11 years later

I’ve always been careless with my memories. I drink too much and never take pictures anymore. When I was living in Paris, I had a blog. It racked up to 9000 views a month. It was called ≪peau lumineuse≫ as I have an obsession for my own skin. I strive for softness, it hurts when I hurt. There’s an expression in Spanish, tener piel con alguien, to have “skin” with someone, when two people have chemistry. I always pay attention to that. My blog was about my experiences in Paris, an oniric time of going to film school, speaking French (the most pompous language), living in a quintessential seizième apartment. I was very lucky, my college somehow granted me and 23 other girls the opportunity to live there for one year, and with a limitless NaviGo, too! My posts were usually brutally poetic, I received messages every day from people who read my ramblings, praising me for my honesty. I wrote every day. Some months later, back in the US, or in Uruguay, I don’t remember, I deleted it all. I was angry at myself, as I am prone to be, for something or another. My self-esteem isn’t very healthy. I don’t know when it started, but it’s all I remember: guilt and self-hate. I also felt that the future was not real, I didn’t plan to be alive, let alone nostalgic, this long. So, from time to time, I had a desire to burn everything in my wake, to renew myself, to start over. Thus, I was very bad at archiving. I have not saved any of my writing; college papers, poems, essays, blog posts. I don’t have any pictures from my youth either, because I deleted my Facebook page in 2017 and did not save anything. I deeply regret this – as I regret so much more. It is a shame because I am such a good writer, too. Present day, neglect and sloth have me only writing tweets and club and restaurant reviews on Google Maps. That, and a script for a movie I’ve been working on for years, but can’t get past the research stage. And so, I find myself writing this, a sample of what I can do with a keyboard. I need work, as my gallivanting, self-destructive years seem to be over. Despite my lacking self-image, I intend to live a lot longer. It would be a dream to write for a living. Currently, I teach business English online, and I have to spend all day talking to people I have nothing in common with. I am exhausted, yet I have too many hours in the day because I am bored. If this seems desperate, it is because I am. I have squandered many opportunities, but here I am, asking for another one. The difference this time is survival. Youth is cruel, and the young do not deserve it.

SWEDEN N STUFF

Okay so yeah. I am sorry for not writing sooner. But you know, things and reasons. I have no idea how to start a post of everything that's happened in the past five weeks, so I'm just gonna go with it and hope the narrative takes a shape on its own.

Week 1. On August 13^th I left for Paris. I cried a whole lot in the airport and the day before as well. I was sick and had a fever (why not!). The people doing security check always seem so jaded by crying people. They must see that shit every day. I got to Paris the next day, and I took the train from CDG to Jess' house in Bastille. I had to change trains twice and go up and down, no exaggeration, 7 billion flights of stairs. When I got to wifey's house, I have rarely felt so happy.

I spent 10 days in Paris with Jess, going to parks, taking pictures, and eating ice-cream. We went to many clubs and I met a lot of cool people. Paris is awesome in August; there's barely anyone there and you don't bump into dumb tourists in the streets. I met a couple of high school friends. Jess and I watched a lot of Buffy (duh duhd uhd).

The second day of my stay in Paris, Jess and I went to a friend's apartment and there was a girl there from Bolivia. This chick was strange, I thought. I said something to her in Spanish and she wouldn't answer me back. She asked me what I was doing in Paris about 5 times in 15 minutes, while relentlessly sipping on her white wine and littering the floor with cigarette ashes, much to the home owner's chagrin. Huh. The apartment had a nice mix of people from all over, 70% native English speakers, I would say. Bolivian girl, who I later found out was 34 or some shit, kept being loud and asking everybody the same questions, tuning out the answers, I guess. At one point, as we were all having the best time ever ever, she decides to start speaking (awful) French (two people there spoke no French at all) and insisting we all do the same because we were “in Paris to learn the culture.” Wow, I had no idea! I thought I was there to hang with my bros and smoke mad weed, but whatever. We tried to ignore her, but bitch was so insistent (to not say ANNOYING AS FUCK) that she actually drove everybody out. I can now honestly say that I have met the most annoying person on the planet. Then I decided that I will never again let anybody ruin my buzz ever again because life is short and buzzes are expensive.

Well, maybe not all of them.

Jess and I had many yummy foods and made fun of people. She gave me good advice and I cried when I left. After a ridiculously hard trip to the airport, I got in my plane to Stockholm.

I got here August 26^th, which was a Saturday. My friend Mattias picked me up from the bus station. With a car. Instant win. He took me to a rave in a park. I was in a rave within one and a half hours of my landing in Stockholm.

Week 2. We went home later and he told me all about Sweden. 1. Don't talk about drugs. 2. Swedes are hard to get to know. 3. Jobs are hard to find (no shit!). He drove me to school the next day and I moved into my dorm room. It's not quite a dorm, I have my own bathroom, but I do share a (gross) kitchen and (sad) living room area with like 11 other people. The kitchen always smells weird and the jury is out on my hall mates. Tonight there's a party in my building but I am lame and I have watched 9 episodes of Louie and ate old McDonald's.

The first week was orientation and that was nice. Didn't do anything. Went to a strange party with all international students in which the music legitimately sucked all the hairy balls. Euro-trashy-housy-Ibizaypop. UGGGGHHHH. I meet some cool people and stared at all the girls with green hair.

Week 3. I started one class which is sort of boring but okay. It's a lecture type, hardly any input from the class, and our professor kind of just reminisces about all the important people he's met in the film business. It's hard to keep awake (and by hard, I mean impossible, I have fallen asleep a couple of times). But it's cool because we get to watch old movies in an actual, comfortable, movie theatre most of the time. My classes are held in Filmhuset, which is this huge 70s'Architecture ugly-ass building that has its own cinemas, Sweden's only film-oriented library, classrooms, offices, and also the Swedish Film Institute is housed there. NBD.

Bam, motherfuckers. This is where I learn shit. (That entrance way is gonna be a problem in the winter. It's a 100-meter slope)

Week 4. Money is running low and I want to get a job. I have already applied for a few, but gotten no responses (this pattern continues until today). I actually don't remember many specifics. I went to a bunch of government offices just to be told I cannot get residency here without a health insurance card issued by Italy (because I am here with an Italian passport). I cannot get this card from the Italian embassy, so I am fucked. Until I get a job, I was told, I will not be able to declare residency, and, without this, I will not be able to open a bank account, obtain a cellphone contract, or any of that cool shit.

Week 5 or 6 or whatever. It was my birthday on Monday and it was actually quite shitty. I cried a lot because I have no money and no job. I have neglecting the SHIT out of my classes. I am supposed to read ALL OF THE ARTICLES EVER, but I haven't really. I feel a bit better now, although today was a waste of a day and I am a waste of a human being.

I got some presents though, for my birthday. My friends here (who are all German for some reason) gave me a tumbler coffee mug, a BIG cup for soup/coffee, a scented candle, a Kumbia Queers bag, and many kisses which I appreciate endlessly.

Okay, so my status right now is: useless, poor, and jobless. Hopefully this will change soon. But you know what won't change? My bad case of UGLY.

JK this is gorge

Coupled with the fact that I am apparently suffering from a late adolescence in my face, the women of Sweden are just incredibly fucking beautiful. Everyone says it, but it's actually stunning how ridiculous-looking everyone here is. Perfect skin, perfect hair, and, most of all, FLAWLESS FASHION SENSE. Ugh I feel like a deformed mutant who can only afford to shop in Salvation Army in some backwoods county 7 years ago. Also, I lost my iPod, so I have to suffer my self-deprecating thoughts super loudly when I'm in the subway looking at these superhuman models go to class in high-heeled ankle boots, tight black jeans, and the most expensive-looking sheer peach blouse ever, army green coat, with their iPhones, texting something insightful and funny to their perfect fucking friends. I cry in my head at least 3 times a day from lack of self-confidence.

Most of the people I have met or am friends with are foreigners. Swedes are strange and eccentric. I might be too weird for them. Or they are too individualistic for me. It's strange living in a country where everyone minds their own fucking business. I am involved in NO drama for the first time in my life, and it's legitimately weird and I have no idea how to behave or meet people.

Anyway, this post is weird, not funny, and mainly a mass update. I am scared, very very scared, that I might have to leave, because I can't find a job. I have almost no money left and I have to like, pay rent and eat food. I haven't been eating well, or regularly. It's like I trick my stomach for most of the day and then just have one big meal at dinner.

I miss you

But I like it here, a lot, even though it's fucking cold as fuck. The Internet is fast (I downloaded a movie in EIGHT SECONDS TODAY. EIGHT) and the people and buildings are nice to look at. Yup.

politeness

I'm not really sure what's happening but I think I'm tripping balls. I took some acid last night and like, it's still going on. I think. I'm not sure. I mean I spent like half an hour investigating my nipple piercing. That usually only takes five minutes. I seem to be fascinated by my lamp (?), and I

I really wanted to write something but I can't remember what it was.

Being polite.

IRL.

If you are at a party that's in your house and you have asked a girl to play music from her ipod, that's cool because her music is better than yours anyway, but if you tell her that now your friend from Brazil will take over the ipod because she wants to see “what's in there” and something “less hip hoppy” or whatever, don't be surprised when it doesn't happen.

If you are at a bar and you are drunk and somehow we are discussing politics because it's cold and there's nothing else to do when someone tells you they don't vote or they are fascists, respect their democratic right to be those things, if you love your democracy so much, even though we all know that democracy is a lie and the captain of the ship has been killed by the unwashed crew.

Don't tease your american friends too much. They can't take it like uruguayans can. Specially males. Specially males performing masculinity and making you just a nudge uncomfortable with the way they talk about women and women's bodies while you sit there wishing you could pinpoint what is it that is making you uncomfortable even though you're supposed to be “cool” cause you're “gay”.

Expect drugs for free and demand them. Internally label anyone who doesn't have them or won't give them to you as an asshole/bitch who doesn't know how to have fun.

On the internet.

When invited to a facebook event, consider the “decline” button as decoration. The person who invited you gets a notification every time someone declines an invitation. It is considered good form to have a bunch of unanswered events hanging out on your side bar thingy.
Conversely, when you do accept to go to an event and mad people are posting on its wall, don't write a post on the thing's wall, complaining about so many notifications because of the posts on the wall because it's weirdly circular logic somehow.
Don't make rape jokes, but if you do, they better be actually funny. People really hate unfunny rape jokes. Because “unfunny” and “joke” cancel each other out. You cannot have an unfunny joke. So we're left with: “People really hate rape”, which is... yes. But whatever you do, don't defend the douche bag who just made the unfunny joke, even though he is your comedian white bro, because like, defending an unfunny offensive joke is impossible and makes you look part of the machine you are rebelling against.

Over text message.
It sucks that you'd rather hang out with them than with me. I am clearly better.

Don't let an obvious mass text ever be sent to your best friend. Ever. Write a separate text for them.

Don't assume someone wants to date you because they want to make out with you publicly. There are people whose egos need to be shattered, and you are sometimes a means to an end. I hope you enjoy the video I sent you, which is pretty much how I think you sound.

Remember this fucking movie?

I'm still really high. Radiohead is nice.

the food issue

Trigger warning, ya'll: This is NOT a thinspiration post, this is NOT a pro-ana post. If you have issues with food, this might fuck you up. Read on at your own risk. 


For a while now I haven't been eating right. It started a long time ago, in December, maybe. Sleeping too much/not enough, at weird hours, in weird places. Falling asleep on the bus, at work,  reading, at the movies. During that time, I also started feeling less and less hungry, filling up faster, feeling full all the time. I had blood work done to see if I had something like mono or a... face parasite, I don't know. Nope, I was fine. In fact, my blood values showed no signs of me being malnourished. o.O

Anyway, things got worse, and it got to a point where I am now actually disgusted by food. I don't want to weigh myself because I look scary. I have no idea what my BMI is, but I know it has to be lower than 15 (normal is 19 to 25). 


The food issue passed through a stage where this shit was actually suicidal. I thought, even consciously, well, I can't kill myself any other way, maybe if I starve myself I'll die and it won't be my fault. I'm pretty over that now, but food, and depriving myself of food became a kind of punishment/reward thing. I love to punish myself for things when I'm depressed and this was one of the ways. I would go hungry on purpose, until food became gross to me. I would be hungry and eating, and at the same time, trying not to puke from the horrible nausea the feeling of food in my mouth gave me. 

I overcame (somewhat) my depression, but the food thing persists. Because I made my body turn into survival mode, living off the bare minimum. Hence, I shut down all the time, and sleep. Forever. You burn less calories when you're dead asleep. 


I went to the doctor yesterday, it became too much, to stand up from my chair and grabbing on to the walls so as to not faint. Every time. I am now eating those things babies and old people eat so they won't die (yet, can I tell you a secret? It is now 6:37 PM and I've only eaten some pasta and a small salad). 

I am sure this food thing is directly responsible for my weird sleeping patterns and my fucked up skin lately. It's incredible, huh? Eating is the easiest thing in the world, right? I used to LOVE eating. Now, it's a paralyzing, incredibly difficult guilt-struggle with a piece of lettuce. Nevermind the carbs. How could I train my body to do this to me? Or my brain, I'm not sure which. And what's worse, the way I look makes me super self-conscious, and I just keep feeling worse. I can't eat, I can't gain weight, I'm ugly. My face looks hollow, my legs like twigs, and my breasts are non-existent. 

At the same time, this is just the way my body looks now. A lot of body-positive sites and people make sure to only affirm those fuller bodies. What about me? I feel like the pale man in Pan's Labyrinth. I feel so ugly and hated and judged at the same time. A lot of people would kill to have this problem. A lot of people DO kill themselves to have this problem. A lot of people die to look like this bullshit: 

:(

Shit's sad, we're all crazy.

puit

i'm pretty high on my sleeping pills right now. i wrote some tweets that are great because you can read them from top to bottom and from bottom, up. 

goodnight, sarah

can i just ask you a question, miss?

In my never-ending devotion to VICE mag and their questions to random people on the street, I decided to answer their questions myself, because I am unoriginal and boring. But remember when I was in Paris and I used to write every single day? I think I want to do that again. 

WHAT'S YOUR SUICIDE SONG?

Pyramid Song (download - right click, save)

Also, maybe, Hurt by either Johnny Cash or NIN (this last video is a really bizarre choice of images for this song).

WOULD YOU SHOOT YOURSELF TO BE FAMOUS?

Yes, somewhere not in the face or spine. I really really want to be famous. 

WHAT WILL SMITH CHARACTER DO YOU WANT TO BE?

The Fresh Prince. 

HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO DIE?

If murdered: I would like to be hung to death and make it look like a suicide. But then my friend or lover would not believe the police and would have to gather clues as to what really happened to me. 

Otherwise, I would like to die in the cold, cold snow. 

ARE WORKING CLASS PEOPLE BETTER IN BED?

I am trying to think if I have slept with someone *not* working class... But yeah, poor people fuck better. 

WHAT'S YOUR HANGOVER CURE?

Usually a coke and a cigarette, but if possible, a Bloody Mary will take all your problems away. 

WHAT'S THE BEST SANDWICH YOU'VE EVER HAD?

Ham + Parmesan cheese + bacon + avocados + mustard + lettuce + tomato + lemon juice + salt.

WHY DO YOU LOVE AMERICA?

Because they gave me a bunch of money there so I could know things. Because it is the birth place of many many people I love dearly. Because it has pretty mountains and pretty deserts and nice architecture. Because great musicians sometimes come from there. Because New York City, San Francisco, and Seattle. 

I guess another reason is that pretty slutty girls come from there?

WHO DESERVES A PUNCH IN THE FACE?

Probably everyone. Probably me. But mostly all those people who perform female genital mutilations are on top of my list. 

WHAT SORT OF PERSON WANTS TO BONE YOU?

Mostly men. And some women. But they usually get bored very fast. 

PROSTITUTION SHOULD BE LEGAL, RIGHT?

Yes. 

WOULD YOU MAKE A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL?

Probably not... because if the devil exists, then god must as well. And so must heaven and hell. If I make a deal with the devil, I will go to hell after I die. But if I meet the devil, it is direct evidence that heaven exists, and, sorry, but I don't want to suffer for ALL of eternity. If I was ever offered a deal by the devil, it would turn me into a devout christian. Talk about irony!

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT GUITAR SOLOS?

Not great, people tend to go overboard. 

WOULD YOU HAVE BEEN IAN CURTIS'S PAL?

Yes. We would have done a shit ton of drugs together. 

WHAT IS THE INTERNET?

The really real world.

HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A GHOST?

I've felt them before, and I have seen them in my dreams. 

WHAT ANIMAL DO YOU WANT TO BE?

A *male* lion, because they get to sleep all fucking day. Do I see some drool there?

WHO WAS YOUR TEENAGE CRUSH?

Heath Ledger + Julia Stiles

WHO WOULD YOU KILL?

People who rape children. People who mutilate women. Fred Phelps. Robert Mugabe. AhmadiNejad. The People Running Fox News. 

WHAT'S YOUR PICK-UP LINE?

I don't use them, I just flirt relentlessly. But my favorite one was from my friend who said: "Hey Lau, that outfit is very becoming on you. If I was on you, I'd be coming on you, too." It was gross but hilarious. 

YOU'RE A CULT LEADER, WHAT'S YOUR CULT ALL ABOUT?

Judging from the other day's post, crappy white female mcs. 

WHO IS THE UGLIEST MAN IN THE WORLD?

I don't know why, but he's so unattractive to me, he makes my skin crawl. 

WHAT'S THE MOST DISGUSTING THING YOU'VE EVER EATEN?

Mashed potatoes at a "restaurant" in Aguas Dulces, Rocha, Uruguay. It was potato-y water. Also, anything I find someone else's hair in. 

HOW BIG IS THE INTERNET?

I... don't know. 

IS FACEBOOK EVIL?

Yes. It makes ME evil. 

WHO'S THE SEXIEST CARTOON CHARACTER?

Mulan, fucking with gender roles and what not. 

These two bad bitches, too.

WHO'S THE WORST PERSON YOU'VE EVER MET?

A lot of people from my high school. Bad people, sexist people, racist people, homophobic people.

WHAT WILL YOU DO WHEN DAVID BOWIE DIES?

Cry for days, in all honesty. 

WHO WOULD PLAY YOU IN A FILM ABOUT YOUR LIFE?

I would like it to be someone like Emma Stone, but, realistically, Tilda Swinton. 

WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO YOUR 16-YEAR-OLD SELF?

Get laid, it's not a big deal. Do drugs. Do more art, write more. You have potential. Don't go to high school in the States so early. Visit your father's grave. 

WHO’S THE COOLEST?

me

WHAT'S THE MOST PAIN YOU'VE EVER BEEN IN?

Physically? When I got all these teeth pulled out. They were all fucked up and they wouldn't come out, so they had to break them before pulling the pieces out. 

HOW WERE YOU DISCIPLINED AS A CHILD?

I wasn't. It's part of the problem. My father once slapped me because I was being annoying. My mother didn't do anything about it. 

HOW DID YOU FIND OUT ABOUT SEX?

From the X files. 

WHAT RACIST STUFF IS IN YOUR HEAD?

Horrible horrible things I don't want to own up to. But everyone laughs at Mexicans jokes, right?

PICA

Pica ( /ˈpaɪkə/ py-kə) is characterized by an appetite for substances largely non-nutritive (such as clay or chalk).^[1] For these actions to be considered pica, they must persist for more than one month at an age where eating such objects is considered developmentally inappropriate. There are different variations of pica, as it can be from a cultural tradition, acquired taste or a neurological mechanism such as an iron deficiency, or chemical imbalance. (source: wiki)

pica

A light lunch, a salad of mixed Swedish words,

blue paper chunks, peppered with tobacco.

Glossy nail polish juice, garnished

with a thousand fine pieces of hot pink glitter.

A fresh palette cleanser, flower petal

and grey wool ice cream, ideal even in winter.

The kisses of blue-eyed young girls,

dialogue from TV shows dealing with the supernatural,

and transfeminist post-pornographic blog posts,

-the slam poetry of NYC kids pretending to be Egon Schiele-

wash it down with sweet blackberry fountain pen ink.

The crusty mustard pages of old books and black leather jackets.

For dinner, the memories of rough pillows melting in your mouth,

literal finger-licking goodness late-night snack. 

This is the poem I had been working on. I wrote it on paper, which I rarely do. I am much much better now. But for a while there, it was like involuntary anorexia nervosa, man. Ta.