Dare to ask Dare
Photo by Maria Savelieva
Ex-pats and Russians alike ask celebrity columnist Deidre Dare questions about life in Moscow.
Dear Deidre:
I find life so painful: everyone is so selfish and always hurting each other. How do you stand it? It is almost too dismal for me and I feel disconnected from everyone. It is all just suffering.
Dear Fyodor Dostoyevsky:
I agree with you. However, I have a way of dealing with it. I’ll share it with you and that should help a bit.
Larry Flynt (of Hustler Magazine fame) took a lot of painkillers for many years after he was shot and then, when he was cured and out of agony, he stopped.
I take Larry’s approach: I’ll stop stopping the pain when the pain stops.
Drugs, booze, reckless sex, over-eating, perusing Hustler: these are all ways to alleviate the pain. Keep using them until the agony stops.
This, I’ll warn you right now, will be never.
xxooDD
Dear Deidre:
I went out with a real loser guy a few times and he just changed his Facebook status to “In a relationship” and I know he means me!!! Can you be in a relationship and not know it?
&Dear Jean-Paul Sartre:
Yes. And I’ve recently discovered something even worse.
You can be broken-up with and not know it.
Now that can really cause an existential crisis of unprecedented proportions, let me tell you.
And a few benders as well...
xxooDD
Dear Deidre:
I have a huge fear of commitment and this is keeping me (obviously) from having a girlfriend. I don’t know what to do about it. Any advice?
Dear Stephen King:
No.
Anyone rational would have a fear of commitment.
xxooDD
Dear Deidre:
Why do these New Zealanders use the word “wee” for little? They sound like Munchkins and it drives me crazy. And there are so many of them here. I wish there were wee-er!
Dear Frank Baum:
We can get some useful assistance on this question from Seinfeld:
“Why does Radio Shack ask for your phone number when you buy batteries?”
I don’t know.
xxooDD
Dear Deidre:
Why are Russian men so ugly?
Dear Naomi Wolf:
Are they? I hadn’t noticed.
xxooDD
Dear Deidre:
I am desperately in love with a Russian girl but she speaks hardly any English and I speak no Russian. What should I do?
Dear Andre Breton:
I have a friend in Moscow who, like you, is always “desperately in love” with some Russian or Ukrainian chick or another, although he can’t communicate with her.
I think of these women of his as more like pets than girlfriends. This is a little surreal when you’re out to dinner with them, because you feel like ordering them a water bowl and a Milkbone.
You’re not in love, mate, you’re in heat.
Take Russian lessons—that will cool you down as much as a cold shower would, I promise.
At any rate, it always works for me. That or ordering a bowl of water.
Dear Deidre:
In bed: Putin or Medvedev?
Dear Eduard Limonov:
Putin v Medvedev, eh?
Medvedev.
Medvedev.
Medvedev.
Always: Medvedev.
Dear Deidre:
What do you want from 2011?
Dear Dale Carnegie:
Medvedev.
Medvedev.
Medvedev.
Always: Medvedev.
Dear Deidre:
I find the holiday season in Moscow to be depressing since Christmas isn’t until January and there’s not really the normal Western fanfare. Any suggestions on how to get out of my no-Holiday spirit funk?
Dear Charles Dickens:
I find it a relief not to be bombarded with the “fanfare.”
Look what happened to the Jews in the West when Christmas became such a ridiculous extravaganza there: they turned Chanukah (in reality, the President’s Day of Judaism) into a big thing just to keep up with those merry Christian gentlemen.
And don’t get me started on Kwanza. Just don’t.
Someday, the Russians will do the same for their Orthodox Christmas, but until then let’s enjoy the Peace on Earth, shall we? Or do you really want to listen to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer about 4000 times between now and New Year’s? Think hard about that.
Really?
xxooDD
PS Pozdrevlyayu s prazdnikom Rozhestva i s Novim Godomto all my Russian Passport Readers!
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