Life and Times of AlieMalie

I think I mentioned something about another place and time for my next post. Well, it’s a new day so that covers the time … the new place – just for today – is over on John’s blog. Guest posting, yo! Very cool. Anyway, while you’re over there, read some of his other stuff too. He’s absolutely hysterical.

Sorry folks, no real meat here today – I’m working on something but it’s going to have to wait for another time and place. Stay tuned. Anyway, here’s a bit of a random post for the time being.

• I’ve requested the documents that I will need to apply for my teaching abroad position, so that’s underway.
• I’ve been knitting up a storm – scarves only since I’m not talented enough to do anything else yet.
• I really hate being sick. First it was just my throat and me unable to talk. Now my whole head is stopped up and I have this desire to be able to cut it off and drain all the goop out of it before I put it back on. Lovely thought there, I know, but this coughing, weezing, itchy eyes and lack of my normal voice is really starting to bug me. Tomorrow it’ll have been a week.
• Someone decided to gift me with a flight to Houston for my trip so I don’t have to drive three hours the days I leave and return. Too bad they don’t understand the method behind my madness about HATING to fly – Brianne, you’ll understand. How does one explain a phobia to someone else when the other person just doesn’t get it?
• After a bunch of people have told me that Clerks is a great movie I decided to watch it. Sorry folks, but it sucks. And yes, this means I will NOT be watching Clerks II.
• I feel like I’m entering into one of my bitchier phases. The odd thing about these is the fact that I can feel them coming on but I don’t know what prompts them. Everyone’s been exceedingly nice to me recently so there’s no real reason. hmm.
• I’m ready for it to be cold again. Our little Arctic Blast was a real teaser for me and now that we’re back into quasi-tropical weather I’m wanting my snow again.

There is a part of me that is really passive aggressive and when I become depressed or blue or whatever, affected by Seasonal Affective Disorder perhaps, my passive aggressive side comes out with a vengeance. I become more sarcastic than normal, I shrink away from my friends and I start thinking that absolutely no one likes me. I’ll try really stupid things like refusing to be the person who makes contact first to see who can break first – who can put their neck out on the line to communicate first – it’s a game of chicken I suppose. I’ve gotten to the point with a couple of my relationships that I’m considering this again. I hate it. I don’t like the fact that my tail gets all bottle-brushy and I blow off anyone who’s irritating me, because that doesn’t help anything, now does it? That’s a nice way to put it though, the actual verbage is a bit more vulgar in my head …

Actually, I should explain myself a bit better here: one, I hate the fact that I feel weak and lacking in self confidence enough to stoop to this level but on the other hand, I wish some of my friends would stop relying on me to be the one to make first contact and initiate communication. I’m a pretty visual person, and when I think of these sorts of instances, I feel like my friends are up on a ledge above me and I’m there at the bottom below them – the ones in particular – waving my arms and trying to get their attention. I suppose you could translate this into me feeling inadequate or not thinking that I’m on their level. I don’t know.

I know that I’m different, a nerd, an intellectual who – even though I joke about some things sometimes – does enjoy watching things like our recent State of the Union, counting the number of times the president gets a standing ovation; reading four or five newspapers daily, without fail; trying to computate the G forces I’m experiencing as I take the roundabout while changing highways in town at a certain speed. Things like that. While I do enjoy hanging out with my friends, going to parties and whatnot, it’s not always my cup of tea and I think I tend to do it more out of wanting to be with my friends at least some of the time and trying to seem like a fun person as opposed to really enjoying myself. That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy hanging out with a bunch of drunk boys every now and then with a good girlfriend and flirting, I do – I’d just like to have a friend that I could sit around and talk politics with or go to the bar and shoot the shit about the daily events. And I do have those friends, they’re just not available to hang out where I am. Sucks.

Anyway, I’m starting to get the itch to leave this place again. For the past couple of months I’d put moving on the back burner and hadn’t given it much thought, but I’m feeling that urge again and this time in a bigger way: I want to meet new people, make new friends and experience a new place. I’m feeling a bit suffocated here at the moment and I really don’t like it. It’s totally up to me to create my own opportunities, and I’m well aware of that; with that in mind, it’s beyond time for me to seriously start applying to the teach-abroad programs. I’d been thinking I’d do that when I got back from Europe but there’s no reason I can’t start now. No use in wasting nearly a month not planning for my future and something I’d really like to do.

And lastly, I’m in dire need of a guy with whom I could snuggle with. I miss curling up on the couch and watching a movie with someone or holding hands or whatever. I’m not sure if this is me wanting a relationship because I’ve been so anti-relationship for the past year and a half or if it’s something else. It doesn’t help that a recent event has me even more anti-boy at the moment because the event has reminded me of things in a relationship that I really didn’t enjoy. I like being by myself and not having to answer to anyone, but there’s something else that I’d like to have in my life as well.

I have every intention of doing an AlieMalie style rebuttal to First Monkey’s speach last night; I’d do it now but I’m sick as a dog. blah. Anyhoo, did any of you hear him talk about how we need to reduce our consumption of oil and blah blah blah because of “global climate change”?

I nearly fell out of my seat when he said that. Whoa. Is Bushie finally coming ’round the the idea that we are screwing up the environment on a global scale that might, just might, include global warming?

Considering that Texas got some snow for the first time in 22 years this year and Bush is talking about climate change, I think I can conclusively say that hell has frozen over.

Ah, Italy. There’s a reason I’m posting mostly about the place – I miss it. Not nearly as much as I miss Budapest, but knowing that I’m not going to make it to Florence or Cinque Terre on my upcoming trip is a bit of a bummer, Venice too. Reading these entries take me back and reminds me of things that I didn’t write down, things like the sights and sounds and smells that can’t really be translated into the written words. I can take myself back to a couple of these occasions, like being on the bus with the bunch of drunken army boys, that was a lot of fun, even if my prudish self was a little freaked out at the time. And the food, I miss the food. Anyhoo …

6.20.02
I believe the last time I left you I was in Florence at the Villa Camerata. I’m still in Florence, but I’m on the train. I’m sick, last night I had migraine. Anyway, must bring you up to date, eh? I met a nice girl named Erin from Florida. She’s an English major and 22. She went to Germany on a two week class trip and then decided to travel with a friend in the rest of Europe. Her friend left her in Florence saying Erin was too angry and she was going to go on to Switzerland without Erin.

So Erin and I went into Firenze that evening to get gelato and to walk around. It was pretty nice. Saw the Duomo again and the rest of city centre. On our bus ride home, there was a bunch of Italian army boys who looked like they were on their way home from being away for a while. They were obviously drunk, singing on the bus songs about Naples, Florence and Venice. It was quite entertaining. Every time a woman would get on or off the bus, they would clap like mad. Oh, and on the bus into the city earlier that day, a gross older Italian guy came up behind me with a disgusting hard-on and started pressing it against my ass. I was totally disgusted. I moved and he moved too – kept pressing himself against me. Finally, I turned around and looked at him, he didn’t say or do anything else after that. Yuck!

Yesterday, Erin and I decided to go to Pisa. When we got to the train station, there was no train for Pisa (we thought – apparently you take the train to Livorno and get off at Pisa) but anyway – I saw a train for Siena and suggested that we go to Siena and then take the train from Siena to Pisa. So we went to Siena. Saw that Campo where they have the horse race every year along with the Siena cathedral that is striped. Inside it was SO cool, temperature wise I’m speaking. Erin and I were both totally fried because the trains have no air conditioning unless you’re on a Eurostar or overnight train. Then when we got to Siena we took the wrong bus, had to get off, wait in the sun for 15 minutes until the next bus came to take us to the city centre. Siena is kind of like Assisi in that it is so picturesque. Narrow cobbled streets with geraniums falling out of the window boxes. And the streets are windy and steep, but it’s beautiful. And another thing worth mentioning is that the street laps are all art deco-like – are curved upwards with about eight or nine bare light bulbs just springing out of the top. And they’re red, white and black. Very cool. So we got back on the train to go to Pisa – had to change in Empoli, but we got there. Saw the Leaning Tower, got some pictures – the baptistery and the cathedral are beautiful too. The Tower really leans too. And if they’ve fixed from it being worse than it is today, it must have REALLY leaned before they fixed. And it does kind of curve because when they were building it, it started to lean before they finished it and they thought that if they built it with more weight on the other side, it would even out and stand straight. No luck – it still leaned.

So I’m on the train. Didn’t tell you where, did I? Hah! Guess, eh? Naples? Nope, too hot. Milan? Yep, that’s it. But only to catch a train to Vienna. It’s cooler up there, I hear, and I need that. If I wanted heat, I’d stay at home and roast. Naples will, unfortunately, have to wait until I come back to Europe at a cooler time of the year. I’m sad that I’m going to miss the frescoes, but they’re not going anywhere, are they? Hope not. Now I have another excuse to go to Italy, eh? Got to my two favourite cities there though: Venice and Florence. How I love Florence. It is so beautiful, and the architecture, wow. I wish I could live there. But I’ll be back. Definitely. So now on to Vienna. I’ll write more when I get there. I’m slow on the uptake of my daily three litres of water today, so I need to go get some. Have a nice train ride. Bon voyage.
[AlieMalie]