Accidentally pro-ana?

Just a question: has anybody else noticed that people who are recovering from anorexia frequently get terrible acne all over their faces? I haven't known many anorexics, but the ones I did know, their skin was fine until they started eating again, and then they got major acne. I did a Google search for "anorexia acne correlation" but only got that sometimes people become anorexic because they have terrible acne. Has this really never been studied? I feel like it should have been - everyone's always going on about how you live longer on a calorie-restricted diet, so someone must have noticed that restricting calories affects skin. Or did I imagine it? Maybe it's just that you're not supposed to go up to a recovering anorexic and say, "Oh, I'm glad you're feeling better, sweetie, but your skin used to be so much better..."

On the futility of trying to reason with a boy

Yes, this is another entry condemning boys! I never tire of these; I doubt you do either. This one has to do with boys and relationships, specifically, their reluctance to enter relationships. As I see it, being in a relationship is in their best interests sexually: they get more sex than if they were single, the sex is kinkier, they don't have to work for it, and if they have sexual problems, women will help them work through those problems rather than never speaking to them again. Plus, being in a relationship is just nice; it's nice to be in love and have someone love you, nice to be able to count on someone to help you out when you need it, nice to be able to tell your family, "I found someone," unless your father is Hugh Hefner, in which case I suppose he'd be disappointed. I guess this is why I like older guys: they're willing to be in relationships and they are, on average, less retarded. The problem is that if you fall in love with one of them, you start worrying about them dying before you... and that when you're with them, you look like a hooker. I guess the problem is that boys think that if they commit to a relationship, they won't be able to fuck all the supermodels that will start to approach them. Whatever. Boys are so irrational. Only a retard would trade constant, kinky sex for the remote possibility of convincing someone else to have sex with him. I can't say this really upsets me too much, except in the sense that stupidity is always frustrating, even if it doesn't directly affect me.

Spending time with my relatives in Connecticut wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. My dumb bitch cousin started talking about how she wanted a lap band; I guess she knows that without a nice bod, she's useless. But I also want a lap band, so I really shouldn't be condemning her for that. Then my other dumb cousin described going to college in the South. Apparently, he's been shooting squirrels and eating them. He got himself a BB gun and then decided that the best place to hide it from his mom was... under her sofa. The cousins I actually like didn't show up; they're upset that their parents are getting divorced and they're avoiding their dad. It turned out my uncle's been having an affair for many, many years, and the woman finally decided to leave her husband for my uncle. Damn, Uncle Jon is a homewrecker. But this divorce is actually working out pretty well for me - I got presents from both my aunt and my uncle this year. When in doubt, cash is always a nice gift.

The Christmas Tradeoff

The Christmas tradeoff is where in order to get presents, you have to visit your relatives, and good LORD I hate visiting my relatives. First, my dumb bitch cousin starts talking about McCain and she's all like, "His wife is sooooo put together. I hate Obama. I mean, I have to vote for my best interests, right?" like, bitch please, your fiancee just lost his job at Lehman Brothers and had to take a sucky JP Morgan job for half the money, and she keeps going on and on about her Hawaii wedding and, "Whenever I go to the Four Seasons in Hawaii, they bring me mini Rice Krispies treats as I sun myself on the beach," and "My housekeeper is the cutest little thing! Her name is Naire but we call her Narnia! I think she's Brazilian or something." She's so fucking noveau riche it makes me gag, and you six readers all know I destroyed my gag reflex years ago. I don't hate her, mainly because I never have to see her, but when we do collide, it's exhaustingly annoying.

Anyway, my cousin was obnoxious, but what my aunt did was bizarre. My brother and sister and I were talking about how much we want Hirohito to go away and never come back, and my aunt gets red in the face and she's like, "It's hard for him! You're ganging up on him! He's in a foreign country and it's so hard," and all I could think was, If you want him, you can take him, but until then, you have no idea what you're talking about.

But enough with my stupid family stuff, tomorrow I get presents!!!!! Tradeoff worth it!!!

My Love Life, or The Opposite of Sex

Oh man, I forgot to write about my terrible date from last Wednesday! It was my own fault, really. Nobody wanted to hang out, so I went on Craigslist and found a guy who did. We went to a bar and it was okay, he was whatever, we had fun, it got to be 2:30 and I was like, OK, time to go home, and he was like, wait, I want to go to the Boiler Room and trade some Klonopin for cocaine, and I'd had a couple drinks and I knew I couldn't get myself home, so I was like, OK, and we went to the Boiler Room and I collapsed in this comfy leather chair and watched him approach guys and whisper in their ears. You'd think that in a gay bar, I could at least watch some cute guys making out, but they were all kind of fat and old and I found myself not aroused. And I tried picturing them doing it and everything. So that was pretty bad, being abandoned next to the bathroom in a gay bar while my date went around looking for cocaine. Then some guy came up to me and kissed me, just like that, without even saying anything, which was gross. He smelled bad and he made my mouth smell bad and I threw water in his face, but I don't think he got wet. I should have been more outraged, but really, I was just disgusted. Eventually my date came back and started begging me for $2 to buy beer and I was like, NO, I'M THE GIRL, and he was like, but I bought you all that alcohol before, and I gave up and I was like, just take a five from my purse, and he said he'd give me change but he didn't, he was like, I had to tip the bartender, blah blah blah, I'm stealing $3 from you. On the plus side, I met some very nice gay guys and they all said I was cute. I got one guy's name and I tried to find him on Facebook, but there were like a hundred people with the same name and I couldn't go through them all. (Aldo, if you're reading this, friend me!) The weird thing is, even though it was, objectively speaking, an awful date, I didn't really have a bad time. It was kind of an adventure.

Anyway, the dating gods made it up to me that Friday by giving me a good date with an interesting guy. I don't want to say much about it because I don't want to jinx it and also I don't know if he reads this blog and I don't want him to get a swelled head. It's important for boys to know their place.

The Vampire Who Captured My Heart and Bled It Dry

Mischa and I are writing a Twilight-esque young adult book (plot TBD), and as research, I just read the first 100 pages of Twilight. I know everyone hates it, and I know all the feminist blogs say it's disgusting, but really, I'm not hating it. That's not to say it's not a piece of shit. It reads like some seventh-grade brat got dumped and to soothe the terrible, terrible pain, she spent two days writing a story about a girl who has guys chasing her all over the place. So the writing's distractingly bad, but as you go on, it's less narrative and more dialogue, and Meyer's not terrible at dialogue. As for all the critics saying it's sending a terrible message to young women about how you should give up everything for a boy, I don't know. I only read the first 100 pages. But I'm not too worried. My impression is the only girls who are into this shit are the ones who would have let a boy run their lives even if they hadn't read this book. Is it wrong of me to dismiss an entire group of the young adult population just because they kind of suck? Creo que no.

This counts as my book review. Again, I'm sorry for the non-updating, but things have been going pretty well for me lately, and I don't want to jinx them by gushing.

Cabbies

I haven't been writing much lately. It's because I'm translating something that may be published and I don't want to jinx it by talking about it, and it's basically all that's on my mind. I keep picturing myself being interviewed, even though I don't think anyone interviews translators. But maybe...

You meet the nicest cab drivers in New York. The other day, I had this Bangladeshi cab driver who was telling me all about relationships. He was like, "Marriage... is like quitting smoking. If you don't really want to succeed, you won't." I thought that was actually pretty smart. The last cab driver I had gave me some pamphlets on Jesus and Islam, and I read them when I was on the toilet. The thing about these pamphlets you get is that they try to convince you to join their religion with evidence that it's the real thing, but their evidence is always from their holy book. It's like, this is your proof? This does nothing for me.

Travel: Bratislava, Prague, Dresden, Berlin, Amsterdam, Brussels, Luxembourg, Barcelona

I'm going to continue with this travel stuff, but I'm not going to put in so much detail anymore. It's exhausting and it kind of showcases my no-life, which is not something I'm looking to make public. Anyway.

Bratislava
We were in Bratislava for a total of about 6 hours, so there's not much to say. I never felt very comfortable, but in fairness, that's really because my sister's boyfriend told me that it was super-scary. He travels a lot for fencing and apparently he went to Bratislava with his dad and his black friend and people were really unfriendly because they hate Jews and black people, and they had to bribe a lot of people to not get killed, and the police were unhelpful. The truth is that I think he always stays in the shadiest neighborhoods, and that's why he's always meeting unsavory characters. He told me Budapest was the sketchiest city he'd ever been to, and I was like, "Okay, well, what should I avoid when I'm there?" and he was like, "Well, if you see a hotel with a whole bunch of prostitutes in front and guys approach you and ask if you want to bang one, that's where I was." I feel like if he avoided the red-light districts, he wouldn't be so nervous when he traveled.
Back to Bratislava. They didn't really accept credit cards anywhere, so that was kind of a drag. I bought a really cute puppet there. Eh, I'm going to say I liked it.

Prague
Prague is the most beautiful place I have ever been and I'm going to get married there. When we went, it mostly rained, so we ended up staying inside a lot, in cafes and stuff. Our favorite was Cafe Louvre, which had delicious food and pool, and we spent hours just holed up in there. They handed out maps at every hostel we stayed in, and these maps all had recommendations on them, so we would go to the recommended restaurants and they were mostly good. Sometimes they sucked, though, and we'd end up eating french fries or ice cream for dinner. Irma is a vegetarian and I don't really eat foreign meat, so we didn't have so many options. There was this one place we went where I asked how big an 800-gram plate of french fries was and the waiter was like, "Are you asking me how many fries there are on a plate? I don't have time to count." He gave us free ketchup, though. A lot of places make you pay. Based on my (scant) experience, in Europe, they're really reluctant to give you tap water, and if they do give it to you, it's in a shot glass, and there will be times when you're looking the waiter right in the eye and gesturing for the bill and he'll just keep talking to his friend.
As for sightseeing, I liked the Old Town Hall Tower with the astronomical clock on it. It reminded me of the campanile in the Piazza San Marco in Venice. The synagogue package (you pay a certain amount and you can see like six Jewish sites) is a rip-off. We went on a walking tour, which was pretty cool. They also have really nice stuff to buy. I loooooooooved Prague.

Dresden
Another city we visited for like six hours. Dresden was pretty boring-looking, but I had a nice omelet. Like every street corner has a plaque that says, "This was destroyed during the war," and while I sympathize, I feel like at a certain point you have to stop harping on it or nobody will want to be your friend.

Berlin
Berlin is ugly as fuck. It was basically destroyed during the war and they rebuilt it in this depressing 1950s Soviet style. That being said, I had a good time there. Everyone talks about Berlin having a good vibe, and it's true. Irma and I spent a lot of time in pubs - the Olympics were going on and I loved watching them. Nobody else did, though. They were pretty into soccer.
We went on a bike tour of Berlin, which was really fun. I can't ride a bike, so the guide rode a tandem bike with me. That was special. We rode through this really pretty park, and that was nice, but other than that, everything we saw on the tour was like Holocaust memorials and East Berlin suckage. There was this patch of dirt in the middle of an apartment complex with this metal sign next to it and that was the Führerbunker. Irma thought they shouldn't point it out. I don't know.
We also saw prostitutes in Berlin! It was kind of sad, because we were sitting in an ice cream shop and eating and watching out the window, and there was this lady standing out there on the street with thigh-high boots and a short skirt and a fake-fur jacket and Irma was like, "I think that's a prostitute," and I was like, "No, she can't be, foreigners just dress weird," but we stayed in that shop for like 45 minutes and she just stood there, in the cold, approaching men and getting rejected over and over and over, and there was this group of high schoolers who went up to her and talked to her and then ran away laughing like a bunch of brats. She was not making any money.
If you go to Berlin, I would recommend not staying in the Odyssee Hostel because I got bedbugs there. These places wash the bedsheets, but not the quilts, and I itched for the rest of the trip.

Amsterdam
We weren't here very long and the entire time I was stoned, and when I'm stoned I just fall asleep, so I don't really know about Amsterdam. It was gorgeous, of course, and I think I would have appreciated that more if I hadn't been falling over myself.
We stayed near (or in?) the red-light district, so of course we saw prostitutes! They weren't depressing like the ones in Berlin. For one thing, they were indoors, and the other thing was that they weren't young or above-average pretty, and for some reason, I liked that. I will never forget this one woman's face, she was like 40 or so and her hair was dyed blond and she wasn't fat, but her skin was kind of jiggly, and she just looked totally comfortable hanging out in a window wearing lingerie. I think Amsterdam has laws against pimping, which is of course the way it should be.

Brussels
Brussels is gray and ugly. Everyone's into the waffles, but I don't eat waffles, so I don't know. We met some nice drag queens there, and an idiot diamond trader. I asked him if he traded blood diamonds and he was like, "You're ignorant. You're listening to the media," and I was like, "Okay, so, tell me how it really is. Who mines your diamonds?" and he was like, "I dunno." Retard. I had a good time, but I don't think I'll return.

Luxembourg
Clean, good food, etc. Basically, it's what you'd expect. Everything closes early.

Barcelona
It's a weird-looking place, but being there was fun. I guess the only problem I had was that their fruit is very bland. The ice cream was great, though, and there was some very imaginative food, which I liked, and of course we all love art. I doubt most people make it a priority to visit the zoo in Barcelona, but I had a great time there. We were sitting next to a white gorilla cage and this one gorilla got mad and charged us, then ran into the glass and fell back. It was cute. My dog does the same thing. I loved the Boqueria, which is this creepy outdoor food market with lots of pretty fruit stands next to skinned carcasses in giant ice-filled display cases. People brought their dogs, which made me miss my dog, because she would have loved it.

Anyway, that's where I went this summer, and that's my little travel guide. Maybe later I'll remember more stuff, but considering how many places I went in such little time, I'm going to give myself a pat on the back for remembering anything at all.

Travel: Budapest and Vienna

Last summer, Irma and I went on a Eurotrip. We visited 9 cities. I've decided to write mini-guides to each of these. Keep in mind that as the trip went on, I sort of lost energy, so I remember a lot more about the earlier countries than the later ones.

Budapest
Budapest kind of reminded me of Barcelona - lots of pretty old buildings alongside ugly 1950s-style buildings. If I were in charge of Budapest, which I'm sure will happen soon, I'd demolish all the ugly buildings (I guess the residents would have to just fuck off) and let trees grow there and soon it would be gorgeous.

Budapest Pros/things that were fun:

• The people were really friendly. If they see you looking lost or confused, they help you right away.
• Everyone in the service industry spoke English
• It's very walkable
• You don't find a lot of religious crap here. The statues are mostly of kings, not Jesus. I like that.
• The Semmelweis Medical History Museum was fun, and it was in this very pretty residential area. It's a small exhibit, but they've got some really gorey stuff, like a chastity belt and a birthing belt and weird models. You're supposed to pay to take pictures inside, but I did not, and this fat lady heard my camera snapping and ran up to me and I told her I had no idea what she was talking about, and then she started following me from room to room. How ghey. The best thing about this museum by far is that they act like the Hungarians basically discovered medicine, like, "And here is some medicine that the Hungarians invented, and these famous Hungarian doctors were the first to treat any disease ever." You find that attitude everywhere in Budapest, like, you go to the Hungarian National Gallery and it's all paintings by Hungarians I've never heard of (to be fair, I really don't know much about art), whereas our National Gallery has all kinds of crap in it. (Can you tell I like linking things?) Anyway, their outlook is hilarious and awesome and of all the countries we visited, Hungary had the foreignest people, which I feel is the whole point of traveling.
• The labyrinths were super-creepy, just like labyrinths should be. They're under the castle and they're all damp and gross and at the end, there's this imprint of a sneaker and a sign that says it's an ancient footprint that can teach us about early civilization and then another one that asks what people 2,000 years from now will think of us. It's supposed to be meaningful, but I don't care.
• Margaret Island was pretty and crawling with Goth kids. We took some boat ride along the Danube that ended up there, and along the way, we had these audio guides we were supposed to listen to, and the whole thing was this educational dialogue between a British woman (Pest) and a Hungarian man (Buda), and Buda kept saying stuff like, "If you look to the left, you will see a beautiful new building," and Pest was like, "Oh, Buda, you always go for the younger buildings when you and I have been together for so long," and it was hilarious and not very informative.
• Their money is pretty. I saved a 200-forint bill because the guy on it was cute.
  
• The Gellert Bath was so wonderful. They've got some thermal spring and the water just made me tingly all over. Irma and I went to the women-only baths and floated around naked, and I got the greatest massage where this lady kneaded my butt and played '90s dance music.

Budapest Cons/Things I didn't like

• Their subways are retarded. I can't believe how retarded their subways are. First of all, the one you take from the airport is in this building that looks like an abandoned warehouse. I was standing right in front of it and I had to ask someone where it was. And there are no signs.
• There are too many cars, compared to other cities. Maybe if their subway didn't suck so hard, people wouldn't need cars.
• The food is disgusting. They just cover everything in paprika. There is no reason for pea soup to be red. My advice is to never eat at a place that says Etterem on it. Those places serve Hungarian food, which is inedible. Only go to places that say Restaurant.
  
• Nobody goes out at night. Irma and I would be walking back to the hostel and the streets would be completely empty. Every now and then you'd run into a group of scary-looking men, but they never noticed us. They were pretty involved.
• They're not attractive. Even the kids aren't pretty.
• They try to rip you off all the time. Everyone assumes you won't do the conversion from forints to dollars because it's kind of awkward, something like $1 is equal to 350 forints, but if you actually do the math, you get overcharged all the time.

Vienna
I don't have nearly as much to say about Vienna. The food was delicious, it was very clean, I really liked the Imperial Crypt (it was underground and it had these really pretty coffins with skulls on them and it was totally creepy), a million people dressed as Mozart roamed the streets selling concert tickets, and the Imperial Silver Collection at the Hofburg Imperial Palace is astounding (what is a duck press?). Generally, though, Vienna was pretty boring. It was too clean.

Anyway, I'm pretty tired now, and I guess I'll continue this some other time, maybe.

Stuff I think is bullshit

Everywhere I go, they're selling stuff with Obama on it - photos, hats, T-shirts, etc. I don't know. It's like, we haven't seen what he'll do yet, and all this sending troops into Afghanistan business is bullshit, and his team of rivals seems like a disaster, and I just feel like everyone's going to get let down. I think before he was elected, he made a lot of deals with people, and a lot of what he may do as president could just be repaying his debts. I'm just not sure about this guy anymore.

Yesterday at dinner I asked what everyone thought about legalizing corporal punishment in schools and my brother was like, "You're going to give kids the electric chair for messing up?" He's so retarded. But his friends are worse. His bitch friend came over yesterday and asked me if all vaginas smell the same, like, don't talk to me about your stupid 17-year-old sex life. I also realized that I have no idea how other vaginas smell. It's weird to think that (heterosexual) men know more about vaginal diversity than I do.

Tutoring is super-depressing. On Tuesday I went over to this kid's house and I was like, "Okay, today we're going to do a little math and a little English," and he asked me, "What's English?" I was like, "What language do you speak?" and he said American. It was so weird. And there were roaches swarming all over his bedroom, coming in and out of dresser drawers, like, what could possibly be in a dresser drawer that would attract a roach? I had to leave early. I didn't even have him sign the paper that said I'd been there. It was just so gross. I can't handle roaches. I don't think I can help him. I don't think any tutor can give him long-term help. The only thing that could help is just completely changing his family. I think public schools should have mandatory parental volunteerism. There would be some parents who would skip it, but I think if you nag enough, a lot of them would show up. I think this kid's parents would show up. They want what's best for him, they just don't realize how to do it. I would be like the awesomest education reformer.

Buy me a chateau

Yesterday was a good DIY day. I made myself a face mask out of honey and crushed aspirin, which actually left my skin a lot smoother, and I cured my yeast infection with garlic. I don't know when the smell is going to go away. I personally don't mind it, but I don't know how strong the scent is. I don't know if people on the street can smell me. I guess it's okay. I don't go out much.