Fuck You Body

(From two years ago)

You better be better by the day after tomorrow. If I could pick one day to be in Berlin it would be the 1st of May and I am not going to be in bed with a fever for it. If I have to go dripping with sweat and freezing, I'll do it. Don't think I won't.

The 1st of May in Berlin is a very important day. The great people of Berlin get their chance to show how much they hate fascism, capitalism and more importantly how much they love beer. Also how much they love...communism? Well, you know, it's the workers' day. In the past they've shown these feelings through burning cars and raiding small stores, but the government has been trying extra hard to tone it down the last couple of years by adding more police and this year they're actually going to LIMIT THE AMOUNT OF ALCOHOL SOLD. And somehow bottles and cans aren't allowed? I don't think I understood that right. That's all just nuts. Plus they're rerouting the annual demonstration so it doesn't go through the main celebration.

I want see. Me.

GET BETTER BODY I'LL KILL YOU IF YOU DON'T KILL KILL

How to be furchtbar sick in Berlin

What you'll need:
- an embarrassing and/or horrible illness
- a bedroom to yourself
- a laptop
- almost no food
- 3 or 4 different doctors within walking distance of you house, most of them almost far away enough to take transportation. Almost.

- Skype

- Limewire

- several pairs of Pjs

- addiction to a TV show at least 6 seasons long.

What you can leave at home (ha):

- good health

- friends

- family members in the vicinity

- Mirrors (trust me)

- happiness

- clean sheets (that's right, ol' school)

This is just an example of how you could go about it.

1. Notice something is wrong, ignore it.

2. Realize you have a fever and are shaking and have no thermometer.

3. Spend around 45 minutes trying to figure out if your nice hippie family German doctor lady is open and realize she isn't and that you have to go to the "other one" a couple doors down from her.

4. Be mistaken for a crack addict.

5. Wait for an hour and 10 minutes in the waiting room in which you slowly make it from sitting in the chair to sitting on the floor to lying on the floor, to being asked to stop lying on the floor and finally to lying in the back until you see the doctor.

6. Be told you wouldn't know if you have a fever.

7. Be told your fever is 39.5 (103).

8. Remember you read you can get hallucinations at this temp, be disappointed and personally offended you aren't.

9. Be yelled at for not remembering the name of your last doctor or what street he was on (this was of course not Hippie family german doctor lady).

10. Be yelled at for not having anyone with you and think about how you would love to have someone with you.

11. Hear the doctor tell the next doctor that you can't speak German so gut. Be confused as to why you have to be labeled as not speaking German well but still have to listen to fast complicated medical German. Miss your nice hippie German doctor. Resolve not to get sick on a Thursday again.

12. Cry.

13. Make sure this doctor doesn't do anything helpful.

14. Be sent to another doctor.

15. This doctor can be nice, but she can't be helpful either.

16. Be sent to another doctor who will do something very painful and not immediately helpful to you.

17. Cry.

18. Come back the next day only then to go home and feel much worse and come back to have the worse thing in your entire life happen to you during which you must cry out in such pain that the children and adults in the waiting room lose all color in their cheeks.

19. Hate life.

20. Cry.

21. Continue to have a high fever every couple of days for the next 3-4 (god I hope not 5) days.

22. Skype with your parents who are more angry that they're not here than sympathetic.

23. Think about how maybe you need to step up the friend finding if no one has called you for a week, two weeks?

24. Think, in general, too much.

25. Use up most of your Gilmore Girl episodes.

26. Eat nothing because you have no food and would throw it up anyway.

27. Consider hiring a nurse every time you need to make yourself tea or get out of bed to change your sweaty Pjs or pee.

28. Download Salt-N-Pepa, want to be them.

29. Think about all the things you're missing that could have changed your whole future.

30. Cry.

31. Wonder if you died in you room if anyone would notice but your parents who expect constant updates.

32. Don't take movie recommendations from your mom.

33. Hate the gorgeous weather. But know that since it's going to rain tomorrow, you'll probably feel a little better then. (BUT YOU WON'T)

Oh, and be sure you try and make jokes with the German doctors who aren't having it. And for god sakes, don't be optimistic. And don't ever stretch your neck so it can get nice and bed-stiff. Maybe go to the grocery store once, but realize you only left with expensive tea because you were nauseous. And don't even get me started about how you didn't deal with the papers you need to get your money back from your mysterious private insurance...

That should about do it. Let me know if you have any questions.

Edit (Later that day at 20h):

34. Start talking to yourself in a mix of all the languages you don't really know and find it really funny.

35. Cry

36. Be annoyed that new fieber is only two points down from your record.

37. Eat your last popsicle.

38. Wonder who ate your popsicle. Think is was "those-damn-Germans"

The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.

Thomas Alva Edison

The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.

Ayn Rand

Try a thing you haven't done three times. Once, to get over the fear of doing it. Twice, to learn how to do it. And a third time to figure out whether you like it or not.
Virgil Thomson

And my favorite

Be like a postage stamp. Stick to it until you get there.

Harvey Mackay

According to everyone I've talked to in the last 5 days (besides my parents) my last name is Sea-moans. I've given in. My name is now Ruhbee Sea-moans.

Berlin Graffiti

Berlin's graffiti scene started in the 1980's on the wave of American hip hop music and culture. It came in slowly with minorities breakdancing in the streets of West Berlin, mostly 2nd generation southern Europeans and Turks. The first 'real' piece of graffiti was supposedly done by RAY near S-Bahnhof Sundgauer in Southwest Berlin in 1982.

(This is not that)

It began with individuals and some two-teams, but really started to explode with the fall of the wall in 1989, when graffiti became "cool". Those who had done graffiti before the fall of the wall became "old-school" and everyone else was "new-school". New-schoolers were different because of the old-schoolers' influence and the general explosion of information that happened when with wall opened, including the arrival of graffiti magazines.

The western side of the wall was considered a challenge by graffiti artists and they went to work covering it fairly early. This side of the wall was not guarded like the other side was. The eastern side stayed a dreary grey and white deswegen. The eastern side would be the part left standing as a memorial, as it was more of a real barrier than the western side. This would then be painted after the fall and become the longest open air gallery in the world and my dad would have a picture of him taken in front of it.

Graffiti in and on trains aren't as common as in NY city, but riding the S-Bahn on the ring or through the middle of Berlin is more or less like being in a moving graffiti gallery.

Not to say there isn't ANY in train stations and on trains, but most of it is cleaned up rather quickly and/or if it's a train it's removed from service. The fine can be up to 3,000 Euros, which may be the deterrent if you're not super gangster like THC.

There's a lot of English graffiti in Berlin, partly because a lot of graffiti artists travel to Berlin from other countries, but partly for the same reason so many Germans sing in English. (That reason being: they're dumb, or they're smart and want it to be understood by "everyone".) There is, however, a good deal in German.

(Fight Fascism)

(The border does not run between up and down, but between you and me)

Nowadays there are many graffiti gangs and individuals who paint similar pieces all over Berlin, such as this guy above, a angry Berlin bear, and some guy/s paints fists all over the place. 

But even with so much graffiti and how dirty Berlin is it still feels so safe (even though Berlin is the only place I've ever been molested (the bad kind, not the good kind)(well, that too)).

When my dad was here he asked about gangs in Berlin and I had no idea, I still have no idea. It's never talked about and I never see any. Where do all the drugs come from? Surely someone's fighting someone somewhere over something...in groups. If you know more about this, tell me.