The Defunction

How, and when do friendships extinguish? Defunct and decayed, I look at the remnants of friendships past and wonder how something that was only supposed to be wonderful, could have become something else entirely. How can it be that I never realize what's happening until it has already happened? When the tie is severed and the lines are blocked, that is when I've realized the irreparable damage that has caused the complete desecration of a friend. When the the promise of reprieve in the termination outweighs the benefits of carrying on, then, is it then that a friendship ends? Is it ever really a decision at all? Flames licking the walls, water filling the hull, an ending friendship is a burning house, and a sinking ship all at once. Hopelessness and futility saturate what was once joy-soaked. Frustration binds it all together into a horrible bundle and even then the uncertainty and doubt are overwhelming. Thus is the dilemma in the end: the plaguing wonder.

We met four years ago this fall. I remember distinct details of my first impressions. Each encounter glimmers turned end over end in my memory: a pony tail, a pair of sunglasses glinting in the sun, a halo of hair, a pair of eye glasses peering from around the door, a cowboy hat and two blond braids. I was critical and a tough sell. I was reluctant for reasons that I turn over in my head, all of them tumbling around without resolution. I was resistant to people who only wanted to be my friends. The more I examine the remains, the further the truth slips from me. The memories morph and distorted as they are, they are easy to dismiss. The regrets, not the girls. But I try not to let them allude me. It is at first glance something of a mystery. But then there it is, the pudding: despite my reluctance, and resistance, and what in my memory has become an ornery and ugly demeanor, they resisted and our friendship prevailed.

We were a group of six. If memory serves, the times that weren't tumultuous were brief, and infrequent. Two on one, three on two, two on four, five on one, somebody was always frustrated. It was me a lot. Life in a house crowded with girls never suited me. We were still in discovery, even once we had signed our second lease. It was painful, demoralizing at times, frustrating.

There isn't anything I can say about when Jaymie died. All the details of me in those days are false and trivial. What I did, what I ate, how I slept. And now, with years between now and then, there is still nothing to say about it, what it feels like to lose a friend. I still mistake strangers and hope to find her tucked into some place I've forgotten about, like a piece of sea glass I found at the beach, lost in a pocket for safe keeping.

And now I've lost three. Jaymie departed. A second to decay, another to dysfunction. What do you say to the person to whom you've already said it all? We are different than all other friends, I think. Our pack is an anomaly, an aggrandized group, touched, plagued, tortured by death and immortal because of it. I'm also certain that we are none of these things. In the history of the world, the odds and pure reason tell me that we are just a group of girls, issues just as petty as the next. Yet here we are.

I have the deepest longing for the accompaniment of one of these friends. Any of them, but mostly all of them. I've never said that before because I have never realized I felt it. I've been screening some new friends lately with a meal and a bit of conversation. But that which is lacking is the most integral of details: ease, comfort, history, a common repertoire of references to the past. It's what all the substitutes lack.

In the beginning, we must choose friends for a reason. In our beginning, I believe that my friends chose me for some reason that I don't anticipate ever understanding.

A Life In Review

I wouldn't formally call what I've recently been suffering from writers block. I have been writing. I've been expressing myself, which means that I don't have the most important qualifying symptom of writers block. Sure, my newest method is unconventional but it is, as I am so fond of saying, the 21st century.

I haven't been posting, nor scribbling with any sort of frequency, but I have been reviewing up a storm. This is all in conjunction with my new favorite pass-time: online commerce! Sure, at first glance you may dismiss my newest of hobbies as nothing more than a new method of shopping, a variation of the over consumption I already engage in, a lazy woman's wardrobe expansion. But, then I realized that I could incorporate my new form of expression into my bi-weekly trips to Anthropologie. (Markdowns on Tuesdays, newly merchandised sale floor on Thursdays.)

I have been reviewing any and everything that I can and have consumed for the past six months now. Sweaters, restaurants, shoe repairs, YouTube videos, teachers, nurses, nail salons, face washes, coffee beans, iPhone apps, barbecue, my Pharmacist. The convenience of buying online is that Nordstroms, or Zappos will automatically e-mail to remind you that you made a purchase, and that you can review it! A poncho, a bar of soap, a pair of Frye's, no matter the purchase, a few words, and a discretionary number of stars tells a story. With no good friends to be had, perhaps I have been having a relationship with my purchases, which is of course the most disgusting thing I have ever thought about myself, and thus will immediately dismiss.

I, of course, read the reviews that other women post, mostly concerned when it is all a question of fit, how a size runs, the quality of material. There is nothing I hate more than a brief, completely nondescript description of a product. Let me give you an example. Let's say the review in question is for a jersey dress. Any old jersey dress will do. Now, let's say I am looking to buy this dress, but can't decide if I am one size or another. (Do you like how I conveniently avoided saying which two sizes we are supposing I am between? It's really none of your business.) Well, I would of course consult a minimum five reviews but of course it depends on how many reviews there are. I have been know to read all reviews posted, and it seems to me that I am not the only woman expressing herself via E-Commerce review.

When a woman describes herself as "curvy" or "athletic" or "petite" I feel crazed. What on earth does all that mean? Women are tricky, and with this, I read: "fat," "mannish," and "anywhere under five-foot-six-inches: reluctant to give other details."

Then there are the women who give you all the details, right down to their cup size and the cellulite on the back of their thighs, and how well this particular jersey dress hides it all. These are the women I appreciate. Not the women who give you all the gory details about their midget proportions, their tiny little curve-less bodies. The nail in the review coffin? The MySpace-esque photos of them all in my jersey dress. The only thing less-helpful than a description of a midget in my prospective dress, is a photo of it. I love photos of product, don't get me wrong, but how am I expected to visualize myself in my dress if I'm looking at a picture of a five-foot, chest-less brunette in it?

No matter how many of these I have to sort through, I can usually arrive at some sort of decision. If not, I subscribe to the Buy-Two-And-Return-The-Wrong-One theology. And ultimately, if I am undecided about which color to order, and, after hours of debate, a good nights sleep, and a call to a friend or two, cannot arrive at a decision as to whether or not to order the blue or the red, I am the founding member of the church of Buy-Both-Colors.

Rounding The Bend

Biting off more than I can chew is the only way I know how to approach anything. Though never stretched too thin, sometimes "no" truly is the hardest thing to say. Somehow, things manage to streamline themselves, with several frantic moments of push. It's always preferable when the stars align themselves and certain tasks bump themselves off all on their own; fell through The impracticality of certain commitments usually resolves the rest. And just when I think the load that I bear cannot possibly weigh an ounce more, it always seems to. The last push is always the hardest. Teeth gritted, sweat on my brow, it's the late nights and early morning up against one another that are the worst, but the relief afterward is of course, the best part of all. I've just gotten to the best part!

Please except this as an apology for the lengthy writing hiatus.

The Survey

Recently, while trying to read an article from the New York Times Fashion & Style section, I got tricked into taking an online survey about banking. Tricked may be a bit strong, as I did willingly click to participate but to be fair I did think it was going to be about the New York Times. Ironic, I thought, as I answered questions about checking accounts, credit cards, loans, CDs, and a personal savings that I don't have. Ironic really,all the things in this world I: A. know the least about and B., am the worst at.

Then suddenly, without warning, the survey turned really nasty. Which of the following activities and interests do you and/or members of your household enjoy on a regular basis? the survey nagged me.

Foreign travel: YES!
Gourmet/fine food: YES!
Fashion/clothing: YES!

This is fun! I thought.

Physical fitness/exercise: Eh, well, John I guess can fullfull this checked box for the "household," ha... household.
Current events/news: Since I was trying to read Eric Wilson's most recent exposee "Oh, to Be Young and a Star" I think I more than qualify, I thought, patting myself on the back.
Wildlife/environmental issues: My mere association with parents such as mine more than qualifies me. Check!
Money making opportunities: I suppose if money fell into my lap I would accept it, sure, but what mean this "opportunities?" Doesn't this stupid survey know I would answer yes to the first three boxes, essentially ruling out entirely the possibility of this later one? I did specify my age at the beginning of this thing after all.
Book reading: I read a book this morning! I couldn't help but thank past Andrea for having such incredible foresight.
Self Improvement: What the.....
Watching or playing sports: What a well rounded pair John and I are, says the survey. I smiled here. What does "Self improvement" even mean?!
Charities/volunteer work: What?
Consumer electronics: I do want an iPhone, I thought guiltily, looking with a twinge at the box above.
None of the above:

Well, I thought, hastily taking my belated exit to glorious, materialistic reprieve, what a thoroughly offensive survey.

In Hell

I am in internet-less hell. Hell because there is no Internet. No Internet, because this is Sardegna. I should have known it. I joked about it, that I would be without it, that I would have no choice but to suffer contact-less days and nights and here I am, suffering. Endlessly. This is day two, I remind myself.

Apparently, corrects my MacBook, Internet is a proper noun, emphasizing further the importance of its existence. Along with America, Carmex, and Vogue. Since I can’t live without these three, how then, can one expect me to live without the previous?

My Airport doesn’t find a single wireless network, protected or not. I am literally without options. My access to Internet comes only from the frame shop with an Ethernet plug-in that is a steep hike away in the town center. And today is Sunday. Not only do I know it is closed because it is the day of rest, but also because I am sitting next to the proprietor.

The hours drag on and I wonder if the days will ever change. I wonder how a person lives this way, how long they can endure. "How come there is no internet here?" I ask, accompanied by a practiced, forced smile. “We didn’t get around to putting in the Internet yet. I can use it at work and Valerio uses it at the shop, and so we didn’t see the need.” I nod politely, arranging my face into an expression that I think says, Ah, understandable. “And how long ago did you move into this new apartment?” I ask, my smile now a grimace. “In December.”

It is a cretinous lifestyle, to be sure. Day two, echoes ominously in my head. I can't spell “cretinous” off the top of my head and I try to look it up using my handy formatting palette: “Office cannot connect to the Internet,” it tells me. “Make sure that your computer is connected to the Internet, and press RETURN to try again.” Not only did it repeat the word “Internet” twice, it was even capitalized in the toolbox.

The Music Of This Street

In my apartment I am constantly being confronted with the pluses and minuses. Single bedroom: plus. Two bathrooms: plus. Freezer the size of a microwave: minus. Shower that shares a wall with a sleeping roommate: minus. Neighbor above in high heels: minus.

But recently, I discovered the two greatest plus of them all. And funny enough, it isn't even in my apartment.

People talk about the music of a city. The garbage trucks, the traffic, the shouts and hollers of pedestrians, car stereos. But I have found myself living in the apartment afforded the most music of all. Real music. No on in this apartment plays an instrument, and it isn't the apartment below me blasting theirs, it is the real, live pianist living in the building across from mine. His windows look directly into my own, and he is a he.

I found out last week when I awoke and opened the shutters. Putting on my slippers, wondering what combination of people might be present in the dining room, I went into the kitchen for my morning cappuccino. Seated at the table, not sour at all (at least not yet) was Giudy, hunched over her computer, oscillating between her thesis in a word document and the online social networking site we all know and love. She was playing music, a concert pianist, or at least I thought so. I complemented her music choice and instead of smiling politely and thanking me, her face contorted into a kind of grimace, the kind that says simultaneously, what on earth are you thinking and oh you like that? cause it's doing nothing for me.

"It's not me," she said, "it's the man across the street." I looked up and out the open window, to the one adjacent. Now I could tell. Clearly, this was no MP3, it was a live person, playing some wonderful piano cantata. "You don't like it?" I asked, slightly disgusted that she could be such a Grinch. "It's impossible to study when he plays, and he always plays in the spring and summer. What a nuisance." (Here, I paraphrase, and would like to note that her criticism was not so well mannered indeed it included several expletives, but seeing as no appropriate translation exists from Italian to English, I feel her point is better served in the way I have described it.)

I couldn't believe it. I can't believe it. How could someone dislike the sound of a piano, an uncomplicated, wordless tune? Here she was, practically in agony over the sound of a baroque masterpiece, and I felt I should thank this man. How could she call this a disruption? Live, free, moderately low-volumed music. I made my cappuccino and made a hasty exit, afraid that her colorless, repugnant attitude could be contagious. Back in my room, I threw open both windows.

Today finds me with windows flung open wide, reclined on my bed, looking out towards his window and up to the sky. I awoke at 9:30, relatively early considering the late hour at which I finally switched off the light last night. It was to the sound of the music, drifting through the shutters, not waking me but rather invading my sleep, pervading my dreams. When I rolled over into this realization, I opened the shutters immediately, to allow the music better entrance to my room. A nuisance? Never.

He plays daily, and for hours on end. Sometimes slowly, encumbered. Perhaps it is a new piece, I imagine. Sometimes quickly, expertly, as though he wrote the piece himself. He rarely loses his place, or stops abruptly, and each time he does, so too does my heart. Has the concert ended? When will the music return? It inevitably begins again, and I've usually stepped out by the time he finishes, an easier acceptance than having the music end on me. Today I heard the beginning as well as the end of the concert.

These private concerts, as I like to imagine they have become, are something I will miss greatly. This, and Friday evenings. Downstairs and across the street is Chet Baker, the restaurant, not the man. Every Friday evening, they arrange tables out on the terrace and serve dinner in front of a live jazz band that plays for no less than four hours. Somebody explained to me that the restaurant's namesake lived for a number of years in Bologna. Though only once a week, this concert lights my block ablaze. I love the music, followed by the applause. I love the applause as much as the music, because that too is live. It is in appreciation. It isn't Giudy's disapproving ear, and it isn't my roommate's boyfriend screaming "ENOUGH!" out the window, like he did today.

The Smells In This City

Until four months ago, I had never lived in a big city in my life. The realities of such a life have been confronting me daily since I arrived. It's crowded. Everything is stone and concrete and brick. Its filthy. With few green spaces, all tucked out of the way in isolated corners, there is dog excrement everywhere, usually in the shape of a smashed skid from the shoe of the poor pedestrian who was so unfortunate as to step in it. There are homeless begging, and insistent street vendors who seem not to know I have a particularly large bubble of personal space because they seem always to be entering it. But worst of all presented itself just one week ago when all of a sudden the spring seemed to arrive all at once.

One night it was beautiful, and hot, and a whole new side of the city showed itself. The smell. The smokers were always here but it was one bus ride I took last Wednesday in particular when I realized the reality of living in a city is infinitely worse than I'd imagined. I rode this particular bus on a day that was hot though not unbearable. I could discern each distinct smell coming for each individual passenger.

As the heat increases each day, it gets worse. Sometimes it's better to stay home and starve than go out and confront my neighbors and fellow Pam Supermarket shoppers, their lack of hygiene a complete affront. But it's not just the people. It's the trash cans, the dog excrement, the plumbing in my apartment, the exhaust from a million cars. It's disgusting.

Please, oh please, take me to the Pacific!

The Itch

Three weeks ago I tripped and I fell hard, on my face, skinning my elbow and my knee, ripping my jeans. It was a brilliant fall, both for its severity and its timely happening in a highly populous area. Utterly humiliating. Fueled by several cocktails and more than enough shots, I fell victim to one of the city's thousands of uneven side walks.

The next day over a cappuccino, I recounted for a friend the spectacular spill I had taken. I showed her my knee. And I got to thinking. When was the last time I had actually fallen hard enough to skin a knee? I had no idea. Sure, since then I've had rug burns and bruises, but a thick brown scab on my knee? I had no idea. I passed numerous early years with a seemingly permanent scab, a constant presence that smarted at the bend of a knee, and itched something awful as it dispersed.

Everything about the scab was familiar: the way it starts coming off first at the corners, the dryness, the itch. The constant temptation to pick it until a tiny prick of blood appears, and later hardens into a new scab. Only this time I didn't pick it. Well, not until it bled. But this time, I couldn't help thinking that this scab was for such a different reason than ever before. Sure, I tripped plenty but this time I was drinking.

I didn't play sports, I never threw myself after some superfluous ball in some sort of insane self sacrifice to prevent a goal being scored or an out-of-bounds call. I didn't pay tag, or tether ball or anything for that matter in a particularly violent way. I've never been in a fight. Tomboy simply never applied to me. But still, I had my share of skinned knees. A trip, perhaps a shove. I can remember a freeze frame of of a little knee with a tough, gnarled scab, but none of the motives behind it. I was a girl's girl. No, I was a boy's girl. The type who has millions of dolls that are all her children. Barbie only wore a wedding dress: she was always getting married. Outfits match. Sleeping Beauty lived in the VCR. I always wanted to be a princess. Not for the title or the real estate but for the prince. For the wonderful idea that one day a man, not just a man a prince would come into my life and then there would be nothing but happiness. After all isn't that what ever after means?

Princesses don't have skinned knees, it seemed, I realize now. Or maybe they did, and thus the need for the petticoats. My scab has already peeled off and I can see the fresh red skin exposed as well as the realization that I don't want to be a princess. I hope there are many a scraped knee to come. Perfection is boring, whatever that means. The knee in freeze frame is bigger now. My scab no longer attached I realize that even when it isn't sloughed off by a harsh city street, my skin is shedding constantly. Sometimes slowly, and sometimes all at once.

The Weight

When it rains, sometimes it seems to do more than just pour. The clouds gather, the sky darkens, the winds whip everything into a frenzy. The earth trembles beneath your very feet. And elsewhere in the world you know that things, events, cataclysmic happenings are taking place. Hurricanes are swirling, fires blazing, volcanoes erupting. Hail pummels the earth and waves beat on the shores. Avalanches and mudslides and rockfalls smother everything in their path. And just when you think, logically, statistically that not another disaster could possibly occur, it begins to rain over the wreckage.

Sometimes it is you standing in the downpour, (the seeming apocalypse), and sometimes, you're standing protected by an umbrella, watching the debris fall around you onto someone else.

What a downpour it has been. I have an umbrella and my goulashes and I wait for the next cloud burst to wash away tentative progress. I wade through the waist high water to a friend stranded on a dry patch in the deluge. I sit on this isolated roof top and hold my umbrella over their head, too. It doesn't change the fact that their feet are wet, or that their house is underwater, but at least we're together. Their pieces are shattered in a million billion directions, but I'll look for every last one on every corner of the earth until we've got them all again. It is no trouble. I do it gladly, hoping to alleviate even a little tiny bit of their burden.

The Laser Pointer

The very first class I went to at the University of Bologna was Art History of China. Well, I suppose it was the second, but the first lecture I attended for Art History of Buddhism in India was also my last. The professor humiliated me by calling me out as a "straniera," a foreigner in front of the entire class. Necks craned, everyone got a look at me, the foreigner. Sure, there couldn't have been more than eight people total in the room, including myself and the professor, but humiliation is one thing I cannot tolerate. So I stayed for the remainder of the class, palms sweating, cheeks red, and left, never to return.

Let's begin again. In the context of classes-I-actually-took, Art History of China was the first. Besides the first, it is also the longest running class I am in. I began attending on Tuesday January 9th, a virtual lifetime ago. For the record it ends May 20th. Another small class, on the days when all students are present, there are 7 of us. Everyone sits in the front three rows of the classroom which could easily seat 125 students. Sometimes in the fourth row back, I feel like some sort of rebel, ostracized for my bad-ass reputation, which is completely erroneous: I totally made that up. Actually I sit alone and don't speak to anyone because I'm foreign. I'm just plain ostracized. People stare like I'm some sort of blasphemous offense in my shorts and sandals while everyone else still wears light outerwear. I don't even own a leather jacket. I'm some degree of loser.

That's ok. I'd rather be me, the loser, than the girl who clearly dies her own red hair (and her scalp too) or the girl with MC Hammer pants down to her ankles– the crotch that is. In fact, I have the confidence to strut in there two days a week, and sit for two hours, pretending not to notice all the looks Harem Pants and Reba McIntyre are stealing. While I can commiserate with their inability to focus on Professor Celli for two full hours, I do feel somewhat objectified. I used to overlook it, but now I return their stares until they become uncomfortable. Sometimes I smile at them, sometimes I frown, sometimes I open my eyes too wide without blinking till they look away. I'm clearly an eccentric curiosity so why not take liberties with my behavior? Exactly. After all, didn't their mothers ever tell them it's impolite to stare?

This usually all occurs at the beginning of class. That is to say, they examine me and my sartorial preference for that day, and then settle in to listen. After the initial interest of the staring contest, I settle in as well, watching the supplemental images projected before us. Not to say that I don't find this class fulfilling, but it is downright boring. And worst of all is the laser pointer.

Professor Celli has this laser pointer that, like my attention starts out strong. She turns it on, red pin prick visible. Celli points it at some detail on the slide, and slowly but surely, every lecture, it fades until it isn't visible within ten seconds. The laser pointer is on, and she swings it, I'm guessing, over the area she wishes to demonstrate. Except the tiny red dot has been completely extinguished. This however does not affect her zeal in using it. She holds it, gestures with it, she points. Repeatedly in each lecture, that evil little illusion appears to highlight a concept that I only vaguely grasp to begin with, to show a detail that the laser pointer never clarifies for me.

This tiny useless devise never fails to infuriate me. I see its impotence as a reflection of all things in Italy: ceremonial, customary, designed with some intended purpose, and yet, completely useless.

Retraction

Today I retract a portion of a former piece, as all published writers must eventually do. (Do you like how I just referred to myself indirectly as a published writer?) And this self-serving-hip-as-can-be little blog, though it only exists in cyberspace, is most certainly a publication.

I would like to retract Number 10, from my former article "The Things I Love About Italy in Order;" smoking is gross, it stinks, and is the opposite of cool. All things exotic have a way of capturing my imagination, and seeming ever so enchanting in the beginning. (Do you like how I just referred to smoking as "exotic"? I retract that too.) So Smoking, I see you for what you really are now, and I don't like you one bit.

Pavlov's Dog

When I was in the second grade, our teacher decided to do a little experiment. We all saw the round drum of Country Time Lemonade on the overhead projector that was perma-stationed in the front of the room. We hadn't had snack time yet and I can say with certainty that at least one mouth was watering.

Grace– yes, that's right, we called our second grade teacher by her first name– said something about "conditioned response," but who was listening? All eyes were trained on that vat of sugar and lemon extract placed so enticingly in front of us. What, we all wondered, is she going to do with that? She popped the top and handed out a stack of napkins. Next she distributed the sugary goodness, a little sandy pile on each napkin upon each student's desk.

Next, like some evil magician, she produced a bell. A little brass thing, she started saying something about a dog, and a Russian man. All this talk, with sweet, undiluted sucrose in front of our faces! Was she crazy? Nobody was listening. "When I ring the bell, everyone take a taste of their Country Time!" Now this we understood!

And that is precisely how it went: the bell rang, and like dogs, we all craned our necks down to our desks to take a lap of Country Time. Ring, lap, Ring, lap. My tongue was getting raw, but it was so delicious, and I was hungry! Ring, lap, ring lap. I was drooling from all the dry, sugary powder. On and on it went until she announced that this time when she rang the bell, we wouldn't take a taste. The bell rang. Nothing happened. We were supposed to be salivating, I suppose. I did not. Grace couldn't train me like Pavlov trained his dog. Not to salivate at least. Fourteen years after the exercise, I struggle to recall the lesson.

Shark In The Water

I dreamed Sunday night that I was in the sea. Waist deep in a murky, putrid even, salty brew with Casey. Someone else was there too, but I couldn't see who. Maybe Casey twice.

There was a purpose for us to be there but I don't remember what it was, maybe I never knew. Suddenly, we realized that we couldn't be there, shouldn't be there. There were sharks we suddenly knew, and as though we had summoned them, they seemed to arrive. Most shark attacks occur in three feet of water, I thought.

I knew, in the dream, that the moment they were in my head, they were in the water, as though the harder I focused on them, the more I panicked about their existence, the quicker they arrived, the closer they came, all the greater in number.

And that's when I felt it, near me, against my leg. I struggled as quickly as I could towards shore and all the while I knew that since it had already found me. With just a nudge, I wasn't going to make it. It had been the side of its head, but it had found me. The first one, that is. And then it had me, my leg, in its mouth. It didn't bite down, just held me there, but I could feel its teeth around my shin and calf. I visualized the blood that would flow, the bone crushing, the torn flesh, the pain. I imagined my leg, gone, and wondered how I would make it ashore with only one leg. I didn't see the others, the people or the sharks, the water was too clouded. Maybe they were already on the beach.

All this time passed: I thought, and I noticed all these things, and still the shark didn't take my leg. If I've had all this time, I thought frantically, it could be that I have another moment more. I felt like I was moving in slow motion, decision-making at an underwater rate. I am held powerless and vulnerable, at the indiscriminate and non existent mercy of this beast. But suddenly everything becomes clear and I realize I have arms. I can use my arms!

The shark is huge, hulking, but still it does not bite so I make a fist and hit at its face. Still it does not take my leg, though it does not release me either. I feel along its massive head for its eyes. And I find one, on the side of its rubbery face and I press it. Barely a touch, but the shark releases my right leg and swims off. The moment it lets go, I can't see it anymore. In seemingly the same moment, still stunned at being freed, another shark grabs the same leg though I know it is a different shark.

I know now exactly what to do: I find its round, fishy eye. Small– I think briefly– for such a large beast. This time I push harder, digging my right index finger into its exposed orifice. This second shark releases me and disappears into the soupy sea.

I struggle to the beach and collapse. The sand I notice is coarse, pebbled. I am incredulous at my own survival. It seemingly took an eternity, but I made a bid for survival, and I had warded off impending doom. Not once, but twice. I had the distinct feeling that I had known how to do it all along, this survival strategy in a shark attack. Most shocking of all, I thought, panting, slumped on the beach, was the fact that I had acted.

Creature of Habit

Every morning I wake up and the sky is gray. If the sun shows itself, it's only briefly, and then I goes back into its hiding. I wonder if it too takes comfort in solitude, and peace, hiding on the other side of this murky veil. When I lay in bed at night, I imagine that I could be the sun, hiding, silently, under the covers. Tomorrow, I think, we will shine.

It would be a lie to say that some days are not dark here, in more than one way.

I am a creature of habit. Every afternoon for lunch I eat a tomato and fresh mozzarella. I go to class, I read The Times, I write. For dinner, some variation of the same thing I ate the night before. I shower before bed, I call John. All permeated by the same thoughts that I had yesterday, that I'll have tomorrow. It's easy to follow the routine, to fall into it, and to be bored. It doesn't appear boring until one day, it just is. The people, the places, it's mostly the same. And although I am a self described creature of habit, I am no friend of monotony.

Love in Italian

It is to my great distaste that time in Italy, is of no essence. Tardiness is expected and tolerated. No meal is ever rushed. Standard business hours provide for a two hour lunch. No coffee break is too excessive, no stroll too mundane. The only people see walk at a brisk pace are other Americans.

On this sunny peninsula, people do things for the mere pleasure of it. The language itself is a testament to the never ending Italian quest for beauty. In speaking, a sentence may not be grammatically wrong, but instead "non suona bene", "non e bella." A phrase that is not beautiful is not correct. So I wonder, does this quest for beauty have anything to do with the apparent affluence of love?

Perhaps it is just my own invention, but love seems to come so easily to people in this country. Love and beauty are on everyone's lips and it seems to this American, that on Italian principle, every detail of daily life lends itself only to beauty.

Haste seems not to exist. Only in matters of love do people seem to find urgency. Were American women of this age so infatuated with the idea of love? Did I just not notice? It cannot be possible. While some women are looking, seemingly endlessly for a man, others seem tirelessly committed to one after another. They are all possessed by it. I seem to be the only one not looking for love on this boot.

I'm no cynic. I look at all the men I pass in the street. I observe them as discretely as I can. I try to imagine them as the love of my life, as my destiny. Perhaps, I force, we were meant to meet here on this street, in this snow. I invent this idea, and before I know it we've passed one another and destiny seems to have taken another course. "Seems" is the wrong word here. After all it's a farce, it was never meant to be. But I imagine just for a moment that this sickness of love could infect me.

After all, everyone wants someone to hold their hand. I want someone to hold both, and then sometimes to touch neither.

In a month

When all the snow has melted, and the streets have dried and the air has warmed, I feel like the spring could arrive any day. I feel hopeful, even if the only birds I see are pigeons and the sky is gray. I convince myself that it could be here any day.

And then the air inevitably turns colder. The sky is darker than ever at midday. I opened my shutters on Monday and I saw the snow, even without my glasses. Snow doesn't fall on the eighth floor. It swirls and darts and soars. It all falls eventually, but not up here. It is spectacular to behold, even if it reminds me that spring could still be months away. Every time I see the snow again, after a brief reprieve from it, I feel depleted, hopeless, used. As though everyday without the snow had been sober, and now I'm off the bandwagon.

These are the only times that I become truly discouraged. These are my only moments of complete frustration. I lived in an idyllic paradise, everyone wants to tell me so, and here I am and its snowing. I want to shut myself in. I want to lay in my bed with the shutters closed and hibernate until the sun shines and I can wear sandals. Enough scarves and hats and gloves.

But I get up. I let in what little light there is, and I put on my boots. I leave the house. I tread lightly though the snow, and I remember that someday these stones wont be covered in slick ice. I won't watch my every step for fear of an icy slip in just one more month. I piles of snow on all the corners will melt. The trees will have leaves. There might even be birds. In one month I will not wear down. Just one more.

My Favorite Pass Time

My favorite pass time has very quickly become reading the New York Times online.

While in the states I did this daily, this habit has quickly taken on a far more prominent role in my day to day sanity. And it has evolved. I greatly prefer reading the Style section, particularly Fashion & Style, for obvious reasons, but also for causes less expected.

Fashion is fun. The world is poor, it's crumbling, it's all politics and death. The appeal here is less, shall we say, magnetic? Rather than reading about the spread of TB in the rubble that was once Port Au Prince, or how little money 911 workers are going to receive for their injuries sustained durring cleanup without proper safety equipment, I like to hear about the latest at Lanvin, at Balenciaga, the cutbacks at Zac Posen, the Chanel sword. (I know, brilliant: a veritable confection created for American born musician William Christie's induction into Académie des Beaux-Arts, the highest French cultural honor.)

I read the Home Page, the World page, and the New York/Region too. That's how much time I have on my hands. But it is regimented: first the serious stuff, the scary and the bad. Then, I linger, for hours at a time, in the Style section, Fashion & Style, before jumping to Arts. Books, movies, theatre, I read it all even if I won't read or see it really. I skip back to Style for Dining & Wine, Home & Garden, Weddings/Celebrations. (I can't help it, Weddings/Celebrations is the guiltiest of all my online pleasures. I don't know any of those people so I don't feel the least bit guilty hating them, the stylish pigs.)

Weddings/Celebrations is the only link I don't post to friend's emails. It is undoubtedly me alone who delights in this slight section of the publication. Everything else is fair game.

Before I know it, I've remembered about my other favorite afternoon pass time, internet television, were I can get caught up on Big Love and find new programs to add to the regimen.

Before I know it, the time to exit the house has come, and another afternoon has passed in a haze of American politics, French fashion, and Haitian despair.

The Things I Love About Italy, In Order

1. When the sky is blue.

2. Everyone's a label whore.

3. The pizza.

4. The Dogs: everyone has a dog, and everyone's dog has an outfit.

5. The coffee: it's always fresh, it's always good.

6. Staying up and out until late

7. Sleeping in: I'm convinced the Italians invented it. With black-out shutters on the windows, it isn't difficult.

8. Cultural procedure: No cappuccino after 10am, no salt on your pasta after you've added the sauce, no oranges after dinner, everything is fifteen minutes late.

9. Wednesday nights at Cassero: Three words: Ultra Queer Disco.

10. Everyone smokes.

11. Waiting for the spring: patience is obligatory. It's twice as wonderful once you've withstood the snow to see it.

12. Antiquity of every city.

In These Weeks

It has been nearly one month since I landed on this peninsula (it is a peninsula, isn't it?). The weather is cold, the sky is always gray, and the coffee is always good. Nobody looks twice in my house if I eat pizza morning noon and night. I can't imagine a better scenario.

I have, in these weeks, moved into an apartment on Via Marconi, a wonderful bustling neighborhood in the newer part of the city. Newer because the old part that existed here was destroyed in world war two. Is that a proper noun? I live on the 6th floor, the 6th Italian floor, the 7th American. There's an elevator.

I made the obligatory trip to Ikea and himmed and hawed over whether or not to go with the polyester or the down comforter. It snowed on Tuesday so I couldn't be happier I went with the down. My room resembles an updated, twin-sized version of my room in Santa Barbara. I stash cookies in my desk so I can eat them while I study in bed, an action I do in the utmost of secrecy, afraid of the watchful eye of my roommates. It's not the fact that I want the cookies near so I could eat them at any hour of day, its the eating in bed part, something I consider integral to my existence on this earth.

These girls, all Italian are simply wonderful. The best, in fact. We have nothing but fun and they correct every mistake I make in my bumbling Italian. Though this may sound irritating, it is not. Almost 2 weeks in this house and I've improved infinitely. Ironically, this was the first, and nearly only, house I came to see before deciding on it. This can be nothing but fate. I had at first turned it down because of the price, but all parties involved knew that we were destined to be together and they asked their landlord to lower the rent. (LOWER the rent? Only in Italy could such a preposterous thing occur. )

So here I am, tumbler of red wine and notebooks spread wide, cookie crumbs lying about, blogging. I have no complaints, not even about the cold. I am quite convinced that spring will come sometime soon, and I will eagerly await it here.