how_to_hustle_like_a_communist unhinged 'did you tell the truth on your resume...ahhh, that is your first problem. you must lie to get ahead in this country. my first job here i was cook. they ask me if i can cook and i say 'yes yes, i can cook anything.' three months later someone call me and ask me to cook in alaska. in russian we say aeultia; i thought they send me somewhere else. three months later we move to florida. now i am in seattle. i have been in seattle for twenty three years. this is the only place i stay more than three months and i'm still not bored. i hear you talk and you make me want to move to chicago. my son lives in chicago with my grandson. i miss ice and snow. the way you talk you make me want to go to chicago.' she gave me a henna tattoo on my right hand and arm. it took all of ten minutes but i sat and talked to her for almost two hours. 'you know you are done right?' 'yes. i was just enjoying talking to you' like a lot of people here, she was convinced i was russian. the way i look, the way i talk, that at some point in my life i had lived behind the iron curtain. 'i've never spoken russian in my life.' 'no no, you are not serious. even though i am czech i studied russian in university. i could swear you are russian' 'my family was russian (and ukrainian and polish) but i am american. i don't speak a word of russian' then about a month later i saw my mother and she told me that her family did speak russian but they never taught any of the kids because they always talked about them in russian. the only russian she could remember was how to say 'i don't want any more' and 'children children what am i going to do with you?' (in a family where eating was our main activity together i smiled at the thought that the only russian my mother could remember at 59 years old was 'i don't want any more'. knowing the way my own grandmother heaped the food on my plate unless i told her to stop, i could only imagine the bloated belly my mother had as a child) sometimes i will say things and my ears immediately sense the russian in my genetics. it's a language i don't have to try at. my tongue and my voice just say them. the one time i asked ioulia to teach me russian and she said 'oh you are so good at that' my favorite composers when i was young, mostly czech and russian. it is the language my heart speaks in. me and my aversion to vodka, i don't think i would have survived the homeland. 130219 ... PeeT interesting narrative. wish you would do this more. my family is slovak and ukrainian. my last name, zozula, is translated "cuckoobird," but as an affectionate term, like we use sweetheart. my grandfather used to read ukrainian newspapers and spoke with a very thick accent. he died when i was young and always seemed spent as if a hard life whittled him down to nothing. we are a tough people, hard-working, strong. we are sweet, but don't fuck with us. you don't want to see our anger. it is fierce and quick. still, we will give our life for you in exchange for respect and love. 130220 ... unhinged she came into my department at work yesterday; it was busy and i wasn't sure if she would've recognized me. it was almost like my blathe (that i had been meaning to write for months) made her appear 130222 ... unhinged it happened to me again yesterday a short squat older lady with big cheeks and a bulbous nose came up to me at work and starting talking in a language my heart understood but my brain couldn't quite match concepts to. she looked like my grandma's sister, the little old ladies that stirred the pots of pierogies in the church basement, my brother's friend's mom. the blank look on my face caused her brow to wrinkle and her lips to purse. 'do you speak russian?' in a thick accent, somewhat broken in a way that stirred my earliest memories. i frowned and shook my head. 'no. but i think maybe i should.' she smiled and said 'what floor lingerie?' i gestured up with my finger. 'up one floor. lingerie is on the third floor. three.' eventually she nodded her head 'three?...oh, ok. thanks.' she smiled at me and walked towards the escalator. 130410 ... unhinged (i'm gonna take a walk for some borscht and pelemni right now) 130410 ... e_o_i Cool! And I like the title. I was just writing in weird_confessions that I can't help speaking Hebrew with a French accent because French is the default "second language" in my brain. Then again, based on my last name, I'm probably French somewhere down (up?) the line. I'm more Scottish than anything, but Gaelic makes no sense to me. The words look like English and they don't mean the same things. 130410 ... e_o_i ...and the consonants. Good gob, the consonants. I guess I wouldn't be good at Russian either :) 130410 ... unhinged just last week a customer at work asked me 'where are you from nicole?' i didn't respond right away because the way the woman said it was really condescending so i took the subtext of the question as 'english obviously isn't your first language' and the woman was probably a real estate developer or a lawyer. so she asked another question 'what eastern european country are you from?' i looked up from the lingerie i was folding 'i'm american,' i smiled just enough to hide the fact that was offended, but she picked up on it anyways. 'your parents...' i cut her off 'my parents are american too. i know i have an accent. i grew up in the midwest in a town with a lot of ukranian immigrants,' i smiled even wider. i had to give her an excuse for her own bias but she started to nod all the same. 'oh, i thought i could hear some canadian in there too' 'i lived in wisconsin for almost ten years' i shrugged. maybe i read too much into the subtext of what people say, written or spoken, but there is a very prevalent upper class bias here that immigrants are stupid. that woman assumed i was an immigrant because of my accent and therefore stupid. i also get the cashiers are stupid bias at that job. when chances are good i am more highly educated than the people flinging the accusations of stupidity around. sometimes i snap. especially on the condescending ones. they already think i am russian and that russians are cold and mean. might as well play it to my advantage. 160315 ... nr also, 'canadian' isn't an accent... 160315 ... unhinged actually in america canadian is an accent to you, as a canadian, of course it isn't a fucking accent, but to millions of people south of you, how you talk is a fucking accent. accents are foreign speech patterns. foreign meaning different from the norm of any given area. so: canadian is an accent to everyone not in canada 160315 ... nr i didn't mean for the comment to be offensive. i just meant there are a lot of accents here. but maybe i'd find myself saying someone has an american accent. so i suppose you're right. 160316 ... nr ...actually i'd more likely think they sounded like they were american. but that's getting into semantics. 160316 what's it to you? who go blather from