My homework is being a large, unforgiving, German dominatrix this week. And S&M is definetly not my thing.

"What are your interests, Sophie?"
"What do you like to do?"
"What are your talents and/or passions?"
"What do you want out of life?"
"What can you tell us about yourself?"

I don't know. After sixteen years, I truly have no motherfucking idea. I wouldn't even know where to begin, because I don't know if there is a place to begin. I've spent more or less this entire year realizing what a spoiled, spineless, talentless waste of relatively fortunate birth I've been. How utterly I've squandered every opportunity. How everyone seems to see me with their unique combination of pity, confusion, and revulsion. Sophie, Sophie. What are we going to do with you? You had such promise. You've been such a collosal disappointment. We've been too polite to say so, but you've read our thoughts beautifully. We're saddened and embarrassed, make no mistake, we've also enjoyed all the schaudenfreude tremendously. Thank you ever so much for making a fool of yourself so consistently and reliably.

I have this awful feeling that this will only get worse.

I genuinely feel that I owe someone an apology.

Uh huh.

It seems necessary that I should point out what a smoldering hot piece of meat Manolo Cardona is. Those South Americans got the scruffy ration down to the gorgeously accidental science it should be. Mmm mm mmm mm mm (said with the blackest inflection I'm capable of. Aw hell, since you can't hear me, I can be as black as I wanna, foo'.)

The cold reality of dairy (as narrated by the occasionally lactose intolerant)

"Chrissy, you're still so young! You should be trying DIFFERENT flavors of ice cream! You should be experimenting! You should be open-minded! The world is your oyster!", said Joel, an astoundingly cool and with-it kind of hombre, to Angie's xenophobic younger sister who refused to eat any ice cream that she hadn't pre-approved. (I don't actually know if he said the part about the oyster, since I wasn't actually present, but it would have been perfect if he had, for reasons not entirely unrelated to her loathing for the lesbian couple down the block.)

Since then, we have not let him forget it. He blushes in his awkward Joel kind of way, whines that he wishes he hadn't said that, but it's become an indispensible Joel-ism whether he likes it or not.

When I was at Krissy's tonight, out of some tangent of conversation that I don't really remember, we wondered aloud what flavors of ice cream we would be. (Incidentally, Joel refers to anyone he considers a hottie with a certain flavor that I won't disclose.) "We should call him and ask!", I suggested naively.

So we did call him. Somehow it was me that ended up doing it, on Angie's phone. I was first confused by the new cell phone (as cell phones are hardly my area of expertise.) Then I assumed the male voice at the other end of the line was his dad, and I waited for him to go get Joel. During which time I inevitably got distracted, this time by my reflection, because there is hardly a motherfucking surface in Krissy's house that doesn't have a mirror. ("Sophie!" you groan to yourself, smacking your forehead.) After some yelling, confusion, and impatience on his part, I asked him. "I'll need some time to think this over." he said.

"Fine" I said. "Call us back when you've figured it out."

And what was the verdict, ladies and gentlemen?




Coffee-flavored imitation Haagen-Dasz.



So basically, I'm a pretentious, hipper-than-thou asshole, that really can't compare to the thick, sexy, no-bullshit real thing. I guess I could have told you that. All this diagnosis tells me is that I really am as obnoxious as I feared. Maybe I'll be upgraded when I'm no longer in high school, or no longer obnoxious. And I can tell you for damn sure which one will happen first.

I just finished The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. I think I have to retract my statement.

Murakami is the kind of author who frustrates and humiliates you,and makes you earn your keep. He tries your patience in such a strange, attractive way, and then after hours of perplexing and fascinating characters and plotlines, it ends. It's not terribly different from having all the excess in your brain set on fire and then perfumed.

I think I need to read this book again.

Sophie the Sadist

(from a quiz on okcupid.com)

The Wild Rose
Random Brutal Love Dreamer (RBLDf)

Colorful, but unpicked. You are The Wild Rose.

Prone to bouts of cynicism, sarcasm, and thorns, you excite a certain kind of man. Hoping to gather you up, he flirts and winks and asks you out, ultimately professing his love. Then you make him bleed. Why? Because you're the rare, independent, self-sufficient kind of woman who does want love, but not from a weakling.

You don't seem to take yourself too seriously, and that's refreshing. You aren't uptight; you don't over-plan. Romance-wise, sex isn't a top priority--a true relationship would be preferable. For your age, you haven't had a lot of bonafide love experience, though, and this kind of gets to core of the issue. You're very selective.


The problem is them, not you, right? You have lofty standards that few measure up to. You're out there all right, but not to be picked up by just anyone.

Blas for you

I have debated and guilted myself for months, (maybe only two) and decided that I really prefer Tom Robbins to Murakami. Is the reason for this ignorance, blasphemy, or the things in America that genuninely don't suck? (Like, road food, Ben Franklin, N'awlins and the fact that there are bathrooms everywhere.) Well, see, I really really like pie. And Franklin is pretty high on my list of baddest motherfuckers ever. Ignorance and blasphemy probably play a pretty big role in many of my decisions, but in the end, I think what gets me is the pie.

Lunch, Wednesday May 3

Krissy: (somewhat whiny) Why are there no black people in Russia, Sophie?
Sophie: Because it's Russia. What you're doing is like complaining that there are no Mexicans in the Congo.
Krissy: Harumph. There should be Mexicans in the Congo. Seriously, how do they find food to eat without Mexicans around to make it?
(Pause)
Sophie: They don't.
(Eruption of guilty laughter)

Time elapses, Sophie and Angie tell funny stories about schizophrenics.

Joel, in a moment of hysterics, spits at least two peanuts out at Sophie. His melanin-less face turns bright red. He apologizes as profusely as his WASPiness allows him.

Hearty laughs are shared at Joel's expense.

Let's see, politically incorrect jokes, jabs at the effects of homeschooling, dysfunctional family stories...I hope my lunches with friends are like this when we have paychecks and babies (or the painful or smug lack thereof). I do so hope.

Well the Ukraine girls really knock me out...

In Euro, several months ago, we were watching some documentary narrated by either Morgan Freeman or Liam Neeson. (Because who the hell else are you going to hire to narrate your doccumentary? What do either of these people have to do with the Soviet Union, you may ask? Well, what does Morgan Freeman have to do with penguins? What does Liam Neeson have to do with Tibet? Exactly.) Being about the Soveit Union, of course, there were the beleagured, prematurely humpbacked women in the de facto babushkas waiting in lines. The lines were hopeless, and whatever was at the end of the line was always something I could find sitting unused in some closet in my house.

But instead of feeling the obligatorily awkward I'm sorry you're not fortunate well I'd really like to share your pain, but we middle-class white people don't really understand suffering , I just thought, "Sistah, ain't it the truth." I'm always standing in line for something. When I get to the front, the person in charge absentmindedly informs me that they've run out. Same thing happens in the next line. I force a smile when somebody else, tearful with relief, finally gets their eggs, beer, or soap, or whatever the hell is at the end of those lines, but all I can think about is how protein-deficient and dirty I am, and how much kinder everything would seem after a few of those beers. (Well, according to this obnoxious metaphor, I am Russian, correct?)

I really want to read Gary Shteyngart's new book. I imagine that this is the reason for my Slavic colored glasses today.