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

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

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

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

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

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

nocturnal

The sky was light and the birds were singing before I got to sleep last night.
Too much to think about, too much to do on the internet.

The internet is huge, you guys.

Anyway, I'm getting used to this nocturnal lifestyle. I tend to go for a snack around two or three in the morning, but I sleep through breakfast so they cancel each other out I think. I woke up at two today, took myself out on the town, and got a falafel.
Then I came home and Mom and I watched the Justin Bieber movie. That boy is dreamy.

I'm going over to Oren's in a little bit. Wish me luck on all of my endeavors. There will be many.

Love always,
Clara

i'm back safely

Also I'm nocturnal.
I'm going to have to fix that one of these days.

I'm about to put that video I've been working on up, but I wanted to just check in before that. So hello.

Love always,
Clara

boxes

Eleven boxes later, I'm packed.

Me: Mom, I packed everything. I even packed my lamp. I covered it in bubble wrap and everything.
Mom: Wow.
Me: I know. You would not believe all of the things I did.
Mom: You mean you didn't just sit there popping all the bubbles like you used to?
Me: Well only for a little while.

Packing is the worst. My room is so depressing now and I'm getting nostalgic for everything. College is the best, and I'm going to miss it terribly.

By the way, if I've creepily filmed your face at any point in the last six months, expect to see the product of this sort of thing very soon.

Love always,
Clara

recruiting

Last night I spent a solid fifteen minutes telling Kelvin that he should join the foreign service. You can thank me later, State Department.
He really would be great for the job. He's a beast at learning languages, and has a desire to become "culturally fluent" in the places that he goes. I honestly think he's cut out for it.

Valerie and David tried to have a date last night but I crashed it. They say it wasn't a date and that both of them are actually happily in relationships with other people, and he was just buying her dinner because she had done him a bunch of favors, but I'm planning on using this as a way to become best friends with Megan. Who wouldn't want to be best friends with someone who singlehandedly prevented their boyfriend from cheating?

Also, I discovered that I'm really not that good at Beirut at all.

Last night was really fun.

Love always,
Clara

nom nom nom

Audrey: Nom nom nom nom nom!
Me: What?
Audrey: I saw a dog! I love dogs!
Me: Me too! Why would you nom on a dog?
Scott: She's from China.
Audrey: You're Indian!

The reason that is funny is that Scott is not in fact Indian. Scott is black and white and not Indian at all. Although he does have some native american heritage.

We all discussed our ethnicities today, sitting on the green in the all-too-familiar humidity.

Love always,
Clara

sleep is something i should get some of

Some people can function just fine on five hours of sleep. I am not one of those people.
However, when Post- goes on until three thirty because we have to beg Lucas to draw a last-minute cover since our original illustrator disappointed, and then I call Daphna, because I told her I would and it appears that her life is completely insane right now, and I have scheduled a meeting for 10 am Thursday morning, I have to try.

It's not going well. I've already forgotten what building I was in and pretended to celebrate Easter. It's a day to believe things that are not true.

I think I will take a nap.

Love always,
Clara

nineteen

Today was awesome.
This whole weekend, actually, has been awesome.
Totally awesome.

I met my niece today. I held her and everything. She was sleeping. She is awesome.

I went shopping with Grace and a friend of hers. She was largely disagreeable, but by the end of the day I'd convinced her to try a little mascara once in a while. Success is awesome.

Then I taught Merritt and Wyatt and my dad how to play Bananagrams. Bananagrams is really awesome.

That's basically it for today. Awesome.

Love always,
Clara

monumental

On my last day as an eighteen year old, I am going to produce an entirely mundane post about the music I like.








(I never thought I would like dubstep, and then suddenly I did.)



Also, I played catch outside for about an hour today. Andrew picked up a softball glove for me at WalMart. File this under: unlikely but enjoyable college activities.

Love always,
Clara

it's too early in the morning and i shouldn't be allowed to blog

This may be rambly. To think that at one time I was actually sitting in Latin class at this hour of the morning. It's completely preposterous.

Stephanie had her baby yesterday! I'm an aunt! You can read about it in Politico if you want to.

That was the event of greatest consequence yesterday. Other than that not much happened. I have this healthcare essay that I keep asking to finish itself, and it keeps on refusing.
Today I'll go to Starbucks though and show it who's boss.

I'm up this early, by the way, because Spring Weekend tickets went on sale at eight this morning, so I've been trying to get the internet to work to my liking for the past twenty minutes. I'm beginning to suspect that no tickets were actually available until 8:15, but I managed to get some, so I'm happy as a clam.

Spring Weekend is next weekend, and it is said to be an epic event. We shall see.

Love always,
Clara

absolutely not, you fool!

I'm in Philadelphia, absolutely loving it. I've missed Catherine so much.
Rather, I've missed hanging out with a friend who has known me longer than six months. I love all of my new college friends dearly (as I have told you all at length), but old friends are so nice.

Last night we had some delicious thai food downtown, and we sat at the restaurant for three hours or something, wreaking havoc and texting a boy named Rudy, quoting Arrested Development and pretending that we were tripping acid, just to mess with him.
That's always fun.

We came back after the evening and watched an episode of Skins.
Spring break is my favorite.

Love always,
Clara

lazer tag

That's what I'm doing tonight.

After that, I will wake up tomorrow morning and get on a train to Philadelphia. Spring break has broken, although it's still 41 degrees up here in sunny Providence.

I'm going to miss everyone over break. I keep having these terrible little moments of clarity when I realize, Freshman year is about 3/4 over, and college is finite.
I've always had issues with change.

Anyway, I've been putting it out of my head. Bring on the break!

Love always,
Clara