Dave and I vacation in Italy and quickly decide to stay. He takes a job with a produce delivery service whose reputation is akin to that of Mambo Movers in Philly. Which is to say that it's a decidedly masculine profession, but here in a classically Italian way - muscle-bound heroes parade their truck down the market and outside restaurants, chucking the required vegetables directly at their customers. Shopkeepers argue with their daughters about who will go out and catch the vegetables for the day.
It's no surprise to me that Dave has fallen into this comely clique, and with his vintage paperboy wardrobe firmly established he really looks like he should be delivering something.
Today it's raining and I take a little walk in the market to see if i can catch the truck and say hello to my sweetie. Sure enough, they've just all jumped off the truck and there he is in a courtyard, seeming to be looking for something (me, of course). The fine mist shakes its dewy fur all over us as we embrace and scuttle down an alley and into a cafe for lunch.
The menu is complex and varies from 9$ to 51$ lunches - dream foods of course.
We sit in a booth to pour over the menu and delight in our new city. How did we get here anyway? Hey ,do you want to start with mussels?
A series of characters invite themselves to our table - waitresses, madmen. One man shows us his hand-drawn comic book on the subject of the mighty produce vendors, portraying them as leopard skin bikini-clad vintage bodybuilders, arms full of verdure against the backdrop of the solar system. "Cosmic man!" he keeps calling Dave. We all laugh about it and I am so proud that my hot hunky husband is a cosmically hot grocer.
We never get to eating - I'm training to work at the cafe now. A blonde tiger of a young woman is explaining to me the interpersonal dynamics of the cafe. Who's zooming whom, who not to flirt with, whose affairs are openly discussed and whose are still secret (but not from the waitstaff). The guy with the comic book is also a waiter, and as I start realizing that I live in a place where a crazy disshevelled artist can double as a waiter at a mega-fancy cafe, it dawns on me once again that I'm in the right place.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Saturday, June 26, 2010
My Own Personal Opera & Biking to Italy
I have been cast to play myself in a brand new opera whose plot eerily resembles the last chapter of strife in my love life. It is written in the highly dramatic style of the great Romantic operas, and the love triangle is murderously melodramatic.
Before running off to my true love, I must escape the evil clutches of the former lover. Here ensues a full operatic diatribe between us, replete with glissando runs and castigating gestures. Singing out my grievances directly to him feels appropriate, as does the thunder of his response - calling all low strings to make us shudder! I'm enthralled by the darkness of the scene and the surprising richness of his voice - think "the castle" of Bram Stoker's Dracula- and laugh at the opera out loud as my ludicrous imagination becomes transparent as a dream. Certainly in real life I romanticized the ex as dark and mysterious, but in truth his voice was quite ugly in argument and I'll be damned if there was any castle.
The scene ends with nothing more than a shouting match and my character is swept into the arms of her beloved. Enter pinnacle of triangle. (It's worthy to note that no one else saved me.
I ran away from the evil one on my own.) Disappointing dream land did not clearly cast my husband in this role - instead it gives me a blurry face, an unimportant personage. Even so, I feel that he does represent him as he gives his solo and calm washes over the dream. Clouds part. The end.
-
I live in New York City. My best friend has become obsessed with a rich stylist from Central America who has invented a new liquor. We are working on branding and selling the new intoxicant - refrigerators full of the stuff - when the boss reveals that he's got AIDS and is going back to Venezuela to kick the bucket in the company of his family. My friend is distraught. I look out into the courtyard of our apartment building, at the grid of bricked up chimneys and stairwell windows, and see a prison forming. I realize I would be wasting my time to stay any longer.
I set out on my bicycle heading east. There's a tunnel that reaches all the way across the Atlantic. Cars and buses making their way through, dangerously. I decide to bike to Europe, then, since I have nothing else to do and I'm eager for adventure. I have no supplies, not even water. No passport, no nothing. But I enter the tunnel anyway. The road splits every hundred miles, taking one lane up to a rest area at surface level. There they are, the golden Mickey D arches, floating over the pure ocean. Ugh, I think, thank god I'm leaving America! I set back down to the tunnel and hundreds of miles feel like city blocks. Before I know it I've arrived at the office of my old professor in Florence - red eyed, exhausted and in need of a place to crash. They seem confused about my proclamation of having biked to them, suspicious almost. I'm so high on endorphins it doesn't matter what they think. I look out the window here and see a tree against the backdrop of a beautiful arched old doorway and know I've come to the right spot.
Brava, says the professor, but you should have been wearing a helmet. We'll see to it that you get a proper motorbike while you're here - and an iphone (seriously, brain).
Before running off to my true love, I must escape the evil clutches of the former lover. Here ensues a full operatic diatribe between us, replete with glissando runs and castigating gestures. Singing out my grievances directly to him feels appropriate, as does the thunder of his response - calling all low strings to make us shudder! I'm enthralled by the darkness of the scene and the surprising richness of his voice - think "the castle" of Bram Stoker's Dracula- and laugh at the opera out loud as my ludicrous imagination becomes transparent as a dream. Certainly in real life I romanticized the ex as dark and mysterious, but in truth his voice was quite ugly in argument and I'll be damned if there was any castle.
The scene ends with nothing more than a shouting match and my character is swept into the arms of her beloved. Enter pinnacle of triangle. (It's worthy to note that no one else saved me.
I ran away from the evil one on my own.) Disappointing dream land did not clearly cast my husband in this role - instead it gives me a blurry face, an unimportant personage. Even so, I feel that he does represent him as he gives his solo and calm washes over the dream. Clouds part. The end.
-
I live in New York City. My best friend has become obsessed with a rich stylist from Central America who has invented a new liquor. We are working on branding and selling the new intoxicant - refrigerators full of the stuff - when the boss reveals that he's got AIDS and is going back to Venezuela to kick the bucket in the company of his family. My friend is distraught. I look out into the courtyard of our apartment building, at the grid of bricked up chimneys and stairwell windows, and see a prison forming. I realize I would be wasting my time to stay any longer.
I set out on my bicycle heading east. There's a tunnel that reaches all the way across the Atlantic. Cars and buses making their way through, dangerously. I decide to bike to Europe, then, since I have nothing else to do and I'm eager for adventure. I have no supplies, not even water. No passport, no nothing. But I enter the tunnel anyway. The road splits every hundred miles, taking one lane up to a rest area at surface level. There they are, the golden Mickey D arches, floating over the pure ocean. Ugh, I think, thank god I'm leaving America! I set back down to the tunnel and hundreds of miles feel like city blocks. Before I know it I've arrived at the office of my old professor in Florence - red eyed, exhausted and in need of a place to crash. They seem confused about my proclamation of having biked to them, suspicious almost. I'm so high on endorphins it doesn't matter what they think. I look out the window here and see a tree against the backdrop of a beautiful arched old doorway and know I've come to the right spot.
Brava, says the professor, but you should have been wearing a helmet. We'll see to it that you get a proper motorbike while you're here - and an iphone (seriously, brain).
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