Greywater Barrel

I remembered, rather out of the blue, getting our giant greywater bucket. It's a good four or more feet tall and three feet wide, and it now sits harmlessly in the garage next to the washer and dryer, collecting layers of dust and cleaning out water so we can keep the scraggly orange tree alive another year. But when we got it we made sure to get a couple days' play out of it before putting it away forever, where it would be lost forever beneath the heaps of stuff garages just accumulate (no one knows how, that's one of the great mysteries of life). My driveway is a long steep slope down to the garage door, so we put that baby at the top of the hill, hopped in, and rolled on down again and again and again. I kind of want to find a hill again, and a giant heavy plastic barrel. Though I suppose it'd have to be a bit bigger this time around.

This morning I woke up at 6:35 (even with the time change, which means my internal clock said 5:35), realized I hadn't reset my alarm from the day before, drearily changed it from 8:30 to 7:00, and then went back to sleep, waking up 25 minutes later when it went off.

In theater I'm doing a monologue from Othello, from the scene before he kills Desdemona ('Spengo la luce, e poi... Spengo la luce'). That scene was so powerful to me when I read it in Mr. Schroeter's class in 9th grade, that it was the only one I wanted to do when I started flipping through the play to find a scene. Coming from Westridge, the idea of girls only playing girls and guys only playing guys is downright preposterous, so I didn't think twice. Well wouldn't you know, but Othello has to go and kiss Desdemona while he's bemoaning having to kill her (I didn't really remember that - what stayed in my mind were the incredible lines like "This is the cause" and "Put out the light, and then... put out the light"). So the director put in one of the guys as Desdemona, and told me that I had no excuse not to kiss him/her, so I'm bemused to say that I did the scene (a white -blonde, at that- female Othello with an Asian guy as my Desdemona), and eventually I did it well; the director made me do it about 5 times because he got properly annoyed when he noticed that I was ever so slightly avoiding the lips. "If you really want to act," he said, "it doesn't matter who you kiss. You need to put everything you have into the character." His name is Marco. He's amazing in a really sketchy way.

"Questa è la cagione, la cagione, anima mia. Non posso svelarla a voi, castissime stelle. La cagione! Non voglio versare il suo sangue, né straziare questa pelle più bianca della neve e liscia come sepolcrale alabastro. Tuttavia ella deve morire, o peccherà con altri uomini. Spengo la luce, e poi... Spengo la luce? Se dopo aver soffiato su te, ministro fiammante, io dovessi pentirmi, posso riaccenderti di nuovo. Ma una volta spenta la tua luce, magistrale modello dell'eccellente natura, non so dove potrei trovare il fuoco prometeico capace di redestarti. Recisa la tua rosa, no potrò più renderle la forza vitale, e fatalmente appassirà. Così aspiro il tuo profumo finché sei sulla pianta. Oh, respiro balsamico, che convinceresti la Giustizia a spezzare la sua spada! Ancora un bacio. Un altro! Sii così quondo sarai morta. Ti avrò uccisa, e potrò ancora amarti. Un altro! Ed è l'ultimo. Tanta dolcezza non fu mai tanto letale. Io piango, ma son lacrime crudeli; questo è un dolore celeste, e distrugge chi ama. Si sta svegliando."

I'd like to see what the various online translators do to that one.

Wine heals blisters

I went hiking today, for almost the first time all year! I say almost only because I'm embarrassed to admit that I haven't done anything outdoorsy or sportsy in 6 months, and also because I sort of went hiking a little bit last week in Matera.... since the whole city is a giant rock, it's hard to keep from doing a bit of rock scaling here and there. So see, I have gone hiking since I've been here!

Viterbo has a mountain, a solitary mountain which I imagine gets lonely after a couple millennia, but which is absolutely gorgeous. At the moment all the trees are stripped bare for the winter, so the hillside is blanketed as far as you can see with that toothbrushy pattern of tall, thin, leafless trees. You can see buds beginning to appear on the branches, however, so in maybe even a few weeks the entire mountain will be green and springy! Oh, you can't even begin to imagine what a beautiful day today was, though! I woke up about 20 minutes before my alarm went off, so the day started off well; and I opened the curtains to the clearest blue sky I've seen since October. Not only clear, but warm! Definitely a bit crisp in the morning, but once we got to the mountain it was warm and I stripped down to my t-shirt for the first time in what feels like years. And there was a stream!! It ran down the path for maybe a quarter mile or so, so we all took off our shoes and waded through the mud, which was perfectly slimy and gloppy, so that you could squish your toes in it just so.

The highlight of the day, though, was definitely me falling off a giant mossy boulder and landing on my butt, which was bright green for the rest of the hike. I'm graceful like that.

Shoes and ships and sealing wax

This is my fourth time going back to Siena, and I quite honestly can't wait. It's widely accepted that Siena is only worth spending few hours in, offering hardly more than a morning's entertainment, and yet the very thought of going back there makes me giggly. I really have no idea why I love Siena so much. Maybe it's simply the fact that I'm beginning to know it so well, even living at such a distance; I can map out the main streets in my mind. And it definitely has something to do with the Piazza del Campo. Best preserved Piazza in all of Italy? I dunno, I think it's difficult to say any one piazza is the best, because if it's having a bad day it makes all the rest of the piazzas less pretty, too... but nevertheless, Piazza del Campo has one of the best Piazza atmospheres I've experienced, which I definitely was able to appreciate the first time I was there, back in the days when it was sunny and warm (my definition warm weather is now officially 7 degrees Celsius and higher, which converts to a nice, cozy 44.6 degrees Fahrenheit plus - however back then my definition of warm was more in the range of 80 degrees); Piazza del Campo was completely filled with people and kids running around, and while approximately 98% of them were probably tourists, well... they were all really nice tourists. Because that's just the thing about Siena. Everyone's in a good mood. My theory is that it's because Siena has the most amazing pasticceria on the planet, Nannini's by name, which has hot chocolate so thick you could.... well, not swim in it, for one thing. Also because it would probably just be too hot to swim in. And the cups are awfully small. But cups aside, Nannini's also offers a Sienese (is that a word??) dolce, a torta di riso that is unforgivably delectable. That and the chocolate, that's what makes everyone so darned happy. And that's why I love Siena. See, I told you all happiness stems from chocolate!

In more sobering news, I emptied my wallet today at the CITY WIDE MARKET in celebration of the day of the Annunciation. Well all I can say is hurrah for the Annunciation, because Viterbo goes all out for it. Even more than for their patron saint, dear old Santa Rosa. Every single square inch of cobblestone between the medieval walls was filled with booths. I was in heaven. Earring booths, scarf booths, giant-piles-of-shoes booths (in case you were wondering, they look sort of like converses except they have square toes and they're yellow. muaha)... I'm proud to say, however, that at least .... half? of my purchases are gifts. Thus I prove my generosity, thereby winning myself more allowance to run free and buy earrings. And cute little bunnies. No, just kidding. But I was really tempted, I've gotta say. You know, I think I'll get myself a bunny for college, and I'll name him Jeeves. Or Mrs. Dalloway. And then I'll get another bunny to keep him company, and that one will be named Elphaba, of course.

Am going hiking tomorrow so that my exercise does not consist solely of walking up and down the stairs at school, and from booth to booth at fairs. Not that I exercise that little. Jeez, how lame would that person have to be!

Why March 24th rocks my world

Happy Birthday!!! To the lovely Ani, who I'll be seeing in two weeks, and in whose Italian villa I'll be living for a week and a half, and to Lindsay, my Latin buddy, who I'll be seeing in eleven days with the Westridge interim. You guys are 17 and old!! Haha, I still have 5 more months of being 16 and young. See how I haven't got wrinkles yet? Muahaha.

Chi balla con me, balla con due donne

"Who dances with me dances with two women" is what that means. She hadn't even mentioned the fact that she was pregnant for several dances, so we were starting to wonder if she was just playing a joke on us, and wearing a fake belly. She was definitely amazing even for an unpregnant (word?) woman. But finally when these two had finished showing us different dances and begun to dance with the students, she said this, and I thought it was one of the most romantic ways she could have referred to her pregnancy, and told us the gender of the baby. Hurrah for her!

School trip gone wacko

Day one: drove from Viterbo to Paestum, which I think is south of Naples. Very long trip. Everyone died on the bus. Paestum was cool, though.

Day two: Baia and the nearby museum. Baia was the Las Vegas of Roman times, the place to be with an amazing ocean view on the Bay of Naples. I brough my camera, and having just that morning remembered to recharge the battery, left it plugged into the wall of the hotel. Hence, no pictures of Baia or of the castle which is the museum. Peccato. Mi sentivo un po' stupida. However, back in Pozzuoli (where our hotel is), an amazing pastry shop was discovered. By amazing, I mean it has every type of gelato and every type of pastry, and hot chocolates made in the different Lindt flavors. Beautiful, that is.

Day three: We got to Herculaneum at 9:00, only to discover that there was a strike going on. At about 11:00, the teachers decided we weren't going to get in, and we went back to the bus, where we sat till 12:45, at which point we went to Capua. I feel I should point out that the workers at Hercolaneum had said that it might - just might! - open at 1:00. I'm just saying, is all. But it's okay, we just missed one of the most important archaeological sites in the world, which some even say is better than Pompeii. No biggie. Capua was worth visiting, though, with its amphitheater and a Museo dei Gladiatori (fancy name for a museum with one exhibit, that is large plaster gladiators with real metal helmets); those of us sitting in the front of the top level of the bus made the most of the trip by waving at everyone we passed. Small town people really enjoy getting waved at!! Some of them were so excited they'd break out in a giant grin and start waving emphatically with both arms. Much friendlier than people in Naples, for instance, who don't even look up. I suppose they're much more used to seeing giant tour buses with over-caffeinated teenagers crammed inside for hours on end than people in Capua.

After Capua we awayed with us to Reggia di Caserta, a grandiose palace with over a thousand rooms and a mile-long series of lakes/GIANT CRAYFISH PONDS that come from a waterfall just visible in the distance from the palace. We walked up the length of this river/lake/GIANT CRAYFISH POND, though did not make it to the waterfall due to time constraints. And then the rest of the class was a half hour late anyway, so we totally could've made it. But bitterness at life's unfairness aside, Reggia di Caserta was amazing. In addition to all the gorgeous water, and the romantic sunset atmosphere, and the group of Italian boys who offered to kiss us (safely from the other side of the river/lake/GIANT CRAYFISH POND, so they were funny instead of scary), it was marvelously relaxing after a long day. Day three (Wednesday), was definitely the lowest point in the trip, though, just for the sheer disorganization of it all. However, it would soon be redeemed by....

Day four: Pompeii! We started off the morning with our guide of the previous day, Aldo (who NEVER STOPPED TALKING, even when we were on the bus after he'd promised 8 or 10 times that this would be the last thing he'd mention, really, he meant it this time), and headed over to Oplontis, that house with the peacock frescoes. Gorgeous, and certainly exciting to see all the frescoes we knew from our (evil) art history text books, and really from any book ever written that even mentions Vesuvius' eruption of 79. It's that famous, and rightly so, because it's that gorgeous. But once we'd made our way through the villa, it was time to get on the bus again and head to Pompeii, where I'd been 4 years before. It was almost eery walking in the streets there, because here and there something would be so familiar that I couldn't tell if it was because I'd seen a picture in a textbook or because I'd been there before. I distinctly remembered the ovens, which I remember my mom was nuts over last time.

Then, given free time, we headed over to the amphitheater, and quite last minute, my ancient history partner Deborah and I were inspired to change our project, which was to be presented in an hour's time (we hadn't put a great deal of work into it anyway, so it didn't matter much). Our project was based on a primary source from Tacitus' Annales (book 8, if you care to know), which recounts a fight that broke out in the audience of a gladiator game. Standing in the center of the amphitheater, we suddenly decided that our presentation would be far more inspired if we were the gladiators themselves, watching all the silly people in the audience trying to kill each other. It went more or less like this: "Morituri te salutamus" "Arr, to the death!" "To the death!" *fight* *Deborah does a flip, because she's cool like that* "Hey look, a three headed monkey!" No, just kidding: "Woah, look at the stands!" "They're all fighting! That's so- so wrong." "Hey, that guy just hit that other guy with a rock!" "You know, as a pacifist I find that highly offensive." "I know what you mean. Let's not fight any more, man." *hug* *leave*

Well, not inspired, per se, but far less memorization than our previous presentation, which had involved two speeches. Che boring.

Back at the hotel: wine at dinner, and then.... dancing! A heavily pregnant woman, an amazing singer, a man who could both sing and dance, and an accordian player all came to give us a complete lesson on dancing in the Neapolitan style. First thing, the pregnant woman and the singing/dancing man danced to the music of the singer and the accordian-er. Let me say now, that that was one dexterous woman for 8 months. I was duly humbled, because I am not that dexterous, though younger and not pregnant. And the singer? Her voice was to die for. It was a wild sort of croon which would waver for a second so you couldn't decide if the note was pretty or note, and then she would just drop to another note or leap an octave and you would forget that you had doubted her for a second.

And the dancing? Best workout I've had in ages, I'm embarrassed to say. Clacking the castanets and dancing for 30 or 40 minutes at a time was so intense! But in a really good way. My muscles were burning by the end, but it was worth it. Especially just to listen to that music!

One blemish to the night: we went to the super pasticceria, only to find a sign that said "chiuso per lutto." Worried perhaps that Lutto meant Lent, and that they were punishing us for having ignored Lent these past few days, we asked a passerby why it was closed. "Lutto died," she told us, and hurried on. Awkwardly we stood there for a moment longer, rather like insensitive doorstops, wishing we could do something for the pastry shop owners in their time of loss, and feeling guilty that we still wanted something from the shop, despite the death of Lutto. After a moment the passerby returned and said "there's another pastry shop up the road, if you like," which served to make us feel even more insensitive. We still went, though. It wasn't nearly as good as Lutto's pasticceria.

Day 5: Dawned bright and early, as we bid adieu to our hotel of 4 nights and headed off to Naples. As a caring gift to the hotel workers, I decided to leave my beloved earrings on the night stand, in the hopes that they would be taken and never returned to me. I'm generous like that. Once in Napoli, we were given time to explore the museum, overflowing with amazing artifacts from Pompeii which interest me once again in archaeology, something I became completely disinterested in during this year, ironically. Fascinating! Not to mention the endless amazing mosaics, including the one of Alexander and Darius (Xerxes?) himself. Some Persian king, anyway... It's always something to see such famous items in person. I sort of forgot that it was in the museum till I stumbled upon it, though, so I didn't have any expectations, which made it amazing, not a disappointment at all. Though I can think of only a few things which have truly been a disappointment, only perhaps a little different than I expected. But that's what getting out is all about. Too many expectations, and it won't be enjoyable.

I'm proud to say that I only had one unfulfilled expectation, and that was that I would be able to see Herculaneum. The disorganization of the trip was certainly a disappointment, but beyond that, the sites exceeded all expectation.

Il Mio Miglior Nemico

Best. Movie. Ever. You may suspect that I've been going to a few too many movies this week, but in my defense... it's the friday before another school trip, and we just escaped from a 4 HOUR LONG assembly on Campania, presented by the History teachers. Who both love to talk, and apparently find the torture of students strangely satisfying. 4 HOURS!!! There were two documentaries, the first of which had ABSO-frigging-LUTELY NOTHING to do with Campania. First, it was in Italian which automatically means I'm going to miss some of it, and second, it was talking about all these random cities around Lazio, and the Etruscans, whom we all love so much. The one part that was interesting was the bit that actually was about Campania, and mentioned the paleolithic fossil site there. Get this - after talking for an hour on whether Roman eating habits were hedonistic or masochistic (because that's so excessively enthralling), the teacher said "Don't worry, I won't subject you to that," referring to the fossils. Because the debate on whether Romans were torturing themselves or not by overeating is so much more interesting than fossils.

So obviously, after such a scarring 4 hours, a movie was necessary. And this one was about the most amazing movie I have EVER SEEN. I'm currently making a list of the top 5 movies ever, and this definitely gets a place. Admittedly I missed a fair chunk of the dialogue, but hey, I got the gist, more or less, and I certainly followed the plot.... and it was amazing! (The best part was the out of the blue character who spoke..... English. With no subtitles for the Italians. SO RANDOM!!)

I'm dreaming of a white.... march

A lovely view of my yard from my bathroom window, because there's a heater right under the window and sometimes I hide between the curtains and the heater in a little bubble of heat till I have to come out. But anyways, once in a while I look out the window and realize how amazingly beautiful the view is out there, which makes my little heat bubble even more excellent.

And then there's the view with SNOW! Which is of course approximately 18,000,000 times cooler, if less colorful.... but who cares about color when you have snow?!?!?! For the first (and probably only) time this year in Viterbo! SNOW!!

Casanova... or Casanova?

OOooOh! Yeah that's right. Casanova. In Italy, in Italian, as it was meant to be seen! Sexiest man ever? You'd better believe he was Italian! And a Venetian at that. With his own hot air balloon in the middle of San Marco. Cliche? To death. Had us rolling in the aisles giggling? Absolutely. Made my day? Better believe it.

In other news: in my first cooking class we made spinach gnocchi in three-cheese sauce. I died of happiness. And because I couldn't stand up any more. Ummm... I'm failing Art History, no surprise there, and 4 DAYS TILL THE CAMPANIA TRIP!! It's a happy week.

Happy Women's Day, and Mom, happy birthday!

Venezia

Because I promised. I get progressively worse at recounting a trip the further away from it I get, and this week definitely feels pretty long, mostly because I've been COOPED UP IN MY ROOM SINCE TUESDAY NIGHT (In case you're not looking at the date, it is now Saturday night - 4 DAYS!!). The first two days were fine because I was too feverish to actually realize that the only human contact I had was with Armida three times a day, but once I became sentient again, I began to feel increasingly more and more claustrophobic. And now, after 2+ days of that, I'm feeling the closest I've ever felt to going completely wacko. I may just lose it. Fortunately (THANK GOD) I'm getting out tomorrow afternoon to roast marshmallows at Ellison's house in Vetralla. Though I don't know if I'll survive till then.

Anyway, the point of that rant is that I remember little to none of my trip in Venice... or rather, I remember a lot of coolness, a lot of great masks, but not in any sort of order. So, I'll recount in bullet points and photos, to recount as best I can an excellent weekend.

1. Camping Fusina. Hahaha, you read that one, I'm sure, and know how comfortable our accommodations were...

2. Up relatively early Saturday morning (we sleep through the alarm clock, nothing to complain about there), and have an excellent breakfast at Fusina, realizing that the campsite is not so bad as maybe we had thought the night before, when it was freezing cold and pouring rain. Everything looks a little better with sunshine.

3.Arrival in Venice! The ocean is a little bit stormy, and gorgeous grey, everything is softened with a hint of fog, but the energy is still on. Everywhere are couples who have dressed up for Carnivale - the more extravagantly arrayed are surrounded by giant crowds of tourists and photographers, pushing and shoving to get a good shot. I've only posted a scant 10 or so such photos, but I took... *embarrassed* over 300. I realized something, though. Pushing and shoving to get to the front of the crowd was really fun. It was satisfying because I got a tangible result, a picture I took away with me, but also... I think it was just being able to push and shove along side adults, who didn't get angry at me but rather treated me like another one of them (you can't be choosy when you're all ants at a picnic, I guess).

4. I've gotta say it, I loved the tourists. There's something so wonderfully refreshing about being surrounded by so many languages. Of course there was English everywhere (and a few too many drunk Americans, which was a tad embarrassing, but sadly not surprising), but there was also Chinese, German, Spanish, Russian, and a billion and one other languages. What was funny is that I'm used to responding to people in Italian, but that didn't serve me one bit here; if someone talks to you in English you've got to answer them in English. I answered a German girl in Italian right off the bat, and it just couldn't seem to get into my mind that WOAH she's another tourist! From somewhere else!! Who doesn't speak Italian!!! I wonder if there was a single Venetian on the island that weekend, or indeed for all of Carnivale... Venice certainly becomes a tourist attraction during the holidays. (Tourist anecdote: a frenchman, trying to order a machiatto, asked for a "machiuteu" and even though I'm sure the bartender understood, he feigned confusion and asked the frenchman to repeat himself several times, till at last he said with a laugh of recognition, "o, ma un macchiato!" And that, folks, is my singular reason for loving the tourists.)

5. My super awesome blue mask! I now have two venetian masks, one of which is sort of living with a couple other masks on the top shelf of one of the book shelves at school, mainly because it was purchased on the Grand Northern Italian Adventure and I haven't gotten around to taking it home yet; just so long as I know where it is, I guess... But I love the blue one so much!!! I had to have tried on half the masks in Venice before I finally found this one. It was between this one and another one, whose pattern I actually liked a teensy tiny bit better, but I chose this because of the blue, and because the (very talented) sales lady gasped every time I put it on and said "oh, che begli occhi!" Guys, I'm a sucker for compliments. Luckily, though, I loved the mask. I certainly saw a few I simply adored, but they were largely upwards of 80 euros, so we won't go there. I did see a dream mask, though, in a store window that we intended to come back to but lost... it was every fruity color, with some great greens and blues, too; sewn, not painted paper; with feathers off the side to complement the colors and at the front of them... a peacock feather. It was the peacock feather that made me fall in love with that mask. The mask itself was sort of patchworky-looking, giving it an eclectic wonderful look... It's just as well we didn't find it again because a) it probably cost a lot, being in the window and all, and b) I'm sure I've dreamed it into something it wasn't, so I may not have liked it in the end, anyway. But now, from seeing (and trying on) so many masks, not to mention falling in love with a few too, I have some great ideas for next year!

6. BIRD FLU!! Do these people not realize what they're doing? They are spreading DOOOOM! It's all fun and games now, when bird flu's just some bug off in Africa and Eastern Europe, but when it hits Venice, everyone will be freaking dead in two days! It's ridiculous! I definitely did my share of running away from pigeons - they just come at you, but there's nothing you can do to fend them off short of beating them with a plank of wood, and I neither know where to find a plank of wood nor think it a good idea to be killing off a strong part of Venice economy. So I just ran. Cute little buggers, aren't they? Knowing they'll be dead in a few weeks. Not to be a downer, or anything.

7. Food. The food was amazing. Advice: eat Venetian food. What did I eat? A little lemon pie, tiramisu, a large chocolate cookie and a large candied fruit cookie, a cannolo (though it's far from Sicily), and a bowl of soup. That more or less covers both days. And let me tell you, everything about Venetian food is delectable: the pastry shops are filled with just about every type of pastry you can imagine, practically piled on each other because there's just so much of it, though the quantity does not lack one mite for quality; the chocolate shops have rows and rows of tiny little truffles that you point out one at a time to a lady in a white apron, who picks them up with tongs and puts them in a bag for you; there's even (hold your breath) an AMERICAN FOOD STORE. Don't worry, we didn't go in. But only because it was closed. In the window was pancake mix, cake batter, maply syrup, jam and PEANUT BUTTER. I got tears in my eyes standing there...

8. After a (much warmer, since the heat actually worked this time) night at Camping Fusina, we head back down to boring ole Viterbo Sunday afternoon. Gives us the morning to whomp around Venice a bit more, practice being a rabid photographer again (fun!), and eat some more chocolate. Then, on the train for the 5 hour ride back home... I finish Hunchback of Notre-Dame and am not brave enough to move on to Angela's Ashes, so I start High Fidelity by Nick Hornby instead, which kind of ruined the moment.

Sooo, next on my list to do: sort out my LIFE. Because I chose (note the sarcasm. NOTE THE SARCASM) to be sick the last three days of third quarter, and missed some valuable Latin grade-recovery points... not only that but I have to find out what I missed for all 7 of my classes and what I have to make up and figure out when because I have no free time and AAAH. Ignorance was bliss. And when I say ignorance, I mean that feverish sleep in which I had no concept of missing school. Note the sarcasm.

Movies up and away (Flashback: Siena)

Dudes!!! After years and years of struggle and trial and deleting innocent videos that never got a chance to see the world, I have at last mastered... vlogging! And am now kicking myself for having deleted so many good Italy videos, only because I didn't know how to put them up on my blog, the main problem being that I couldn't find a free hosting service for video... but here it is!! through OurMedia and The Internet Archive, which are giving people free hosting with the idea in mind to record... human life. More or less. Think of it like the tablet we sent out in to space with a little man and woman engraved on it to say hello to the aliens. In a thousand years, when people are studying us they'll have all these great home videos to watch to understand our civilization! Hello future, and welcome to.... the one video I haven't deleted yet, simply because I hadn't yet run out of space on my three (three!!!) camera memory cards. So here it is, two months out of date, the night after Christmas. In the courtyard of the Palazzo Publico in Piazza del Campo, Siena, dozens of white-painted raincoats hanging with some very weird music in the background.

Now that I know that I can get videos up, I'll start taking them again! So you can see everything and everyone and get a little more sense for it than just from pictures. I'm so excited!!

Jeans... American? or ITALIAN??????

(home sick and very bored)

As we were doing my laundry (correction, Armida the laundry-Nazi stealing my clothes from me as I cry and beg at her feet, clinging to the often empty promise that I'll see them again within a month), she asks, do you know what 'jeans' means?

Ummmmm... it's an AMERICAN WORD. Der.

5 things to do with my life while sick

Update on life: I've spent my sick days discovering exciting new blogs, the most interesting/WEIRD of which is not exactly a blog so much as a mystery unfolding before our very eyes, Who is Benjamin Stove?. Who is Benjamin Stove? Who is Benjamin Stove? Who is Benjamin Stove? Who is... nevermind. A guy named Tucker found some crap in his basement, including a painting of a crop circle with mysterious letters hidden behind the canvas. So he decided to pursue the intriguing hint of mystery that the painting and its contents contained, and has now managed not only to discover a great deal about Benjamin Stove (obsessed with crop circles and the alien/ancient culture implications.... can anyone say Stargate SG-1??? Ooooh yeah, and you thought it was just a show!), but uncover letters from Benjamin Stove to a dear penpal (the doctor who inspired him in his love for crop circles) and slips of paper he hid in library books all over the country for people to find; oh, on the flip side of the coin Tucker now has a stalker, who could well be Benjamin Stove himself. I shouldn't say too much more, or Benjamin Stove will start stalking me, too.

And, because you all want to know, update on my health: once again, haven't gotten out of bed all day (except to steal a little bit of chocolate from the candy bowl downstairs, my excuse being that chocolate is good for the sick, though I have a sneaking suspicion that this means I'm getting better). As I mentioned, I've spent my time reading blogs, interrupted every few hours when my computer battery reaches 3% and I have to plug it back in about three feet away from the reach of my bed (yes folks, I am that lazy); I spend the time that I'm not on blogs reading Angela's Ashes, which is just about the most intense and engaging read I've yet encountered. Though it's much less interactive than, say, High Fidelity (which I mention only because I just read it), it speaks so much more. Maybe because I couldn't get over how Rob was a complete bastard and Laura was as spoiled as they come, I just didn't connect - that's not to say that I can connect in any way shape or form with what Frank McCourt and his brothers went through, but it draws me in a great deal more than Nick Hornby does at any point in his novel. Maybe it's just a sick fascination and frank disbelief at the sheer poverty that Ashes portrays that keeps me reading it so avidly. The need to see, what could possibly come next, you know?

Every time Armida comes in, I feel so lazy sitting in bed with either my computer or my book in my lap. She sliced me up three pears to eat for lunch today, in addition to making a beef broth.... I hate this in between sickness! I am definitely well enough to form coherent thoughts and even function a little, which means theoretically I could be in school (I'm not necessarily jumping to do homework or anything, though)... I can actually swallow again now, and my throat doesn't hurt when I move my neck anymore, though my neck's a bit sore from not moving it for two days; my fever's gone, though my temperature has dropped to a rather scary looking 98°F flat - is that too low?? If I were in school, on the other hand, I'd probably be going insane because I'd be lightheaded in all of my classes and feel dizzy and not be able to breath because I'm so stuffed up... I guess those are fair enough reasons not to go to school... but still, it's just this awful boring uselessness that drives me nuts on sick days. Aargh! Now, to find something time consuming and mind numbing....

1) stalk Benjamin Stove

2) make a list of the top 100 things I should do in my life

3) win at computer chess (ha ha)

4) see if I can inch the bed ever-so-slightly closer to the socket, so I can use my computer without having to get out of bed to plug it in any more...

5) go back to sleep

Sick again

Confined to bed for at least three days, that's what the doctor said. I hadn't gotten entirely better from the cold I had after the trip to Sicily, and between the weekend in Venice and the various colds everyone at school has been coming down with, my immune system didn't stand a chance. I started to feel a tad under the weather Monday afternoon (in the Ancient History test I'd forgotten about till that morning), but still had theatre class to go to that afternoon. It started to rain, and by the time theatre was let out, it was pouring. I stood in the rain waiting to be picked up, huddling in the meager shelter of a newstand, for about 20 minutes before Armida finally came. It was at this point that I got my fever. I didn't measure it till this morning, a day and a half later, when it had gone down considerably, but it was 101 degrees F.

Despite feeling pretty crappy, I went to school on Tuesday. I had two extremely dorky reasons: my extra Greek class, and the National Latin Exam. Stupid, stupid, stupid! As soon as I got home, I crawled pitifully into bed, woke up for half an hour to eat a bowl of steaming hot broth, which helped my throat a little, and then fell back into my feverish uneven sleep. I have gotten out of bed a grand total of one time today, to go to the bathroom. I'm sitting, bundled in layers and layers of clothes and blankets, alternately hot and cold, surrounded by piles of soggy gross kleenex (who knew the human body even contained that much snot?), some self-prescribed chocolate (cure for everything, you know), books, my computer... The only things missing are schoolbooks. Armida has been bringing me meals in bed, which is a tremendous luxury; lunch today was, get this, apples boiled in wine. I guess when you're sick you get the full treatment, eh? It was delicious. I kind of want more. And it was easy on my throat, which is so painful that it actually hurts to move my head back and forth. This sucks. Though I guess I really can't complain: I brought it on myself for going to school yesterday.

But it sucks being sick! It's miserable and snotty and I haven't been able to enjoy any food for two days for the knowledge that no matter how delicious it is, I'm going to have to swallow it, and my lips are chapped and bleeding because I can't breathe through my nose, and my nose is chapped and raw because I'm blowing it so often. I sleep feverishly, which means that I toss and turn all night and have annoyingly excessive dreams, usually related in some way or another to whichever book I'm reading (last time I was sick, I was reading The Time Traveler's Wife, which had me so confused in my dreams... never read a book with a screwed up timeline if you're feverish). I've just finished High Fidelity and started the extremely pompous book Empires of the Word; A Language History of the World because I'm interested in linguistics and my unhelpful, dotty college counselor lent it to me since she'd just finished it and appraised it highly. So, I'll beat my way through it. But anyway, my febrile condition managed to keep me tossing and turning and continually awakening wondering if Rob was really going to learn an extra language just to try and meet that girl in the bar, and how the author of the language book, prissy Oxford graduate Nicholas Ostler, had learned so many languages if all he wanted was to win back his old girlfriend. And every so often I would find myself harking back to my read of last week, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, and trying to figure out how they managed to capture Quasimodo, if Esmeralda had come back to life... it makes so little sense! There's lack of coherence in my life when I'm not sick, so can we talk about how completely fried I am this week? Sleeping is every bit as exhausting as being awake, except maybe more so, because when I'm awake I'm definitely calmer. Not to mention there's something about being upright that clears the nose. I wake up easily every 45 minutes all night long to blow my nose, which is bright red and flaky at the moment.

Aaaah, I'm so gross! And I've given up on the pompous Oxford guy book, for the moment at least, in favor of Angela's Ashes. I'm going to be here in bed for at least tomorrow, probably Friday too, which means that I don't even have to worry about school for 4 more days, which means I can catch up on all the reading I wanted to do. Maybe I'll finally finish a book or two in Italian... I still haven't finished Charlie, though that's not a statement to my slowness in reading in Italian; it's a statement to me NOT reading in Italian. Well, wish me hot soup and broth and good things, and hope I haven't got bird flu again. 'Twoud be most unfair to get bird flu twice in two weeks.