essentially, I resembled a beached whale although I was nowhere close to the beach, occasionally you could find me near a pool. So, I guess a pooled whale…

Last night, I went out to meet a good friend whom I hadn’t seen yet since my return. It was a hot and humid night, the kind that makes your skin all sticky and nothing that you do, besides taking a shower which are generally not readily available on the streets of New York, relieves the hotness and the stickiness. We decided to go to my favorite Moroccan restaurant for my favorite chicken kebob with French fries and beer meal. The beauty of New York City - you can always find food from any corner of the world, not to mention that confusing trend of food fusion. It’s some sort of illness that plagues local chefs – they combine the most random combinations of food and call it “fusion.” I may as well start selling Polish pierogies with Ethiopian dish of raw meat. Ooh, look, it’s Polopian food!

So anyways, once we got to the restaurant, my salivating thoughts of chicken kebob sandwich were completely crushed as I learned that they eliminated a sandwich section of the menu. Not to say that there were many sandwiches, really just the chicken kebob sandwich and a falafel sandwich. Of course, they decided to keep the falafel platter which essentially was the ingredients of the falafel sandwich on a platter. When I asked if I could get chicken kebab as a substitution, the waiter, who was super nice, said that they don’t do substitutions. I cried, I pouted, I pleaded, nothing worked. So I got something else.

The real reason topic of this blog – and you thought I’d be writing about Polopian food and chicken kebob sandwiches – is the difference between Georgian men and American men. Briefly after sitting down, we started chatting with two men who were sitting next to our table. It turned it was a father and son dinner and the father was a really chatty fire spark! He proceeded to chat with me for the whole duration of the meal and got up to leave right as my friend and I finished our meals and the waiter brought dessert menu. Now, mind you, I hadn’t seen my friend and she had great news to talk about and I had to tell her all about my trip to Georgia so it’s not like the two of us were sitting there really bored, looking around the restaurant to see what other patrons were doing. Of course, truth be told, the son was quite attractive so partially I was hoping somehow we would start chatting as well. The father was so chatty that the son had little to say, not to mention that he kept looking at his cell phone and occasionally texting someone while his father talked to us from dumpster diving for books, German Balts, and some covert job he was doing for the government. Or something like that, I couldn’t hear him about half the time.

Now, if a similar situation occurred in Georgia, the men would have paid for my friend and my dinners. And offered to get dessert and coffee. I realized this as I walked home, how disappointing it was that we never got contact info from the handsome son and the father didn’t realize that talking to us for an hour didn’t warrant a free meal. I’ve been spoiled by the Georgian men, I should reacquaint myself with the monotonous NYC gender relations where people play eye ping pong but are too afraid to approach each other.

Back in town

Well, I am back in the States. The return flight went really well, without any major glitches. Except when checking in at the Tbilisi airport, it turned out that my single suitcase was 35 kg which lead to my rummaging through it to dig out 5kg worth of crap. Fortunately, my friend’s brother-in-law had checked my tickets the night before to figure out how much weight I can have in one suitcase and I knew ahead of time that KLM takes up to two suitcases, each up to 32kg so my friend argued with the check-in lady and I had to dig out only 3 kg worth of crap. As you can tell by my previous posts, I am brilliantly smart (hmm, brilliantly smart, is that an oxymoron?) - I also packed an empty Prospero’s Books plastic bag so I proceeded to fill it up with books, a collection of DVDs and my Ipod charger. The charger was then carefully inspected by security personnel who must have thought it was some sort of a terrorist device. Actually, I wonder if they knew what it was since Ipod people brilliantly designed it so that prongs retract and all you see is a small white box. So essentially, my carry-on was a back bag with three bottles of wine which turned out to be heavy, my laptop, and a 3.5 kg yellow plastic bag. I definitely wasn’t stylin’ with a set of matching Louie Vuitton luggage. Considering all the posters around airports, indicating permissible amount of carry-on luggage, I am shocked that they let me carry on three bags but I guess my usual bored look is a deterrent from being approached by KLM personnel.

When getting on Georgian airline plane, I was dreading my previous experience of flying to Georgia when I sat in front of several Georgian men who proceeded to speak loudly throughout the flight in addition to wobbling the back of my chair by leaning against it. This time, I sat in a completely empty row, keeping my fingers crossed, hoping that some young, dashing, and brilliant lad would sit next to me instead of some loud mouthed seat wobbler. I sat in the middle seat (I assume this was punishment from the check-in lady for arguing over the weight of my suitcase) and to my disappointment, every seat around me, including a row in front and a row behind, was taken by Georgian men in their 30’s and 40’s. All were laughing and joking as they sat down and at that moment, I knew that I would not be able to get any shut eye and someone would wobble my seat again. It turned out that crossing fingers does work! Kind of. All the Georgian dudes around me were car drivers, making their way to Düsseldorf to pick up cars to drive back to Georgia. Generally, most cars in Georgia are bought overseas and they are then driven individually to Georgia. One of them took a particular liking to me and chatted with me for a while and then delivered drinks when the stewardesses were taking their naps in the first class seats. He even assured me several times during turbulence that there is always turbulence on those particular spots and he knew this because he flew to Germany seven times in the past three months. He also asked for my email address so if any of you need a car driven from Europe to Georgia, I know someone.

I also realized last night that my neighborhood Greenpoint, Brooklyn, is a total dump. Before I get hate mail from people telling me to go back to Georgia, it really is dumpy. I am fond of some of its architecture, throughout you can still find amazing facades of former theaters and banks, but I have to say, garbage thrown all streets, red-nosed Polish drunks, and perpetual smell from the local sewage plant classifies it as a dumpy neighborhood.

Anyways, I am getting back into swing of things so if you’re looking for me, call me! Well, except that there is something screwy with my phone and it seems that calls go through straight to voicemail and I am notified of a voicemail about 15 minutes after a message is left. But I will call back, I promise.

No good byes

So I decided not to say good bye to Tbilisi for several reasons. One being that the likelihood of me coming back is somewhat high. I am also not a sentimental person therefore any tearful long thank you’s to all the wonderful people etc etc rarely happen. Actually, I can’t remember the last time when I cried when I was saying good bye to anyone. Hmm, I think it was with my grandparents and that was in 1996.

Anyways, the point is that I will be back soon enough. Thanks to all those who supported me in the past two and a half months, thanks for listening to my whining and thanks for hanging out with me. Thinking back, I can’t really remember a time when I was having a really hard time, there was always someone around. I had a lot of fun, Georgia is wonderful country and I recommend it to anyone. On that note, I shall end this post.

Actually, I just realized that there is another reason why I really should not post any “I am blessed to have known you” posts. No one in Tbilisi, except for one person and perhaps his wonderful Italian roommate reads the blog. I’ve managed to keep is somewhat secret. So heck, to those two readers I say: arrivederci!

I am such a boob!

Ugh, I didn't think it through when I started posting pictures below so read the in reverse order.

Here is another picture from Mtskheta I forgot to add. It's a castle in the night with a wall of showers behind it. Didn't catch the lightning for the full effect. 

Aha, and here is our lunch.  

Hmm, not sure what this was, the wall behind it is part of an outhouse though.