It’s All Over the Place

Correction: I didn’t mean Nazis– I meant the KKK. I guess I had been looking at crazy fascist graffiti in Italy for too long.

I’ve been chillin and working for the past two (?) weeks. What is up with this weather? It’s so crazy. I’ve been living in my North Face. Hopefully, it’ll get warmer soon.

There’s not much to report, really. Mostly just been working during the day with Ben and finding things to do with friends in the evening.

Ben leaves on Sunday which will be kinda weird. Then I go out to Cali for a wedding then NYC for a tech thing.

Then I’m back for a month. I may or may not be here in July. But We shall see. That’s the nice thing about not having classes, I can go wherever whenever.

Peace.

Me.

I decided to make a big push to be social. I went to TWO parties on Saturday. I was almost a little shocked by my wild, partying ways. It was great to see people. Although, the first party was a little awkward. I’m still friends with the guy who I went out with from POG. They were having a benefit party/concert to raise funds to pay off their legal expenses. They were arrested protesting at an anti-nazi rally. Did they really accomplish anything? No. I only went to see my ex. I was dressed nicely in heels, nice jeans, and a nice sweater. I knew I was going to stand out, but the shock didn’t quite hit me until I arrived. I was most definitely the only person there in normal “civilian clothes”. I didn’t have any curly peircings protruding from the middle of my nose, or hair that had been senza-shampoo for more than 2 weeks. I had on heels. Need we say more? I got more than my fair share of strange looks. But I gave 10 bucks and stood around politely. “The anarchist” dealt with the strangeness pretty well but he’s still kinda doing the same thing he’s always been doing. He was wearing the same exact hoody that he was wearing 3 years ago when I met him. It made me feel strange and I’m not exactly sure why. About 15 minutes later, the person giving me a ride to the other party called. I said bye and I have a feeling I won’t see him again for awhile. I just don’t think he could handle the fact that I didn’t really fit in with his friends.

My business partner flew in on Sunday and I find it hard to comprehend that today is only Monday. We cleaned out the apartment he always stays at, got down to work, and went around East Liberty in search of a blender. We each have our obsessive quirks. Mine is trying to evangelize the world to use del.icio.us, his is making smoothies. After a couple hours, we found the blender. Thank God.

There was only one thing that my business partner wanted from Italy–and that was Italian made, designer dress socks. Supposedly, as the story goes, his were stolen at a laundromat in New York City. Somehow, I find it hard to believe that someone would steal his dress socks– no matter the designer name. However, this what he wanted and since he ran pretty much everything while I was away, I consented to go find these damn socks. It took me quite some time to figure out where one goes to find men’s dress socks in Italy. Finally, I found them a couple days before leaving. I triumphantly presented him with his Emporio Armani socks yesterday. I hope to never have to find men’s dress socks ever again.

We were meeting with a graphic designer tonight for dinner. Since my biz partner’s apartment is near the Quiet Storm, we decided to head over there. I’ve found that wearing boring clothes is a very efficient way to dress myself. Nice jeans, button down shirt, some kind of normal shoes. I was running back from Club 1 (which I got a membership to today) and I had on well, the above prescription plus my preppy clogs. I’m sorry. It’s just people buy this stuff for a reason sometimes…Oh, and perhaps, a bit ashamedly, my North Face fleece. It’s warm, it’s comfortable, it looks okay. I will repeat this to myself every time I feel bad about wearing it. Obviously, walking into the Quiet Storm in this attire brought about the same feelings as the party on saturday. But, seeing as my partner and I were hiring a local designer, I pretty much said, “f-it” in my head. Who’s creating employment? We’re creating employment. Plus, we were incredibly friendly to the waitress and we left a decent tip. So who cares what I was wearing. I still felt kinda weird. Oh well.

Tomorrow I’m meeting a friend after work at the Sharp Edge. It’ll be my first time meeting someone at a bar. Hah! Finally!

I also have to get my learner’s permit all over again in order to get my license. I never quite got my license and then I had two seizures which resulted in a year long time span where I wasn’t legally allowed to drive. It’s finally been more than six months and I’m on a mission to get this license. I’m getting the physical fitness section filled out Wednesday by my doctor. I’m gonna make my brother take me to the DMV when he comes back from India on Thursday.

I went to an aerobics class this evening at Club 1. It was funny because it’s the first time I’ve ever taken an aerobics class in English. I suddenly realized that I didn’t have to just watch her feet, but that, these moves had names…and she was saying them in my language! It got a bit easier after that. Man, I learned on the streets–we don’t have names for things! Or well, I didn’t know the names for things. All I knew was that there was a left and a right– and that was the basic name for everything. Left or Right.

I got home exhausted and turned on an NBA game. After about 15 minutes of it, I found myself wandering downstairs and plopping down at my piano. I had started to play again on saturday and found myself once again working out the location and name of the notes I had forgotten on the treble clef. My mom will read this at some point and think to herself, “I told her so. I told her she would want to know how to play piano when she was older.” Well, yeah. My mom’s right…as usual. She is my mom, after all.

Alright, goodnight folks.

-Me-

I decided to make a big push to be social. I went to TWO parties on Saturday. I was almost a little shocked by my wild, partying ways. It was great to see people. Although, the first party was a little awkward. I’m still friends with the guy who I went out with from POG. They were having a benefit party/concert to raise funds to pay off their legal expenses. They were arrested protesting at an anti-nazi rally. Did they really accomplish anything? No. I only went to see my ex. I was dressed nicely in heels, nice jeans, and a nice sweater. I knew I was going to stand out, but the shock didn’t quite hit me until I arrived. I was most definitely the only person there in normal “civilian clothes”. I didn’t have any curly peircings protruding from the middle of my nose, or hair that had been senza-shampoo for more than 2 weeks. I had on heels. Need we say more? I got more than my fair share of strange looks. But I gave 10 bucks and stood around politely. “The anarchist” dealt with the strangeness pretty well but he’s still kinda doing the same thing he’s always been doing. He was wearing the same exact hoody that he was wearing 3 years ago when I met him. It made me feel strange and I’m not exactly sure why. About 15 minutes later, the person giving me a ride to the other party called. I said bye and I have a feeling I won’t see him again for awhile. I just don’t think he could handle the fact that I didn’t really fit in with his friends.

My business partner flew in on Sunday and I find it hard to comprehend that today is only monday. We cleaned out the apartment he always stays at, got down to work, and went around East Liberty in search of a blender. We each have our obsessive quirks. Mine is trying to evangelize the world to use del.icio.us, his is making smoothies. After a couple hours, we found the blender. Thank God.

There was only one thing that my business partner wanted from Italy–and that was designer dress socks. Supposedly, as the story goes, his were stolen at a laundromat in New York City. Somehow, I find it hard to believe that someone would steal his dress socks– no matter the designer name. However, this what he wanted and since he ran pretty much everything while I was away, I consented to go find these damn socks. It took me quite some time to figure out where one goes to find men’s dress socks in Italy. Finally, I found them a couple days before leaving. I triumphantly presented him with his Emporio Armani socks yesterday. I hope to never have to find men’s dress socks ever again.

We were meeting with a graphic designer tonight for dinner. Since my biz partner’s apartment is near the Quiet Storm, we decided to head over there. I’ve found that wearing boring clothes is a very efficient way to dress myself. Nice jeans, button down shirt, some kind of normal shoes. I was running back from Club 1 (which I got a membership to today) and I had on well, the above prescription plus my preppy clogs. I’m sorry. It’s just people buy this stuff for a reason sometimes…Oh, and perhaps, a bit ashamedly, my North Face fleece. It’s warm, it’s comfortable, it looks okay. I will repeat this to myself every time I feel bad about wearing it. Obviously, walking into the Quiet Storm in this attire brought about the same feelings as the party on saturday. But, seeing as my partner and I were hiring a local designer, I pretty much said, “f-it” in my head. Who’s creating employment? We’re creating employment. Plus, we were incredibly friendly to the waitress and we left a decent tip. So who cares what I was wearing. I still felt kinda weird. Oh well.

Tomorrow I’m meeting a friend after work at the Sharp Edge. It’ll be my first time meeting someone at a bar. Hah! Finally!

I also have to get my learner’s permit all over again in order to get my license. I never quite got my license and then I had two seizures which resulted in a year long time span where I wasn’t legally allowed to drive. It’s finally been more than six months and I’m on a mission to get this license. I’m getting the physical fitness section filled out Wednesday by my doctor. I’m gonna make my brother take me to the DMV when he comes back from India on Thursday.

I went to an aerobics class this evening at Club 1. It was funny because it’s the first time I’ve ever taken an aerobics class in English. I suddenly realized that I didn’t have to just watch her feet, but that, these moves had names…and she was saying them in my language! It got a bit easier after that. Man, I learned on the streets–we don’t have names for things! Or well, I didn’t know the names for things. All I knew was that there was a left and a right– and that was the basic name for everything. Left or Right.

I got home exhausted and turned on an NBA game. After about 15 minutes of it, I found myself wandering downstairs and plopping down at my piano. I had started to play again on saturday and found myself once again working out the location and name of the notes I had forgotten on the treble class. My mom will read this at some point and think to herself, “I told her so. I told her she would want to know how to play piano when she was older.” Well, yeah. My mom’s right…as usual. She is my mom, after all.

Alright, goodnight folks.

-Me-

I arrived late last night (well late my time) and I was so relieved to be home. Between the delays, yelling toddlers, bad weather, and losing my anti-anxiety medecine for the airplane, I was almost surprised to find myself standing at the Pittsburgh Airport.

First, we flew into Philly which is always a big, “YOU’RE BACK IN THE STATES” experience. First there were the angry, fat travellers and the yelling security people. Then this was combined with hearing from my biz partner about a problem while waiting in the security line, realizing that I was seeing more black people in 5 minutes than I had seen in the past 5 months, and looking wistfully at the Chinese and Mexican food restaurants; I knew that I was definitely back in the USA. And I couldn’t be more happy.

I’ve had a lot of time to be on my own and do what I want. But I’m ready to be around my friends and family. I’m tired of alone time. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone in the next couple of weeks.

Hopefully, I will see many of you soon!

-Me-

I’m finally back. Back with pictures, stories, souvenirs, and pictures of graffiti. I went off to Barcelona. Then, on the day before I left, I decided to go off to Prague, so I stepped up there for a couple of days. Then I came back, my dad flew in, and we went down to Naples. Today is the first time that I’ve spent more than 10 hours in my room for more than a week. Craziness. Tired. I’ve been attempting to turn my sleep clock back as quickly as possible so that my jet lag isn’t so bad. Gotta get that permit.

Important Notice: I’ll be back in the Burgh in two days. It’s been five months and I’m so ready to go back.

**Cool link of the day: JoyEngine.com

Battery is out of power.

Hopefully, I will see you all soon.

-Me-

Yup. We are.

Peace.

Me.

Today was Sunday. A day that is difficult to fill with many interesting activities as most things are closed. However, after starting this blog, I decided I should go out and photograph the graffiti in the park across from my building. There is a very long wall that is entirely covered in graffiti. I grabbed my camera and headed to the gym. As I was going there, I started to notice all kinds of things that I had never noticed before. I took some pictures.

Then, when I walked back, I decided to take a different route from my usual one. As I went deeper into one neighborhood, I began to notice a lot of worn graffiti with swastikas and things about fascism. On top of the graffiti were lines through it, anti-fascist terms. However, there were still some swastikas that weren’t worn. As I went away from the area, the swastikas went away. I began to notice the amount of words and symbols dealing with fascism there were all around the city.

After this, I headed to the park. There was more graffiti than I had ever realized. I had walked past it before when I was returning from my walk but had never really taken the time to look at it. I took about 50 pictures of it- and very few of them were repeat pictures. I began to notice the same tags (meaning, the alias of the graffiti artist). Some of them I had noticed in other areas, some I hadn’t. Some of the work was actually quite impressive.

I began to wonder who these graffiti artists were. When had they done this? One piece said something along the lines of “I beat 2007″. There was also a lot of English. I had heard people partying in the park last night, so I figured when I headed over there this morning that there might be some new graffiti. I’m not sure if it was new or not, but it was interesting.

Later in the evening, as the sun was going down, I was full from lunch and decided to take another walk. I headed out with my camera and decided to wander around the area with my camera and look for more graffiti. The more I really looked at the names, the clearer it became as to which artists were from the area and which ones were the best. I wasn’t surprised that this park had so much graffiti because there is a shop right across from my building that sells graffiti cans. They must make a mint off of these kids/young adults.

I wonder if these kids/young adults live with their families or on their own? Are they from Italy? It would be a bit difficult to live with your family while accumulating cans. On the other hand, maybe they just go buy it on the day of. I don’t know. I really wanted to find this “Donut” character and find out about him. Is he an artist? Because he really should be.

I have more than 130 pictures of graffiti so far. I’m pretty sure I have more on my hard drive at home, too.

Here are some of my favorites from today:

If the picture above isn’t loading for you, double-click it. It will open another window– it’s quite impressive and worth taking the time to look at.

You can see the rest if you go to the vertical box and click “More Photos”.

Peace!

Me.

I’ve always read that the thing men hate most is when women nag. Although it’s always seemed like something that would annoy everyone, man or woman, I am coming to understand this intense dislike of nagging. I have been working with only guys for almost two years. I have come to understand the male mind quite a bit. However, tonight my understanding reached a new level.

There are some girls on my floor who try to be helpful and it’s very nice. They’re nice and when I don’t understand something they try to explain. However, as of recent, it’s gone from helpful to painfully annoying. If I forget to hang the towel back up, instead of leaving it on the counter RIGHT UNDER THE HOOK, they find me in the common room (only three feet away) and remind me about it. I was asked about some dishes that weren’t even mine. Anything and everything can and is pointed out. I’m not a slob, I wash my own dishes and I do the best I can to be tidy. I don’t make big dinners and I don’t leave my coffee stuff out. Sometimes I forget to put away, say, the olive oil bottle when I’ve cleaned up.

They were the first to come back tonight. I’d been dreading their return. The last time I saw them, they reminded me about things that weren’t my fault. I quietly said, “Uh. … altre persone…” “Oh, scusi.” “no, bene.” She picked up the bottle from the pasta sauce that I couldn’t throw out at the time because someone else was standing in front of the trash can. So yes, that was the only thing that was mine. Scusi. I’ll clean everything.

Two days before that, one of them took me aside in the kitchen. Someone had once told me taht this cupboard with olive oil and vinegar was community. Community, I understood, meant that everyone can use it. That’s what it always meant in my apartment at home. So I’d been using this oil and vinegar and I didn’t realize that what they meant by “community” was that everyone can put their olive oil and vinegar. I profusely apologized and went out and bought mine the next day. Suddenly, there was a notice in the cupboard saying that this was NOT community. Was it really necessary to put up a notice? Could I have been one of others? I’m not sure. It’s not like I understand the notice, anyways.

They’re back. I’ve cleaned everything possible over the weekend. Things that weren’t mine. Everything was ready. They came back and had dinner with some guy– I think the boyfriend of one of them. I didn’t eat until about 20 minutes later. I didn’t want to sit right with them, but I was too afraid to sit at my computer with my food at the other table. I ate at the table a bit further down and didn’t have a cloth over the first rubber cloth. The entire time I was eating, I was debating whether to put down a second cloth. I mean, I was only going to be there for another five minutes and I was eating tomatoes and mozarella cheese….

I didn’t know if one of them would want the internet connection or not. After about five minutes of internal debate I decided that I needed to escape downstairs to the computer lab and hook up there. It no longer mattered if they wanted it or not, I didn’t want to be possibly responsible for ANYTHING that might be a problem.

That’s when it hit me. This is why men have basements and garages. To be left alone. To not have anyone nag them.

On top of that, I was watching diggnation the other day. One of the two hosts has repeated this one little story and the more I think about it, the more true it is.

“I sat my girlfriend down one day. I told her that there will be days she leaves and I will be sitting at the computer in my pajamas. She will come back and I will still be at the computer in my pajamas. And that’s just how it is.”

I now understand.

I can’t imagine being married to someone who hovers and nags me. Oh God.

I understand. I understand!

Oh god.

The song from the First Wives Club suddenly has taken on a new and significant meaning.

“You don’t own me!”

…and now I will go back to doing as I please in the quiet that is the computer lab.

“(CNN) — A Lonely Planet author says he plagiarized or made up portions of the popular travel guidebooks and dealt drugs to supplement poor pay, an Australian newspaper reported Sunday.

Lonely Planet publishes more than 500 titles and employs 300 authors, according to its Web site.

Thomas Kohnstamm, who has written a book on his misadventures, also said he didn’t travel to Colombia to write the guidebook on the country because “they didn’t pay me enough,” The Daily Telegraph reported.

“I wrote the book in San Francisco [California],” he is quoted as saying in the Telegraph. “I got the information from a chick I was dating — an intern in the Colombian Consulate.”

The 32-year-old Seattle, Washington, native also claims he accepted free travel, which is a violation of the company’s policy.

Kohnstamm has worked on more than a dozen books for Lonely Planet, including its titles on Brazil, Colombia, the Caribbean, Venezuela, Chile and South America.

An e-mail from Lonely Planet said Kohnstamm’s book were being reviewed, the newspaper reported.”

Read the Rest Here.

I’ll bet you the Rick Steves folks are chuckling right now…