The Cossack Bloodline Knows Nothing of Defeat & Other Pleasantries My Parents Told Me

Many people have reached out to me recently to gather my opinions on the current immense struggles of my Motherland. 

In case you have been living under a beautiful, non-Ukrainian rock: Thanks to Putin/Yanukovich post-Soviet-bloc "democracy," the particularly-Ukrainian brand of *FUN* has recently become quite renowned.

Sand-bag-barricade-building in negative 10 degree weather in order to avoid being shot at by anti-EU, pro-Russian military forces amid an endless snow pile in the middle of Kiev = **FUN!!!**

One thing that I try to emphasize for my frandz that ask me what I think about the Euromaidan and the general onslaught of death, struggle, and disaster in Ukraine is this: Listen, for virtually my entire life–Ukraine has been in a shitstorm. But that doesn't mean I don't feel that shitstorm in the deepest reaches of my soul; for better or most assuredly for worse.

Take this recent text exchange with my father, himself born in the USA:

My "soul"! My soul. 

Why oh why can't my soul reside on a beautiful beach somewhere instead, you and also I ask??!!?!?!? 

\\\\\(((((Extended Sigh)))))))//////

More musings on the particularly-FUN form of tormented ethnic identity, after the jump.

Bogota: These Streets are Critical

One of my major sources of secret bliss in this world is my uncanny ability to be mistaken for / blend into other foreign ethnicities.

You see: With brown hair / brown eyes / strong brows, I am juuuust swarthy enough to pass as a kooky librarian of a number of ethnic backgrounds. & y'all know that I love every second, because my being mistaken as Persian, Argentinian, Jewish, Portuguese, Filipina, Tunisian, etc = INFINITELY preferable to my true, tragic Ukrainian reality! (Oh the native food options I could be eating if I was not grandfathered into the world's least loved legacy of cabbage and horseradish!!)

ALAS. This blog has probably indicated to you at some point, dear readership, what's really up in this ethnically-ambiguous gal's bloodline (Read: %$#%DISASTER). 

But it is still my least-rational of personal joys: every time I am mistaken as Pakistani / Mexican / Turkish, my heart swells two sizes!!! A girl can dream!

And so: on my first day in Bogota, I have once again been able to revel in my ability to (((blend in))). Within 20 minutes on the street in the Candelaria district, I transformed into La Liza de Bogota - everyone's fave, slightly-less-goth-than-expected, bespectacled, eyebrows-fer-dayz native-Bogotana computer technician. 

Me Voy

After ~2 years of remaining mostly stateside (with one surreal barely-mentionable foray into rural Swedish corporate conferences....), I am finally embarking on my first international vacation 100% solo. And what timing! Just in time to flee another very frigid Brooklyn evening en febrero.

My inspiration for my destination? Gabriel Garcia Marquez's familial naming structures; the sweet, fried aroma of fresh arepas; fat folks in the work of Fernando Botero; my AP Spanish Teacher "Profe" and her insane stories about dating a Medellin drug dealer's limo driver; my one and only true rock en espanol amor Juanes; Johnny Depp in blow; my former professor Alma Guillermoprieto's writings on the romance of the FARC and of course....

SHAKIRA. THE ONE AND ONLY. The #original Colombian warrior princess, fools!!!

And with just a few hours to my flight, I declare: "Me voy; que lastima pero adios. Me despido de ti y  me voy!"

Presented without further comment

This shirt was just advertised to me on FB.

I guess it supports the current anti-Yanukovich protests in Ukraine...? (Which are - no insincerity at all - very legit and speak to my rebellious-spirit & heart!)

However.

...

Really?

Really. REALLY.They can't even pretend that it's fun being Ukrainian. They are marketing the concept. In fact, they are actively seeking to make $$ dollah dollah billz $$ off of the noteworthy lack of fun within our deeply disaster-prone Ukrainian personhood.

(On that note - let us discuss the brand-name: "I AM UKRAINIAN." Did you notice it demanded no simplistic adherence to capitalization nor punctuation laws? LOLz no. We don't mess with that shit; leave that to Tolstoy oh hey///. Future tagline: "Ukrainian: It's a fun-as-heck state of tortured mind, y'all~~")


Oh, Україна. Your legacy of hardship is also your present. The Ukrainian struggle was the original.

за ваше здоров'я! To your hearts and minds; my crazy, crazy motherland.

Polish Housekeeper of Your Dreams and Also Nightmares

Anyone following me on ##socialmedia## these past weeks may have noticed that I was recently on a mad tour of the Wild West. 

For a majority of the time, I was stranded in San Francisco until weather conditions improved in NYC and allowed planes to actually land without fear of icy death. (Thus, optimistically, until the month of May.)

Of course, there are many worse places to be stuck than Cali-for-ni-yay. I enjoyed California’s delicious produce; its deeply-unironic array of organic/locally-sourced/macrobiotic/vegan/raw/gluten-free foodstuffs; and, of course, the amazingly snow-free NorCal life.

But more than anything else—I enjoyed co-existing with California’s elusive and elite form of kooky-ass Slavs. Indeed: while in SF, I was a gleeful and shameless cultural anthropologist of the many iterations of the endless-litany that is Slavic life c/o my lovable SF family members.

One particularly uniquely-Slavic character that came to dominate my week was my aunt’s Polish housekeeper, Ada.

Ada is something of a living legend in the family, mostly because she is truly and endlessly batshit cray.

Note: this is not Ada. This IS the Google Image result for "Angry Polish Grandma," however. Because, I mean. Same difference.

First: Hailing from the pre-WWII ethnically-ambiguous Poland/Ukraine border, Ada  grew up speaking what my cousins refer to as “Slavic.” Her “Slavic” is an impressive mix of Polish/Ukrainian/Russian, with a deep Polish lilt, delivered almost assuredly by SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF HER LUNGS.

I encountered a slew of vitriol and bellligerence, all day; over a wide subject of evidently-infuriating topics that I + the rest of the United States would not consider controversial.

I present them below to help all of you deal with your aunt’s insane, elderly, secretly-very-strong 80-year-old housekeepers, after the jump:

Olympic Gold Medalist in the 400 Meter Free-Style Complaint: Contemporary Art Version

I realized I had a knack for the artfully-worded letter of complaint in 8th grade. At that point, my $$super hip English teacher$$ assigned our class the hard-hitting literary assignment of writing corporate business letters. I believe the goal was to teach us children how to format really intense business correspondence with large companies(...?). Since, you know, within a decade snail mail was clearly still going to be the #1 method of delivering messages to corporations, and people definitely would not just Tweet @ Starbucks to complain when they felt wronged about the horrific lack of tropical-flavored drink syrup options up in the barista bar.

But really, really. Really. The goal of this 8th grade English assignment was to get free shit from companies; via complaining. Education the American way!

Admittedly Abercrombie & Fitch declined to send our 8th grade class free terry cloth halter tops despite at least 10 different people in my class writing to flag the blatant deficit of free "EST. 1892"-branded garb in our lives, it is true. 

All 14 year olds circa 2001 were dead inside without a proper "Property of A & F Ski Team" tube top, and yet  Google Images fails to provide any proper images of the golden years of Abercrombie branding. THANKS FOR NOTHING, A&F.

However, I received a free-shit A+ when I wrote to famed CVS sparkly-hair-accessory supplier CONAIR. My complaint: my hair brushes kept breaking because my luscious locks were too thick and thus frequently ensnared brush heads, causing the handles to rip off. (Yes: this is a real problem that I still have. ~Strong Slavic Woman problemz~)

Around 1.5 months after mailing my letter—a large box arrived to our English classroom. It was from Conair! It was filled to the brim with brushes! Hip hip hooray for extra-intensely-formatted complaining!

And on that day my love affair with the well-worded written complaint was born. (It didn’t hurt that my Ukrainian-heritage has trained me to be dramatic; victimization-narrative-loving and litany-prone. **so much fun bein' Ukrainian.**)

Of course: With great complaining-power comes great complaining-responsibility, therefore I very rarely "deliver constructive feedback"--unless I have been truly wronged. I have spoken out in vitriolic prose ~5 times in 10 years, guys! But sometimes it just has to happen.

The most recent instance: In December, I went to Moma PS1 in Long Island City. The museum was great and the exhibition was a-ma-zing. Alas, my experience  was so truly surreal & awful that I had to barrel straight into complaint letter/email/whatever-the-medium-matters-less-than-the-message-oookay? #5. 

Subject line: "Guard Issue at PS1." 

I present it below without further comment, after the jump.

It's Fun to Be Ukrainian?

Being rational/Slavic, I often feel that my post-college life was going A+ swimmingly up until a very specific moment in time.

That's right: on November 4th, 2012, I accidentally and yet irrevocably ruptured the space time continuum.

My crime against fate?  I found and purchased a pin that propagated one of the cruelest and most heinous lies I have ever seen in print.

It reads:

I remember the moment of discovering this pin distinctly: I was perusing a now-defunct outdoor flea market at a public school in Park Slope. I picked the button up from a large bin of similar 1970s-era buttons.

I guffawed, audibly - to the annoyance of the crazy old lady shelling the buttons to the public - but I also paid actual currency for the thing: Two whole dollars! When I actually should have thrown that thing in the dust!

Because, listen friends - if there is one truth in this world, it is that it is definitely not fun being Ukrainian, nor has it ever been fun being Ukrainian, nor will it ever be fun being Ukrainian.

....Wait, how does one even say fun in Ukrainian? 

OH YES THERE IS NO WORD FOR THE CONCEPT OF NON-ENTERTAINMENT-OR-SPORTING-SPECIFIC MERRIMENT. (Note: there are also no equivalent Ukrainian words for the American-English concepts of: "exciting," "hope," or "cute." And yet there are at least 11 different ways to cover the concept of being sad, however.)

For the skeptics out there who perhaps find it very fun being very Ukrainian, I present the series of Ukrainian-related tragedies that emerged within mere hours of my horrific rupture of basic human truth. This is my testimony; this is my evidence.

More after the jump!