The bed has an old green velvet headboard, and one button missing, dimple showing cheekily.
The bed has an old green velvet headboard, and the wineglass on the nightstand table is half-drunk, tiny little effervescent bubbles still not popped-- a pinot grigio, lively, and bright in the soft yellow light of the nightstand's lamp.
The bed has an old green velvet headboard, the wineglass on the nightstand table is half-drunk, and the music in the background is a strain of plucking chords, melding male and female voice, tenor and alto, one octave up, one octave down, reverberations and melody, and is soothing and sleepy.
The bed has an old green velvet headboard, the wineglass on the nightstand is half-drunk, the music in the background is a strain of plucking chords, and the book is surreal and contemporary and just a little bit pretentious for the sake of being surreal and contemporary and pretentious, even though it was written by an Argentinian author in 1966, during what could probably be called the Age Of Writer's Pretension.
The bed has an old green velvet headboard, the wineglass on the nightstand table is half-drunk, the music in the background is a strain of plucking chords, the book is surreal and contemporary and just a little bit pretentious, and the ashes in the elegant blue and brown cut-glass ashtray (also a bit pretentious,) still smell like smoke, still just a little bit alive, still potent and pungent and arresting at the corner of the senses, trying to grab attention for another go, another full-frontal assault on health and good, clean habits and mind over matter.
The bed has an old green velvet headboard, the wineglass on the nightstand table is half-drunk, the music in the background is a strain of plucking chords, the book is surreal and contemporary and just a little bit pretentious, the ashes in the elegant ashtray still smell like smoke, and I am struck with the sudden crashing revelation that outside of these few mundane details in this scene, I am in a totally foreign country, and knowing this, listen to the rumble of trucks and small cars and the high whine of mopeds and the tic-tic-tic of high heels on the uneven sidewalk and shouting in Italian and the screech of bus brakes and that nothing (save maybe the cigarette smoke and the music,) is familiar and I am quite possibly living precariously outside of my own life, in this strange and beautiful new and oh-so-very-old city, just buying time here, (another 81 days, 1944 hours, and a fuck-ton of minutes, breaths, sighs, strange words, and laughs,) until I can re-enter Life As I Know It, Take Two, and then, that will seem strange and foreign, and I will find myself longing for the missing half-glass of wine already drunk from the half-drunk wineglass on this nightstand table, and for the high whine of mopeds, and the tic-tic-tic of wooden heels on worn-down sidewalks, missing my alien outlook on life, a spectator instead of a member in this sport.
The bed has an old green velvet headboard, and one button missing, dimple showing cheekily.
XOXO
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
Blips On The Radar
I eat the words in galloping gulps, as fervently as a fish sucks in the water around itself. This is the stuff my life is made of, a dissembled alphabet strung back together again in random and beautiful sequence. Nouns and verbs and adjectives and never, ever truly the same.
To me, you are the greatest novel. I want to read you, to flip open your pages and expose the stories within to my hungry eyes. Voracious.
***
"It's basically like going to war to come back home, blissfully alive, and find that your baby's moved away. Moved in with someone else. Shot the cat. Sold your clothes and given your favorite armchair to your most hated enemy. That's what this feels like."
***
I miss you like Christmas mornings and hot black innertubes floating in ponds in the summer sun. I miss you like first phone calls and piggyback rides and movie nights. I miss you like high school sleepovers and all-night ragers and how Cheech misses Chong.
I miss you like midnight margaritas and 2 AM chats sitting on kitchen counters. I miss you like a partner in gleeful crime, like spontaneous dancing, like Sunday football, beer, and chicken wings and cuddling on the couch, and like a hand on my head. I miss you like 3/4th of my days, like roadtrip videos, like beach bums miss summer.
I miss you like plaid flannel shirts and cats I could actually pet. I miss you like sunny hardwood floors, full bookshelves, and warm beds. I miss you like long conversations, early morning music, and name-calling.
I miss you like my other half. I miss you like every bad day turned good; like nowhere else I'd rather be. I miss you like early, early mornings, and late, late nights, and over 6 years of my life. I miss you like a heavy head on my chest, like warm breath making wet pockets on my shirt, and like a heartbeat I know as well as my own.
I miss you like a constant song in my head, the soundtrack of my nights here.
***
Brief Conversations With Hideous People:
Roommate Conversation: “Is it normal to bleed when you blow your nose?” “No, I don’t think so. I mean, not unless your nose is raw.” “Yeah, it’s not like I’ve been doing massive amounts of coke lately.” “Yeah.” (Exit.)
An Interaction In A Crowded Marketplace (otherwise known as, All The Functional Italian I Know): “Ciao! Un etto? (Point a finger and nod.)” “Italian Italian bella Italian.” “Si! Lo prendo. Quando costa?” “Italian Italian Italian, bella. (Pushes receipt across the counter.)” “Grazie. Ciao!” “Ciao, bella!”
“But it ends in an E. Why isn’t it feminine? Don’t all feminine objects end in E’s?” “Si. But this is different.” “Why? How am I supposed to know?” “It just is. You learn from experience.” “So if that question had been on a quiz, I would have gotten it wrong?” “Si.” “That makes no sense.” “There are no rules.” Under breath: “I like the French more now.”
“Get a boyfriend and go into the countryside, and WALK,” instructs Giancarlo. I wonder if this is what he said to his had-been-an-American-student wife. Sound advice, it seems.
“Please. My dead body could feed a family of six for eight weeks.”
“Seriously, when I handled E pills, this is what they looked like. See this? Screams hand-pressed. You can tell how good or cheap or what it’s made from by the press. When the stamp starts to fade off around the edges, that’s when you know shit’s cheap. And this is supposed to be keeping me from getting pregnant? Thank god I’m not planning on having sex here, because I DON’T THINK SO.”
"Q."
“If I wouldn’t take this if it was E, do you really think I’d take it as birth control? Seriously. This looks like some meth-head distributor’s side project.”
***
I am sitting the the corner bar, watching a guy talk to his girl back home on Skype while I know full-well he's dating and sleeping with someone else here.
It is obvious he loves her-- just by the way he talks to her, his facial expressions, how upset he is that the screen image isn't perfect and the sound is sub-par. He's worried she's seeing other guys. Meanwhile, tonight, he will go out with another girl. He'll sleep with her. Tomorrow, he'll come back down to talk to Miss America again. He'll count down the days until he comes home-- he told her 70 today, he'll tell her 69 tomorrow.
I have a lot to learn about men.
***
XOXO
To me, you are the greatest novel. I want to read you, to flip open your pages and expose the stories within to my hungry eyes. Voracious.
***
"It's basically like going to war to come back home, blissfully alive, and find that your baby's moved away. Moved in with someone else. Shot the cat. Sold your clothes and given your favorite armchair to your most hated enemy. That's what this feels like."
***
I miss you like Christmas mornings and hot black innertubes floating in ponds in the summer sun. I miss you like first phone calls and piggyback rides and movie nights. I miss you like high school sleepovers and all-night ragers and how Cheech misses Chong.
I miss you like midnight margaritas and 2 AM chats sitting on kitchen counters. I miss you like a partner in gleeful crime, like spontaneous dancing, like Sunday football, beer, and chicken wings and cuddling on the couch, and like a hand on my head. I miss you like 3/4th of my days, like roadtrip videos, like beach bums miss summer.
I miss you like plaid flannel shirts and cats I could actually pet. I miss you like sunny hardwood floors, full bookshelves, and warm beds. I miss you like long conversations, early morning music, and name-calling.
I miss you like my other half. I miss you like every bad day turned good; like nowhere else I'd rather be. I miss you like early, early mornings, and late, late nights, and over 6 years of my life. I miss you like a heavy head on my chest, like warm breath making wet pockets on my shirt, and like a heartbeat I know as well as my own.
I miss you like a constant song in my head, the soundtrack of my nights here.
***
Brief Conversations With Hideous People:
Roommate Conversation: “Is it normal to bleed when you blow your nose?” “No, I don’t think so. I mean, not unless your nose is raw.” “Yeah, it’s not like I’ve been doing massive amounts of coke lately.” “Yeah.” (Exit.)
An Interaction In A Crowded Marketplace (otherwise known as, All The Functional Italian I Know): “Ciao! Un etto? (Point a finger and nod.)” “Italian Italian bella Italian.” “Si! Lo prendo. Quando costa?” “Italian Italian Italian, bella. (Pushes receipt across the counter.)” “Grazie. Ciao!” “Ciao, bella!”
“But it ends in an E. Why isn’t it feminine? Don’t all feminine objects end in E’s?” “Si. But this is different.” “Why? How am I supposed to know?” “It just is. You learn from experience.” “So if that question had been on a quiz, I would have gotten it wrong?” “Si.” “That makes no sense.” “There are no rules.” Under breath: “I like the French more now.”
“Get a boyfriend and go into the countryside, and WALK,” instructs Giancarlo. I wonder if this is what he said to his had-been-an-American-student wife. Sound advice, it seems.
“Please. My dead body could feed a family of six for eight weeks.”
“Seriously, when I handled E pills, this is what they looked like. See this? Screams hand-pressed. You can tell how good or cheap or what it’s made from by the press. When the stamp starts to fade off around the edges, that’s when you know shit’s cheap. And this is supposed to be keeping me from getting pregnant? Thank god I’m not planning on having sex here, because I DON’T THINK SO.”
"Q."
“If I wouldn’t take this if it was E, do you really think I’d take it as birth control? Seriously. This looks like some meth-head distributor’s side project.”
***
I am sitting the the corner bar, watching a guy talk to his girl back home on Skype while I know full-well he's dating and sleeping with someone else here.
It is obvious he loves her-- just by the way he talks to her, his facial expressions, how upset he is that the screen image isn't perfect and the sound is sub-par. He's worried she's seeing other guys. Meanwhile, tonight, he will go out with another girl. He'll sleep with her. Tomorrow, he'll come back down to talk to Miss America again. He'll count down the days until he comes home-- he told her 70 today, he'll tell her 69 tomorrow.
I have a lot to learn about men.
***
XOXO
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
The All-American Normad's College Life, Excerpt 8:
"Unsanitary"I find that the wall in the narrow bathroom, while not conducive to sitting forward on the toilet, makes a convenient rest for one’s drunken head while perched precariously sideways-ish on the seat, praying you don’t slip off.
I could almost brush my teeth and spit into the sink from this position, saving time, if I felt so moved to be so completely unsanitary.
Five minutes later, I am brushing my teeth while still seated on the toilet.
While sulla toletta.
Hello, Italy. I have arrived.
XOXO
The All-American Nomad's College Life, Excerpt 7:
"Monsters"
Never speak ill of the dead.
Raised by a recovering Roman Catholic father, I have spent my life conditioned to forget the past downfalls of the deceased as he does—the caustic-tempered friend who committed suicide, his domineering mother—they become figurative angels in death.
My own forgiveness haunts me like a particularly hard-to-ignore ghost. Once upon a time, in boredom, in fascination, in extreme attraction, I got involved with a guy who introduced me to some of the more esoteric aspects of life. It was fun, for a time; we had a good run. But gradually, the longer I stayed, the more I got to see that the things I loved about him—his extreme honesty, his constant search for fun, his reliability to be there when needed—also were the things that showcased his downfalls. His alert blue eyes sunk into hollows surrounded by flesh so purple and tired-looking it appeared as if he’s been punched by someone with particularly large fists in both eyes. The leg next to mine jumped and twitched, just like his fingers. Calls would go missed, be returned later, after it wasn’t important anymore.
I started out very naive, and turned jaded quick. One day, I looked at him and realized I had no idea who he was anymore. I came back from a vacation to find him gaunt and tired and morose. I started turning away as soon as I saw the straight-edge and straw come out, not even waiting anymore for the moment when he bent over the table. I wanted to close my ears from the sound of that strange, wet snuffling.
Not one who should be pointing fingers or condemning anyone, but I hated it. I hated the subversive behavior that always kept my heart pounding a mile a minute; once the thing I loved most. I hated the red rawness that appeared around his nostrils; the gray sheen of his skin; the sweat. I hated not being able to get in touch with him, either physically or mentally. I signed myself on board thinking one man was captain, only to find out it was a completely different other. One, I loved. The other, I despised. The problem was, any given day, I didn’t know who would show up for active duty. If today was a day I could depend on someone else, or if I would be running to catch up with the show, picking up the broken pieces and trying to stick them back on before it was noticed.
To this day, say the word “coke” to me and watch closely what happens in my eyes. It’s a purely visceral reaction, one unlike most others I haven’t yet been able to master. Maybe it’s one of my truest reactions. Watch them snap wide with one blink, distrust and hatred appearing right before the lids meet, gone when they open again. Say “coke,” and I am as sure I will lose you as I lost the him I adored.
Me, who can’t remember the majority of a solid year of her life, lost to smoke, who slept amongst the empty bottles in high school, I know too well the siren call some things can have. I trace out lines between the substances—ok, understandable, uncomfortable, definitely not ok, I’m leaving right now—and wonder what sense, if any, these delineations make. My reasoning surely makes no sense—opium destroyed the entire Chinese Imperial world, and yet, because it comes from a flower grown in my own flower beds at home, I am tempted to give it an “understandable” when I should be saying “Get it the fuck away.” Chemicals I don’t trust—anything made by man therefore has our immense margin for error. I don’t panic if it’s organic, but at the same time, I’ve learned I can live without it just fine if need be. Or maybe that’s a lie. Maybe right now, clean overseas for a month, I want that back in my head and my bloodstream, the little floaters of “everything’s gonna be alright.”
In the end, I try to reconcile the good times with the not-so-good, and realize just like human error, human need is not infallible. In the end, I realize we all need a little bit of escapism and mental adventure. We all have some less-than-stellar habits. It does not define who you are, as some might think, but it does color your character and how people remember you.
For me, I still cannot speak ill of the dead, but I can speak ill of the powder-white nightmare that follows it. I still remember vividly the nightmares I would have—finding the twisted captain tucked away somewhere in my house, a monster in disguise of someone I loved and trusted, cooking things up in my own oven, chasing me into corners, forcing me to fight back. I would wake up crying, moved to tears by the images in my mind of burying my balled-up fists into that familiar and beloved form, again and again and again, listening to his yells. When I jumped ship, it took awhile, but they stopped. I found myself in the calm between storms. I took time. I mourned. I thought long and hard about where and how I can judge, or if I should even judge at all. I made peace, or so, I thought.
Two months ago, the nightmare came back again. All it took was that one word, and I woke with a start in the night, from a dream in which your dual twin appeared, gaunt, all the charm and comfort gone. Twisted, nasty, snarling at me with need I couldn’t relieve—I relived the nightmares, in a new form.
That night, I couldn’t fall back asleep, even though I could look over and see that it wasn’t true, at least for now. I lay in the partial darkness of the room, waiting for the monster to slide under the door, burrow deep in your nasal passages, take hold, and destroy again. I expected to see it raise its ugly head before my eyes, right then and there, summoned by its name like a demon. I didn’t dare try drifting off again, for fear of returning to the dream and waking you, sobbing and racking my body in my sleep. I wrestled with my demons until dawn.
You slept on. I sent a plea up to that particular angel.
XOXO
Never speak ill of the dead.
Raised by a recovering Roman Catholic father, I have spent my life conditioned to forget the past downfalls of the deceased as he does—the caustic-tempered friend who committed suicide, his domineering mother—they become figurative angels in death.
My own forgiveness haunts me like a particularly hard-to-ignore ghost. Once upon a time, in boredom, in fascination, in extreme attraction, I got involved with a guy who introduced me to some of the more esoteric aspects of life. It was fun, for a time; we had a good run. But gradually, the longer I stayed, the more I got to see that the things I loved about him—his extreme honesty, his constant search for fun, his reliability to be there when needed—also were the things that showcased his downfalls. His alert blue eyes sunk into hollows surrounded by flesh so purple and tired-looking it appeared as if he’s been punched by someone with particularly large fists in both eyes. The leg next to mine jumped and twitched, just like his fingers. Calls would go missed, be returned later, after it wasn’t important anymore.
I started out very naive, and turned jaded quick. One day, I looked at him and realized I had no idea who he was anymore. I came back from a vacation to find him gaunt and tired and morose. I started turning away as soon as I saw the straight-edge and straw come out, not even waiting anymore for the moment when he bent over the table. I wanted to close my ears from the sound of that strange, wet snuffling.
Not one who should be pointing fingers or condemning anyone, but I hated it. I hated the subversive behavior that always kept my heart pounding a mile a minute; once the thing I loved most. I hated the red rawness that appeared around his nostrils; the gray sheen of his skin; the sweat. I hated not being able to get in touch with him, either physically or mentally. I signed myself on board thinking one man was captain, only to find out it was a completely different other. One, I loved. The other, I despised. The problem was, any given day, I didn’t know who would show up for active duty. If today was a day I could depend on someone else, or if I would be running to catch up with the show, picking up the broken pieces and trying to stick them back on before it was noticed.
To this day, say the word “coke” to me and watch closely what happens in my eyes. It’s a purely visceral reaction, one unlike most others I haven’t yet been able to master. Maybe it’s one of my truest reactions. Watch them snap wide with one blink, distrust and hatred appearing right before the lids meet, gone when they open again. Say “coke,” and I am as sure I will lose you as I lost the him I adored.
Me, who can’t remember the majority of a solid year of her life, lost to smoke, who slept amongst the empty bottles in high school, I know too well the siren call some things can have. I trace out lines between the substances—ok, understandable, uncomfortable, definitely not ok, I’m leaving right now—and wonder what sense, if any, these delineations make. My reasoning surely makes no sense—opium destroyed the entire Chinese Imperial world, and yet, because it comes from a flower grown in my own flower beds at home, I am tempted to give it an “understandable” when I should be saying “Get it the fuck away.” Chemicals I don’t trust—anything made by man therefore has our immense margin for error. I don’t panic if it’s organic, but at the same time, I’ve learned I can live without it just fine if need be. Or maybe that’s a lie. Maybe right now, clean overseas for a month, I want that back in my head and my bloodstream, the little floaters of “everything’s gonna be alright.”
In the end, I try to reconcile the good times with the not-so-good, and realize just like human error, human need is not infallible. In the end, I realize we all need a little bit of escapism and mental adventure. We all have some less-than-stellar habits. It does not define who you are, as some might think, but it does color your character and how people remember you.
For me, I still cannot speak ill of the dead, but I can speak ill of the powder-white nightmare that follows it. I still remember vividly the nightmares I would have—finding the twisted captain tucked away somewhere in my house, a monster in disguise of someone I loved and trusted, cooking things up in my own oven, chasing me into corners, forcing me to fight back. I would wake up crying, moved to tears by the images in my mind of burying my balled-up fists into that familiar and beloved form, again and again and again, listening to his yells. When I jumped ship, it took awhile, but they stopped. I found myself in the calm between storms. I took time. I mourned. I thought long and hard about where and how I can judge, or if I should even judge at all. I made peace, or so, I thought.
Two months ago, the nightmare came back again. All it took was that one word, and I woke with a start in the night, from a dream in which your dual twin appeared, gaunt, all the charm and comfort gone. Twisted, nasty, snarling at me with need I couldn’t relieve—I relived the nightmares, in a new form.
That night, I couldn’t fall back asleep, even though I could look over and see that it wasn’t true, at least for now. I lay in the partial darkness of the room, waiting for the monster to slide under the door, burrow deep in your nasal passages, take hold, and destroy again. I expected to see it raise its ugly head before my eyes, right then and there, summoned by its name like a demon. I didn’t dare try drifting off again, for fear of returning to the dream and waking you, sobbing and racking my body in my sleep. I wrestled with my demons until dawn.
You slept on. I sent a plea up to that particular angel.
XOXO
The All-American Nomad's College Life, Excerpt 6:
"Dick" Addicted. A-d-d-i-c-t-e-d. Note the sound that when said aloud clearly states “dick.” Because that’s what’s happening. You’re getting fucked. Hard.
I’ve pulled my jeans on, cuffed the bottoms, slid into my Uggs, fished my gloves and lighter out of my purse, and just barely wrapped my insistently questing fingers around the small cardboard box before my mind can catch up and put two-and-two together and register what’s happening. One moment, lying in bed, reading a mindlessly good escapist novel, snug and warm. The next, slammed by a want—no, a need—that has me moving faster and more surely than love, or money, or fear or any combination cocktail of the three has ever made me move before.
I sit down on the edge of the bed, hard. Two months from now, April 1st, will mark my two-year anniversary as a smoker. A year and half smoking Djarum Black cloves exclusively, and no overwhelming wants or needs. A casual smoker, as casual as a casual lover. A few times a week. I liked the process more than the end result, the inhaling and exhaling. Two months smoking these fucking, godforsaken, piece-of-shit, nasty-ass Camel Lights, and I’m reaching for the box like an expiring narc-fiend. I’m on the balcony with them every night like an illicit tryst, rain, cold, or clear skies. I’m spending 20 of them like I spend 20 dollars—quickly and with ruthless efficiency. On the way to classes. In the morning with my espresso, one bitter complimenting and cancelling the other. With a glass of wine before, after, or even during dinner. If I got for a walk, they’re in my pocket alongside my cell phone, which I would rather bear losing.
Mingling with the incessant and growing need is another emotion—disgust. Self-loathing. I, unlike some, am not too proud to admit my shortcomings as I momentarily contemplate quitting, and meet self-resistance to the thought and the realization that I can’t.
Chimney. Ashtray. Butt-stubber. Ash-flicker. Grinding filter between shoe sole and sidewalk. Leaving a trail of discarded stubs like a perverse Gretel. Filling the same lungs that fought with me for the first nine years of my life, already inherently weak. Go ahead. Hurt them more.
Like I said a mere month ago, and not in any sort of self-servingly pretentious or morbid deliciously snarky way, smoking is slowly committing suicide, one cigarette at a time.
Addict. I am a victim of myself. Dicked. Deep.
I resign myself, right now, right at this very second, that the day I hold my graduate school diploma and master’s degree in hand will be the day I enroll myself in a quitting program, flush the remainder of the pack, and invest in some Nicotine patches.
For now, though, I reach back over for the hastily discarded pack and count. Three left. Thank god I bought a new pack this afternoon.
XOXO
Saturday, February 6, 2010
The All-American Nomad's College Life, Excerpt 5:
“Constant Constellations” I walk out onto the balcony of my brand-new Florentine apartment, glass of chardonnay in hand from buying my first bottle of wine today (€2.89, .75 liter bottle, so don’t get too excited), sit down, and look up, toward where I know the almost full moon will be. The first thing I see, instead, is the constellation Orion.
I.) I was worried I wouldn’t be able to see the stars in the city.
V.) The wine, cheap and sweet or not, is good. I, a solid beer and liquor drinker at home, have not met a glass of wine I don’t like in Italy yet.
C.) I thought, as I flew through the starless night on the plane over here, that the nearly 7,000 mile difference between the U.S and Italy would render the night skies totally different, and I would find I wasn’t even looking at the same stars as you anymore.
N.) Cassiopeia will always be my favorite constellation. But Orion has become my touchstone.
I place a wish on the three jewels on Orion’s belt. When the sun sets, I hope the night sky is clear enough that you can look up and find them.
XOXO
The All-American Nomad's College Life, Excerpt 4:
“The Things I Left Behind”
I found you; you found me. A stumble, a class, a drink, a show, and we were “we,” like pick-up sticks or a puzzle. Autonomous, but together; some nights, some days.
Thinking hard, racking my brain for dropped clues and scattered memories, I can’t remember how I got here, speeding away at precisely 535 miles per hour, 37,000 feet above the sea. I am confused and petulant and scared. I want to still be feeling new with you, waking up in your bed, looking at Orion triumphing over the night sky through your bedroom window, breathing in the smell of you sleeping, very different than how you smell when you’re awake, more powdery with sleep-dust and dreams yet still pungent of man; a smell so specific and so arresting that once a hint of just a note of it could stop me dead in my tracks on the cobblestones of Church Street. A smell I could pick up like a bloodhound, even in a crowd, even when you’re not around. Your pheromones speak to me in an ancient tongue of attraction, and I understand it fluently.
Thank you for letting me go. I need to find a "me" before I find a "we."
XOXO
I found you; you found me. A stumble, a class, a drink, a show, and we were “we,” like pick-up sticks or a puzzle. Autonomous, but together; some nights, some days.
Thinking hard, racking my brain for dropped clues and scattered memories, I can’t remember how I got here, speeding away at precisely 535 miles per hour, 37,000 feet above the sea. I am confused and petulant and scared. I want to still be feeling new with you, waking up in your bed, looking at Orion triumphing over the night sky through your bedroom window, breathing in the smell of you sleeping, very different than how you smell when you’re awake, more powdery with sleep-dust and dreams yet still pungent of man; a smell so specific and so arresting that once a hint of just a note of it could stop me dead in my tracks on the cobblestones of Church Street. A smell I could pick up like a bloodhound, even in a crowd, even when you’re not around. Your pheromones speak to me in an ancient tongue of attraction, and I understand it fluently.
Thank you for letting me go. I need to find a "me" before I find a "we."
XOXO
The All-American Nomad's College Life, Excerpt 3:
“Lessons In Italian Living, Day Two: Eat Before You Drink.”
After walking around town all day, having digested nothing but the Florentine dust blown by the high winter winds around the Duomo since my small, very European breakfast of a croissant and half a peach saturated in its own liquid, I find I have drunk my glass of chardonnay at dinner before eating a little too quickly. I am a little too warm. A little too blurry. A little too quick to divulge. A little too excited with life, and a little too charmed with the hole-in-the-wall Robin and I managed to locate after walking a few half-circles in lower Florence, my Rick Steves’ guidebook held out in front of me like the Holy Grail. Written in Hebrew, of course. Because that little hand-drawn map is just as readable to me as Cyrillic symbols.
I am, in other words, “tipsy,” or, because it describes how I feel much better without the connotations of the giggling girls tipping over in hallways and I am not quite there yet, “light-headed.” (And so you know, I do not get “drunk”—plastering myself on other people, with an uncontrollably modulating voice, easily convinced to do stupid shit; I get “tipsy”—giggling and swaying in hallways and on sofas. Modulating voice and stupid shit I am convinced into perfectly sober.)
Anyway. The waiter asks for our orders. I’m pretty sure I butcher every word after “penne.” I ingest roughly a pound of pasta in chipped meat and cream sauce. Not feeling the pressure of tipping like we do in America, I leave a Euro for our abrupt yet serviceable waiter. I am happier about this Italian custom of non-tipping more than I’d care to admit. With my mathematical skills and hypersensitive apathy, leaving a tip is always the point in a meal that I hem and haw and feel guilty—not when I’m ordering. I imagine the waiter or waitresses’ children. The car that needs to be repaired. The college loans that have just started to come monthly calling. The electricity bill. What it would be like if it were me; how much I’d want someone to pay for my work. What my friends who wait have to deal with—the rude customers, orders in the middle of nowhere, and 17-cent tips. In other words, if you wait tables, you want me as your patron. I am a helplessly conscious push-over.
After, we back-track toward the Uffizi to find a proper gelato shop—one that puts real fruit in their window displays of the creamy, decadent treat—and I smoke my second cigarettes and eat my first gelato in Italy. Tiramisu-flavored. The cone is better than in America. I decide to say, fuck my state of affairs— chardonnay, smoke, and gelato go perfectly together.
XOXO
After walking around town all day, having digested nothing but the Florentine dust blown by the high winter winds around the Duomo since my small, very European breakfast of a croissant and half a peach saturated in its own liquid, I find I have drunk my glass of chardonnay at dinner before eating a little too quickly. I am a little too warm. A little too blurry. A little too quick to divulge. A little too excited with life, and a little too charmed with the hole-in-the-wall Robin and I managed to locate after walking a few half-circles in lower Florence, my Rick Steves’ guidebook held out in front of me like the Holy Grail. Written in Hebrew, of course. Because that little hand-drawn map is just as readable to me as Cyrillic symbols.
I am, in other words, “tipsy,” or, because it describes how I feel much better without the connotations of the giggling girls tipping over in hallways and I am not quite there yet, “light-headed.” (And so you know, I do not get “drunk”—plastering myself on other people, with an uncontrollably modulating voice, easily convinced to do stupid shit; I get “tipsy”—giggling and swaying in hallways and on sofas. Modulating voice and stupid shit I am convinced into perfectly sober.)
Anyway. The waiter asks for our orders. I’m pretty sure I butcher every word after “penne.” I ingest roughly a pound of pasta in chipped meat and cream sauce. Not feeling the pressure of tipping like we do in America, I leave a Euro for our abrupt yet serviceable waiter. I am happier about this Italian custom of non-tipping more than I’d care to admit. With my mathematical skills and hypersensitive apathy, leaving a tip is always the point in a meal that I hem and haw and feel guilty—not when I’m ordering. I imagine the waiter or waitresses’ children. The car that needs to be repaired. The college loans that have just started to come monthly calling. The electricity bill. What it would be like if it were me; how much I’d want someone to pay for my work. What my friends who wait have to deal with—the rude customers, orders in the middle of nowhere, and 17-cent tips. In other words, if you wait tables, you want me as your patron. I am a helplessly conscious push-over.
After, we back-track toward the Uffizi to find a proper gelato shop—one that puts real fruit in their window displays of the creamy, decadent treat—and I smoke my second cigarettes and eat my first gelato in Italy. Tiramisu-flavored. The cone is better than in America. I decide to say, fuck my state of affairs— chardonnay, smoke, and gelato go perfectly together.
XOXO
Monday, February 1, 2010
The All-American Nomad's College Life, Excerpt 2:
“Flight Of The Midnight Sun”
Somewhere around St. John Island past Labrador and before Greenland, I realize I had absolutely no idea what I am doing.
My seat-mate thinks I am a professional snowboarder for Burton due to my 2007 U.S Snowboarding Open backpack, a spectator’s souvenir which cost me $50.
“So, you’re travelling when you’re not in the Olympics?” he asks me.
I realize I could be whoever I want to be, if just for this eight-hour flight next to this total and totally inquisitive stranger. I could be an Olympic snowboarder. I could be run-away Russian royalty. I could be…
I notice his heavy platinum wedding band. I suddenly want to ask about his wife. He’s young—where did they meet? How long have they been married? Does she mind being away from him when he does his traveling? Does he mind being away from her? And most importantly, how did he know she was the one when he met her? How do you know? This is the question I want to ask everyone.
A glint catches my eye as I write this from the fourth finger on my left hand. I wonder how many people want to ask me the same question, not realizing that I am a farce; a sham; a lost pretender, no closer than they are to the answer.
I can be anyone I want to be for this trip. For this flight, I am married and have all the answers, along with an illustrious snowboarding career.
XOXO
Somewhere around St. John Island past Labrador and before Greenland, I realize I had absolutely no idea what I am doing.
My seat-mate thinks I am a professional snowboarder for Burton due to my 2007 U.S Snowboarding Open backpack, a spectator’s souvenir which cost me $50.
“So, you’re travelling when you’re not in the Olympics?” he asks me.
I realize I could be whoever I want to be, if just for this eight-hour flight next to this total and totally inquisitive stranger. I could be an Olympic snowboarder. I could be run-away Russian royalty. I could be…
I notice his heavy platinum wedding band. I suddenly want to ask about his wife. He’s young—where did they meet? How long have they been married? Does she mind being away from him when he does his traveling? Does he mind being away from her? And most importantly, how did he know she was the one when he met her? How do you know? This is the question I want to ask everyone.
A glint catches my eye as I write this from the fourth finger on my left hand. I wonder how many people want to ask me the same question, not realizing that I am a farce; a sham; a lost pretender, no closer than they are to the answer.
I can be anyone I want to be for this trip. For this flight, I am married and have all the answers, along with an illustrious snowboarding career.
XOXO
The All-American Nomad's College Life, Excerpt 1:
“Italy Enters WWIII”
She turns to my first Consulate Official Paper-Pusher and lets loose a stream of biting Italian. I am lost in translation, but as voices raise and speed of speech progresses forward with the volatile projection of a fatal wreck, out-of-control, waiting to happen, I don’t need to parlo Italiano to know what’s up. I have single-handedly started WWIII in Boston’s Italian General Consulate, just because I wanted some clarification. I get my first taste of what it will be like to be in Italy and causing a bumbling American, non-lingual ruckus. I am appalled.
Italian Dragon Lady leaves the cubicle behind the glass. I can only assume she is going to go breathe fire onto some helpless puppies to let off her steam. My first Paper-Pusher beckons me up to the window. Being someone who, as much as she tries to, seemingly can’t stay out of mischief for any even half-way reasonable amount of time , I know where this is going. He’s wearing the same look my parents, teachers, friends, co-workers, boyfriends, sales associates, police officers, taxi drivers, pedestrians, bank tellers, and road crew workers have all worn at one point in time when dealing with me—a cross between thundercloud eyebrows and a mouth that ends in a downward twist. “I’m stressed enough without her yelling at me,” he tells me. Ah, the animosity of co-workers. “You’re getting your visa now. It’s printing. Why are you causing trouble?”
I want to tell him that if I knew the answer to that question, my life would be far simpler, though not nearly as pandemoniously exciting.
Instead, I profusely apologize. It seems like the better thing to say than “Sir, I honestly could not tell you. And, if I did have the faintest idea why life seems so intent on throwing me into the most bizarre and quizzically backward situations, including numerous moments like this when I want to look at someone and say, ‘I cannot read your mind—just fucking tell me up-front what is happening and stop bullshitting around in half-sentences,’ in the least rude way possible, I certainly would not be making my, or more importantly, YOUR life any more difficult and obviously painfully trying than it already is. Do you think I actually LIKE being That Unholy Ruckus Girl?”
So I apologize. He waves me away with an extremely disassociated and imperious Italian wave of his hand. I take my seat again, feeling verbally and emotionally spanked senseless and raw.
XOXO
She turns to my first Consulate Official Paper-Pusher and lets loose a stream of biting Italian. I am lost in translation, but as voices raise and speed of speech progresses forward with the volatile projection of a fatal wreck, out-of-control, waiting to happen, I don’t need to parlo Italiano to know what’s up. I have single-handedly started WWIII in Boston’s Italian General Consulate, just because I wanted some clarification. I get my first taste of what it will be like to be in Italy and causing a bumbling American, non-lingual ruckus. I am appalled.
Italian Dragon Lady leaves the cubicle behind the glass. I can only assume she is going to go breathe fire onto some helpless puppies to let off her steam. My first Paper-Pusher beckons me up to the window. Being someone who, as much as she tries to, seemingly can’t stay out of mischief for any even half-way reasonable amount of time , I know where this is going. He’s wearing the same look my parents, teachers, friends, co-workers, boyfriends, sales associates, police officers, taxi drivers, pedestrians, bank tellers, and road crew workers have all worn at one point in time when dealing with me—a cross between thundercloud eyebrows and a mouth that ends in a downward twist. “I’m stressed enough without her yelling at me,” he tells me. Ah, the animosity of co-workers. “You’re getting your visa now. It’s printing. Why are you causing trouble?”
I want to tell him that if I knew the answer to that question, my life would be far simpler, though not nearly as pandemoniously exciting.
Instead, I profusely apologize. It seems like the better thing to say than “Sir, I honestly could not tell you. And, if I did have the faintest idea why life seems so intent on throwing me into the most bizarre and quizzically backward situations, including numerous moments like this when I want to look at someone and say, ‘I cannot read your mind—just fucking tell me up-front what is happening and stop bullshitting around in half-sentences,’ in the least rude way possible, I certainly would not be making my, or more importantly, YOUR life any more difficult and obviously painfully trying than it already is. Do you think I actually LIKE being That Unholy Ruckus Girl?”
So I apologize. He waves me away with an extremely disassociated and imperious Italian wave of his hand. I take my seat again, feeling verbally and emotionally spanked senseless and raw.
XOXO
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