roma

even though i don't know enough italian to order a caffe, i am having the time of my life in rome. living my life as a lingustic infant has never been so easy. the pizza here comes in small personal pies with a thin crust, there are indian men everywhere selling things i never thought of not wanting, africans hawking faux handbags, chinese women selling colorful scarves, women of all nationalities dressed in their finest revealery, children shrieking all the languages i can think of, enormous stone fountains with statues of luxuriously muscular roman men engraved into them, church after church after church, the gargantuan Pantheon which had all the gods replaced with Christian characters (including a Jesus that resembles an anorexic Biblo Baggins), the overwhelmingly decorated Vatican City and its gaudily painted Cappella Sistina full of brightly colored angels and demons and Jesuses, strange Mediteranean crows with gray underbellies and underwing spots, lots of pedestrian space flanked on all sides by cafes and gelaterias and pizza parlors, and lots of sunlight. the espresso here is only about $1.50. i spent a good deal of yesterday walking around a large park in the north, listening to the singing birds and watching fathers wheel past carrying seatloads of kids on rented bicycle cars. and every meal i've had has been exquisite, often to the extent of tearing with joy. i have not asked for salt once, for i have shed more than enough tears into my meals. after every meal i have smacked my lips in satisfaction, shouted "bellisimo! grazi signoire!" and kissed my fingers in a gesture of appreciation. the waiter would then slap my back and gesticulate wildly while singing some snippet of opera as i gathered my things to leave. laughter and wine drinking all around. how could anyone ever be depressed here? i saw a crazy old guy yetsterday. he had two words taped to his shirt, some kind of tiara in his hair, and was shouting with bestial anger at passers-by. he yelled at some kids on a motorcycle to fasten their seat-belts, and when they started to yell back, he pressed his finger into his cheek like Shirley Temple and swung his dirty body left and right, all the while smiling insanely. a small armenian boy was watching him from a fountain and laughed at his every action. then the old man ordered the boy to gulp some fountain water and spit it out like the statue above. he did it! what an unlikely pair! this made my day.

time to waste a day in paris

the fault of my 9pm flight out to rome, which happened to be quite a deal, and quite a poor choice with regard to my travel plans. for now i am in paris an extra day while rome still awaits, clenching her fists in dismal anticipation. paris? what the hell do i do here? i guess there's a big eiffel tower, and some big churches, some golden statues and joan of arc and all that crap, but honestly, where can i find a nice pizza pie? a crepe is a sorry substitution. considering its lack of mozzarella and tomato sauce, and the fact that it is egg and not flour. plus, i think i might be late for my espresso with the pope, which i scheduled months in advance and paid more than i should have for, and the preparation list they mailed me back in gold seal did state that if one is even one minute late, the participant shall be "subject to eternal hellfire for selfishly wasting the time of His Holiness." i have always known deep down inside that paris would be my downfall, but how could i have any idea that this downfall would be a spiritual one, of my soul down to the darkest pits of hell? damn you, paris! damn you, cheap airline tickets! i can almost feel that espresso getting cold, the pope checking his golden watch, the minute hand ticking audibly and jangling with sapphires, the cardinals all breathing loud sighs and mopping their moist brows with crimson kerchiefs.

i managed to begin a haphazard and bizarrely-begun conversation with a girl at breakfast, and i might have coffee with her now, in order to impress upon her my caffeine-induced verbal insanity. this is of the utmost importance. perhaps i shall visit the catacombs today, an extensive underground tunnel system that happens to house 40,000 wheelbarrows' worth of human bones, some of them arranged into spontaneous discovered art: sculptures of flowers, beasts of burden, vampires, surreally life-like scenes of public beheadings, of which the french are historically fond.

mad rush in louvre

to see the mona lisa. we found her! she was hiding behind a sheet of bullet-proof (and probably cannon-proof) glass as thick as her own head. according to a tour guide, some italian guy stole her some years back and hid her in his closet. when they found her again, she was still in that closet. he said he did it for italian nationalism. we only had an hour and a half to view the largest museum in the world because i had asked a guy mopping the louvre's beautiful floor and he told me it closed at 11 pm. in his defense, my french is always dangerously ambiguous and has questionable grammar, so he must have thought i was referring to the mall area surrounding the museum, as if i wanted to buy some bags of gummy candy or some perfume at 10 pm. which i didn't. i wanted to see some art, dammit. and so we strolled over all leisure-like, hands in pockets, to get a sandwich for lunch, chatted pleasantly, then strolled right back over to the louvre to discover it indeed closed at 5.30 pm. it was 4 pm >< ;;;;;;

we also saw the venus de milo. before we reached her we saw a large and impressive statue of athena. i told kevin i wasn't interested in the least in statues with arms. i then was asked to take a picture of him with fists thrusted in the air before the statue, in a posture of power and/or victory, mouth wide open in mock roar.

the eiffel tower was also scaled by us today. we were accompanied by a girl who was studying in spain and who could not for the life of her stop talking about spain and slipping "helplessly" into spanish, even when speaking her native tongue of english. despite this minor defect, she was much fun to spend time with, and would regale us with stories about spain, spanish grammar, spanish food, spanish host families, and even spanish lispy accents. she scaled the tower with us. even though it was only to the deuxieme etage, it was still six hundred steps, and the view was magnifique. the top was off limits to all humans that day, although we saw mysterious elevators climb slowly up the rails towards the blue zenith. it snowed slightly. our breath trailed out before us, a ghostly vapor that wafted down the tower steps as we climbed the many stairs. it mixed with other water vapors and became a rain cloud that rained upon the coast of north africa. when the rain hit the parched ground, our voices could faintly be heard rising from the earth. spooky.

la france, je t'adore

i am in paris, france. it is a most enjoyable city, called "the city of lights," and the boulevards are bustling with frenchmen, baguettes, and cigarette smoke; the air smells of sugar coated on pastries, espresso comes when you order "cafe," stone fountains adorned with sculpted angels, heroes, or Joan D'Arc are found on most corners, the facades on most apartment buildings put the finest brownstones in the city to crying shame, the saliva produced from the populace uttering the french language collects in the gutters and surges into turbulent rivers that carry small children and farm animals away, never to be seen again. a small casualty for a tongue of such exquisite aestheticism. it has made me swoon countless times, almost straight to the ground, where still-burning cigarette butts and half-eaten crepes wait to sully my face.

kevin and i have been on two free tours -- the first with a charming young chap from smalltown texas whose knowledge of parisian history was not only surprising but highly improbable, almost to the point that he must have been lying. however, i believed it all, as this was more attractive than denial, since he talked of van gogh, picasso, bloody battles, beheaded kings, and revolutions. today we walked for four hours with a girl from boston named mary who i fell for completely, mainly because of her unbridaled comedic reposes amidst a fury of historical speech, humor that kept me laughing and stories of revolution after revolution, beheading after beheading, dethroning after rethroning after revolution again, accompanied by a seine that seemed to flow with blood on a constant basis for a good five hundred years. she warned us not to drink from it.

tomorrow we journey to the louvre perhaps, or the tour eiffel. regardless of where we go, i know we shall have a splendid time, and i shall eat at least one pan au chocolat. and a crepe avec creme de marron. and three more assorted pastries. and then five more pastries.

oh, so at peace

i cannot be more at peace. unless i was dead. but then i could not enjoy it. so blog, let me tell you. i forced my boss to fire me to collect unemployment compensation, and once fired realized i could not collect it because of time technicalities, although i potentially could if i am still unemployed by (shudder) april, and i have spent my days traveling azeroth and seeing friends. my dear friend misha has come to work a stint for a fashion company and we have been seeing much of each other. tonight i will traverse the subterranean tunnel below the east river in a clanging car of metal to arrive at the west village, where complimentary ale is being divvied out and humble works of art are presented to weary travelers. it shall prove to be a festive occasion that shall burn long and hard in the lantern of my memory. my belly is full with textured vegetable protein, left over from the other night, and my stomach will be hard pressed to generate an acid potent enough to coax it to cease resisting metabolization.

let whatever brings you light shine brightly tonight, my compatriots.

angry again

so the superiors are away and some people ring the doorbell. the kiwi buzzes them in as usual now, as the receptionist just quit. there have been a number of interviews these days and the designer and i are always wondering what positions they're applying for. so naturally we were curious who these visitors were. she bolts down the stairs in her usual blustering way and plants herself back down in her chair and locks her gaze on her monitor. with the slightest hesitation, i ask who they are. she answers back sharply that she doesn't know, and why don't i check if i want to know so bad. so i do. i dash up the stairs with a childish fascination and find two east asian women, one a translator for the other. they are here to interview the executive director for a magazine article, i am told. oh, so no one is interviewing her? i ask, gesturing toward the woman not fluent in english. no, says the smiling interpreter. well, i was just checking... sorry! i say, then return downstairs. when i take my seat and tell them what i learned, the kiwi remarks smartly that she already knew. you already knew? i am surprised. of course i did, she says with an undercut of disgust, i am completely competent to handle situations like that. i don't know why you went up in the first place. because i was curious, i say. this is a professional environment, she reminds me staring at her screen still typing, and that wasn't very professional at all. you know what, i say, i guess i just don't give a shit... and that's it. yeah, i guess you don't, she finishes last.
some people just can't release themselves from the boundaries that have been created around them, either by themselves or by outside forces. they are to be pitied. who can hold such a rigid and uncompromising ethic about a workplace even they are set on leaving?

my jar of genmaicha

my Ball jar of genmaicha looks like a beaker of settled pond water. yet it remarkably tastes like toasted brown rice, macha, and green tea. the tea leaves and rice have precipitated to the bottom of the jar, creating a deep green textured surface where all manner of creatures may hide, and the algae-soaked layers above pale to a cloudy yellow until they reach the surface, where a light green froth gathers around the rim, certainly brimming with frogs' eggs.