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ONE I moved to Germany for a year, 20 years ago. I just thought it would be fun. Germany is complicated, brutal, and the people just aren't that nice. What's not fun about that? I love it. Even the weather is dark, I'm in heaven. Germany doesn't hide what it is. We are very bad, yes the worst. I can handle bad, but I can't handle it when things are bad and we pretend it's good Germany's not always good. But it's real. Not like the Terrible White People Show that is now America I didn't belong in America, where we prefer reality television to reality America pretends. and I hate it Germans don't fuck around with pretending. Try to small talk with a German, OK the weather is nice, but ‘we will not be friends in the long term, so what is the point of this human interaction? We live in a cold, bleak existence from which there is no reprieve. And that was before Covid. People ask me, How do you pack up your whole life and move abroad I tell them, it's so easy You just have to hate your family. - I was so lucky. Like many Americans, I was raised in a hyphenated family. I am half Chilean Jew and half raging Narcissist. We are an Asshole-American family. I'm not a 100% asshole, but I am also not that nice. People look at me and think, oh but she seems nice. I don't know. Maybe you are mistaking a 1000 watt smile and mellifluous voice for niceness. I just don't know if I am very likeable. I'm smart. I'm a woman. People hate that.... I doubt you guys will like me very much, but that's OK. Neither did my mother... I'm used to it. Women worry too much about being likeable I actually think it’s great about Ellen DeGeneres being mean. She’s like our Lady OJ Simpson. I was Team Ellen. Did she do it? Yeah, probably, but at least one of us has to get away with being a asshole. TWO My mom was the Queen of the assholes- had Narcissistic Personality Disorder malignant narcissism Her pathologies included low moral compass, high risk behaviour, an utter disregard for rules and norms, and a pathological tendency to lie It's so hard to fit that all onto one Mother’s Day card Our furniture wasn't much to look at but the gaslighting was amazing. I wasn't raised in any particular religion. I was raised psychopath well, ok, raised by a psychopath I think Catholics are lucky They get to have Confirmation In my house, not so much. You're not really going to go out of the house wearing that jacket, Are you? With those eyebrows? My mother's motto in life was that it is better to look good than feel good. She was 300 lbs She accomplished neither thing. So she became obsessed with what I look like. I've always looked pretty good, for a 45-year old woman. which is tricky when you are 15. My super power was realising very young that when people shit all over you it has little to do with you So you stop linking their comments to your sense of self worth. After all the shit my mom said to me, bullies would be like 'you're fat- And I'd think, amateurs. If you are raised by a narc there's really only two ways to go.... you either become one of them. or you become a jacked up killjoy who thinks everyone you meet is a potential narcissist trying to suck you dry like your mommy did I'm the latter. I suspect everyone is another Joan. Always on high alert. I feel like I could never be a Christian. Only God gets to judge. That doesn't really work for me. I hate to judge my fellow human being. But I am so good at it. THREE Everyone's got a story but when people hear my story they're eyes get very wide and they're like you should write a book I basically skipped childhood and went straight to raising my mother. who was a 40 year-old teenager She hated responsibility. Why do I have to get the milk? Because... Joan, you're the only one with a car and a checking account. Not a great problem solver, because she just let me drive her car - I was only 13. Even in dirtbag Florida, that's illegal... She had all the sensitivity of a teenager as well My favourite asshole story about Joan, and don't worry, we'reall gonna laugh even though it involves cancer. I came home on a visit from Germany for Christmas one year and I found a lump in my breast, dont want to scare you, fine, turned out to be stress boob, but I didnt know that at the time I showed it to my mom, she looked kind of worried and then she said, are you going to ruin Xmas with your breast cancer? And I thought all right Joan, Keep writing those punchlines. I'll get my memoirs published by the time I'm 15. Not supposed to talk about your mother this way. Told you, I'm not that nice.