How to go on a road trip with your 75-year-old roommate

“You come with a-me on holiday tomorrow a-morning?” the words struggled through the lips of my 75-year-old Italian roommate, Dina. She sat on the other end of the table with a napkin laid out in front of her that was safely holding her sliced marinated eggplant – her chubby, wrinkly fingers dripping in olive oil. As she waits for my answer, she licks the olive oil off of the tip of her thumb.

I look up from my salad.

“Ahhhh,” I  pause, thinking of the appropriate hand gesture, “Okay. Where?” I ask as I furrow my brow and point around the room with my fork in my hand.

Dina points to the ceiling.

I’m not sure what that means.

“Okay, I come with you,” nodding and smiling in agreement.

“We go nine and thirty morning,” she says with an appetizing smile.

“Okay, grazie,” I take an oversized mouthful of lettuce.

I hit my alarm. 9:00 am. I grab an old gym bag and fill it with things I’ll be needing. Toothbrush. Ipod. Journal. Water bottle. An Apple.

I sit at the kitchen table with my bag, waiting for Dina. The bathroom door opens, and the pattering of tiny footsteps are heard coming my way. At the kitchen door, Dina appears, completely naked. I try to focus on her face with a neutral expression indicating how normal I think this situation is. Dina is a short strong woman, with red-framed glasses and a gray pixie cut. Her breasts are eye-level to me, however, to avoid staring, I tilt my head slightly upwards. But through my peripherals, I can see that they look incredibly smooth and perky which has my curiosity changing from why she’s standing in front of me naked, to how she maintains such luminosity and lift at her age. I’m also experiencing quick spurts of jealousy. In comparison, my breasts were developed through genetic laziness. It seems that my genetic evolution became tiring and my body said, screw it, and slapped on two pepperoni slices on my chest, calling it a day. My neck is straining as I wait for Dina to say something. She finishes staring at the ceiling, pondering in silence, she turns around and walks away.

Ten minutes later, Dina has three large bags by the door. We make our way downstairs, and she opens the trunk of her car. I cannot describe this romantically – she’s a mess. Shoes, sweaters, a spare tire, cookie crumbs – thrown and squeezed into every nook and cranny of her Fiat Pinto.

I get into the passenger seat, Dina starts the car and makes the slowest U-turn I have ever sat through. Half way out of Turin, she realizes she forgot her cell phone charger. She makes a u-turn back to the apartment. She runs upstairs and grabs it, gets back in the car and turns on the radio, playing Manu Chau. She makes an effort to sing along, only blurting out the words she can identify – marijuana and zion.

An hour into the drive, we’re on a winding, Italian mountain road. She slows the car down, speculating a questionable dirt road, hidden by some trees – we go up it. The houses become sparse and we’re left with only countryside surrounding us. We pull up to a large gate. She rolls down her window and rings the buzzer. A dog barks, the gate opens. A small and slender old woman pops her head out and waves us in. We park the car inside an old barn, and I get out to introduce myself. The old woman is Lenna. She’s 83-years old, partially deaf and has three tumors in her brain. She’s wearing a pink long-sleeve shirt that has the phrase “just try and judge me” written on the chest, with a bright blue vest over top.

“Go,” waving her hands in the air,  “be free,” Dina says to me as she grabs some bags and heads into the house.

I’m left standing in the barn alone. I grab a lawn chair and go to the backyard which overlooks a winery. I take off my shirt, and lather on some sunscreen in an attempt to remove my tan lines that are visible from last summer’s tan. Laying down, the sun slowly whispers sweet nothings into my ear and I doze off. I awake with a stream of drool seeping through the corner of my mouth and Lenna, standing over top of me applying lotion to my breasts.

I wipe the drool from my mouth, and quickly grab my breasts while anxiously stuttering, “I have crema — no problemo, grazie..”.

Lenna can’t hear me. I repeat my sentence loud and slowly while I casually lather the glob of lotion she smothered onto my chest. I continue to repeat my sentence slowly, now miming the word “sunscreen”. As I mime the sun, behind Lenna, I see the large bird poke it’s head over the fence. I screamed and grabbed my breasts even harder, worried that this giant bird may mistake them for mushy peas or corn. Lenna turns around, looks at the bird, looks back at me and jolts towards me, cawing.

I mumble to myself in confusion and fear, “th-that’s not a crow, Lenna, that’s an ostrich”.

Lenna’s neighbour has a free-range ostrich that is twice the size of the wooden makeshift fence that’s dividing us. Lenna walks away and I remain lying on the lawn chair, staring at the ostrich, suspicious of its every move, however, at the same time, fighting the temptation to retreat inside.

“You don’t intimidate me,” I mumble to the ostrich, my hands folded across my chest. It stares back in silence. “You think you’re something special cause you’re free-range? I just became vegan, I haven’t eaten meat in three weeks, I’m in the relapse phase – watch yourself”.

The stare down between me and the ostrich lasted well until the sun fell behind the barn walls. I slowly got up from the lawn chair and left my nemesis outside to go eat dinner.

Dina, Lenna and myself are seated at the dining room table. The walls are bright orange and covered in an excessive amount of bright blue Italian plates. A bowl of pasta sits in the middle of the table, with an even larger bowl of sliced bread beside it. Lenna grabs a handful of bread and places it beside her bowl. Dina starts speaking in Italian, my eyes glaze over and I revert into my bowl of pasta.

“PANE! PANE!” a voice screams out from the dinner table.

I jolt and look up expecting one out of the two to have died face first into their pasta bowl. I quickly find out that both are alive and well, Lenna has simply run out of bread. She continues yelling until I reach for the bread bowl and pass it to her. She takes a handful of bread, puts one in her mouth and breathes slowly. I put the bread bowl down slowly, looking around the table – everyone continues eating as normal.

I decide that this moment in order to prevent early signs of aging,  I’m going home in the morning.

“Dina,” I call out. I get no reply.

“Dina!” I say a little louder. Dina looks up from her plate.

“Si?” she asks.

“Tomorrow, I go home. I skype for job, ” I slowly explain to her in broken English. While waiting for her to process the sentence, I realize that though this excuse is true, it’s also a great one and I must save it for future terminations.

“Oh, okay, no problem,” Dina replies.

I’m waiting by the front door with my things packed. Dina comes wearing a baby blue velvet tracksuit and crocs, swinging the car keys around her finger. Lenna comes down the stairs, dressed in a cherry-red suit. She starts yelling, pointing at her hands, indicating that she needs the batteries of her hearing aids to be changed. I stare at the hearing aids in my hand, this is it.  I change the batteries on her hearing aids , the screeching from the hearing aids indicates that they’re working. Lenna can now hear.

We get into the car and drive to the train station. At the train station, all three of us are standing in front of the train schedule. Dina and Lenna are arguing over what time my train will arrive. I point to the screen, explaining to them that the train arrives in five minutes. They stare at the screen for a moment, reading out loud each line together. They conclude that I’m not an idiot as they both nod in agreement, hug me and leave.

After the train ride, I arrive home, put my things down on the floor and lay on my bed. I grab my computer, open google and type, “how to stop aging” and “why do hearing aids screech when you turn them on?”. I wait for the pages to load.

 

Beer breath and denim: A Serbian Wedding

“Just be yourself,” a man says to me drunkenly.

“What?” I yell over top of the jazz clarinet playing in the background.

“I like you,” he slurs while holding a beer, “just be yourself. You’re dressed like a – you know.”

“What, what do I look like?” I ask him.

He fumbles trying to say his next sentence.

“I’m at a wedding, you’re wearing fucking jeans and a polo,” I loudly say in his ear.

“Just be yourself,” he insists as he stumbles backward.

I stare at the sky in silence trying to control my rage. I then watch him regain his balance as he continues to wobble beside me on the dance floor. I turn around and walk back to the table, grab my orange juice and sit down.

---

“Just look at me!” I tell my parents, as I look up at the ceiling to avoid watery eyes.

“You look sweet, it’s a nice change on you,” my mother says sincerely.

I look like a goat milker. I’m unaware of how goat milkers actually look, but I have a sense that I would be suitable for the position at this very moment. In an attempt to look more feminine and gentle, I am now sporting a mushroom hairdo. My mother had told me that I needed to look clean, so, she suggested that I should step back from the overly curly mop look and go for something more subtle. I’m not naturally subtle but, I started thinking, maybe a change would be good. So, now I’m here and late for the wedding.

“I’m late,” I say monotonously, “Bye mom.” I grab my bag and head out to Tijana’s house.

I knock on Tijana’s  front door, she opens and stares at me with big eyes. I say nothing as I walk past her and head straight into her room. She follows.

“I look like a goat milker,” I say as I put down my bag.

“No,” she laughs non-convincingly, “you look sweet”.

“This wedding is going to be full of doctors,” I look up at the ceiling with a quivering lip, “and, look at me” my arms fall to my side, “nobody’s going to want this.”

“You don’t have to find someone at this wedding.”

“I want free therapy!” my eyes start to water, “you know how expensive acupuncture is.”

“Stick your head in the shower,” she says as she straps on her high heels.

My head is under the sink faucet. I’m hunched over, staring blankly at the bar of soap that’s eye level to me. Tijana’s dog is humping my leg ferociously at the same time. I don’t move.

I blow dry my hair and it returns back into its normal bush. We leave to the wedding.

We arrive at a cobblestoned street in the middle of the forest. I hobble down the cobblestones with Tijana grabbing onto my arm for support. I watch my heels balance for stability between the cracks of stone. With each step, I go deeper in thought.

Am I undressed for this? Oh god, I hope they have vegetarian options. And stick to water, you’re bloated. 

I turn the corner and stand at the entrance of the open-air restaurant, filled with floating lamps and wedding-like decorations. The first guest I see is a girl with bleached blonde hair, wearing camouflage pants and sneakers. The boy beside her is wearing denim jeans and a low V-neck t-shirt.

“This is the wedding, right?” I ask Tijana as I look at the guests and then stare at her outfit. She’s wearing a tight one shoulder black dress that accentuates every curve of her body, matched with a pair of large golden hoop earrings. Let’s just say that you could easily go to a club with that dress.

We walk into the venue and the room goes silent as they all stare at us.

“Has no one been to a fucking wedding before?” I mumble to Tijana.

During dinner, two men come up to us and ask for a seat. One’s a doctor and talking to Tijana, so, I am given no option but to wing woman. The man that sits down beside me is partially balding and wearing a plaid shirt fully buttoned, jeans, and new balance orthopedic sneakers, he says he’s a psychiatrist.

“I like flamingo dancing,” my guy says to me as he sits attentively in my direction.

Are you fucking kidding me? 

With forced enthusiasm I say, “really?” and turn my head to pick up my glass of juice which I am strongly regretting that I didn’t opt for something a little stronger – like vodka or a horse tranquilizer.

I return my attention back to the psychiatrist only to see that he’s decided to practice his flamingo dancing moves in front of me. He snaps his fingers from side to side, wiggles his hips in his seat and rhythmically taps his feet on the ground. I think he’s peacocking, I read that somewhere.

“Okay,” I say as I put my drink down, “well, I’m going to go to the dance floor, it was great talking with you.” I swiftly get up and speed walk to the crowd in hopes of losing him.

Twenty minutes later, Tijana finds me on the dance floor.

“Where’d you go?” She yells.

“To safety,” I yell back as I swing my hips, “did the doctor get your number?”

“Yeah, I’m going to go back and talk to him,” she yells as she walks away.

For a moment, I feel relief. Sure, I may not have met anyone, but I may be the plus one of  Tijana’s potentially new boyfriend’s yacht. While I’m dancing alone, I realize that if you just be yourself, things will work themselves out, you don’t need to try so hard.

My moment of deep realization quickly came to an end, as I feel a hot breath on my face.

“Just be yourself,” he drunkenly says.

I look up at the sky with rage.

 

 

 

 

 

Revenge with puppy eyes

I’m staring at my dog eating a raw potato under the kitchen table. It’s the third potato she’s eaten this week.

She’s shredding the flesh with her tiny jigsaw teeth, splitting the skin open with each gnaw. I look away avoiding the pile of potato bites covering the floor.

A veterinarian moment: Because she is only 3 months old, she must have her third vaccine in order to go outside. Until then, she cannot come into contact with any other dog or fecal matter. Thus, she must be kept indoors until she receives her vaccination. She has one week left in the house.

The longer she stays locked up in the house, the more she spites us, and her revengeful side continues to grow. She’s chewed everything. My 10$ H&M pleather purse which I bought after realizing stuffing everything in my pockets makes me a target for pickpocketers. My underwear. The complimentary slippers I took from some hotel I once stayed at. My collection of toilet paper that I keep just in case I need to pee outside. My hands. Everything.

I saw glimpses of her revengeful side after I scolded her for trying to eat my bathing suit.

I held my finger up, wagged it and said, “No.” From that simple action, she decided to hate pee in front of me. She’s peed 8 times in the house today already. It’s noon.

As the dog is still focused on tearing apart the potato, my mother is on the phone with her mother.

“Did you want to talk to Natasha?” my mother says as she walks closer to me.

I’m sitting at the kitchen table in a pair of underwear and an oversized, hair dye-stained t-shirt. I lift my head up and wave my hands, miming typing fingers while anxiously mouthing, “I can’t now.”

“Okay,” she says into the phone while staring at me expressionlessly, “here she is.”

A phone is held in front of my face as I stare at my mother in silence.

I grab the phone and put it to my ear.

“Hi, Oma!” I say enthusiastically, getting up from the kitchen chair to aimlessly walk around the house. While on the phone, I find amusement trying to pick up a cord with my big toe.

We talk about the weather, funeral homes and what I’m having for dinner.

I say goodbye to my Oma and pass the phone back to my mother. I walk back into the kitchen and see my dog peeing on the floor. Ninth time.

I sigh and pick up a piece of paper towel and homemade vinegar disinfectant. I’m unsure if the homemade disinfectant works but at the same time, I’m praying to gets worms for weight loss purposes. I squat down to lay a paper towel on the puddle of pee, my hands are covered with the scratches and bite marks that my dog has branded me with. As a turn my head to look up, I see my laptop charger, completely chewed, with tiny wires untangled, poking out of the industrial rubber coating. My eyes become watery as my face starts to heat up. I take a deep breath and continue cleaning the pee. With each spray of vinegar, I breathe deep and slow. I stand up and turn around to see my dog shitting on the floor. Second time.

“Whhhhy,” I whisper furiously to myself as my eyes fill up. I grab a poop bag, some paper towel, and the vinegar disinfectant. I get on my knees and place my cleaning products beside me. Hovering over the steaming pile of dog shit, I snap.

“AHHHHHHHHH,” I scream to the pile of shit.

It lays there in silence.

My scream turns into a sob and I continue to cry over the pile of shit. With tears streaming down my face, I slam my fist a couple times into the floor, watching my tears dilute the fecal matter.

I clean up the residue, throw it out and go to lay on the couch. My dog blissfully comes running towards me, climbing her way up on the couch, pushing and prying herself up until she’s sitting beside me, delightfully chewing my left hand.

I turn on the tv with my other hand and flip through the channels, staring at the screen with a puffy, red face. The Kardashians are on. Scott bought a Bentley without Kourtney’s permission. Kim and Khole think Scott is out of control with his lying. Kris is eating a salad. A commercial comes on. I hear my dad yelling in the other room. I get up from the couch and see my dad with his shirt held in one hand and a fly swatter in the other.

“Why are you shirtless?” I ask, standing at the kitchen door.

“I need to kill the mosquitos,” he says.

I go back to the couch and stick my hand in my dog’s mouth.

 

 

 

How to survive summer camp: Serbian Style

I’m sitting in the cafeteria at a table for six, alone, eating the same breakfast that I’ve been eating for the past twenty days: one hard boiled egg, a bun and a bowl of muesli with yogurt. I’m wearing the sweater that my ex-boyfriend gave a week before he cheated on me and my hair hasn’t been taken out of its bun for two days. I have a cold sore on my mouth from, well, I’m not sure what, but I read online that it can come from stress. So, let’s go with stress. The cold sore is in the middle of my lip and is in the process of crusting over, which not only stings when anything touches it but prevents me from making any b, p, and o sounds.

My brother Alex and I are working at a slave – I mean, a summer camp for kids, up in the mountains of Serbia. I share a room with him and a sassy black woman from New York named Chantel who wears fake eyelashes. We sat beside each other on the five-hour bus ride to the mountain and bonded over the fact that the bus had no air-conditioning or roll-down windows. Alex has been sleeping on a sofa bed in our room for the past twenty days ever since he discovered his roommate, a rapper who always wears sunglasses, is a chain smoker.

My colleague comes to the breakfast table with a tray full of buns, hard boiled eggs and a small bowl of ketchup. He takes a seat across from me.

“Hello,” he says with a formal British accent.

“How’s it going this morning?” I ask.

“I’m surviving,” he says as he peels an egg. “I hear there was some drama last night,” he says as he glances up at me.

I take a bite of my mushy yogurt and muesli, “yeah.”

“Well, the girls love you, I walked by a few in the hall and they just told me how cool you were last night.”

I stare at him blankly while holding my spoon in my hand.

---

“He doesn’t love me,” she yells out loud as bursts into my room and quickly runs into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

I’m half asleep but manage to lift my head from my pillow and look at my phone. It’s 2 am.

“Did a girl just run into our bathroom?” I ask out loud in a monotone voice.

“Yeah,” my brother says as he continues staring at his phone, “just leave her.”

I lay my head back down and continue to fall back asleep.

Within seconds, three other girls storm into my room and start yelling and thrashing their arms at the bathroom door.

“Get out of there, this isn’t your room – let’s just go to bed!”

The three girls then turn their heads and stare at Alex and me in silence. I stare at their faces, however, can’t seem to recall any of them. I strategically wiggle myself out from my bed, making sure no one witnesses my worn out sleeping undies that I’ve sported for the past eight years. I take the robe that I stole from the swimming pool and wrap myself in it. I stand up and drag myself to the bathroom door.

In front of the bathroom, I can hear the sounds of sobbing escaping through the crack at the bottom of the door. She unlocks the door. I take a breath before turning the handle.

I open the door slowly and see a young girl wearing a matching pink and yellow Mickey Mouse pajama set, kneeling in front of the toilet, sobbing with her head resting on the seat.

“Why don’t we just –” I lift her head from the toilet seat, “Yeah, let’s not put our head on there, okay?”

She looks up at me with bloodshot eyes and snot running down her nose. I scrunch my nose up as I look at her. I have never seen such a sight.

“H–he–he– doesn’t love me,” she stutters as her full body collapses onto the ground.

I start to laugh. I start thinking about what I was like when I was that age, I clearly remember crying in bed, avoiding the public eye. This method is a little too flashy for me.

I hear my brother heavily sigh as he rises from bed and walks elegantly to the bathroom, with the carpet making a soft whooshing sound under each foot step. He slowly peers around the door and stares at the girl on the bathroom floor.

Though she’s thirteen years old, this girl looks like she’s at least nineteen. She’s double my size in both height and width, with a swollen stubby nose and a modernized mushroom cut. Some would call her big boned, I call her jolly.

“She drank two liters of beer,” one of the girl’s whispers to me.

“Well, isn’t that fucking great,” I say out loud, staring at her as she wipes the snot from her face, “Jesus Christ”

“It’s our last night camp, so we wanted to celebrate,” chimes one girl.

“Can’t you guys make out with boys instead, or go on Chatroulette? Like, just normal pre-teen shit.”

They stare at me in silence.

“Okay, well, obviously this was a better idea. Fuck sakes, okay, let’s get her to bed.”

When I mean we, I mean my brother.

Alex put his arms under her armpits and hoists her up. She lets out a cry and collapses on the ground. She decides to crawl to her room instead.

I walk into her room and the smell of vomit infiltrates my nose and soul. The bathroom door is cracked open, I push it open with my bare foot and see an array of textured vomit covering the entire bathroom from floor to ceiling. I stare at the bathroom in silence and hook the door with my foot, pulling it back shut.

The girl is laying on the ground, rolling back and forth from side to side.

“Why, ” she cries out, “why doesn’t he love me.”

“Who’s the guy?” I ask out loud.

The three girls mouth his name to me.

“Are you serious? He’s like half your size, that would be a disaster.” I sit down on the sofa beside her.

“Listen, what you need is a man. And you’re not going to find one at –wait how old are you?”

“Thirteen,” she says in between gasps.

“Right, thirteen. I’m twenty-five and all the guys around me are pussies, so wipe the tears because you have at least another ten years before anything worthwhile walks by you.”

I get up and walk out of the room.

---

“Just fuck em”

My colleague looks at me with confusion, “what?”

“Fuck the children,” I put my spoon on my tray, get up from my seat to start my sixteen hour work day.

 

In the land of death and testicles

I’m walking through Porta Palazzo. From Monday to Saturday, Porta Palazzo is the largest public market in Europe. Gypsies are trying to seduce middle-aged men who are busy sitting along the street curbs drinking beer, illegal immigrants are throwing keychains and selfie sticks in front of your face, and old babas are squatting next to vegetable stands selling their homemade cookies.

On Sunday, when the market is closed and the squashed tomatoes and mandarin oranges have already been power washed off of the streets – a place once filled with fresh vegetation are now used by crack addicts  to shoot up by parked cars and groups of men hanging along the sidewalks, discussing politics and making animal noises at whatever walks by – it’s amazing how many impressionists live in the area.

It’s a Sunday today.

I’m heading to the grocery store after doing my daily walk around the city center. I didn’t see much, there were a mediocre street juggler and a gardening festival – which sounds lovely until you’ve walked by 300 of the same flowers with every couple over the age of eighty-five.

I’m walking through Porta Palazzo, a headphone in one ear – there’s no music playing. I hear the footsteps of someone running behind me, I keep walking.

“Scuza mi!” the voice yells out.

I turn around and remove the headphone from my ear.

“Si?” I reply.

The man put his hands on his knees and starting panting. He gestures for me to hold on a moment, and wipes his forehead. I wait. He looks up at me, smiling. The man is tall and slightly muscular. You can tell he does some sort of physical activity – my bet is that he’s a swimmer. He’s wearing dark denim jeans, a tight blue t-shirt with a light denim vest overtop. His hair is gelled and combed back, and though he’s smiling, his eyes are covered by a pair of aviator sunglasses.

I quickly look down at my shoes. I resemble that of a German hiker. I’m wearing workout pants, neon green trainers with mismatched socks and an oversized denim jacket which I bought at the market for 1 euro. My hair is in a bun, and I’m fairly certain I forgot to wash my face this morning.

He says something incomprehensible and puts his hand out towards me.

I shake his hand and smile, “no parle Italiano”, and grab one of my headphones.

“Ah, you don’t speak Italian. I’m sorry,” he says regaining his breath, “I saw you from across the square, and I’m like, wow,” he replicates the sound of a bomb going off simultaneously throwing his hands in the air, “it would be an honor if you would come to have a coffee with me…or tea – or gelato, what–whatever you want.”

I look at him for a moment. I gesture at his eyes, he says “aha, sorry” and takes off his sunglasses. I’ve come to learn that Italian men are smooth talkers, however, they haven’t yet perfected the ability to mask the bullshit that is imprinted in their retinas.

“There’s a cafe right here,” I point across the street to some dingy local joint.

“Yes! Wow, great!” he says enthusiastically.

We’re sitting at an Arabic cafe, sipping on tea. I’m sitting on a wooden bench, he’s sitting across from me. We end up discussing Italian culture and international politics. I ask him about his family, he says that both his parents are dead – his mother died from kidney cancer and he doesn’t mention his father. We finish drinking our tea and leave the cafe.

He gives me a hug goodbye that lasts a solid couple of minutes. I hug him back.

“What cologne are you wearing?” I ask as we separate from the embrace.

“Jean-Paul Gaultier,” he replies.

“It smells great”

“Really?”

“Yeah, that’s a proper cologne.”

We pause for a moment.

“I want to say, thank you for coming with me for a drink, it was very sincere and you made my day so happy,” he says, blushing. He then asks if I can take his number. I take his number and save it into my phone. I’m not going to call him.

I turn the corner and head down a cobblestone street. I’m looking down, untangling my headphones. I hear heavy breathing up ahead, I quickly look up and freeze in my place. There’s a pure-white bull standing in front of me. This isn’t a code word – when I say bull, I mean an actual male cow.

I look around slowly. There’s no one on the street but I can hear brass music playing in the not-so-far distance.

It’s me and the bull, alone on a cobblestone street.

His horns are pointing at my chest as he breathes aggressively.

What do I do, what do I do, what do I do, I think to myself. The myth of Europa comes to my mind, I try to think of something else – I’ve read that story before, I’m not ready for that type of commitment. An imagine of Bear Grylls comes as a replacement. Basically, I have two options: to wrangle, kill and eat the bull or be its bitch. 

I lower my head, keeping my eyes on his chest, watching his heartbeat pump through his veins. Thump-thump/thump-thump/thump-thump.

I slowly lower myself to the ground, kneeling in front of the bull. I wrap my hands around my neck.

“Fuck, this is such a stupid way to die,” I mumble to myself. I become sad as I realize that my emotional status when dying will be a lack of enthusiasm mixed with slight disappointment.

I’m not noticing the brass music becoming louder, I’m too busy thinking if I have any sort of ID on me – I do – it’s my driver’s license which was taken 7 am one morning and the lighting makes it look like I have a unibrow. I sigh to myself and zone myself back into current time.  I see an Italian brass band turning the corner, playing an overly fluffy marching melody – it’s hurting my ears. They’re wearing navy blue uniforms with gold frills on the shoulders. The bull has already walked past me and the brass band heads towards me, making their way around me.

I continue kneeling on the ground. The brass band continues playing as they walk around me. The last couple members of the brass band pass me by, I get up, brush the pebbles that are stuck to my knees, and walk to the grocery store.

I had ravioli with pesto sauce.

The only car that stopped

“Natasha, there’s a car coming!”

“Put your thumb out” I yell, as I run up the hill while pulling my pants up.

Natalia, my Spaniard friend, is facing away from the road, casually applying on deodorant.

“Natalia- put your fucking thumb out!” I yell, gasping for air as I make it up to the top of the hill. My pants are almost at my waist as I lunge myself to the side of the road and stick my thumb out. The car stops. The window rolls down.

“Where are you guys heading?” the woman in the passenger seat asks.

“Dorio?” It’s on the way to Lecco” I say panting as I bend down to see the driver. He has aviator sunglasses on and a tight navy blue t-shirt.

They look at each other, mumble a couple incoherent words.

“Okay, we’ll take you”

“Oh great, thanks”. I turn to Natalia, “Natalia, come on, get in the car”

“But I didn’t get to go pee”

My sympathy has dwindled and I stare at her as I feel the uncaptured pee drizzling down my leg.

“Just get in the car.”

Natalia and I are sit in the backseat of their Jeep. The woman in the passenger seat has luscious brown hair that flows like a stream down her back. She was holding her phone in one hand and with her other hand, her fingers are gently draped over the hand of the driver. Every few moments, she would take her index fingers and sensually caress the top of his hand.

“So, what are you guys doing in the middle of nowhere?” The man asks as he looks at us in the rearview mirror.

“We need to get to Dorio, that’s where we’re staying”

“So, then how did you end up all the way at the top of the lake?”

“Honestly, I have no idea how we ended up here. I just know it took us three trains, one boat and it’s been a 12 hours trip to get here”.

It’s true, five minutes before getting into their jeep, a boat had dropped us off on a large rock, in the middle of nowhere. Our boat ride was four hours long, which made me see how great boats are until you realize you’re on a fucking boat. The captain had said it was the closest point to Dorio that they could take us to. As I turned around and walked away from the boat, I realized they dropped us off in the middle of the woods, where 2 kilometers of winding road separated us and our hotel. See, these are the problems you get when you buy a groupon.

“And what are you guys doing at Lake Como? Do you live here?” I ask the couple.

“No, we’re actually from Israel. We’re on our honeymoon,” the woman says ecstatically while turning her to her husband, smiling.

“Oh shit! Congratulations,” I say enthusiastically.

“Oh, thank you”

“We didn’t even get you a gift,” I say in a humbling tone while staring outside the window.

The woman turns her head around and looks at me, smiling.

She takes out her guns and shoots us in the face.

I’m joking. Then they drop us off at our hotel, only it’s the wrong one so we have to walk another kilometer to reach it.

 

Belgrade Waterfont: Clear as mud

Many people have yet to hear about Belgrade, but if you have you’ll know that Belgrade isn’t some pop-up city that occurred last night. It’s anything but that. The capital city of Serbia, Belgrade, is so deeply rooted within Europe, your history prof probably doesn’t know the complete history of this complex city. And until most recently, most people didn’t even know it existed. But alas, it exists.

Let’s get one thing settled before I continue. Belgrade isn’t a nice looking city. I mean, there are interesting and beautiful parts, but before I go to bed, I wash off the black soot that is left from walking outside in the Belgrade air. The streets are filled with people rushing to work, gypsy children begging on the corners and the occasional one-string violinist playing in front of the grocery store, I’m still trying to figure out how that works. The city itself has been bombed and destroyed so many times, over forty, that when you look past the dirt and hard faces you see a city built off of resilience. Serbia itself is a country which meets East and West yet remained non-conforming to either side.

But, those times have apparently changed. Rather East and West said, fuck Serbia and decided to take over by collaborating and building their own city within Belgrade for profit.

They call it Belgrade Waterfront. Looks nice, eh?

Belgrade Waterfront is a project of hotels, restaurants, retail space and office space along the Sava River. I didn’t want to get into what I personally think is wrong with the architectural layout of Belgrade Waterfront, but they left me with no option.

Firstly, as I said previously, Belgrade is a dirty city. Charmingly dirty, underground and filled with character. It’s really not your typical city. My gym is in a renovated bunker underneath a music school. My favorite jazz club is on the roof of an abandoned office building. You can see, it’s been coined the name of the Balkan Berlin for a reason. The city was never built on suits and ties, but rather on poetry, music, art and the human struggle. The city’s buildings are covered with symbolic and highly artistic street art, the buildings themselves are aged and deteriorating which is what Belgrade has always been. A hidden gem.  

 

 

This is actually what Belgrade looks like.

 

 

So, to understand why Belgrade Waterfront is esthetically wrong, I need to you visualize this for a moment. Here you have a city like I described earlier and then out of nowhere, obnoxiously situated along the river will be futuristic, high-rises with sleek lines and crystal clear glass. I should note that the center of Belgrade has one high-rise. One.

As you can see Belgrade Waterfront was not built with the intention to understand and blend into the city and people, but rather bluntly impose the right way of living. Now, I’m not saying it’s a bad way, but it’s not in flow with the history of the area.

But really, this is all just fluffy bitching on my part. There are many serious issues related to this project aside from its aesthetics. There is a huge lack of transparency with regards to where the money is coming from, the taxpayers involvement and legal obligations are unclear. This is really the biggest problem. The people who paying for it, Serbian citizens, are not included and informed of the development of the project. Like any normal person, we want to know how much and where our money is going.

So, the whole project is cloudy with many unanswered questions, however, the project is moving forward. So, who is this project really serving? We can cross out the citizens because most of them cannot afford to buy an apartment in one of these futuristically bullshit designed apartment buildings. The average cost of an apartment is 400,000 euros. Did I mention the average salary is under 400 euros a month? I did, didn’t I. Glad we got that out of the way.

This project is designed with one thing in mind: profit.

Yeah, yeah, sure, it puts Serbia on that map as a tourist destination, but let’s not get sidetracked from the real reason. It’s for profit.

Let’s take a closer look at who it really caters too. The list isn’t long. Wow, it’s actually very short. It serves the Abu Dhabi-based developing company Eagle Hills, foreign investors, and the government. The rest of us can all fuck off.

The web page of Belgrade Waterfront claims that it’s, the new face of the ancient city, the district links the historical and modern quarters with a modern centre of excellence that takes prosperity to new heights, for the benefit of Serbia and its citizens.

Wow, sorry, I just needed to take a breath. I literally just typed out bullshit.

When they say, the new face of the ancient city, they mean demolishing it and rebuilding it into another profit based city like Dubai. By new heights, they mean placing  fucking high-rises along the river bank, blocking anyone from viewing it unless you buy one of their pricey apartments. Are you getting where I’m going with this?  

But, let me just point out their last statement, for the benefit of Serbia and its citizens. This is gold. Comedic gold. For the citizens. Right. See, I’m not sure exactly what they’re trying to say with that. Do you mean this project will provide more jobs to the Serbian citizens? Well, that will probably happen, especially since the labour is cheap, matched with a high unemployment rate. However, these jobs do what for the society of Belgrade?

Belgrade is filled with highly educated individuals, who will have to opt for waitressing or janitorial work rather than scientific research, teaching, arts, etc. Is this the way to boost the economy? Is this the way to get people working?

It’s important to not only realize but accept that Serbia is in a crisis. More young people are leaving the country for employment and better living standards, but, it’s quite obvious that they’re going to leave anyways if they are getting paid 300 euros a month to serve coffee while holding a Ph.D. in chemistry or mental health.

So, instead of using that money to essentially hide Belgrade and lay a cloak of lies and deception over the real city, the money, all 3.5 billion, would be better spent restoring the city centre and upgrading already existing buildings as many are abandoned due to their poor infrastructure.

But, you know, I shouldn’t be so pessimistic. It’s all about positively these days. So, this project isn’t all bad. There’s going to be a new mall!

<insert enthusiastic clapping>

A beautiful, luxurious 140,000 m2 shopping mall, the largest in the Balkans. Oh joy, because at the end of the day, the Balkans really need another shopping center. This is truly a gift, the cherry on top of the cake.

You know, I just took another peek at the website for Belgrade Waterfront. Ironically, Belgrade Waterfront arrogantly used a quote from Prince Stefan Lazarevic’s dated when he established the capital of Serbia. Prince Lazarevic said, I have found the most beautiful place since antiquity. So, like any respectful, empathetic and profit based organization, they decided to take his words and shove it back up his ass, because at the end of the day, it ain’t beautiful unless it’s making money.

 

Friday night queefs

 
It’s Friday night. I’m invited to see some group called Eiffel 65. My Italian friend described it as a “throwback to the 90’s”. I feel like my 90’s throwback, was different from his 90’s throwback. American 90’s was the real deal. It had soul. It had low rise jeans. It had synchronized dance routines. I cannot confirm Italy’s 90s-era, nor do I want to.

I’m curious, though. So, I give my armpits a rinse and go.

My friend, a former male club dancer, suggested we all meet up before to pre-drink. I’m not sure who uses the term “pre-drink” anymore, hence, this starts my suspicion of how the night will go. We meet at a bar called Biberon. It’s in the center of the entertainment district, we take a table on the patio where there’s no music, I go inside to get a drink.

The bartender’s a tall, Persian guy wearing a plain gray t-shirt that’s exposing his semi- muscular arms. He’s doing those cup throwing tricks which is supposed to make you believe he’s more than just a bartender. I don’t need tricks. I just need a glass of ice which I can anxiously chew on. As I wait in line at the bar, he’s pouring vodka into a glass and staring at me. I continue to stand there, trying to focus on random spaces in the room without doing my series of uncomfortable defensive facial expressions. I make eye contact. He continues to stare at me while taking a slice of lemon and sensually squeezing it into the glass. I’m not sure how to react, so I casually turn my head and stare at the fern that’s sitting on the shelf in the corner. It needs to be watered.

I make it to the front of the bar. I open my mouth to shout my order – it’s too late, the bartender hands me a shot. I accept the shot and say, in Italian, “thank you”. He then looks at me with a mischievous smile and says, “you can eat the shot glass”. I look at the shot glass and poke the glass with my tongue. Tastes like chocolate. I say, “Aha, great”, take the shot, eat the glass, and walk away.

I go sit with my group of party goers. The group is an odd mix of girls who either look like they can or cannot dance. The guys, aside from the former male dancer, look like they just came from watching a rugby game. I decide to investigate about the club we’re going to, so I ask the former male dancer. It was a safe bet.

“What does Eiffel 65 play”

“Well, they have a couple of hits you probably know”

“Which ones”

“You know the song – I’m blue ba da dee ba da dah”

“The music video with the blue frogs?”

“Yeah, they’re great.”

I feel like I’m in a perplexing situation. When that song came out, I was 9 years-old. I wouldn’t call this the peak of my chubbiness, but at that time, I was certainly on a steady rise. When my parents had their date nights, they would leave me with my grandma who had OCD and would spend the whole night trimming our plants with a butterknife. I would spend the night watching MTV. Their music video tormented my adolescent years. The video covered many controversial topics such as extraterrestrials, animation, depression and frosted tips- topics that I could not handle emotionally or mentally at the time. I’m not saying this song is responsible for my emotional eating, however, it didn’t fucking help.

“Right. See, I didn’t really go through that 90’s period. I was heavy into the American backstreet boys scene.”

“Oh come on, it’ll be fun,” The former male dancer says as he gets up from his seat,” Let’s get going.”

We’re walking to the club. With every step, my emotions about seeing this performance are dwindling into a depression.

The line-up to the club is filled with fresh 20 year-olds, mostly guys, who are wearing button-down shirts, matching their slick back hair. It’s tragic. The bouncer looks like he’s about to suffer a major heart attack, however, is preventing so by wearing a neon yellow, puffy jacket.

I’m given a ticket by one of the other bouncers. He’s a bald, stalky Romanian guy. I walk inside the club, look around and then walk back to the entrance.

“Hi, I just came in and I want to leave. So, here’s your ticket.” As I hold the ticket in front of the Romanian bouncer’s chest.

“You must pay 10 euros”

“But I just came one minute ago.”

“Go pay 10 euros”

“I don’t want to, I just came and I want to go home”

“Pay or we call police”

I’m in a fucking 90’s musical prison.

I decide to stay and as a “fuck you” I keep my coat on and refuse to pay for coat check.

Ten minutes later, I’m standing in line for coat check.

The club is packed and I end up in front of the stage. Eiffel 65 comes on. There are many tragic things about this. I’m a head taller than everyone in this club. I look like a fucking ferret popping out of a burrow. The girls on the stage are in booty shorts and crop tops, swaying sadly. One’s squatting in the corner trying to hide her cigarette as she takes a couple quick puffs and stands back up to continue her danc– I mean, standing.

The lead singer comes on stage – he’s about 30 pounds overweight, wearing the same outfit he was sporting in the original music video. The keyboardist has aged surprisingly well, but plays the keyboard in an overly enthusiastic half squat, with his baseball hat flipped backward matched with a head bob.

They start the show with some euro-trash dance song, where the phrase, “put your hands up” is inserted after every line. I choose to keep my hands down. My choice to keep my hands down also arises from the fact that I’m trying to contain my flatulence. I had hummus for dinner, which I knew was a mistake but I figured that the gas would have passed by the time I had to be in a room, sandwiched between a bunch of semi-legal Italians. The lead singer comes to my side of the stage, looks at me and winks suggestively. I contemplate very quickly about that wink and wonder if I follow up on it, would I be able to get my 10 euros back.

My thought is cut short as my hand is grabbed by some moist looking Turkish guy. His chest hair is a giant jerry curl, poking through his white shirt and I can see his hair gel melting down his forehead. I politely smile, release my hand from his grasp and pull the it’s-so-hot-in-here-I-have-to-go-to-the-washroom-goodbye-forever routine. I let out a fart as a repercussion for his actions.

Eiffel 65 finally finishes their poor sound quality show and the club DJ starts playing some contemporary house music. Now, I’m dancing on a table. The former male dancer also gets on a table and starts his fucking perfected dance routine. I feel outshined but I continue on with my repetitive dance moves in hope that he gets off of the table.

It’s now 5 am. The club closes. The others have gone chasing the mythical pussy and that’s left is me and my Spaniard, Natalia.

Natalia is a Spanish girl who likes to loudly express her opinions of people who are standing right beside us. She also likes to wear platform shoes to give her extra height.

We get on the tram. We make it to the border, a crack den, which marks the entrance into the ghetto. We get off the tram, she walks home and I get on another bus which takes me to the heart of the forgotten civilization. My bus arrives at its stop. I have eight blocks to walk before I reach my apartment. I pass a round-a-bout, a couple appears to be either arguing or practicing the waltz. The woman is pressed up against the fence, her aggressive moves slow down into a sensual grind, she starts to take off her pants. I keep walking. I turn the corner and pass two men playing football in the middle of the street. In front of the church by my apartment, a hooker is waiting for her bus home. This whole time, Eiffel 65’s song, Blue, is playing in my head.

 

 

 

 

Death and nipples

It was my classmate’s birthday a couple weeks ago. She invited the whole class. It was very cordial of her, as I probably wouldn’t have done that. I prefer not to mix social groups. When I was thirteen, I was the first one to have a birthday party during the first year of high school. Which means everyone was all pimply, entering puberty and no one knew each other. Everyone avoided eye-contact, we watched Scary movie 2 on DVD and ate ketchup potato chips. We played a game of hide-and-go-seek, and a sad attempt at spin-the-bottle. A year later everyone from my birthday joined band class, became best friends and I cut my hair short and wore t-shirts that said “high school drop-out” while never skipping a class. It was since that tragic event, I refrained from hosting parties and introducing people to each other ever since.

So, the night of my classmates 30th birthday, I wasn’t feeling very well.

That was a lie.

I was lazy and didn’t feel like leaving my bed. This always happens to me right before I have to be at a social engagement I committed myself to. This is why I’m a flake. Also, I see my classmates all day, every day, so the motivation to see them again was quite low because I would see them again in 8 hours.

After receiving a couple phone calls, I was on a 45-minute bus ride to the birthday dinner.

The birthday girl has a name. It’s Francesca. She’s a short Italian girl with bangs, grandmotherly hands, and extremely readable eyes. She also says that the secret to her ass is swimming. Every morning, she walks into class and greets me with a warm hug and kiss on the cheek. She’s also a hand-talker with many of her sentences end with the phrase, “it’s impossible”. For example, Francesca was supposed to come to a dinner with my class. She said that it was impossible for her to come because she already had plans. Two hours later, she shows up.

So, I arrived at the birthday dinner. Of course, my whole class was there because they’re good people and they also like food. I came an hour late, without a gift and wore an ill-fitted bra.

Sitting across from me was Yolande, from Cameroon, to my left was Margherita, from Italy and on my right was Julia, from Poland.

My girl, Yolande, doesn’t speak English well but every so often she’ll impress me with a couple strong sentences. Like when she told me I had a mental illness in front of our guest lecturer who was one of the most internationally well-known forensic psychologists. Or, when we were on the way to prison, she also told me that I should date a black man. She’s also always 45 minutes late to everything.

Margherita is one of my favorite Italians. She was a former bellydancer who decided to study psychology. Every time she laughs she says, “I’m dying”. She has yet to actually die from laughing. She also can never remember where she parks her car, so she invests, at least, ten minutes a day trying to find it.

Then we have Julia, the vegetarian Pole who loves Gianduja flavored ice cream. Julia likes to make fun of the fact that I’m constantly eating. Last time I went out with her, she got drunk at the club and started to do traditional polish dancing. She almost peed her pants once when I told our teacher to stop wearing sweater vests.

As the night progressed, the conversation got more personal. Margherita had told me that the following day she had a funeral to attend. I asked politely who had died, she said it was her best friend’s grandmother. I usually stop the conversation there, because I never know what to say about people I don’t know who died. But Margherita continued, so I listened.

“Yes, I am so sad because she was the grandmother of my best friend and when I was little I would go to her house for lunch and she would make me a plate of nipples”.

I nodded sincerely and said, “that’s so sad”.

“Oh god. Don’t fucking laugh, don’t you fucking laugh Natasha,” I aggressively thought to myself while maintaining a concerned face.

I cleared my throat. I thought that perhaps I misheard since there was some tragic Italian music playing in the background. Margherita’s face was far so sad to make a joke.

“What did she make you?”

“Nipples”

“You mean,” as I took an extended breath “meatballs?”

“Nipples, you know, they’re like –”

“I think you mean meatballs.”

“Nipples, like a plate of nipples”

I paused momentarily, while maintaining my concerned look and envisioned an old Italian woman with a scarf around her head, mumbling Italian to herself while carrying a plate of nipples to a table of hungry children.

“I really think you mean meatballs.”

“Ah, okay, then yes, meatballs.” She said, with her head tilted slightly down and her facial expression remaining genuinely sad.

It was too late. My eyes were flowing with water and I tried to put my fingers over my mouth to make it look like I was in deep thought about death.

I spent the next ten minutes laughing beside Margherita.

I then retold the story to half of the table, while laughing. Only the Julia, the Polak laughed with me.

My 75 year-old roommate’s secret lover

Dina came back from holiday today. She told me she was coming back tomorrow. My guess is that she wanted to make sure I wasn’t having some crazy olive and cheese filled orgy – she really took the phrase “hump day” to heart, that sweet Dina.

I didn’t except her barging into the apartment hollering, “MADONNA, MADONNA” which is something like “Oh god, oh god”. I don’t know what she’s oh god-ing about, the girl just came back from vacation.

When Dina arrived, I was sitting on my bed, in my underwear, debating if I should attempt a squat or a lunge, but ended watching a “top ten” youtube clip of the most emotional movie scenes. Let’s just say I became highly invested in the raw and natural performances and bypassed her diva entrance. So, she came through the door, hollering. I decided to let my clip finish because it was the “what do you want” scene from The Notebook – so fuck yall, I’m watching it.

I came out of my room and greeted her with a red face and watery eyes. I decided not to mime out to Dina why I’m in my underwear crying. She was too busy shaking the water off of her polka dotted umbrella out to look up, so I quickly went to the washroom to view the self-harm I had done.

I spent the next five minutes trying to reduce the redness, when she all of a sudden yells, “I go to B’s house”. You just came back from vacation and you’re going out to socialize with some person who has a letter as a name? – what the fuck is going on, you need rest Dina, it’s a Wednesday night.

There were many things’s that were wrong with the situation. Firstly, she’s 75 years-old and going out at 9 pm. Secondly, it’s Wednesday. Thirdly, who the fuck is “B”.

It was time. Time for me to get to the truth about Dina. She was zipping up her silver metallic winter jacket, as I was leaning on my bedroom door frame, with my arms crossed, chewing on a prune.

“B, your amigo?” I said, realizing I was mixing languages but didn’t care due to the severity of the conversation.

“Si, I go to her house”.

BINGO.

Twice a week, Dina runs to her lover’s house, B.

I wasn’t surprised of her sexual preferences, what I was more shocked about was the fact that she’s more sexually active than me.