It was a time

Santo Spirito the last night I was in Firenze. It was so loud I had to sleep in our floor's living room.



Last night in Firenze.

Some days I wonder if I'm made for this.
Some days I wonder if I should just sell out.

Bootcamp

Yesterday was the start of AU's Summer Journalism Boot Camp. I have class Monday through Friday from 9-5. My social life is officially dead, and all I want to do after class is sleep. Also, I've been instructed to keep a blog recording my life at Boot Camp. Therefore, I may slack a bit here. But I write too much anyway, and maybe it'll be good for me to write about something other than the end of the world, not knowing what to do with my life, and men, for once.



Driving down 95 to the Outer Banks. Summer time and tunes like these make life better, or at least, they make life okay for a moment.

Recently I've been thinking about some personality traits that make some good writers: a dash of cynicism, ridiculous humor, and the crazier the better.

Sometime we'll get together and we'll break it down.

So after a minor breakdown in a bathroom of club and an episode of the psychotic and swearing to stop speaking to him. All of this occurring in a span of 24 hours. I decided I'm going to play this game until I can't anymore.

Bad idea? Perhaps, probably. But what else is new? When I want something, I guess I can't help but go after it even if it will lead me nowhere. Even if it eventually makes me a fool.

I call you up after hours. And why? Because I wanted to. I mean, that's really all there is to it.

And honestly, this shit may be hard, but it shouldn't be complicated. Say what you mean, mean what you say.


And did you ever notice how life is either a series of coincidences or chance meeting fate. If you assign meaning to a coincidence then it becomes fate, but if you don't ascribe any meaning, then it's merely a coincidence. But it's all essentially the same thing.

You know how extreme liberals are essentially extreme conservatives?

I'm not sure if my problem has been that I've always known what I wanted or that I've never known what I wanted.

The White House apparently announced a press conference for next week first on Twitter. For the life of me I can't figure that shit out, nor do I want to. But it seems I may not have a choice.

I was thinking about the EU today, wondering how it was doing.

You know how you have those friends that you can just call when you're bored and it's okay. The kind of relationship where you can randomly drop by their house and hang out doing nothing for hours and it's okay. I miss the way we were last summer. When you used to be just that, and there was no pressure and I could just be me. I didn't care what I looked like, I didn't care what I said, and nothing was awkward. I didn't worry about if I was calling you too much or texting you too much or IMing you too much or if our conversation was too bland or all those other million stupid things that you start to worry about when other crap gets into the mix. I mean, the reason why I decided I liked you to begin with was because I was completely comfortable with being me around you. And last summer when I felt like shit, I remember you made me get out of my hole, and I came over and here you were, this friend of mine, and I thought, even in my state, you were kind of adorable. Ah and that's where it all started to go wrong.

And now, I mean here we are. And we're friends, but it's not like it was before because maybe it's just me, but it just feels so damn awkward. But I'm not sure if I know how to go back, or if I even want to go back entirely. And sure, we could talk about it, talk it out, but I'm so damn tired of talking.

I'm consistently compromising my need for sexual gratification with the things I really want. And my conscience keeps creeping out from the back of my mind. That this isn't what I really what, that this isn't really who I want to be. But in the moment of heightened emotions, you just think, oh fuck it. And this is where I've been.

I think I was actually going to talk about something else, but I've digressed.

It's the middle of another summer, these endless after hours driving home from the city down 66, matchbox twenty playing on the radio still, and we keep getting older, but we're still playing the same games. The same games. What else do we have? We still want the same things we did before, and after all this time, all this experience, I'm not sure we're any closer to getting there.

I'm losing my balance on the tight rope
Tell me please, tell me please, tell me please
If I ever feel better
Remind me to spend some good time with you
When it's over I'll let you know.

Hang on to the good days
I can lean on my friends
They help me going through hard times.


She couldn't believe how happy I was when I got home
She said I was different
And now it seems as if that happiness may have dissipated far more quickly than it took to achieve
I'm not sure how much longer I can do this.


For everything my sanity, my happiness is worth.


And I was thinking today, how grateful I am for the very few non judgmental friends I have. For every decision I've made, the choices and the consequences have always been mine. And they've seen me through the hard times, without a word.

Like I've said, I'm very aware of the consequences of the choices I make, but sometimes I may not be smart enough to choose otherwise. Regardless, these choices are mine and only mine. Your job is simply to be my friend, that choice has always and will always be solely yours. And I will react accordingly.

Going through hard times.

9:07:11 AM Kim Ha: get the us to get rid of gmos
9:07:13 AM Ally Reina: i want to be ballin
9:07:15 AM Ally Reina: hahahahaha
9:07:16 AM Ally Reina: HAHAHAHA
9:07:20 AM Ally Reina: yes FUCKING gmo's
9:08:40 AM Kim Ha: haha
9:08:43 AM Kim Ha: my poor friend
9:08:44 AM Kim Ha: i like
9:08:48 AM Kim Ha: went on a 10 minute rant about them
9:08:50 AM Kim Ha: yesterday
9:08:51 AM Kim Ha: to her
9:08:54 AM Kim Ha: b/c i was in a bad mood
9:09:00 AM Ally Reina: hahaha
9:09:00 AM Ally Reina: omg
9:09:14 AM Ally Reina: i wouldve grabbed you by the shoulders and been like KIM SNAP THE FUCK OUT OF IT
9:09:35 AM Ally Reina: its sad, when i get drunk i just want to argue about EU policy
9:09:40 AM Ally Reina: my friends think im fucking retarded
9:09:51 AM Kim Ha: AHAHHAHAH
9:09:54 AM Kim Ha: when i get drunk
9:09:55 AM Kim Ha: i speak italian
9:09:56 AM Kim Ha: or
9:10:01 AM Kim Ha: my voice does the italian inflections
9:10:06 AM Kim Ha: my friends do think im retarded
9:10:08 AM Kim Ha: damit
9:10:12 AM Kim Ha: we came back from italy retarded ally
9:10:24 AM Ally Reina: we did

Hang on to the good days

It's 4:28 am. I've been awake for two hours completely plagued by the thought of dying. It's weird because as irrational as this may be, I'm really scared. I'm not sure what's going on or why. But this past week has perhaps taken it's toll. And I'm still incredibly uneasy. At my own mortality. Somethings got to be wrong.

My existence may just revolve around food.

Gusta Pizza



Gnocchi rose e spaghetti carrettiera



Not Pictured: un panino con mozzarella, pomodori e prosciutto cotto

I just got real fucking lucky. Because that may or may not have taken it's toll on me.

As you are my witness, I won't ever take that risk again.

Life's too short for some mistakes. Some mistakes are too difficult for this life.

I'd say, I'll take the surreal in a heartbeat, but that'd be a lie.

I thought I was okay, but I think that was just me getting back into my life here. I was too busy, too jet lagged to think. And now, all of a sudden, I think it's hitting me. I got lost on the way to the Lexus dealership to get an oil change for a car that's not mine. Back to my daily life, running errands for my parents, making phone calls for my parents, everything I'd become responsible for because it was just easier for me, than it was for them. I was stuck behind a Uhaul going 30 mph on 395, and for everything I love about driving, there's everything that frustrates me about traffic and this overpopulated metropolitan suburbia. The man behind the counter told me the Lexus hadn't seen maintenance in 2 and a half years. My parents hadn't bothered with it while I was gone, so on top of the oil change, there was a recommended 10,000 mile maintenance I had to sit through. On the car that isn't even mine. So I asked him where the nearest Starbucks was, and he asked, were you looking for a latte or something particular? Because we have cappuccinos and regular coffee right over there. Cappuccinos from self dispensing machines, and the thought hit a nerve I'd been numbing and I started breaking. I looked at him, and he pointed me to a bakery across the street. It was one of those homey bakeries, where bread and cookies are laid haphazardly across baskets along the counters. Biscotties and cannolies were on the menu, and my face must've said fuck my life because after ordering a coffee for $1.25 the guy offered me banana bread, they were free with the coffee, and then gave me a giant cookie, they were free for first timers. Banana bread with brown sugar, brown sugar left overs, left overs we'd used for our cookies two weeks ago, cookies me and carol devoured in the tv room.

And then, all I wanted was the life I'd been living. To be selfish again, as selfish as that is.

But here I am. In this world I always knew. In the waiting room of a Lexus dealership in Alexandria, a part of town I always hated driving through. With my cup of coffee, Seattle's Best, whatever that means, 4 sugars, hazlenut syrup, half and half, the epitome of Americana. I'm a week late, and life can't get any realer than this.


Keith Urban just shuffled on my iTunes and it reminds me of Sunday morning after notte bianca in the oltrano when I'd fallen asleep in our living room couch because the noise was too ridiculous to bear, and I'd woken up to this song coming out of Ally's bedroom. And I felt at peace for a bit there.

I've been home for roughly 2 days, and it's weird but it's as if I'd never left. I feel like I kind of just fell back into the life I've always had, the life that was before I ever knew Florence. Except, when out I feel weird when I stop myself from saying ciao or grazie or quanti costi or some other random Italian phrase. Instead they're thought silently. And it's weird because I'm fine here, I'm fine, I haven't broken down. Instead, I think, I think I haven't felt. I think that's what it is now. And I think that may be how it will be for a little while. I'm here and I'm fine but I don't entirely feel. Because I'm fine for as long as I don't think about it.

One time too many.

Please.

Please.