Warning: This content is not suitable for parental observation. Abort now.
So last we left off I was looking down the barrel of the finals gun. Little did I know what a shitfest December would be. I ended up being hospitalized, that was fun (that was sarcasm but actually it was kind of fun as soon as I got an IV drip and Caroline was there cracking me up. I warned you, mom.) December was not good at first. The dreadful events fell in crescendo. The week leading up to my hospitalization, the following happened:
1) After figuring out how our French oven works (and in my own defense, it’s a complicated bastard) I decided to give it a spin and see if French ovens get as hot as American ovens. Thanksgiving was in 3 days and I had big turkey plans. So then I thought it would be a good idea to put my socks in the oven for an out-of the-dryer effect. It was not. The phone rang. I ran a bath. Then I remembered and I have never seen so much smoke. I was scared. I think I actually said, “Help me!” and threw open the oven and tried to put the flaming socks out but there was so much smoke I couldn’t really breathe so I don’t really know what I said. Somehow I opened the windows and let the apt air out. People from the adjacent buildings were opening their windows and looking outside because it looked like I had a fire.
2) Later and probably suffering from smoke inhalation, I decided it would be a good idea to windex my keypad because it looked dirty. It was not. First s and t and l and n and all the really good letters stopped working then spacebar and delete went. I had papers due and I almost destroyed my laptop. The Apple store in the Louvre is the best place on the planet. There seemed to be sunshine and children’s laughter and soft streams and everyone spoke English. They saved me and had me good in 2 days.
3) By this time bubbles had formed on my eyeballs, yes I said BUBBLES HAD FORMED ON MY EYEBALLS, little clear bubbles that I could feel when I blinked and bloodshot red eyes that made me look way too high. FML.
4) While I was waiting those 2 days for Apple (Peace Be Upon Them) to return my joint I went to the AUP computer lab to finish up my 20 page paper to feed to the hungry Egyptian. I spent 5 straight hours (getting hot flashes thinking about this now) polishing and citing and footnoting and Power Pointing and making funny and this bastard didn’t save!!!! I had the tech team on this toute to the suite but nothing! They were like yeah, let us show you how to save and I was like NO, PLEASE DON’T BOTHER SHOWING ME HOW TO SAVE, MR. SINGH, THE FIRST FUCKING THING I LEARNED IN THE 1ST FUCKING GRADE WAS HOW TO SAVE A GODDAMED PAPER but still somehow gone. Lost. Nothing. Tumbleweeds. Tears. Desolation. Mourning. I spent another 5 hours on another polish a few days later and got it done (the Egyptian gave me an A) but I will never forget.
5) Oh, you thought I was done? Oh no, no honey. So after mourning the loss of my paper and being reminded of my move to toast my socks 43x a minute because one must blink and feel the blisters on eyeballs, a friend in town called and I decided to catch up with her to try and forget my week. I called a cab and it pulled up with 21 Euro on the meter and I didn’t make him wait so this was unjustified. That’s about what I would have spent on a round trip. After a brief conversation I got out. So did the cab driver- an angry Arab madman chased me down and grabbed my arm and started trying to toss me around! Then he spat at me (missed)! I know a couple of the valets who work at the hotel right across from my apt and ran to them and they handled the guy and called the police. I just collapsed on the ground and cried.
Anyway, the American Hospital was great, I saw one other patient in the entire hospital the whole time, there was bamboo and the food wasn’t bad and I had a staff of 5. The French healthcare system really is all they say it is and more I think because they have things in the Pharmacies we don’t have in the US, things you don’t need a prescription for, like uber remedies that knock me out and kick a cold’s ass by morning.
I was at a pharmacie filling a prescription near my school and I couldn’t help but notice an enormous planet I mean redheaded American woman struggling with French and it seemed like she was asking for directions. I know the neighborhood pretty well, I thought, and my French is good enough to say go straight or take the second left or what have you and strangers have always helped me, so I butted in.
“What are you looking for?” I asked.
“Are you talking to me?” the woman replied, and not in a DeNiro Taxi Driver way, she just wasn’t sure if I was talking to her.
“Yes.”
“Me, well, I’m looking for morphine!”
She really said that. I thought we were talking directions. From now on I vow to shut my mouth.
If you’re not depressed and still here, things got better. Finals was a really big bastard but I studied a lot and Tommy provided his comic relief which was great because I think at one point after an all day library bender I took some snow off of a car and starting eating it.
Tommy keeps asking me what I’m going to be writing about for my Master’s research paper, and I have a few ideas. One idea emerged with the realization this semester that history and politics is usually about one group of men telling another group of men to bend over and grab ankles with the might of their military behind them. Another realization: I think men from miserable climates and men with small penises experience a bloodlust and thirst for war and slavery more than others. I’m thinking Napoleon wasn’t hung. I’m thinking this made him build and conquer and erect phallic monuments sans arrêt. I’m just sayin. Which African conquerors can you point to? Ok General Tariq of Moorish Spain but I don’t think African men feel the same need to conquer that some do because they conquer every night and feel sufficiently victorious. Could this be why they don’t encroach upon other people’s territories and resources the way our beloved Britain has? I want to steer away from generalizations but why exactly was Ivan so Terrible? Is there a correlation between penis size and the centers of world power? Did Muhammad have a small one? Still figuring out how I would research this (and would I use flow charts?) and if the director of my program would kick me out of school for proposing such a thing, especially since I ended my paper for his class by calling Islam a bunch of misogynist hubris. Probably the wrong audience.
Met a sweet guy. Not saying any names but he’s Italian. He makes good pasta.
Italy was wonderful if you can get around the aggressive Italian men, feeling completely inept as far as the language goes like I do, having a stone penis in your face every 5 feet and little infant Jesus everywhere. He’s a big deal there. Note to the Italians: Jesus wasn’t Italian and probably didn’t look like you. I’m just sayin.
We arrived on a bus from the airport and a car was blocking the bus. I loved listening to the agitated men talketh shit in Italian. It sounds wonderful, almost like music. A crowd formed around the offending car, people who probably didn’t have anything to do with the problem threw up their hands in disgust and seemed to stop their day to do this as the men out did each other talking shit. People laughed and I wish I could have understood what they said. I wouldn’t want to be the poor guy who parked this car. In LA, a tow truck would have swooped in out of nowhere in .5 and got rid of the problem like the vultures they are, but not in Rome. Four nice and hefty ones picked up the car and moved it to the side and out of the way. The bus went about its business and that was that.
I love the old world. I love reading about it, visiting it, listening to tour guides about it, I love everything about it and this is why I loved Italy and visiting Rome and Florence. The Sheraton Firenze I do not recommend. The Sheraton should be ashamed to have its name on that place. I’ll spare you the details but I now refer to it as the 7th den of Satan’s anus.
Cairo’s my little buddy and keeping me warm since I returned and since my guests have left. I’m trying to enjoy the break from school but it’s so cold and snowing and I would like to go running at the lake with Cairo and walk around and see the city but I hesitate. BRRRRRRRRR.
