shadowfax

I realized today that the reason I've been avoiding the blog is that I've run out of creative ways to apologize for my absence of late. To hell with apologies though. I've been busy.

Today I realized almost everyone in my english class was at some point in their lives really into Lord of the Rings.

Russom: What was the name of Gandalf's horse?
Class, in unison: Shadowfax.

This was relevant to something involving Old English and the conversion of the heathen Anglo-folks to Christianity. St Gregory and whatnot. The usual.

I never got into Lord of the Rings. I'd say maybe the fans were too fanatical for me, but I was definitely into Harry Potter for a long time there. Hell, I've read every Twilight book. I like bandwagons.
Maybe it was because LOTR wasn't about humans, specifically. Wizards and vampires and whatnot all at least existed in a world with regular humans walking around too, in a world that looked familiar to me.  Middle Earth was too far removed from the daily trials of fourth-grade Clara.

Speaking of fourth grade, maybe I was just too young and had too short an attention span for a series of books that screamed "FOR BOYS" to me. It was all swords and fire and people riding around on horses. Harry Potter had enough middle-school drama unrelated to saving the world to keep me entertained.

Because, of course, saving the world does not interest me nearly as much as whom Ron has a crush on these days.

Love always,
Clara

playlists for crying

SNL was great this week, apparently. I just found this clip on Jezebel (I have so much love for Jezebel), and the comments section inspired me to make an entire spotify playlist of songs that make me want to cry, which I will never ever ever listen to straight through, because... seriously. Who wants to just sit down and cry? It's already a grey november day, and while nothing in particular is going wrong, I'm wearing sweatpants and listening to Konstantine by Something Corporate (which Daphna put on a mix CD for me the summer before I moved), and already feeling teary for no reason whatsoever.

Although, you know, my parakeets have been fighting a lot lately...

Love always,
Clara

P.S. if you have spotify and are feeling masochistic, have at it.

radio silence

I don't really know what those two words are supposed to mean when they're next to each other like that.

Hey, so two elephants were sitting in a bathtub. And the one elephant says to the other, "hey, could you pass the soap?"
The second elephant says, "No soap radio!"

I used to listen to the radio a lot in high school, but every time I go home it becomes more and more insufferable. Maybe Brown is turning me into a hipster who has no choice but to reject pop culture (either for being lame or for trying to pretend not to be lame). Maybe this happens to everyone though, and is a necessary component of getting older.

That can't be right. There are married people who still listen to the Kane show on HOT 99.5. Married people.

Love always,
Clara

hello children, please chill out

Why is it that I find myself reading things that make me frustrated with the world? And with such frequency. I should be ashamed of myself.

The thing is, I wind up feeling like girls my age are condescended to. (I do not think there is a readable way to make that sentence not end in a preposition, but fuck prescriptive grammarians anyway). The advice we get is flawed fundamentally, because it's always prefaced with, "I know! The world is so scary, right?!"

It's worth mentioning that guys don't seem to get this advice. Don't ask me to back this up with evidence, because I'm too lazy to find any, but it seems to me that the college advice targeted at guys is prefaced with "grunt Beer grunt Girls grunt No Parents grunt Sex... College!"

Of course, the advice-giving media has a vested interest in our continued need for advice. If the world is as big and scary as they say it is, and they're the ones with the answers, we're going to keep coming back. In real life, the best college advice I can think of is, "It's easier than you think."

• If you had any friends in high school, you'll have friends in college. If you didn't have any friends in high school, you'll probably still have friends in college, because college is bigger.
• If activities call out to you, you'll join them. If you find yourself having not joined any clubs or anything, either none of them have called out to you (which is fine), or you'll probably keep your eyes open for new stuff to join.
• Parties are fun and generally not scary.
• Classes in college are harder than classes in high school, but you're ready for them.
• You'll be so fine.

I hope that just one person frantically googling "How to transition to college" or "college freshman advice" or some nonsense like that (that I totally googled myself back in the day) happens upon me here and takes a deep breath and calms the hell down.

Love always,
Clara

cupcake ipsum

Caroline copy-edits for Post- now, so she and I hang out sometimes while I'm over there doing my chief-layout-editor thing.

Tonight, an article hadn't come in, but the two other pieces of that page were ready for the second round of copy editing, so I filled the empty box with placeholder text.
This was not ordinary placeholder text, of course. I read about something called Cupcake Ipsum a little while ago, and thought it would be more fun than the normal quasi-Latin gibberish. The section of the magazine usually reserved for our wonderful advice column read something like this:

Cupcake ipsum dolor. Sit amet pastry liquorice danish. Tiramisu sweet chupa chups. Cupcake gummi bears faworki. Tart jujubes pastry cupcake candy I love carrot cake ice cream. Icing powder gummies cotton candy wafer jelly toffee bonbon. Chocolate bar faworki macaroon croissant tiramisu halvah sweet gummies. Cotton candy lollipop caramels brownie. Biscuit croissant ice cream. Oat cake sweet fruitcake. Oat cake gummi bears muffin dragée pastry tootsie roll dragée I love. Candy canes ice cream oat cake. Faworki macaroon chocolate cake cookie I love chocolate bar. Powder topping carrot cake. Faworki jujubes danish jelly marzipan tiramisu candy canes croissant biscuit. I love lollipop sweet roll cupcake cotton candy chocolate bar cake brownie. Cupcake bear claw I love pie dessert cake. Gummi bears dragée caramels jujubes. Muffin pudding I love chocolate cake I love powder I love brownie. Jelly-o lemon drops gingerbread powder. Cookie jelly-o apple pie tootsie roll bear claw jujubes pie. Chocolate bar sesame snaps icing pie macaroon. Danish I love tiramisu chocolate bar jujubes brownie topping. Macaroon cookie gummi bears chupa chups chupa chups cheesecake tootsie roll oat cake sesame snaps. Danish danish candy canes cookie. Candy canes sweet donut. Caramels gingerbread pie sesame snaps. Jelly beans macaroon jelly-o tart I love danish. Gummi bears I love sweet roll marzipan tiramisu jujubes marshmallow. Topping I love muffin caramels cheesecake ice cream apple pie powder tiramisu. Marshmallow pastry pie I love jelly-o candy candy canes. Chocolate bar tootsie roll halvah gummi bears. Dragée lollipop carrot cake dessert cotton candy wafer. Biscuit topping tootsie roll chocolate cake halvah gummi bears. Tart jujubes icing gingerbread brownie dragée jelly beans. Chocolate bar bear claw I love marshmallow cupcake icing tootsie roll sweet. Caramels gummies marshmallow fruitcake jelly beans. Lemon drops gummi bears pie oat cake apple pie chupa chups. Soufflé marshmallow bear claw fruitcake caramels halvah. I love I love brownie soufflé liquorice tiramisu muffin cotton candy. Wafer tart powder cheesecake bear claw I love oat cake pastry sugar plum. I love tiramisu chocolate cake wafer tootsie roll cupcake biscuit topping muffin. Caramels chocolate bar tootsie roll jelly I love pudding I love. Cotton candy chocolate bar cotton candy caramels sugar plum. Gummi bears fruitcake marzipan wafer tart tiramisu.

I assumed this would all go over without incident and went back to my duties (read: Angry Birds). The following conversations went on behind me.

Caroline: I don't think I get this article.
Alexa: Jenny, are you aware that Emily Post- right now is just a list of things?
Jenny: Um, the real article isn't finished yet.
Alexa: Okay.
Caroline: This still doesn't make sense.
Me: OH! Ignore that! That's cupcake ipsum!

Caroline was checking its spelling. I really should make these things more clear. But someday I do want to publish an article like this in Post-. Then we'll be more avant-garde than the Indy.
That is my new aspiration.

Love always,
Clara

sup, bumblebee

So I was a bumblebee for halloween on Saturday. (On Friday, with plans of attending a Too-Soon party, I dressed up as "sexy Tamsen Donner" of 1846).
Apparently I made some kind of impression.

John has threatened to use "bumblebee" as a nickname. I've warned him that I will retaliate. I do not take well to condescension.

Today, though, I discovered John wasn't the only one who enjoyed my costume (which, not that it matters, was pretty damn conservative. I was wearing more clothes than a lot of people). I was standing in the Ratty by the omelette station, and I'd been in someone's way I suppose.

Me: Oh, sorry.
Stranger: Sup, bumblebee?

Maybe it's the prosopagnosia, and I really did meet this person and talk with him at some length (It also might be the a-a-a-a-a-a-alcohol, although I'd be shocked if I'd actually forgotten anything from that night completely). I have no recollection of any of this, though.

Un po' strano.

Love always,
Clara

things that people do that are awkward

1. When you're sitting in a room and, to make conversation, someone looking at a computer says, "Oh my god that's terrible!" The other people in the room exchange glances before someone inquires as to what is so horrible/great/hilarious. There's always the awkward pause when you think, maybe no one will ask, and then you'll never find out.

2. When you see someone that you sort of know in the bathroom, and you both sort of emit barely audible squeaking sounds. This is the least direct method of acknowledgement possible.

3. When you're doing something a little weird (e.g. buying lots of bananas to fill out a meal credit), and you see someone you know (weird things rarely go unnoticed). You make some self-deprecating comment (e.g. "I'm out of dining points! I have to use credits, and I don't want to waste them! I'm irresponsible!") and the other person agrees, and scolds you. (Being scolded in public, in general, is a weird thing.)

4. When you're waiting for cereal and the cafeteria workers are cleaning that counter, which is always covered in cereal. You wait for them to walk away (you smile so that they don't think you're being impatient), and then you pour your cereal and it goes everywhere. This is definitely because the bowls in the Ratty are so shallow, but you feel kind of bad.

Love always,
Clara

weird habits i've picked up lately

1) I've started working out again (that is not the weird part) (okay yeah, it's also kind of weird). I've been doing so in the Buxton workout room, which is much smaller, and I've never not been the only person in there. So now when I'm running (walking? fast?) and listening to music I sort of wave my arms about like a composer. No one can see me! Except when someone comes down the stairs and I have to make it look like I was reaching for my water bottle.

2) My new favorite food at the ratty is Lucky Charms, but I only eat the marshmallow bits.

David: What are you doing? It looks like you got two bowls of Alpha-Bits and ate none of them!
Val: Not Alpha-Bits. Lucky Charms! That's just what's left of them!

Val is opposed to this because I have to relocate the gross pieces to another bowl usually so that I can find the good pieces without making a mess. Obviously everything I do is in the interest of not making a mess.

3) I have become entirely dependent on the Providence Coffee Roasters' truck. It is dangerous to be so dependent on something that is inherently mobile.

Love always,
Clara

come at me

Last night a certain Daniel failed to accompany me to an orchestra concert and left his backpack in my room. Come on, Daniel. Get it together.

Then John and I ran around to a number of places to see what was going on. The first stop was the frat, of course, where people were standing outside disassembling the sukkah. The sororities were holding a tent party on the green, so Benny and I went in to show support or something (the proceeds went to battered women, in the event that they even broke even, which seems doubtful unfortunately). I bought a cupcake.

John called Andrew and discovered that things were happening in Barbour, so we headed over there. It turns out, the jujitsu club was having a party. There were a lot of people who like fighting, but no fights. Those of us who were accustomed to spending time in that apartment stayed in the kitchen for the most part, where we found party hats. I also went on a long rant about linguistics, to a poor girl who simply asked what it was. It turns out, I know this girl's cousin in a somewhat awkward high-school capacity, so we had a long talk about that as well (Hi Maggie).


Me: Should we check out the rest of the room?
Dan: We're wearing party hats. We should probably keep to ourselves.

Then we wandered back to the frat, where we found a number of the grad center kiddos. They were standing in the hall, and definitely not playing beirut (which is what John had hoped, I suppose. It's all the same to me. Good company is good company, and I'm not especially talented at throwing balls into cups.)

Me: Val, you're so Belle! You're pretty and bookish!
Val: No! She was so shallow! She was like, ew, beast, get away from me.
Me: But then she sees his personality and they fall in love!
Val: But I'd be like, whoa facial hair! Come at me!

That's what happened last night

Love always,
Clara

occupy skype

David: (In the middle of a story)
Me: Oh, I really like your hair right now, by the way. Sorry, I got distracted.
David: Thanks! No, I like it when my hair is girl-distractable.
Me: Yep.
David: (Points to head) This could be my cleavage!

I'm skyping with David. The nice thing about skype is that you can stare at yourself the whole time in the lower right corner.

David: The other day he tried to convince us that Lady Gaga was dating an eastern european philosopher.

David's Spanish teacher sounds certifiably mad. I'm glad Brown isn't the only Ivy to have completely insane professors. I was worried it was unique to us.

David: My mother had an opinion! She's giving those away like she's going out of business.

Moms do that. David and I discussed the fact that parents tend to have this ridiculous notion that they have a right to comment and exert control over our life choices. Hogwash! Balderdash! (Frankly, though, by the time they have kids in college, they need to just trust that they raised us with good judgment.)

David: I would support the Occupy Wall Street thing, with the compassionate addendum that they bathe.

I'm not sure how I feel about Occupy Wall Street. I'm glad someone is blaming someone other than Obama for the economic shitshow. I do agree that bathing is something everyone should do (If only the 1% bathed, the world would be a smelly place). I kind of wish they would define a position, but apparently the lack of focus is what makes the movement so cohesive, in a backwards way. If no one is expected to agree on anything, there can't really be infighting, and no one gets alienated.
I just don't know how long that can last.

David: Maybe I need to sprinkle some Descartes into my cauldron.

Love always,
Clara

"dragons are bad!"

Today I'm going to talk about dragons.

It turns out, the theme of the-hero-slaying-the-dragon happens all over the place in old mythologies. It makes sense, because stories need heros. Heros need to do heroic things, and they need to do indisputably heroic things. They need to kill someone that everyone wants killed.

That's where dragons come in.

Professor: These dragons are evil. Antisocial. Every single one. Just awful.

There's never a question whether a dragon is bad. If the hero killed an evil sorcerer or something, maybe the evil sorcerer has a family. Dragons are always bad.

On one occasion, the goddess Inaras overcomes Illuyanka [the dragon] by inviting him to a feast and getting him drunk (Watkins, 405). 
- Handout of 10/17

Naturally we were learning about these dragons in English class. It turns out that in most of these mythologies, dragon-slaying is described using archaic language (more similar to the original Indo-European). Who knew!

Love always,
Clara

moral: staple guns are actually really dangerous

Yesterday was full of excitement.

1) I met John's family in the Ratty. I had not expected to see them there (note: Why do parents seem to want to go to the Ratty when visiting Brown? If you want to pay 12 dollars for lunch, go somewhere with food that doesn't suck!), so I was entirely unprepared. My hair was wet, for heaven's sake. But David told me that they were around, and after a moment of fretting about the wetness of my hair and whatnot, I went over to say hello. It was only a little bit awkward, although I found out later that John's sister was standing right behind me while I fretted to David. Yikes.

2) Buxton had a little soiree last night, so we spent a good portion of the day setting up. Vivian and I were staple-gunning fabric to the walls (like curtains. Very classy), when somehow a staple ricocheted off of the molding and stabbed her hand.
Naturally the two of us dashed off to Health Services, not telling anyone where we were going or why (no time!), and they fixed her up. But in the mean time, excitement! Adrenaline! New friends! A bunch of us Buxton girls had dinner later on, so I'm kind of considering the whole experience to be a net positive, although it wasn't my hand.
(But Vivian really is fine.)
(Now I sound horrible.)

Today has been significantly less interesting.

Love always,
Clara

derby love

I went to the Brown Derbies Second Annual Best Family Weekend Concert Ever tonight. I always forget how much I like a cappella. It's like watching Glee happen in real life.

Lex: Girl, I've been in love with you ever since you first beat me at beer pong. When you sunk that last shot, I thought, damn, I've got to get a piece of that. And when you beat me two more times, in a row, and made me question my masculinity, well, I had to have you anyways. So this song is dedicated to you.



(Start that 45 seconds in or something)

Val, this kid is a catch.
Those two are great and I don't care who knows it.

Love always,
Clara

kabob friends

I was in the Post- office for most of the afternoon yesterday. It was a little frenzied but the magazine is at the printer and will exist in a physical way tomorrow, so all of that is quite exciting.

Sam: Did you know that they call this room the library?
Me: Really? Weird. Why?
Sam: I think it's all the books.

Regardless of all the books, our office is our office. The Herald should just accept that. They should also buy us a new computer, and pizza, and maybe a pony. That would be pretty cool.

Yesterday I managed to sound racist in Italian class, because my only Turkish friends in Switzerland were the guys down the street who worked at the kabob stand.

We really did have a great rapport, myself and the kabob stand guys. My german was just getting conversational, and they would make fun of my inability to differentiate "tisch" from "tasche" and they learned that I don't like peppers. We were friends, kind of!

That wasn't supposed to imply that I only talk to Turkish folks who make me kabobs - it's more indicative of the fact that I had like, five friends when I lived in Switzerland, and I think most of them were embassy brats in some way shape or form. I didn't even have any Swiss friends! Much less Turkish friends!

Anyway, all of these subtleties are pretty hard to convey in a foreign language.

Me: Avevo.... i kabob amici.
Katerina: Conosci i loro nomi?
Me: ... no.

Note to self: Learn future kabob-friends' names. Seriously. That would have helped a lot.

Love always,
Clara

i'm always so busy now

I'm not sure that I like the fact that I've been blogging with less regularity. In fact, I'm sure that I don't like it, but I also don't want to poop out some words if I have nothing to say.

On Sunday I went to Newport with John and Dan and Mark and Nicole and Laura. That was pretty awesome. The beach is great, and friends are great, and walking around new places is one of my favorite things. Also, eating seafood and employing screw-top bottles.

On Monday I mostly did work, but some of it was done outside on the quad, which was nice.
The girls from Italy and I met up for froyo on Monday night, and we sat around in the grass and updated each other on our lives. Caroline and Michelle had just come back from New York, where they had a casual encounter with Courtney Cox.
We reminisced like crazy.

Yesterday I severely overslept, went to italian, and pretty much did work-related things all day until I had to go to the magazine office. Post-'s family weekend issue comes out on friday, and thirty pages take a lot longer to lay out than eight. Imagine that.

Honestly, that's been it, pretty much. Maybe I'm spending too much time doing work, or maybe I'm not paying enough attention to the world, or maybe I just feel less compelled to blog about the conversations that do stick out in my mind. I don't like being in a creative rut, trust me. I feel like I need to jumpstart something, or set something on fire, or pick up some crazy new (metaphorical) hat to wear, but I also feel like I'm too busy and too generally content to do any of that.

But today there were puppies on the main green. That was pretty exciting.
(I fear I am becoming a boring person. I think this is unfounded, but I am not certain.)

Love always,
Clara

P.S. Now I am stalking PhD programs in England because I would like my life to fast forward to the glamorous-intellectual phase, I think.

things i have learned in human development

On Peers: "Peers! Can leave! Lifelong! Lasting! Scars!!! On you!!!"


On Unwanted Infants: "But you change your mind! It's like when you have a pet! You get the pet, you don't like the pet, you live with the pet, and then you like the pet!"

On Careers: "If I could do it again, I think i'd go into primatology because I think it is fun to play with chimpanzees."

On Animals who are Independent at Birth: "Have you observed the chickens that hatch out of the egg? It's so cute! They peck peck peck out of the shell!" 

On Hospitals: "Have you been to the hospital? Don't go there. Ever. But you never know."


On Temperament: "I'm well known in my family as OH too much arm moving around."


On Human Nature: "Luckily we're not like goats. We're not that simple."


On Vulnerability: "I thought, before i got rash, that I was immortal. . . . NO. It can strike anyone."


On the End of Times: "Particularly rats. I have no doubt that after humans are long gone, there will be rats on this planet."

Love always,
Clara

spooky leggys

This is all I have to say right now. This weekend is a three day weekend though, so that will be fun, and hopefully I can accumulate some fun stories to tell. For now, who is naming the daddy long legs?

Love always,
Clara

spotify, and my feelings

So you may have noticed I haven't posted any posts about songs being great lately. Songs have not ceased to be great, I promise, but I have a new way of going about listening to them. No longer must I commit to downloading songs to listen to them nonstop. I can listen to whatever I want. I'm using spotify.

I like Spotify a lot. I do. I'm listening to St. Vincent right now, and I'm not sure whether I like her or not, but I can get a better sense for whether I do by listening to her whole new album than listening to a few one-minute simples of her most popular tracks. Which is what I would have otherwise done.

About a month ago I rediscovered Frightened Rabbit, and that rocked my world for a few weeks, and I would have told you all about it except
A) I was still on my blogging hiatus and
B) I didn't have to download any songs!
What would I have even done? Wrote a post saying "Hey guys, Frightened Rabbit is great, in general, and y'all should listen to them"? That seems like it makes less sense, for some reason, although I guess in the grand scheme of things the idea of posting the songs I'd downloaded didn't make a ton of sense either. At least it was concrete though.

So Spotify is great, but I sort of feel nostalgic for iTunes (which I do still use occasionally). I can still go back and see which songs I was downloading a year ago, which is exciting, but there will come a time when I can't do that, and that's going to be weird (although I suppose we'll always have Last.fm).

Love always,
Clara

how to go to a frat party

I'm like, a super expert now.

• Think about what you're going to wear. Is there a theme? You want to look "in the theme," but you also want to look "sexy" and "not trying too hard."
• Pregame. Sit on your friend's room's floor and play bananagrams, and drink when you have to draw a tile. Alternatively, play a drinking game based on the Vietnam War. Make sure you are at least buzzed before departing, because otherwise you'll get cold. These drinks "don't count."
• Walk to the party in a group of seven or more people. No more than three of them should be pretty girls. 
• Blink at the line. Decide there must be another option.
• Try to get in through the back door. Argue with a brother named Dan about getting in. Dan is not having it. If you shotgun this beer, right now, will Dan let you in, you ask? No, Dan says, but he will give you a high five, and then tell you to get in line.
• One of your friends just remembered that her older sister used to hook up with the ex-president of the frat. You're in!
• Wow there are a lot of people in here.
• Decide you want a drink. Spend ten minutes trying to wiggle towards the bar. Accidentally grope no fewer than four strangers. Spill some of your drink while trying to escape the madness. You will do this several more times.
• You have lost your friends. Dance. 
• Find your friends. This is the most exciting thing ever to happen! You thought they had all died!
• Lose your friends again. Repeat.
• Find that guy who used to be in that club that you're in. Talk about the current state of that club.
• Find that girl from your English class who is really very drunk and talk to her for a little while. Tell her that you know that her ex is a douche, because your ex was also a douche, and that's exactly how logic works. She will be so glad that someone understands.
• Realize that it's hotter than the sun on the dance floor. Step outside for fresh air, but end up standing in a crowd of people smoking cigarettes.
• Go back and dance. Feel sweaty, and consider the fact that sweat is neither "in the theme" or "sexy." 
• Sweat could be sexy, right?
• Leave around 1:30, so that you have time to get mozzarella sticks before the diner closes. See other sexy-sweaty-theme-dressed people. Nod knowingly. You are all cool party-attending people now.
• Tomorrow, when people ask how it was, say, "It was fun. You know, super crowded, but it was a good time." 

Foolproof.

Love always,
Clara

texts that i have received in the last six months

• J.lo needs to not wear bodysuits, lesson
• im reading plato and socrates says "being filled with things appropriate to our nature is pleasurable" and all i think is I WANT SOME DECENT SEX.
• Poop girls are here
• b a   yyyyvi loveeeee yuou yi88 al so in with tyouyre firend juackl
• Did you get gummi bears? I see that we have more vodka.
• Affirmative. The rooster is in the hayloft.
• Fertile and ready to impregnate you both.
• Sahir got here, Godot has not. We've abandoned our faith.
• I am genuinely sorry I was sleeping when you sent these. Please tell me you were at a strip club.
• !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• You have disappeared. Is this permanent?
• I just sent a text that said: "I think my earring fell off when I took off my cape to breakdance"
• Come! Now! Feminize our decor!
• I just woke up from a dream in which I visited you at brown ... and the brox zoo cobra was there bc brown is so tolerant and progressive.
• I hope we have the opportunity to speak sometime outside the constant cesspool of teenage insecurity we find ourselves joyfully parading around in every weekend. :)
• Doppler effect in astronomy right now!!!
• I have procured some sir kensingtons ketchup -- we now need a tasting party immediately!
• Haha and here I thought my travel plans hinged on your eating habits! :)
• Hat the duck ever?
• As a separate note, you should be informed that the lord's day would also serve satisfactorily as a day of our meeting, my radiant princess.
• I'm required by sharia law to tell him.
• yeah, RANDIAN logic. Objectivist psychobabble.

Conclusions
1. People are rather affectionate via text.
2. I have weird friends.

Love always,
Clara

the eight crazy strangers: number three

This man invented things.

Yet again, I was riding the metro, and this man sat down next to me. He had a big backpack, and asked me to hold something for him while he got himself organized. I am criminally polite. So he sat down, and obviously started making conversation.

Him: I like your toes! Did you do that yourself!?
Me: Oh... no, I got them done at an airport... in New Jersey.
Him: Oh! I thought you did that yourself! I thought, damn! I wonder if she'd paint MY toes!
Me: Um... Yep. Nope.

He then asked me about every one of my bracelets.

Him: I like that one! I like blue! Did you make that?
Me: Oh, no, it was a gift from my mom's friend.
Him: I thought you'd invented it!

In the name of politeness, I had to ask him about the one bracelet he was wearing, one of those rubber ones that we all used to have in eighth grade. It said something on it about living life to the fullest or something.

Him: This bracelet! This is the best! I have this with some of my friends - we invented this. Some guys want to get wasted and drink a lot of beer, and other guys like to drink wine, you know?! I have a friend, and he's a surfer guy, blonde hair, he's a California guy, and one day he was surfing and got bit by a shark! Took his leg off! Now he doesn't have a leg! So we all got these bracelets, to be like, live life! We invented this!

He then told me about his hat. He invented that too. It was blue. I am 100% certain that this man was high, but he might have been my favorite crazy stranger. He never asked for my number, but did tell me to listen to his radio show that's on "all day, all night" (There is never a time that this man is not on the radio).

I did try to listen. He must have been on his break.

Love always,
Clara

english, it turns out, is interesting

I have vivid memories of disliking English class in middle school. We had to read dumb books and underline uses of symbolic language and do awful vocabulary worksheets (It's actually really hard to come up with a sentence using the word . It all seemed silly and redundant and a waste of time.

English teachers were often targets of my animosity. I very specifically remember learning that Ms. Scott, my seventh grade english teacher, hated click-pens -- so I bought a ton of click-pens. (I might have been the worst seventh grade girl ever.) (For the record, about a month later I decided Ms. Scott was my favorite teacher.)

Fast forward six years or so, and I'm spending my lectures learning the alphabet. Linguistics, I've decided, is totally my jam.


I'm taking History of the English Language this semester, and it's pretty much the most awesome class I've ever taken, and I'm not exaggerating at all. The professor is a boss, and he's been teaching the course for the last thirty years or so, so he knows his stuff and tells it like it is.

Professor R: Determinism is the theory that you could predict the future by closely observing the present. Nobody ever made any interesting discoveries based on this theory. Ever.

I think what I'm enjoying most about the class though is that it raises all of the questions that I raised in my English classes (right after I bought my clicky pens, all for the explicit purpose of being a pain in the ass). Like, why did we have to answer the questions on homework sheets in complete sentences, when a word would do? That's not what we do when we speak. If someone asks you, "Where are you going this weekend?" you say, "Boston." If you feel like saying a lot of words, you could say "I'm going to Boston," I guess.

Professor R: 'I am going to Boston' is just wrong! It's weird! It would raise a titter!

That's what I tried to explain to Ms. Pronko all those years ago, but of course she would have none of it. Maybe I just like linguistics because it means I was right all along about English teachers. Some of their rules are totally arbitrary.

Professor R: As if colloquy were an evil thing.

I, for one, like colloquy. I mean, read this. Do I seem like I'm into the formal writing style? I've almost made a conscious decision to ignore it.

And on that note...

Vivian: Actually no, I don't make decisions, I just sit around and rap about philosophy.

Yesterday, that happened.

Love always,
Clara

in which clara rambles about sex and everyone feels uncomfortable

So I'm taking some pretty cool classes this semester, and one of them is called Sex, Gender, and Society. It's really a great course, and it's made me think a little more critically about a number of things.

One of them is this. This book, published a few weeks ago, is entitled Dirty Little Secrets: Breaking the Silence on Teenage Girls and Promiscuity. To be honest, I haven't read it, but Publisher's Weekly said that "[Cohen] seeks to identify the loose girl experience and help girls gain power over their own lives."

Now, what I find problematic about this is the question of whom these teenage girls are being promiscuous with. The issue (if there truly is one) cannot be completely contained within the teenage girls, can it? Is every adolescent a lesbian these days? Really? All of them?

No, I suspect there are boys involved. Probably teenage boys.
Hear that, everyone? OUR DELICATE TEENAGE BOYS ARE PROBABLY HAVING SEX.

Do we need the smelling salts, or are you okay out there? You're probably okay. But why? Why is it okay that teenage boys are having sex (that's just what they do, after all. Boys will be boys!) but if teenage girls are doing it, we immediately need to clutch our pearls and do an in depth study on whether they're doing it for the "right" reasons (hint: there probably are none).

I'll agree that promiscuity is probably an issue, and there are certainly kids out there who are doing everything that moves because it makes them feel popular, and those kids are pretty dumb. I'm on board. But let's not scrutinize the girls quite so much?

Kthanks.

Love always,
Clara

oh i don't wanna grow up

There's a career fair today and I kind of want to set it on fire. I ran into Michael and he'd come out with all of these ping pong balls, and I thought, "Well that looks like fun," but then I went in and it wasn't.

I realized, for one thing, that the only people I felt not-terrible speaking with were the nonprofits. They were all really nice. I grabbed a pamphlet from the Rhode Island Coalition for the Homeless (awkwardly acronym-ed RICH), and they were really friendly, as was the guy from City Year, which sounds like a pretty cool program, although any of that sort of thing is so far into the future that any thoughts I have right now are irrelevant.

Me: Okay, so I'm going to sign up for your mailing list, because this seems like a great program, and then I'm going to ignore your emails for the next year or so. And then start paying attention again later. Cool?
City Year Guy: At least you're honest!

Everyone else I talked to wanted to know whether I was an engineer or computer science major or nobel prize winner. There were no linguists waving flags. There were companies I'd never heard of, in great numbers. Abercrombie was there, inexplicably.

Last year, it felt like college was forever. We had four whole years of this! Woohoo! This year, it feels more like they're going to kick us out any minute, and it is stressing me out like no other. I only have five semesters left after this one? Only twenty more classes to pick? I refuse to acknowledge this reality.

Halfway around the room, I decided I needed to get out pronto. Near the door, Capital One had a table, talking about consulting or something. They were giving out sunglasses.

Obviously, I took the sunglasses and ran.

Love always,
Clara

the eight crazy strangers: number two

This one, I met on the metro, and I don't think he was exactly trying to pick me up, like the last one was. Regardless, he qualifies as a crazy stranger.

This man sat down next to me on the red line and immediately struck up conversation. Metro people do this sometimes. I find it a little weird (I find that in most circumstances I am more than happy to sit quietly and listen to "Sparks Fly" on repeat until I arrive at my destination), but to each their own. I'm also really bad at not engaging in conversation. Call it my fatal flaw. Whatever.

So he sat down and asked me where I was headed. This, I think, was the only thing he said in the ten minutes or so that we spoke that made any sense. I told him I was meeting a friend for dinner, and asked him the same.

Man: I was gonna play pool with my friend. But I want to go to church. So I was going to meet this friend, and I'm taking the metro to get to his place, and he tells me he's already left. Where're you getting off?
Me: Um... Dupont Circle.
Man: Me too! I have to get off at Dupont Circle so I can walk back to my house, and it's going to take me half an hour, and I already don't have time to go to church!

I should add that this was not a sunday and he never elaborated on why he wanted to go to church so badly.

I asked him why he couldn't just take the metro back to his house (seeing as he had chosen to take the metro from his house to his friend's). He said that the walk back was really short.

Me: So... why don't you get off before Dupont, and then you won't have as far to walk?
Man: Because my friend lives around Dupont, but he's not even there anymore!
Me: Exactly!
Man: Oh man, I don't even have time to go to church. I just want to play pool and go to church.

This crazy stranger wasn't trying to get into my pants I don't think. He was just crazy.

John: Clara, do you think he might have been... on drugs?
Me: Oh! Maybe.

That is in fact a distinct possibility.

Love always,
Clara

the eight crazy strangers: number one

I've referenced the eight crazy strangers, and I've committed to writing about them, but I'm still trying to figure out how to string them into a narrative that makes any sense.

The thing is, when I got to DC, I'd pretty much just left Italy, where the men are affectionate, to say the least. My roommates and I even talked about what a let down it would be when we got back to the states where strangers didn't call us beautiful every single day.

Harassment is harassment, but I'm not going to say it doesn't feel kind of awesome to have a complete stranger on the street say that you are "fantastic"

Complete stranger: [stops his car in front of me] You are fantastic.

That happened.

So, given that context, I may have taken these events in stride more than one ought to. But for the month of August, the men of Washington DC were more like the men of Bologna than I had ever known them to be.

Introduction concluded, let us begin. I was working, as you may or may not know, in an office in DC for the month, doing intern things (or non-things, as the case may be). Because I am not the social-est of butterflies, I tended to get lunch by myself and read a book or something. My preferred lunch spot was a little while away, and on the way there, I walked by a lot of those buildings with the shiny windows.

Does anyone have the ability to walk by those without subtly checking oneself out? I can't help it. I just want to know if my skirt still looks okay. I'm still a little bit uncomfortable in business casual! A lot of people interpret it as arrogance, or crippling insecurity, or whatever, but when I see a moving shiny thing that looks like me, I want to look at it.
So I'm checking myself out in the shiny window building when a man stops me.

Man: Hi, I don't usually do this, but you're very beautiful. Do you want to get drinks sometime?
Me: Oh! Thanks! Um... actually I don't have a fake ID. Thanks though!

And I flit on my way.

I feel like I said that just to make him feel uncomfortable about asking someone underage out. That's totally my prerogative, right?
Right.

Love always,
Clara

look out, world!!!

I'm going to start cat calling men.

Why? Because I can. Not because I want to bang them or go on dates with them or whatever, but because I kind of think it's hilarious and flattering to be cat called and men need to get this experience as well.
Isn't that their goal when they do it? To give me a hilarious and flattering experience?

Anyway, I'm going to start off campus, I think, so that I don't get a reputation as "that crazy girl who keeps sexually harassing strangers." I mean, maybe that will be inevitable, but I want to give my fun new experiment a test run beforehand.

The eight crazy strangers of August '11 inspired me, to be honest. When I write about them (inevitably), you'll see how truly flattered/pleased/etc I felt after all of these experiences. They were just so friendly! They totally validated my existence as a woman! (If one is not attracting strangers on a daily basis, one is failing.)

So, guys of the Providence area, you should start looking nice. If you don't, I won't cat call you, and then you won't be worth anything.

Love always,
Clara

P.S. Mom, I'm being sarcastic. Except I'm really going to do it because I think it will be funny and interesting.

freshmen

One cool thing about being back at school is that I'm not a freshman anymore. Not being a freshman means I can see them as they are. i.e. Hilarious.

It really does impress me how they get around. We (the cool non-freshman masses) make fun of them for traveling in packs, but I can't think of a better way for them to arrange themselves. Each of them know a little tiny bit about Brown, and all of their knowledge together (if their pack is sufficiently large) might add up to the competence of one whole normal person! It really is fascinating. They just run around asking each other questions.

"Does anyone know where I change my meal plan?"

"Does anyone know where Smith Buononononono is?"

"Does anyone know how to get a package?"

"Does anyone know anyone who lives in Perkins?" (No.)

"Does anyone know what kind of tree this is?"

I totally remember doing this. Once, on my first weekend in college after classes started, I stumbled out of some frat (I don't even know where I was. DTau? DPhi? One of those) and wanted to go home, except... where was home? I turned to a group of complete strangers standing outside having a cigarette or something and asked pretty much the most embarrassing freshman question ever.

"Can anyone tell me how to get back to Keeney?"

And, I mean, I'm sure I entertained them, but I did make it all the way back to Keeney (a whole half-block, if you can believe it). That's what one has to do for the first little while. The first months of college, I'm almost certain, are there to break you a little bit so that you can handle yourself later on.

And so that the rest of us can laugh at you. Sorry.

Love always,
Clara

posting post-y posts

Last night I would have blogged, except post- happened and I ended up being there for seven hours or so. For the record, that's an improvement - last night, for the first time, I got to go to Jo's after hitting "Export" and eat mozzarella sticks before two AM.

I love post-. We have such fun. In the year that I've been there, I've gone from "layout trainee" to "the first layout girl who the editors know the name of" to "chief layout editor." Check that out.

I love feeling competent.

We were reminiscing last night about the rougher moments of last year, including the time someone decided the best possible headline for a feature about transfer students was "TRANNYS AT BROWN."

Someone said seven whole minutes passed before we got an email from the LGBTQ center director. Fair enough.

This of course led us into a very interesting and Brown-characteristic conversation about transsexuals and what they prefer to be called at different stages of their lives. It's a source of debate that I won't get into here (boy am I feeling my heterosexual privilege now), but we had a good time.

Charles: This page has a... I don't know what to call it...

Sam: Crisis? Catastrophe? Lobotomy? Trans man?

Of course, this morning when I eagerly skipped down to the Ratty to check out my marvelous handiwork, I realized that while I was making sure all the apostrophes faced the right way and the fonts were legible and consistent, some quirk of inDesign had made the columns not line up anymore. Either I messed it up at 1:30 am last night and didn't notice (humbug!), or something went wrong when I exported the file to PDF (that's what i'm going with). 

All of it is hogwash.

Love always,

Clara

since i've been gone

A number of things have happened.

• Blogger changed its user interface! You are unlikely to notice this, but from my side of the looking glass things are very different and new.
• I came back to college, have settled myself in, and am feeling just wonderful about it.
• My social life has taken several new turns, not the least of which being the Buxton house lifestyle (AFTERPARTY IN THE SUITE!)
• There was an earthquake! And a hurricane!
• Classes have started, and after briefly flirting with the idea of taking five classes, I realized that ENGN0090 is not at all my style, even if the professor is fantastic. Mom was wrong.
• I've realized I have things to blog about! And I look forward to blogging about them very soon.
• I decided to color code my class notes. I have a color set aside for "Insane professor quotes"
• I've begun to decorate my nails with sparkly stickers.

That's pretty much the gist of it. I've also taken to studying (read: rolling around in the grass) with Val. We have some pretty good times, mostly because I'm allergic to nature and all of the little particles get up inside my head and make me feel giggly. Grass is like catnip for Claras. Then I get a grass-hangover and want a nap.

Yesterday we discussed at length the ways I was misinformed about sexual activity as a child.

Dad: So you're half my DNA and half Mom's DNA, and so is your sister, and you both grew from an egg in your mom's tummy.

Me: But... how does the dad's DNA get to the mom's DNA?

Dad: ... When you get married, god does it.

Don't worry, I'm posting more later. (I know you were going to be worried. It's okay. Calm down.)

Love always,
Clara

a new thing. a break.

I didn't blog in nantucket. It was not for lack of things to say. It may have been for lack of time, except that I'm on page 265 of TSMs. Clearly there was some time for internet loitering.

I don't know what's wrong with me. So I'm taking a break. For a month. On September 13th, I'll be back, I promise.

I won't be ignoring the blog for that month. My hope is that I'll be overflowing with things to say by the time I allow myself to sit down to say them. I'll still be keeping track of real conversations and real conversations, my family will still be weird and I'll probably still be mentally unstable on occasion.
This isn't the end.

I just need a second to, in my mother's words,* live my life instead of writing about it.

Love always,
Clara

*Mom, did you not realize that the point of that other post was that you should stop commenting on my blog posts? I tried the subtlety thing! 

nantucket!

I did some of my first blogging in Nantucket. Oh, memories.

Right now I'm sitting in the airport watching this delightful little girl with a hot pink bow right on the top of her head toddle around. I had a long conversation with my cab driver about my school in Rhode Island (true) and plans to major in psychology (not as true as I made it sound, but also possible). He was very nice. We talked about farmer's markets and I explained why people at my school in Rhode Island were so into local goods.

What I really want to do at this moment is call Daphna but her phone is off. See that, Daphna? I'm calling you out for being probably-asleep at 10 AM on a sunday. How ridiculous!

Nantucket kids, I'll see you soon!

Love always,
Clara

clara reads magazines again

Once again, I find myself reading Seventeen magazine. Why do I let this happen so often?

(Because it’s summer and I’m bored and I keep secretly hoping it will tell me how to really “LOOK PRETTIER THAN EVER!”)

Here’s what I’m absorbing instead.

Kidnapping boys is a good idea:

Good, because I’m guilty of this one. 17 says, “Just offer your guy a ride home. Once you’re in the car, you can slip into a way to extend your time together: “I’m starving! Want to go to Steak ‘n Shake?” Suddenly you’re flirting over french fries!”

Alternatively, you can say “now that I have you in my vehicle, you might as well surrender.”

Sex is the worst thing in the world:

I get that if 17 suggested anything other than putting careful thought into sexual decisions, they’d be faced with mobs with pitchforks and torches and such (people still do that, right?), and I completely agree that people shouldn’t run around putting zero thought into their actions, but this is too much: “… the bottom line is that sex is a big deal. All types of sex are a big deal. And just like you’d think long and hard about losing your virginity, you should think carefully about every hookup—and every step you take, sexually. Because whether your actions affect that virginity label or not, they still affect your heart, mind, and body.”

Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but it sounds like they’re saying anything beyond kissing will make you want to go home and cry. Not that I would know, because I’m a good girl who cuts things off at hand-holding. Am I doing it right, 17?

Boys are lying to you:

They don’t love you. They don’t like cats. They’re not in business school. They’re all virgins. And they’re all cheating on you with a girl named Jessica.

I am way not preppy enough to go to Brown(?):

People who go to Ivy League schools dress like every day is 4^th of July on Daddy’s yacht. What have I been doing without plaid Tommy Hilfiger bedding? Luckily, 17 offers me “preppy pieces [that] will turn your room into the most polished and organized study haven.” I don’t think even Princeton kids would decorate with this shit.

The tampon wars are getting ugly:

I guess that shouldn’t be surprising. Anyway, Tampax vs. Kotex. Tampax says it “protects BETTER than U by Kotex.” There’s a picture of a girl in a white bikini who’s saying, “At a moment like THIS, I don’t care if my tampons came in a little black box.”

I am cringing right now, for the record.

Girls are crazy people who hate themselves:

Seriously, we’re mentally unstable all of the time. “Sheila*from Antioch, Illinois, says, “I was feeling bad and decided to diss myself on Formspring. I hid my name and wrote that I was ugly. It only took a few minutes for my friends to respond that the person was wrong, that I’m beautiful and shouldn’t let others push me around.”” Someone please tell me this isn’t a trend?

Literally throw yourself at boys:

Samantha, a nineteen year old from California, says, “I use the crowd to ‘accidentally’ bump into a hot guy. Once you’re talking, it’s natural to step closer and talk into his ear because it’s so loud. In the middle of a crazy part, a quiet conversation can easily lead to a hookup!” Just remember to think carefully about every hookup, for the heart, mind, and body, remember?

Your friends suck:

You pretty much hate your friends, right? They play Egyptian Ratscrew at parties, when you really want to talk to boys! The solution is to invite boys into your game of Egyptian Ratscrew.

I hope we've all learned a lot.

Love always,
Clara

i haven't blogged in ages

There are reasons for this.

1. I've been traveling.
2. I didn't know what to say.
3. I suck.

Sometimes I forget that I blog for myself. I know that you guys read it, and nothing excites me more than someone coming up to me and saying, "Hey Clara, I hope this isn't weird, but I read your blog, and that post about [X] made me think..."
(Why anyone would think it's weird is beyond me. If I didn't want people reading my posts, I'd keep a diary.)
But all of that said, I blog because it sorts out what's in my head. The issue right now is that my head feels pretty sorted out, which doesn't make for especially stimulating blogging.

When I look back on posts of the past (note to self: this is alliterative), I love scrolling through spring of '09. That's when "mentally unstable clara" was born, and I feel like I got some great blogging done in those days.

The other issue is that every time I try to write something, I can't help but imagine my mom calling me up and saying, "I read your blog post!" and me wanting to (A) hang up immediately or (B) die. I'm pretty sure I'm at a point in my life where I don't need my mother's input on every thought that goes through my mind, but I'm inclined to put those thought up here where she can see them, which anyone would rationally argue constitutes permission to comment.

These are my conundra right now (why does no one say "conundra"?). And that's why I've been a terrible blogger lately.

Love always,
Clara

italy in stop motion

Also, girls at a park.
I miss you guys a ton.

True story: Today I have a billion things to do and all of them are making me want to hyperventilate. I just came back to my computer and thought, "I have simply not been making enough lists." Erika has influenced me in so many ways.

Also, the other day I ate a Magnum Gold(?!). Now that Michelle can confirm that they exist, you guys need to find some pronto.

Love always,
Clara

it's been six days

Obviously I suck a lot, but also I've been really busy between moving out of my apartment in Bologna, embarking on an epic journey home (in macchina, no less), and roaming the city of Bern with David for the weekend.

Leaving Bologna was sad. That's all I can really say about that. Oh, and there was a transit strike. That sucked.
The thing about the Italians is that they're good at a lot of things (food), but they're also not good at a lot of things (bread) (my priorities are absolutely in the right place). One of the things they're not good at is taking Clara where she needs to go on the day that she needs to go there. Instead, they are good at absolutely refusing to do this.
The train-operators and the related professionals decided that the day I needed to get home was the right time to plan not to operate any trains. This led to at least one nervous breakdown, but my father the saint actually drove down to Bologna to pick me up. Added bonus: I got to bring Stella the bike.

Hanging around Bern with David was great. I'd always known that my Swiss friends and my Potomac friends were different, but it's never been so clear... it sounds cliche, but I keep realizing how much I love both groups for exactly what they are. Heathens and snobs, mostly, but I really do love you guys.

Today I've been busy with a project that should be live soon. The d'azeglio girls will know what this is I think. Get excited.

Love always,
Clara

reasons italy is great

• The men will stop their cars to tell you that you are fantastic.
• Gelato errday.
• Everything sounds cooler when you add "... in Italy" to the end.
• People wear harem pants in public all the time, which makes it socially acceptable.
• Italy is a country in which I have no family members.
• It makes American history look like a joke.
• Even the back alleys are pretty.
• I never really liked being thin anyway.
• It's acceptable to openly laugh at the strangers who hit on you.
• Everyone has a sexy voice.
• I've essentially forgotten that there is a drinking age anywhere in the world.
• Doing basic tasks becomes an adventure (e.g. "So today, I asked for directions, and I got them in Italian!")
• Strangers are so nice!

Love always,
Clara

names by which I have gone on the internet

clarabeyer
1998 - 2000. My dad set this email address up for me for some reason when I was like, six. I sent emails to my grandfather at F666666 and experienced Instant Messaging (tm) with CeCe Conner. (On that note, IMing is hard when you're not even sure about how to spell things.) This was back in the day when people didn't think their email addresses should have anything to do with their real names, so I was really quite progressive.

roklime104
2000 - 2003. I decided my real name was boring. Also, I liked the color lime green and I liked going rock climbing with my dad on sunday afternoons and I thought it was a subtle thing to imply that I "rokked," as it were. This was the same time that I developed a fear of heights, actually, and would climb up the wall with no difficulty only to have a panic attack at the top.

klairahgal48
2003 - 2007. I decided my real name was so boring that I couldn't even bear to use it in real life. My friends had names that started with the letter K and so I wanted to conform while making myself cool and different at the same time. At this time in my life, I tried to write novels that mostly focused on a girl named "Elizabeth" deciding to go by "Liza" when she moved to a new town. Also, my two first relationships developed on this IM account. In fact, they almost entirely existed on this IM account.

clarachick44@yahoo.com
2006. For some reason AIM was not enough. Victoria Thomas told me that Yahoo was the cool thing to have and we posted song lyrics as our away messages. I don't remember ever talking to anyone on this account.

clarazzle44
2007 - 2008. CeCe convinced me that this was a good idea. I was in that awkward phase where I realized that I do not spell my name with a K, but wasn't sure whether I wanted another fun handle or a "serious" email address. Also I had a thing for the number four, it appears. This was the time that I'm pretty sure all of us were "invisible" online all the time, just waiting to see.

@clarabellum
2008 - present. Twitter is the best. Mr. Abbott, my seventh grade advisor and American History teacher, used to call me that, because I was smart, I suppose. When I was constructing my new clever mature internet identity, this seemed like a way that I wanted to portray myself.

csb324
2008 - present. When I set this up, I knew I needed a gmail account but wasn't sure for what. I was in the mood to be cryptic (a la F666666) when most people on the internet were using their real goddamn names. Clara is countercultural as shit. You know. The standard.

Love always,
Clara

florence and le ragazze

I'm sitting in my kitchen watching The Office and reading The Oatmeal and eating italian cheese singles.
Earlier today, we sat in the park and ate cake and cheese on crackers and drank wine and listened to Taylor Swift.
I seriously am beginning to think I live a charmed life. Sliced cheese and cake and Taylor Swift and wine and The Office are some of my favorite things.

Yesterday a bunch of us went to Florence. I bought some leather sandals, and we saw the Duomo (which is much more impressive from the outside, not to be an Italy-snob) and had what was probably the best meal of my life. I had some seriously green gnocchi with tomatoes and bacon-pieces, and sea bass, and then we shared some cheesecake and tiramisu.

I really want to come back to Italy when I'm older. Maybe I'll work here for a year or something and teach English. Even to be an au pair for a summer later on would be awesome. I just need to be back in Italy in the foreseeable future, for an extended period of time, please.

Love always,
Clara

P.S. The woman who told us about the clips clipped a bag of clips to our door. The Italians are so much friendlier than the Swiss! In other news, I fail diplomacy.

we're not good at a lot of things

It turns out that living independently involves a lot of things that we don't know how to do. One of these is hanging things on a clothesline.

In related news, we ran into our sweet neighbor in the courtyard this afternoon.

Neighbor: Always there are things here! Then you must wash them again!
Me: I know! Mi dispiace molto...
Neighbor: It's okay... There exist... clips!
Me: Oh, we don't have any. So sorry!
Neighbor: I will gift you clips. I will put there!

Seriously, we're not good at a lot of things. But we have really nice neighbors.

Love always,
Clara

not naked

In the following dialogue, consider the fact that the italicized words were shouted out the window to our downstairs roommates.

Erika: Guys! Come up! We're naked!
Me: That's not true!
Erika: I guess I shouldn't say that out the window. We're fully clothed!
Me: Yeah!
Erika: We're actually wearing nun's habits! 

Tonight is Erika's birthday and we're having a grand old time. Get ready for stories. Last night I talked to a Canadian about women's rights in France and tried to scale a wall.

I am going to miss Bologna so much.

Love always,
Clara

mind-grains

Michelle: Clara's mind-grains can tell the weather, and I can tell the romance.

Michelle has come back from an evening. The rest of us have been doing homework and trying to find somewhere to watch Harry Potter. She is just full of stories.

Homework sucks. The heat sucks, and migraines suck (even if they can predict the weather), and people who can't figure out the past participle in english even though they're from Nebraska suck, and feeling like a giant inflatable balloon sucks.

But Italy is wonderful.

Love always,
Clara

have i really not blogged since verona?

My apologies.

Love always,
Clara

lalalala i feel better

Problems, consider yourselves solved.



Love always,
Clara

letters to juliet

But really. We're going to Verona tomorrow. I'm wearing a floral dress and I'm going to hum to myself about love all day long.

I'm tempted to write Juliet a letter, not about my love life (interesting as that might be to exactly-no-one-other-than-me) so much as about myself.

I've been thinking about self-esteem lately, see, because it has been pointed out to me that one must live with oneself, hopefully, for a very long time. Unless you can see yourself as the greatest damn thing that's ever happened to the world, it's going to be really lame.

Rather, imagine you had a twin, but your twin sucked. I mean, insert whatever adjectives you will into the next bit of this, but in my head this hypothetical twin is awkward and ugly and always says the wrong thing at the wrong time, and people don't like this hypothetical twin at all. Now imagine your twin came with you everywhere and just embarrassed you at every turn, and people couldn't tell the two of you apart. That's a bit what it's like not to like yourself all that much.

There are parts of me that I love (and they tend to be the bits I identify with the most - smart, offbeat, cute, et cetera) but there are also bits that I don't, and I have to bring them around and feel ashamed of them. To hell with that.

And then there's the fact that commentators (I cannot call them journalists, but they are undoubtedly participants in "the media") are constantly throwing us information about how my generation is too in love with itself. We're too entitled and too self-absorbed and we never had to go all the way to the library to look something up and we should get off their lawns. (I really think that's all there is to this issue. The baby boomers are upset, like every generation before them, that the new generation is doing cool stuff.)

The point is, I'm trying to ignore all of that and reject this ridiculous mindset and acquire self-esteem someplace. And, as I've learned, writing about things seems to help.

Love always,
Clara

THE ARCADE IS ON FIRE

The last couple days have been a fantastic whirlwind that I cannot begin to describe. On monday I peeled eleven pounds of apples. On tuesday I went to Milan to see an Arcade Fire concert. Today I think I'll clean the kitchen.

At the concert, the moon was matching my tattoo (a waxing crescent. Getting anything waning permanently installed on my body would surely fortel a premature death, and that's no good at all), and it occurred to me that I'm nineteen, at an Arcade Fire concert in Milan, and this may be as good as it gets.

I mean, I hope not, but if it is, then it's not like I have that much to complain about.
How much in life can anyone really ask for?

Anyway. These are #whitegirlproblems. The last few days have been awesome though.

Love always,
Clara

basil battle

Erika: Have you blogged about your day of nothing?
Me: Not yet. That's the thing about nothing days. There's nothing to say, really.

The most exciting thing I did today was search for basil, but let me start from the beginning.

I've been feeling gross lately, with a sore throat that hadn't gone away for a while, so yesterday I decided it was time to call a doctor and find out what exactly was wrong with me. I more or less had diagnosed myself with viral tonsillitis, but I don't exactly have the medical authority to make that kind of call.

I called the doctor that we'd been told to call this morning, and he said he'd come over and do a house call (why don't we have those in America, by the way? Do we? Have I just never found a doctor who does them?) in about an hour.

In that time, Erika and I decided it would be a good idea to clean the kitchen, so that he would not be shocked by the conditions in which we live. We're really not bad. We do spend a lot of energy on kitchen-cleaning. During this cleaning period, I took a box of fresh basil off the kitchen table and put it somewhere.

The doctor was wonderful (and confirmed that whatever I have is a virus and therefore all I can do is pop ibuprofen and sleep). He was actually from Alexandria, had worked at the hospital at which I was born, and knows my grandfather. There's something very comforting about being in the presence of someone who knows your grandfather. Anyway, then I went back to sleep for a while.

Fast forward to a little while ago, when I realized it was almost nine thirty and I hadn't had any dinner. Caprese salad seemed like a quick and easy thing, so I got to chopping tomatoes and mozerella. And then it was time to find the basil.

The basil was not in the refrigerator. The basil was not in the part of the cabinet where I tend to put things. The basil was not on the couch. The basil was not in my bedroom. The basil was nowhere to be found.

Me: Where would basil go? Where does Clara put the basil, when Clara does not put the basil where she should put the basil?

It has yet to be seen. I ended up using dry basil from our spice cabinet instead. Take that, basil bastard.

Erika: Say hello to the eggs!
Me: Hi eggs! Oh they're cute.
Erika: Aren't they? They have no idea they're about to be charred...
Me: Hey, we're going to put you in very hot water, and then eat you!
Erika: Don't tell them! They'll run away! Like the basil! My god, Clara, what did you say to the basil?!

Love always,
Clara

heaven

Erika: This is literally heaven for me right now. This song, white wine, Italy, and zucchini in a pan.

Michelle: You're so smart! That's why we hired you!

Love always,
Clara

show and tell

Sometimes I get excited that I'm somewhat able to communicate in italian. Then I remember that my abilities are about on par with your average first grader.
Your average first grader who has some very particular language-related learning deficits such as a spontaneous inability to conjugate.

Today we were hanging out with our language partners (some wonderful Italians from the University of Bologna). This point was abundantly clear.

Lusine: Ho comprato un grande limone! [I bought a big lemon!]
Marco: And?
Lusine: That's it!

Our stories have the sophistication of a show-and-tell in elementary school. "Um... my favorite movie is Elf... it is very funnier... yeah... I love Elf."

Ich liebe Bus*, basically.

Love always,
Clara

*If that didn't make sense to you, roll with it, because it's sort of an inside joke that I have with myself regarding my own inability to speak German when I was fifteen. Literally translated, it means "I love bus."

nutella. bruschetta.

Today we learned imperatives and Anna Maria got high on power.

Anna Maria: Don't sit that way! Don't eat! Listen! Sleep! Sit down! Stand up! Give me that strawberry!

We're sitting in the kitchen and making dinner. By "we're making dinner," I mean Erika is making dinner, some of us (Caroline) chopped stuff, and my tomatoes were contributed.

Me: I wouldn't even mind being covered in nutella.
Erika: I'd just snack on myself.
Me: I would love to snack on myself.
Stephen: [gives me an inquisitive blink]
Me: ... if I were covered in nutella!
Stephen: [gives me another inquisitive blink]

Our first appetizer was bruschetta. Our second appetizer was nutella on bread sticks.
There is, in fact, a dedicated nutelleria in Bologna. By that I mean a nutella-owned nutella-based cafe. I got a nutella piadina after class today. That's a nutella sandwich.
Today I ate a nutella sandwich.

I'm just going to let that set in.

Matt: Do you bruise easily, or do you just have an aggressive lifestyle?
Erika: ... I think I just bruise easily?

Love always,
Clara

sorrento songs

I'm popping over to Sorrento for the weekend. Consider me on hiatus. In the meantime, listen to these songs.

Open Season - High highs
Sprawl II - Arcade Fire
Ours - Taylor Swift
Track 4 - Sigur Ros
Perth - Bon Iver
Who Says - Selena Gomez
Holocene - Bon Iver
Crave You (Adventure Club Remix) - Flight Facilities

Love always,
Clara

a golfer's opinion

Caroline: So, Erika, as a golfer, how do you feel about the Tiger Woods scandal?
Me: *giggling*
Caroline: Well, I've never gotten a golfer's opinion!

We're talking now about Michael Jackson.

Caroline: I'm curious about how his kids will turn out.
Erika: Yeah, doesn't he have a kid named blanket? Man, that kid needs a nickname. Like, Little B. Or, like, yo Safety B!

Last night I told Marco that I blog. He seemed curious about it. It's hard to explain a blog like this one in italian.

Erika: Therein lies the sass.
Me: Ah! That's amazing! That is a sentence that I have never ever heard before! It's so great! I'm going to blog that!

Love always,
Clara

sono stanca

Yesterday was incredibly busy, and had a lot to do with Taylor Swift.
Today, we went to the opera.

Last night we had a cooking lesson, after which we ate mountains of homemade tortelloni and tortellini (one is bigger than the other. We suspect that the line between a tortellono and a tortellino is relative). Anna Maria stayed over to help us out with the food. It was a charitable act of hers, really.

After dinner we decided to make some music videos to tswift songs. Around 12:30, homework had not been started.

So today, I was tired. We had class until two thirty, at which point Erika and Caroline and I decided to come home, take a fifteen minute power nap, and get work out of the way before the opera tonight. The fifteen minute power nap turned into a one-hour siesta. Any plans I may have had to do other things in that time had to be abandoned. So it goes.

The opera was some take on Cinderella. I'm not one hundred percent sure what exactly went on, but at the end of every act, the ensemble had at least begun to remove their clothing. I started thinking about a version of cinderella set in a modern day urban area, in which the evil stepfather (this version had a stepfather) is abusive and the prince is a senator's son. They would go to high school together and it would be a gritty teen film very unlike the Hilary Duff version.

These are the things that have been happening lately.

Love always,
Clara

cooking and penises and dead animals

Erika: I'm bringing out a symbolic egg. I have others. This is not a symbolic tomato. It's the only one I have.

I skyped with my parents earlier. We talked about my niece, who apparently is huge.

Mom: She's like you. You were always above the hundredth percentile!
Me: Mom, that's not how percentiles work.
Mom: You were an amazon baby!

They said that all of my blog posts are about food. That's basically true. We're making dinner now. By that I mean Erika is making dinner and I chopped up a tomato. Michelle grated some cheese. Caroline says she's hopeless in the kitchen, so she's telling jokes instead.

Today we spent many hours in the park and talked about various interesting things.

Erika: How much do you think a penis weighs. Like, if I looked exactly the same as I do and had the same proportions but had a penis, how much more would I weigh?

It's a question that I don't think I've ever sufficiently considered.

Caroline: Are we telling dead animal stories? Because I have the best one.

Now there's a quote without context.

Love always,
Clara

i have a bicycle!

At last!
She is green and her name is Stella because she is a star. She's also a vintage fixed-gear. Call me a hipster. Just try.

We have all grown weirdly attached to our bicycles.

Today we went to Ravenna (and rode our bicycles to the train station). I'm not sure anyone was feeling phenomenal, but we managed to stay composed (unlike the day we went to the medieval museum), walking around churches and looking at the mosaics. The mosaics were pretty cool, if I say so myself.

Then we went to the beach, where I promptly passed out in the sand. Best nap of my life. I probably spent an hour and a half with my face pressed into a rolled up pair of jeans. Whatever.
Tomorrow we might go to Florence.

Life is not so bad.

Love always,
Clara

iper-coop, et cetera

Yesterday was wild. Imagine you wake up feeling dehydrated (or is that just a euphemism?), meet your class in town and collectively shuffle through a medieval museum. You all take whatever opportunity given to sit on the floor. Then you grab a sandwich and brace your attention span for what is essentially a straight three hours of class.

What do you do? You take a 5-hour-energy shot that's been sitting in your purse since Spring Weekend.

That describes the first half of my day yesterday. Five-Hour-Energy is one of the best things in the world, I've decided, because it can make you feel alive again when you're in zombie-mode.

After class, a bunch of us decided that we would acquire bicycles if it was the last thing we did. We'd heard that there was a place to rent them near the train station, so we went on an expedition northward. When we got there, though, the man told us that it was eighteen euro per day to rent bicycles, and if we wanted them for any longer than a week it would be cheaper to just buy one. He called us a taxi to take us slightly out of town, to where he said there was a megastore that would sell us a nice one for cheap.

Megastore indeed. the iper-coop is a combination of everything good about America (i.e. Super Target) and everything good about Italy (massive wheels of parmesan). When we got there, we met an American security guard named Bob, who told us that the next day, the bicycles would be on sale, so we should come back tomorrow. We even picked out little baskets. Baskets were mandatory.
(We had this whole plan to go back this morning, but then we found out that you can buy a used bicycle in the city for half the price anyway. So that's what we're doing.)

Anyway, as long as we were in this glorious supermarket-on-steroids, we had to do some shopping, and then we just had to sit on a bench outside and eat Magnum bars and nutella and cheese on bread, waiting for a taxi to just arrive for us so that we wouldn't have to call one. No luck, but the cheese was awesome.

Then I came home, realized I'd just sat on the side of the road eating chocolate, and decided that I absolutely needed to go for a short run, so I did that, showered, did my homework, and we all went out to explore Bologna with some real italians.

Do you remember how terrible I felt when I woke up?
Me neither.

Love always,
Clara

when you're with us you don't have to be quiet

Erika: Can you get the colander off my head? There's a reason it's there. I needed somewhere to put it.

Questa notte, andiamo alla discoteca.
(Translation: Tonight, we are going to a disco)

My italian skills are becoming more and more sophisticated by the day. Today I made myself a caprese salad for dinner, and ate bread and honey for dessert, and felt simultaneously local-food-healthy and oil-plus-sugar-equals-heart-attack. It's been good.

Anyway, dancing is a workout, so that definitely counts.
Apologies for the fact that I've been notably absent. It's busy over here between class and homework and preparing food for myself and exploring the city.

AnnaMaria: Say sentences! More! I want to be bombed by sentences!

Class is intense. We've got three hours a day, and then essentially a chapter of homework every night. Our two instructors are the coolest, though.

AnnaMaria: Vorrei un chilo di banane. A lot. Like a monkey!

Love always,
Clara

strega nonna

Caroline is telling us about these books that apparently everyone read except Erika and I. They were about an Italian witch-grandmother.

Caroline: So the guy doesn't know how to stop the magic pasta pot from overflowing with pasta, and pasta just flows all over the town!

Today I made fried eggplant. When you cover vegetables in oil and bread and cheese and salt, you can pretend that they're healthy when they're actually delicioso.

Me: This needs something!
Erika: Try some spices. They're above the stove.
Me: Oh. Cool. You're more culinary than I. What do you recommend?
Erika: Try... oregano, and basil, and... thyme.
(later)
Michelle: Erika, you're so domestic. You should have a show.
Me: Yeah. Like, "How to do things"

I plan to learn how to do all kinds of things from Erika. She truly is fantastically domestic. I feel like I'm living with Martha Stewart (in the best way possible) and it's definitely rubbing off on me. I made curtains today.

Me: Ooh, what website is that?
Erika: Martha Stewart dot com. It's embarrassing.

Also notably delicioso is nutella, but we all knew that.

Caroline: Did you know that hazelnuts are plentiful in the northeastern region of Italy? ... there's a build-your-own-breakfast feature on the nutella website!

We are having a grand old time.

Love always,
Clara

biciclette

Our classroom is a half hour walk from our apartment. We need bicycles. Pronto.


Yesterday I provided food for myself which was tremendously exciting. I made myself an omelet with parmesan and tomatoes and prosciutto and all sorts of delicious things. Erica cooked up some zucchini with parmesan, which I stole a couple bites of, and that was also delicious.
I also snacked on Nutella for maybe four hours straight.

Life is not so bad.  

Love always,
Clara

appletizer

Erika: Is anyone hungry yet? I'm not really that hungry, but if there were food in front of me I would eat it and be a happy camper.
Me: I sort of am now. That apple made me realize, oh hey I have a stomach and there isn't that much food in it.
Erika: Well, appetizers are called that because they awaken the appetizer.
Me: Oh! Well then I've just had an apple appetizer. I feel appetized.
Caroline: An appletizer!

I really am hungry though.

Caroline: Cello is spelled the way it sounds... because it's Italian.
Erika: Thanks for that.

We're learning all kinds of new things.

Love always,
Clara

songs for drinking espresso in the summertime

I've downloaded a ton of new music and it is very pleasing.

New Morning - Alpha Rev
Bring On the Comets - VHS or BETA
A Year Without Rain - Selena Gomez & The Scene
Doubt - Wye Oak
Enzymes - Freelance Whales
Long Live - Taylor Swift
When I'm With You - Best Coast
Cuckoo - Lissie
Pumped Up Kicks - Foster The People
The Suburbs (Arcade Fire Cover) - Mr. Little Jeans

Love always,
Clara

new best friend

I have a new best friend. He is the old man who works in the cafe across the street from my apartment.
This morning it was raining, but I was wearing sunglasses, because that's generally what I do regardless of the weather. I came into the cafe to sit and drink espresso and work on my homework, and another italian guy said something to me.

Man: [incomprehensible italian]
Cafe man: [explaining that I'm american and have no idea what he said]
Me: Si.
Man: [pointing outside] [pointing at sunglasses] You are an optimist!
Me: Ah! Si!

I sat there for a while, and the cafe man actually helped me a bit with my homework (What is the plural of caffe? Caffe!). Later, the sun came out. As I was passing by on my way to meet the others at the fountain, I stuck my head into the cafe.

Me: Sono optimista!

He blew me a kiss. We're definitely best friends.

Love always,
Clara

bologna!

I'm here! I'm so excited!

(That is the sort of thing that might sound cliche on another blog, but anyone who knows me knows that I am just as likely to say it out loud, making it authentic.)

Bologna! Woohoo!

I got in yesterday around six and embarrassed myself thoroughly, several times. I even dragged my suitcase up two flights of stairs into the wrong apartment building. Turns out, the third floor of that building was a hospital, and the workers pinned me as another utterly hopeless American. (On second thought, I might have needed medical attention after all. That suitcase is heavy.)
At that point, my ego had been so destroyed that nothing stopped me from doing the following.

Me: (Knocks on random door)
Man: Si?
Me: Do you speak English?
Man: Yes.
Me: Can you tell me where I am?

That is the realest of real conversations.

I did eventually get here though, thank goodness. The bunch of us went out to dinner with our language-partners, where they taught us to order pasta. I've learned all I need to know.

Love always,
Clara

ready to roll

My train to Bologna (or, Zurich, then Milan, then Bologna) leaves in two hours. I'm awake. I want to go. Right now.

At the same time, I feel like there are a billion things I forgot. Like what? I don't know. That's the point. If I remembered them, of course, we wouldn't have this issue now would we?

I'm a bit nervous but don't tell anyone that.

Diving into the internet helps me none here. I will need to go out and be social and only feel slightly smug that I'm not jet lagged like everyone else.

Love always,
Clara

you're wearing that?

I've been messing around with clothing lately (which explains the state of my bedroom). My most recent addition is one of those headbands that you wear around the top of your head like a hippie. I got it at H&M and I'm quite fond of it.

Mom: Hey, do you want to have lunch with us?
Me: Oh, I'm having lunch with Kyle later.
Mom: With that... on your head?
Me: Yes, with this on my head.

Her face was priceless. Little does she know I'm actually super stylish right now. Also, little does she know, I'm adopted and I'm actually a princess with super powers. This is equally likely.

I look forward to going out in public though, and seeing all the Swiss folk think, "you're going out... with that... on your head?"

Love always,
Clara

last days in bern

I really ought to start packing for Bologna, but packing is intimidating, especially right now when my room is a mess. I don't even want to talk about the degree to which my clothes and such are strewn about. It looks like a tornado hit my closet.

Of course, the real explanation has more to do with my mother's birthday dinner, the Annabelle shoot, and never having any idea what to wear in the first place. Strangely enough, my room never got quite this messy at school. (I think the issue is that I have more space here. At school, it was never more than three steps in any direction to put something away. Here, sometimes I have to go all the way downstairs. It's a burden.)

Anyway, that's my life right now.

• I should pack for my glamorous Italian summer abroad, but packing is hard.
• My room is messy and I don't want to clean it.

This post would have been better suited for twitter, because I'm basically just going on about things that you don't care about. It's my bad-blogger guilt coming out and forcing me to write totally inane posts. I'm sorry.

Love always,
Clara

apologies

I haven't been blogging much because I haven't had a ton to say.
I went to Geneva with Kyle the other day. That was fun.

Me: We used to have a house on the eastern shore of Maryland.
Kyle: I have extensive knowledge of that... from reading about it... in a book.

We also went to France (standard, really). Did you know that in France, you can buy a bottle of champagne for one euro? I mean, it's probably really terrible champagne, but... still!

This was exciting for me.
The weekend has been interesting. Now it's mom's birthday, so the rest of the world will need to stop turning until June sixth. Sorry about that, world, but you know how it goes.

Love always,
Clara