Lydia’s Blog

This post is going to be shitty, so you know. My addiction to bootlegged Nip/Tuck has managed to rot out the four or five remaining brain cells I had.

The only other American at the opera, a Bass, and I titter all rehearsal long these days, in response to our director’s sweet attempt at polite English. When he want something he asks:

“I would please you to…” i.e. I would please you to enter later/play more regretful/zoom in with the camera, etc.

When my Bosnian co-assistant director asked what was up, I told her that although he was using a literal translation (the verb bitten=to request, also the participle root of Bitte, or please), it ended up having a vaguely dirty ring to it…like a stone’s throw away from “I would pleasure you to…”

I explained that the more correct expression would be “I would ask you to…”

She considered this for a second.

“Could you then say…I would ask you to give me a big please?”

Yesterday was Mozart’s 250th birthday. Regardless, my mind wandered in Beethoven’s direction most of the day, after the doctor’s appointment where I was told that nearly all of the nerves in my right ear are dead.

Then, I got to thinking about my dear deaf grandfather. On the day Hamas cleaned the floor with Fatah, and by default, the entire Palestinian Authority…my sweet, die-hard-Zionist grandfather was burying his oldest friend…a med school buddy from back in the day in Vienna, who’d fled the Nazi occupation at roughly the same time, ending up in the same Connecticut suburb by some twist of fate.

As sad as my grandfather was, it’s surely nowhere near as sad as Ariel Sharon will be when he wakes up to this entire shitstorm.

Still, this shitstorm makes for good listening on CNN, which at least gives me something to live for when I’m fantasizing about my own death on the elliptical machine at my gym, sweating my tits off, listening through headphones jammed deep into my tattered, and in at least one instance, useless ear canals.

Happy 250th birthday, Mr. Mozart.

Black people in Germany are not called Afrikanischer-Deutscher…in a literal transposition of African-American. A black person from Africa is called an African. A black person whose family has lived in Europe for generations is called ein Person mit Afrikanischer Herkunft…which is to say, a person with African heritage.

Officially.

Germans are generally less sensitive about referring to people (when asked to describe) as die Korpulente (the corpulant lady), der Glatzer (the bald guy) or der orientalische Chorsolist (the oriental chorus member).

Then there’s the officially named “Schokokuss” (chocolate kiss, sort of like a really bloated mallomar), which is still unofficially referred to by many people by its original title, the “Negerkuss”.

That’s nigger-kiss.

Not to be apologist about it, but Germans don’t live in a culture constantly reminded of centuries of slavery, where the term “Neger” connotes vicious beatings, selling up and down rivers, Mammy, lynchings and the like.

It’s almost unfortunate that Jews don’t have a similar epithet that could have been thrown around instead of “Jude” (pronounced yoo-duh) pre-1945…that way Germans could stonewall that term the way we revile the word “Nigger”, rather than appearing sheepish every time they have to discuss the race of Abraham by its medical name.

Only then to vehemently assert that they have many Jewish friends…following an all-too-familiar pattern in polite conversation among non-African-American Americans.

Anyway. It’s not really an issue I have to face very often because, well, because a.) the educated Germans I come in contact with are adamantly pro-multiculturalism (as long as we’re not discussing Turks) and b.) there really aren’t that many black people running around here (at lease not within those same educated German circles mentioned above).

This second point was brought to my attention in living color (not even close to a pun) the other day at the casting I organized for the opera (see my post Oksanas, Svetlanas and Olgas, oh my!). An associate of the opera (a wino, ex-dancer and ancient GDR enthusiast) attended the auditions.

She was a bit (in addition to drunkity drunk drunk) hurt that she hadn’t been let in on finding the auditionees.

How did you find them? She asked. My eyes watered from the combined musk of her unwashed clothes, feet and weinbrand.

I explained: From two different casting agencies, and through the director of Berlin’s Russian Theater.

Her eyes lit up…”Lydia, koenntest du mir ein Negerkind fuer Rosenkavalier aussuchen? Ich denke dass ich einen schon gefunden habe…aber es ist bestimmt gut mindenstens zwei Negerkinder zu haben, weisst du?”

trans: “Lydia, could you find me a Nigger-child for Rosenkavalier? I think I’ve already found one, but it’s certainly good to have at least two Nigger-children, you know?”

And I mean, she was trying to beat the slur, so she basically shouted this. My PC liberal-American brain swung on its hinges with disbelief as I reeled around to make sure other people heard what I was hearing.

They did.

Wow.

Today is my last sick day. I thought about being a hero early this morning, leaping out of bed and making an appearance at the opera…

But the ear was nipping. Another day of downloaded Nip/Tuck and Ritter Sport for me.

Yesterday, my favorite H-mosexual stopped by my house armed with coffees and a huge bag of cookies from a Turkish bakery.

This delicious man has introduced me to the wonders of the Club de Republic, Bruce LaBruce, the 120 Last Days of Sodom, Richard Strauss (well, he tried), and now, finally, Cazzo.

If you’re an unmarried straight woman under 30, you’ve experienced the peculiar delight that is gay porn.

My college frienemy Marc and I used to shoplift nasty gay porn from a nasty gay bookshop in Cleveland, and stay up all night getting stoned, watching the movies through and then reenacting scenes for his stunned housemates in the morning.

The situations are pretty pat: firehouse, locker room, auto body shop, generic Harlem platform surrounded by chain-link fence, beach, prison, poolside, etc. The top has slightly more hair, facially and otherwise than the bottom, who is usually a bit younger. Otherwise the actors really all look the same as well.

Yesterday, my friend introduced me to the Cazzo.

Oh the Cazzo.

Cazzo is a Berlin-based studio for gay porn. Some of it is pretty standard. There is one particularly nasty series called Coxxx, which is, as far as I can tell, somebody with a camera and a wad of cash convincing Berlin junkies and strung-out, homeless punks to suck each other’s weeners.

Genius.

Anyway. Remember those days of yore when the only think you could watch on a sick day was Pinwheel on Nickelodeon for what seemed like six straight hours?

www.cazzofilm.com. Ladies, it’s worth it.

So, I’m beginning to realize that my power (read: aptitude) as a blogarina, being able to spin out cute, glib stories, is almost entirely contingent on my being able to leave the house.

I currently can’t. So. You probably won’t get cute tonight. Not from me.

I’m spending a lot of time staring at the mirror. Staring at the mirrors. What I see amazes me.

My face is beautiful. I’m not really sure when it was I figured that out. I can remember a time when I wouldn’t present my face without the cover of an ever-present curtain of hair.

It’s just one of those faces. Babies love it (because humans at birth have an instinctive affinity for symmetry and proportion), charicaturists hate it (because the features work in such harmony as to be incredibly difficult to parody).

I can only barely tolerate my body on a good day, self-depriciating and sarcasticizing all over it to keep from vomiting at the sight of my gut-titties in dark storefront windows, but my face…?

Aside from temporary blemishes, it’s pretty much perfect.

Which makes it all the more ironic that the inside of my head is an oozing, misshapen disaster. Under the cheekbones and behind the jaw, there are deformations that have made me wail in agony like clockwork, annually since the beginning of years. Every plane ride is an excercise of exquisite pain, every pool, lake, ocean, or even lover’s tongue is certain torture. The most delicate of machinery breaking and bursting, leaving a string of friends, bunkmates, RAs, coworkers, casual fucks and even strangers to ask one familiar question:

“What’s dripping out of your ear?”

And me, becoming less and less able to even hear them ask.

Beautiful on the outside, deformed on the inside. How sweet.

As I cling to the couch, too dizzy to stand and in too much pain to sit still I try, I try, I try.

Or I try not, as it were…

To hear the obvious parallel between the state of my head…

And everthing else there is. Here.

I’m organizing a casting to find one young, hot Russian actress for the opera I’m working on.

On a particular resume, under special skills, one hopeful from St. Petersburg volunteered that she could assemble a Kalashnikov in under 90 seconds.

Shit, I mean…give the girl some credit.

Hi there. Being an expat is hard. Sometimes it’s hysterical, fabulous hard, and sometimes it’s spirit-crushing, empty hard. Today, and honestly the last few days have belonged to the latter category. A big thank you to all who have written me regarding the blog. In addition to being a great outlet for ridiculousness, it’s also a comforting way to know that people are there, though far away. Biting andecdotes aside, that knowledge is more important to me than Hello Kitty vibrators, GEZ guys and PoMos combined. Shit, combined and squared…especially these days.

Now schluss with the self-pity. Onto the fun. La Comedia is never finita, keep in mind.

I walked into a German drugstore, an Apotheke, today. A lady was standing by a massive stack of skin care products, passing out samples, promoting. As I passed by, she let loose a low whistle. “Madam, your skin is really dry” she said.

And it is. I’m exhausted. I’m spending eight hours a day on a new production, and about three or four extra hours on the next one. Not to mention my preparations for a remount in Austria this spring. Forgive me if I forget the lotion. And my grasp of the German language.

She had a little machine that she then rubbed over my skin, in order to point out the white flecks that indicated (in addition to my caucasianness) that my face has the moisture profile of a desert.

“Try this lotion” she said “every night before you go to bed”. She gave me a free sample.

I turned to her with the same question I’ve asked every such skin-care hustler with whom I’ve ever come into contact.

“You see, the thing is…although I have dry skin, I always get pimples all over my face”.

The woman stared at me. She cracked an odd, half smile. She then took the free sample out of my hand and wished me a good day.

It was only then, through my comatose state, that I realized my mistake. The word for pimple in German is Pickel (pronounced like Pickle), and the word for urine…that is, pee, is Pinkel. I had inadvertently used the latter.

I had just told the woman that “although I have dry skin, I always put pee all over my face.”

Jesus Christ.

As with so many situations before…

…I left immediately.

On new years eve, I left my favorite black sweater of all times (also the one I wear…sorry…wore almost daily) in the back of a cab whilst in a drunken haze.

Since then, I’d been looking for a replacement. After several hundred hours (and I don’t believe I’m exaggerating) of searching for its replacement, I finally bought one last Friday at a boutique in Prenzlberg that’s so cool it doesn’t even have a name…for what amounts to half of my rent.

It’s GORgeous, though. No joke. Worth every penny that I paid in cash because the afore-mentioned store is also too cool to take plastic.

I waited until today to wear the sweater, having used the last few days to contemplate the right peripheral garments with which to accompany my new baby’s debut.

So. Jeans. The nice ones. Cowboy boots. My big mama glasses that I hooked up by persuading my optician to retrofit a pair of Calvin Klein shades.

The overall ensemble, hot though it was, had a puzzling effect.

All day, I was like catnip for really obnoxious queens trying to scam me or sell me things. I mean, in my line of work and with the company I keep…well, it happens. But today was extreme. There was the press guy who bummed about half a pack of cigarettes from me. Then there was the guy at lush who literally would not leave me alone until I was covered in eight different creams and lotions, each one designed to inspire weight-loss through omnipresent nausea.

Then there was the guy at the coffee shop. He talked to me for about forty-five minutes while inadvertently showing me about as many pecs, washboard stomachs, winsome boys and huge cocks, via his lively screensaver.

At the end of it all, he gave me his card and told me that his branch of the Christian Democrats (Germany’s watery version of Republicans) was looking for some new blood.

Would I like to tag along? Here’s your number.

My stars. Sometimes fabulousness is just not worth the bother. I fully intend to look like shit tomorrow.

After a surprisingly short rehearsal this evening, I headed down the the Opera House’s cafeteria, where our production’s designer and his assistant were sitting, nursing two small beers.

My night’s plans were still a good three hours away from starting, so I decided to sit down and get to know these two enigmatic gents.

After an hour or so of pleasant, tactful conversation, I decided to grab us another round. After doing so, I sat back down and continued to discuss the designer’s shared loft in Williamsburg in the late nineties.

I shifted in my seat. A glass bottle of carbonated water placed next to the chair toppled and subsequently exploded, spraying glass over several square meters.

I jumped up to grab some napkins, knocking our table and toppling my wine glass onto the floor. (It broke in much the same way as the bottle).

In trying to prevent the slick from dripping onto my laptop nearby, I managed to topple both beer glasses of my newfound mindmates, shooting shattered glass and alcohol all over the floor, passerby, etc.

Whilst dabbing at the inseam of the assistant designer with my scarf (which will now forever smell of Pilsner), another glass water bottle rolled off the table. And so on.

There I was, in the middle of the stunned cafeteria–musicians, singers, etc., staging a one-man Zorba the Greek…shrieking “balls!” as each new object fell and shattered…gesticulating wildly for mops, brooms, sponges, help, anything.

Eventually a small army of kitchen staff approached with tight smiles and towels. I bought everyone new drinks before slinking out of the cafeteria in shame.

Before I escaped, the assistant designer whispered a question:

“What does broken glass have to do with balls?”

Oh, dear readers…at that point…would that I could have shown him.

Nighty night.

There is a store in the central part of Berlin (Mitte) around Hackische Markt. It is well situated among other high-end trashy-hot stores…in which you can make your own jewelry, buy a 1974 DDR sofa for EU 4000, enjoy Berlin’s only Cosmo in the Barbie Brothel or buy a molded leather shoe formed to look like a human ear.

The store is called Fluffy White Pink, a fine example of syntactically incongruous Anglo-German wordplay.

In other words, near-complete idiocy. I continue.

Fluffy White Pink is mainly a depot for Hello Kitty-based products…from erasers and changepurses to a EU 269 roller suitcase. It also features an assortment of objects comprised of patches of cloth and elasticized string which, I’m told, when masterfully assembled on a human female of roughly the same circumference as a firehouse pole, can legally qualify as clothing.

I’m a big fan of their collection of Jesuses and Marys painted on black velvet. That’s the only reason I’d ever go. I swear.

Anyway, on one cold afternoon a while ago, I found myself in FWP, for some reason mired in serious consideration over buying a crocheted cigarette-box cozy. A Mitte mom was also shopping at the Fluffy at that time, somehow ignoring her ugly little boy as he toppled displays and leveled shrieks that would send Yoko Ono straight to culinary school.

I also tried to ignore junior, so as to adequately compare the advantages of both the recycled tetra-pak and crocheted cigarette-box cosy. Just as this conflict approached gainful resolution, I felt something on the back of my left leg, just south of buttcheek.

The sensation was reminiscent of a jolt from a wall socket and a stint in the dentist’s chair combined, mixed in with something more familiar and oddly reassuring–something I couldn’t place.

Turning around, I was concerned, nervous–had it been a seizure?

I looked down. The little shit-child was grinning up at me. In his smudged, chubby hands, he held what looked like a Hello Kitty Pez dispenser…or a Hello Kitty jumbo pen, or something. It was only then that I noticed the buzzing.

It was a Hello Kitty vibrator. A five-year-old boy wearing an anti-GM (genetic modification) t-shirt had just prodded me with a Hello Kitty vibrator, the origins or cleanliness of which I could not begin to ascertain.

I left immediately.