words.

so, i want to be a writer, but i hate saying it out loud. i think it seems so pretentious. and then, once i declare that intention, i figure i open myself up to all criticism. like: "you don't use the world troglodyte enough" (response: "i don't even know what troglodyte means!"), "your grammar is atrocious" (response: "i'm sort of a futurist."), and "well, write something then." the last isn't really a criticism, just a bit of snide motivation, and i don't have a good response. i do write a lot of first pages, though. and i like to think that i think in a writerly manner which is just the sort of nonsense statment you'd expect to hear from lazy wannabe novelists.

i could take this moment to explore what keeps me back from pounding out readable material, but i am not going to.

i was just reading my friends' blogs today and thought they wrote such beautiful entries about a plethora of things from the mundane to the profound. they are all writers and literature classes should study their posts. really. and i know this sounds like trite praise. but it is not. i was just thinking, "man, i don't know if my writing could convey the simple, resplendent honesty of it all like these do." so i was actually feeling jealous while basking in the life of their words.

and see, now i've gotten sort of pedantic. if that even is the right word.

Ferris Wheel for One, Please

I really vividly remember an episode of Ellen Degeneres' sitcom simply called Ellen. I wasn't actually a fangirl of this sitcom. It aired while I was still a cartoon devotee and could not understand the entertainment factor of watching real-life people interact with the world. I mean, that's what I did without TV. When I sat down to watch the boob-tube, I wanted to see a football-headed boy play it up on the streets of NYC and a masked duck fight crime.

Anyway, one day Ellen was on (I think she/her self-named character had already come out as a lesbian) and she was all about self-empowerment. She was going to do what she wanted regardless of whether she could get other folks on board. One of her objectives was to dine in a fancy sit-down restaurant alone. She goes so far as to actually call ahead and make a reservation for one. When she gets there the maitre d insists that she actually made a reservation for 7 because to dine alone is nigh unfathomable. (And depending on the reservation-taker's handwriting, I one could fairly easily be mistaken for a 1). Comic antics ensue. However, I think it left me with the stigma that dining alone is a crazy, bold thing to do.

Fast forward 15 years or so, I am in Berlin. I figured I was going whether I could rally a travel companion or not (I couldn't) and that I was going to enjoy myself, dangit (I have). I have sat alone in a formal dining setting twice, and truth be told, the food is not as good. It is lonely just me and a book, or me and my stitching. I swear to you the food does not taste nearly as delicious when not peppered with good (or even just halfway decent) conversation. I enjoy a meal on the go (perhaps munched on in a park) much more than occupying only a quarter of a table.

Anyway, I still had the resolve to have fun. So I found out about this Deutsch-Amerikcanisches Volksfest which was basically an American-themed carnival celebrating its 51st summer of operation (I guess it was sort of an institution during the time Americans were stationed in West Berlin). And I went. And I decided to ride the ferris wheel. Oh, and you'd think there may be one or two Americans at a festival boasting "American" as half the title. Nope, aside from the performers (that almost no one was listening to) from Austin, Texas, all I heard was deutsch, deutsch, deutsch. So I sauntered up to the kasse and paid my fare to ride the wheel. And I endured the awkward stare I got from the operator after he asked (twice, the first time he spoke in German to which I replied with a very ignorant sounding "What?"), "Alone?" I nodded my head, while holding it high. Thinking of Ellen Degeneres.

But have you ever ridden a ferris wheel alone? When you are eating you can immerse yourself in your food. On the ferris wheel, I was surrounded by five empty seats, staring out over the tops of concessions tents watching the sunset over Berlin. I even changed seats a couple of times just so the unoccupied spaces could have a little human touch. The ride was pretty and being that high up was a little scary and definitely thrilling. But I kept hearing the giggles and undecipherable German chit-chat of the happy family behind me. I wanted to let out a big belly laugh myself just to throw them off. But then I could immagine the chipper mom saying, "Who is that crazy solo rider. She must have some sort of mental illness. Perhaps schizophrenia?" and maybe the oldest daughter would say, "Maybe she is on some sort of hallucinogenic drug." So, I sat silently. I did take pictures of myself an arm's length away with my digital camera. So there is evidence of the events of this evening.

I may eat by myself, play tennis by myself, sing a round by myself, but I don't want to ride a ferris wheel alone again.

Stonehenge and The Last Unicorn

it seemed to me fitting to post about the 1985 animated feature the last unicorn and the mysterious stone circle erected around 3000 b.c. in the same entry.

people at work asked me what i thought of stonehenge, and my immediate smart-aleck response was that it was rocky--which is an adequate description, if sarcastic and uninventive. but i did enjoy it very much. it was fun to contemplate the mystery and good for the soul to be out of the city and see the rolling green fields of salisbury. the audioguide also included an excerpt from thomas hardy's tess of the d'urbervilles which made me ecstatic. i've been saying i wanted to see stonehenge because of its being an important setting in that novel.

since the visit, i have become mildly obsessed with the idea of ley lines (not obsessed enough to do any research, mind you, but obsessed enough to mention it). the theory of ley lines is that important spots of worship are built along or on an intersection of these invisible lines. very druidic. it had been a long neglected theory until the whole new age movement came along.

to the last unicorn. my, oh my, i can't begin to give a critique. but it was a riot at times. it was screened in an old anglican chapel (and admission was free) and someone gave me a chupa chup lolly, so i don't know that the night could have been any better.

i love this postcard.

i don't love breaking out in stinging blisters after accidentally grazing some obscenely poisonous plant (this morning my hand still stings a bit as i type, but don't worry i shall overcome.)

last night i saw the musical billy elliot. i bought the ticket from a "half-price ticket kiosk" in the heart of the theatre district, and i really think Rick Steves may be right when he calls those ticket booths "scalpers with an address." i bet i could have gotten a cheaper, and perhaps better, ticket from the box office.

anyway, billy elliot was a pretty stunning production. while the first half left something to be desired it really picked up and won my love after intermission.

I feel I owe my public some blogging.

Life has been busy in London (much busier than my student life was in Italy. I chalk it up to volunteering full-time (it is a 9-5 gig, baby) and my one-hour commute each way (but I have been whipping through books.) I am residing with a family, and for their hospitality in taking me in and treating me so nicely I often spend my evenings home in their company chatting or watching some movie, and spend many evenings away from home trying to soak up the sites of this thriving city!

But everything has been wonderful.

Compared to Italy, I feel entirely at home. It is wonderful to actually be able to express myself with my arsenal of words fully loaded! Bless that mother tongue!

I feel like I have done hardly anything though, when in actuality, I have done quite a bit.

I have been to the Science Museum, Tate Modern (and I saw Ai Wei Wei's (free him China!!!) sunflower seeds, not all of them from the original exhibition, but a very sizable pile, about as tall as me), the Tate Britain, Trafalgar Square, the London Pride Parade, the Hyde Park Ward, the play The Woman in Black, seen the outside of Buckingham Palace, listened to Mumford and Sons play in Hyde Park (I didn't have tickets to the concert, but I found a good peep hole through the walls around the official space, and the sound carried nicely on a June afternoon), and have seen the inside of a good many pubs. One Saturday night, we got caught along with a stag party (in American language, a bachelor party) and went pub crawling a bit with a crazy bunch of lads, until we tired of them and just settled in to dance.

I also had a homeless man tell me I looked sexy eating my ice cream. I told him sincerely, "That was not my intention."

And I will do my best to take more pictures in the future! I just bought new batteries for my camera!

in a new york minute

you can embarrass yourself a million times.

i hate being an obvious outsider. i like to pretend i am a cool-as-cucumber real resident of any metropolis i visit. but the time has come to indulge my out-of-towner status because, quite frankly, there's no escaping minor bouts of idiocy when it is me my mother, and my grandmother traveling in a pack.

here's a list of today's blunders:
1-grandma ran across the street, when the sign read "don't walk" mind you, right in front of an ambulance with its sirens blazing.
2-we walked into a broadway show that we didn't have tickets for.
3-i lost my phone. i swear i had had it in my hand. i must have set it down or something, but i have no recollection of what i did with it. i had it in my very hand and then two minutes later i had no idea where it could even be.
4-while stepping off the subway, a tube of mace fell out of grandma's bra.

maybe i'll get some pictures up here. maybe, i took a lot on my phone, so that's not possible.

but life is good.

being a twenty-something is harder than i anticipated. probably because i thought, in my infinite self-conceit, that i would just cruise through it.

but i intend to make these the best days of my life, come struggle, strife, joy, elation, victory, loss, love, heartbreak, pain, healing.

which isn't so hard to do when i have so many wonderful people in my life who love me.

and i am going to london in a week and to new york in three days.

i really am the luckiest kid in the world. i've got it good.

i am just like the rest of my kind

i'm in a particularly writerly mood today. which generally is a result of me having had huge swathes of time on my hands and have filled them by musing over my life, and those musings needed space outside of my brain, thus i feel compelled to let some of them ooze into sentences and paragraphs.

this american life ran a show the first week of may which was titled "this week." in that one hour of air time they covered events that occurred just in the week prior. they got a big break with the biggest news of the last couple months falling in that week, the announcement of the death of osama bin laden, but they covered lots of smaller, less typically newsworthy events as well. like a young couple with conservative, strongly religious parents were moving in together, a kid was learning to ride a bike, and a young twenty-something girl, freshly graduated from college moved back home.

the latter was the most compelling, not necessarily because the girl was compelling. i was more intrigued by the interviewer. he had been a this american life intern the year before. and despite a dream internship, he had graduated jobless and like his interviewee had returned home. he called that time the most depressing six months of his life.

i am those kids. and it punches you in the gut. you know that you've got skills and talents and abilities and ambition and work ethic, but for some reason, you can't move yourself. maybe for some people it's because the won't settle for anything less than exactly what they want. and what they want doesn't want them, at least right now. however, for me, i am stuck because i am a chicken. i hate rallying recommenders and doling out application fees. i hate answering the little essay questions about why i believe children are our future, or explaining a time when i had to communicate to an unreceptive listener, or how i could contribute to the company.

whatever it is that keeps me and the thousands of kids who swarmed to their parents' basements last year and last may in our childhood bedrooms, it is draining us. i feel less motivated than i ever have in my life. i feel depressed, not necessarily clinically (although, i am a frequent online depression test taker, usually scoring mild to moderate), but i am more inclined to spend all day reading other people's blogs or watching tv than moving my ambitions along.

i am not where i thought i would be on the cusp of 23. but i had pretty high hopes for myself. but i wouldn't brand myself a failure. my friend recently pointed out Florence and the Machine lives with her parents. being a bamboccione isn't wrong for everybody. but i think living with the parents for me is a symbol of something bigger, a symbol of the suppression of my dreams for cowardice. for fear of failure.

but, baby, when you've got nothing you've got nothing to lose.

thank you, bob dylan.

i think i will now listen to "like a rolling stone" and make a list of goals, as i often do when i feel like it is time to crawl out of my "rut."

hipsterdom

sometimes i wish i was a hipster.
because they seem pretty cool.
but i only have one pair of skinny jeans and and i graduated from byu.

and i don't cut my own hair and have pretty dorky musical preferences.

but i do like this american life.
and i usually wear that pair of skinny jeans at least one time a week, even though i think they make my feet look like clown feet, never mind my analysis of how they don't always flatteringly contour my legs.

i think i just perceive hipsters as possessing a little more reckless abandon than me.
i'm not a terribly organized or anal-retentive person, but i am a devastatingly acheivement-oriented person. i think that things have to have an outcome and i have to be mapping a course to successfulville with every action i take.

once i told my little sister's hipster friends (and Randi may actually be able to claim the title 'hipster') that i had a lyrical soul. and the asked me if i wrote songs or poetry and when i responded no they just sort of glanced quizzically at me. i don't know why i said i had a lyrical soul. i just felt that i did at the moment and needed to share. but maybe my lyrical soul is caged by my rational self and those hipsters couldn't tell that deep down i was one of them.

actually, her friends may have been more emo, was emo the precursor to the hipster? or have they always been distinct and separate? is a hipster just a slightly happier emo (with the male equivalent growing a beard instead of donning eyeliner)? these are important social questions here.

and this is effectively a late night rant that i will wonder what possessed me to push publish in the morning. but i'll publish it anyway drunk off of late-night, exhaustion-induced uninhibitedness.

what i wrote down last night

I felt a quiet satisfaction at the capture of Osama Bin Laden, but the celebrating death in the streets tore me apart. On facebook this morning I read something my friend Amy posted, a quote from J.R.R. Tolkein on the death of Hitler that bears repeating:

"We were supposed to have reached a stage of civilization in which it might still be necessary to execute a criminal, but not to gloat, or to hang his wife and child by him while the orc-crowd hooted."

It felt so reassuring that other people condemned the shouting and partying in the street. Celebrating an execution is a glorification of hate. Justice is quiet and blind and not boastful.

Anyway, last night, I felt really upset. So I wrote down a little prayer.

"I don't pray for mercy on Bin Laden's soul (final justice belongs to someone who knows his heart, dark as it may be for whatever reason, better than I), but I pray for all hearts that are full of hatred to know love and goodness, and if I can, Lord, let me help bring it to them. Let me help teach that Thy way is love and forgiveness instead of destruction. But if I can't change them at least let me build, let me be an instrument of peace, and never let the cruel act of another rob me of my humanity."

pudding is the missing link!

i recently decided i would add instant pudding mix to all my baking endeavors (which have thus far only been chocolate chip cookies). so far there have been no blunders, just awesome pudding flavor infusion. i may move on to cakes. some white cake with a hint of butterscotch, anyone?

seriously, i feel like paula deen here. it is the simplest addition, but i feel like i am crafting my own recipes. it doesn't take too much to get me to be proud of myself in the cooking arena.

a short list (but not THE short list) of things i love

*disclaimer in the form of a cheesy quote: the most important things in life aren't things.
they are obviously people. this is a list of things. i love people more*

1. water beds.
2. stickers.
3. claw machines.
4. pistachio pudding
5. old churches.
6. the movie angels in the outfield.
7. cupcakes.
8. bookstores.
9. communist ideology.
10. monopoly.
11. this american life.
12. stationery.
13. roller coasters.
14. car drives.
15. mix cds.
16. television.
17. licking the pudding off the lid of my snack pack.
18. daffodils.
19. socks that go up to your knees.
20. bop it.
21. the smell of the air conditioning in my car when i turn it on the first time after winter.
22. fire.
23. watching babies taste lemons. (this one sounds mean, am i horrible?)
24. temporary tattoos purchased from vending machines.
25. all things miniaturized.
26. deviled eggs.
27. stars.
28. laying in bed in the morning, even though i am awake.
29. old pennies.
30. bicentennial quarters.

epic purse

"i once knew a person who really liked two different purses, she was bi-satchel."

i have this unrealized dream of being the person who has everything anyone could ever need in her purse. it is largely unrealized because i rarely tote a bag, and if i do it has minimal contents. however, when i am packing my purse for a trip, i always make sure i have plenty of things other people will need, typically tampons and scissors. (i have found scissors immensely handy on trips, principally because on a sunny vacation one of your tripmates will inevitably want a new pair of sunglasses and will opt to cut that plastic wire holding the tag to the nosepiece rather than chew through it like a hamster.) however, most of the time when people ask me for something like ibuprofen or floss, i'm helpless to their request.

those days are over.

i am going to build an epic purse.

tentative list of contents:
pen*paper*pencil*ibuprofen*quarters*lotion*hand santizer*tissues*nail clippers*scissors*pocket knife*mirror*chapstick*mints*gum*feminine hygiene products*light snack*basic first aid kit*sewing kit*paper clips*ponytail holders*brush/comb*bobby pins*floss*water bottle*visine*sunglasses*basic makeup supplies*jax*deck of cards

any suggestions for additional items would be heartily welcomed and could be beneficial to you if you are in my presence and in need of a certain something.

minor annoyance

i'm not an avid blogger, would not classify myself as a bloggista, and am not by nature an overly meticulous person. however, it bugs me that the address of this blog is still ronigoestoitaly.blogspot.com. Hence, i am changing the url.

i've been trying to think of a cool url. maybe ronivagabondista. i'm not too much of a vagabond, but, as you can tell, i am a little obsessed with the suffix -ista. and i saw a book called vagabonding about taking your time with your travels, not rushing from hot spot to hot spot and exploring exotic places and the deep caverns of your soul. it made me want to be more vagabondish.

i am also feeling compelled to change the url because--drum roll--i have been accepted to be a volunteer in london this summer. i don't honestly know the details yet, simply that they'll let me go. so, the ronigoestoitaly url seems to jilt great britain. i plan on making it down to the peninsula while in europe, but the bulk of my summer will be spent with the british.

so, new address coming soon.

i have a plan a and a plan b for this summer.

plan a:
i am accepted to the winant clayton volunteer program and will be an american ambassador of goodwill to britain providing meaningful full-time service in the nation's capital, london, and strengthening the bond of friendship and wartime alliance we formed back in the 1940's. classy.

plan b:
i am not accepted as a winant clayton volunteer and i move to new york city. as of april 1st, there is a a sunny room for rent where one of the roommates is a german jazz pianist who loves ice cream and cooking. awesomeness incarnate. (although, the likelihood that i would move in time to be a candidate for that specific apartment is slim, but just the idea of discussing the delicate bouquet of flavors in a certain carton of ben & jerry's with a german expat musician is so alluring.)

how much do i love the oscars?

so much.


it is silly how much they inspire me. and every time i watch i vow to be there next year. (i'm thinking original screenplay nominee. or documentary short. or on the arm of a celebrity (actually, scratch that, i would much rather be there of my own merit. i am not an arm-candy kind of girl, i don't think. it is the oscars, though...)).

however, this year, i am more antsy than ever. i think it is because i am not "where i want to be." i get mildly defensive every time a well-intentioned acquaintance inquires "so, what are you doing now?" because i am doing the same things i did when i was 17. it is like the last five years didn't happen, except that i have two pieces of paper saying i went to college collecting dust in a drawer. watching those little gold statues being bestowed to masters of cinema is not leaving me feeling inspired. instead, i feel a little bit like a failure.

so, i think i need to make some promises to myself. the promise to sacrifice security for fulfillment. the promise to make time to be creative. the promise to expand some of my ideas.

i have had a crazy penchant to move to new york the last week. however, i hate the notion that things are only happening in big cities. come on, we also create things here in the suburbs of the southwest, people. but maybe i will. maybe, i'll be impulsive and bold and be gone by next week. like i said, this year's academy awards is making me antsy.

and can i just say, i kind of consider james franco a nemesis. i want to go to more school than him and then stand on a pile of degrees and stick out my tongue at him. i find him stunningly attractive, sure, but i am also embarrassingly jealous of all the things he does. he makes me feel lazy.

the last time i was in las vegas

I have been waxing existential as I contemplate the last time I was in Las Vegas.

It was October 2010, and for the first time I was visiting the pleasure paradise in the middle of the Nevada desert without my family, but with four single, of-age sheilas.

May I say it was a much different experience.

The second night, after avoiding going to see the male revue "The Thunder from Down Under," I strolled solo up and down the infamous strip. (An aside on my thoughts about "The Thunder from Down Under": The girls really worked hard persuading me to attend by assuring the the men kept their underwear on and that they guys liked being looked at just as much as the ladies loved ogling them. They convinced me to buy a ticket, but even with the ticket in hand I was scheming about how to get out of going, which I did by offering to watch-over a hung over companion who had to bail out of the taxi on the way to the show because she was sure she was going to hurl (which she did, but we did make it to a nearby bathroom before the chunks flew). And sure, I probably would have found the muscle-bound Australian hunks delightful to stare at, but I just feel that objectifying men is just as bad as objectifying women, and therefore, found it the height of hypocrisy. So, I got the sicky a taxi back to our hotel, but I chose to stay out under the brigh neon lights of the city.)

But back to this walk I was taking down the strip. I was staring at the high-rise hotels and the imitations of nearly every major destination in Italy (The Venetian--Venice, Ceasar's Palace--Imperial Rome, The Palazzo--just your general Italian theme, The Belaggio-high-class Lombardian society (although they do have a great little Siena-themed cafe) and having been to these places I was massively unimpressed.), and just found the Las Vegas Strip the epitome of inauthenticity. Because going to the New York, New York Hotel/Casino is nothing like the real city (bagels aren't as good, people aren't as crazy), and I will not go belabor the fact that although the fake San Marco's Square is a stunning work of forgery, it lacks the aura of the real place (oh, Walter Benjamin, why do you haunt my life?!). I also will not rant excessively how Caesar's Palace is more of a tribute to Bernini's Baroque Rome than Caesar's Imperial city.

But I will say, I really wanted out of there. I wanted to be real. I started doubting every person I met, especially the man who claimed to be a millionaire from Dubai (I actually didn't speak with this fellow, but some of the other gals were telling me about him). It was a horrible state to be in. I find a Vegas with the slogan "Just be yourself, and have a good time," more appealing than the current Vegas "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas."

Perhaps, the highlight of this solitary walk (which really wasn't solitary I was part of a steady stream of tourists from all over sauntering along the sidewalks) was seeing a middle-aged Hispanic man with a cowboy hat standing near an outdoor escalator playing his accordion. I gave him all of the change in my pocket because he felt like the most real thing on all of Las Vegas Boulevard.

denver

have i ever expressed my immense love for denver?

i love that place.

i believe i spent just less than twenty-four hours in the city last summer (just enough time for its reputation to remain pristine in my mind), and it was magical. i started looking up studio apartments near the capitol, assured that i could always get a job as an unskilled laborer.

i used to be a little bit uppity about denver boasting its "mile-high" status. i mean, payson is just about 500 feet short of a mile high, and i don't know where the city is measured from. it is perhaps possible my house is a mile high and you don't see me bragging about it. (but then again it is possible my house falls short of the mark and that it really is remarkable to be a mile high.)

nonetheless, a car with a colorado license plate passed me last night and i can't get denver out of my head.

Perhaps the greatest book ever published. Perhaps not.

I wish I had a certain fondness for cleaning. But I do not. The only time I feel any inclination toward tidying up is when I am incredibly frustrated. So, therefore a well-kept living space is a sign of an unhappy Roni.

However, this Saturday morning necessity dictated I pick up my crap, as some strangers were coming to tromp through our home. I scrubbed the toilet, hung up the clothes I'd draped over my desk chair, and even ventured to cover-up some of the mess in my sister's room. And that is where I found the long-lost gem Snappy Put-Downs & Funny Insults. Possibly the greatest and worst collection of words ever published.

The text came to my family in a box filled with old children's books that had belonged to my uncle and father, and this book had clearly been my uncle's, and he had even decorated the pages with slightly disturbing stickers of the Garbage Pail Kids. Since the day it arrived in my hands, probably more than ten years ago, it has provided me with my favorite mean or sarcastic remarks. Notably, "Why don't you reach down into your heart and grab me a piece of ice?" (page 90) and "They used to say your brother looked like you, but then they turned him right side up." (page 60)

It is the pinnacle of crackpot juvenile writing. I would never say the things contained in these pages to anyone except in a very clear jest. I mean it would be hurtful to say "Don't go to a mind reader, go to a palmist. At least I know you've got a palm," (page 38) or "The closest you'll ever get to being the toast of the town is a sunburn" (page8). Although, I do like, "You should be on the parole board, you never let anyone finish a sentence." (page 69).

i made some resolutions

You may not be able to readily read what those resolutions are as I used my webcam to photograph the list of my objectives for 2011. (Many a schoolteacher has told me unwritten goals are just wishes.) However, mark my words (that you can only decipher by holding your computer screen up to a mirror), I shall accomplish all of these goals. I applied to the NYC Marathon not less than an hour ago. Look for me on November 6, 2011. I'm thinking of purchasing some purple spandex for the occasion. Would a violet spandex bodysuit be too much?

Futher, as soon as I am done with this post I shall zip down to the grocery store and by myself a hearty supply of floss. After that, I'll break out the accordion and rehash "Mary Had a Little Lamb."

And don't worry the brain is stewing up plans for how to accomplish "WRITE A BOOK" and "VISIT BRITAIN" before the year is up.

expatriat-ing

Instead of taking small, reasonable steps to get my life out of a rut, I jump to crazy solutions.

I am moving to Britain. Preferably London, as that is notoriously the most thriving city of the UK.

The dilemma I face (besides the student debt that haunts my present and my future) is that nobody wants any foreigners in their country. Well, the UK is fairly liberal towards allowing members of their commonwealth (i.e. Canada) to enter into their country and become candidates for employment. You get screwed over if your rebellious ancestors were too haughty to pay a little tax and decided to start a big fight over it. (I mean, the British did send their troops to protect their citizens and territory from the French and Indians. If I say I would have been a Tory rather than a Patriot, can I come to London?)

However, I have a potential plan. I'll move to Italy first, with my grandmother. Since my grandma's grandma was native-born Italian, she qualifies for Italian citizenship, or at the least, an Italian passport. Once she has a passport, I can use her as my gateway to Italian citizenship. Once I have that, I'll be a citizen of the EU and maybe the Brits won't be so lithe to treat me with disdain.

But I do love Italy, I could just stay there.

But I want to meet a certain Irishman I have developed a little crush on from watching the British sitcom The IT Crowd. So, I've got to spend some time on the island. And as much as I love Italian, there is something to be said for sweet release of conversing in your mother tongue.

2010: an inventory

In no particular order:

• went skydiving
• earned a Master of Arts in Italian Studies: Literature and Civilization
• learned the very basics of knitting
• learned to crochet little hats
• visited New York City
• bought and promptly crashed a moped
• visited Kentucky
• spent the first five months of the year as a resident of Florence, Italy
• turned 22
• saw my little sister graduate high school

I spent the eve of 2011 in front of the fireplace eating almond joys and watching romantic British period pieces, until I fell asleep prior to midnight. Fortunately, my dad ran down the stairs and woke me by shouting the customary, "Happy New Year." I have this wonderful gut instinct that this is going to be a fantastic twelve months. I'm ready to make 2010 look mundane.