hold your breath

I'm aimlessly pacing around Josh's living room, trying to figure out what to say in my next cover letter. His extra-conservative parents (the kind who get upset if you wear anything above the knee) have put up a sign by the door: Knock and it shall be opened unto you. Well, considering this is probably my 28th job application, I'm guessing you have to do a lot of knocking.

Song lyrics from a very serious, adult source. Thank you, Barbie.

I'm not really sure who I write these to anymore. I don't know who reads them. I think I just keep this up out of some weird sense of duty to an old era. It's the occasional kiss hello from my present to my history (the double cheeked kind, with a Che bello!Come stai?)that is the glue that keeps them connected. And it feels a little more active than my usual journal-writing to myself. Shakes things up a little.

This year I have been so many things. Not all of them ideal. I've been eager, excited, strange, pretentious, judgmental, and bit of a snob. I've been dejected, and lonely, and hopeful, and energetic, and proud, and boring. I have been a target for mosquitoes and probably the butt of a few jokes. Somewhere between ex-girlfriend and woodsman(person?) I found being family, too. Then I turned aspiring chef, and back to lowly me. Then I was overlooked, and judged, and accepted, and ecstatic, and breathless, and hopelessly nostalgic. The funny thing is, Italy did none of this to me. I was bound to go through this progression wherever I was this year. It was all the strange aftermath of a wakeup call that just happened to be in Europe. Sure, the place itself was a fantastic distraction from a bad breakup,a slew of family problems, and disillusion with human relationships in general, but that hardly means I wasn't still dealing with them. It's true kids, as much as I hate to break it to you--with as much magic as it evokes, Europe still didn't leave me immune to doubt, or insecurity, or alienation. But it was a beautiful place to feel them in.

Oh, of course I had my nice little cultural exchange, made my pasta and drank my wine, kissed everyone twice and sang in the street. I was there for Pavarotti's death, and Berlusconi getting elected AGAIN and the government collapsing and life going on.

That was the best part. How their whole system could crumble underneath them and life would just continue. Just another day to chatter with the fruit vendor about which tomatoes are the juiciest. It's kind of a metaphor for the way my life's been going, and I think that finally, after the rock bottom I hit sophomore year (where I was already headed by my senior year in high school) I'm re-learning to appreciate just how juicy the tomatoes are. It's, hopefully, another definitive leap forward from the insecure person I hardly recognize, but have somehow let myself become. I miss the me that no one could touch because everything was always just wonderful. It didn't matter how bad things got. There was a time when my house could burn down and I could still make light of it. I could joke about the irony of meeting the brother of the guy who did it 7 years later. Then again, time makes things so much easier to remember, doesn't it?

I guess the point is, I think I'm ready.

Well kids, I know it's been a while.

I've been here for a little over a month now. I saw the Alps this weekend, which I never in my life thought I would be able to say. I still can't believe the directions my life has taken, even as the course changes right in front of me. I can say I love Venice now, that it's tranquil, ethereal, and that there are more americans and old french women there than italians. Hearing english was beyond strange, so I was sort of thrown off when a guy from boston helped me up onto a ramp in the pouring rain. Oh god did it pour! My sneakers were soaked through, but I have never been wetter or happier in my life. And the main piazza was so huge and open that I couldn't hold back from running through it just to take in the space and watch the pigeons scatter.

Italy has definitely made me girlier. Just in the sense that I pay more attention to what I wear. I don't think I've ever really owned more than one purse (is that how you spell purse? I'm forgetting english) at a time...now I own 2. Some of you might be laughing right now, but hey, it's a big deal for me. Who knows, when all is said and done I might even wind up with a 3rd.

I made my first italian friend at a bar in the Giardini Margherita. This was an accomplishment, as I had to weed through a lot of creepy men and spanish boys who wanted to lick salt off my face to find him. So finally I have someone relatively sane to chat with. Also, tonight I start giving english lessons to a little girl in Via Rialto...let's just hope to god I don't get apprehended in the streets walking home at night....damn, I shouldn't have worn a skirt today! I also should have invested in a wig, because apparently red hair is about as sexy as you can get around here, and well, let's just say I've had some shady experiences.

Honestly, I'm overwhelmed at how lucky I am. I'm not even sure if I can give myself credit for making it happen, because it seems so unbelievable that I could be responsible for taking my life from food shelter cheerios and scary barre to living in an apartment thousands of miles away, eating the best food of my life and taking in a culture so completely different from my own. I don't just mean in the sense of being american...

It's especially that way with the food. Eating here really is an art, an event. You eat to spend time with people, to enjoy their company and to enjoy your senses. For me, food had pretty much always been secondary. A basic, for survival. I have always been the person who orders the cheapest thing on the menu, who chooses food more for nutritional value than taste, who put paying for things like tuition, clothing, above those kinds of excesses...well, they're excesses to me. But here eating is anything but utilitarian. It's an art more than anything, and one I'm falling more and more in love with every day. Not to sound like your stereotypical 50s housewife, but I love being in the kitchen.

Anyway, my life awaits!

p.s. Alicia, I miss you like a thanksgiving turkey misses its feathers!

I like the phrase "he cleans up nice" because it suggests that, 1. he looks good dressed up, and 2. he was previously dirty.

I'm trying to find space away from the 47-odd emo kids running around the apartment. I keep telling myself that this summer is going to be promising, that I should enjoy it, and not fast forward to the next time I'll have a place that is my own, in a new country. It's not that I won't miss certain people, I just want to live in a place that doesn't drive me insane. Budget pending, next summer I'm either going to need an apartment or a straight jacket. A huge part of me just wants to get started with my life. For now I feel like I'm in limbo, and when I let my guard down I realize I'm looking for a place to rest my head, and then remembering that I have none.

20 years. Wow. When I get out of this apartment and the sun comes out I'm going to feel wonderful. Because when I'm sitting here in the dark I think I forget that my life is all these wonderful things. That's what I'm telling myself.

I wrap my fear around me like a blanket
I sailed my ship of safety till I sank it



I can't explain this. Where is the intensity I crave?

"No really, 'dipping my balls' doesn't mean what you might think. Except when it does."

"Would you like the big vat or the even bigger vat?"

Haha. I missed guys. Also, communication in song lyric form is NEVER a bad idea.

I feel, well, lost a little. And kind of somewhere in limbo between a person who is lovable and a person you can really love. Maybe it has something to do with looking at those pictures. It's hard to see how happy they look, and to know that I was a perfectly acceptable casualty in getting that way. It's not that I'm sad about it anymore, really, it's just that I've lost the feeling of being anything special. I come home, talk to my roommate, and get this sense that what I'm saying doesn't matter. I know how distracted she is, and I don't blame her for it...but it's not exactly neosporin for feeling insignificant. And hanging out with the guys--who are really more her friends than mine. I can't avoid the feeling I'm just an occasional accessory.I've been spending some time with another of my friends, but I sometimes wonder if he's actually interested in my friendship at all. Sometimes I feel like it's really just some cheap attraction. Then, or course, sometimes I think I'm just flattering myself. But what kind of twisted flattery is that? Alienated, maybe, is the word I'm looking for. I feel alienated. I cling to that feeling of being wanted so much more than I should. I reel someone in too close, practically slamming my body into them just to feel a connection, then feeling they don't care, or I've revealed too much, I push them away, then sometimes I'm in for another round...reel in, cast out, again and again.

How is it that I can feel like no one is willing to put the same effort and feeling into relationships that I am, and at the same time wonder if maybe it's because I'm not worth it? There's fault in this logic, and I know it. And I know that I am worthwhile. I KNOW it, but I've just been bumped out of feeling it. Temporarily.

SO how long is this temporary?
Man, I really let this guy screw me up.

I'm trying really hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. To focus on the goal beyond this rainy day and all these bills and complications. I'm trying to stay new, optimistic, quixotic, which is so, SO hard in this world that encourages you to pursue happiness like its a carrot on a string and you're Tantalus, or something. I'm not just talking about college or the job market or love, but I guess all of those things too. It's enough to make you cynical and I don't want that for myself. Cynical people aren't happy, they've stopped the pursuit.

So I'm listing my assets and telling myself that everything will be ok: I have about $800 in the bank, all of which is claimed for one purpose or another, but what the hell? I have spoons, cups, bowls, lots of books, determination. I have a sense of humor. I have a lot of fair weather friends and a few close ones. I have people who are family to me, the loves of my life. I have hair, eyes, toes, a passport, blankets, pillows, food. For however long (like it's on lease) I have that whole youth and beauty and energy package, which should hold out long enough to send at least one decent dirt-loving, baseball cap-wearing, grilled-cheese making man my way. I've got passion, about 47 loans, and an equal number of surrogate families. I have secrets. I have half a degree in things I love, I have a candy thermometer (yay!), I have three oranges. I have imagination, and laundry to do, and the will to keep going because, despite my better sensibilities, I still have that oh-so-sunny optimism.

I will be fine.

I just had a moment of clarity. I'm really proud of the person I am.

Funny, I went to type something and I a little window came up that asked me if I wanted to restore the previously typed entry. Sure, why the hell not? So I did, and I found this entry I started writing months ago, never finished, and it amazes me how even then I felt that something was wrong about it all. How could I do that to myself? To see the signs and still hold on, as if there were even a trace of hope, as if in time everything would miraculously turn healthy and wonderful? Well, I think I do know how. And it has something to do with the way he'd look at me every now and then, how when he saw me he'd be grinning ear to ear, how he'd look at me and tell me how beautiful I was, in that way where you just know he's really looking at you, the gentle way he'd grab my waist, look me in the eyes, and tell me I made him happy. Maybe that was it.

-------------------------
But for better or worse, here I am now, and here is where I was:


Why is it that every time I talk to him I feel worse? How much is paranoia, and how much should I be genuinely worried about?

I just want some little show of enthusiasm. I read somewhere that girls are socially conditioned to care more about relationships, while the primary male focus is on career. Women are just that extra perk.

If that is the case, it explains a lot about why I feel so hurt for no apparent reason...about something that probably wouldn't even faze him if the situation were reversed. It explains a lot about the male-female dynamic in general. It's just such a terrible cycle, because I'll miss him, and because in general I'm not the sitting around waiting for the phone to ring type, I'll talk to him. But every time I end up being worse off than when I started, more convinced he's not interested. Then I decide not to call him, he'll come to me. But give me a few days and slowly, I'll start to miss him again...

I think I liked it better when I wasn't sure whether I liked him.
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It kills me that I'm letting this kill me. Not just that I knowingly walked into danger, but that as weak and artificial as he turned out to be, I still feel loss.

My soul is sick.

I am holding my hair up with a bangle bracelet. That is skill.

So I think you can officially count yourself as a starving artist when your Christmas list includes things like underwear, paint brushes, and laundry detergent. Haha, is it bad that half my clothes have holes in them and my once white socks are all now grey? Oh well. Such is my life.

It's so funny looking back on where you've been, how far you've come, and how unimaginable all of it would have seemed to you back then. I started thinking about it again after I beat Ryan at wrestling (with maybe, just a little cheating.) I was trying to make a point about it, so I asked him: that first day in seminar when you made a complete ass out of yourself and told everyone you were a connoisseur of music--would you ever have imagined that a year and a half later some random girl across the room would have you pinned to the floor?
He said he didn't surprise easily.

There's something kind of satisfying about rote memorization. I can be studying while I'm doing laundry, sweeping, making my bed, dancing in my underwear...

I miss my roommate. Sure, I get a lot more done, but still...

I want spring. I want to feel independent and in control again.

We are getting so much older. I swear it changes by the minute, with the amount of need and the necessity for responsibility. Sometimes I'm a little jealous of those kids who just float around and have a good time. You know, THOSE kids. They're just here as a matter of course, and the why and how are taken for granted. They go out and it doesn't seem to cost them anything, they travel the world, they visit their friends, they put it on the tab...they chat at dinner--that bubbly careless slur of words, and I envy it. I look at them through my adultness and most of the time I judge them, I'll admit it. But I envy them too. Don't get me wrong, my life here is going so well: the school, the friends, the roommate, the guy. And I'm happy. I really am. But then when it comes time to address the rest of the world I feel so helpless. I'm stuck here, and I can't seem to get close enough to the people I love and miss in that big world out there. I feel so separated, and I'm jealous of the ease with which other kids can hop a plane, or a bus, a ship for godsake, anything. Drive their own cars, even. They go from A to B without much thought about it. Like college, it's a matter of course. So why, for me, does every decision need to have such weight? Why do I have to be adult about every move, strategically planning my way across the board? Why can't I just enjoy the game? I'd love one day to actually spend Christmas with my father, but it's always too far away, and I can't go a month without working. I'd love to see my Alicia, but she's a world away. Because I don't want just letters and phonecalls. I want real human interaction. I want late night foolishness and Barbie marathons. I want to hear my brother play guitar in person. I want to make cheesecake with Elizabeth. I talked to Nita today, and it was adorable the way she talked about going to my college one day and it made me miss her so much more. I can't believe how much she admires me for how little she knows me. How little we get to see each other. I want home, and in that sense I'm a little screwed over, because I can never have all my home at once. It's scattered around with a thousand different experiences and a dozen different people--so many places, and none of them include my own bed. So fuck, how am I supposed to keep this all together when the distances just keep spiralling outward? Why can't I be 19, without a care in the world? Why can't I just drive a car from NY to VT to god knows where? Why does it have to be SO HARD to be close to the people I love?

Moment # 574: Dancing alone in my room post-kiss, listening to Jazz and eating the world's juciest pear.

Why am I letting one person have so much influence on my day? Up and down at the drop of a hat.

I HAVE A PASSPORT!!!!!!!!!

After reading 6 pages in my Art History book and realizing I had no idea what I'd just read, I decided it was time to get out of the library. As with everywhere, there are too many distractions. Mostly because I carry the biggest distraction of all with me, everywhere I am. Silly brain. If only there were a way to leave it at home and learn without it. This book could be in chinese for all I know, I'm too busy smiling to myself. And the crazy thing is, there isn't really anything to be so happy about, except maybe a few quick hello's, brief conversation, a passing smile. But oh, that's enough to get me started.

Aaaaaand we're back.