I have arrived, I am home
Posted by: lucie
Don't let the title throw you off; I'm still in Eastern Europe. I meant it in the Buddhist way. "I have arrived, I am home, in the here and in the now." You hear it often from Thich Nhat Hanh and the Dharma teachers in his tradition. I remember telling friends at Plum Village this past June, with a laugh, that "I have arrived, I am home" is a fitting practice for me. My suitcase and I have done an awful lot of arriving this year. England, two wandering months, Eastern Europe, a month of couchsurfing and transition, then back to the UK. By the time I'm resettled next week I'll have called three different cities home this year, not to mention two separate month-long stays in two separate Buddhist monasteries. Quite a year.
Skinny long-haired tattooed bartender boy got home from the States the other night, so now I'm properly couchsurfing. Until yesterday I'd actually had my own room here (his). Now I'm just that bit more displaced - not as much ground beneath me. The airfreight estimate I got for my stuff today was an unpleasant surprise, Becks is as hungover as they come and grumping around the flat, and with my own silly worries nipping at my heels I'm having to fight the desire to tell her to chill out and quit bitching. She has every right to bitch. Her heart is broken whether I'm moving in two days or not. Times like these you have to draw on some reserves of peace and sympathy and just be calm enough for two. We can't both swear and yell when we drop a pen, or we'll both soon go crazy.
My little altar is packed up, which is a shame; there is something very helpful about having a dedicated space to sit down, light incense and automatically feel at least a little bit peaceful out of habit. Luckily you can sit anywhere on the planet, altar or not, arrange yourself, close your eyes and think, "I have arrived, I am home," and be grounded. Daily meditation is the best thing in the world. Letting it slip for the past couple weeks has really driven that point home for me. Today when my nerves got a bit too frazzled I excused myself from heartbreak duty to sit for twenty minutes. Twenty minutes didn't fix everything, but it went a long way. It at least reminded me that there wasn't really anything to be worried about.
(Incidentally, if you're one of those people who has tried meditating and thinks they can't do it, try sitting for five minutes and thinking "Breathing in, I am aware that I am breathing in. Breathing out, I am aware that I am breathing out." That'll give you a foothold. It helps connect the mind to the breath, and then you're off.)
This should be one of the easiest moves I've ever done. I've never had a home sorted out before moving - that's a big luxury. And there's no career stuff to settle as I'll be a student, so that's that. Fingers crossed my roommate will be cool, and he seems to be a social fellow, so there's one potential circle of (creative, artistic) friends. Fellow MBA students, 75% international, ambitions to network, I'm sure they'll be sociable enough.
And last but not least: the Sangha. The group of Dharma practitioners in Thay's tradition that meets twice a week at the Unitarian church just a stone's throw from my house. I discovered just now that it's only three blocks away, and I couldn't feel much luckier. Life will be busy, but meditation and discussion with a group of like-minded people will certainly help keep my feet on the ground. And anyway, it's enjoyable. It's peaceful. Practitioners in Thay's tradition are almost universally very chill, kind people. Or at least they're trying to be, and they check themselves when they're not. I thought about them today as I shook off my anxiety and felt incredibly grateful to know that such solid support was waiting just around the corner from my new flat.
The sunset was beautiful tonight.
just keep typing
Posted by: lucie
Can't stop writing. I guess I write more in these uneasy phases, these uncertain times in life, the pre-move times and in-between-homes times. Recently I've been out of control with email. People who hear from me twice a year have heard from me four times in two weeks, at great length. I keep telling everyone that I'm about to disappear from the interweb - you know, moving and all, getting busy over here - but can't seem to detach myself from my computer. This past weekend I wrote James a novel. When life starts to float in too many different directions and I can't keep track of it all, I guess this is what I do: write, email blog. Keep the words flowing. It clears my head. Or maybe it's just a distraction. I don't know. I am compelled to type. It feels natural, ventilates my mind and passes the time.
Things are a bit heavy in the Lucie/Becks household right now, what with her freshly broken heart and my about-to-start-a-new-life-again thing. I'm not that uneasy, but it's fair to say that these pre-move times are not my most peaceful, and it can be a bit of a challenge to keep a chill perspective. Becks is in the raging phase of the breakup - the one where the realizations of all those negative qualities you willfully ignored come in waves and you think perhaps your ex has always been evil and has never loved you. Not fun. So between the two of us, there is less peace than usual. We're alright, but it would be nice if at least one of us possessed our usual solidity. Perhaps the return of the tattooed boy will help matters. Men are generally good emotional buffers (so long as the emotions in question weren't prompted by the men in question).
Andrew Bird is my new favorite person. Here he is on NPR's Weekend Edition, here he is live on fabchannel (an entire show on video), and here he is on Myspace. He's going to be in Portland on September 27 (hey, here are his show dates). Alas, no UK tour planned just yet. Please go see him since I can't. He puts on a mad live show, sampling and layering all his own instruments, playing his guitar, xylophone, keys, picking his electric violin like a guitar, whistling... no one onstage with him but a drummer. Intense and brilliant. Not to mention the great voice and awesome lyrics. If you see him, please tell him to cross the pond and sing for me, because I love him.
Becks woke up at 9, by some miracle, and actually got herself in the shower and went to work half an hour late. A few hours later she called to apologize for being "a strung out sleazebag." She got home at 4:30 last night. I laughed at her and told her about the "going to Lucie's house" comment. She said she probably thought she'd be safe at Lucie's house and that no one there would be mean to her and try to make her wake up. Bad call.
I'll probably write another five blog entries today. I mean hey, it's not like I should be packing or contacting air freight companies or anything. Or whatever.
ps. Hey, they made a movie about Leonard Cohen. I did not know that.
flatmate in a coma
Posted by: lucie
I have never in my life tried so hard to wake someone up. Ever. It's almost scary. I've talked to her, yelled at her, lightly tap tapped on her face, shaken her gently by the arm, shaken her a bit less gently by the shoulder, nearly lifted her head off the pillow with both hands on both of her shoulders, and still nothing. If it weren't for her obvious breathing, I probably would have concluded that she'd died in her sleep. The first sign of life came after ten minutes of this: an odd mumbling about how I should leave her alone because she was just going to Lucie's house, so everything was fine.
"Rebecca. Listen to me. You really have to listen to me. Your alarm has been going off for ten minutes. It's 7.40. You have to be at work at nine. You need to get up now. Or call in sick to work."
Nothing.
It's the breakup. She went three days without getting really drunk and then made up for it last night. Becks probably weighs about 100 pounds, and with the help of one friend she finished three bottles of wine. She bounded up the stairs at midnight to heat up some soup before bed, yelling on her cell phone ("I hope I don't wake Lucie up!"), clanging and banging spoons, dishes and pans. I was just a few meters away, but no big deal; I didn't have to wake up this morning and anyway, it was just good to see her eating. She hasn't been eating at all, and as tiny as she is, she can't really afford not to.
Then the skinny long-haired tattooed boy got home from the States, there was a joyful reunion, and she decided to go back out to a bar with him even though she had to work at 9. I thought about telling her this was a bad idea, but there probably wasn't any stopping her so I just continued to pretend that I'd slept through the soup racket.
When they got back - I have no idea what time it was, but they were yelling back and forth between their rooms downstairs - they were so smashed I actually couldn't decipher any of the words they were using. It was just one big slur from him, one big slur from her. And the next thing I heard was the alarm.
The second attempt to wake her up seemed a bit more hopeful. She was almost coherent - able to tell me that her head hurt, that her throat hurt, that she needed to walk the dog. I told her I'd walk the dog if she'd get her ass into the shower. She reckoned she just needed to sleep ten more minutes and everything would be cool, so we agreed that I'd wake her up a third time when the walk was done. Alas, no signs of life. I've mostly given up now.
"Becks, I've been trying to wake you up for forty minutes."
"I know, and I appreciate that," she mumbles.
"I don't know how to do it, so I'm coming back at 9 to wake you up so you can call in sick to work."
"I'm hungover."
"I know."
"My head hurts. My throat hurts."
"I know, babygirl."
"I got drunk last night."
"I know."
"Wake me up in five minutes."
favorite buildings / books I don't have time to read
Posted by: lucie
The city archives, still damaged from the floods a few years ago, still sitting empty.
I like to call this one the Svaty Vaclav building.
Ten books I wish I could read today:
Falling upwards: essays in defense of the imagination, by Lee Siegel
The Seducer's Diary, by Soren Kierkegaard
Soren Kierkegaard: A Biography, by Joakim Garff
Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor, by Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh
(check out episode 311 of This American Life - "A Better Mousetrap")
The Sane Society, by Erich Fromm
People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present, by Howard Zinn
The Gnostic Gospels, by Elaine Pagels
Of Love And Other Demons, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Wild Ducks Flying Backward, by Tom Robbins
The Sinatra Files: The Secret FBI Dossier, by Tom Kuntz, Phil Kuntz
Terrapass
Posted by: lucie
I've just bought a Terrapass to offset the carbon emissions I'll generate by flying to England this weekend and home to Portland for Christmas. Have you heard of Terrapass? It's pretty damn cool. Basically, you calculate your carbon footprint on their web site and buy a 'pass' to cover your mileage (car or flight). The money from pass sales funds projects that help counter global warming, effectively reducing your carbon footprint to zero.
I just found out about it today from the Worldchanging blog.
So many people are doing so many cool things to help the world. There are a lot of reasons to be hopeful.
sorted
Posted by: lucie
Caught up with the Irishman on the phone last night; happily, he is more than capable of carrying a conversation and seemed just as lovely on the phone as he did over email. He spoke in a beautiful, soft accent about the charm of the city as the seasons changed, the local culture, his stance that no one should be afraid to express their opinions about art, his hometown in Ireland and his reluctant attitude toward most business types.
After a few minutes of casual chat, he asked "So... do you want the room?" Which was funny, really, because we both knew the purpose of the phone call was merely to ensure that we were both relatively normal people, and the conversation had flowed easily enough. I said I was definitely in, he apologized profusely for asking me to wire him a deposit and I reassured him that I wasn't at all concerned. Normally one should be at least a little worried about sending money to a person they've never met, and I do realize that it's perhaps not the best idea in the world, but I'm confident that he's a solid character. Good intuition, good vibes, high comfort level.
My dear mother, on the other hand, is more of a skeptic. "So glad to hear you have a roommate," she wrote. "But my motherly instincts are telling me to have a background check done on this sweet guy:):):):)"
I'd done the modern girl's background check already (google/myspace/etc) and he seemed fine, I told her. If he's not a very nice person, he does a damn good job of faking it on the internet. To counter her maternal instincts, I forwarded her a copy of the Irishman's first email to me. This won her over fairly easily, as evidenced by her next message:
"He seems kind and values things that many don't (the chirping of the birds in the courtyard, etc). I think I want to marry him:):):):):):)"
I guess we can see where I get it from.
Flatmates and heartbreaks
Posted by: lucie
Everything works out perfectly in the end. The accommodation department got in touch today to offer me a room, but in a brilliant final act their web-enabled housing system was down and I couldn't even see what was up for grabs. It was a fitting end to what seems to have been a series of terribly unlucky moments leading to endless slips through cracks, and I'm glad it's over. I replied no thanks to the mystery flat.
With that out of the way, the only thing left to wonder about was my photographer. You know, the one I had picked out. He emailed today to say that I sounded like an ideal flatmate for him, and he'd really enjoyed looking at my pictures (on flickr, that is, not pictures of me) and I seemed like 'a fairly normal fun girl,' but a friend of his had decided to take the room and had to be given priority. He also said if I had any questions about neighborhoods or things to do in the city, to feel free to email. See? I was right to pick him - he's obviously very sweet. Most people wouldn't even have emailed. I nearly wrote back and said he should be my friend, but then I realized I've been getting far too sociable over email lately and should maybe hold out for making real life friends when I get there. So instead I wrote back that if I ended up getting married while I was there, I'd give him a call (he's a wedding photographer when he's not doing artsier stuff).
The Irishman and I still need to catch up on the phone. I'm holding off on giving him a name until I actually meet him. Maybe I'll just keep calling him The Irishman, or flatmate, or Paddy (no, not Paddy). We were supposed to talk this afternoon, but the timing was bad; there were other things going on over here in Eastern Europe. I had a heartbroken Rebecca on my hands today.
Freshly heartbroken. As fresh as heartbroken girls come. I left the house at 10am to give her space to have the breakup talk with her half-time-long-distance boy who is in town at the moment. When I came back at 3pm he was just leaving, and they were no longer sweet young lovers. It was done. Amicable, but terribly sad.
Becks and I sat at the kitchen table drinking tea as she chainsmoked and said over and over that it just wasn't going to work, that she was sad, that she didn't feel good, that it wasn't going to work, that there was nothing to be done, that the situation was impossible, that she didn't feel good, that she was sad.
Wide lulls filled with heavy, lovelorn silence would pass and she would look at me with the most pathetically blank expression I've ever seen on her face and say simply, "Lucie, I'm sad." And I'd say I know, but it's better, because last night you were sad and angry and frustrated and confused, and today you're just sad, and the sadness will get a little bit better each day. At least you're moving on. She'd wonder whether a beer would help, or coffee, and I'd say I didn't think it was that kind of problem but I wouldn't blame her for getting smashed, because at least that would help her forget about it. She'd take deep drags on her cigarette and then say again, "I don't feel good. I don't feel good. I mean, I'm not physically sick, I just..." ...and I'd say I know, you feel emotionally like shit. Yes, she would say. That's it. And we'd go around in circles this way, with Becks trying to pinpoint her pain, trying to corner it and figure out how to make it go away. But that type of pain just isn't easily driven out. It takes its time.
There is so little you can say to someone whose heart is freshly broken. Even when they know it's for the best, even when the breakup was mutual and understood. It's just sad. You can't help. All you can do is listen.
Well, that's not entirely true - if you drink, you can take them out and get them smashed. Luckily Veronika came over to fetch her and take care of that part. Between the group of us girls, we've got it covered. I listen to her when she's sober, Veronika gets her trashed and returns her home safely, the dog snuggles with her and we'll get through it as a team.
The absolute worst thing to hear from your freshly heartbroken friend is "He's gone, and now you're going to be gone. You can't go." The best response I could think of was that at least I could be his replacement on Skype. Well, you work with what you've got.
Of note: two interesting new comments on the 'mean people' entry, which seems to be googled quite often by people who are pissed off and looking for a place to vent. Interestingly, 'Lisa' and 'Haley' (Jekyl and Hyde?) have the same IP address.
We have a flatmate!
Posted by: lucie
Ladies and gentlemen, meet my soon-to-be-confirmed new flatmate: an Irish freelance film producer in his early 30s (no, this is not the homophobic one). He posted an ad yesterday for the big huge awesome sunny bedroom in his awesomely-located flat, and I happened to reply first before the barrage of other potential flatmates. Luckily for me, he got a real sense from my email that we would get on well. Score.
His current roommate is only leaving because she bought a flat herself (good sign). The flat is incredibly central, in a beautiful area of town and only a 5-10 minute walk to my school (awesome), but on a quiet side street so very little noise (hooray!). The room is HUGE and beautiful, he says he has a great DVD/book collection, we have a view to the communal garden out back, and everyone who stays with him or visits loves the flat (must be lovely). My room has loads of shelves and tons of space and will rule.
The roomie does interesting work, managed a charity for four years, is interested in NGOs and the social sector, did a management diploma a few years ago and says he's not a normal business type either but is interested in entrepreneurship and might do an MBA at some stage. We should have no trouble finding things to talk about, then.
Good things about the flat, he says: lots of tea drinking and chats, a family of sparrows in the back garden that provide a lovely soundtrack, awesome shower and constant hot water, and "a really cool old style shop right next door that looks like something from a forgotten era."
Low points: the front door banging can be a bit noisy (I'm used to this as my last flat was ground floor as well), and "the 91 year old woman upstairs has a tendency to lose her hearing aid or not turn it on and then put her tv on really loud. Solved by me going up to her flat to tell her."
His myspace page has a background of tiled fuzzy bunnies. I'm not sure if this is ironic or he's just kind of sappy, but I'm guessing ironic and am alright with it either way. And yes, since you're probably wondering, he is single and appears to be attractive, but I am not even going to think about that, thank you very much.
We're chatting on the phone later today to seal the deal.
Take that, accommodation department!
Flatmate shoppin'
Posted by: lucie
Oh, this is really fun. I mean, you can have an imagination field day with the possibilities. Most of the rooms are probably gone by the time I've seen them posted online, and who knows whether I'll hear back from any of these people, but let's have a look at what's out there:
Photographer - still my first choice, but haven't heard back from him yet. E-m-a-i-l. E-m-a-i-l. "We have a whole [year] to spend together, you fucker! But it can't start until you [email]."
Big huge cheap room with a psychology PhD candidate and a law student - this would be a score.
PhD candidate in biology, male, late 20s.
Two veterinary students, both female, early and late twenties.
Freelance writer/filmmaker - not sure about this guy anymore as he has specified he is only interested in straight male or straight female. This bugs me.
Female MBA student from Africa - will be in my class. She doesn't have a flat yet, though; we'd have to hit the ground running and find one.
32 year old Irish guy "working in the arts" with a HUGE extra bedroom in a gorgeous part of town.
40-something gay couple with two dogs and an extra bedroom in their villa.
Oh, so many flatmates, so many rooms, so many possible futures.
nice roommate ISO nice roommate
Posted by: lucie
It's amazing how many people use flat-share adverts to try and find a best friend or, in the case of some skeezy older men (I'd apologize for generalizing but this is merely what the data has shown), find a woman. I can understand specifying a certain age range, or saying you don't want to live with students, or having a preferred gender, or wanting a non-smoker or no pets. But when your profile gets to be, like, 48 year old professional nonsmoking male seeks 25-38 year old straight non smoking female, it starts to look like you've got things a bit mixed up. Ditto the people who are looking for a roommate who has the same hobbies and interests as them. it's a roommate search, people. If you want a new best friend who likes rock climbing and waterskiing, try looking for them on rocks or lakes.
Anyway, to each his own. Maybe it works for some people.
I've started considering flatshares instead of student housing. The accommodation coordinator has not found the time to reply to my increasingly desperate emails ("I'm really sorry to bother you and I know it must be busy over there, but I'm beginning to get rather worried because I fly to the UK in a week and still don't have a legitimate housing offer, so if there's any chance...." etc), so I figure maybe it's a sign. There are lots of people out there looking for roommates, as it turns out, and many of them with big double bedrooms in two-bed flats where I'd have to share my kitchen and bathroom with just one person instead of... well, I don't know how many fellow students, actually, because I don't yet have a legitimate housing offer telling me these details, but more than one, I'm guessing.
So, I've picked out my flat. The ad was the first one I saw, and I decided immediately that this guy was my future roommate. You, dear readers, have probably noticed that I'm very quick to build hypothetical futures on little to no evidence aside from my affinity for particular imaginative scenarios, but sometimes things do actually turn out as I wish. According to his profile, he's a 30 year old freelance photographer offering a double room in a modern flat, he cooks and cleans and he doesn't care whether his roommate is gay or straight, male or female, just "reasonably housetrained" and friendly and sociable. See? That's a good person. Also, I like photographers. I don't think I've ever met an uptight photographer. So I think this could be my guy. I feel it.
I emailed him a short intro, including the fact that I was an MBA student (but not the typical MBA type), an American (but haven't lived there for a while), 29 (for a few more weeks anyway), laid back, and an enthusiastic albeit talentless amateur photographer (with flickr link). I expect to hear back from him and have this whole thing settled before the weekend is through. Who knows why I hang onto this unfailing optimism of mine, but let's hope I'm right this time. If so, I'll be settled in my new home with my new roommate in less than two weeks, with nearly another whole week to feel my way around town and enjoy the city before school starts.
Fingers crossed.
Edit: Actually, this roommate hunting is fun. I've just found a freelance writer/filmmaker/scriptwriting teacher guy as well. Maybe I'd take him. Wonder if I should drop Matt McCormick's name.
many talents
Posted by: lucie
"So first I have to apologize for the mess you're about to be presented with, because I've been cutting my own hair for the past eight months," I say as I sit down in the chair. He plays around with the back of my messy 'do a bit and looks at me in the mirror.
"Are you serious? This is so even. You've done a great job - you should totally be a hairdresser."
I giggle like a dumb girl and think how nice it is that stylists always kiss your ass. Honestly, how good a job could I possibly have done? But I'll take compliments regardless.
"Your friend's shirt is cracking me up," I offer, nodding toward a beefcake colleague in a white ringneck t-shirt emblazoned with the declaration I only sleep with the best. There's a hotel logo on the back. Only the best hotels, har har.
"I know, right? What a bighead! I was thinking about making my own shirt to take the piss out of his - like 'I only sleep with dogs,' or something. 'I only sleep with old people.'
"You seriously cut this yourself?" he asks again. "How did you do this? I mean, did you hold it up to see if the ends were even or something? I really can't believe you did this. It's incredibly symmetrical."
"You want to know my secret? I cut it with the scissors of a Swiss army knife. Big chunks at a time. And then I feel it and cut out chunks where they feel like they need to come out, and maybe cut another couple chunks over the next few days. This is my technique. Isn't it edgy?"
He actually looks impressed. Over walks the hunk. "We've just been talking about your shirt," my stylist tells him.
"It's very nice," I say.
"Do you get it, though?" he asks, looking at me with great anticipation, as though there were something difficult to get. "Do you get it? The back?"
"I get it. So you actually only mean it in a hotel kind of way?"
He grins, big white teeth against tanned face. "I hear you're pretty good at hairdressing."
"Apparently," I say. "I seem to have a talent with a Swiss army knife."
"She's given herself a transient cut and done a really good job of it!" my stylist exclaims. I now buy into his enthusiasm and believe I am a talented hairdresser indeed.
So I won't be needing to go back there, then. Unless I want to flirt with hairstylist boys. Which is part of what they get paid to do, really, which is fine with me if they're going to charge that much. Maybe in another eight months.
not worried
Posted by: lucie
You know, they demote a planet that was apparently never really a true planet, you demote a future husband that was apparently never really your future husband, and the universe doesn't actually change at all; it's a mere juggling of labels. In fact, it's a deepened understanding of the way things are, and that's something we can only be glad about.
I'm not worried. Not at all. It's a world full of potential future lives and adventures. It's a universe with one less planet than we thought and three more planet-like objects. The universe giveth, the universe taketh away, the universe maketh up for it by giving three times more than it tooketh away. And technically it never did any of the above because those celestial bodies had been floating around up there all along. So why should I worry?
Eight days from today I'm on a plane to the UK. I still have no confirmed place to live, but, you know, I'll almost definitely end up with a home. It is highly probable that I will have a place to live, and doubtful that I will end up with first year undergraduate students. Maybe I'm meant to end up with first year undergrad students, though. I mean, maybe they have something to teach me. Or maybe I'll end up writing a sweet coming-of-age novel about first year undergrad students in the UK instead of really learning about business. I'm up for whichever direction life chooses to send me right now, aren't I? I've got no designs on the future. The future is none of my business.
No, not worried. Worrying is a waste of energy that could be better applied elsewhere. Such as the study of finance (see how I didn't mention statistics there? I'm thinking maybe 75% of my statistics book was a good enough jump start and I'll learn the rest in school. In other words: screw statistics).
I'm getting a real haircut today for the first time since December. I've been cutting my own hair for eight months. Now I'm like that guy in the documentary about the birds in San Francisco (help me out here) who said he wasn't going to cut his hair until he got a girlfriend, except the opposite. I'm cutting my hair in honor of no longer having an imaginary future husband. Wow, it's almost like a real breakup. Except that I'm not sad, it's not even a fake breakup, and I'm really only doing it because I have to look respectable for my 'professional marketing profile' photo, which will be taken during induction week before school even starts. I think I've probably mentioned this already, but they start the career stuff pretty early.
Speaking of photos, I have been sans camera for a week and a half after dropping it off for repairs, but I get to pick it up today. New haircut + returned camera = photos you people will probably never see. But there is also a beautiful old building next to the park outside my temporary home that I might show you.
I turn 30 in a couple weeks. This bothered me in, like, May. Now I could care less. If I haven't already mentioned this (though again, I think I have), there are exciting festivities lined up on the day of my 30th, namely a presentation on the British banking sector followed by a cocktail reception. I find banks boring and no longer drink cocktails, so I'm not sure why they didn't plan something a bit more fun for me. Maybe they were thinking I'd like to meet a rich banker future husband. Alas, I don't think I could really love a banker. I'm sure they're nice and all, I'm just looking for someone with a little bit more of the crazy. Just a touch of the crazy. Enough to amount to some passion - this is something I've recently realized should be on my list. So bankers probably need not apply.
Come to think of it, future husbands need not apply for a while. I'm kind of tired of that whole idea right now.
Well, that's about all I have to say on these matters. I'm going to go read some Thich Nhat Hanh and very deliberately not worry.
Cool as the other side of the pillow.
Pluto: airbrushed away
Posted by: lucie
Friends, we've just lost a planet.
A moment of silence, please.
kegger!
Posted by: lucie
There seems to be some sort of mixup here, because I've finally received an accommodation offer from my school, and it's in a building with mostly first-year undergraduates. Can you imagine? Do you think they'd throw me a 30th birthday kegger during induction week?
Rebecca and I just laughed ourselves to tears over this (though mine may have been tears of frustration), imagining my new friends.
"Dude, why study? These are the best years of our life! Let's take bong hits!"
"Have you ever read The Catcher In The Rye? Oh my God, I just read it. Oh my God, wow."
"Want some mushrooms?"
Knowing me, I'd probably just throw up my hands and join the party, too. I mean, when in teenagerland, do as teenagers do, right? I guess if I were a guy I might find the idea of being surrounded by teenage girls pretty drool-worthy. Even as a woman I probably wouldn't complain too much if they put me in a flat full of guys in their early to mid twenties - they are so cute at that age - but teenagers, alas, do not appeal.
I swear I've been trying to be patient. I know it's busy over there. But I never got my offer letter, they lost my initial accommodation application, there have been mixups with the finance people wherein they claimed not to have received the tuition funds when they actually had, and I had to remind them today for the third time that they still hadn't offered me housing (which they said they'd offer two weeks ago). All through this I've really truly been patient - I swear I have. It must be a busy time of year, I'm sure they're under a lot of pressure, rah rah rah.
But to be offered a room in a mostly first year undergraduate flat... I mean, funny as that is, it was also my worst nightmare. Just last night I emailed James these very words: "This is making me a bit nervous - visions of mixups resulting in me being sent to live with the undergrads because they've allotted all the MBA housing. Keggers and 18 year old boys!"
I never thought it would actually happen.
Dear universe, this is not a very clever joke.
Okay, it IS a clever joke, but please stop, okay? You win. You got me. Now give me a real home. Please?
Re-introducing James
Posted by: lucie
Dear friends and readers, I'd like you to meet James - my very close gay friend, whom I adore but have no romantic feelings for. It's been fun, but it's time to withdraw my emotional investment and flip the switch on James. In his honor I have decided to rename the switch "the gay to me switch." I think the name speaks for itself.
I don't think I'm going to share details just now, or maybe ever, on the ins and outs of exactly what was discussed (sorry), but I'm feeling alright about things. The bottom line: maybe someday, but definitely not any time soon. No surprises there. So for all practical purposes, for the sake of moving on, we're going to have to treat it as if the "maybe someday" is not a factor. We're going to treat it as "never ever," as if James is gay. If James were gay, we could continue with this very affectionate, flirtatious, lovey kind of vibe we have going on, but no one (namely, me) would read too much into it or think about where it was going. Of course it isn't going anywhere! He's gay! So that's what we do.
I thought I'd feel a bit lonelier falling asleep last night with a big hole in my imagination where the future husband and three kids used to be, but it turns out not to be so. Resolution was what I wanted, and that's what I got. James is now my tight friend, and I'm quite surprised to find I actually like it that way. It saves the energy I've been expending on managing two plotlines - one in reality, one in my head - and gives me space to just chill out a bit. It saves me second guessing whether I should mention things like seeing Matt (remember Matt? London Matt?) in September. Not that he's never going to be the type of friend I talk to about guys in any great detail, mostly because romance is not an area in which he has much experience, but it's nice to have the uncertainty cleared away.
I'm reminded that overall, friendship is an easier, more solid, more substantial thing than weird romantic fantasies. Even with the romantic ideas stripped away, I do adore James. I'm very happy and lucky to know him. He gets things about me, about the particular style of the deep inner workings of my mind, that other people don't even begin to see. I get him, kind of, as much as I will ever be able to get a boy who seems to have thoughts where all his feelings should be. More than most people get him, I sense. There's a closeness there, and it's special. Friendship is good enough. Boys do come and go, after all, and come and go. But now, for the first time, I'm pretty confident James is here to stay.
commies
Posted by: lucie
I'm sitting at one of my favorite cafes studying statistics and there's some exceptionally bad acting being executed in the loft above. So much for my naive belief that moving to a cafe environment would keep my ass in my chair and mind on the numbers. There are always distractions if you want them badly enough.
To be fair, though, film school kids shooting scenes where British and American actors with fake Eastern European accents talk about how it was back then, under the communist regime, is a pretty tough distraction to ignore. Well, judge for yourself whether you could study statistics while this scene played out over and over, at least twenty times, with emotional emphasis on all the wrong words and one actor speaking at double the volume of the other:
Father: It was different then. The communist regime, they didn't let you do anything you wanted.
Son: Yeah, but you were free.
Father: The hell we were.
Son: What do you mean?
Father: I had no choice. It was the only way out of that bloody, stupid hell.
Son: Oh come on, you could have left the country.
Father: Right. And get a shot in the back of the head at the border. You're such a kid.
Son: Well if you wanted to do it, really wanted to do it, then why didn't you try?
Father: That's it. Who are you to judge me?
Son: I'm your only son.
Ah, the fascination with communism. The locals tire of discussing it, but we foreigners, especially in our first couple years in the post-communist lands, just can't get enough. And the more stories you hear, the more absurd tales people tell you as they shake their heads ("No seriously, everyone believed the CIA sent a new breed of crop-eating bug over here to attack our food supply - it was in all the papers. They called it The American Beetle!"), the more deeply you understand that you'll never ever, ever get what it was like.
Of course everyone here has a different interpretation. One couple I know frequently discusses the disparate psychological effects the end of communism had on each of them in their late teens. Jan's family had always had underground samizdat publications, access to pirate radio - he was raised with the understanding that the world outside the Soviet Union wasn't the same as the one he knew. He grew up believing that once the government was overthrown, life would be better for everyone. The revolution would solve everything. Denisa grew up completely ignorant of what lay beyond the borders of the communist lands. Interestingly, when the iron curtain fell, guess who was happiest? Denisa was exposed to a world of music and culture she never knew existed, and basically, she thought it was cool and got on with her life. Jan still doesn't seem to have gotten over the fact that life still has problems, communist regime or not, and now he doesn't know who to blame.
I think there's something interesting in that; maybe it's just what happens when people's political opinions are really just manifestations of their anger or sadness. I think about Jan and Denisa a lot when I see people angrily calling for a revolution or talking about the evils of Coca Cola or smashing the windows of Niketown but offering no ideas for change or growth, no genuine sentiment of caring for others or a desire to make people's lives better. Hatred of the status quo isn't enough to give a person's life meaning, nor supply them with a real identity, nor make the world a better place.
In snark-followup news: I sent the email yesterday. Why wait? Let's get this thing done. We are presently in the 45-minute window of the day I like to call "James o'clock" - 3:45-4:30. That's when he emails, if he emails. Usually between 3:45 and 4:00, actually, as he drinks his coffee after morning meditation. Funny how we're oddly long-distance domesticated and I know the details of his morning routine. Anyway, no James yet today. Fair enough, I guess he deserves a bit of time to think about this one. I'd like to get it neatly wrapped up in brown paper and string, post it off to the land of banished emotional entanglements and call it a day, but I guess after eight months of ambiguity another day or two won't kill me.
Yesterday my Powerbook went into its little screensaver slideshow routine and a picture of Tom meandered across the monitor - Tom on that emotional last night in town. It was a good moment, reminding me that boys just come and go, come and go, and it always feels like a big deal at the time but a few months later you're looking at a picture of them and wondering why it ever seemed to matter so much. They come, they go. I think about Tom once in a blue moon now. That's how it works.
This completely directionless blog entry has been brought to you by our sponsors soy latte, bad acting, local coffee shop, the Complete Idiot's Guide to Statistics and procrastination. Thank you very much.
post-snark
Posted by: lucie
So I drafted an email to James this morning, and I expected I'd sit on it for a few days to make sure I didn't second guess it or anything, but I've come to the conclusion that expressing one's feelings honestly isn't exactly rocket science. It's just not something I'm used to doing in plain, vulnerable language. Turns out that when you sit down in front of a blank screen and decide to just type what you feel and think about things for the sake of clarification, without any assumptions or judgments or conclusion-jumping, it's a pretty simple process. So simple I nearly just sent the email already. And although there's a very good chance I won't get the type of reply I would most like, I am relieved to think I might soon understand exactly what we're dealing with here. It's just nice to know. Mystery gets old.
But then I decided maybe I should let him sweat for a day or two. I don't know why. I'm not angry at him anymore (he's a nice guy, he would never want to do anything to hurt me, and I can hardly blame him for not wanting to see me as much as I want to see him, or not liking me as much as I like him - that's just what you get when you fall for a buddha boy who aspires not to grasp at anything and prefers philosophy to women), but it wouldn't hurt for him to get a bit nervous. I don't know, maybe it's childish. And he probably won't get nervous anyway. He'll just go read more Wittgenstein and wrap himself in layers of abstractions.
Anyway, here's the gist of it: Maybe we've been interpreting the email thing different ways. I've been inferring that we'd see each other again because of the periodic talk about you coming to visit, so the "in a year or so" comment stung a bit. I do have feelings for you, however weird that might be given what little time we spent together and the fact that most of this relationship has been conducted over email. I'm just a romantic kind of girl who can, in fact, fall for a boy over dinner and then maybe read too much into emails, and this feels like half of something to me. I probably wouldn't have been sending you all these emails if I didn't believe there was a chance we'd actually be seeing each other again sometime soon (my definition: a few months or so). I don't have much idea of what would happen if we did see each other, but the email all by itself just feels a bit stranger the longer it goes on. Maybe the email is cool as a whole thing unto itself for you, and I couldn't hold it against you if you weren't that concerned about ever seeing me again or didn't having any feelings for me beyond friendly affection. Maybe we have similar feelings and doubts with different timelines. I don't know. I also realize that actually making an effort to see each other could feel like a really big deal, and I do wish I could casually bump into you at your locker or favorite coffee shop. Unfortunately there's zero chance of that ever happening, so there's nothing left for it but honest talk about feelings and thoughts on the whole thing. So there it is.
That's heavily edited for space - I promise the tone was warmer. So it's his turn now (or it will be when I send this, I suppose, and I still intend to sit on it for a couple days, because I just feel like it). Honestly, I hardly even know what I want him to say - I just want some definition. If he doesn't envision us hanging out anytime soon, I'll just say okay, in that case we're officially friends, so let's cut the babe/hon/thinking of you/miss you stuff, and you shouldn't expect to hear from me twice a week anymore, because I don't email my friends that often. The chances that he will say "actually, okay, let's talk plane tickets" are slim to none no matter how he feels. That he will say "I have feelings for you too, but my timelines are still long," slightly broader. Then there's still a chance that he'll just duck the whole thing, though I think he's better than that. "If he does that," Rebecca says, "He is nowhere near the man you have thought he was this whole time, so it doesn't even matter." My girl is wise.
I would like to state for the record that when I get stupid like this and post about it on my blog, I do realize that I am an embarrassment to myself and all members of the sisterhood. I again apologize to each and every one of my sisters for showing our collective emotional ass. But I've abandoned my paper journal since starting this blogging thing, and this is just the way it goes for me now. In any case, I think this whole James trip is nearly over, and soon we will all breathe a collective sigh of relief and get on with life and... you know, business school, I guess.
desnark
Posted by: lucie
So now I'm feeling predictably ill at ease about the snarkiness. Maybe it was not entirely necessary.
One of the things I find particularly difficult about being a human is that tendency to get snarky when something hurts my feelings rather than honestly explaining that it hurt my feelings and even, if we wanted to get really crazy here, why. It's just so much easier to treat the situation as if someone were deliberately messing with you and berate them accordingly, whether in your head or in passive aggressive emails. And really, there's not much to be said for either method, because what good can come of it? None, I don't suppose.
The trouble is that James is really not an asshole; he's a very good guy who is completely incompetent with women. I don't think he has any idea how he should act or what he should say whether he has feelings for me or not. And I'm often completely incompetent at acting like an adult and being honest about my feelings, so we are a pretty dire combination. Rebecca keeps pointing out that some candor is probably in order now, and I'm reluctantly giving in to her perspective. It all just seems a bit embarrassing. I mean, how do you tell someone you like them when you haven't even seen them in eight months and can't be completely sure you truly would still have those feelings if they ever actually got their ass to a city near you? The situation is dumb. This is why I never wanted it to drag on this long. The longer it goes, the more I want to see him, and the more I think that seeing him is the worst thing I could possibly imagine having to endure.
Right about now, I'm thinking the simplest thing would be for him to disappear forever. Resolution, please. Resolution of the James plot. I don't care how - just tie it up with a bow and let's call it a day because I'm back to that point in the cycle where it hurts my head and doesn't feel fun.
I've drafted several emails in my head attempting to be honest, but it's amazing what kind of dodge and duck tactics I can come up with. Like hm, I'll say I have - no, use past tense, I'll say I had - feelings for him, but quickly follow this up with an assertion that I've obviously read too much into this whole email thing and that we should therefore just cut out any affectionate talk to keep me from getting confused again and play it straight down the line as friends from now on because obviously it was never going to be anything more than friendship, so sorry I got weird, your buddy, Lucie.
Maybe that isn't quite as candid as I wanted it to be, so then I think I will say I genuinely thought we had a connection in the time we spent together and it's continued and maybe deepened (no, let's say broadened, that's not quite so serious-sounding) over email, but obviously his timelines are different than mine and I'm not really up for letting it drag out too much longer so thank you and goodnight, Lucie.
Or some similarly preemptive kind of 'I don't want to do this anymore' technique (with the silent desire that he should read between the lines and buy a plane ticket, etc, not that I would ever ever expect this to happen because boys don't know how to read between lines and he has "long timelines" anyway).
I suppose the really adult thing would be to humble myself and come out with something completely honest about my thoughts and feelings without guessing at his, but this just might not be within my capabilities. Why this is so hard is truly beyond me. I should really figure out how to grow up and do it. But something about this whole thing playing out over email is just... you know, embarrassing.
Anyway, there you go. Regardless, it's still his turn. I could follow up my snarky email with some candor, but he said he was going to write more this weekend anyway, so let's let him make the next move. Maybe he's better than me at this, despite being completely ignorant about women. Maybe he's just better at acting like an adult when all other possibilities have been exhausted. Maybe we'll learn something.
Also, maybe I am thinking way too much about James instead of the fact that I am moving to the UK in two weeks. Funny how that works.
In any case, I'm going to do the only thing a girl in my situation can do: make nachos and watch "In The Footsteps of Bin Laden" on CNN.
Snark
Posted by: lucie
I just sent James a snarky email. It concerns this whole "dinner, soon enough" thing, otherwise known as the latest instance of a stupid cycle in which he says things about coming to visit and then completely wusses out.
James: I like these e-mails, but it would be nice just to sit down for a good dinner wouldn't it. Soon enough I guess.
Me: It would. Soon enough? How do you figure?
James: (long email, ending with...) Dinner for us - for me soon means within the next year or so. I have long timelines.
Is he kidding me? What is the matter with this man? Or is he perfectly normal and just couldn't care any less about whether we ever see each other again, in which case why are we sending all these stupid emails? What's the point?
I considered replying that when using conventional human language, one should generally adhere to traditional meanings rather than imbue everyday words with whatever definitions they may have in one's own little freaky-ass world. I also considered asking whether, if "soon" meant "within the next year or so," what "hon" and "baby" and "thinking of you, always" and "miss you" might mean in his parallel universe.
Settled instead on: "Hm. To me 'within the next year or so' counts as 'soon' if you're talking about, say, moving to another country. If you're talking about dinner, it isn't really worth mentioning. Actually these periodic allusions to possibly seeing each other confuse me, so it's probably best not to mention it again until the universe is actually ready to book you a plane ticket."
Honestly, I don't even care anymore. This is completely absurd. And embarrassing. I'm embarrassed to even post this because I'm a foolish embarrassment to all women. But there you go.
I love you, Pluto
Posted by: lucie
Pluto is about to get dumped, poor thing. It's very sad. There are a bunch of scientists from all over the world having themselves a little pow wow in a Prague conference center and deciding whether to revoke its planetary status even as I type. It's like a Vatican lockdown over there. They will announce their decision Monday.
I don't think it looks very good for Pluto, personally. But Pluto, if you can hear me, I want you to know that you'll always be a planet in my heart. They can take you out of the textbooks and pull your styrofoam doppelganger off the galactic mobiles, but you'll always have a special place in the solar system of my soul. I won't stop loving you.
Scientists, man. Always have to go and complicate things. Here's hoping the entertaining and informative Claire L Evans will make sense of it all for us.
From the Christian Science Monitor: Odd Planet Out: Pluto Risks Being Demoted
Floaty turtle revolution
Posted by: lucie
A belated thank you to the three wonderful musketeers of Urho for my lovely turtley blog redesign. It seemed like time to ditch the regional theme since, you know, it requires frequent updates, which can be inconvenient. And I am quite fond of my little turtle friend. See how he manages to swim in the water of reality and float in the clouds of dreamy dreamland at the same time? And doesn't he look carefree? Basically, he's my role model.
And while I'm making public belated declarations, happy belated 30th birthday to one of my favorite humans on the planet, the inimitable Cabel Sasser, who turned old last week.
More to say at some point, surely, but I made this crazy study schedule that involves one chapter of finance and two chapters of statistics each day, and I'm determined to stick to it for the first week, at least (if not much more).
This and that
Posted by: lucie
Rebecca returned from the motherland bearing pancake mix, Kraft mac&cheese, canned vegetarian chilli, bags of Reese's peanut butter cups and Hershey's kisses, and a great story about making out with some guy within four hours of arriving in the country. He was apparently sitting at a bar with a close female friend, discussing relationships. "I don't know, I just think I have baggage," he told her. Enter Rebecca, straight from the airport, rolling her suitcase in with the intention of killing a couple hours before her friend could come pick her up after work. "Like that girl?" the companion asked, but the first thing Becks heard was "Hey you - come over here and have a drink with us!"
Rebecca is as charming, beautiful and funny as they come, so the guy naturally fell in love with her, told her they were going to get married and asked her out on a date (later they got drunk and made out on the street, sometime after Becks befriended a homeless man and spent half an hour trying to help him find a job). She unfortunately lost his phone number. I'm giving her a very hard time for breaking his heart. If you know Rudy from Chicago who's in his late thirties and has a Picasso tattoo on his arm and something to do with yachts, drop us a line - let's reunite them. Rebecca + Rudy toot toot forever!
My last three weeks in Eastern Europe will be spent in full girly roommate splendor - just us chicas and the dog. We could have been living together all along, but we talked about it before I moved back and agreed that neither of us would ever get anything done. Rebecca has a book to write, after all, and we would have wasted hours sitting at the kitchen table talking about boys, saving the world and the meaning of life while reality proceeded apace outside our doors. It's true, we would have achieved nothing. We just would have had hours of great chats, because that is what we do. I will miss her.
Scattered notes time:
Tonight we watched The Squid and The Whale. It's a movie about a family going through a divorce. I guess it was okay, but I didn't really see the point to its existence. It did, however, make me grateful that I did not have snobby intellectual parents. Anyway, I give it the thumbs down. I give The Constant Gardener, however, the thumbs-up. International aid scandal whodunnits rock!
Apparently Donald Rumsfeld's war plans were communicated not through detailed written orders, but through powerpoint slides. Nice. Via Presentation Zen, which actually has a shot of one of the slides. See it to believe it, friends.
James is threatening to visit again. These emails are great, he says, but it would be nice to sit down for dinner sometime, wouldn't it, he says. Soon enough, he says. I'm not sure what 'soon enough' means, but I expect he must be thinking The Universe might book/buy him a plane ticket or something.
Interesting article in Psychology Today about how American parents are raising a nation of pansies. ("Parents are going to ludicrous lengths to take the bumps out of life for their children. However, parental hyperconcern has the net effect of making kids more fragile; that may be why they're breaking down in record numbers.")
Today I finished my second read of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Economics, and you know, I feel like a better person for it. I get it. I understand a lot of things any self-respecting citizen should probably already have known, and it's nice to have that grounding regardless of school being around the corner. But I'm quite surprised to discover that I actually kind of like economics. I mean, I could mostly care less about the stock market, but development economics is important stuff. The Economist's View and the World Bank's PSD Blog are two of my favorite daily/weekly econ reads.
If you've never heard Ella In Rome - The Birthday Concert, you are seriously missing out.
Ditto Andrew Bird & The Mysterious Production of Eggs.
Oh, and while we're linking, if you never saw this video of Ze Frank 'performing' a Nigerian scam email, I emphatically recommend that you load it up.
In her travels through the States and back to Eastern Europe, Becks took no less than four flights with her lighter in her carry-on bag. Guess the security people were pretty busy confiscating lip gloss and wrinkle cream.
Thank you, that is all for today. No cohesive narratives here. Good night!
Inanity on an unimaginable scale
Posted by: lucie
You know what I miss? I miss the days when government security agencies went about their business uncovering half-baked 'terrorist' plots, shut them down and didn't subsequently make big dark PR exercises out of them to prove to the world that the war on terror is still going on and that we should all be afraid of Muslims / keep spending money on war / keep supporting war / etc.
For the love of god, people. The last thing we really need is the freaking Metropolitan Police on TV making vague claims of "mass murder on an unimaginable scale." Even with what little information has been released so far, it's pretty easy to surmise that no bombs had even been constructed yet, let alone smuggled into airports, let alone onto planes. But just to keep the nation 'vigilant,' let's make a huge fuss about it and not let anyone take their books or orange juice onto airplanes anymore. Raise the terror alert level! Can't be too safe.
My guess: a group of completely untrained, incapable, angry and misguided kids in their early 20s with shallow aspirations to take down The Establishment. We'll obviously never know. Back in the day, this would not have been receiving FOUR STRAIGHT HOURS (and counting) OF NONSTOP COVERAGE ON CNN.
Note to terrorists: good news - your job is getting easier all the time! If you want to terrorize us and disrupt our society and economy, you don't even have to blow stuff up anymore! You just have to talk about blowing stuff up. Our own governments will do the rest.
People of the world, please turn off the news. This affair does not deserve our indulgence, nor our fear.
Being from Portland
Posted by: lucie
Each year when the rain sets in I get deep, deep Portland nostalgia. Others lament the end of summer as the sky turns grey and pieces of cloud begin to fall to the ground, but I'm never more in my element than when I'm surrounded by the smell of fresh rain. I don't carry an umbrella - I'm from Oregon! The end of summer means it's nearly time to bust out the real clothes again, meaning boots and sweaters. None of this strappy top business.
Portland is the best city to be from.
Lately people have been asking where I'll go when this MBA program is behind me. I tend to shrug and say that I guess, by default, I'd go back to the States - that Seattle was the plan before, but Portland is always a possibility. I never actually planned to be gone for more than a few years (not that I had a plan), but one thing led to another and here I am a month away from my fifth expat anniversary. This line of thinking leads to discussions about America, about whether it's advisable to return, whether one can still fit in after growing away from it for several years, whether it's even some kind of implicit endorsement of all that America now represents to make a choice to live one's life there again. They are strange, emotional questions.
Watching your home country from afar can really mix you up, and presumably even more so if you're American and left home less than a week before September 11th. I've watched the war on terror unfold from a very confused vantage point. Clearly the world changed on that day, but my own world changed so much just a few days before it that I've almost given up on unraveling the threads. Just moving abroad and beginning to get your international news from primarily non-US sources is enough to convince you that the homeland is nuts. Then things get even more nuts. You start to pay a lot more attention to the continents that got so little coverage on the American news, you realize how many wars are brewing and dragging on and taking innocent lives at any given moment, and you're not sure whether that was always happening to such an extent, or why you never knew.
A year or two into my expat days and the war on terror, I was flailing pretty hard for perspective on the world, working in a newsroom, living in the former Eastern bloc, looking back at the homeland as it began to fight the new Cold War, overwhelmed by too much information about international events and affairs. It really felt like the world must be closer to the edge than it had ever been before. How could it not be? And then one day I had this strange insight about how it must have felt the same way to people who spent their 20s with Reagan's finger on the button through the Cold War, Star Wars and the every-man-for-himself attitude of the 80s. It had to have felt like the world was about to end back then as well. Whether that means it's getting worse, better or staying the same, I don't know. But one thing I'm pretty sure of is that it's been crazy for a while, and I never quite figured out just how crazy until I left the States.
Despite this, I've always rolled my eyes at fresh young expats who were as good as ready to burn their passports and renounce American citizenship after a year or two abroad. For all the embarrassment that sometimes goes along with it, being born American is a stroke of luck at which only a truly spoiled citizen would turn up her nose. Only an American, with all the freedoms an American is lucky enough to be able to take deeply for granted, could declare herself above American citizenship, if you see what I'm saying.
That having been said, there have been times in the past couple years when I've seriously questioned whether I can see myself back in the States. You know, you watch the news, you see some imported TV or advertising and you get this disturbing perspective on just how sick American culture really is. I mean, it is. It really is. The ideas people have about us really aren't for nothing. We're pretty ignorant and isolated and morally bankrupt as a nation, overall. America pretty much revolves around consumption and distractions, and the more you think about it, the more you look at it, the grimmer it seems.
Conversations about whether or not to go back to America always get to this low, sad point. I'd hate to look into a mirror and see the absence of hope on my own face as I enter this particular phase of thinking, because it feels pretty dismal.
And then a beautiful thing happens: I remember that I'm from Portland. I find myself explaining that where I'm from isn't like the rest of the United States. It's like a secret, sheltered pocket of the country where things haven't gone wrong. The city is green, people ride bikes and buses and trams, politics are liberal, attitudes are friendly, artists are ubiquitous and everything is okay. It's not like the rest of the country. It's a special place full of trees and microbreweries and coffee shops and People Who Get It.
I get all proud of Portland and brag about how different it is, which is all at once kind of sweet and sad because I haven't actually lived there for about ten years, so maybe my hometown pride isn't entirely deserved.
Still, Portland is the best city to be from, and I wear my Oregonian badge with pride. I miss you, Portland! See you at Christmas. No, I seriously mean it this time.
Check me out, I'm dull
Posted by: lucie
Do not be fooled by my silence. Do not mistake it for a sign that I have grown a life, as per the KMikeyM theory of blog action vs. real life action. That's not how it works over here.
No, just patchy internet at home, back to the restrictive morning cappucino email checking/blogging plan, and to be honest, if I had more of a life, I'd have something to blog about. But it's the final pre-MBA stretch and I pretty much wake up, walk the dog, read economics, make some oatmeal with bananas, peanuts and rice milk, eat it, read more economics, do more math, walk the dog again, make and eat lunch, study more, watch the world going to hell in a handbasket on CNN, walk the dog again, etc.
Wow, this blog entry is totally oldskool Livejournal style, and I'm not even being ironic.
Well, let's see. I've been thinking a lot about glasses of red wine lately. Pretty much ever since I started packing up my last flat I've been thinking how good a big glass of juicy red wine would taste. Just one glass. I've thought this over and decided that, given the fact that I am officially in a Life Transition Phase again, perhaps it's not really the taste I'm after. When you think about the things we consider "acquired tastes," like wine and beer and coffee, it's pretty obvious that no one would acquire the taste if those things didn't give us warm feelings. No one acquires a taste for sour milk, and really, who would acquire a love for the smell or taste of cigarettes if they didn't produce a psychological effect?
Two and a half months ago I quit drinking, for the medium term if not indefinitely (as yet undecided), and overall it's been pretty smooth sailing. Hanging out with people who do drink doesn't bother me (the nonalcoholic beer here is good), and up until quite recently I hadn't thought about alcohol at all. It's still odd to imagine never drinking again. Making new friends at school and going out 'for drinks' will be a test.
In other news, I just saw the movie version of Rent. Laugh if you will, I don't care. Back in the day I lived in New York for a couple of years (Park Slope)... these were not the best of times for me. I was a naive girl from Portland who couldn't understand why people in NYC didn't just make friends at coffee shops and invite them over to their houses to smoke a bowl. My first love, a completely shallow but mind-numbingly beautiful fashionista boy (went to FIT, modeled a bit - shockingly, still has not been revealed to be gay) dumped me for a model girl pretty much right when we rolled into town (she was in a Calvin Klein ad that was on popcorn boxes in cinemas, argh), and my self-esteem was basically zero. I dealt with this by giving up food and spending all my money on clothes and makeup (this plan succeeded in making me pretty hot, I must say, albeit an empty pathetic shell of a woman). New York tests your self-esteem even when you do know who you are, but when you're 20 and recently dumped, it's a pretty lonely place to be. So lonely, in fact, that to this day when I'm really down and out (like when I found myself alone in England), I wake up thinking I'm in New York.
Anyway, my mom came to visit and took me to see Rent sometime within my first couple months in town, and I remember crying at least three times. It's an emotionally trying show. The movie is pretty true to the original and even has most of the original cast in it. Bit cheesey at times, but it still made me cry.
That boy, that boy I moved to New York with, I get really embarrassed when I think about him. Because I was so in love with him, and I have to tell you that the only thing he had going for him was beauty. He was not that smart, he was not that nice, and he was not that interesting. He was just so gorgeous that looking at him melted my brain. So overwhelming were his symmetrical face and toned body that I may never have heard anything he actually said. I couldn't believe I had a boyfriend that hot. All that beauty, all for me! Of course, his beauty made me incredibly insecure and I was convinced he'd dump me for some model girl. Lesson learned.
I don't like really hot boys anymore. They get away with murder. Just the other day a boy I used to work with was in my internet cafe and it looked like he was having a language lesson with a rather attractive young local girl. He has a girlfriend, and he did stay just this side of the Line Of Appropriateness, but he brushed up against it pretty hard. He's so freaking adorable I wonder if he actually knows how not to. I sat there watching him and resenting him a little bit for being so aesthetically pleasing, and charming on top of it, that the whole world would pretty much fall at his feet to win one of his dazzling smiles. So smug, that boy. So smug and full of himself.
Then he came over to say hi and that he'd missed me at the paper and really liked hanging out when I was there and that it would be really great to get a drink sometime before I left, and he flashed that dazzling smile in my face and I turned all dumb and said that yeah, that would be great, and I thought how sweet and lovely he was as I basked in the glow of his handsome attention.
I'm not talking to really attractive boys anymore. It's just embarrassing.
Expat livin'
Posted by: lucie
When I first got to Eastern Europe, it seemed incredibly foreign and exotic. Nowadays America freaks me out more. Not necessarily in a bad way, just in a "wow, this place is really surreal and I don't entirely understand exactly what is going on around me" kind of way. Skinny long-haired tattooed bartender boy came home last night with a $5 bill. He's leaving for the States on Sunday, so some kind bar patron gave it to him as a tip. "Check this out - check out what I got tonight," he said, pulling it out of his wallet. He held it up and we both stared at it in silence and even a bit of confusion for a minute. "I can't even remember the last time I saw one of these!" he said incredulously, and neither could I. We revelled in the weirdness of dollars and had a brief discussion about how money from home seems to look different every time we see it. First the faces grew and shifted to the left, and the numbers got bigger I think, and now aren't there watermarks or hidden colors or something on some of the bills? It's a little disconcerting when the money of your home country actually begins to trip you out. One thing I can tell you conclusively is that the rest of the world is smarter than us when it comes to making its bank notes discernible from one another. Why we keep all ours green and the same size is beyond me.
But I digress. The purpose of this humble post is not to discuss the strange displaced vibe inherent in expat life, nor to analyze currency. This is just a simple little post to let you know what products may be safely considered "expat foods" where I live. I've been to the expat video/junk food store a few times this week (Me & You & Everyone We Know - amazing, watched it twice / Coffee and Cigarettes - I don't get it, am I not hip enough? Is this actually supposed to be cool? I mean, besides the RZA/GZA/Bill Murray part? / Capturing The Friedmans - riveting in a car crash kind of way), and I've played a bit of a memory game with myself, trying to mentally record as many items from the shelf as possible.
So without further ado, here is a list of luxury imported expat food items that people are willing to pay stupid amounts of money for. Just because.
Oreos
Jif
Chocolate chip cookie mix
Brownie mix
Cake mix
Tubs of frosting
Mrs Butterworth's pancake mix
Maple syrup
Campbells soup
Nachos
Taco shells
Refried beans
Black beans
Salsa
(conspicuously missing: yellow rice, totally unobtainable in these parts)
Cheerios
Real Corn Flakes (not these fake cardboard-tasting Eastern European ones)
Many varieties of popcorn, both air-pop and microwave
Crisco
Pam
Karo Corn Syrup
Kraft Macaroni & Cheese
Coconut milk
Thai green curry paste
Hob Nobs
English Bacon
Sausages
(those last few are for the Brits.)
BOTW: The White Man's Burden
Posted by: lucie
Book of the week:
When I first encountered William Easterly through an interview on Salon.com, I knew right away that I was going to love The White Man's Burden: Why the West's efforts to aid the rest have done so much ill and so little good (amazon.com link). It did not disappoint.
Easterly's book addresses what he calls "the twin problems of global poverty." The first: billions of people live unnecessarily short and unspeakably miserable lives due to lack of food, clean water, health care, shelter and education. The second: governments and foundations in the West have spent over sixty years and $2.3 trillion dollars trying to address this, yet there doesn't seem to be very much to show for it.
Why? Lack of feedback from the people we're trying to help, lack of accountability for our programs' successes, failure to get the money to the people who need it and utopian top-down plans that make the perfect the enemy of the good, says Easterly. And after 16 years as a senior research economist at the World Bank, he is well positioned to pass judgment on the organizations running the world finance game.
In The White Man's Burden, Easterly makes the case for taking a hard, uncomfortable look at our past efforts and having the humility and courage to admit that the West has failed to help the Rest climb out of poverty. Money and grand schemes aren't going to do the job, he says; forget the "big push" ideas of leading economists such as Jeffrey Sachs, with whom Easterly is fighting, in the papers, an intellectual battle that has been called "the war on how to fight the war on poverty." What it comes down to is this: top down or ground up? Easterly says it's time to give up on the former, which has never produced results.
Those who advocate the "Poverty Trap" and "Big Push" school of thinking (think Sachs, Bono, Bob Geldof), which says that poor countries need a strong financial boost in order to get them on the ladder of development and give them a chance to build sustainable economies, have historically turned their noses up at 'piecemeal' development, preferring well-designed ten and twenty-five years roadmaps to prosperity. Easterly reclaims the word 'piecemeal' in this book, touting it as the only way to progress. Enough with big international agencies with overlapping areas of responsibility and no reliable ways to measure their effectiveness, he says, naming these "Planners." What we need are "Searchers" - people with local knowledge and understanding seeking out solutions to real problems on the ground, specializing in specific issues, measuring the results and making sure they're giving poor people what they really want and need.
The White Man's Burden is a sharp indictment of the status quo and those who defend it, with special attention paid to the IMF and World Bank who, Easterly submits, should stick to lending money and stop trying to reengineer governments and societies they know nothing about.
A review of Easterly's previous book, The Elusive Quest For Growth, opines that he "wears the good-humored but weary resignation of a lifetime idealist mugged at last by reality." This comes through in his tone, to both good and bed effect. The upside: his writing style is sharp, witty, and at times caustic and dripping with sarcasm, which makes his book an exciting read. The utter disregard for diplomacy is refreshing, as when he points out that data on Taiwan is missing from one of his charts "because the cowardly international agencies do not recognize it." On the flip, he's certainly found himself on the receiving end of a lot of criticism from big name economists who take issue with his attitude. Amartya Sen, 1998 Nobel Prize wniner for economics and author of Development as Freedom has criticized Easterly for taking some of his judgments a step too far. The book, Sen seems to suggest, could have benefited from a slightly cooler head and a touch more moderation.
Reading the Sachs/Easterly debates and keeping abreast of the ideas of other buzzy economists of the moment, it doesn't take long to surmise that the answers must lie between completely piecemeal, organic solutions and top-down, utopian visions. Each needs the other. But Easterly's view seems by far the less common and less appreciated, and accordingly he comes out fighting.
Reading The White Man's Burden I get a vision of a weary, well-traveled realist at a conference full of ivory tower economists and PR-hungry politicians standing up at a podium, jumping up and down and screaming, "It's NOT WORKING! When are we going to quit our politicking and admit that we haven't got the answers? Pull your heads out of the sand and let's get our hands dirty. The world is falling apart and we need real solutions, not good PR."
The political and economic worlds at large might not be ready to agree with him just yet, but one gets the sense that Easterly's message is timely, necessary, and perhaps set to usher in a new era of thinking about international aid.
There is a lot more I'd love to say about this important book, but I'll leave it there for now. I'd highly highly recommend it to anyone with even a passing interest in development, international aid, philanthropy, foreign policy or any of the many pressing issues facing the developing world. I've learned a great deal from it and look forward to reading it a second time.
Links:
William Easterly's site at NYU
Why Aid Doesn't Work - a modified excerpt from The White Man's Burden at Cato Unbound
salon.com book review and interview
4 Ways to Spend $60 Billion Wisely - Easterly advises Bill and Melinda Gates on how to spend the money of the Gates/Buffet "axis of altruism" in this Washington Post article.
The Man Without A Plan - Amartya Sen's above-mentioned review/criticism of The White Man's Burden, at Foreign Affairs.
A Modest Proposal - Easterly's review of Jeffrey Sachs' "The End of Poverty," at Washington Post.
Jeffrey Sachs on The Colbert Report
English lessons
Posted by: lucie
So who saw Tony Blair giving that speech in LA yesterday? It was almost good! Too bad Tony Blair used to be A Great Man with a beautiful, idealistic vision and now he's just another dime-a-dozen shifty politician. Last night I inched toward the edge of my seat watching the first half of that speech - so inspiring. Lots of talk about how this was not a war that could be won in a conventional way; that we would have to draw on our values and rise above, show them that we're better, be better, lead the way toward goodness. It was all very beautiful, bordering on spiritual, even, until he looped back around and made the case that this was why we had gone into Iraq and Afghanistan in the first place. Not just to change regimes, but to change values. This is just fantastic since Mr Blair was dead set on going in there to get the WMDs to begin with, later backpedaled and claimed the real purpose had been to remove Saddam from power - you know, regime change - and is now rewriting history yet again.
Such a waste of talent and mind, that man. Such a waste. What's he doing giving a speech in LA anyway? I guess his political ego is battered enough that he's grateful for the boost he gets from basking in the glory of people who dote on his accent and have never heard any of their own politicians string sentences together with a fraction of his elegance. For all my cynicism about Tony Blair, I can't deny that it's still a pleasure to listen to him speak. The man's oratory is seductive as anything. But as with all seducers, the charm wears off when you listen too closely or think too hard.
Poor Tony Blair. He used to be this young, fresh-faced, energetic leader and now he just embodies two lessons of which all politicians should take note: 1) Make a graceful exit from the game before you lose all perspective and drive your party into the ground (big up the American founding fathers for imposing term limits - that really was sharp thinking) and 2) Come on, don't believe your own hype.
/politicalblogging
Alright, alright, confession time: you guys know I never blog about politics, so you probably suspect I couldn't have written that all by myself, and I don't like to lie to you. The truth is, the dog dictated it. It's true - here's a picture.
She's not talking in this one, as you can see - just gathering her thoughts between paragraphs - but obviously I couldn't work a camera and take dictation at the same time. There's only one of me, after all.
Remember how Madison, the mermaid in "Splash" (do I sound old?), learned to speak English by watching sitcoms in the TV section at Macy's? That's kind of how our girl did it, except in a home-study program. Thank goodness her favorite channel is CNN or she could be speaking any number of other languages that we wouldn't understand quite as well (though I suspect her linguistic aspirations may be broadening, because I caught her watching South Park in German last night). But mostly she's keen on international affairs, so she sits there watching breaking news stories and political analysis for hours each day. Business International has never been her favorite (that plummy Richard whatever-his-name-is, the British guy, irks her), but it's growing on her now that we're studying economics and can both understand it in a bit more depth. We had a good chat yesterday about current account deficits, the nuances of which we are just beginning to really grasp.
Anyway, the CNN method of language study has worked pretty well for her, not least because they repeat stories so much. This can be annoying to a native English speaker with access to just one channel in his or her mother tongue, but for students it's very handy as it enables them pick up a little bit more each time. I did clean up a bit of grammar on the fly as she dictated the political opinions you read above, but as you can see she's pretty fluent and expresses herself quite nicely. She says she wants to learn to read and write in English next. I offered to tutor her in reading but have my doubts about those clumsy paws working a pen. She said typing might be more practical, but we gave it a try and the keys were too small. I'd tell her to type "t" and she'd end up typing "56ty," so it didn't look like that would work. I mean, if you saw 56tyghjbdre, would you realize it was 'the' with just a few extra letters? I know I wouldn't. Maybe someone makes oversized keyboards, like those phones with the big fat number buttons for visually impaired people.
We'll figure something out, though. We have a month, she's a pretty determined girl, and there's little she can't pull off once she sets that little canine mind to a task.
Adventures in dog-sitting
Posted by: lucie
I'm homeless again, but for a homeless person my setup ain't too shabby: cutest German shepherd in the world, fourth floor balcony, big park just outside the front door, shower twice the size of the one at my old place and a fancy kitchen with a white chocolate penis in the refrigerator. It's not mine (the place, I meant - though neither is the candy penis), but you could do a lot worse.
My temporary roommate is a skinny, long-haired, tattooed bartender boy who comes home at rave o' clock, sleeps through the afternoon and then ties on a fresh bandanna and goes out wandering again, so I pretty much have this place to myself. Well, me and the dog. We read the Economist and study math together, and she drags me around the park a few times a day. Rebecca gave me a full tutorial on how to walk her before she left town, but it turns out I'm pretty much crap at dog discipline. She's supposed to walk on my left side at all times, for instance, but I let her zig zag around in front of me because she looks so jolly doing it, her tall rabbit ears twitching around as gazes condescendingly down her nose at the yappy little creatures with whom she generously shares her park, and pretends not to see the big wolfy-looking ones. I'm also not supposed to let her rub her sweet face on my jeans to sooth her itchy old lady eyes, but hey, it seems pretty harmless. Basically, Rebecca will have to completely retrain her dog when she gets back from the States. But in the meantime we have a pretty happy little existence going.
I'm temporarily de-internetified, at home anyway, and I could make some arrangements to fix it but it's kind of liberating. Sometimes I get far too attached to the machine. I'm posting this from the cafe around the corner - free wifi - and limiting my web time by sitting here for an hour with a cappucino feels rather civilized. Download emails, check a few things out, then write replies and blog entries at home to be sent or uploaded the next day. I can't watch zefrank or waste an hour on YouTube when I should be hitting the books, but maybe that's for the best.
An interesting thing is likely to happen sometime in the next two weeks: I will probably meet Ben. You don't know about him yet, but it's time you were filled in. He's Rebecca's long distance love. Lives on the west coast but comes out here for a few months each year. They've had this non-relationship going on for over two years now, and it's basically time for the thing to sink or swim. Lately it's been leaning in the direction of sinking, which is absurd because I know they're in love with each other - just both too scared to make the leap. She's getting ready to move back to the States and could easily enough move to his city to live happily ever after - an idea she both loves and deeply fears. He goes back and forth between thinking they're going to have kids and grow old together to freaking out and not even wanting to see her. Personally, I think they're going to get married and I'm going to give a speech at the reception about how stupid they both were and how long it took them to finally give in and admit they were meant to be together, but Rebecca looks pretty affronted when I slip up and say this out loud.
Anyway, she recently tried to put a stop to it when they failed to arrange a rendezvous during her trip to the States. It's been months since they last saw each other, and her reasoning was that if they couldn't get their shit together to spend a few days in each other's company, then they probably wouldn't manage well with the challenges of a real relationship. So she dumped him for the third time. The first two times he dodged the dumping by pretending it had never happened, but this time it seemed to stick. Kind of. She said she wanted to end it, that she couldn't talk to him for a while because she needed some time to flip the switch and think of him as a friend, and that she couldn't see him when he came back to town. He left her alone for a while out of respect for her supposed wishes, but somehow he's managed to undump himself again - at least enough for Becks to agreed to see him when she gets back to town. She has imposed all kinds of rules and conditions on this meeting, such as "You are not allowed to touch me. At all," likely because she knows she'll probably crumble in his presence, which I think she should because I actually believe this guy could be the love of her life.
Anyway, he's good friends with the skinny, long-haired, tattooed bartender boy, so it's very likely that I'll meet him before her return. I've been hearing about him since I first got back here in December and there have been many parallels between Becks/Ben and me/James (though hers is obviously more grounded in reality, being as they've spent more time together). I know the history of their relationship backwards and forwards and am 99% sure he loves her to death, but we'll see. Maybe my imagination is running away with me, but I think I foresee an interesting conversation. You know, one of those "Do you love my girl, or what? And what are you going to do about it? Jump, you idiot! Jump!" kind of things that only happen in movies.
I think these two are supposed to live happily ever after and it would just be too sad to watch them screw it up. Cross your fingers it works out so we can go on being dreamy hopeless romantics and believing that life may occasionally imitate cheesey romantic comedies and love songs. I'll keep you posted.
