Short, Sweet, and Sad?

Sadness is necessary.

This is one of the things I have gleaned from my life in the recent past. I don't know if there is any way to explain how I feel about that, but I have finally come to understand that being sad is a part of life, and it is as necessary as being predominantly happy (which I, coincidentally, also believe in). To ignore sadness or try to best it would be unbelievably ignorant and will always fail. This is what has taken about 21 years of life to find. We will be sad. And then we will rise from the sadness as more understanding people. That is the natural progression of things.

Pain is necessary.

All these negative things that I had come to perceive as wrong and terrible and bad and undesirable are now a part of my life that is really inseparable from the good. And they are, in terms of a lifetime, not really so terrible in the end. We have to hurt to heal. And hurting is also going to come. We will be sad. We will hurt. And then we will rise from the sadness and the hurt as more understanding people. That is the natural progression of things.

I wish that I could describe in words how much happiness the realization of these two things has brought me, but that in itself seems a little anticlimactic, doesn't it? Ah well. Let anticlimactic be the name of the game, then. Because it's true.

Grazie/Gracias?

I speak Spitalian these days (def: Spanish/Italian), so it's really hard to choose which to use. Not that I usually choose anyway, because what comes out just comes out. Which is usually a painful blend that I just get called spanish curse words for. Thanks, WaWa!

So I feel the need to acknowledge the time spent away from the blog world, as it has been many moons. Foremost on my list of excuses for not writing is the beast that was Spider Woman and the ensuing madness. Don't fear. This shall be short, and in the next four days I shall tank out one of the heftiest blogs known to man. Get excited. Or scared, either one would be appropriate in this setting.

Via the inspiration of It's All Happening, I felt particularly inclined to make a 'thankful for' list...here's my shot.

Kevin Mueller, His Mom and Aunt.

I do believe that words are incapable of expressing the gratitude I hold for these three people. They were selfless enough to make a thanksgiving dinner for three of us who didn't have Thanksgiving homes in the city. Amazing women, killer friend, and mind-blowing dog. Not to mention Texas football, wine, and pumpkin pie. Who can beat that combination of singularly majestic things?? No one, that's who.

The Family.

Whom, honestly, I miss more and more each day. It really is odd how much I want to be back in Twin Falls for a bit. Winter break can't come sooner, especially with all the upcoming work (more on that soon)! Regardless, I love my family desperately, and we have traversed a rocky road and persevered, and for that I am eternally thankful.

My Friends.

I'm honestly unsure how I would still be alive without you. As much as I mean this figuratively and charming and cute, I also mean it literally, for those who've been there. You are my sustenance, my inspiration, and my daily source of happiness. If it wasn't for you all, I wouldn't ever have lived the life I am living now and, for that, I don't even know how to express the love I have for you. I can only hope many more days of wild rumpus are ahead of us.

Music.

This is just a general comment: I love music. If music had not ever been invented I would not be the person I am today either. And I'm not talking show music, children, I can survive perfectly well without that on an hourly basis, but rather I mean music music. It teaches us how to feel and it says what we've always been thinking in ways that are exponentially more eloquent than we could ever hope to articulate. Keep making music! Do it! Every day!

And to directly thieve from Faustyna's blog: (in no particular order)

Decorating for christmas...whole coffee beans...pandora...drawing...phone calls to Mom...'what if,' the game...good conversation...getting it...good wine...candles...unexpected friendships...mischief...ornery text messaging...doing nothing...to-do lists...the dollar store around the corner...central park...penny, the dog.

I love life. And I don't think it's right to ever stop loving life. It's much too brief for that.

Stick It To The Man: Midwestern Edition

If I had anything poetic to say, now would be the time.

Sadly, Huntington, Indiana doesn't allow poetry...that falls right in line with the unspeakable evils of abortion, modern fashion, and gay rights...

Only joking. I just can't think of anything inspiring to say. Plus, Adam Sandler and Seth Rogen are calling my name in 'Funny People,' and I couldn't think of anything more I would rather be doing on my day off.

Well. I could be reading the last Harry Potter book again.

Or memorizing Kiss of the Spider Woman.

But those also fall under the unspeakable category, as they have themes that, if discovered in Huntington, would probably cause the Apocalypse. Still joking. It's not that conservative.

Wish me (Jared and his family) luck with apartment-hunting this week. If we find a good one, there will be plenty-a-housewarming-party to attend. If we find a cupboard, masquerading as an apartment...

well, that still classifies as a good one. Look forward to housewarming. :)

Bubble Boy

There is a mindset that one must prod themselves into in order to be able to write hopefully-witty tidbits of literature. I'll tell you all, friends, that said mindset most preferably should be gained while drinking coffee. And there must be a certain degree of feistiness with which we write. Otherwise things become drab and dreary or, in my particular case, angry. Which is an emotion which seems to pervade the last few morsels of information about my life here. And this is so terribly unpleasant to read, I understand, so without any more ado I shall cut short my tirade of annoyances.

I happened across the path of an extremely terrifying notion last night which, for the most part, prompted the urge to explain what I encountered in this here conveniently-placed blog. I was left so confused (and still am) that in order to sort out my labyrinth of ponderings I need to talk it out.

I do believe that there is something to be said about consciousness. Now, don't go running off in a psychology-phobia fashion, I promise this will make as much sense as it can. What I mean is that we do funny, funny things. I feel like I have a selective consciousness; which is to say that there must be some part of myself and my mind that ignores half of the things that I should be aware of.

Superficially, this way of (unconsciously) choosing what I'm conscious of lives in the things like 'I'll make a grilled cheese...oh no, I left the burner on and now the apartment is burning...' Obviously my mind would like to take care of the trauma for me for burning my own apartment down.

But in a more applicable way, my head tends to repress (is that the right word for this?) things like 'your brother's in critical condition and we don't know if he'll make it' or 'your best friend's step-dad has a funeral today and you can't make it.' Things like that feel suspiciously like they'll come back to bite you in the ass because you have no time (or no coping mechanism, whichever feels right for you) to deal with them.

I haven't been there for any of the sickeningly traumatic events that directly affect me.

Am I blessed for this? Or does my head protect me from hurting? It's an upsettingly gnawing question I unearthed. It's like the Jumanji heartbeat thing, where if you don't play the game, it wakes you up in the middle of the night and won't go away until somebody wins. Damn you, Robin Williams!

My apartment didn't burn down, by the way. I just want to make sure you're not fretting about the burner I figuratively left on. Oh! There's a third part of my selective consciousness that rears its head as well, and that is the part where I have an awesome ability to see what traits I want to see in the people I meet. I'm sure it's a manifestation of an overly active imagination that I can project personality traits onto people, but its my stupid consciousness that will believe and perpetuate what I fabricate. I even do this to myself - I can convince my own mind that I love olives if I want.

Okay, that's a lie. I'm kidding myself if I think I can convince myself to love olives. Sorry, Mom.

But you get the point! It's amazingly exciting. And depressing. It's like living in a harmless bubble of ignorance and regardless of whether the 50-50 chance coin lands on bad-person or awesome-person, the surprise of who you really are is always like Christmas morning for me.

Being here in Indiana is like living in a separate reality, which is another little something I just realized the other day. One would assume that a town with an anti-abortion clinic and flyers for (there is literally a stack of them right here) the 1st Annual Cornhole Tournament would present a slightly different scene than Manhattan. Maybe it's just me. Although I do honestly phase out into a different life here in Huntington; scrolling through pictures of my semester in Italy, I nearly lost my mind trying to convince myself I actually spent a semester in Florence. Che pazzo! E capire, posso da fare molte cose in italiano, ancora!!! As one of the actresses here was (not at all forcefully) influenced to say by yours truly - mamma mia!!!

Just for contrast's sake, of course. What a different thing. It blows me away to think of the countless number of pathways to which life branches off. One minute you could be hangin' out on the unpleasantly rocky-ass beach in northern Italia and the next you'll find yourself at a coffee shop in Huntington, Indiana. Mixes things up, doesn't it?

I feel like I have everything to say but no words that sound like how I want it to come out.

Maybe that's why people spend their whole lives wishing they knew other languages. If you take the words that mean the most out of every single language, could you come up with the perfect way of expressing yourself, or would you just end up being able to say yes, no, and I love you in every single language?

Simple as this.

This is a list of things that I do not fare well with:

Skepticism

Indecision

Manipulation

Patience

Lies

Excuses

Arrogance

Secrets

Trust

Haughtiness

Ignorance

Sadness

.

Whether it's a trait that I know I have or a characteristic of someone else's, I am very aware of the fact that I have a limited ability to tolerate all of this. Which is a lengthy laundry list, sadly. I probably can't put up with most of it because of the slight patience issue, for which the Stanley family is in notoriously short supply (notorious, at least, within the confines of our own family-fault acknowledgment).

In some fashion, pet peeves such as these make you a human instead of a robot. I believe that achieving greatness is not conditional upon eliminating your faults but rather acknowledging and reconciling them all in your own (my case=particularly metaphoric) way.

P.s. Who decided to speak up and say yes, of course the things that really get your goat should be called pet peeves? I must have missed the part where the dog interrupted the guy who came up with the name and got mud on his pants or something. And where is my goat that is being had? I don't think I own a goat, even though right by my house there sometimes is a small goat eating grass alongside the road.

Alright, those jokes were feeble, feeble. The literal translation thing never really pays off the way you see it going in your head, does it? It's like the times when you're in a group and a funny joke is being dragged out, but then you come up with something to add on right when it's just stopped being funny and only get halfway through it before realizing that everything you say is going to create that really awkward silence where no one can think of anything to say. This is an experience with which I am familiar. I guess that makes sense, in the same vein that taking idioms literally never really works well.

I have no narrative today for the roaring masses that I'm sure are hungry for a life update. I can currently be found in Huntington, Indiana, at The New Huntington Theatre, singing Italian ditties and rehearsing my summer days away, which is not a particularly bad fate. Contrarily, I find it interesting to pause your life, like this feels, in order to work on your craft. It is conducive to extreme quantities of contemplation and determination and is successfully serving as an effective segue from all-thought no-hardwork Italia to no-time-for-thought all-hardwork New York.

A good middleground.

Just one of those days.

It's days like these when you feel like your heart has just become ten years older.

It's days like these when the stupid, two-laner Idaho road stretches straight into the horizon and the only thing that stops you from coasting to the edge of consciousness is sadness.

It's days like these that steal your breath away instead of taking it away. Stolen in a tired, old way that crackles with skepticism and disguised enmity.

It's days like these when you'd want to cry for humanity, for the way the clouds look, for yourself, but you're stuck high and dry because your furrowed brow is getting in the way.

Reason and rationale tell you that you've got it good.

Suck it up, sweetheart, sadness doesn't suit you.

I finished my book today, which was very exciting and incredibly interesting. I'm definitely looking forward to buying Scarlett What's-her-name's other book(s). I found it so intriguing, in fact, that I'd love to leave you with a bit from the end, assuming M(r)s. Scarlett won't sue me for copyright:

You now have infinite choice.

But we carry on walking, anyway. We don't have to say anything.

And all the choices are there in front of me. Every single one.

But what we walk into is a garden. The most perfect garden that I have ever seen, with more trees than I have ever seen, and a river shimmering like a mirror running down the edge of it. I think that this makes sense, for consciousness to have begun in a garden, because consciousness evolved from plants, after all. And I look at Adam, but I can't speak anymore. I'm not sure I can even think. And there's one tree, standing by the river, and we walk towards it.

And then I understand.

Man, fuck reason.

The End Times, Senza La Bibbia

I’m getting into this really sweet groove that involves not saying anything about my life for weeks and weeks at a time and then word-vomiting everything that comes to mind. I’ve found this method really effective, for a few key reasons: first of all, the disjunctive sense of time and sequencing completely throws the reader off guard, leaving them alone and very susceptible to relatively amazing conclusions brought to light by yours truly. How it does this, I am still unsure, but I appreciate it for what it is, because it’s probably not very true. Secondly, word-vomit is cleansing for the mind, in a way in which I find real-vomit is much more of a hassle and certainly the opposite of cleansing. And lastly, this fashionable style of retelling the events of my life allows me to sift and consider as I write about them, often times laying them to rest in their respective mind-burial-grounds. Nonetheless, in the very least it is telling of my personality and shall continue until otherwise indicated.

 So I have returned, not without a particularly painful pang of sadness. And since alliteration seems to suit the situation, I’ll try and tell you truthfully the tale of my return (honestly, that worked out about five times more eloquent than I could have hoped).

 I spent the remaining ten days of my time in Florence by roughly pulling all of my hair out, kicking and screaming. This was not, contrary to expectation, because I was leaving, but rather because the week I left happened to breed these atrocious beasts sometimes christened finals. I believe they’re also called nastier things, too, most of which can’t be posted on a blog for fear of censorship. Regardless, the beasts came with their fangs bared and we valiantly tried our hand at taming them. The outcome of which was what is called abbastanza bene, or semi-good. Surfacing for air on the other side of the sea of stress, however, I was very happy to find that I will never be forced to analyze or sing twelve-tone, serial music again, made up of ludicrous rules and compositions that sound like children screaming. This is a good feeling, which transitioned well into the last three days (nights) of the semester in Florence, in which I made some of the best friends I now have from Italia.

 Day 1: Tuesday. “Beer at the sacristy.” Explanation: Jared insisted that we should meet at “the sacristy.” I refused to believe this tomfoolery, considering the sacristy would be inside a church. Turns out the sacristy is Jared’s definition for the baptistery at the Duomo. Way to go, Jared! Beer Pong tournament in which we won third place. Dancing to Mamma Mia in a bar called the Red Garter. Realizing that your friend Meredith has stood you up and you are, in fact, dancing to Mamma Mia all by yourself. Secret Bakery (don’t get your skirts in a bundle, I’ll explain soon).

 Day 2: Wednesday. Buying presents for the family. Packing my life away. Best Thai dinner of my life, made by nothing less than noodles from Bangkok. Pad Thai may or may not be one of my favorite foods. ArtBar for the last time. About 600 pieces of fruit-on-my-drink later: EbbyShots. Directions: take oranges, coffee grinds, sugar, bananas, poppyseeds, and strawberries, mix together. Construct shot of strong, foreign-sounding liquors and coca-cola. Eat/Drink everything in front of you. TequilaShots. Directions: see above, but subtract foreign liquors and coke. Instead, use tequila. Secret Bakery.

 Day 3: Following the general progression of events, I bet you can guess what day of the week it is. Best friend’s birthday. Beer at Bar Lidia. Gnocchi and Champagne at a restaurant called Osteria Santo Spirito. Cool-ass stray dog. Dante’s, with everyone (minus one…can you guess?) from our apartment, Via Maffia. Hilarious Poem. Wine at Meredith’s. Secret Bakery. Watching Nick and Mina ride away into the Italian alleyways on a blue bicycle. Sad goodbyes. Grateful non-goodbyes. The Plane, and

 The End.

 I’ll put my money on the intellectuals out there being able to distinguish a few motifs, not the least of which is the recurring absence of sobriety. Necessarily so. Also, there exists the mysterious and clandestine Secret Bakery. What is this magical place? Think black market, Mrs. Fields, and sketchy Italians. What happens is this: since most fooderies (def: foodery, a place where one acquires food) close up shop around 8 p.m. in Florence, there exists no safe haven of nutritional goodness for the poor, much-less-than-sober kiddies that roam the streets in the wee hours of the morning. For this reason, certain bakeries, if you know where to locate them, will open their kitchen doors while baking around 2:00 a.m. to the aforementioned kiddies. This does a few things. Most importantly, the kitchen door/sketchy alleyway combo serves to dishearten those with less resolve. So those fortunate enough to make it to the doors can partake in pastry-heaven. Ie. me. For three days straight.

 Needless to say, the flight back was overly painful, having stayed up all the previous night in order to see Jared off, etc. I made a new best friend on the plane (rooting around, Miriam, rooting around). And then I fulfilled one of my fantasies, which is to meet someone I love and miss very very much at an airport: my best friend in the entire world, Natalie, came all the way to the DJ (definition: DJ, Dirty Jerz, Jerz=Jersey) to meet me. And among the audible gasps and cries of empathy from those standing by, miss Hinds and I successfully enacted a running-jump-hug upon sight. Win. I couldn’t be happier about being back with that child. She makes everything much more enjoyable in my life. Hopefully we shall never be forced to part again. Except in four days. When we leave for the summer. Damn.

But is it a good thing to be back? Yes. Am I devastated to have left? Yes. But I am truly on the transitional boundary, and I so believe I am allowed that much room to breathe. I hate to be the cliché kid here and tell you all that I learned so much about my life while I was gone and figured out a bunch of things and continued on that road to (gasp) adult-dom, but I won’t dress it up to make it sound like something it wasn’t. It was a fun-ass semester, ladies and gents, and the fact that I found a little bit more of myself is just collateral. Wouldn’t change it for the world; I mean, I’m just happy I had the chance to wear a naked-woman apron, wreck a Vespa, and get Gastro-intestinitis. Any more than that and the experience would have just gotten out of hand.

T-Minus Ten Days

Dieci Giorni. Ten days, ladies and gents, until my return to the homeland. You could say that I'm counting down to a return to normalcy, but I have reason to believe that normalcy is nowhere in sight. In hindsight, there never really has been any normalcy, and in nearsight optimism seems pointless in expecting normality to bare its bloody fangs. Optimism being the operative word. Which should technically be changed to pessimism, considering my feelings towards boring old normality anyway.

I swear I don't actively choose to confuse. My thoughts just spin like tires before you peel out; and then you catch some traction and just vomit all the thoughts up in no particular order, leaving behind that nasty burning rubber smell that never makes anyone happy. Regardless, I'd like to imagine that following my stream of consciousness is as amusing for ye olde crowde as it is for myself. Here's hoping. :)

I'm getting off track already. Which is similar (and only slightly more captivating) to the 45 minutes I spent rambling about the Protestant Reformation and Counter-Reformation this morning. Imagine that haystack of ecstasy. So I have Ten Days (yes, I insist on capitalizing) until I endure the plane ride home, audition the next morning, and begin the morally degrading process of looking for apartments, among which I expect to find none until August. Not to mention I get my best friend Natalie back, which couldn't make me happier about this week-long jaunt in New York. That and the firm commitment to eating a sickening amount of terrible (but really, mind-blowing) American Fast Food. Nothing like a Crunchwrap supreme. Nothing.

In summary, is the verdict in about coming back? It is indeed, and the results are varied.

There is so much that I will miss about Italy. I will miss the pace, and I will miss the challenge. If there was anything that I had needed, it was being challenged in a way that I had to either adapt to or lose against. And I adapted. Well, too, because I can actually say that I speak Italian. Sure, I can't do some stuff, but I can have a conversation. The most important thing about feeling confident about language skills is that you get your personality back. For so long I have felt like everything about my personality has been lost; sense of humor, mischief, introspect. You can't say anything real. You can't make connections. You can't do anything without the words to do it with, and I didn't realize how much of a crippler that was until I got sick of laughing the incompetence off my shoulders. So I stepped up and it got me to where I am, which is something I am proud of. Hold your own, know your name, and go your own way, right? I'm blown away to realize that it took me four months to discover I was lying to myself.

There's a lot of weight behind that, isn't there? And yet. Stumbling through your unconscious actions takes a lot of patience, something I am unfamiliar with. In the future, I'm pretty sure it will continue to take me further. With patience, of course. Woot woot.

Curious Jordan Discovers Pictures!

(It's like the Curious George books!!! Except...not...)

Weather being as it is (contemplative with a slight chance of exhaustion), I believe it's time to play a new game I've invented recently which I like to refer to as Speed. Which is not the drug. Nor the card game. Nor is it, even, the opposite of peed, which Italian language tends to do. This game will be conducted as follows: due to an excess of interesting happenings, I shall attempt to condense everything into a singular thing. Or rather many small things. The success and fun-rating of this game will be assessed at the conclusion. Ready...go!

Spring Break: Emily flew into Florence after a nightmare of a flight process, somewhat involving solicitation, Rodolfo the traditionally ancient-kind-and-agelessly-wise-man, and a hell of a language barrier. Which I now understand, but that comes later. We spent a thoroughly amazing week in Florence and the Cinque Terre, a collection of 5 miniscule coastal villages in northern Italia. I was near-brain-anurism, collecting information from and interacting with only Italian-speaking natives. Emily stood on attentively while I struggled, looking cute and innocently lost. She left a week later, leaving in her wake a maelstrom of Doublestuf Oreos, sadness, and forgotten belongings.

For breaking the lingering sadness, segue to Birthday: Set on an unsuspecting Monday (is that a song somewhere?), my new decade brought with it a trip to an American Bagelry (definition: locale where one generally purchases bagel-type merchandise), a riveting discussion on the mechanics of Stravinsky (what, really, could be more breathtaking?), hand-crafted beers at Mostodolce, waited on by my favorite (only) Albanian I know, and the most epic baked-ziti-with-chicken-dinner ever, masterminded by none other than Mr. Jared Antonio Nepute. This was an awesome day; nonetheless I couldn't help but feel that antsy anxiety that accompanies a new decade. In FigurativeLand, so much was left behind and so much has yet to happen - there was a brief brilliance in the life of contemplation that morning that, unfortunately, was lost in the following moments. It's the kind of thing that will tickle the fingertips of your consciousness when you're staring out a window and thinking about everything and thinking about nothing, only sketching a faint outline of what it once was.

I've had a moment of poeticism brewing for a while, give me those few sentences, please. :)

Pause here for an interesting discussion on Facebook/Birthday Wishes.

Moment of Consideration #1:

I've happened across a thought that seems pretty articulate when considering the Epidemical Facebook Riot (yes, epidemical is a word; an adjective stemming from the root form, epidemic. I foresaw the judgment that was coming for a made-up word). In hoarding the number of notifications the FaceBook throws at me, I was struck by curiosity. However, after some deliberation, I can tell you my opinion on enjoying birthday wishes, especially on the FaceBook. In part, it's very nice to know that people are wishing us well and keeping us in their lives. And yet. The more potent answer has a lot more to do with existing than it does anything else. I think I salivate over birthday wishes and replies and spontaneous thought-of-you's because I'm afraid of being invisible. It is more a question of validation that I still exist than it is a finethankyouhowareyou. Which, to understand, you should read "The History of Love," by Allison Krauss. It's very good. Following which, if you are ambitiously pursuing an affluent understanding of a foreign language, you should buy Harry Potter (Assuming you've read it in your native tongue) and drag your struggling brain through it. Because nothing is better than a good challenge. Except Sour Patch Kids- I think those are marginally better.

And now, if you please, move forward to Austria: By far the most daring excursion I have made so far, I bought a train ticket to Innsbruck last weekend in order to visit a good friend that is living there for the year. Need I say more? I couldn't have made a better decision. Vaguely drowning in the sea of close quarters and not enough real-life (I think that's the Ligurian, but I didn't do my homework), it was the best choice I've made since choosing to save the Sour-Patch kids til my birthday. Which was a big deal then, if you know me and candy. What death-defying feats did I accomplish? What adventures did I duel and slaughter mercilessly with or without remorse? None. Unless you can count an American Football game with 16-year-old cheerleaders and a despondent parrot mascot death-defying. Personally, that's just numbingly hilarious. There was, however, much beer-and-coffee-drinking to be had, sunny-terrace-sitting to be taken advantage of, and plenty of German language to be kept in the dark about. Which brings me to my next moment of consideration and is, at the same time, the reason why the excursion was so successful in the first place. Gear up.

Moment of Consideration #2:

Different cultures are very funny (I say this tentatively, and you'll find out soon why). I had the good fortune to attend a birthday party with Ryan, my accommodating host-friend, and said party was solely Austrians/native German speakers/a mind-numbing amount of German being spoken. And, considering I know up to four words in German (Konig, da, kennst, bier), I did a lot of observing. And just listening to what was said, I learned much about culture differences. Ie. the difference in humor: Austrians' (and Italians,' I've noticed) sense of humor is completely out-of-sync with American humor. There shall be no describing here because I lack the capacity to condense this, but suffice it to say Sofie (birthday girl) gleaned much satisfaction from this:

The face was my invention, but the onion was the source of hilarity. Honestly, it just tasted bad. In retrospect, however, I wasn't opposed...perhaps because I wasn't in a general mood for decision-making. Regardless, it was an odd speculation to be making at a party. It's very daunting to realize how much social interaction hinges on a sense of humor. And to think how awkward I felt being unable to interact. I mean, I'm awkward 87% of the time, but it's a much happier and inviting awkward than being socially inept, I believe. Anyway, this=one way cultures differ vastly. Which strays away from my original thought about how 'funny' it is. Because...it isn't....funny....ha....ha.....yikes.

Moving on, by means of VESPA.

Yes, you heard me right, I said Vespa. Which means wasp in Italian. Also it means kick-ass electric scooter. Which was what transpired yesterday afternoon. Which is the reason I'll never be the same again. For the price of a cheap pair of jeans, you too, kiddies, can take this burly piece of equipment on a spin for 5 hours. Which means good things (speeding around on this sucker is exactly the way you in your quaint, white-fenced, blue-shuttered house picture Italian life) and bad things (Attention: do not try this if you are scared easily, have a failing heart, bad history with motor-vehicles, etc). For me, I experienced both of the extremities. I had a blast Vesping (v. the act of riding a Vespa) around the countryside, but at the same time had to shell out quite a pretty penny for a small scrape that happened. No worries. Jared and I still felt considerably killer. For your viewing pleasure:

As you can obviously discern, we are very serious about our Vesping. It really was a whole boat(?)load of fun, in all seriousness(?).

Tomorrow, the crew is singing in the Duomo here in Firenze for Palm Sunday. We shall be repeating this glorious opportunity next Sunday for La Mattina del Pasquale (Easter morning!). Which will be an awesome, awesome, awesome experience. I'm very excited to wear a snazzy (but actually just normal) robe and sing in one of the most awesome churches in the world. Good acoustics? That remains to be seen. What is certain is that this will immediately be followed by a celebratory trip to Mercato Centrale, this awe-inspiring two-story market for everything involving food you could ever wish for. Italian food, that is. Because other types of food are virtually non-existent. Insert wah-wah trumpet here.

And with this, my summary is nigh complete. I would say that went relatively well, wouldn't you? Save for the fact that I discovered how to insert pictures halfway through, adding a whole new level of comprehension into this far-too-metaphorically-descriptive blog. Feel free to skim in the future. Unless you're concerned that you'll miss all of my witty (awkward) banter, which seems to spring up everywhere these days. Speed: success. Fun rating: On a scale from zero fun to kicking your shoes off in a fit of joy, I would say that we half-heartedly made a small jump in a languid movement that sort of looked like joy. That sounds appropriate.

'I' ignore 'Me,' except after 'We'

Remember that rule in school???? 'I' before 'E,' except after 'C?' Yep. Apparently my dry humor does, too. :)

I'm tired of being the collective.

How's that for a thesis statement, eh? I figured it was deep enough to make you ladies swoon. Or at least deep enough to catch your interest. The swooning part will come later, if you play your cards right. But, truthfully, we must return to the topic of the day, for there is no better time to discuss than while drinking a cappuccino and listening to music in a caffe'.

On a quick side-note, I am still upset that there is literally no one to make a mocha around here. I would like a nice, Hershey's syrup mocha, and if I don't get it by whining enough, I'm actually going to have to resort to buying chocolate at Esselunga (like Winco, for all you Twin-Fallsers) and having a little DIY party. That stands for Do It Yourself. Just in case you were fretting with incomprehension at this point.

So the collective pronouns need to stop. I am a bit (and by bit I mean enormous proportion) exhausted with considering myself a we rather than an I. In a (relatively) small program like study abroad NYU, you run into the same people all the time and having classes in the music program is generally synonymous with dating every person in said program seriously. Like, Take you out to a nice dinner and pick up the check seriously.

Knowing me, you can probably predict the part where one (count it, singular) of these relationships tends to stress me out. Although (this is where your audible gasp should be held at the ready) the real relationship I currently find myself in is not traditionally stressful commitment-wise (Gasp!), all the other metaphorical relationships that I am committed to are driving me into committal hell.

Which is to say I'm overly frustrated with being forced to spend constant amounts of time in the company of so many people. And furthermore, to be chastised for trying to find time for yourself is not necessarily beneficial, either.

On another side-note, I'm playing in a soccer league in Florence! That's pretty much like drinking beer in Germany or wearing a coat in Russia. It's pretty cool- for those of you who were wondering, my soccer skills are extraordinary. Extraordinar...ily rough. :) But, fortunately, Jared's high school soccer (tap dance?) skills pull through to more than make up for mediocrity. Oh, his skills, and Bryan's blood on the soccer field. Wrap your mind around that.

Anyways.

Solutions? Hide. Talk to a couple collections of brick that vaguely resemble walls. Blend in.

Damn.

A Pretty Saucy Pocket Full O' Blood-Suckers

I have so much to talk about, and so little time to talk. Literally. Like, ten minutes of my life. Which is barely enough for the exposition. But I shall try, my wee little munchkins, I shall try.

I have found the haven/niche/hidey-hole I will be inhabiting for most of my intellectual life here in Florence. This is where I currently reside, on the second floor (they have multiple floors here!!), thirsting for more minutes in the day. The problem is such: I waste too much time on the weekends doing absolutely everything. Everything in that I am always busy looking up things, or talking to people, or making beautifully intricate constructions that can barely be deemed sandwiches, and I really don't have time to do anything. Which, of course, is a happy thing, because it beats having all the time in the world to do anything. Because that would imply that you weren't doing anything. HA! Twisted logic prevails again!

So let me begin with the cornucopia of things that I've done in the past weeks (cornucopia has slyly melded itself into my vocabulary again and I couldn't be happier about it). For un aperitivo (this is what the Italian language calls pre-gaming, except you actually pre-game at a bar, and only for one or two drinks. To think, there's a word for that? Where have I been?!), I went to the opera this past Thursday. In all reality, the act of 'going to the Italian Opera' is like getting slammed, if we're going to continue using the aperitivo metaphor. It is no pregame- that biddy is the equivalent of three double scotches.

So I went to the opera. Lucia di Lammermoor, if you're interested. In the show, Lucia is forced into marriage with a man of her brother's choosing, considering the man she actually loves is her brother's archrival. Lucia goes mad, kills her husband and, under the pale moon, sings a lovely aria about the shadows in her head and all the blood on her clothes, of which there is a plentiful amount. She then slits her own wrists, after which her lover returns and kills himself, in the style of Romeo and Juliet. How quaint, how cute. Yeah, it blew my mind, too. Especially when you can only understand the gist of the story, considering the subtitles were also in Italian. However, as compelling and epic as the story was, it wasn't the narrative which made the evening. It was Italy.

'Slow down, hoss,' you think, 'ludicrous! All of Italia?' No, children, I didn't mean all of Italy. It was that wacky metaphor tomfoolery I use so often. What I really mean is that the many varied components of Italy made the entire experience for me. It was in going next door to the Operahouse caffe' and having champagne before the show, it was flirting with the Italian ladies that took our tickets, it was eating a panino and having a beer during the 20-minute intermission, and it was leaving the Operahouse and walking home under a starlit sky along the Arno river that made the Opera so good. It was in how I felt sophisticated, like a real person rather than some student, always waiting for the end of something, for some sort of result (I literally just tried to stereotype students, which is like trying to eat an entire cow when you only wanted a cheeseburger from Mcdonalds).

It was like I was enjoying the moment, for the moment, and not for anything else about it. Who knows. It was good. So was the aperitivo. And Lucia/Edgardo. And the Guinness afterwards. Does that count as a post-ivo?

Aperitivo two of this illustrious (and somewhat overbearing) drink-cornucopia is that I just returned from the Firenze/Lazio soccer game. Which, coincidentally, also blew my mind, but in a much different way than the Opera did. If they were similar mind-blowings, I would be sitting gape-mouthed and mute at the soccer game or jumping up and down, screaming inappropriate Italian curses at Lucia. Both of which would make my company unhappy. Anyway, soccer. It was a beautiful 1-0 game, with Florence scoring in the final three minutes. My part of the well-oiled machine that is European soccer is only that of howling like a loon and desperately attempting to discern the chants emanating from the literal horde of Fiorenzians.

See, there's something about watching live professional sports that strikes a common chord with every single male I have ever encountered, and if you are A) a male, and B) disputing my claim, don't. You know you get that feeling when hundreds and hundreds of other guys are screaming at the field. Whether it's rage or joy, you feel that shit, because there is something inexplicably addicting about either 1) feeling like you're part of the most bad-ass army of best friends ever or 2) feeling like everyone around you is screaming bloody murder at something and you'd better quick hurry and do the same thing or else God may just throw some lightning straight at you. It's impossible to deny it. Jumping up and down there at the stadium today, feeling that feeling, I couldn't help but feel like I should start chanting about killing pigs and stuff. If I'd had a conch, I would have blown it.

On a less tribal note, I've changed a bit. It's finally come to that, has it? Well, I have many a thing to tell.

For starters (Again with the aperitivo. I'd be pretty drunk by now, if you've been counting), I curl my toes when I'm nervous. I noticed this as I was walking into my hidey-hole (which is named La Cite'), wearing my sandals. The issue is that you can't wear sandals here. I mean, you can, but it is a very unfortunate thing that the Italian culture frowns upon, for reasons I am still currently unaware of. Perhaps, as I overheard it explained (by a Florentine man) to a fellow English-speaker the other eve: 'Florentine women are  beautiful in that timeless way probably because they believe it is their job to reflect the timeless beauty of Florence itself.' Which, when you consider the pride of the Italians for their own city and for their culture, makes a lot of sense. I guess Florentine women don't have a lot to do with me wearing sandals, but if you investigate that metaphor a little deeper than is relatively comfortable, it actually makes a creep-load of sense (yes, I just invented creep-load. It wasn't misspelled). So I was hesitant. And scared. But alas, every single pair of socks I own is drying on my convenient drying-rack, and I was inclined--nay, forced--to wear the sandals.

     Thing 2, though it isn't in a red leotard nor a Seuss character, is also strange. I am such a giant. Honestly I never thought my height would be that noticeable, but in a foreign country I seem to dominate the sky. I don't know if that counts as learning anything. It was interesting, though.

     Third (and final for now), I have actually discovered something of worth about me. The first two I joked around with a little, but in all seriousness I have unearthed a (very) valuable gem of life-knowledge. I do not need to be friends with everyone. It is not necessary to solve everyone's problems. There is no significance to being on (what seems to be) everyone's mind all the time. What those little semi-obvious statements have in common is that they are the most difficult vampires to vanquish I have ever encountered in my crypt of insecurities. And I am forging my crosses. Albeit slowly, my silver is being poured. Sooner rather than later, something is going to get stabbed in the metaphorical heart. And it's not gonna be me.

Elodys, Whispering Her Arabica Secrets In My Ear

You know what? I love life. Right now, at least. Give me a brief minute to describe the multitude of reasons why, and then you can sympathize, and perhaps your life will be a little better because of it. But really, it probably won't, because there's little to understand concerning why I am so happy.

Just woke up (my back hurts so much, this bed is upsettingly uncomfortable), contemplated life for ten minutes or so, then was roused into an energetic fury by a particularly short new friend, for we two are going to make the breakfast of our lives in about 30 minutes. And by breakfast of our lives, I mean real, legit Mom's-at-the-frying-pan-Kids-are-upstairs breakfast. Eggs and toast, baby. And here's the best part. Here is probably 50% of the reason I love my life. Hold on to your hardhats.

I just bought a coffee maker. (Oh my Goddddddddddddd!!!!!!!) Yes, the deed has been done. As I type, it gazes fondly at me from my desktop, lustfully distracting me from my real job, writing about my life. Damn you, flighty temptress coffee machine, damn you. (But really, not damn you, because I love you.) Moving on, I know you eager readers are chomping at the bit to know the other 50% of why I am so jovial this grand Friday morning. Here follows the rest of the list:

• Seeing as it's Friday, the 5th day of the business week, we study-abroad students...don't have school. Ever. Take that, work week.
• I have an obsession with listening to new music, and the new Nickel Creek CD I just bought (new is relative here, it came out in 2006/7) is pretty orgasmic. And I don't even exaggerate, it is that good. In combo with Ben Kweller and Capital Lights? Unstoppable force of inherent good.
• I'm booking my flights/trains/just making plans for all of my trips this weekend. Carnival (where Mardi Gras began) in Venice, Cinque Terre for Spring Break, London and Ireland for my birthday, Amsterdam if there's time, also Innsbruck, Austria.

So I guess those reasons weren't as knock your socks off epic as I pictured them this morning. But they, my friends, definitely are reasons to be excited/happy about life. Especially the coffee machine. Did I mention that?

Last night was beautiful. We went to this place for dinner called Mostodolce, which, basically, was a brewery. And they made *almost* everything I had been missing. I had a) chicken wings, b) cheese sticks, c) french fries, and d) a hamburger. Know that if this was a R-rated blog, the hamburger would have included 7 expletives as adjective material. Also, I had two gigantic beers, both of which were made by this place. Going back? Obviously.

So get this story. This happened last night. In our slightly (and slightly=very), how shall I say, drunk*(see star below. Wow, I just made a footnote) states, we took a bottle of wine out to the ponte vecchio, with half a mind to sit on the bridge and chat/enjoy the view. The problem with this plan was that we didn't realize that the temperature tends to drop about 70 degrees from the close, narrow streets of the Oltr'Arno to the open, right-on-the-river bridge. Bad choice #1. So as I was quickly contracting frostbite (contracting is a word that sounds so ambiguously contagious, I love it), we happened to be approached by a guy in his mid-20s, audaciously smoking a cigarette by himself, looking eager to make friends. Why not, thought I, with my slightly (remember the parentheses above) impaired judgement. Bad choice #2. But before you get your panties in a twist about these choices I was deeming so beautiful at the time, don't, it's not about to be Rape/Stab-fest 2009. Don't fret. 

Continuing: so we began talking to this young man, whose name was Julian, pronounced French, because (ready?) he was French. But he spoke pretty good English/Italian, so we had a good time joking in both languages. Julian introduced us to his three friends, from France/Hungary and told us they were visiting until this Sunday. We had a nice conversation, and expended all the usual subjects to talk with strangers about, and then I quickly made up an excuse for us to go when it got a little too awkward. So, you say, there is nothing awkward about that. But halt, you young and naive adventurers, for there is more to this story. First, I'm pretty sure Julian had already contracted frostbite. His hands were uncontrollably shaking the entire time, from the handshake to the goodbye wave. Ominous. Secondly, Andrus (the Hungarian one, who actually was very nice and cordial) would casually slip into the scene and ask us if we knew any close bars (which we did) and if we wanted to go with them to hang out. Yikes. And number three, which in my opinion was the top-hat to our messily tucked-in shirt and tie: I happened to ask what their plans were for this weekend. Julian, oh sweet Julian, pulls this card out of his back pocket and shows us the plan. You know what I got invited to tonight? A Reggae disco. Yep. I don't even know what that would entail. And it's not in the city, no, it's an actual sponsored event that takes place in the hills of Florence. Which is about as much color commentary on that as I can give. Let your bright imaginations wander, children.

*I was trying to come up with an alternative to the harsh and no-fun 'drunk,' but I realized all the other synonyms either do not accurately describe the level of mess or instead they just make it sounds so much worse. Think about it.

So this has been night one of a four-night weekend of fun. More to come, as a day trip tomorrow is in the works, and ArtBar's happy hour is tonight. Good Times, my friends, Good Times. For now, I believe, the seductive tone this machine has is hurting me pretty bad. Guess it's time to show it who's boss. Ci vediamo dopo.

A (very) Few Times I've Been Around That Track

My ideas wing away from my head-tower right when I get them. I'm afraid to start typing, because that means that I have to have something important to say. Especially considering that this, right here, right now, is the inaugural Italia blog. Si, sono in Italia. And for the record, don't read into the inaugural comment. Just because Mr. Obama shall be inducted tomorrow at the Inaugural Ceremony (get it? Get it??) doesn't mean that I actually intended that word to be a pun. Although in retrospect it feels really nice right there.

However, here I am (sono qui), in Italia. I am thoroughly content, lounging on my exquisitely-made bed (thank you, mysterious and oddly erotic cleaning mistress that comes 5 times a week) and listening to the soothing sounds of incapacitated zombies in the office (See Left 4 Dead). To give you readers a brief layout of our apartment complex: 22 people, divide that into 3 persons/room, and a skylit hallway. At the end of the hallway, a "common room," although I've never understood the etymology of that.  Maybe because the inhabitants of the complex that share it have a slew of things in common. Which is still an unreliable meaning, because I actually don't have much in common with the people we live with. Anyway.

I bet you're thinking to yourself: "Oh my God! I'm so concerned for my sanity! I fervently believed Jordan was living with four people, not three!? Whatever shall I do?"

Fear no more, gentle denizens of the earth, for I am here to assure you all that yes, I do in fact live with four. Which brings me, conveniently, to my next point of interest. We live in a mansion.

Yep. We do. To quote Gwen Stefani, This shit is Bananas. B-a-n-a-n-a-s. We (being Mr. Jared "Antonio" Nepute, William "Michele" Spinnato, Bryan "Mario" Welnicki and myself, Mr. Jordan "Luigi" Stanley), have a killer hallway, complete with two traditional green-and-wood-shuttered windows. We have two bedrooms (count them...one...two) that both have big 'ol closets and quaint dressers. We have an office that frequently boasts of zombie killings. We have a bathroom. Which I guess is standard. We have a bookshelf. Do the other apartments have this, you ask? No. We got rooms. They got studios. Yeah, bitches.

But you know what? I'm not judging the studios, they have cool features, too. I've actually even saved the best part for last, because I know you've been waiting for the killer end-all. Every single piece of furniture in this beautiful apartment complex on Via Maffia... is from IKEA. How classic. How suave. How daring, NYU.

Besides this shit (ie. our mansion, windows, etc.) being a collection of spelled-out fruit (ie. bananas), Firenze is pretty cool. Cappuccini e espressi can be found on pretty much every block, and they are multiple times better than anything in the states (be jealous, ye olde coffee addicts). It is literally unbelievable to sashay over il fiume arno (The Arno River - the big one you see in pictures of Florence), three minutes away from the front door every morning. I say literally unbelievable and you skeptical Jordan-knowers are thinking "sure, this boy is so best-brownie-ever" (if you don't get the meaning of best-brownie-ever: one who thinks everything is the best, no matter what. Ie. Me), but aha! I have thwarted thee again, nemeses! (is that the plural for nemesis? I hope so) I truly DO mean that walking over that bridge is outrageously breathtaking. I love it, and it's one of the things that makes living here more than worthwhile. Follow all that? Sorry if I confuse, I rant. Mom used to say I go on tangents, and I guess she's definitely right. Still. Score one for Mom!

So this is my life. I came here in order to learn more about myself (insert cliche judgement here) and the stirrings of such have, you'll be happy to learn, begun. We'll see what this actually manifests itself as, but I do promise I'll keep you updated.

I met someone. Whom I believe will be making a trek to le cinque terre with me. E quello e' basta, perche non e' necesario per voi capire niente piu'. Per adesso, ragazzi, ciao. And yes, I really just did do the "I know Italian" thing. Yikes.

Keep On Keepin' On

I'm gonna start with the cliche, because that would be a good idea here. Why would a cliche beginning be a good idea? Because Familiar Phrases lull readers into a false sense of security, paving the way for mind blowing facts and hypotheses later on. Get ready to be lulled, ladies and gents.

Begin Cliche:

     Don't you ever wish you could pause your own life?

End Cliche.

In response, yes, I do in fact wish I could pause my own life, like on that Adam Sandler movie Click, in which he finds a clicker (remote control? I call it clicker. It's classier, I think) that manipulates life, sort of like television. Except I only need a clicker that pauses. Otherwise I'd get slaphappy and start rewinding and changing my own decisions, so that I would end up like Ashton Kutcher in The Butterfly Effect with no arms or legs and a lot of brain trauma. Which at this point in my life is undesirable.

However, there is one additional feature I'd like to have on my magical tool. I'd like to pause, and I'd like to be able to step out of the screen. I would like to step out of reach of the camera, and just yell. And scream. And kick. And cry. And maybe bite, but I'm not sure what there would be to sink my teeth into off-camera. I don't think I get enough time to be turned off. It's so ingrained into my subconsciousness that I'm afraid I can't power down.

I never learned how. I guess that's a skill (curse?) that accompanies the spotlight to which I've become accustomed. I realized this when I was talking with my parents at dinner, painstakingly lamenting the tasks-yet-to-be-done once I get back to the city. I never get a chance to pause, because there isn't a place for a temporary respite. Is that a problem of mine or a brother to the business? Maybe it's a sibling to my personality. That would be a fun brother to wrestle.

Speaking of, that's not really the best of times, either. See, I've learned as I've grown up that taking the absolute positive and disregarding the negative about my life works really well to keep you in an uppity mood. Not unlike speed, though (which I've never tried, don't judge), you've gotta come down after the upper, and all too soon do I realize that not only is there a negative to every positive but also it tends to slap you like an angry sugar daddy when you don't pay attention to him (it).

Still following? I hope so.

     So anyway, I came home with this optimistic air, candidly expecting christmastime with the fam (which is a generally popular slang term for family, you out-of-the-loopers) to be splendid and joyous and beautiful. Which, for the most part, it has been. If you ignore half of the hours in the day.

Which, miraculously (did you ever believe it would, naysayers?), brings me full-circle to my pause-gadget, also commonly referred to as a magical clicker. For in reality, there shall be no forgetting of time, as that would be unwise in any situation. Practical, yes. Wise, no. Nor will there be any shutting-off in my near future, as we've ruled that out as well. So instead, it would be nice to just pause. Pause, and yell, scream, kick, cry and bite (upon further review I can think of a few people I would like to bite, so I snuck it in).

Following that, I'd be more than happy to unpause and pay tribute to the Allman Brothers. Or Joe Dirt, whichever suits you better.