Iva’s WTF site – Squirrelism.net

Part one, in case you missed it. This was translated from my paper diary from ten years ago, once again.

17th April 1998, God Friday
I was working for the written test in English pretty seriously. Then Kocka [dad's friend whose head is shaped like a cube] came around and then Danijela [neighbour] with Mihailo [her son, five and half at that time]. It was simply not possible to study anymore, so I spent the rest of the time before school watching Cartoon Network with Mihailo. I was translating three toons for him: Scooby Doo, Two Stupid Dogs and Secret Squirrel. Then he got bored and started exploring my room. He came accross a Green Day poster, pointed to Tré Cool and said: This guy’s hair is ugly! and I smiled at his childish innocence. Then he pointed to Billie Joe Armstrong and said: And this guy is ugly!. Then he noticed the other Green Day poster and recognised Billie again, and commented: This guy is boring, he’s everywhere, I also saw him on TV the other day! And he has a huge ugly fat stomach! I was about to ask Mihailo how the hell he knew that Billie really is a bit overweight right now, but I didn’t have a chance to, as he said was: I have to run home to have fish soup for breakfast! and the next thing I knew, I was rolling over the coach laughing. Not to mention that he also saw Daniella Daze’s video for the song 100% Jesus and said that it’s wrong to listen to that song on God Friday and that the guy in the video should be embarrassed of himself for being shirtless, because many people are going to see that video. I love that child, he’s so funny.

Milanka ran away from school again today because of the English test and Dejana finally finished reading Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo and Ivana B. then gave it to me, with a catch: I had only six hours to read it, because of the spring break starting after today and she had to give the book back to her friend. So, I did not waste one single second and I spend the whole day reading it and pretending to follow classes. The book is very sad. Christiane F. was living in a poor neighbourhod in western Berlin, her mothe wasn’t controlling her much. At the tender age of 12, she was taking drugs and at 13, she was already a heroin addict. In the end, she went to rehab and I do hope that she pulled herself together, because so many of her friends died in hospitals feeling the worst possible pain, or they injected themselves a deadly does of heroin, leaving goodbye messages to the world, warning other young people not to follow their footsteps. Her boyfriend ended up in jail and he said that his dream would be to lead a normal, average life with Christianne. And Dejana seems to be having a thing for that guy, even though, he’s like, 20 years younger than us and so thin. And he slept with old men, too. Then again, I understand her. She used to liken that M. guy from third grade who’s also a heroin addict now. She said that she saw him in a club, rolling on the floor and shaking, having a crisis. I am really sad for all those poor people who can’t seem to find their own way and all of them who died young. After so many stories like Christiane’s, I wonder if she’s really the only person who escaped this? And I wonder if she’s on drugs again? Uroš has the internet and he said that he read some story about her, so maybe Milanka’s brother will allow us to use the internet and find that story to print it out.

Speaking of Milanka, I guess she’ll be glad to know that the English test was delayed, as so many people left school earlier to go somewhere for the spring break. I met her on our way to church (mom always makes me go to church for God Friday…) and I told her to stop cheating, because it’ll be so more useful for her to learn English and I could help her with that. Of course, I’m not judging her, I only have good intentions.

The internet has given us many possibilities to, as someone wiser than me would say, twist and bend the fabric of reality. Oops, pardon, he wasn’t talking about the internet, he was talking about the tools of an artist. I’d rather say that the internet, unlike the arts, gives you a chance to bend the laws of nature and, as I once said, just think how easy it is to be God!

So, yesterday, a friend from Montreal who is the author of the shocking photos you’ll see below but whose name will be censored to K** because God and interpol will be after her was typing out an article for me and we came accross something that really shook us. There are many heron addicts in the world. And, we discovered that we’re one of them and, as we all know, the best herons in the world are located at the Heron island. On that note, she decided to send me one, so I could feed my addiction properly.

Unfortunately, when my heron arrived, I was not at home, so my budgerigar, Gigi, noticed that the heron was a female. I can’t tell you what exactly happened next, as it is clearly not for people under 18 years of age, but a couple of weeks after, a total crime against a nature was born: a HEDGERIGAR

So… K** and I are smuggling hedgerigars now, would you like one? They’re good for a bunch of things: you can sniff them and the effect is twice as good as it is with herons, they can be pets, they like children and they lay eggs. Of course, we don’t know what’ll come out of those eggs as of yet, as we need a couple of more hedgerigars and an approval from a bunch of churches, anti-animal cruelty and government organisations in both Canada and Serbia in order to breed them and legalise the incest, as they’ll all eventually be cousins at the beginning; but hey, no risk no fun!

I like being God and a criminal at the same time, I might fill in applications for both jobs.

Ten years ago, it was April 1998. I was barely fifteen years young. A 15-year-old version of me is looking back at me from the photos, wondering if we’re the same person. I can assure her that we are and that she’s heading the right direction. She read that this is the most succesful year for her star sign in this decade and that it’s all about giving foundation to principles that are to be obeyed later. So, she set her principles. And I’d like to share some excerpts from her diary, as told by her 25-year-old self.

04th April 1998, Saturday.
I had a good result at the school competition and at the local competition, I went to the city grammar competition with two friends: one who was a complete over-ambitious best-in-everything type of a person and one who went to the competition and passed two previous levels, for god knows what kind of personal satisfaction. It was a nice, sunny day, the spring was coming after a winter that wasn’t really a winter.

We didn’t do very good, but we didn’t do bad either…the problem were the girls and guys from the highschool that was specifically concentrated on language studies…their results were so good that nobody could beat them. We were aware that our results of e.g. 14 or 15 points were OK, but that, with ten of them snatching all 20 points, it’s not even enough for the third place. So, as we were waiting for the preliminary standings, we were singing Bajaga & instruktori’s Godine prolaze and drinking mineral water in the schoolyard. Then our professor came around and told us that we do not qualify for the republic competiton, just like we thought.

We took it easy and, on the way back home; Jana, the friend who was living closer to me, and I sat down in a nearby park, as the swings were not occupied by little children. And, as it was a nice day, our imagination was at a high level, so I asked her: “Jana, imagine what would happen if we were swinging so intense and madly that we’d actually jump from the swing onto the top of that tree?”

She looked at the tree and tried to remember what’s it famous for. Its Latin name is Morus Alba, its English name is White Mulberry, its Serbian name is Beli dud. And that particular white mulberry happens to be the oldest three in this city, more than 200 years old and located in a not-so-special park at a not-so-special place. But it’s easy to get that the park exists solely because of the tree.

When I was little, I had a vivid imagination, I was making up stories where trees and construction cranes were living alone in the city and that particular tree was the leading police officer and catching bad guys. I said all that to Jana and she was like: “Hmmm, if the tree is that old, then it knows the things we don’t know.” I said that it’s probably right, given that the tree witnessed, amongst other things, two world wars.

And then she told me to imagine a squirrel and that, if we swing and jump, the squirrel will help us land on the top of the tree. I followed the story and said that, when we’re up there, we’ll be able to see a warp in the sky, where the air is like gelatine. When one jumps through that gelatine-like air, one lands in a different dimension and a slightly different place: Beograd number 18 in the 38th century…at that time, there are so many people in the world that they had to split the cities into many, many smaller bits.

And Jana agreed that we should take the squirrel with us and found or own company for distribution of nuts from the 20th century to 38th century, called Nut King Insane. And we’d make big money, yet not spend almost any of time on it, because one day in Beograd 18 is like one month in Beograd.

And we said that we’ll always be praising the glorious April 1998, for having found our little secret to success and having changed the world. Do I praise it, after ten long years? Yes I do, for two reasons, one of them being my personal share of changes. And all the changes came from somewhat insignificant little stories such as this one. I never learned how, but as of now, I stopped question myself about it.