Emotional Growth

Hey all,

Much happier than yesterday – last night on the way home from school I sat down on the gutter somewhere on the way home, stared moodily off into the distance and smoked a cigar – a veritable picture of despondency. I am aware that those of you reading this in the office in the middle of winter may lack the appropriate degree of sympathy, might even think something along the lines of: “A picture of despondency... on holiday, in Florence, in summer, smoking a Cuban cigar. For the love of God.” I will simply note that it is possible to feel sorry for yourself anywhere if I you try hard enough... Anyway, the new class is much better: no more despondency – I still can't find words when trying to talk but at least I could more or less follow what was going on and do the exercises without copying them off the person sitting next to me. Fey Texan dress designer looked at me at one point and said “I am so glad you spoke up,” and when I replied “should have done it on Monday,” he said “we should have done it two weeks ago, got our money's worth.” There is only one Spaniard in the class, the rest are German, Greek, Austrian, so I can keep up a bit here (the old teacher offered repeatedly to go slower – but she couldn't really, without wasting the time of the other ten people in that class – not her fault we were put together). The English medical investigator and another girl from the old class, a Mexican American (who has Spanish already) claim to miss us both terribly and want us to come back, but I think that is just because they are now the dunces since I and the designer have left. In hindsight I guess it is not a bad thing to feel that stupid from time to time. But then I am really not that interested in growing emotionally – it is never any fun to do so.

I even did some homework for this class, with success – I tried some for the other class on the weekend and it took me two hours to get through a paragraph, and that was with my dictionary, three notebooks, the entire internet, and eventually (in desperation) one German opera singer (who in comparison to me is some kind of linguistic genius). At one point today we had to listen to a story about “Robert e Monica”, then remember what happened to them and rephrase it – I was so busy trying to figure out what happened that I couldn't remember any of it, but when it was my turn I could at least say, “I remember Robert and Monica. Full stop,” in Italian, so while I couldn't do the exercise I could at least be a smart ass about it in the right language, which made me very happy and the teacher very proud.

Speaking of the Texan designer – he told an interesting story in between class today – someone kept hassling him in a club last night, and wouldn't stop no matter how many times he said “Mi dispiace” (I'm sorry) and tried to back off. “Just looking for a fight,” I said, and he replied “Oh yeah and I was like 'Me? You throw down with me? You picked the wrooong sissy, boy. I dust yo ass!'” Now Texan designer, in addition to being wonderfully camp, is also a very big and imposing lad, of African decent – tells stories of how the family back home ducks under the table as a matter of course whenever a drive-by occurs in the near vicinity so they don't catch any stray bullets – a routine enough pause in conversation – and about how his cousins (female (!)) walk around with razor blades in their hair (!!) so that when (note: “when” (!!!)) they are attacked on the street the attackers cut their hands – in short, I would be reluctant to mess with him myself, despite his floating wrists, his mincing gait – bear in mind that total strangers try to buy drugs off me on the street just because I apparently look like I should be selling them. Anywho – I am not entirely sure what “dust yo ass” means, exactly, but the way in which the sing-song lilt disappeared from his voice when he said it was both funny and a little bit chilling – I was left with no doubt that he could indeed have dusted some ass.

On the way home tonight I went to some school organised tour group thing – the first one I have been to since I get annoyed walking around in a big group – it was to some house that Michelangelo had lived in for a time (as far as I could tell) and where he had left quite a bit of art in gratitude. I know some artists. “Gratitude” here probably means he was sick of it and couldn't be bothered going to the trouble of moving it. Nevertheless, it was very interesting, despite the guide, a loud and leathery bottle blonde who spoke exclusively in Italian and who didn't seem to mind that no one really understood her and consequently couldn't interrupt and stop her talking. It was fascinating – even his unfinished experiments grab you – also, there was no one there but the group from the school, so I got to do some tourist stuff without other tourists. And, generally speaking, touristy stuff is touristy for good reasons.

Pictures – a view from the new class window. Not quite as spectacular as the old one, but then up until a year ago you actually had to wear a dunce cap to get into this particular room. They have since given up on that. Another angle from the same window when I am not going out of my way to make it look terrible. Then, up from the inside of the courtyard in the aforementioned house. Finally a picture I took of one of the half-done sculptures that was there before I was told not to take photos (or at least rapidly approached by some angry looking official waving his arms and shouting at me about something - "me no understandy signo mate" got me out of that one). What is it? An orgy? A fight? Or merely boisterous Mediterraneans having a vigorous conversation while naked? The guide talked about it for ages, so I guess it must be important, but basically I don't know. I asked around later – it turns out that even the experts are not entirely sure what it is supposed to depict – but it did have real power.

Cheers, B.

PS – found out today that I have at least one reader that I do not personally know and did not personally tell about the blog! Joy – this pretty much made my day – welcome.

PPS – also found out that K thanked me for my support *in the program for the play* which I thought was lovely of her. Also very generous, given that my “support,” as far as I can see, involves her consoling me on Skype in the one hour a day she gets free while I whinge about, you know, being on holiday, smoking Cuban cigars, eating ice-cream, having absolutely no responsibilities at all etc. etc. etc.

Again, Cheers.