CAST OF CHARACTERS E: Writer. American. Early 30s. Breathtakingly gorgeous. OLD MAN ANTONIO: Pensioner. Early 60s. Italian. Haunts the bar where E goes to write. Scatters outrageous, unsolicited advice like so much birdseed. MARCO: Policeman. Italian. Mid-40s. MARCO was once one of E’s interview subjects for an article she was planning to write. FRANCESCO: MARCO’s […]
Italy
Blue Roses
At night, there are the nightspots and free concerts. My group of friends tends to meet up around midnight – when my friends in the tourism and hotel industry get off from work; when the nightspots start getting packed – and those of us who don’t live at home* and might not have eaten dinner […]
USA vs. USA
What happens sometimes – when you’re living in a foreign country, a country where you’re almost one of a kind – is that people want to pair you up with other stray members of your species. There’s another American who lives three towns over, they say. I’ll invite him over. You can chest bump […]
Gym
So something I do when I’m not stuffing my face with junk food writing my novel at the office is go to the gym and work out. Yes, you read that correctly; me, who won the 2004 Olympic Gold Medal for Ass-Sitting. Who would always, always, rather be asleep than be awake. Who has coasted […]
Office
The office is where I am these days; that is, the 113 year-old bar in the Centro with my laptop and my cell phone and my glass of vibrant orange Crodino. I’ve officially become a great big ball of novel-writing momentum, which is why I’m there and not here with ye would be-pigeon eaters but […]
Breaking Ground
25 degrees today – pure joy! – and caught sight of my first tourists; ill-fitting clothes, foreign faces, and blank expressions. It shocked me that they were so easily identifiable; makes me wonder how clueless I seemed last summer when I arrived myself. But they’re breaking ground on the beach now – resurrecting the summertime […]
Katarina, like most of my friends here in Italy, is unemployed. She was employed – personal assistant to a famous actress in Rome – but that actress be crazy and Katarina, who has a master’s in Linguistics, wasn’t about to be scrubbing no toilet bowls. But there’s a crisis on right now; vice-tight here in […]
The World’s Best Excuse for Being Late
So years ago, in another life, I worked retail at an antique shop in SoHo. This was many years ago, before living in Japan shook all the tardiness out of me; when I habitually strolled into workplaces and classrooms and restaurants 10-15 minutes late: The train, the bus. Grand Central was crazy. I couldn’t get […]
Ten Popular Songs on Italian Radio and Why I Hate Most of Them
So one of the things that I do while I’m driving around town and having Daffy Duck moments is listen to the radio. It turns out that there are about ten songs the DJs play over and over… but over and over. Like, turn on the radio and it’s 100% guaranteed you will find one […]