Relics

I'm forcing inspiration today, I've been "all business" lately, and am having a hard time thinking of something worthwhile to post, so you get an English Sheepdog and its puppies, because that's what I'm thinking about right now other than my "She & Him" Pandora station (full of perfect music for my afternoon of transferring computer files and writing emails, letters, and more letters).

Let's see, what else do we have...I've gotten better at juicing things. Well, actually I kind of stick to carrot juice, but it's really good! I...ate a tuna sandwich for lunch again. God this is pathetic. Not just because I'm always writing about eating tuna (mercury poisoning anyone? Just kidding, I only eat it once a week or so), but because I just can't think of anything moderately interesting.

Lucky for you I've been transferring files all day so I'm going to copy and paste you something I wrote when I was in Italy in 2006. I was 20 at the time and entering my Junior year of college. The title is ironic, by the way. Here goes:

What is Art? Who am I?: America

I sit here on a stone patio looking over Lago di Como in Northern Italy, my sleek silver laptop with the apple facing outward towards the foothills of the Alps. Sailboats whiz by on this extra breezy, overcast day in the mountains. The village on the other side of the lake looks miniature. The wooden cross adorning the top of the mountain we spent nine hours hiking up to earlier this week isn’t quite visible through the thick clouds. A fisherman heads around the curve to my left, to a portion of the lake where all the locals know George Clooney’s vacation home is situated. It is Wednesday, August 16, 2006 and I should be savoring every last bit of my three remaining days in this European paradise. Instead I find all of my thoughts drifting across the Atlantic to a much different lake. My mind wrestles with the possibility that after twenty years of dreaming about coming to Europe I am craving the scenery of the shores of Seneca Lake. Hobart and William Smith: Population 1,800. What has changed me in the past two years to make me fall so in love with the place that I could hardly breathe in at first? I'm starting to think that I am on the verge of an identity crisis.

The past five months have been consumed with thoughts of Europe. I told everyone I met that I had every intention to become a fabulous ex-patriot, become fluent in French and Italian and never leave. And now that I’m here my mind wanders back to comforts. The Special K isn’t as crispy and I cannot seem to find a veggie burger anywhere. Don’t even get me started on my craving for a burrito. And Italian isn’t coming as easily to me as I expected, even with my laminated verb cheat sheet. I’m also not quite sure that the men here are the answer to my dating problems. I think an attitude adjustment and a year’s worth of yoga classes are the answer to my dating problems. The furthest in conversation I’ve managed to get with a local, tall, dark, and handsome Italian was some guy borrowing my goggles and returning them with a civil, “grazie.” Oh well.

Let me backtrack a little bit here. I am not taking my three-week Italian vacation for granted. I am very happy to be here and despite the difficulty of traveling with my parents and two younger brothers am having a wonderful time. This does not change the fact that my thoughts wonder back home a little more than I’d like them to. Maybe being an ex-patriot requires throngs of other ex-patriot friends escaping the two more years of the Bush administration, the drinking age that is ten months too far away and running away to Eurotrash and a ghastly exchange rate (although I will point out that my new shiny black leather purse was still a quarter of the price it would have been back home).

I sure hope everyone else is as conflicted about the next ten years of their life as I am, otherwise I am in need of some very serious counseling. Not to mention a few talks about my increased intake in vino rossi from Toscana (another thing that I wouldn’t mind having back home: delicious red wine for $4 a bottle, think about it).

This is the point in my ramblings where I’d normally try to reach some sort of conclusion, or moral, but I don’t have one, so I’m not going to try to make one up. Let’s be honest here, I have no idea whether or not I’ll ever come back to this lake, why I love HWS so much, or when I’ll finally be able to afford my own apartment in Manhattan, I do know that being twenty years old means taking some risks and making some mistakes. So I guess that’s what I’m here for.

The grass just might always be greener on somebody else’s lake. 

Here's a picture of my room on Lake Como, circa 2006. Sigh.

A

PS: a) I did need an attitude adjustment and a year's worth of yoga classes to find a worthwhile guy. b) Bush administration anyone? c) Afford a Manhattan apartment? haha silly youth, still can't afford it, but I'm here. d) That purse is navy. I found that out the next time I looked at it in the light. I still have it.