Mad Men and Madder Women

I'm a little bit behind the curve with some things: I've (thankfully) never heard a Jonas Brothers or Justin Bieber song; I've never felt the urge to pierce anything on my body; and before Sunday night, I'd never watched Mad Men. Despite being told numerous times that I should. I figured it was kind of like flossing-- everyone says you should do it, but when it comes down to it, if you brush as much as you're supposed to, it's not really necessary.

Well, here I am, bowing and scraping and saying "mea culpa"s and "You were right." That is one hell of a good show. It's smart, and fast-paced, and not too far-fetched while at the same time not being totally predictable. It is, in fact, a very human show-- it showcases the workplace, the home life, families, relationships, how men act with other men, how women act with other women, how men and women act together, and men and women behaving badly, either together, or apart.

In other words, it's truthful and realistic.

When I was in Florence, I realized, for maybe the third time, but the most painful and hurtful time, that the guy I had left behind at home was still seeing the girl he had slept with while we were together. I felt vindictive, and devil-may-care-and-take-the-hindmost, and like there wasn't some glass ceiling for him that seemingly wasn't allowed to me, who had just hit it, and why the hell was that?

It was my friend's 21st birthday, and after lots of sangria, we ended up at a club, with two Australian guys who were in town for the week around Easter. They were great. One of them was cute, and reserved, and funny in that smart way that's more about plays on words and maybe hints at humor than of sheer smacking wit. I was hell-bent on ending that night with him to settle my invisible score; to understand what makes you go from one person to the next; to have more secrets to tack on to my list so that inevitably, when all was revealed in the in digressions on the home front, I would have one more ace up my sleeve, one more circumstance to smack in his face and say, "This is what neglect and looking elsewhere so carelessly and blatantly will get you."

It was, and still is, very petty and childish. "Evening the score" is not exactly the answer to equations like this. But regardless, that night, just as I was about to make my move, my friend Kara appeared at my elbow. "Someone stole my wallet," she said, and just like that, the spell was broken. The Aussie walked me home that night, but in the moments between my insecurity and having to grow up and help someone else's crisis, I realized that my own sleeping around wouldn't solve anything. It wouldn't make me feel better. It wouldn't teach my Lothario anything. And while the Aussie may have gotten a good night of fun out of the deal, he'd be gone the next week, anyway, probably to never be seen again.

So what, then, was it all about? Human beings are remarkably complex. Just as the characters on Mad Men are never truly translucent in their actions, but rather opaque, so are real people. You can see action-- you can watch someone jump ship, bail like a seasoned sailor, and pour themselves from one cup of their life to another for fear of becoming solid or stagnant. You can watch someone slip away from you, or lash out. You can watch someone burn bridges and go down in flames. And you can watch yourself do things you're not proud of, just because you're human, and you can't help it. But the logic behind the actions? That still remains in the dark, unknown even to your own heart.

Seems like we haven't changed that much since the '50s, after all.

XOXO

New Faces, Deep Tans, Deep Ties.

I've met a lot of people while in Italy. Australian guys, New York girls, Minnesota couchsurfers, a Singapore traveler, and accidentally Vermonters. Without meaning to, I kind of stumbled right into the world of Couchsurfing.org when I made instant friends with a girl couchsurfing her way back through Italy and Europe. The day she left, I got a phone call from another couchsurfer, asking if I could show her around Florence. I wasn't expecting on doing anything that day other than eating Nerbone's lampredotto sandwich and catching up on all of my past-past-due Portfolio homework, but I broke down and said "sure" after listening to how enthusiastic and eager-to-please my new Florentine acolyte sounded. I grumbled about it all the way to the Marcato, but promptly fell right into friendship, just like always, with this fun, spunky girl from Singapore. I ended up spending the day with her and Arielle, just having Girl Time in our apartments and gelato shops across the city, and the homework remained not done. (Or even started.) This morning, I was reading one of my favorite travel chick-lit books by Jessica Morrison, "The Buenos Aires Broken Hearts Club", which I brought with me for comfort reading, when I found this passage:

"These things may have happened only months or weeks ago, but it is our only history, so we hold onto every moment with both hands. It's all we have...Zoey and I promise to visit each other back home and to email constantly, but behind these promises we harbor the unspoken truth that the friendship we embraced so voraciously here-- for travelers, I have learned, must be voracious with their friendships-- won't be easily reconstructed. 'This was the best time, you know,' she whispers to me the next morning as we wait for her taxi to the airport to arrive. 'Nothing will ever be the same as Buenos Aires.'" (Morrison, 200-201).

Just like nothing will ever be the same as Italy. The people I've met, the new faces that I hold as dear from three months, or even just three days, as the ones I've known for years; the sights I've seen, the smells, the tastes, the things that whispered against my skin-- hot air, warm sun, soft fabrics, chilly water, ancient dust, cold stone, countless strangers-- the adventures with both old friends and new ones-- none of this will ever be the same. I may be counting down (27 days,) but the shifts that have opened up in me to rearrange to fit new people into my life are forever. Easter and exploding carts with Aussies. Drinking on a pebble beach in Cinque Terre at 3 AM with Alli. Thursday Night Girl's Night (dinner, drinks, dessert, dishing out gossip,) with the Ghibellina Girls, and our mutually-enabling shopping, chocolate, and lazy afternoons with Arielle. Missed trains with Naomi. A group of drunk 30-something Americans and a bartender with bulging biceps in Montorosso. Cannoli-slinging Sicilian twins Massimo and Jean-Luca in Vernazza with the best ricotta cream filling in the world and saucy wit. Equally frustrated Italian classes with Erin, dissolving frustration into laughter with sentences like "Albero e mio ragazzo," "Tu sei caldo come il pane," and "Io lavoro a banca," the last of which does NOT mean, as those of you who may have taken a few years of French like we did and be horrified, "I wash in the bank"-- instead, it means "I WORK in the bank."

Without meaning to, and kind of hesitantly, Arielle and I sort of became Couchsurfing's Florence mascots, but in the end, I wouldn't have had it any other way. Traveler's attract each other. That's the way it is, the way it should be, and the the way it has to be. I've learned more from these people about life, relaxation, indulgence, mellowing, making things happen, taking chances, Aussie slang, how women and men are the same the world over, and just taking life one step at a time than I ever could have by myself. I whole-heartedly encourage you to seek out other wanderers when you wander away from home, because you'll find that where they are, you and a feeling of home is, too.

Now, unlike some of my more genetically-gifted new friends, I am white-white-painfully-white. I'm a Northern European snow princess. But there is nothing I love more than sun and a good, natural tan. I've been spending two hours of every blisteringly sunny day sitting out on the balcony in my bikini, trying desperately to achieve a color other than "fish-belly white", to no avail. Today, finally aggravated beyond everything, I stomped back into the kitchen, grabbed a paper towel and the bottle of extra-virgin olive oil, and slathered myself in the oil like I was basting myself to marinate. And back out and marinate I did. Not only did the oil soak right into my Mediterranean-dried skin like an oasis in the desert, but the smell and the suppleness it gave to my skin felt incredibly sexy, like some sort of Grecian sun goddess. And I was browning nicely within ten minutes. Huh. I suggest this trick to anyone fed up with dry skin and slow tanning, and not a redhead. When in Italy, you have to live like the Italians do.

XOXO

"Cock-Block" Is An Active Verb.

Last night, my name was Amy and I was 22. Maybe I should explain.

My lovely Ghibellina Girl Erin turned 21 the day after Easter. Due to things like school and the fact NOTHING in all of Italy is open on Easter Monday save for McDonalds, festivities were postponed until Tuesday night.

We started off at Salamanca, a Mexican-inspired bar whose signature drink is pitchers of the world’s best sangria, served with straws over half the length of my body so that no matter where the pitcher is on the table, you can still reach it and so, enjoy getting absolutely wasted.

Nearly 20 women to 2 Australian boys, 5 pitchers and some snuck drinks in (thanks, Erin—thanks, Aussie Boys), some dancing on the tables, and general wildness (there are photos so I will bypass explanations), we decided to head to a club so we could dance on something OTHER than the poor establishment’s tables.

Finding a club when you’re drunk is harder than one might think. An hour of wandering around Firenze later, we found ourselves at Twice. And as is said, once you go to Twice, you’ll never go twice.

Now, there are a few things in life that I love. Good beer. Fast cars. Women’s magazines. Sunday football. Green-eyed men. Palm trees. Full moons on the beach. Puppies. And dancing. But, as I have tried to explain to people back home, clubbing in Italy is something akin to throwing a half-naked girl into a small enclosed cell with a bunch of starving sex-maniacs. Oh, wait—that is the definition of clubbing in Italy. The Aussie Boys looked around and were slightly aghast. “It’s all American girls. And the Italian guys who want to get with them,” they noted, correctly. This is why I preferred clubbing in Dublin—you don’t have to turn around every five minutes and say “Hey, get off of me!” To quote the eternal words of every dance movie ever made, I just want to dance.

However, nothing is ever that easy. And so, inevitably, hands creep around your hips and then start moving all over your southern extremities. I looked at Erin and mouthed, “How are my standards?” She checked out the dude grinding behind me, and gave him the ok. “He’s cute.”

If there is one thing Italy has taught me, it is tolerance. And so, I danced with my new Italian lover Andre and lied my ass off to him until right just about when I felt him sweep the hair from the side of my neck and nuzzle in with his lips. I spun around, held up my left hand, and pointed repeatedly to the half-carat diamond on my ring finger. (Thank you for that foresight, Daddy. My father is a wise, wise man. ) “You have boyfriend?” he asked me.

Lies don’t count if they’re to an Italian man in a club. “Yes. I do.”

“Where is he?”

“Home. In America.”

“America is very far away.” You have to love Italian logic.

The second time I was grabbed by the hips, I just looked at Kara and asked, “How bad is it?” She took one look, said something quickly to her Italian boyfriend, and then grabbed me and spun me bodily away from what ended up being a Slavic-looking man pushing 40.

By now, Erin and Kara were otherwise occupied, and had left me alone on the dance floor with the Aussie Boy of my ulterior motive intentions. Because of our proximity and dancing together, the Italians took the hint that I was a no-fly zone, but juuust as I was about to put my arms around the Aussie and ask, “Do you mind?” Kara realized her wallet was gone.

As shitty as it is, I’m going to go with Kara losing her wallet as the Universe’s cock-blocking me and a sign that maybe, sometimes, my vindictive judgment should NOT be ruling my actions. Saved by the thief?

Other lesson of the night? Cage heels may be stunning, but they are not meant for walking all over a city and then dancing at a club for two hours, unless you want your feet to be purple, swollen to twice their normal size, and have a lovely chessboard pattern on them.

Oh, Italy and 21st birthdays. What you teach me.

XOXO