What I do to vent my frustration on trains

I would say a god half of my life--between travel, college in the midwest (read: mid-nothing) and trips up and down the east coast--has been spent in trains, planes and automobiles. My skills in self entertainment have kept pace.

There is something so satisifying about defacing the hell out of Lindsey Lohan's goddamn awful photo spread in this month's Nylon. Oh, did that just really come out of my mouth? What I meant to say was I productively used my time sitting on the cement fucking floor of Penn Station to think of some new looks for LL.



The demonic kitty look is so coming back.



The 80s crack ho look is equally fitting.

Apparently nothing hurts Lindsey's little cocaine coated black heart than feeling all alone. Now, as someone from an equally fucked up family.....on further reflection, no I can't be compelled to give a fuck.

Just when I thought the Parisians had a monopoly on bizarre protests:

This crime against fashion and tin foil is, in fact, for the great cause of protesting international imperialism, as part of the protests that rocked cities like Portland a few years back. Now, honestly, if I were one of the international movers and shakers at the G8 conference and saw shit like this, I would try to speed up globalization as fast as I could, with the smug knowledge that once international commerce reaches its height, idiots like this will be too busy in a frantic search for a job to busy themselves with such spectacles.

Just a thought.

Rants&Raves: K.Y. is an idiotic swine

I really hate people that waste my time, particularly when they happen to be bureaucrats. When I'm home in the great state of New Jersey, this proves to be a rather marginal problem, seeing as everything is so corrupt that there's nothing that can't get done in five hours, max. My general attention span for problems is about three and half hours. I don't care what it is: if it can't be solved beginning to end in about three and a half hours, it deserves my rage and the full force of my terror.

What I don't understand about the midwest isits honestly. I seriously could not believe that people actually follow any kind of law or rule when I got here. I honestly get the feeling that people get a perverse pleasure out here by watching me squirm. I seriously get that "oh you think you should get special treatment???" look all the time. No, I'm not asking for special treatment, whore, because I in fact think these rules should not apply to anyone. I'm that egalitarian.

Which brings be to the thorn in my proverbial side, K.Y., the mighty and powerful oz at the top of the Mac bureaucracy more commonly known as the study abroad office. Jesus, what a disaster. Starting with the requirement that I make copies of my own application, the whole process has been a royal pain in the ass, start to finish. And KY is just the cherry on top.

Our little personal feud started when I changed my program choice to NYU, as opposed to CIEE or CET. Why? Well for starters CIEE LOST my application, twice--and then had the audacity to claim it was incomplete. And I'm going to trust these morons to handle my housing and visa documentation in an overpopulated, crowded and corrupt Eastern European metropolis? Yea, I would do that just about as fast as I would invite Stevie Wonder to update my hair cut and wardrobe.

KY's biggest objection to the NYU program: no homestay option. Which is exactly why I picked the program. In don't live with my family when I'm in the states, so why would I do so abroad? With strangers. Fuck no. I have this old childhood friend who was in Russia last sem, who only figured out when all of her jewelry grew legs and walked that her host family was stealing from her and selling her belongings on the black market. I happen to like my diamonds. And would like to keep them. Forever.

But oh no, the ridiculous interchange we had over the NYU program--which KY insists is overcharging (!!!!) despite the fact they own all of their housing and classroom buildings and are considered to be one of the top programs in Eastern Europe--was a nice little friendly email from the queen bitch herself, letting me in on the fact that Macalester would not be releasing funds to NYU until the $20 hold on my student account was cleared. As a consequence, I haven't been able to register for classes.

Mac admin, this message goes out to you:
I am never giving you a fucking dollar. You throw a wrench in my life over $20, when my father has paid you over $150,000 in cash? Are you kididng me? i don't care if I make a billion trillion dollars (which I fully intend on doing with my plans for the landlocked riviera) I will never donate a fucking dollar to you.

Czech consulate

2. There's a reason its called the city of brotherly love

1. Le Passport Disparu

At some point on Sunday morning (in the very early hours of the morning), I looked into my bag and realized that it contained only this: (see corresponding picture). At the beginning of the night, it contained my wallet (Gucci, thank you very much), my slidy Samsung phone, my passport (!!!) and all of my credit cards. The good news was that I still had my Marc Jacobs bag and Chanel lipgloss. The bad news is that I had no form of identification and a handful of change. Oh, and I was supposed to be leaving to DRIVE HOME from MINNESOTA to NEW JERSEY with my father in, oh, six hours.

This is how I remember things: I realized I was in I's room, that he had been, somehow, in the cab with me, that earlier in the night I had been at the Saloon, that I and myself had called my cell and the driver had picked up, that he then hung up on us, particularly after I screamed over the phone for him to "bring back my fucking Gucci wallet."

Let me put this out there: I've been known for some bad behavior. But never, ever, had it had consequences like this. Seeing as I was locked out of the house where my bags were, had no idea where T and E (my two partners in crime at the Saloon) were, or how the fuck I was going to get a visa or drive without any identification, I called the police and proceeded to cry for two hours to the sweet, unsuspecting officer the department sent out. Nothing. Next day, nothing. Oh, and I did I mention at this point that it was now officially mother's day?

For the next twenty-something hours, I sat in the driver's seat of the car, weighting out what moment it would be best to tell my father what the hell had happened--in edited form, of course. Never, ever have I felt so sick in my entire life. When I finally couldn't explain why I hadn't been text messaging like a fiend (as I usually do), I had to break to news: "I don't have my cell phone. Or wallet. Or for that matter passport. On the upnote, your hair looks fabulous, what on earth did you do?"

My father is not a patient man. Or for that matter, an understanding one. He makes his living defending corporate animals. He expects things to be done. He doesn't like hastles. The firestorm that ensued, I cannot even describe.

When I got home, things only got worse. People have actually asked me if my mother does coke or takes amphetamines, she's that high-strung and anxious, critical and hysterical all the time. Seriously. There is no way to describe her except as a hail storm spinning a la tornado and always at a scale five. The screaming could be heard down the street. After she hit me with the nearest thing she could find, she went on to scream at the top of her lungs for twenty minutes. After which I went to my dad's office, and slept on the floor.

This is that naked nightmere, the one where you realize that you've gotten to school and everyone is pointing and laughing because you're ass naked. I have no proof I exist. I have no idea how I'm going to get a new anything. I have no phone. And I'm sleeping on the floor of an office to preserve my own life. This is that naked nightmere, minus the anesthesia. Shoot me. In the face.

Brief Bio., Ie. How on earth did I get suckered into being a Russian Studies Major?

I went to MC for many reasons, one of them being that my parents didn't want me to go to art school. Why not art school? Well that whole trapped with a bunch of manic art students for four years only to never made a dime was one reason, and MC's International Studies being the other reason. Much to their despair, after coming home at the end of my freshman year I broke the news to them that I was not, as planned, going to be a French studies minor, but, rather, was going to be a Russian Studies Major. The look on their faces was reason enough.

This is not to say that my decision was a fuck-you-mom-and-dad decision. Rather, I got to MC, realized the IS major was a skeleton, and realized, furthermore, that the French Department was a damn wreck. My mother has always had the dream that I would be the next Jackie Kennedy, and hhad me spouting off in French with near fluency by the time I was 12. Strong-willed, unfortunately for her, does not even begin to describe my personality. So throughout high school it was the whole activist thing, which nearly got me kicked out of school, and then I got to college--which my parents hoped would be a viable alternative to art school--and only got home to inform them that their little finishing school daughter would soon be chit-chatting in gutteral Russian (which nearly gave my mother a heart attack), and would be prancing around Eastern Europe in her Calvin Klein boots and twin sets. Sheer horror can not begin to describe the general tenor of their reaction.

I have to give my father credit for taking this whole earthquake better than my mother. To my mother's credit, she immediately pointed out that Jackie was interested in Russian art TOO, and started to reconcile her shocked horror. That is, until I announced that I would most likely have to study in Russia in order to graduate with my major. Now, consider that my favorite curator, Murat Guelman, was recently beaten nearly to death in front of his offices, there was that journalist that was shot down in Moscow--suffice it to say my parents threatened first to never talk to me again (which I didn't take that badly), and then threatened to disinherit me (which considering my aversion to work in general, I took to heart).

After having a near nervous breakdown over j-term due to my advisor's insistance that I had to study abroad and he preferred Moscow, I came back with the counter-offer of Prague. Accepted. Which is why I'm soon going to a country where I have no knowledge of the language. Or anything else for that matter. In fact, the only thing I know is that I'll be endulging in the Abstinthe that is illegal in Western Europe, and hopefully not getting robbed.