Verified Rule #1: You can’t outrun the lessons you’ve learned.

I may have been too ambitious promising you my first Verified Rule today, but in order to not contradict myself, here it is anyway – only after a seductive rendition of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You” by Lauryn Hill which I heard on the radio this morning and have been singing all day.

Without further ado…

Verified Life Rule #1: Don’t Blame it on the Al-al-al-cohol, Blame it on the DNA

Once, I went to Cuba with my dad. I don’t remember the circumstances that led to my mother and sister’s inability to join us (I’m sure it was horrific, like my mom’s work didn’t give her the vacation time), but thanks to the strained history my father and I had been living through at the time, it was an awful idea that turned into an even awful-er one.

Issue: I was 16. On my period (in Cuba, might I mention). Angry.

Issue: My dad is a Russian-blooded genius of a religious man with a knack for forgetting to pass down critical life lessons or decision-informing points to his children.

Issue/Bonus (depends how you look at it): All hotels in Cuba are built not on foundations of rock or sea or tectonic plates, but endless amounts of rum and cigars stacked on top of each other in order to support the tourism industry that caters to white folks who enjoy getting “unlimitedly” drunk all day long.

Sometimes, our family gets extravagant (like, once a millennium), and on our trip my dad and I also decided to buy some cigars – to, you know, be really Cuban. Problem with this little scenario is that – along with my severely developed and utterly active hormonal system, the binge drinking we had been performing to escape the little anger issues we would otherwise pay attention to, as well as being in the sun all day getting cancer – it led to my eventual forced hibernation.

But, oh, did it. Why? Because smoking cigars after drinking all day in the sun is apparently really bad for you. And apparently, our genes are mad sensitive to that particular combination of reality altering substances.

I closed down my vacation for an entire day while my dad spent time frolicking with the other guests and being the life of the hypothetical (and literal) all-inclusive party. My body felt like nothingness – dry and papery and lacking substance – and light managed to offend my corneas like no carcass ever had in my visual history. I hibernated by watching Spanish cartoons from underneath a blanket, occasionally crawling out to drink water with ice cubes and sometimes opening the window a notch to smell the outside world.

For some reason, I did not remember this fantastic lesson until I experienced it once more on the eve of my 21st birthday.

CIGARS AND ALCOHOL  ES NO BUENO.

ES MAL. MUY MAL.

And it’s not even my fault! When I came back from Cuba, my mom laughed so hard at my deathly encounter because my dad went through the same thing on another vacation (something I conveniently forgot – but never will again). Why he couldn’t have mentioned this predisposition to feeling like your insides are on your outside like in some horror film when we drink and smoke cigars, I DON’T KNOW. But I plan to ask him about it soon.

I also plan to blame all other overdoses on my shitty Russian non-jacked-ness. “It’s not my fault I drank 7 pitchers of beer and then threw up all sorts of entrails I didn’t know I had consumed – it was my DNA!“

If only I could blame the fact that I want to be a writer (and thus live a penniless and stressful existence for the rest of my life) on my DNA – but my entire family is made up of rocket scientists and aircraft engineers, so I’m kind of fucked in that regard.

Mistakes suck more when your family has made the same ones and lived to tell the story to your sick and nauseous ass.

The End.

-A

and whisper in your ear, “I want to tear you apart”

Hi you all!  Whoever you are.

It’s hard to follow a post as over-blown and kitschy as the last one – all dreading the new year and hating life and all.  It’s not that I really hate life, I kind of wanted to clear that up.  It’s not that I am alone.  I just think that people sometimes ebb and flow away from each other, especially during the winter, when there is less sunlight, and those two factors combined make my life a pretty desperate affair.  I’m very sensitive, see – I always have been.  To tone, inflection, sarcasm, sincerity; all that.  It’s hard for me to ignore the way people treat me and talk to me, because, I figure, if they’re talking to me then their actions are directed at me and that they are thinking about what they are doing and saying a great deal of the time.  I have found that this is not true in the least.  People say shit they don’t mean all of the time but that doesn’t stop me from taking offence/getting upset because of this.  In fact, if anything it just upsets me more because they don’t care enough to watch what they say to me.

I think people should always think about what they say, and while I realize that this is not possibly conceivable 100% of the time, it should be possible as often as freaking possible.  Because think about it – what you say reflects who you are, what you think, what you believe.  If not for those things, how are others supposed to understand you and what you mean.  Your outward social expressions are what people judge you based on (I use the term “judge” loosely here because I just mean in the way as figure out what kind of person you are as opposed to the whole putting people in categories bullshit).

That’s why I’m feeling a little disoriented in society lately.  People don’t really have that… get to know your neighbour, bake a friend cookies, walk to their house to TALK mentality.  That’s just not North American culture – but it is mine, despite having lived there shortly (I only lived 7 years on Russian soil, and 12 in Canada at this moment in time).  It is all of my parents friends and my Persian boyfriend and his Armenian friends that subscribe to the same culture of treatment.  That is what I love about some people that I know.  While I know it’s wrong to expect everyone to live up to your expectations, I don’t think it’s wrong to expect people to care about you.  And that is what upsets me about my situation as of late.  Just to make myself clear.

I don’t quite know if I’m doing a good job but I’ve had a long day at the bar.

That’s actually what this post is supposed to be about.  Horniness.  Alcohol.

So, ever since I’ve been working at this tiny English pub since September, I’ve noticed several things that I can only assume I was naive to not know beforehand.

1. People, (and I say people here because I don’t want to single men out here because women do this as well, with great fervor) whether they are 16 or 60 act in exactly the same way when they drink copious amounts of alcohol.  They sing, they love (unless they’re the hateful drunk, which I just let my bartender deal with) and they say stupid shit and don’t give a crap about anything.  They also generally tend to throw money at you, a rather beneficial part of this ridiculous display (for me).
2. People, despite being older than 16 and supposedly having “calmer” hormones, also act like stupid testosterone/estrogen ridden youths when injected with an abundance of mood-altering liquids.  Incessant sexual innuendoes and obviously pointing out the actions of the other person are wonderful things that sound kind of like:
   “Why are you rubbing your crotch on my hard knee?”
   “I’m no-oooot”
   “You’re right, that’s because it’s not my knee that’s hard.”Tasty.
3. Old men/people are dirty dirty dirty and so far the oldest age to hit on me has been 67.  Apparently at 51 + mens’ libidos are still alive, kicking and wanting to stick their shrinking wieners into any young or old or non-human orifice they can still lay their hands on.  Sometimes it’s in good fun, and you have to listen to a lot of that sort of crap if you work in the sort of bar I do, but sometimes you just can’t help but roll your eyes, call them an asshole and walk away.  (In that loving, jaunty way you can when you’re 19 and can get away with everything.)

So those were my observations of bar life but I really should start writing down more things about it or else I am positive that I will forget.  But really, these guys make me laugh.  A lot.  And I need that in my life more so now than ever.  Screw same aged friends.  I gots old, job-having, sex-knowing, buying-me-drinks-because-they-can-afford it friends.

So suck on that.

Okay, don’t.

Okay, a little.

Okay okay okay.  But really, back to that serious life stuff?  It’s shitty and I’m in a shitty mood and life really isn’t that bad.  I know that.  More or less.  I just needed some comforting and nobody was really there.  And that sucked, but with each of those things I get stronger, so I learn and I live and that makes ME a better person because I get over it.

All this talk of sex though….. me-ooowwww (‘cuz well, I’m still 19).

I’ll leave you to think about all of that and chew on it for a bit.  We’ll talk about that later.

Ciao. Arina.

we’re gonna go till they kick us out

I’m SO epically psyched up for my party tonight that it’s hard to sit still and get everything done at the same time.  I still kind of need to buy EVERYTHING. But I like last minute shopping.  Mmm…

I’m getting together people for my annual christmastime dinner bash.  Except this time it’s not a potluck.  Maybe I’ll do it again next year but I was just pooped last time and it just took a LOT of effort co-ordinating everything.  And I do it once a year specifically because it is that hard.  This should be a bit easier.  We’re just going to order pizza or something.

Anyway, before all of that happens I need to eat and finish my rhetoric assignment, because otherwise the day will fail. Lol.

You think tequila and vodka are okay? It should be enough. ICE. I should get ice.

Okay okay food. Focus.  F fffff…. I’ll let you finish that one.

Ciao. Arina.

PS. Tik tok – Ke$ha?  Pimping psyching-up track.  Otherwise kind of whorey and shallow.

MAD EDIT:

So, people are kind of gay. The only person that ended up coming was one of my old friends Aamir and we had a good bottle of tequila to ourselves, with Paya of course.  It was a little too much for me.

I can’t even put into words how FREAKING disappointed I am.  People are really retarded.  When I make promises to be somewhere, unless I’m ILL I always go.

I guess people didn’t learn the same sort of courtesy. Whatever.  I’m just going to stop expecting shit.  What a waste of my time and money.

There are lots of things that start with ‘pro’

Prostitute not among one of the better ones.  Procrastination being my favourite, I tend to follow its dictum’s quite closely by putting as many things off as possible until the last minute.  Propaganda is another one of the good ones – all good stories have a little bit in them.  Prowess is the sexier one.  Prototype is just so typical.

Among other things of importance, last night I had myself quite a few drinks at work.  Mmm.. drinks.  Now I seem to have digestion issues.  How fun.  Also, am wearing a turtleneck to work tonight, thanks boyfriend.  But last night turned out to be quite provisionally fun.  Oh illegal and yet innocuous activities.

So this is too much information for random people and possible murderers lurking in the dark of unknown ip addresses.

Apart from that, I need to get some traffic to this page.  Poetry websites?  I don’t want to put this link on facebook because then everyone and their mother will know what the hell I’m writing about, and people I actually know, not just strangers.  I feel safe when I don’t know any of my readers. I think that’s better than having your exbestfriend’sboyfriend let me know he likes my writing or something – that sounds terrifying.

Here’s an old poem I wrote from the summer, which I kind of love to death.

It’s called sundown, I think.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

Kensington market,
5 pm,
the sun chars the remains of the asphalt
and the children get that
sleepy look in their
limbs.

I am a miracle
bathed in florals and smells
like lavender and cumin and
rosewater and
guitar strings;
and I am crucified in the middle of the
sunburnt street, standing on my
plastic box,
singing God knows what,
softly, clearly,
I am euphoric with sadness

and everyone can hear.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————

Ciao. Arina.