"We Want Fair Trade!…No More Free Trade!"

As I was drinking my coffee and smoking my cigarette outside my job today I suddenly realized that I was witnessing history in the making. A sea of people swarmed the streets of the Financial District in New York protesting against Wall Street, which I guess means that in a way they were protesting against me as well.
...All in all, the crowd of 11 people was very frightening, and the effect they had on the various Wall Street people surrounding me was monumental...I can see now that a change on how things work down here in Wall Street is imminent and unavoidable...(see below)

The Ideal Greek Body

No it does not look like the above picture. In fact, after Greek women reach their 30’s their bodies are meant to deteriorate rapidly, very, very rapidly-like mine is doing now. You see, we do not eat oatmeal for breakfast, no, our breakfast consists of large amounts of nicotine and caffeine and if we find that these two things are not enough, we will choose to eat a bacon sandwich for example- but never, I repeat, never oatmeal or fruits-or egg white sandwiches. If you ever happen to throw away the yolk of an egg in front of a Greek they will most probably pass out from the shock of what they had witnessed. So now that everything in my body is overcome by the physics of gravity, I have decided- and mind you that I am the first generation of women to ever do this in my family- to go to the gym. What is this experience like for my vegetarian gym partner that accompanies me on a daily basis? It is purgatory-its one of the circles of hell that Dante kept a secret. You see, the entire hour of us exercising consists of him delegating what I should do and me repeating one question “WHY? WHYYYYYYYYYY DO I HAVE TO DO THIS?” So today after a week of asking this question to my gym partner, I woke up in the morning at 6 am and addressed that same question to myself. And there, as I was in my gym clothes standing in front of my bed, I crawled back in it, with my gym clothes still on and slept for another 2 hours.

"When I grow up I want to be..."

When I was 14 years of age, my father, who looks like he came right out of a Tennessee Williams play, took me on a stroll and sat down with me in a small café by a fine-looking lake that surrounded the city we then lived in. As I was drinking my orange soda he looked at me straight in the eyes and asked me the following question: “Norma, what is your dream, everyone has a dream, everyone must have a dream! So I ask you what is your dream?” So, being 14 and despite my ignorance, my instinct told me that this was a question that had to be answered with the utmost seriousness “An actress dad. I have decided that I will be an actress.” “Good Norma, I have forgotten to tell you that does not count as a dream”, he then proceeded to tell me. “Alright then” I answered him “I will be the first person in my country to open the most extraordinary coffee shop-it will be a coffee shop where people will be allowed to smoke marijuana. And because I have figured out that even by that time people will still be ashamed of being seen entering a coffee shop like that, I will have secret doors and tunnels where people could come in and out of without being seen. But! But! What will make my coffee shop SUPER special is that it will have more than 30 rooms, all with different designs in it. For example, there will be a jungle room, a playground room for adults, a modern art room, a cave room and all kinds of rooms and all of them private, so people can go sit in them with their friends and smoke their marijuana. On top of all this, every room will have it’s own private waitress, and all the waitresses will sign confidentiality agreements so if a famous person comes in they wont tell anyone. I think it’s a good business idea, but we might need a lot of money in order to succeed. Do you think by then marijuana will be legalized?” I don’t remember much else from that day other than my father informing me that perhaps being an actress might count as a dream after all.

RandomThoughts During a Serious Office Meeting

"...I want a bed so huge Paul Banyan could do cart wheels on it even though he's a giant. The bed will be so enormous a whole forest could grow on it and Paul Banyan can take his Blue Ox with him for long walks because my bed is so damn gargantuan that it would be possible for a giant and his ox to do exactly that...my snores...my snores will be so thunderous and so deafening that it’ll be like Thor the Viking God of thunder rode over my bed with his mighty chariot and unleashed all his fury onto it..."

...Vegas

Flash Fiction Story #5 -The Various Numerical Assesments of Hans and Artur

Perhaps if a passerby happened to glimpse through the window of the house that stood in the far end of the walled enclave that was Fuggerei, he would think that the two figures sitting by the kitchen table with their heads hunched over it in complete absorption were doing nothing else but praying for the soul of Jacob Fugger the Rich and his honored family members. This of course was the most straightforward assumption one would make, especially in Fuggerei. The fortunate inhabitants of this citadel had no other obligation other than to pray three times a day for the souls of the Fugger family and in exchange their rent was kept to only one Rheinischer Gulden per year, a ludicrous amount no matter what century one lived in.
Artur Ebestark and Hans Petersen did of course nothing of the sort. In their forty three years of friendship they had agreed to only one thing and that was that there was nothing more morally depraved than to be so selective in ones prayers. According to them a simple heartfelt thank you when the gates of Fuggerei had first opened for them had sufficed. Sitting by the old wooden kitchen table they each held a large rolled up cigarette that rested between their now aged fingers. Their hair was as white as the snow that covered the narrow streets outside their house. With their heads hunched over the table they were absorbed in concluding what was for them a sort of numerical assessment of their lives. Amongst the many papers that laid on the kitchen table one could find for example the number of afternoon teas the two friends had shared throughout their lives, which was fourteen thousand nine hundred and thirty four teas each, a number that seemed even larger when written out in words instead of numbers. There was as well an estimation of personal favors they had granted to each other. Out of the total four hundred and eighty three favors they were happy to find that one hundred and ninety six were granted by Artur, a surprisingly balanced number given his difficult character. And so on this day their various estimations, three hundred and sixty two to be exact, had concluded and the papers were being carefully organized by the two.
In the lives of these two friends there was only one shared realization that had astonished both and that was that hey had each reached contentment. Perhaps it was their desire to unravel this rather unusual sentiment that had led them to all their various estimations. Some days after, they found Hans Petersen and Artur Ebestark laying opposite each other on the kitchen floor with a bullet in each of their hearts and a gun by each of their spread out hands. On the kitchen table by the stack of neatly organized papers they found a paper that listed the number of ammunition each had used in their lives, two in total, one by Hans and one by Artur, a surprisingly balanced number given his difficult character the neighbors thought.

Before I leave for Vegas tomorrow I would like to say the following...

-

1) That my skirt split open today, right in the middle of where my behind is, revealing the dreadful granny panties I chose to wear this morning. I realized this after walking around the office like that for more than an hour.

2) That everything that could go wrong today in terms of work, did go wrong, thus my boss threatened to fire me, and also threatened to punish me by sending me to work in the reception area of our new office which is the equivalent of being exiled, just like they do to dictators.

3) That whenever I fuck up royally, which is a lot, it goes unnoticed. Whenever I actually do a good job I get punished.

4) That because of all this, I was forced to go shopping in Century 21 while holding my skirt together with my one hand and my cell phone in the other hand, frantically dialing my aunts phone number so I can break into tears in front of hundreds of tourists who were witnessing the meltdown while shopping for I Love New York t-shirts.

5) That in light of the recent events I hope our plane doesnt crash tomorrow

The many different ways an airplane could crash...

As I was lying in bed flipping through the channels the other night Dita called me to talk about our Vegas trip. What did I immediately do? I put my TV on mute and put my remote control down so I can focus on our discussion. And there, as Dita was going on about one thing or the other, my eyes wondered towards the TV screen and I saw a wonderful program in 3D animation showing me the many different ways an airplane could crash. The scene that has particularly stuck in my mind is the one where the roof of a plane becomes detached mid-flight and dozens of 3D animation characters are shown sitting in their seats with their belts still on and no roof over their heads. Yes a wonderful program designed for people like me, hypochondriac neurotics who fear death in any shape or form and are known to have massive panic attacks that manifest themselves in crying marathons as they're boarding an airplane.

Flash Fiction Story #4-The Wall in Ostrovany

For the Roma Gypsies in Ostrovany, Slovakia
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/03/world/europe/03roma.html

Nicolai listened to his neighbors bickering about the Gypsies stealing their vegetables and their fruits. ‘A wall! We must build a wall! My tomatoes are not for the Gypsies to steal and eat!’ screamed the old man. ‘Yes a wall!’ screamed the strong woman while she tightened the red scarf around her round head ‘My oranges, my beautiful oranges are all gone now, and what shall I offer to my visitors when they enter my house?’. ‘Yes, a wall! A wall!’ were the words that were coming out of their maws, and Nicolai stood up and walked out of the small brick church knowing that their wicked hands would soon build this wall.
He stood now in his garden looking at all the trees he had planted for the Gypsy girl and could not understand the fury of his neighbors. He had never spoken to the girl, and had never shown his face to her, but sometimes he would wake up before the sun would rise in order to see her slip quietly into his garden so she can steal the apples and oranges from his trees.
The girl had caught Nicolai looking at her many times through his window but she had never spoken to him. She only knew how to sing so she would sometimes sit under his trees and would sing softly for that was her only way to thank him.
Nicolai understood that soon he would no longer be able to see his friend and was sad because of this. For days he could not eat and he stopped waiting for the girl, for tears would fall from his eyes to easily now. One day the strong woman with the red scarf around her round head knocked and knocked on Nicolai’s door for she had some of her oranges to give him, but as she looked around she understood that the house was empty and abandoned now. None of Nicolai’s neighbors knew what had become of him.
Many years had passed and during a beautiful spring, behind the wall where all the Gypsies lived, hundreds of trees had grown full bloom bearing all kinds of fruits. Neither side of the wall never understood how that had happened. It is said though that the Gypsy girl would sometimes see a man slip into her garden and steal the fruit from her trees. Although she would never speak to him or show her face to him, she would sometimes sit by her window and listen to the man sing while he would sit under her trees.

Herculean acts during a drunken night...

Yesterday, I exited a bar after having consumed many, many sake bombs. Do I say this with pride? No. There is no pride involved when one spends an entire night trying to puke everything but their brains out. As I entered the taxi, I glimpsed at the driver and I saw an expression of horror on his face. He knew. He just knew, and I just knew that nothing good can come of this ride and because of this, for the next half an hour, there was a twisted sense of camaraderie between the two of us. As he was driving the following dialogue took place:

Driver: You ok? You feeling ok? Don’t throw up in the taxi, ok?! Here is a bag-here take it, if you want to throw up, just do it in there-ok?!

Norma: ….ok…I don’t think I’m gonna make it…

Driver: Where are you from?

Norma: Greece, I’m from Greece…oh my God… I wanna puke my life out…

Driver: Ohhhhhhhhhhh Greece! Hercules was from Greece, no?

Norma: …Hercules? Are we actually talking about Hercules?

Driver: He was braaaaaave! You are braaaaave too! You are not going to throw up! Come on! Be like Hercules!

Norma: I really don’t feel like Hercules right at this moment…can we please stop the car..oh God my stomach…

Driver: No, no, no, no, no ,no! You’re gonna make it I tell you! Don’t throw up, keep it in. Look I’m going to go even faster—we’re almost there!

And what happened? We made it. I kept it in.I was as brave as Hercules. And now I will make the following statement:
This was, and will be my one and only entirely selfless, noble, self-sacrificing act in my whole entire life. I say this now and mean it, that just because it involved huge amounts of alcohol, a demented taxi driver, and lots of talk of throwing up it does not in any way take anything away from it.