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nevicatosotto
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Today I woke sometime before 11am, but not before 10.30. This was after having fallen asleep at precisely between 6.30 and 6.40am, after having woken up at 1.27am after having fallen asleep at 9.30ishpm after having eaten a fucking great piazza con pargmigiano e melanzane (my absolute FAVOURITE) con i ragazzi shapiri-occhipinti. I am seriously jetlagged; the worst ever.
Later today I rode on the back of B's motorino which was taking him to work, not in the centre of town but in EUR, the brave new (fascist) world envisioned by Mussolini and thankfully never finished- but still horrifying, since people actually live and work there. I went into the 'museum of the high middle ages', where I saw things that I think were not from the high middle ages but rather late antiquity- lots of cool gold and silver jewelery; clay and gold beaded necklaces, mosaics, etc; and a marble well, which had symbolic animals carved in it: a peacock, unicorn and centaur - I wondered what these simbolised in the 8th cenutry? Christ? There were 6 staff, all sitting in the front office talking about nothing, and the whole museum was empty except for me. At least the staff didn't charge me even though I had no ID to prove I am a 22yearold archeology student, who gets in for free. I think any of the display cabinets in this place could buy me a pretty fucking beautiful yacht can piano. Must rub heads with H and put together a distrction/yacht-extraction strategy for this museum.
Then navigated my way home by metro, bus, bus and piedi. It rained a bit - is dull now. I am HUNGRY and TIRED.
Musical selection:
Pulp, greatest hits - CD sent to me by my adored flatmate from Avignon, Pakistani-French-post-punk-wildchild who just emailed me saying she is in Scotland and to come and visit, but I'm not sure if she means visit Edinburgh (she's only there a day or two, I think...) or Paris. Whatever, the music is brilliant. It reminds me of the time in Starlight, a tiny 'jazz club' where H used to work in Trastevere, with Mihaela, Michal and Nathan when they visited last April; Pulp was playing instead of lvie jazz; Mihaela and I rejoiced, Michal sulked; apparently this "poppie" music doesn't compel him to "suspend his disbelief"... or something like that. I'd like to be able to say he had too much to drink. This reminds me of the time a silly french girl complained about the music I was playing in the morning - "... but it has no rhythm!" she finally spurted after I ask what she was twitching about; the song was Django Reinhardt's jumpin' version of "I got rhythm"...
Basta, Zach sta arrivando. |
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I am not kidding. I have done the deed: I am fleeing - I can not stay here any more, yet it was unclear what I should do about that. Then, just as i was looking at the studentuniverse.com flight-site, fantasising/commiserating about (non)escape, adoptive Roman family 2 called me, and asked what was up - hey presto, I buy a last minute biglietto; dept. of homeland security is satisfied (since I now haven't enrolled for spring semester I have an uncertain number of days - uncertain, but few - to leave the country), and I am at least on my way out of here -- and, if anyone wants to, we can be on for Ostia, Saturday. |
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Last week I saw a great film - well, a nice film; kind of realistic, in how it presented relationships and frustrations, depressions, and so on- but also with a funny filmic ending. It was shown at a preview for a filmmaking class, and as a friend of several budding filmmakers, I was invited to go - it is called "Friends With Money" (very appropriate, considering my company). I hesitated since it started at 11am and it was cold- although not sowing: Boston, after my SOS, has had an extraordinarily MILD winter of later: thanks blog angels -- but when I heard the cast line up, I was in my hat and gloves doublequick. Frances mcDormand, Joan Cusack were the main attractions for me- and Jennifer Anniston (sp??) had really impressed me in "The Good Girl" -- so I decided to go. The credits rolled to a bumping sountrack by what sounded to be RIckie Lee Jones- my ears prickedup, I was excited and happy, imagining how they must have dragged her out of rehab and resuscitated her to her former glory to record these songs for the movie (then an extra-large typeface credit came up, exclaiming RLJ's special recordings for the movie. Brilliant, I thought.). Funny film - I recommend it. I have a fucked up romboid, they tell me -- "they're screaming out" said the physiotherpist; I think I ahve to exercise more. I cut my hait two ngihts ago, and everyone loves it - I am extra hot now, receiving proposals left and right. Its almost a mohawk - certainly punky/1980s pop-like hairdo - since I cut the sides but not the top. I think I might cut more off. It's amazing how liberating cutting my own hair is - I couldn't believe, the first time I did it, that I'd been paying others to do this my whole life. Such a pleasure. I have been playing piano quite a bit - on the black notes; using Debussy's favourite pentatonics adn jsut going off, improvising - and I've made some really beautiful sounds. One of the aforementioned filmmakers has asked me before to make soundtracks for his movies, and this time he is way serious after listening to me fantasize freely on this beautiful steinway grand piano we have access to here (1959 ebony and ivory, perfect piano; really sensitive touch and pedals)-- this seems like a really exciting project; I'd love to do it. Must get on piano more. Also, cello dreams are re-intensiying -- I have to find one, and a teacher. My mother has decided to sign my 16 yearold brother up for the army. Brother has GI Joe fantases; Mother has lost her abilities to be a responsible parent. The 100th british soldier was just killed in Iraq. Between 10,000 and 100,000 Iraqis have been killed in Iraq (they're not keeping track, really). I hate Stevenston, and Scotland, and the Labour Party, and Tony Blair, and my mother (intermittently), and the Maritime climate. I am now going to walk through the freezing streets to distract a friend from a thesis with a bottle of Spanish wine that comes with a plastic toro attached. Ole! |
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When I got back here a week ago, I was surprised that there was no snow on teh ground- there were in fact colours, washed-out ones, oyeah, but things that you could tell used to be green and yellow, and red bricks, and so on. The other day it was really HOT here. 12/13 degrees celsius - I mean, hot, humid, no jacket, no coat warm - so I went out to do my day's business appropriately scantilly clad, clasping books and papers to my belly. After an hour or two, it began to rain - the kind of big ol' fat rain, warm humid monsoon rain that tells you things are changing; but in Boston, the monsoon lasts only about 15 minutes, then it turned to sleet, then to snow - I ran home, weeping. I woke up at 8 am the next day to see almost a foot of snow lying on the ground and rooftops outside: it was -11 celsius -- the temperature had dropped over 20 degrees celsius in about 12 hours. It has stayed that way since - i think i am going to build a fort, INSIDE, a nice big fort in the middle of my common room, that i cna hide inside, with card-board box chairs and a littel table. It is too painful to go outside. On a related note - that of wondrous events!
Porca Madonna! Maiale Miracolo!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4605202.stm |
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BeanBooger! And I missed her -- aarrrgh. Just sat an exam in a language I do not understand, and to which I arrived late, having overslept (went to bed for a 'powernap' as they call them in this place, at 5.50am, setting my cellphone to ring 5 times around 7.45 - but I hadn't reckoned with my cellphone still being set to European time, so that when I went to bed, my cellphone thought it was already after this time, and so would have let me sleep for almost 24 hours and not two. Luckily, anxiety woke me up within half an hour of the exams joyful beginning.) I am experiencing the inverse of Stendhal syndrome -- Tocqueville? Maybe more historically correct, but let's call it Michael Jackson syndrome; just for fun. I have this urge to dance and be happy - and hang my baby ot of the window, in a blanket (having named it blanket) - I should explain: I am listening to a Jacksons selection of audial sunshine/jazzed up cool; what seems to be the musical equivalent of that candy you can get, the crystals that you put in your moutha dn they fizzle and pop, 'sparkles' or someting; anyway, the disconnect between this recorded reality I can hear and the other reality (that I see, feel, am beaten about the head and face by -- you know, REAL reality?) is almost too much. I can confrim Mcfarland's account of the extraordinary events of New Year's Eve and after, and must add only that I had the happiest time in months-- what a wonderful lady, city, home, past-making Italian mamma, salad-queen, piano maestra, enthusiast of all things wise and wonderful - dumpster toys, fake antiques and most importantly egg-shaped things (rocks and heads, mostly). I don't think the car-towing toerags had ever seen two people so happy to be missing a car. Che bello. Grazie, grazie, grazie.
I am aware this posting is rapidly accelerating away from any possibility of making sense, so I will finish with a question: what are the best 'cougar'-taming pills I can make the CVS clerk feel awkard about selling to me? (I have to send a parcel anyway - I came away with something I should have left.) And who was the singer - quello 'cambiera'? Tenca? I'm tyring to find him; I have Fabrizio (bravISSimo). Off to moonwalk in the slush.
Michael. ps- the only way to get anything resembling coffee here seems to be to order a double espresso; a cappuccino is roughly approXimated by a "double espresso macchiato", but very roughly (more bubbles than batH - What can you do?)
Baci, ragazze/i pps - my Israeli friend asked me at dinner the other night what the maffia was - what doe sit mean - how does it work -- IS it still? I had plenty, of course, to say. He told me, fascinatingly, that in a book he had when he was a kid -- 5000 questions and their answers -- he read "what is the Maffia?" and was told that the word was an acronym, for "death to france...(something)" -- seems to work. I have not yet commenced upon the grand googling of this history; thought I'd mention it anyway. |
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je vis je meurs je me brule et me noie
i live i die i burn and drown
Hot flashes or 'amorous separation'? I thought Louise Labe was being all Petrarchan a la feminine, but then, maybe she was just hotflash-blogging. Damn good stuff.
My hot flashes have me awake at 4 am, eating chinese food ordered last night but never eaten. Chinese food, as you all know, is remarkably different the world over - this particular genus is kind of tasteless (the 4am Scottish reheat genus). Important thigns to note when going to a chinese restaurant in Scotland: Do NOT fantasise about Kung Po or General Gao's chicken before arrival, these dishes do NOT exist, and they're sick of hearing about 'em; same goes for chopsticks - that's just hocus pocus; they do however give you beautiful calendars around New Year's (local New Year, not that of the old coutnry - they wouldn't want to risk asserting their difference, except in frying technique). On that note, I am newly convinced after watching a vacation show on tv yesterday that pasta was invented by the chinese and italians are nothing but thieves and liars when it comes to the origins of spaghetti - apparently Marco Polo brought spaghetti-know-how back with him to Venice in the 12th century. Google is but a click away to better inform myself on this stuff, but I'm going to put it out there in blog-land to see what comes back. Anyone know about the origins of pizza? |
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In my excitement at the warm welcome I have received to blogland, I am thawing out quite nicely. The excitement also had me posting away on blogs without having logged in. So, here I am now. I fear people don't read comments, so I'm going to repost as entries. Thank you for your warm welcome, and I apologise already for my sometimes too creative typography and newfound interest in my diet - |
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For twenty-two years I have been wasting time, and it is my love story. For ten years, I have clicked and dragged, scorlled and surfed, read and scribbled so much that I don't know where I end and where other begin. Now I am blurring the lines even more; this is my first ever, maybe overdue, live journal entry. I am in Porter Square, Somerville MA. It is freezing outside, but insdie my friend's apartment it is nice and warm. We just ate a huge bucket of penne that I can only described - as a wise lady once described my hair cut, so very, err, wisely - as 'sbagliato': made with garlic, tomatoes, basil and "Italian Sausage" (with peppers and spiced), in the wrong order... it was ok; the sausage was definitely the weakest link. I start by commiting bloggery's greatest sin (the dinner inventory), only to get it over with. From now on, the only way is up.
... up and out! Our Italianate dinner was in celebration of today's prodcutive telephony. Cio'e: Arrivero a Roma per capo d'anno - 17.30 il 31 dicembre!!! [Poi vado con gli amici di san calepodio a cui ho parlato oggi -- Z sta facendo inscrizioni per studiare all'USA?!-- verso la swizzera, per vedere i nevi italiani con loro nel 'ski chalet' che hanno preso; poi tornero a roma per dare il mio amore a quella gatta triste che - questo, e sicuro -- stava morenda, giranda, piagenda senza da me.... e anche per fare i pancakes come si piace alla sorellina ("SUBITO!") e anche i macaroon. I can't wait to meet Ms. Gera. Potremo sentire un 'recital', forse?
Ci sarai quella settimana, la prima di gennaio, allora? Per favore -- spero di SI!
VA BENE? Ciao, e a prestissimo! |
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nevicatosotto's journal