Dear Diary,

Last week was ah-mazing! I really needed some me-time. Took a mud bath in dirt transported from the shores of Crimea, followed by a three-hour deep tissue massage from Igor. (He knows where all my knots are.) Waxed EVERYWHERE. I feel sooooo smooth! ; ) Thinking about getting butt implants for my next photo shoot. Igor says I don’t need them but I think they would really fill out my cargo pants. Ok, confession: Everyone thinks I had the flu last week or was overthrown by my generals (as if), but mostly I just soaked in my bath and binge watched the Bachelor!!!!! Igor has been DVR-ing it for me and I just couldn’t wait any longer. No one understands how exhausting it is to rebuild the glory of Mother Russia. Sometimes a guy just needs to zoneee. Naw what I mean? I just hope Chris and Whitney are happy together. They deserve it. And the way Whitney looks at him!!! Like he’s the one she’s been looking for all along, only she didn’t know she was looking for him! I would give anything for Angela to look at me that way. I don’t know how to get her to notice me. I’ve done everything I can think of. Was elected President THREE times. Crushed the opposition. (Like they had a chance.) Made Russia an energy superpower. Posed shirtless on my horse. Annexed Crimea. But all Angela cares about is opinion polling and sauerkraut and Wagner’s operas. I dunno. Sometimes I think she’s scared of her own emotions, you know? Like she can’t allow herself to be honest about how she really feels about me. In a way, I admire her self-control. I mean, imagine what our love would do if we were open about it! It would destroy everything Angela has spent her life building, Germany would be humiliated, all of Europe would be like, WTF! Angela and I are the same, really. We’ve dedicated our lives to something bigger than ourselves, to something more than the romance of common mortals — to history, to statecraft! But then I see her again at a summit or nodding solemnly at a press conference — that steely glint in her eyes, the gentle toss of her hair — and I think, but what is bigger than this?? Angela, my Angela. I can sleep with all the supermodels and gymnasts in Russia (I do, obviously), but they can’t begin to mend my shattered heart. It’s fragmented now as the countries of the former U.S.S.R., a beautiful whole split into a thousand little bits and slivers. She’ll always be the one who got away. Maybe if I bench more at the gym, or start building up my troops on the Polish border…

More later. Off to do some shopping for now. Nothing cures heartache like new artillery tanks and a spring wardrobe! Igor says peony is my color.

XOXO,

Vladimir