Für wie lange bleiben Sie in Deutschland?

I love hearing people speak German.  One day I followed some German tourists.  I didn’t even know what they were saying.  I don’t speak German.  Perhaps they were saying, “Why is the schwarze lady following us?”  They looked like nice people.  They were tall.  The guttural precision and command of the language makes me…amorous. I’ve seen Run Lola Run a few times in German.

I asked German bloggers if they could translate “How long will you be in Germany?”  I want a character in my short story to say it.  These are different translations from the nice German bloggers:

“Für wie lange bleibst Du in Deutschland?”

“Für wie lange bleiben Sie in Deutschland?”

“Wie lange bleibst du in Deutschland?”

During my translation quest, I discovered a couple of friends speak the language.  One spoke German to me yesterday.  It made my eyes roll into the back of my head.  Another friend who speaks German said my pronunciation of the sentence was good and that maybe I was German in another life.  He’s an artist — sometimes they say things like that.

Rammstein had a popular song on the radio called Du Hast.  There’s a song on the cd called Spiel Mit Mir.  Sure it’s about incest between siblings, which I don’t believe in, unless you’re trying to keep your royal blood intact.  Those Germans – so severe, so kinky — ha!  The singer beefs up that “command” thing in this song for a dramatic, menacing effect.  It sounds like he’s hawking up phlegm, and I hate when people actually do that, but to punctuate a sentence — yes.  Here, check it out:

Und, I had sausage this morning, which is very German.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!

For the drama queen in me.  It’s very cathartic.

Peter Steele’s lyrics to Inner Conflict:

Nothing can stop the pain

and nothing can stop the pain

suffering from anxiety

it seems like an eternity

Somebody, somebody kill me

Somebody put me out of my misery

Inner Conflict

Inner Conflict

The pain it only gets worse

and the pain it only gets worse

give up ’cause there is no hope

life is hell when you can’t cope

Somebody, somebody kill me

Somebody put me out of my misery

(My favorite part of the song)

I think I’m losing my fucking mind

Large two inch maggots decorate my vomit

infected eyes oozing pus

acknowledge the stench of human excrement

swamps of mucus prevalent

every hole in my body drips blood

every hole in my body drips blood

every hole in my body drips blood

Hate is fear

I rip at my face in the mirror

death approaching

expiration growing nearer

I’m rotting inside

I’m disgusted with myself

I’m in hell

Boo hoo, you hurt my feelings!

When I say a detached hello to people in my building, I’m simply practicing a neighborly vibe.  I think that some of the new, younger tenants think it’s annoying, because they don’t bother to say hello back.  Maybe they think I’m a pathetic lady trying to make friends.

I’ve been here 22 years and management has changed four times.  The apartments that aren’t rent stabilized or rent controlled are subjected to rent hikes based on the whim of the owners.

So new tenants, I understand your resentment and feeling of instability, especially when your rent goes up $300 after one year – ‘Oh for this dump!’ you think, as you probably qualify for better in your professional capacity.  You guys move in and out of here in the life span of cockroaches.

The solid tenants who have lumbered along in this ancient building for years are beneficiaries of rent stabilization or rent control, and I know them.  I have no idea who some of you newer ones are, but a couple of you are evil.

When you stare brazenly and don’t respond the few times I say ‘hello’ on different days — okay.  But when you fall with your garbage bag full of liquor bottles, and I’m ahead of you, turn around, see it’s you, and keep stepping, don’t mumble something that vaguely sounds like, ‘Thanks a lot for helping me’.

“What’d you say?  Fuck you.  You can’t say good morning, but expect me to help you?  Kiss my ass.”

You caught me on a bad day.  If you’d really hurt yourself, I would have helped.  I’m not a jerk.  You just became a convenient target for my anger that day.  I’ll practice self-control for the others.

There’s a four-eyed woman who rolled her eyes when I said hello.  Ouch!  But I should have taken that hint when we were in the laundry room.  I had the rare urge (You people don’t realize that I’m actually one of you.) to make small talk and you whipped around and snapped, “What!?”

That other one, who I stopped speaking to after no responses, looks at me expectantly, now that she has a new baby.  But, too late bitch – you don’t exist to me anymore.

See, I had a talk with myself to remind myself that I need to respect you all and your wishes not to speak to me, and that I shouldn’t take it personally.  While I’ll still hold the elevator door open for all of you, you are now, henceforth, nonentities.

 

Gothic Days

An overcast day only hinting of sun suits my mood.  I like taking walks in it.  When dusty clouds tinged with peach, pink, turquoise and orange hover, my thoughts are romantic.  Pathetically I imagine living in that old gothic building jutting over the Hudson, or have a cotton-headed fantasy about the preference bestowed upon me by the universe, wherein hordes of lovely people who like my books buttress my existence with praise and favor in all manner, form and “activity.”

The texture of clouds and colors on these days are the canvas for the depths of my thoughts and for the melancholy hue of self-indulgence.  I’m not afraid to allow myself to be seen, to reveal myself in this atmosphere, and can discuss with myself, out loud – if walking on a quiet road — how to handle an ongoing conflict with the obese service worker, or the blatant truth about the direction of my life, or the spiritual benefit of never blaming anyone other than myself.

Centuries old artists capture the beauty of the powdery, melancholy sky as a palette against the flora or peasant’s valley.  As a transporting exercise in recreation, I imagine the woods across the street against a pastel textured, dark-hued sky a hundred and fifty years past.

I prefer this to the harassment and shock of a sheer blue day.  The demand, the brightness shining on every flaw of my life are too much for me to endure at times.  The intrusion is audacious — it embodies the collective idea that it’s the perfection of days and that I should be impelled to romp about in it to serve my health.

What crap is this?  The sun burning my eyes, my chest clenched with the weight of all this expectation.  Bah.  My name is Sandee, and I’m not a great fan of the overbearing sun.

Here’s my Match.com profile – whatcha think?

Likes:

• Enjoy calling the cops on noisy groups of people
• Watching water boil
• Plunging the toilet
• Taking long bus rides through dilapidated neighborhoods
• Setting my wigs on fire after wearing them seven times
• Celebrating Halloween all year
• Eating snacks with Hattie, Jimmy and Robert at the Hebrew Home for the Aged at Riverdale
• Making five ingredient toast
• Recreating Public Service Announcements from the 1950s

I’ma use this picture of me with the piercing eyes that my sister took Xmas time.  I’m wearing my blue terry cloth bathrobe!

Maybe I’ll catch one come Valentines Day, huh?  Wish me luck!

Raowr!

I’m a brown-skinned black woman with kinky hair, but people have told me that I look like white women.  It’s weird.  Years ago in a salon, a woman pointed at a white model in Vogue.  “You look like her,” she said.  The model wore a grey fur vest, a fur hat and Cossack boots – she had her foot up on a stoop.  Odd, but I saw it.

Once a woman squinted and said, “I know this is weird, but you look like this white woman on As the World Turns.”  At least she knew it was weird.

Last weekend I met three women — one said, “You look like Ali McGraw!”  Her friends said, “You do look like Ali McGraw.”  How bizarre, I thought, but Googled her and saw why they might see a resemblance.

People have said that I look like black women too.  Imagine that.

Someone said that I looked like Pam Grier.  For those who know her, look at that picture and take two guesses why I don’t look like no Pam Grier.

My mom says I look like Halle Berry.  But she’s my mom, so we’ll let that one slide.  Aside from that body, I don’t think she’s all that anyway.

Years ago people said that I looked like Shari Belafonte.  My dentist thought so.  “Shari Belafonte with bad teeth, huh,” I said.  He didn’t think it was funny.  Maybe he thought I insulted his dental work?

Way back my boyfriend approached, pointing — “Know what you look like?  An a-cheetah!”  What did he know from cheetahs living in the city?  I was also momentarily stunned because he had said, do you know “what” you look like.  Two other guys also said that I looked like a cheetah, but said it correctly.

I have moles all over my face and a round head?  I move like a cheetah?

I love looking like a cheetah.  Raowr!  I just wish I could run like a cheetah and not like I’m wearing a loaded diaper.

I could see Shari Belafonte and the cheetah right off the bat.

But I prefer looking like a cheetah, because when you look like a celebrity you’re relegated to being mini-me.  You’re an ersatz version of them.

I saw a stuffed cheetah at the Museum of Natural History.  That place seems so dusty and old – old in a bad way, like there’s still asbestos padding the walls.  I stared at the cheetah for a while.  I imagined patting that cheetah and clouds of dust coming out of it.

What creatures of the wild kingdom do you resemble?

The Tunnel of Life and Glory to All Mankind

During lunch at work, I had vagina monologues with my friend.  She had known as a child that you don’t urinate out of your vagina since she had explored it with a mirror. This made me happy, because I was horrified when another friend said that she had never seen hers.  What?!  I thought that the Vagina Monologues had taken care of all the fear and hatred.

As my friend and I are middle-aged, the relationship with this part of our body is different.  At this age, some women don’t bother with it any more, others adjust to the changing climate down there or must learn to deal with a barren tract of land – haha!  I have an okay relationship with my vagina.

Have you seen your vaginas lately?  I hadn’t, which is partly why I mention it now.  Oh I used to look at it all the time, so I have indeed seen it.  It’s just that it’s such a minor ordeal to look at your own vagina.  If it were easier to see, maybe we wouldn’t have needed the Vagina Monologues – there wouldn’t be fear, horror — disgust – some say that the vagina looks like squid.

Men don’t have to position themselves in front of a mirror to see their Willy Wonkas.  I should say ‘penis’ but I don’t feel like it.  Since men have the privilege to view their man pieces easily, there isn’t the same mystery that’s associated with a woman’s vagina.  That’s one of the reasons why vaginas kick your ass!  I propose that we look at it once a week, if only just to make sure that it hasn’t morphed into a hideous sea creature.

Anyway, I’ve posted this video with Khloe Kardashian where they discuss stinking vaginas.  There’s a stupid commercial first, but I do think the video’s worth the wait:

http://www.aol.com/video/khloe-kardashian-my-vagina-smells-like-roses/517659401/