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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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