MASOCHISM
Let it be known that I love Madrid. I'm not an enormous fan of Spain since I'm so used to it - but Madrid just rocks.
I was sitting on a tomato red chair from Ikea when I wrote this and out my window I could see the countless apartment and office buildings shining in the black sky. The apartment is larger than most of my friends' homes in my town and definitely so much cuter I must say. My room is outfitted with an extremely low queen size bed, 2 mini tables that are 2 inches high, 2 tiny glass lamps in the shape of cubes, a chinese lantern for a hanging lamp, and a large pop art comicish looking picture of a black-haired woman looking uber sexy. It would all be so perfect if my bathroom wasn't the color of fucking pepto-bismol. Sacrifices... I'm a couple blocks from a subway station that takes me to all the wonderful, snazzy parts of Madrid - whether the old sections with their culture mixed with McDonald's, or the more modern ones with trendy stores and people who make mullets look high fashion.
I picked up my cousin Rachelle from the Madrid airport and embarked on a mission to essentially "art her up". I took her to the Thyssen and the Prado in the hopes that someone in my family will share my ridiculous passion for the arts. Honestly, how can Titian and Dali not turn someone on?
I always seem to get this air of elitism when I show people around places I know. I assure you it's not that I feel superior (that only comes with music); I pride myself on knowing so much useless historical trivia simply because it's the most fascinating part of it. History, when generalized and taught as a generality, loses it's appeal because there isn't enough time or brain capacity (let alone stamina) to learn all the tidbits and be interesting to a large mass of people. When you study history on your own time you pick and choose what is personally mesmerizing. There is always something amazing and wonderful to find and it is so easily ignored because of the way it is presented in textbooks. I want to be a scholar.
My mother is driving me absolutely fucking insane. I just can't deal with her shit anymore. The constant nagging on my father about how Spain is horrible to her. Today at lunch, for example, we went to this beautiful, brand new mall to browse around and kill time. The first thing she says when she walks in is: "I bet they don't have a Lord & Taylor here, or a Nordstrom, or Lane Bryant." No mother, they do not. She walks around miserably, entering teeny-bopper stores such as Bershka, Miss Sixty, and the Spanish version of H&M. What does she do? She picks up the frilliest, most vomititious of miniskirts and complains that she would never wear something like that, nor would they carry her size. Of course not mother, the clothing is aimed at women ages 16-25 - not 57! Another issue with the sizes is that she blames the country - not the clothing manufacturers - for having a personal vendetta against larger American woman. Well mother, the average Spanish womani is 5'3" and 135 pounds. Finding a woman over 5'8" and over 150 pounds in Spain is quite an oddity - people here aren't raised on fast food and sugar (not that I'm saying all Americans are, but it is too common there than deemed healthy).
Now, what happened next was so completely irritating. We sat down at lunch at this little gourmet place that had crazy mixed salads, pastas, elaborately cooked meat up the wazoo, etc. First she sees that there is no plain chicken on the menu (which in Spain is difficult to find in restaurants, it is a home cooked kind of food), deems everything else appalling, and refuses to eat. She then asks for water with gas (something very common for us to drink), but the waiter informed us apologetically that for some reason the truck with a new batch of that water hadn't arrived yet and they were still yelling at their provider for it. She looks at him disdainfully and decides that she will not eat nor drink. My father and I plead with her to have some sort of refreshment, but she quite angrily replies that she is disgusted with this, rants on for a few more minutes, stands up, and leaves us quite baffled.
As soon as we get home to the apartment, she goes on her usual rant about all the things Spain lacks that America has. I merely sat down and began to hem up some new pants and ignored her ranting with a heavy dose of Metallica. Day becomes night and she finally settles down. My father goes to bed and my mother hangs around the living room for a few moments saying how shitty Spanish tv is and how she doesn't understand how I can watch that. I looked at her with a glance that translates as death and continued to play a game on my laptop. She finally, finally decides to go to sleep and leaves me in peace in the living room.
All of a sudden BAAAAAAAAAM. I hear my father shrieking and silence from my mother. I run into the room to see what happened. Her entire side of the bed is caved in and she was standing quietly in a corner. I ask what happened and my father - in a state of supreme shock and bewilderment - looks at me and erratically explains that she jumped onto her side of the bed and it crashed to the floor. I finally manage to calm my father down, I sort of fix the bed so it is even, and plead with him to go back to sleep.
My mother walks into the living room after a few minutes and lays down on the couch next to me. She then proceeds to yell at me about how I never bring any boyfriends home and that the only one I had was Steve and I stupidly left him because I "didn't want him". I explained to her quite angrily that I wasn't going to date someone with a legitimate alcohol problem and her answer is: "You should've put him in rehab! That was your job!". Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. I went through a lot of pain and suffering with him between his Jim Beam, his cocaine, his fuck buddies, and his verbal as well as emotional abuse and I am not going to be told that I was stupid for ending it. She goes on and on and on about how I should've been there for him, that it was my duty to help him recover, that he was apparently the only man who could handle me. I walked to my bedroom and closed the door.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to my mother.
I was sitting on a tomato red chair from Ikea when I wrote this and out my window I could see the countless apartment and office buildings shining in the black sky. The apartment is larger than most of my friends' homes in my town and definitely so much cuter I must say. My room is outfitted with an extremely low queen size bed, 2 mini tables that are 2 inches high, 2 tiny glass lamps in the shape of cubes, a chinese lantern for a hanging lamp, and a large pop art comicish looking picture of a black-haired woman looking uber sexy. It would all be so perfect if my bathroom wasn't the color of fucking pepto-bismol. Sacrifices... I'm a couple blocks from a subway station that takes me to all the wonderful, snazzy parts of Madrid - whether the old sections with their culture mixed with McDonald's, or the more modern ones with trendy stores and people who make mullets look high fashion.
I picked up my cousin Rachelle from the Madrid airport and embarked on a mission to essentially "art her up". I took her to the Thyssen and the Prado in the hopes that someone in my family will share my ridiculous passion for the arts. Honestly, how can Titian and Dali not turn someone on?
I always seem to get this air of elitism when I show people around places I know. I assure you it's not that I feel superior (that only comes with music); I pride myself on knowing so much useless historical trivia simply because it's the most fascinating part of it. History, when generalized and taught as a generality, loses it's appeal because there isn't enough time or brain capacity (let alone stamina) to learn all the tidbits and be interesting to a large mass of people. When you study history on your own time you pick and choose what is personally mesmerizing. There is always something amazing and wonderful to find and it is so easily ignored because of the way it is presented in textbooks. I want to be a scholar.
My mother is driving me absolutely fucking insane. I just can't deal with her shit anymore. The constant nagging on my father about how Spain is horrible to her. Today at lunch, for example, we went to this beautiful, brand new mall to browse around and kill time. The first thing she says when she walks in is: "I bet they don't have a Lord & Taylor here, or a Nordstrom, or Lane Bryant." No mother, they do not. She walks around miserably, entering teeny-bopper stores such as Bershka, Miss Sixty, and the Spanish version of H&M. What does she do? She picks up the frilliest, most vomititious of miniskirts and complains that she would never wear something like that, nor would they carry her size. Of course not mother, the clothing is aimed at women ages 16-25 - not 57! Another issue with the sizes is that she blames the country - not the clothing manufacturers - for having a personal vendetta against larger American woman. Well mother, the average Spanish womani is 5'3" and 135 pounds. Finding a woman over 5'8" and over 150 pounds in Spain is quite an oddity - people here aren't raised on fast food and sugar (not that I'm saying all Americans are, but it is too common there than deemed healthy).
Now, what happened next was so completely irritating. We sat down at lunch at this little gourmet place that had crazy mixed salads, pastas, elaborately cooked meat up the wazoo, etc. First she sees that there is no plain chicken on the menu (which in Spain is difficult to find in restaurants, it is a home cooked kind of food), deems everything else appalling, and refuses to eat. She then asks for water with gas (something very common for us to drink), but the waiter informed us apologetically that for some reason the truck with a new batch of that water hadn't arrived yet and they were still yelling at their provider for it. She looks at him disdainfully and decides that she will not eat nor drink. My father and I plead with her to have some sort of refreshment, but she quite angrily replies that she is disgusted with this, rants on for a few more minutes, stands up, and leaves us quite baffled.
As soon as we get home to the apartment, she goes on her usual rant about all the things Spain lacks that America has. I merely sat down and began to hem up some new pants and ignored her ranting with a heavy dose of Metallica. Day becomes night and she finally settles down. My father goes to bed and my mother hangs around the living room for a few moments saying how shitty Spanish tv is and how she doesn't understand how I can watch that. I looked at her with a glance that translates as death and continued to play a game on my laptop. She finally, finally decides to go to sleep and leaves me in peace in the living room.
All of a sudden BAAAAAAAAAM. I hear my father shrieking and silence from my mother. I run into the room to see what happened. Her entire side of the bed is caved in and she was standing quietly in a corner. I ask what happened and my father - in a state of supreme shock and bewilderment - looks at me and erratically explains that she jumped onto her side of the bed and it crashed to the floor. I finally manage to calm my father down, I sort of fix the bed so it is even, and plead with him to go back to sleep.
My mother walks into the living room after a few minutes and lays down on the couch next to me. She then proceeds to yell at me about how I never bring any boyfriends home and that the only one I had was Steve and I stupidly left him because I "didn't want him". I explained to her quite angrily that I wasn't going to date someone with a legitimate alcohol problem and her answer is: "You should've put him in rehab! That was your job!". Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. I went through a lot of pain and suffering with him between his Jim Beam, his cocaine, his fuck buddies, and his verbal as well as emotional abuse and I am not going to be told that I was stupid for ending it. She goes on and on and on about how I should've been there for him, that it was my duty to help him recover, that he was apparently the only man who could handle me. I walked to my bedroom and closed the door.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to my mother.