My laptop, my laptop, why hast thou forsaken me?

I'm making a real effort to keep updating this blog, even though (1) nothing exciting is happening, (2) I have a bad case of the February blahs, and (3) I've lost all access to my laptop.

Let's address those things in reverse order.

3. I am losing my mind without my own computer. I have to remember all the passwords to my social networking sites. I can't access any of my files, so I can't share anything or get to my teaching resources. I can't upload the photos I've taken recently. I can't download new episodes of my favourite podcasts, or any podcasts at all, which have been my lifeline to pop culture civilization. I can't veg out in my room watching movies, which means I've been ripping through the books I brought at a dangerous pace. I feel like I've lost a limb, or (more accurately) part of my brain.

I get the impression that if you're older and are reading this you think I'm an ass. Fine, although in my defense, my generation has had our brains Mimsy Were the Borogoves'd and we can't function in your primitive Boomer world.

Oh god, now I'm just being mean. Laptoooopppppppppp, come baaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!

2. I always get the February blahs. It's not S.A.D., February is just terrible no matter where I am. Here's why February is the worst:
     a. Valentine's Day, obviously.
     b. The bloom is off the rose, re: winter. Remember when everything was white and sparkly and the ice and snow reflected Christmas lights and good cheer? Was that only two months ago?
     c. It's the shortest month, but manages to drag on like it's the longest month.
     d. I don't know anyone who has a leap year birthday, which would really liven the joint up.
     e. No statutory holidays in Georgia, while Ontario only recently got one - and it's called Family Day. How stupid is that? February 15th should be a Canadian national holiday (Flag Day - it's already there on your calendars!) and there should be red and white fireworks and tobogganing and hot toddies. THAT'S a holiday!

1. This is how bored I am - I work out five days a week. Going to the gym is the most boring thing in the entire world, but I do it (or go swimming) most days because what else am I going to do?

Things less boring than going to the gym:
     a. An entire two-semester economics course
     b. The magazine selection at a dentist's office
     c. Watching TV in a language you don't understand
     d. Your extended family (I know this one's a stretch, but I'm making a rhetorical point here).

In an effort to be less bored, I've been trying to plan some trips. Or, get someone else to plan trips for me, because February has sapped my interest in planning, dreaming, believing, getting out of bed, etc. A Georgian I know wants to take me and a couple of other foreigners to Baku, Azerbaijan. I'd love to go, but the visa is expensive ($120-150). My Georgian friend called the Azeri embassy, who told her that discussing the price of visas is a "sensitive matter" not suited to the telephone, so she should have tea with one of their consuls and "talk it over" it in person. She thinks that Azerbaijan is corrupt enough that she can get us a group discount on visas. Stupendous.

Also stupendous was the time when a car, parked directly below my window, had its alarm go off in the middle of the night. It was one of those alarms that alternates between a series of horrible patterns and tones. The next morning someone had pelted the car with tomatoes. Sweet revenge!

The other day, I saw a very confused stray dog in one of the subway stations. I'm afraid this marks the beginning of Tbilisi's stray dogs mastering the Metro, like they do in Moscow - which is exactly like Rise of the Planet of the Apes, but with rabies.

Do you remember how the government of Georgia financed a Hollywood movie about the August 2008 war with Russia, starring Andy Garcia as a very melodramatic Misha Saakashvili? Of course you do. Well, Russia has financed its own movie about that conflict. It's called August Eighth, and its plot revolves around a divorced woman who sends her 7-year-old son to Georgia to be with his father, but must make her way into a war zone to find him once all hell breaks loose. Obviously this is a more audience-friendly story than the Georgian film, which is about some dick American war reporter played by Rupert ("who?") Friend. The Russian film is also co-written by an American, and has been picked up for distribution by 20th Century Fox.

Oh, and there are giant fighting robots in it.

Just like in the real war.

Five Days of War US box office gross: $32,296
August Eighth US box office gross (estimated): A billion

How I pay the bills

I'm back from an extended absence once again, although this one was a little less intentional. I've had a surprisingly dark return to Georgia which, in concert with a broken laptop screen, has conspired to keep me away from my blog.

I've also been stupendously busy. And I don't mean busy in that, "SIGH, I AM JUST SUCH A BUSY PERSON" way, which implies an utter lack of time management skills and a disregard for other people, but in an "I work four jobs" way.

My second term in Georgia has been marked by a burst of ambition that saw me tell more than one person I was going to pick up yoga. I don't make New Year's resolutions, but I do tend to say stupid shit in January, which is essentially the same thing.

This ambitious kick has prompted me to add, in addition to my teaching position at the Police Academy, an editing position at an English-language newspaper, regular tutoring, and freelance English stylist work. Oh, and I'm a voice-over artist now, too.

So I'm getting to know the marshrutka system really well, and walking a lot, and filling the time I'd otherwise spend surfing the internet or watching videos on my laptop. (Which isn't to say that there's not a laptop screen-sized hole in my heart. Because dammit, I was in the middle of season 3 of Scrubs!).

I had a delightful exchange with a cab driver last week. It was very Georgia. I had caught a taxi home from a friend's apartment, when he hit a big pothole and completely blew out a back tire. He tried to get me to wait for him to change it, but it was late, and snowing, and we were stopped in the literal middle of the embankment highway. So I hailed a new cab.

Normally taxi drivers like to test the limits of my Georgian, but this guy was silent. It wasn't until we got to my place when this exchange took place:

Me: რამდენი ლარი? (How many lari?)

Cabbie: шесть.

Me: шесть?

Cabbie: шесть.

Me: ბოდიში, ვარ ენგლისური. რამდენი? (Sorry, I'm English. How many?)

Cabbie: English? I thought you were Russian! Six lari.

The only English-speaking taxi driver in Tbilisi and we sat in silence the entire ride.

Normally, I would have taken a marshrutka from my friend's apartment home, but the last time I tried to do that I was mistaken for a prostitute. I was waiting by the side of the road (first mistake), looking absolutely ravishing in my winter coat and plastic grocery bag (second mistake), when a Jeep pulled up beside me and the two men inside asked me something in Georgian. Thinking they were asking for directions (sidebar: Obviously the blonde girl is the best person to ask in Tbilisi, oy), I asked them if they knew English. The younger one did, and asked if I'd like a ride. Thinking to myself that Georgians are such nice, thoughtful people, I politely declined and went back to waiting for the marshrutka. A few seconds later, the driver got out of the Jeep, and approached me, saying in broken English, "$100".

I didn't quite get it.

"Uh, no, no thank you," I said, a tad confused.

"$150."

"No..." It started to dawn on me.

"$200."

Now I got it. And I was pissed. I told him no again but he wouldn't leave. That's when I snarled "შენი დედა!" (literally, "Your mother", a vulgar Georgian curse and delightfully appropriate in this situation).

Now he was confused. Like it never crossed his mind that I wasn't a prostitute. I pointed towards his car and told him to fuck off. He ambled away.

Later, my host mother told me she had been propositioned at the same intersection.