The people all call her Alaska

Tonight I helped a severely old man, permanently bent forward at a 90-degree angle, bring groceries into his apartment. He lives three floors down from me and asked me if I liked my windows.

I only have about 3 minutes left at an internet cafe, so I´ll make this snappy. For those of you who don´t know, I am currently residing in Madrid for a month or so, and will possibly move on to France, Germany and Italy (if money and sanity allows.) My enjoyment here has been a roller coaster ride- some absolutely fantastic nights that could only happen in Madrid, and some annoying/homesick moments that made me feel like drinking yet another caña (beer) at the local bar. I´ll just say that going out at night is the norm here and I´ve become somewhat of a night owl, witnessing all important events and making most friends after 1 a.m... A taxi driver recently gave me a flower and refused to take any money from me, I´ve been watching a lot of Euro-cup soccer games, and drinking about 4 espressos a day. 1 minute...I miss everyone. The family I´m living with is somewhat nice and super rich..I really like their house-keeper. I hope everyone is well, I will see you all soon.

I put on high-SPF sunblock for many reasons. The main one being that I can separate myself a little more from John McCain by not getting melanoma.

Is there anyone planning to go to Europe this Summer and wants to meet up with me mid-July? I will be in Spain from June6th until then, and afterwards I would like to stay in Europe with whomever, in whichever country.

Let me know!

I want to write a book about the lives of illegal immigrants.

I can't study without having an existential crisis. Why am I studying this? What is the point? Why should I even be in college? Why am I not exploring the world???¿ etc., etc....and the funny thing is that I'm studying for Buddhism. I guess I should just meditate or some shit like that.

I think the man next to me is married. He has a golden ring on his "ring-finger", but honestly, he looks about twelve. He is vehemently searching through THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ANCIENT GREECE, and that's really immature. And he's listening to his iPod. I can only imagine what is playing- Daft Punk? That's definitely a wedding ring. Maybe he's listening to their "song", the song that played at their wedding, that they danced to. He's really wearing no other jewelry. And he doesn't look like any part of a religious orthodoxy, or Amish or anything of that nature. Maybe I should stop staring at every person who sits down near me at the library. Sometimes you can never escape procrastination.

I wanted to take a nothing class- one that had nothing to do with a major, nothing to do with a requirement, nothing to do with future careers or expectations- something I would actually enjoy. Creative writing filled up (which is truly a shame because I feel like all I write are essays proving points I really don't believe in/care about! And I've lost all guilt about it!)as did some other art classes, so I enrolled in Women and Film, a film class based on feminist theory taught by an adjunct MALE professor from Pratt. I had bad feelings about it from the beginning, but watching films about women can only be harmless...right?

Wrong. So wrong. Did you know that a key is phallic? Yes, a key is phallic because you need it to open doors. You cannot enter any locked space without using a key, a phallus. Yes, a key is long, thin, usually with a bulbous end. Yes, it is reflective, and a woman could potentially see herself reflected in a key (as could a man) and therefore see herself reflected in a phallic image, in a man's image...

Oh...and did you know about Spermatology? There was this theory (in the 60's I believe) that sperm had beneficial effects for women. So much so that it was prescribed. Yes- prescribed. By a MALE, obviously. Ingesting it was the best way to get your daily dose. And we should all read 100 pages about it.

And then there was last night. Last night the teacher, a MALE, stated to the class that saying 'ow' after a rock hits your head is a product of society. That we are taught to say 'ow'. And I raised my hand, full of a sudden determination to make my absolute disagreement heard, and claimed that saying something after a rock hits your head is a reflex, not something that is taught to you. And then some girl with the whitest face and the blackest hair I have ever seen on one body raised her hand and proclaimed that someone could say 'ooh' instead. And that 'ooh' could be out of pleasure. And the MALE teacher agreed whole-heartedly, that saying 'ooh' and 'ow' are so incredibly different that we should argue about it all class. And this wasn't the point, and really, who the hell gets pleasure from rocks hitting their head? He started talking about reality, in these lofty, theoretical terms that mean absolutely nothing to a majority of the population of the world who hasn't had the time and money to spend leisurely on grad-school philosophy, a.k.a. mental masturbation. And, now fired up, I raised my hand and stated that he is talking about reality that is socially accepted by everyone, but that everyone has their own, untainted perception, you know, that which you see when your synapses connect. And he disagreed.

"Nora, what you are saying is that there is no historicity to perception," (I wasn't really saying that) "do you really believe that? Because I would say that most of the people in this room, and most of the people I hang out with, would disagree with you."

Well, who the f* do you hang out with anyway, you who are a middle-aged male teaching a feminist film class at an all-female school. A bunch of impotent males? Take off your outrageously large dark-rimmed glasses, shave off your graying beard, please. Jesus.

"Born on June 21, 1953, Ms. Bhutto, the first child in her family, reveled in telling friends that she was her father's favorite. One of her most cherished anecdotes about her childhood involved her father's encouraging her to set aside traditional Muslim views of a woman's role and to have ambitions beyond the home, a message she said he conveyed with stories about Joan of Arc and Queen Elizabeth I."
-NY Times

When will pubic hair come back in style?

How can we possibly go on living without being completely paranoid, without questioning whether every person we meet has some ulterior motive, or might 'snap' and really have that gun in their pocket? I don't want to isolate myself, I don't want to give in to the fear that we are fed by Fox news, but how can I trust people when one man alone can kill 33 others without any prior warning? "Navigare necesse est"- it is imperative to keep sailing. I can bury myself in studies, in work, in relationships and block out what it means to have 160 people die (I'm afraid I can hardly even realize that number)in a series of car bombs. The birds are chirping outside; it's Spring, right? But if I fill my world with birdsong I won't really be living on this planet, because right now a seldom few can join me in hearing this, can even reap any joy from hearing it; at least no one living in Iraq or Blacksburg, VA, that is. So maybe I really am isolated without even trying.

I have to actually do the work to relax now-a-days, but when I do, it's rewarding. Like last night, the bottle of wine and the close friends- I honestly felt weightless for the first time in a while. I woke up this morning to an empty house, and opened all the windows. It wasn't enough light- I got my bike out of the garage and rode and rode, helmetless, soaked up the Vitamin D, until I literally couldn't ride anymore. The bike path ended, made a loop under train-tracks somewhere- nearby a young black man was washing his bright yellow sports car to Eminem's "Put yourself in the MUSIC, the MOMENT..." I stopped and straddled my bike, my crotch as sore as ever from an ill-fitting seat. I wiped the tears that had leaked from my eyes while I had been riding against the wind, and then as if out of nowhere- I started actually crying, sobbing really- I couldn't wipe the tears away fast enough- they were dripping under my chin, from the tip of my nose. I put up the kickstand and laid on the pavement, staring up at the perfect blue-sky until it subsided.

Where's the fast-forward button?

A black woman stopped me with her crystal blue eyes as I was walking down 145th street. I had my headphones on, she started speaking to me, gesticulating desperately, and I pulled off my headphones to hear what she had to say. She was pregnant (she said clutching her stomach), poor, freezing needed to get back to Yonkers where she lives but lacked the Metro North fair of 4.50...something about her sister...

I remembered the bills I had gotten from waitressing the other night. I knew there was a 5 in my wallet. So I took it out, I gave it to her and she looked at me in awe. I don't even remember if she thanked me, I just remember her kind of stumbling backwards away from me, her stomach visibly flat.

Trippy, frightening, insane...but somehow I can't say I've never felt exactly like this before...I call it the worst hook-up ever.
(EXPLICIT...look around...any parents? teachers? sibings? No? Okay, go ahead, watch it.)

you schmuck.

I'm currently saving up money to travel this Summer- preferably somewhere outside of the US. Originally I was going to go to Chile, as a certain boy's family lives there, but I'm kind of realizing that it's just not going to happen.

So- where the hell should I go this Summer that's not too expensive, and who wants to come with me?

I’ve never heard a more incredible sound in my life than the trap-door unhinging and Saddam falling, only to be caught a moment later. How is it that I, a 17 year-old girl living on the East coast of the United States, was able to watch Saddam Hussein be hung over and over and over…on every news channel, and every radio program? So hasty. They didn’t even let him get through a second chanting of prayer. That sound will never leave my mind, or the image of that sound. Because it’s not like I’ve never been witness to gross or unbelievable things before- road kill, embalmed bodies, rotting fruit, lumbar laminectomies- but this truly felt artificial, like a joke. And every time I reminded myself that it was real I felt very, very alone.


Auld Lang Syne. To a New Year, although December 31st is kind of an awful day.

Still in shock.

Barnard: Accepted.

If Mr. Pavlu and Mr. Kramer were combined into one man and then their neurological structure was somehow altered to make them mentally unstable (although some would say that Mr. Kramer already is), the result would be the man now sitting across from me.

Oh, and by the way,