Coup de Grâce

There is a god, and he's been laying in waiting for me in Independence.

It would have been too easy to kill me on the flight to Kansas City, but that didn't stop him from at least letting the plane unexpectedly drop for three seconds, some of the longest three seconds of my life, time enough for me to have full view from my aisle seat of one of the flight attendants drop down into a crouch reminiscent of a "duck and cover" video. My copy of The Economist slide off of my tray table and on to the floor, but I was too busy clutching the edge of my seat, bracing myself in a maneuver that could be the basis for an existentialist joke: you can cling all you want to your seat and your life, but it's not going to stop that metal coffin from dropping. Even after the plane balanced out, I kept my hands in the same place, not picking up my magazine, not moving a single tensed muscle for 20 minutes, only listening to the too-loud, tinny laughter of the passengers who cope through sublimating their fears. When I removed them - once we were safely braced against the ground - the leather was shiny black from sweat.

No, it's always the slow route with me, the Catherine wheel and not the guillotine. Which is why I here, going through the motions of a religion that has mostly done me irreperable harm, clamping my mouth shut when my grandmother repeatedly asks about the effeminate guy on Glee if "we're sure he's a boy" or when she calls Obama a "dumb man from Illinois who has half the country looking for work," and diverting my eyes around a callendar that praises women for being the great self-sacrificers behind all good men. Tonight I get to answer the same prying questions about my love life, which finally exists again but which I get to mask with my usual dry spell responses: "i'm just so busy with school," "I've got a lot of great friends but no one special," and, new for 2009, "well, I didn't want to get into something before I left for Europe." And everyone will look at me disdainfully when I feign almost bashful repentence for my lack of interest in KU sports. I'll hold my breath all Christmas, but no one will rush me a stay of execution, and no one, not even I, will be brave enough, or know enough, to bestow a coup de grâce.

Tiger

Consider this: what if Tiger Woods was in an open relationship with his wife, and now she's taking the financial opportunity the media has now created for her (and somewhat insists that she takes)?

We're doing two things wrong here: assuming we understand the inner workings of someone's personal life, and expecting celebrities, who are in a unique difficulties - they're under unusual pressure and offered unusual opportunities - to be role models. Even if this is legit infidelity, being able to hit a ball in a hole never qualified Tiger Woods to be an amazing person; we should never have expected him to be, even without the unusual complications of super-celebrity.

(sorry this is old news, but after being bombarded with tiger "news" since I got here...)

Addendum: Okay, just kidding. Further information leads to the conclusion that he's a sleazy dirtbag.

Fourth Thanksgiving

Tomorrow my parents and I are making up for me skipping thanksgiving by basically cooking all the carb-centered dishes, since those are all really all that matter/don't involve hours of dismembering/basting/tryptophan-induced sleeping. Things I am currently thankful for:
- A bed that does not screech when I get in it, comforters, comfort in general
- Umbilical cord -free internet.
- A sex-sized shower, primary (only) used for its secondary function of leg-shaving accommodation. Also one that doesn't run out of hot water in 4-6 minutes.
- Netflix! Hulu! NBC.COM! Basically, videos being licensed for the country I'm in.
- Margaritas. My parents willingness to make me cocktails.
- Time to read books, write in them, actually enjoy them (maybe after I've recovered from compact western civ trauma, I might go back and read some philosophy)

Things I could really see more of:
- Well-dressed men, additionally with a facial piercing, particularly nose studs.
- Really, well-dressed everyone, including me.
- Paris-style temperatures.
- Publictransportation/art&architecture/fastyetqualityfood etc.

Things I could probably see less of:
- Sports, constantly on our TV.
- Cute viral videos catered to the daytime talkshow watching demographic.
- Mail, on every surface in my parents house, that proves the law of superposition via checking magazine dates.
- Movies censored for language.
(Side rant: I would argue that turning the Penis Game in "500 Days of Summer" into the "Pandas" Game is significantly more offensive - also, I'm sorry, but does artistic license and maintaining the integrity of characters not matter at all? If you're going to be offended by 20/30-somethings talking about blowjobs & "other jobs" shouldn't you be watching a Reese Witherspoon movie? That's not Cruel Intentions?)

In summary: good to be home, wish home was europe.

Storytelling

Finals now; blogging commitment resumes when crazy subsides.

15

Remember three months ago when I thought it was a great idea to pack 15 pieces of clothing?

Everything smells like dust and sweat, covered in the same grey lint from my cardigan sweater, half stretched and worn out of recognition. My two white shirts are casualties of the wonders of italian washing machines. I've almost completely worn through my black flats, and the heels on my brown ones are splintering. My tights all have tracks.

I miss reality.

Practical/Prático/Pratique/Pratico Language

When I was in third grade I got into an argument with my teacher about why we should learn French instead of Spanish. My position was simple and straightforward: I liked France. France, particularly its language, had been a large part of my upbringing: my mother, despite not being a native speaker, taught me the alphabet and numbers in both languages and lulled me to sleep with “Frere Jacques” as often as “Rock-a-bye Baby.” On the weekends she would brush up her French watching PBS’s “French in Action,” and I dreamt about one day going to the places shown in the show’s opening, especially the water garden outside of the Pompidou with “the lips.” To my nine-year-old self, learning Spanish merely meant being able to order at a Mexican restaurant in a different language, which I was too shy to do anyway. No one I was friends with spoke Spanish, and at the time product labels and billboards didn’t show up in both language; Spanish just didn’t play into my everyday life.

My teacher’s argument was pretty simple, too. She rolled down the world map, pointed to the two countries, Mexico and France, and then pointed to us. “Which country is closer?” she said testily. I scowled at Texas for betraying me, its borders cozied right up to millions of people who hablaron español. France was just too far away to be useful, end of discussion.

+++

Language is perhaps the one cultural marker that has to answer to practicality. Traditions like Fourth of July fireworks expend significant resources in a literal flash, food culture has just recently truly begun to have to answer to its environmental and health effects, and few people look at Michelangelo’s David and say, “Sure, that’s pretty, but think of all the kitchen countertops they could have made.” Language, however, is both inherently cultural and inherently practical. It expresses unique nuances about a culture and what it holds important, such as German’s schaudenfreude or the Inuit’s multiple words for snow. Language conducts culture as well, the means through which oral and written traditions of a people are passed on from generation to generation. It holds a people together and sets them apart – which, of course, is problematic when you want to unify people cross-culturally into a supranational organization. Europe’s 32 official languages express a unique cultural diversity, but presents difficult challenges when trying to communicate messages between nations. I have enough trouble each morning communicating to the cashier at the café which pastry I want, and that interaction only involves two languages and basic vocabulary – I can’t imagine trying to ratify a treaty in a council with ten or twenty languages represented. Clearly the proposed strategy of adopting one to three languages of “wider communication” is significantly more practical. But so are marble kitchen countertops.

+++

Years after I realized my dream of seeing the mechanical lips of the Pompidou water garden, I opted to study Italian to fulfill my foreign language requirement during college. While I was never the most talented or dedicated Italian student, I did take enough away from my two years of study to order a panino or ask the price of a pair of boots. While everyone around me on the transatlantic flight watched romantic comedies and slept, I stayed up cramming vocabulary and verb ending back into my brain. This was more important and more real than any exam.

Once we’d dropped our bags off at our new apartment, my fellow jetlagged expatriates and I wandered down to the corner café for some much needed coffee. How to order un caffé is the one of the first things KU's Italian program teaches you how to do, and thus I was more than ready, warming my tongue up for the rolled r’s of vorrei like a runner stretching her hamstrings before a 50-meter sprint. I wanted to start this trip off with a quick, easy boost to my Italian speaking confidence, but as each of my roommates ordered with not even an Italian “grazie,” I realized all my training was for naught. The barista took their requests in stride and stated how much money they owed in crisp, practiced English. I ordered my caffé in Italian nonetheless, but the luster of my unique knowledge had disappeared with each familiar English word.

The EU may not need to bother with selecting languages of “wider communication,” for the European people seem to have chosen them for themselves, although it’s clearly a coerced decision. English may be the language of 80% of data storage, but more importantly it is the language of popular media – just try to escape the dulcet tones of Lady Gaga, or flip through TV channels and see how few “foreign” films you catch. And within city centers and other popular travel destinations, English is the language of multitude of tourists. The English language is no longer merely a tool to cater to those from English-speaking countries – it is truly a language of wider communication between peoples from around the globe. One afternoon I caught two people with two different native tongues awkwardly discuss directions on a street corner, cobbling together an understanding from the English they both knew.

Despite my 3^rd grade teacher’s strong argument for learning Spanish, my argument against it was just as practical: no one I knew spoke it, so why should I? The same attitude represents the future of the “languages of intimacy,” the unfortunate tongues not chosen for wider communication: eventually everyone will speak the larger languages, and once everyone you know speaks one language, why even bother with a second language of limited use?

Right now, Europeans still generally hold firm to their mother tongues, be even so, it’s undeniable that English is creeping in. When my mother first visited Paris 25 years ago it was virtually impossible to get around without some proficiency in French; by the time I started making trips to Europe with my parents 15 years later, I could easily get by with some hand gestures and a smile, if not plain English. Perhaps linguistic diversity is just another thing of beauty that will disappear from our cultural landscape, hunted into extinction like giant kangaroos and wooly mammoths. But even as we hold language to a higher standard of practicality, maybe we will respect it in a way society has found easy to do with less practical cultural markers: as valuable in and of itself, and worth the trouble no matter the cost.

Bonne Nouvelle to Strasbourg - St. Denis

A guy and a girl get on the train and sit directly across from each other. They enter with just enough distance between them and they're dressed so different - she in a bright red peacoat, large loose-knit black scarf that swallows her neck and shoulders, her hair pulled back in a bun with casual elegance so that just the right tendrils curl around her face; he in an oversized long grey coat, the kind that looks like and doubles as a sleeping bag if you're homeless, and gaunt cheeks to match - that they could be separate parties.

She gives him only a glancing look, one that you give any guy who stares are unwanted. It's only when he reaches his feet over and embraces one of hers that it's clear they're together. She doesn't look up from burrowing her face in her scarf, which is strange because even at night without huge crowds of people the metro is still warm. As we roll into the next stop she looks up quickly over her shoulder to the door, and her scarf misses catching one tear, which gleams in the light in an almost unreal, early hollywood black & white soft-around-the-edges close-up fashion.

The train stops and she swiftly runs off, the guy jumping up and quickly following her. They stop out of view, but as the train crawls out of the station I catch a glimpse of him holding her shoulders, crouching down to try to meet her gaze as she continues to hide in her scarf.

Artificial Stressors

Let's just be real, for one second: when I strip away all of the artificial stressors of studying abroad (which, I'm convinced, are put there in order to insure only a rare few expatriate) - the ridiculous group socialization, the hectic, ever-changing schedule, the ridiculous living situations and lack of comfy places to sit - I absolutely love Europe, and see very few reasons not to live here.

The few, of course, are in major conflict with my life goals, but at least they're small in quantity.

Monthly Info

Who says I need a security login screen on my laptop when I can just always leave up the browser window displaying my monthlyinfo.com home page? Assault them with more personal information than they could ever want and you'll never have to worry about prying eyes ever again.

Two Suggestions Regarding Absinthe

Way to get back on the good side of your study abroad group: produce your gambler's delight sugar cubes almost instantaneously at the suggestion of absinthe shots, then bravely be the first to light your green-soaked club-shaped cube on fire and plunge it into your shot.

Way to confirm your status as fucking weirdo outcast amongst your trip-mates: while all eyes are on you, proceed to drool all over yourself because you can't get the half-melted sugar cube and its accompanying taste of drain cleaner out of your mouth fast enough.

Good times!

Tri-Color Rotini

The plain colored ones taste plain! But the green ones really taste like spinach! And the orange ones taste like something veggie related as well! Ahh, France! Never full of fakers.

This Morning

Oh look! The sun is out! The sky is blue! Everything is beautiful and gorgeous (but probably still cold) in Paris!

Cough-cough-hack-cough-hack-sneeze-groan.

I'm not even kidding. I woke up this morning and it was like my own body was strangling me. Like I had stuffed pillows of snot down my throat to suffocate myself. I can't believe the only thing that went awry last night was throwing Chocolat off the top bunk. I should be sudden-undergrad-death-syndromed. Except I think that means alcohol poisoning, right?

I dragged myself out of bed anyway because today is the only day the entire week that is not suppose to be completely miserable, and cheered myself up with some Rainy-Day Paris Gambler's Dream Chai:

Sugar cubes in the shape of card suit symbols! As if I needed reason to back the extreme amount of sugar I put in my chai. No suit left behind.

So, listening to some Simon & Garfunkel, drinking my chai, feeling pretty good about the day and then bam! - I cough up a fully-formed, solid booger. Out of my mouth. Which flies onto my computer screen and just plants itself there like a willful, petulant little tike refusing to put on its shoes.

I just gagged, on the ridiculousness of it all. And then my roommate came in and cheerfully suggested I get some allergy medicine, as if I knew more French than "les filles courent." Is that even right?

P.S. Do you like how I just escalated this story to completely disgusting? Because I'm so frustrated right now. Sidenote: remember when blogging use to get me laid? THOSE DAYS 'RE OVER, BITCH.

Jour... du Jour

Oh, my favorite: being kinda sick but not really sick, but kinda having it around as a good excuse to stay in for the night and drink tea and listen to hours and hours of The Misfits and Of Montreal and Selda. Even if I'm in Europe, I still want a night completely to myself to do nothing but listen to music, which, for some reason, I've been fasting from for no logical reason other than to additionally starve myself of happiness. Yesterday on the Metro I gave up on talking to people and just listened to some Ratatat, and my life suddenly had a lovely glamour to it. Subways are such (somewhat unlikely) romanticized spaces, listening to awesome music and pretending you're shooting a music video is somehow so much better than sitting around spacing out and nodding and laughing at the appropriate parts of a discussion about beer/amsterdam/weirdos on the metro.

Also, my "sickness" is really just a perpetual need to clear my throat. Which is not helping me in the battle against coming off as a judgmental snob, because how can you not seem like a douchebag when you clear your throat before you, say, try to get the attention of someone working at the student center desk. "Ahem - oh, sorry, I didn't mean that 'ahem...' ...uhhh... those are my printouts." Seriously, I'm not trying to be a bitch, I'm trying to express myself in non-mangled sentences.

Other things not helping my war against judging others: listening to my trip mates make fun of disabled beggars, hippies on the metro with pet rats that live in their hoodies.

The latter was pretty hysterical though. Well, until some people continued to freak out about it, and then make fun of them directly behind their backs in the crowded train car. Did you know that if you can't understand anyone because you don't speak French, no one can understand you either? It's like a linguistic asshole cloaking device.

But I'm trying, or something. I'm trying to remove myself from bad situations, I'm trying to do more on my own rather than float along with the group until I start to crack. A couple of days ago we read Descartes, and I've been whispering his third maxim to myself like a mantra, or like a nutcase: Change my desires rather than the order of the world; There is nothing completely within my power except my thoughts.

But maybe it's my serotonin levels I really need to be controlling.

Jour Deux

I feel like the schedule's going to vastly differ from Florence here in Paris. In Florence I spent a lot of time putting off work sleeping (the good ol' depression cure-all) or going out and wandering the city. Overcast Paris, however, screams, or rather dolefully moans "stay inside... especially until you can say at least one word of French." French people speak to you a lot more than Italians do. Especially if it's clear you don't speak French. I like it; it's not necessarily mean, it's resolute and every so slightly defiant. You come to France, you speak our language, which is the way it should be.

Except that I flat out can't speak French, no matter how many times I make Rosetta Stone repeat things slowly. "Une pomme" will never come out of my mouth to its, or any Frenchman/woman's, satisfaction. However, me repeating it, over and over and over, with different emphasis, in my best French impression, slowly, quickly, and finally with absolutely frustration, would probably greatly amuse them. Oh ho ho! Oui oui! Triumph! The silly American girl fails again.

I'm so afraid that I've reached that age where you lose the capacity to form non-native sounds, and just when I've become really interested in fluency in another language. Over the break I met so many people who knew at least one other language, if not several: my Japanese suitemate knew at least Japanese, English, and Italian, the Irish guy I got hot chocolate with studied Irish throughout school and then a foreign language on top of that, and the Croatians were serious polyglots (Ivan knew Croatian, English, French, Italian, and German, and was considering taking an intensive Russian program).

Being monolingual in Europe embarrasses me to no end, even if being bilingual has little more use than as a cool party trick in the U.S. In general I just feel less intelligent in Europe, or that I know less and less valuable things. My Irish friend, Michael, did not mince words at all when he proclaimed the superiority of the European education system. He claimed that a study had shown that a large chunk of American schoolchildren couldn't even point out the U.S. on the map - "They'd point out China, or somewhere else way off." I told him that one time I was asked if the U.S. was in North American or South - and I picked South. "It's still a mortifying memory, but I was really, really young." Michael's face told me I probably should have kept my mouth shut.

Lena tried to argue with me that it's just a difference in culture - being bi- or tri-lingual is just more important in an area of the globe with so much linguistic diversity, but I still can't really buy it. I wasted two years of Italian education to come out of it with barely the ability to converse with a preschooler, when a huge chunk of the global population can speak completely non-native tongues. The first day at the hostel in Dublin I expressed my embarrassment at not being better at Italian to the two Italian girls in our room. One of the girls looked up and said, "It doesn't matter really, you know the most important language," and then went right back to folding clothes. It was just so matter-of-fact, and so shitty.

I don't want to just ride the wave of colonialism and English-dominance. Being born into English shouldn't alleviate my or anyone's responsibility to study languages, especially when traveling in another country. There's nothing that makes English inherently better than any other language, or any decent reason that English should swallow up other language and thus swallow up some of the culture and specific cultural meanings with it. Languages aren't just interchangeable - they express unique nuances about their home culture that go further than just different names for the same objects or actions or feelings. On the street in Dublin I overheard these this American guy talking about his friend who spoke Irish. He explained that his friend thought English was great for discussing everyday things, news, business, etc., but when he wanted to express his feelings or emotion, he always preferred to use Irish. I thought it sounded fabulous and romantic - and like something I'd never experience.

And so, I'll keep at butchering French pronunciation, and brushing up on Italian, if only to prove to myself that I'm not letting English win.

Jour Un

Florence was too small, not necessarily urban enough, and smelled like sulfur. Paris is too big, uninviting, and cold. Dublin was like a warm hug - which I received several of from the million fantastic people I met. Someday I will write more than half an unpublished entry about it.

Our Florence apartment didn't exactly set an amazingly high bar, with its washing machine that trapped a load in, micro-showers, and complete lack of heat during the last week, but compared to the Paris dorms it was like a palace. My roommate and I share a stoic dorm room that came outfitted with exactly three spoons, two of which are gigantic, no bowls, no towels, and not nearly enough bedding for how cold it is. Currently I am considering sleeping in layers and using my towel as a blanket. Also, drinking heavily.

In other news, it's raining, I've got a cold again, the internet sucks, and I wish I were having a more romanticized first full day in Paris, but mostly I just want to get hooked up with a proper comforter, or just blow everything off and go back to Dublin for keeps.

Feet

My feet have never been so dirty, constantly and consistently, as they have been in Europe. I feel like a hobbit.

Yes

Dublin, Dublin, Dublin, I had no idea.

There is no place to start writing from because everything is worth remembering. There is no time to stop and take photos, to pocket lens caps, to not use flash photography, to slow down the shutter speed or even stand still. I am vibrating with excitement and all my photos turn out blurry, and I love them, because that's what it's like, a blur.

After spending so much time in the last month and a half feeling guilty and self conscious for not tuning into the same frequency as the other people I'm traveling with it feels so overwhelmingly satisfying to be able to do exactly what I want completely for myself. Everywhere I go, I can't help but smile. It's so great not to have to practice looking naturally happy for photos. Even I know how little I smile lately.

But everything's so great. I'm constantly surprised how much I love everything, or maybe I've just forgotten what it's like to be completely happy all the time. I can be friendly, I can be outgoing, I can not be a bitch as long as I don't feel like a cornered animal, as long as I don't feel bad for wanting to be alone and be independent and learn and live.

More specifics later. Art! Glorified hitchhiking! Joyce! Dublin! Dublin! My heart is going like mad and yes I say yes I will yes.

Sunglasses

Right now, everything is stress.

I came back from Venice this weekend and everyone was huddled up in blankets and multiple socks. The cold that I didn't pack for had officially hit Florence, and apparently it's illegal in Tuscany to turn on your heat before November 1st. I crawled up into the loft, found the mildewiest comforter, and spent the first part of the week snuggled up to sickness.

This was, of course, on top of midterms. Three days, three tests, one paper. Galileo and Luther. Shivering, sniveling studiousness.

Because internet was 8 euro at the hotel in Venice, and permanently shut off at our apartment (or so we thought), I only really planned out my eleven-day break, which starts tomorrow, at the beginning of this week. When the internet wasn't shut off, my credit card was. I'm sure at some point later in this trip losing 6 euro will really bother me, but I wish my bank would stop protecting me from putting a deposit down for my hostel friday night. Keep me in the sheets, not on the streets, Commerce.

All of my clothes drying out on the on our patio were surprisingly not dry, considering the 100% humidity this morning, and both of my white v-necks had mysterious grey blotches over their lower halves. I'm down literally one half of the shirts I brought. I feel like I'm on the Oregon Trail.

All I can do is wander around the house wearing gigantic turquoise and orange sunglasses to keep myself mildly sane.

Octo-Italia

Long story short: I'm really busy with school and writing an essay about the octopus, which I probably wont even post on here because I'm gonna get that sucker* published. However, expect this post to turn into a photo-essay-but-really-just-photos in a couple of days when I upload my photos and swipe most of Claire's.

*See what I did there?

But really, when I was chopping the legs off the body suctioned itself to the cutting board. WHAT A CREEPER.

WC&H: A Thinly Veiled Intro to Christianity

"Nevertheless, Augustine firmly believes in the humility of his religion, a religion that asks not what we can humble deduce from scientific observation and analysis but rather proudly explores where the limits of blind faith can reach, a religion which has 'tamed him' and 'bridged every valley, leveled every mountain and hill of [his] thoughts' and 'cut straight their windings, paved their rough paths,' or, as I prefer to read it, leveled the topography of what was probably the beautiful landscape of a brilliant mind."

I am so over Western Civ.

Sardinia

Just like girl scout camp, but with 

less s'mores

and more tables full of open beers ready to be topped off with rohypnol and handed out, 

less truth or dare 

and more never have I ever (never have I ever lost never have I ever so quickly), 

less singing songs in rounds,

and more going around the corner of the dodgiest bar in Europe and banging in the bleachers.

But just as always, waking up in a room full of girls, passed out in my clothes with dirt in my hair, ready to go home and be alone.

Quick Trip to the Grocery Store, Vegetable Risotto

1.  Find a simple italian recipe, keeping in mind you have no food processor/blender, forgetting that you have no chopping knife.

2.  Make a grocery list.

3.  Translate entire grocery list into Italian, even if you plan on letting your language skills deteriorate into blubbering the moment anyone tries to converse with you

 beyond one word sentences.

4.  Walk to the open-air market.  On the way, make sure to not take 40-year-old portly truck driver on getting into his truck.  Consider that the reason you wear eye-catching jewelry in the U.S. is the exact same reason you don't want to wear it in Italy.

5.  Wander around aimlessly in awe of how many types of mushrooms there are.

6.  Get increasingly more and more flustered with every interaction, and end up running off in the direction of the supermarket.  Fondly remember the days where you enjoyed grocery shopping and a wider vocabulary than "mi dispiace!"

7.  Stare at the bouillon powders for 15 minutes and realize that even with all of your translations you still have no idea which one to buy because you have not been raise to know what "traditional" broth means.

8.  Be genuinely shocked when the cashier does not pitch a fit when you pay with a $50.

9.  After an hour of shopping, come home and translate recipe from tablespoons and cups into grams and milliliters, only to then guess at all the quantities anyway because there are no measuring utensils in the house, not even a scale.  Follow that by spending an hour and a half "chopping" vegetables with a paring knife.

10.  Drink as much wine directly from the bottle as you pour into the pot, so that once you're done with this whole mess you won't even care what it tastes like.

It looks less appetizing than it actually was.  Thanks for washing out my photo, blahgger!

11.  Feel 100% entitled when your roommates are impressed.  Realize that there probably would have been nothing wrong with just having brioche alla Nutella for dinner.  Again.

Valuable Extracurricular Vocabulary

- Every flavor of gelato (here)

- Skim milk, whole milk, heavy cream, coffee cream, sour cream (which is what my professor almost accidentally put in our coffee)

- "Will you make change for a twenty?" "I'm serious, I don't have any coins." "I'm sorry I gave you 5 cents, I thought it was clear that I didn't have 5 euro so I assumed that you couldn't be asking that." "Isn't it your job as a cashier to give me change?" "Il Centro Supermercato will make change, and they have Tabasco."  Punctuate the end of the discussion with "vafancullo," which roughly translates to the name of any opposing soccer club. 

- "What is this hash laced with?"

Alternatively, when not spending a night drinking on the steps of a church, discoteca vocabulary: "You have a bit of coke on your nose."  "Did he really say he had a knife?"  "Excuse me, there's a flaming champagne bucket coming through." "There are three guys already grinding on my pelvis, but I'm sure I could squeeze you in, too."

Sant'Ambrogio Market

I messed up and almost stopped blogging again, although I'm not sure anyone noticed.  But it's not like I wasn't thinking about blogging, because I have been - I have a slew of open blogger windows with halves of stories about Europe and no motivation to finish any of them.  I think what makes it so difficult to really maintain a blog while studying abroad - which is seems like everyone does nowadays - is that it's a complete story that you're in the midst of.  Trying to write a post about any one thing I do in Florence is like trying to tell a story by giving you one sentence in the middle.  I keep resorting to lists. 

And postcards!  It's so ridiculous, I feel like I can only say one thing completely on them, and I really just want to write huge letters to everyone.  Maybe I should just do that, and then send a blank postcard with them.  With a list, like "strange gelato names" or "how many people called me 'little hat' today and who."  

Or "what strange things I saw at the market today":

- A lamb's head (and what I can safely assume were a collection of its comrades' brains next to it)

- Green pomegranates

- Sting rays

- Four people in the same conversation discussing honey in four languages:

Italian/German (apiarist) , Italian/French (bystander), French/English (my professor), Italian/English (me!)

- More male dogs, and thus more prominent dog testicles.  No females dogs anywhere in Florence, it seems.  I like to think that there's a sister city in Italy with only female dogs, but I have a feeling that Europe may be the canine China.

It's just so hard to write here, it seems.  I need quiet and calm to gather my thoughts and living with four girls, one of which had to be treated for anxiety before she even came on the trip, means those moments are about as rare as electric dryers or Florentines who are willing to break a twenty.

Things I Have Learned in Europe, by Cara

1: I am an elitist bitch who does not know how to get along.  

1a. I have been reported as saying "I didn't cross the Atlantic to vomit in foreign gutters."

1b. But really, is classy too much to ask?  And by class I mean not pouring olive oil onto your paper placemat and then dipping your bread in it.  I don't know where you're from, but this is Europe, and we have plates and words to ask for them.  "Vorrei un piatto, per favore," to be exact.

2: I like gin and tonics.  But preferably not at 5 euro a pop.  And that's during happy hour.

3: Octopuses have beaks.  Also are probably scary.  But I will dive in, with a butchering knife! With courage!  And with a repressed gag reflex.

I Polpi

After our first trip to il supermercato in Florence, I announced to my four roommates that I plan to cook a real homecooked italian meal some time in the next week: octopus stew.

So those relationships are off to a great start.

In Which I Almost Leave for Europe

Oh my god I am leaving in 14 hours for my semester abroad.  I am about to vomit with a mixture of excitement and fear that I will turn up and my credit cards will all be shut off or something.  Lena has helped by putting the image in my mind of me dying on a plane from eating peanuts, which helps a ton when I think of all the other dying-on-a-plane fears I have.

I was pretty relieved to find out that I'm hooking up with the other people in my group (hah!) in Frankfurt to catch the flight to Florence, because that means I can split a cab to wherever once we get there.  Not very reassuring that I don't know where I'm going once I hit the Florence airport.  However, reassured that I don't have to take a cab by myself, as cabs are my second least favorite mode of transportation (guess what is first?  hint: planes.)

+

So, I thought paring down my book collection to come to North Carolina was bad, choosing the clothes to bring to Europe is significantly worse - although once I finish that, it will surely quickly lose its title to "paring down the North Carolina Book Collection (currently at 33 unread books) to 9 Novels to Entertain Me as I Come Down from My Internet Addiction in Florence."  Over the past couple of days I have been throwing clothes on top of my suitcase, but today was the first time I actually packed them.  With about 1/4 of my suitcase left free, without having thrown in toiletries or all of my textbooks/papers, I decided I might be overpacking.  That is, if I want to bring back more than a pair of Eiffel Tower earrings.

So now I'm down to fifteen pieces of clothing: 3 skirts, 5 shirts, 2 cardigans, 1 trench coat, 2 pairs of shoes, a pair of jeans, and my black dress.  Considering how ridiculous, sometimes flashy, other times childish, I look most of the time, I'm hoping taking so few clothes, all mix-matchable, will teach me how to dress well without having to be constantly over the top.  Understated but fashionable.

This baby will be getting a lot of play.

Also if I run out of things to wear/decide that miniskirts in december are dumb, it's not like Paris and Florence are the worst places to pick up some threads.

All and all, I think I'm excited?  Mostly I'm just nervous.  I've never traveled by myself, at least to the point of ending up somewhere unfamiliar and having to figure everything out on my own.  The good news is that large chunks of my Italian are coming back, although they're mostly strange grammatical things and napolitano curse words.  

Anyway (look at how all of the last few paragraphs start with "a" words), I am going to keep this blog as non-"study abroad experience"-y as possible.  It might become a fashion blog - the many ways you can remix gap and american apparel basics.  Or a food blog.  Or a blog about how disenchanted I am with everything.  Oh wait, that's what it already is.

+

Later that evening...

Have moved on to book selection, thrown out three books of the initial elite eight for having too few words-per-page.  Damn you, Sarah Vowell!  I need less than a pica between lines, man.  I'm now reconsidering my relationship with books like Middlemarch and The Feminine Mystique, both which pack a considerable number of pages and words for their book volume.

Nah.

In the end, I will end up switching out Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper for Botany of Desire, despite its words-to-volume ratio, end up committing to Take the Cannoli and Chocolat anyway, reneging over the same w2v concern as Botany, and pick up The Handmaid's Tale along the way.  The final list will look like this, which is to say that with ten minutes left before I leave for the airport, I will take out one, even two, in the interest of bringing back another pair of shoes:

+ Chocolat, Joanne Harris

+ Take the Cannoli, Sarah Vowell

+ The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood

+ The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan

+ Valley of the Dolls, Jacqueline Susann

+ The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami

+ Skinny Legs and All, Tom Robbins

+ The Best American NonRequired Reading 2008

+ Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates

+

The next morning...

Pollan's down!  Chocolat?  Handmaid's Tale?  You're next.

Jus de Pamplemousse

Today I got the last of my Europe supplies:

- One trench coat, black, awesome

- Two pairs of shoes, black and brown flats

- Converters, adaptors

- Books

+ Valley of the Dolls

+ Self-Made Man (hardback, for $3 on clearance! wow and sad, all at once.)

+ The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

+ Take the Cannoli

+ Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China

I feel sort of ungrateful taking a book about Chinese food culture to Italy and France.  Maybe I'll take The Botany of Desire instead.  Gotta cover all my favorite genre bases.

The last thing I got was the French edition of Rosetta Stone.  I got the Italian one the summer before I came to college, but I didn't really stick with it like I'd planned so the most I got out of it was being able to count before everyone else.  Considering how incredibly nervous I am about my Italian proficiency (not looking too good after I scrambled it with Spanish working at IHOP) I'm hoping I'll keep at it out of pure fear of being trapped in some dark alleyway surrounded by french hoodlums and dominatrixes (as I remember from previous Europe trips - or maybe just my dreams - those are the two categories french men and women fall into, respectively) with my only two french phrases to defend myself: "merde" and "jus de pamplemousse, s'il vous plait."

Desperately Seeking Straight Daughter

Cara:

Man, I love Dexter.

Dad, from a room away:

What?  Who's Dexter?  You haven't mentioned Dexter.

Mom:

No, she loves a TV show.  About sociopathic serial killers.

Peer Pressure

Every night I say to myself, Cara, don't drink two glasses of wine with your parents.

And every night I end up dizzily drunk watching the Golden Girls.

Aim Low

Thank you, Slate, for introducing me to Heather Armstrong, author of dooce.com and at least two books (too discouraged to look any further into it).  According to Slate she has over a million followers on twitter and enough blog readers to be able to support her family off the income she gets from the ads on her website.  

Meanwhile, I got two anonymous comments on my last post which I'd like to pretend were just random people discovering my post, but were probably really two people who saw me pimping this on Facebook.  Did I mention that Armstrong has been a blogger for a single year longer than I have?  This is clearly a lesson in stick-with-it-ness and not changing your domain name ten times.  Then again, with a handle like lawlessgoddess, your audience is limited to fellow angsty teenagers and wiccans.

Armstrong's bio is molto encouraging, though.  As anyone not looking for competition should, she encourages people to aim low and save themselves some time working hard.  On that note, I've revised my goal of becoming a prolific writer and making it onto wikipedia's shortlist of prominent essayists 

to selling enough ads on my blog to feed and inebriate myself.

Well, either that or adapt Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man into a modern coming-of-age teen comedy.

Arcadian’s Got Talent

As a result of my continued seclusion in NC and my mom’s vicious addiction to TV, I’ve become a weekly viewer of America’s Got Talent.  While it’s pretty entertaining as is, nothing beats the little unscripted moments from contestants not properly conditioned in celebrity behavior.  TV, but particularly reality TV, is much like a magician’s illusion: the viewer only sees what the magician wants you to see, and a good magician never reveals his tricks.

Unfortunately for NBC, 13-year-old Arcadian Broad, however graceful and well-groomed, is not a magician’s assistant.  He is a dancer.

And he is not a stooge.

My mom and I have always had theories about AGT: it’s clear that certain acts make it through for variety, certain people make it through solely on kitsch value, and certain performers are made to jump through unnecessary hoops by the producers so that other “chosen” acts will make it through to the next round or to amp up the show as the weeks go on at the performer’s expense.  Simple acts have random break dancers thrown in the background or are surrounded by fancy sets and pyrotechnics to distract from whether or not they’re actually talented.

Arcadian Broad managed to make it through the competition without all of that.  In his first three performances, he stuck to what makes him special: he is an incredibly talented solo dancer.  He leaps and bounds across the stage with intense energy, style, flexibility, grace, and enthusiasm.  His most impressive performance came during the Quarter Finals, when he (unnecessarily, as the judges pointed out) whipped out his piano-playing talent, and then knocked out an awesome performance to Footloose.  The judges loved him, everyone freaking loved him, and he made it through to tonight’s the semi-finals.

Sources say gravity was asleep on the job while Arcadian was performing.

Everything about Arcadian was wrong tonight, though.  In his pre-performance video he revealed that he’d be doing some paired dancing with a new girl dancer, even though he is clearly a one-boy show.  And then he came on to a stage full of backup dancers in a basketball jersey and, like a little marionette, performed the dance moves to High School Musical’s “We’re All in This Together.”  He hoisted his very young partner awkwardly above his head, moved in sync with his other puppet dancers, and, with the exception of a few pirouettes, exhibited none of the wild, bold dancing of his previous performances.

Heteronormitivity: we're all in this together.

So it was no surprise when the judges’ reactions were rather tepid, with the sort of coddling they reserve for only the very young, very old, or very military.  However, Arcadian was not walking off the stage without exhibiting his flair somehow.  In the middle of one of the judge’s criticisms, he turned to Nick Cannon and asked if he could say something, and then let loose a big one: he had something else planned for the semi-finals, but the show’s producers instead made him perform what would clearly be a family-friendly crowd-pleaser. 

Oops.

Sharon Osborne immediately jumped in, saying that he didn’t need to give excuses and that he was clearly a talented boy and a great dancer, etc. etc., but the damage was done.  Arcadian had had his say: he was no puppet.

But America’s Got Talent’s puppetry of Arcadian goes beyond trying to reel in viewers with a shoutout to a successful franchise: it shows the dirty way producers shape people into products, and the deeper messages at work.

And this is where I have to throw in the usual disclosure: yes, I know I’m highly trained by other mainstream-media-hating, ultra-skeptical, loudmouthed obnoxious feminist queerz, but I feel like I’m not reading super hard into this one (just like I believe with all my heart that the panty liner magician is gay as blazes).

In the quarterfinals, Arcadian was branded as America’s real-life Billy Elliott – a somewhat soft-spoken boy with a natural passion for dancing, overcoming adversity from his ignorant classmates.  “At school the kids would always tease me about being a dancer,” said Arcadian in his quarter-finals video, “but when I’m dancing I feel like I’m in a whole different world.  I feel invincible.” 

Sure, you can’t trust the obviously staged shots and polished dialogue of the videos, meant to give viewers a true glimpse into the lives of these every-day celebrities, but the story seems pretty believable and Arcadian quite sincere.  Nobody that talented at dancing and playing the piano can be that cool.  Both take a large commitment of time practicing in private - but more importantly, they are both pretty “gay” hobbies for a thirteen-year-old boy.  No one makes fun of male dancers without playing the gay card – Dane Cook, who’s social commentary isn’t exactly known for being groundbreaking, exhibits this perfectly in his bit about dance clubs: “You will never, ever hear a guy say to one of his buddies, 'Mike -- Mike, Mike, listen, buddy. Tonight, bro, I gotta dance, dude. Screw chicks tonight, bro -- I gotta dance!” A straight guy, that is.  You just know the teasing has a hint of the gay when the bullies are 13-year-olds, who have just been passed the uber-masculinity torch and probably aren’t exactly known for their creative insults. 

So as a counterpoint, this weeks video featured a different side of Arcadian – not the shy, dedicated boy who’s only passion is for dancing, but of the up and coming suave, popular kid, who’s lady is back home acting as his PR director.  Okay, maybe that’s taking it a bit far.  But so is the line something along the lines of “It’s nice to have her back there supporting me”  - god I know that’s not the phrasing but something along the lines of “thank god my beard’s printing out flyers for me and acting like a good little housewife.”  There were then a ton of shots of Arcadian with a nice young girl his own age, and thank god for that.  Behind every successful man is a woman… who wishes she were a man - both for rights and so that her husband will look at her the way he looks at the milkman.

Whether Arcadian is gay or straight is not the point – Arcadian could already be getting a head start on a long career of fucking dancerladies for all I know or care.  The point is just how far mainstream media will go to uphold the standard of heteronormativity.  Producers see a vibrant male dancer, code for gay, and then make sure that he’s seen with ladies all over him from then on.  Back during the aftermath of last season of American Idol I didn’t buy people’s arguments that Adam Lambert lost the competition because he was gay, but I definitely thought it was fishy that he seemingly had to go back in the closet in order to be a part of Idol.  Just like Ethan from Queer as Folk, producers want their young talent hot and straight so they can make the big bucks off of fangirls, or at least not lose money because of politics.  

Arcadian probably won’t win the competition, though, especially after tonight's little encore.  But for the sake of the American family and their viewership, NBC has made it clear there will be no roll models for young gay boys, or young dancer boys, or young boys anywhere that don’t fit in.  After all, they’re not in the business of making role models, they’re in the business of making stars.

5 Years

It’s pretty painfully obvious that I’m freaking out about writing/careers/my future/my identity right now.  I’m currently contemplating and planning my future as a super-senior and what I’m going to get out of the extra time I’m buying myself before I have to blindly commit to go down some uncertain path.  As relationship freakouts were to xanga, career freakouts are to blogger. 

Obviously, writing has been a huge part of my identity for the majority of my life (or at least the years worth counting – I’d say before eight, kids are as interchangeable as Runts – they all look different but underneath they’re all the same flavor), and I think it’s no coincidence that letting it slide has coincided with some major identity crises in the last couple of years.  It terrifies me that I can’t just do it.  Even if I’m being good and tunnel visioning every other successful writer/blogger I’m personally acquainted with out of the picture, I’m still not where I wanted to be as a writer going into my senior year.  Senior year of high school I was on top of my blogging game.  I would have hoped I could be on top of my essay-writing game as my college counterpart.

I read the word of people 10-20 years older than me (at least), who have substantially more writing/career/life experience (and paid editors), and I can’t wrap my head around why I’m not at their level right now.  I lost my patience for the slow maturation of my writing the moment my first essay got published and my professor pushed me towards professional writers workshops and a lifestyle of dedication and contemplation I am still in no place to sustain.  Since then, I feel like I’ve always been trying to catch up to those expectations, to get serious about writing rather than just doing it, whether it’s good, whether anyone reads it, whether it’s even worth keeping more than a few minutes.  I just want to pound out publishable piece after publishable piece, at whatever expense – and it’s that pressure that keeps me from writing anything at all.

Right now, I’m really into David Rakoff.  I keep thinking about how next year I’m just going to reread books I love and analyze them, and I’m so eager (god how nerdy) that I keep thinking about Xeroxing copies of essays from Don’t Get Too Comfortable and scribbling all over them.  A couple of days ago I came across this interview with him, and was more reassuring than anything anyone’s said to me lately – not my friends, not my professors, not my mother.

“Before I sat down and became a writer, before I began to do it habitually and for my living, there was a decades-long stretch when I was terrified that it would suck, so I didn't write. I think that marks a lot of people, a real terror at being bad at something, and unfortunately you are always bad before you can get a little better.”

Okay, I knew the last part.  No one makes it out of elementary school without having phrases like that scorched into your retinas via block letters on neon-colored laminated posters.  But I really needed to hear straightforwardly what I can really easily be deduced from putting together the pieces of his, and every other writer’s, essays: all the good ones weren’t always writers.  David Sedaris smoked way more pot than I ever have throughout college and he seems to have ended up a decent writer.  I’ve got ten, fifteen, twenty years (although right now the voice of David Bowie is singing me “five years”) before I have to be a writer for the New Yorker or kill myself.  What is there to worry about.

"Magic"

Is it just me and my nonsense women's study degree or is there something about this commercial, besides its cute music and great art direction, that makes it really awesome?

It definitely starts with Ms. Magician looking quite good in that white suit, but then there's some hot gender play going on as she takes on her very masculine role, controlling her cute femme assistant as well as any Penn Gillette or David Copperfield.  There's a total Tipping the Velvet vibe going here: soon our little swimmer will be hanging out with the big lesbo fishes.

Aren't girls dressed as men so funny!  We're just close like sisters, right?

But it's not all about role-playing here: as in any good magician/assistant relationship, she clearly totally wants her swimcap-headed counterpart.

In my mind's magic eye i'm making more than that liquid disappear, sugarshack

A couple weeks ago I watched this video that highlights how certain companies opt to create gay-friendly versions of their commercials (clearly I've not been watching enough Logo - or TV, period).  Obviously this is a little more subtle, and of course a little flirting between good-looking women is so hot right now, but I'm just glad that a gem like this has slipped into primetime viewing on major networks, if for no other reason than I get to see it more often without being a creepy chick who's into menstrual products.  You can come break the fourth wall with me anytime, lady.

How's that for being self aware

This post is a marker saying that I spent three hours sitting in front of my computer trying to write something, and then realizing that I am just an attention whore who wants to do this blog so that it will be easier to imagine that everyone thinks i'm funny and interesting and just an amazing person, without me having to put in any effort outside of pounding these keys and using a little artistic license to make it seem like i don't just sit in my house worrying about how i'm not a 40-year-old accomplished humorist tucked in a 21-year-old body and about the less-than-ten-greater-than-eight cavities just sitting around idly in between my molars.

Other realizations:
- I took a year off of writing to focus on reading, which then spanned into two years, not because i was actually focusing on reading to better my writing but because I am lazy and scared that I'm not funny anymore and that my moment as a published writer is now behind me.
- What's the worst that could happen if i just told the truth? Context: this blog would be significantly better if my mom didn't barrage me with articles about how you have to list every internet alias you've ever used if you ever want to get a job with the government or how if you do anything slightly adventurous or out of the norm with your life you will never be allowed around children again. The latter of which I'm sure isn't true, or is at least completely unwarranted, since i know a tattooed, pot-smoking daycare teacher who is incredibly invested in her job and the welfare of her charges, and godspeed to her. Would Hunter S. Thompson be able to find employment in today's workplace? Does everyone realize that it would be a crime if he didn't exist as a force within journalism?

Also I'm afraid of telling my family things, even though it might make things more interesting.

But it's not like they're your real family, Cara.

True and false. On paper they are. But I am living proof that genetic relation does matter - ex: I clearly missed out on the Catholic gene, which, much to my continued shock, everyone else in my family possesses.

 So, you tell them the truth, thereby standing by your life choices and having integrity, and the number of interactions between your extended family and you falls from "incredibly rare" to "none." And there'd probably be a good story involved.

You're right. This is really a win-win.

- I think i've lost all my empathy and understanding of others' points of view and become a radical.
- The only thing i'm an expert on anymore is myself.

Simple Request

I just want to die with a wikipedia article written about me, is that too much to ask?

21 and Overly-Emotional

It's already two in the morning and all i have to say for myself is that i watched all six episodes of 16 and Pregnant + the reunion episode in the last twenty-four hours. Recommend not starting with the last episode, especially if you are an adoptee because you will spend your evening in your bedroom, by yourself, bawling your eyes out and wondering why this show couldn't be about dumb teenagers doing stupid shit. Thankfully, every other episode is.

Most of the girls on 16 and Pregnant have absolutely no concept of what it takes to raise a child, but assume that everything will magically fall into place as quickly and easily as it was to make their little bundle of runny feces. Not Catelynn and Tyler, though. It's obvious the facts that they look (and probably are) the youngest of the couples and that they have significantly less money and more familial problems play into their decision to give up their child, but it's no less shocking. As the youngest, they should lack the maturity to make such a decision, and as the least privileged, they should be the ones to repeat the cycle, but they're not - in fact, Catelynn and Tyler go out of their way to make it clear to their parents (which, p.s. her wastrel mother and his ex-con father got married after meeting through their children) that they're going to give their child what they never received from them.

Ironically, through the process of giving their daughter up for adoption, Catelynn and Tyler prove themselves to be the most responsible and ready to be parents of all of the couples. While Farrah is busy worrying about what type of car her parents are going to replace the vehicle she wrecked with, Catelynn is choosing what family will provide the best life for her daughter. And Tyler blows all of the other baby daddies out of the water by not only sticking with Catelynn throughout her pregnancy and afterwards, but fiercely defending their choices as a couple to their deadbeat parents, who fight Caitlynn and Tyler's decision tooth and nail. And you thought Gary returning his new Playstation 3 was good teen parenting.

Watching Catelynn and Tyler interact with their daughter's prospective adoptive family was completely heart-wrenching. I'd never seen that side of adoption before, the actual real process of handing your child over to another family. The adoptive mother's eagerness reminded me of Jennifer Garner's character in Juno - you could just tell how achingly desperate she was for a child. Even though she was clearly elated to have been chosen it was written all over her face how terrified she was that things weren't going to work out, and once you meet the adoptive couple, the tension of the episode builds as you worry that Catelynn might just keep the baby and crush these people's hearts. During every scene with the adoptive parents i could see my parents, twenty-one years younger, right in their places - explaining their lifestyle and hobbies, making their case for why they deserved to raise me, waiting in agonizing anticipation until i just showed up in their lives completely unannounced. It was absolutely excruciating. In the last few years i've experienced a great range of inner conflict about the idea of adoption and how it has shaped me, but rarely do i think about what it's like (and is still like) for the other two parties involved. At this point, i feel like it's old news to everyone but me - but if it's still an issue for me twenty-one years later, the one party who wasn't even really there for most of the actual process, why wouldn't everyone else still be thinking about it as well?

All in all, i'm rather floored at how much 16 and Pregnant really got to me, considering I was looking for more maury-esque escapades from it than anything else. Thank god for Maci and Farrah. Fuming over them totally helped bring me back to my usual schadenfreude-lovin' self.

(Also I can't stand how boring and dry I sound in this, but god, at least i wrote something. And I've written two abandoned half-essays. But mostly I'm blowing through backissues of The Believer. Why didn't i bring more than 7 issues with me? Oh that's right because i figured i wouldn't read them just like i haven't read through all of the other 30 that are sitting in my Lawrence storage unit. Wah wah wahhh. )