camino de santiago

i spent two weeks at the beginning of september walking 300km across northwestern spain. i was tracing the steps of ancient pilgrims before me, who for centuries have been wearing the path toward santiago de compostela and the remains of saint jacob. this is one of christianity's three great pilgrimages, the other two being jerusalem and rome. but the camino de santiago is currently the most popular, with over 100,000 pilgrims each year.

a pilgrimage is a spiritual journey, and the night before i started walking a nun at the pilgrim's benediction service told us that pilgrims are searchers. "what are you looking for?" she asked, and her question stayed with me during the long walk ahead, always playing in the back of my mind, like a song i couldn't stop singing. initially, i was searching for peace and quiet after a busy summer, for a chance to be alone and disconnect. but the pilgrimage is more than the trail itself, it is a way to bring questions like this into focus, so that you can bring them home afterwards. and questions like this do not always require an answer. indeed, what am i searching for?

the camino taught me how to suffer, and although the physical pain -- for me, it was localized in my feet -- was often overwhelming, it is already dissolving from my mind and will not be what i remember about the camino. the physical beauty of the trail was specatcular: the cold mornings watching the sun lift out of the fog, the dank wet cowpaths in galicia, the stone villages full of toothless farmers, the blooming wildflowers, the steep mountain passes, the cobblestone streets. as well, the beauty of my fellow pilgrims was incredible and humbling: there is an instant camraderie bordering on love that develops between people who are experiencing something like this side by side. i have never been so well cared for by strangers.

so now i am a pilgrim returned home, changed in ways that i am still appreciating. my feet are still recovering, but my spirit is ready to keep searching.

brain crash

a long time ago when i lived in san francisco a colleague told me his personal theory that our devices -- computers, cell phones, pdas, etc. -- have become offloaded parts of our brains. certain functions previously accomplished by the brain such as remembering phone numbers, organizing schedules, keeping track of birthdays were now being done by the parts of our brain that consisted of zeroes and ones.

therefore, he posited, when one of these devices crashes we feel as if a part of our brain has malfunctioned. it is more than a mere inconvenience, worse than our car breaking down or our refrigerator dying. it is as if a part of ourselves has crashed as well.

it is in this state of crash -- partial crash, really -- that i have been existing in the last few weeks. my two and a half year old laptop has suffered a mysterious affliction, one that has had me up nights, waiting by the hospital bed, saying encouraging words, trying to nurse it back to life with the help of experts. this effort has been compounded in the difficultly that i am operating on limited brain power. i have crashed as well. you may have noticed: i am less informed on news and celebrity gossip. blogging has been nonexistent. emailing is sporadic. my sunny disposition has also been affected.

currently we -- my computer and i -- are back up and running on a provisional level, but things are still touch and go. in lieu of flowers, please send your good thoughts and any brand new laptops you happen to have lying around.

things i've been reading

i leave new york today at 4pm on a flight to dc. this trip has been amazing, so chock full of memorable events, friends old and new, and stories that i have been too busy living life to blog about it. this hectic pace landed me sick on my ass for a day this week, but now i'm up and at it again, off to the next phase of this rapidly dwindling summer.

i want to thank all my friends in new york for a most incredible month. i feel so lucky and blessed by the spirit and generosity of my new york family. special love to michael, emily and timmy who have made this one of the best months of my life.

before i head off, here are some things i've been reading of late, enjoy.

• astaire vs. grant: who is the style king?
• are you sick of the election yet? with all the debates and snippiness, here are 20 things you won't here the candidates talking about.
• a theme for the summer could be: infrastructure failure. between the steam tunnel, the bridge in minn, the subway shutdown, a 4-story building collapse in east harlem, i'm beginning to get scared, fear tactics notwithstanding

ok there's more but i have to finish up some work, and work socializing, before i'm audi!

bullet

• no reservations: worst movie title since maid in manhattan

more soon, i promise

jacki's viewless reviews - music and lyrics

this is a new feature on my blog, where i'll review a movie based purely on the title, the poster and my bitter soul. i promise never to see these movies or read anything about them, so you'll have to let me know how far off i am from the truth.

music and lyrics (2007)
(note: this movie just came out in spain)

he is a has-been songwriter who has penned hits for several manufactured pop groups - think spice girls. he was renowned for his radio-friendly hits, his forays into drugs and alcohol and his scandalous affairs with salacious members of said pop groups. this has led to demise, and liberal usage of the term "washed-up."

she is a classically-trained pianist who is gifted but not quite good enough for juilliard. she has always shunned pop music as culturally devoid nonsense, but now she needs money/is learning to push her limits/wants to make a name for herself/wants to get back at the ex-boyfriend who left her for the lead cellist of the boston symphony orchestra.

there is some kind of contest, some kind of reality show where one song will win and the songwriters will win lots of money and eternal fame and the chance to avenge all their past mistakes. somehow, despite their differences, through the encouragement of their adorably wacky best friends, these two team up and give it a shot.

hilarity ensues. and musical montages. slowly they grow on each other, learn from each other. romance blossoms. then disappointment - he appears on page six stumbling out of a strip club with the girlband vixen. but the contest is tomorrow! a midnight expression of love, possibly in central park. he begs for forgiveness. she relents.

somehow the lessons they have learned are perfectly expressed in their winning song, which they sing onstage together in front of screaming fans - this song bridges the pop-classical gap, appeals to all the fans they had and lost, and finds new ones. true love.
THE END

top five cartoon crushes

animation has provided us with countless lady hotties, but cute cartoon guys are harder to come by. maybe because this is classically a domain of prepubescent boys and older male nerds. however, i've had my share of cartoon crushes, and here are the best of them:

5. silver surfer - ok this one is going to seem trendy because of the movie, but some of you may remember that i had a silver surfer action figure way back in college. his appeal is unquestionable: he's basically a big silver hunk of man on a surfboard, a perfect combination of intensity and laid-back surfer chic. kind of like owen wilson. i mean, this guy will save your life, then take you for a fish taco on the boardwalk.


4. james barris - confession: i have an enormous crush on robert downey jr. so when he showed up in a scanner darkly my crush naturally transferred to his animated version. this is classic rdj: although he is a brilliant actor he never seems so comfortable in a role than when he is playing a druggie. his magic - and i think this also holds true in real life - is that he can make even the biggest fuck-up irresistibly charming. although, as you probably know, i'm a longtime member of the keanu fan club, rdj stole the scene here, as he always does.

3. aladdin - all you have to do is scroll down this list of disney princes, and see that the role of mr. charming was historically lacking in hotness. here we see a bunch of middle-aged looking wasps who usually arrive in the last few minutes of the film to sing a song and sweep the damsel away on a horse. well that all changed with aladdin. he's basically a homeless guy with a bangin' bod, a great personality, a hilarious buddy and a cool pet. i love how his scrappy bravura cracks to show a vulnerable side once he assumes his alter-ego of prince ali. let me tell you, chicks dig this type of thing. we were all there swooning with those ladies as he paraded through town on an elephant, knowing that his confidence was concealing a secret shyness.

2. rio pacheco - rio is one of those guys you like even though you know that he's kind of an asshole. he started out as basically a good guy, a volunteer at the foster home and jerrica's boyfriend. however he eventually developed a crush on jem and the show ended on a cliffhanger with rio double-timing two girls who are the same person. this is undoubtedly one of the great unsolved endings in television - this whole sopranos thing pales in comparison! the truth is, rio's bad side is what makes him sexy: the lying, the deceit, the secrecy, and yet he can be a real sweetie when he wants to. i mean, if jerrica really trusted him then wouldn't she tell him her identity? perhaps with a guy like this you need to have your own secrets.

1. trent lane - absolutely the most crushable cartoon fella out there;
even the ever-cynical daria couldn't help but blush a little when trent was around. trent's rockstar slacker attitude was peppered by a hint of zen calmness, his soft raspy voice delivered the type of inane truisms that only truly attractive people can get away with, and his slight slouch suggested a world weariness - a wiseness, dare i say? - that perfectly defines a classic childhood crush: your friend's older brother.


any to add to the list?

storytime: cambodia, part 1

lately i have been lazy, or uninspired, when it comes to writing in my blog. it doesn't mean that i haven't been thinking of things to say, i just never get around to saying them.

i have alot of things i want to post about. for example: the sopranos season finale. my weekend. thoughts on things i've seen or read. see, even coming up with examples seems tiring.

so, inspired by my friend mark's new blog, i'm going to do some storytelling around here. i told that hitchhiking story a week ago, and it was fun. so today begins another travel story: my trip to cambodia. this one comes from the same 2000-2001 trip i took with ange, about 3 months after the hitchhiking adventures in australia.

we left bangkok at 5am. retrospectively, our six-month trip broke into three parts: the first was just the two of us, a few months on the road together. then the second part: visitors. boyfriends and friends and other travelers. the third part began that morning that we left bangkok. seth left the same morning to begin his trip back to the us and we got on a mini-bus headed for siem reap, the city where angkor wat is located. the rest of our trip would be shaped by our experiences that day.

like all buses in southeast asia, this one fell short of expectations. it was small, stuffy, rattly and crowded with other backpackers. the air conditioning was non-existent. it was late september - rainy season - which meant humidity. by this point in our journey we had befriended valium as an invaluable traveling partner, so we spent the morning sleeping as we headed toward the border. the trip to siem reap was advertised as nine hours, we expected to be there by early afternoon.

we pulled into the border town a few hours later. as border towns go, this one was particularly decrepit. the poverty was such that there were naked 3-year olds carrying 1-year olds. everyone was selling, or looking for something to sell, or just begging. everything was hanging on the edge of ruin.

so the border officials decided to hold us there for what ended up being four hours without explanation. our thai bus drivers just shrugged their shoulders as the time ticked slowly past. it was interminable, we were in the hot sun, surrounded by chaos, faintly worried that we might have to spend the night, or the year. looking back, it was part of an elaborate manipulation to get us to spend money but at the time it felt like a desperate situation, made worse by the desperation in the eyes of everybody we saw in that town.

i'll never forget this vehicle we saw trying to lumber down the street. at the bottom was a small wooden wagon on wooden wheels, something from the previous century. on this precarious base rested a pile of something two stories high, hanging over the edge in every direction and swaying. this beast was rolling unsteadily down the uneven dirt street pulled with ropes by a few small guys, trying to fit under a concrete arch that marked the border. it had about an inch of clearance. it was almost impossible that this thing would make it anywhere, disaster was imminent any way you looked at it. yet they slowly tugged this thing along, all of us standing there watching, grimacing, waiting for the inevitable crash that never happened. this vehicle seemed like an allegory for the entire situation.

eventually they stamped our passports and we got back on the bus as evening was falling. we were happy to be on our way, until the next stop, a mere hour later.

to be continued...

in other news:

• seth has a new blog. bookmark it, put it on your google reader and get ready to laugh
• paul takes better photos than me. check out his pictures of my bbq and our picnic for zoe's bday on saturday.
• mark posted an incredible 1960s video of nina simone singing four women. all i can say is wow. and i stand by my claim that if i could see any concert of any artist alive or dead, it would be nina.
• good stuff on crucial minutiae of late. often i have been fascinated by the miracle of the "guy friend" - how they are so adept at explaining the mindgame bullshit of other guys. here, a serial guy friend tries to explain it all.
  

summer is upon us

i've done it, i've broken down and bought my ticket back to the us for the summer. you don't want to know what i paid, but let's just say it's less than $1000. but not by much. and i have layovers in frankfurt, lovely.

so, my summer plans are set and here they are:

July 2-11: framingham, with a weekend yoga retreat in the Berkshires for the 4th
July 11-15: big star lake, michigan
July 15-Aug 10: nyc, working for da man. weekend trips to beer olympics (july 21) joie's wedding (july 29) and hopefully riis park, dia beacon and belmont
aug 10-14: washington dc
aug 14-10: new hampshire. internship at the sunny grange, other granola-based activities
aug 20-23: ogunquit. lewin family vacation.
aug 23-31: framingham. this is the frontier, the last week of the summer, mostly unplanned.
aug 31-sept 15: northern spain. camino de santiago

so there it is, folks, my summer. please make yourself a part of that schedule if you haven't already done so.

in other news, it has come to my attention that there's a little rumor floating around that i'm planning to move back to the us. this rumor has legs, and wings; it has crossed a continent and an ocean and five people to arrive to my terrace. so let me set the record straight: for the time being i have no plans to move back to the us permanently. although i do plan to continue spending 3-4 months a year there and eventually would like to be able to split my time.

sydney or bust

my dad has always let me know what he expected out of me without saying it outright. perhaps because i was such a damn well-behaved child, or because disciplining was mostly my mom's job, i can't remember him ever drilling into me the classic parental lessons of "eat your vegetables" or "don't talk to strangers" or "don't drink and drive."these types of lessons were implicit, rather than explicit.

however, i do specifically remember him making me promise not to hitchhike, or pick up a hitchhiker. this was said explicitly, and i promised like the faithful obedient child i was. i always wondered why he felt so strongly about this, was there a dangerous episode he wasn't telling me about? to this day i still wonder...

but of course, like most kids told not to do something, even the most well-behaved kids, i went out and broke that promise. ange and i discovered hitchhiking in fiji, where it was the only way to get across the island. our next stop was australia, where the idea of getting from cairns to sydney entirely on buses was suddenly unfathomable.

once you start hitchhiking, it seems ludicrous to pay for transportation. we set up some general rules for ourselves - which we mostly kept to - and spent long days on the road. we wouldn't get into a car if either or us felt the slightest creepiness or unease. we would stay awake, alert and watch the road. we wouldn't take rides from truckers. we would stop before dark.

the hardest part was just getting out of town, most people are driving short distances. most people have been told by their fathers not to ever hitchhike or pick up hitchhikers. but we must have been so cute standing there with our backpacks. it was never too hard to get a ride. most people couldn't believe we were hitchhiking, especially once they found out we were americans.

usually the people who picked us up were fathers who had daughters and were trying to save us from the dangerous fate of the hitchhiker, or other people who had hitchhiked in the past and were paying back some karma. i have mostly stuck to my promise of not picking up hitchhikers, but i do feel a special twinge of sympathy when i see one.

the hardest part was having the same conversations over and over again. we would spend three hours in the car with somebody, tell them all about our trip, where we were from, why we were hitchhiking, etc. then ten minutes later get into another car and have to start all over. sometimes the best rides were the ones where everybody was just silent. more often than not we met kind people who were unbelievably helpful and generous. without all the urban myths and fear, hitchhiking is a lovely system, a way of sharing and mutual convenience, a way to meet people you might not ever know.

so, sorry dad, i broke my promise. but i suspect you have at least one good hitchhiking story too.

unrelated: richard serra talks about the installation of his 40-year retrospective at moma in this new york times audio slide show.

bullshit blog post

i stayed in a whole 24 hours after that last post. then i spent the rest of the weekend walking around the city - through rain and shine. it's hard for me to really be a hermit.

the other night i saw pirates of the caribbean. man, i was just in the mood for pure entertainment, swashbuckling, etc. and this movie paid off. i sat with wide eyes for three hours, laughing and enjoying the spectacle. when i read any bad reviews for the movie i think: what a bunch of cranky pretentious mouth breathers. seriously.

meanwhile, spain had its local elections yesterday and there was a move toward conservatism, echoing a general trend across europe. i think it's interesting that in a county that is ninety-something percent catholic they vote on sunday (day off), causing me to wonder why we vote on tuesday (work day) in the u.s. it's because they want to discourage voting, right? most of the spanish people i spoke to said they usually go vote with their families then have a lunch. those of us who live here know that that is so typically spanish it's practically spain itself.

in other news, i've taken the first actual steps in a project that has been swishing around in my mind for some time now. i've been inspired by certain friends of mine who lately have grabbed their lives by the reigns and started steering themselves in productive directions. so i've decided to follow suit by putting some plans into actions. and wouldn't you know, it's super fun to have a new project to work on. details to come...

i suppose that may excuse this rambly disorganized and decentralized blog post, the type that i have tried to steer away from. coherence will return tomorrow.

happy memorial day.

precipitation frustration

ok i admit it, i like to bitch about the weather. i believe it affects my moods, i let it affect my moods. i take it personally. any therapist or sane person would tell me this isn't healthy. irregardless.

the weather sucks right now, it's been raining forever, and - as previously noted - we don't need the rain. the other day it rained so hard my plants suffered holes in their leaves. the forecast shows rainy clouds until saturday and i've decided to have a vigil. i'm staying in my house until the sun comes out. i dare you to lure me out.

i have a book, i have my internet, i have dvds. i have a new yorker. i have 3 economists. i'll be good for a few days at least. i refuse to spend one more minute trudging around the city with wet feet, being sprayed by passing cars. bah.

meanwhile, what a lovely moment for the morning news to post their annual awards for online excellence. lots of fun new sites to play with, hours of rainy day entertainment. and here is my first annual list of what i consider the best of their list to be:

• indexed. as they put it, simply brilliant. and hilarious. i only wish i could be half as clever and spot on. check it out immediately!

ok. that's totally the best site they linked to. the others i'm still exploring, but i'm sure there are tons of gems. also, they link to mindy kaling's site. this girl went to dartmouth with me and now she is not only on the office, but her blog is being linked to by the morning news -- under the header of "celebrity" blog. sigh. my blog is content to simply mention her blog. she writes about things she bought, like a mini cooper and a $1000 handbag. did i mention it's raining?

other links of late:

• not overrated, not underrated. the ten most accurately rated artists in rock history. (via amy's robot)
• the top five tv shows of my youth. you know i like lists. i agree, mostly, but shouldn't JEM be #1?? (props on the bitchslap to rio two-timing jem and jerrica)
• if you could check out one classic rocker live in concert, who would it be? well, here's your chance: wolfgang's vault has tons of vintage concerts streamed for free. (thanks dad)
• recordreviews is disappointed with the new wilco album. "father’s day is right around the corner: are you buying this for somebody or is somebody buying it for you?
  
  

the dreamlife of me

lately i have been having vivid and strange dreams in the mornings; i wake up disoriented and puzzled, having spent the last few minutes in my head under the strangest circumstances with friends and other people who i would never have expected to have conjured.

this morning i was riding around new york city on a magic carpet type contraption, flying through the streets and avenues, trying to make my way to the beach where i was sure there was a party. eventually an ex-boyfriend joined me, and we ended up underwater going through a plastic tube in the river.

i hesitate to read into dreams like this, partly because i have no idea but also because it would seem to be too easy to make it mean something convenient, what i might want it to mean. however, there are some recurring themes or events in my dreams and i often wonder why.

when i was traveling in 2000-2001 i had many dreams about my teeth falling out. the teeth would crumble into small pieces and i would end up spitting them out. i sometimes still dream about this, and i know it is a classic dream with probably a classic interpretation. i remember tony soprano once had a similar dream.

a form of nightmare, or unsettling dream, that i have had many times involves the friends i lived with in college. usually i come back from being away and they are all living in a large and strange house, sometimes labyrinthine, sometimes resembling a house where we actually lived, sometimes like something out of a post-apocalyptic movie. i walk around, wondering where my room is, lost and confused. everybody else acts like everything is normal. i've had versions of this dream dozens of times.

the worst nightmares i've ever had used to occur when i was a child, usually when i was sick. i would dream of large imposing masses in space, closing in on me, dwarfing me. sometimes there would be large spheres spinning slightly off their axes and this would scare me more than anything.

any amateur psychologists out there?

happy bday katie

today is also my sister katie's birthday. katie is officially half my age: today she turns 15.

katie has that rare combination of intelligence, beauty and humor yet she pulls it off with modesty and charm. she is girly, sporty, silly and most of all tons of fun.

she makes up for her small stature with a big personality, and it has been such a pleasure spending half my life knowing her.

so happy birthday katie! can't wait to celebrate for real at six flags this summer.

happy bday kim

today is my "cousin" kim's 30th birthday. kim is a smart lady, she has always impressed me with her intelligence wit and humor. of all my friends, she has the most religious presence in her life yet she represents this part of herself in the way that is generous, non-judgmental and enviable. i wish all christians were just like her.

her friendship has been a wonderful example to me of how two people who have so many superficial differences can have so much in common where it matters.

so happy 30th kim. hope your day is full of red sox, karaoke and jon stewart.

100th post!

in lieu of words, i present a photo essay of the painting of a wall on my terrace by some very talented and artistic friends.

a question of etiquette

yesterday was lovely: a madrid holiday spent barbecuing, painting and appreciating the artistic genius of my friends. but there was one stain on the day, one situation that has left me with a bad feeling, as if i didn't handle something properly, as if i was not a proper hostess. after much reflection, i can safely say that it won't happen again, but i'm wondering, what do you do in a case like this?

what do you do when a friend brings her new boyfriend who is perfectly friendly, helpful at the grill and gracious...until he removes his t-shirt to reveal a swastika tattoo on his arm? what do you do?

my first instinct was to kick him out. nazis are, plainly, not welcome in my house. but, saying something might create a scene, might force a for-the-moment benign nazi to say something really offensive, raising the stakes, upsetting the sunny fun of my party.

so instead i said nothing, did nothing. went about my business, ignoring him, whispering to other friends, being appalled. a very polite simon told me that kicking him out would only fuel his hatred, would equate to coming down to his level. and what did i expect to change? it's true that while his tattoo said one thing, his behavior was quite the opposite: there were many gay people and lots of non-aryans (not to mention jews) around and he was hanging out with everybody.

what i should have done is pulled my friend aside and asked her to ask her guest to put his shirt back on because his tattoo is offensive. safe to say, future incidents of the sort will be prevented.

although at the time i felt justified in not confronting the problem, today i feel guilty, as if i didn't do enough, didn't do my duty. what do you think? what do you do when a nazi comes to your bbq?

i heart murakami

you probably already know about my love for the writing of haruki murakami. his book the wind-up bird chronicle is probably my favorite book, and i've read it at least three times. it is at once a mystery, a love story, a coming-of-age story, and a fantasy. he creates characters that are magical and strange and unbelievably ordinary, but who are as fully developed as characters in a good television drama and who have stayed with me over the years like old friends.

his other books have been hits or miss for me, but there are common themes throughout. he likes to write about average guys who are loners or misfits without being socially awkward, they are just outside of japanese mainstream society. he loves disappearing women, this often forms the central theme of his novels. he is fascinated by only children, animals, jazz music and american culture. he writes about a japan that i have not often seen portrayed in other media: absent is the hurriedness, the business-is-war mentality, the thirst for pop culture. murakami's japan is more easy going, mixing elements of foreign culture unconsciously, yet with a sense of alienation at its core. i would like to study his fiction in a class with a professor. i want to read and write essays about it.

although none of his books have moved me as much as wind-up bird, other notable mentions are hard-boiled wonderland and the end of the world - which is his novel that is the most different from the rest - and south of the border, west of the sun - which is more formulaic but still lovely. his newest novel after dark came out in hardcover last week, and here is an excerpt (thanks emily). from a glance, it seems like vintage murakami, but intriguing. its events take place over the course of a night in a tokyo denny's. if anybody had read it i would love to know what you think, and i would love to borrow your copy this summer!

meow

"oh you fucking spanish people
makin' me smile
black-haired little cuties"
-chan marshall a.k.a cat power

word

we don't need the rain

spain is a country with a water shortage. water conservation is strongly encouraged by the government and, as far as i can tell, mostly observed by spaniards.

ever since i moved here, every rainstorm be it on a saturday afternoon or any other inconvenient time is met with knowing shrugs and the mantra "we need the rain." complaining about rain isn't allowed. spain needs the rain.

ok, well guess what? the reservoirs are now full. any more rain would have to be released into the rivers to prevent flooding. so we no longer need the rain. spain has enough water for two years. while this is great news, it belies how much rain we've actually had this year. tons.

granted, this is the time of year when the temperature crests the 90s and never looks back and rain isn't likely in the near future.

good, cuz we don't need it.

points, bulleted (bulletted?)

today i present a few tidbits, in list formation:

• bill clinton wrote a crossword for last weekend's new york times magazine (online only). i finished it, can you?
  
• the new album turn the lights out by the ponys is the best thing since sliced bread. definitely the best new album i've heard since crane wife. asked to describe this music i was at a loss for comparisons. strong beats, heavy bass lines and extremely addictive.
• if gwb wrote obama's book
• france elected a new president: nicolas sarkozy. for a clue on who this guy is and what he stands for, check out this great new yorker article. then go around asking people what they think of the elections in france, and sound really smart. at least, that's what i do.
  
• i've noticed advertisements in spain in portugal by the sides of the roads and on bus stops using the weak dollar to entice europeans to visit nyc. "the euro buys you more in new york." sure, once you get there. what they don't warn you about is that flights back to the us are now significantly higher than they have been in the last 2.5 years! and by hundreds of dollars. what up? anyway, any bright ideas out there? anybody work for the airlines or have some extra frequent flyer miles you don't need? private jets? i'm talking roughly jul2-aug 31 plus or minus a few days on either side....

happy 30th raf

my buddy raf turns 30 today. i met raf on my bday, when i was turning the unfathomable age of 23. back then he had no road rage, but i changed all that.

years later, raf remains a friend, somebody who i'm always happy to see, someone who usually has a smile on his face and who can bring a smile to mine. so happy birthday raf!

and by the way, i was listening to tribe the other day and i still contend that midnight marauders is their best album.

apology

i just got back from a great weekend in barcelona. this is my fifth time visiting the city, and definitely the best. rather than spending any time doing touristy stuff i saw friends, walked around neighborhoods i didn't know and relaxed. i sat on three beaches. i got a sunburn that was gone by the next morning.

to tell the truth, before this trip i often spoke a little disparagingly of barcelona. like boston, i would say, it is a nice place to visit but i wouldn't want to live there. or i had my big metaphor about barcelona being like one of those really good looking people who really doesn't have much personality.

but i admit when i'm wrong. sorry, barcelona, i just hadn't looked in the right places. i mean, you not only have a beach, but beaches that stretch for hundreds of kilometers in either direction. i like your wide sidewalks and flat streets. i like how every restaurant seems to think having organic food is a good idea. you're a totally fun place to hang out, plus lots of my friends live there. forget what i said before, my bad.

no crush for you!

i try not to complain about these things, especially here. however. it's not often that i meet somebody and actually find them crush-able. even the simplest crush can feel like a fresh breeze.

so, it was with considerable excitement that i realized last week that i had met one of these elusive fellas. and he walked me home!

fast forward a week, i have learned in a series of ever more disheartening pieces of gossip from friends that: 1. he has a long-term girlfriend 2. she's german and 3. actually, he left madrid. he lives somewhere else.

can a girl catch a break around here?

cooking is meditative

i read a piece recently in the new yorker that mentioned cooking as a meditative practice. this is interesting. although i often say that i have a hard time shutting my mind off in attempts to actually meditate, while cooking i enter a kind of trance that must be close to what i'm aiming for.

i love cooking and right now i'm in the throes of a cooking phase. i get off on chopping vegetables, there is something extremely satisfying about it. also, cooking is one activity - like shopping and going to museums - that is quite lovely to do by yourself.

last night i made meatballs in chipotle sauce and veggie enchiladas. currently i'm making brownies (from scratch). now is a good time to try to score a dinner invite...

fearless friday

i remember being in college in the mid-90s when there was this fleeting fashion trend of t-shirts with the logo "no fear" emblazoned across the chest. it annoyed me to no end -- no fear? please. the concept was ludicrous, especially as a catchphrase being sported by any and all mallrats and skateboard enthusiasts.

yet here i am, more than ten years later, considering the same topic, with gravitas: fearlessness. when did i become, or start to become, fearless? for me, this is a case of hindsight. the moments that i can retrospectively cite as being my most fearless were done with the most trepidation i can imagine. at the time i was fearful, yet decisive.

two examples that stand out were the two times i quit my "serious" jobs to go embark on "non-serious" adventures such as traveling around the world or moving to europe. both times i quit i did so without much popular support, certainly not encouraged by bosses or family to leave the stable corporate world without a return ticket back. i did it without making plans beforehand, little more than a plane ticket had delineated my future. and against the grain, bucking the trend of what had been expected of me. i had such great promise and such an expensive degree and was putting it to good use making money!

so, fearless? hardly. those are the two scariest things i have ever done, and ultimately the most formative decisions in my life. to me fearlessness is what a woman must rely on when the only faith she has is in herself. fearlessness is the power to reject other people's opinions or advice, to forge ahead with an unpopular path. and don't be mistaken, there is plenty of fear involved. it's not the shedding of the fear that is important, it is the overcoming of it.

this post was inspired by my friend joie and a book by arianna huffington called "becoming fearless."

r.i.p sol lewitt

i was surprised to read today in the new york times that one of my favorite artists, sol lewitt, had died this month.

although, to be frank, i can't be sure that i knew whether he was still living before reading the article.

much of lewitt's art consists of wall drawings, in which he provides a set of instructions that are carried out by others. although this has met criticism, i have always found the results to be transcendent.

i first discovered lewitt at a retrospective at the san francisco moma many years ago. my mind responds strongly to patterns, to geometry, to mathematical ideas, and lewitt's pieces offered all three, while still being "art." i like looking at art, but i like the visceral feeling i get when a piece makes sense to me, and lewitt's work always made perfect sense.

the dia:beacon, a beautiful art space in the hudson valley is doing a show of 14 of lewitt's wall drawings through sept. 10. i'm going to make sure i get there when i'm in new york this summer. not only is dia:beacon one of my favorite gallery/museums in the world - with its sparse unpretentious presentation and the highest percentage of pieces that "make sense" to me - it has many sculptures by my other favorite artist richard serra.

in other news...

ok, now that i'm done effusing about my trip, here's what else has been going on. our top stories:

hey, i turned 30! what an amazing birthday. i was overwhelmed with the amount of bday love i felt coming out of every corner: the cards, the emails, the gifts. i am truly blessed and lucky and couldn't be happier to welcome the fourth decade. i love all of you who helped make this the kick-ass birthday i promised myself it would be.

summer has been flirting with me. last night i slept with the doors to the terrace open, slightly chilly under my comforter, divine. this morning i awoke to the familiar but forgotten sounds of spanish men yelling and singing on the street. the terrace is almost ready for the non-stop party regimen of the hot months, you better get your bikini body ready!

i've been flirting with summer. i'll be back in the us for july and august and the weeks are rapidly filling up with plans. this time i'll be in the ham, michigan, new york, dc, new hampshire, maine and back to boston. looking forward to seeing you all on that side of the ocean, but we need to make plans soon because available days are almost gone! operators are standing by.

and now, a little friday list of things that have been catching my eye around the internerd:

• thomas friedman's piece in last week's new york times magazine was inspirational. american getting its groove back by leading the green revolution? yes please.
• slate has been featuring excerpts from witold rybczynski's new book about modern home development. my favorite part: an expose on america's on-again off-again love for ranch houses.
  
• this piece about being neighborly at the morning news made me smile. it reminds me of the time i lived with seth in soho and there was the alzheimer-diseased downstairs neighbor who would open her door naked. and then she died.
  
• my friend zoe put on lipstick for this, her new blog.
  

last vacation shots

the last stop on my trip was a tiny village in an area of spain known as picos de europa. these are rocky peaks, rising out of rivers and lakes as if a child had been asked to draw a mountain.

we did a hike along the cares river gorge, ten kilometers between two villages on a path carved into the side of a cliff. the mountain rose thousands of meters above and below our trail and everywhere was the most imposing, stunning, larger than life scenery i have ever seen. my guide book called it "a horizontal walk in a vertical world" and i think that is an apt description.

this is classic photos-don't-capture-it territory, folks. words are even proving to be quite futile. even the mountain goats were all like "dudes, can you believe this?" and we were all "um, no. get away from my lunch."

all i can say is that i highly recommend this walk for anybody who visits spain. it's not even that challenging, the trail is mostly flat, giving you the feeling of being among alpine peaks without all the pesky walking uphill.

check out this photo of michael resting by the side of the trail, my favorite from our trip. this was the last day of my twenties i can't imagine a more perfect ending.

tragedy

(vacation photos will resume shortly)

i don't like it when news of the us appears on spanish television. it's always something bad.

it's weird, i read the news every day and every day i think that there is something extremely wrong with this world. americans die in iraq every day, by the tens and dozens, both military and civilians. students and other innocents dying of disease, hunger, and shootings cover the front page on a daily basis. so is this worse? is the news today more f'ed up than usual?

i'm not looking forward to going to work tomorrow, or being asked to explain by any non-americans why such an unthinkable thing can happen in our county. and seems to happen with some regularity.

backroads

i sold my car two years ago, before moving to europe. the advantages are numerous. i mean, besides not paying for gas, insurance and repairs there is the self-satisfied feeling of not adding to global warming in one small little way. don't even get me started on parking. however, the benefits of having a car are not lost on me. one of the best parts is the freedom of your own wheels, the freedom to go anywhere there is a road.

and during my vacation i felt that freedom again, a whole week with a rental car, free to explore the backroads and little villages of spain. here are a few pictures from those adventures.

i love fishing villages more than regular old landlocked villages. perhaps because they remind me of rockport and gloucester and other towns in massachusetts where i grew up. i just like those colorfully painted boats and the salty men who own them. also, of course, there is the sea, never more forboding and full of potential then surrounding a town full of fishermen. and even though they say that the freshest fish in spain is in madrid, fish never tastes better than from where you can smell the salt air and meet the guy who caught it.

coruna

my guide book called coruna the most underrated city in spain. interesting, i thought, how can something so old and established be underappreciated? either something has changed in the sands of coolness, or there is some barrier stopping people from loving this place as it deserves.

and in the end, i can't say i found either of these cases to be true, and coruna is indeed one of the best cities i've visited in spain. maybe having santiago close by but infinitely more famous keeps the city slightly hidden in plain view?

it reminded me of san sebastian: modern, surrounded by water, with a kick-ass beach right in the middle. it reminded me of san francisco: can any city surrounded by water on three sides not be stunning? it reminded me a little bit of new england: the fishing boats sitting sleepily in the harbor, a breakwater you can walk along, even a building that is an avatar of one in boston.

but ultimately, coruna was completely unique and seemed perfectly appropriate for its location. you were never more than a few steps from the water in every direction. seafood bars and restaurants lined those windy medieval streets. cathedrals and plazas appeared gracefully, without seeming dominating or imposing. if a place can be energetic and laid-back at the same time, coruna is it

what, no easter bunnies?

easter in spain reminds me that i live in a foreign country. first of all the holiday occupies more space than at home, taking up four days that for a teacher stretches into a full week off of work.

however, long weekends aren't so rare around here. the real spanish-ness of easter is its religious/secular duality, much like the country itself. i've heard it quoted that over 95% of spain is catholic, yet i've never seen such a group of christians come off so liberal, so laid-back. in essence, spaniards are catholic in name only, yet the architecture and rituals of christianity are deeply ingrained in the culture.

and nowhere more so than during easter week. spaniards use jesus' death as an unequivocal excuse to go on vacation. there could not be less religious significance to the holiday. however, no trip to the beach during holy week would complete without watching a procession, an ancient and quite spooky parade of virgin statues escorted by hooded bearers and haunting drum music.

in the context of something modern and secular you have a throwback to medieval rites. and all around it, before and after, the people spill out of the bars into the streets, drinking, being spanish, celebrating easter by enjoying their days off.

castle rocks

if a child drew a castle it would look like this:











and if you were a child you would want every castle to be exactly like this. empty, rocky and pointy. with slits for shooting arrows and a tower to scale. no guardrails or roped-off areas, no restricted access. not to mention free. well done, portugal, yet again.

check out portugal

hey it's me. i'm back. a little older and slightly tired. lots to show and tell. first of all, i have lots of photos from my trip. the last week has been a whirlwind: cities, villages, beaches, mountains. since i'm not going anywhere for a couple of weeks, i'm gonna kick back and relax around here with some photo posts.

first we went to oporto in northern portugal. oporto is on the douro river and is famous for port wine and cod. i like it because the buildings are dirty; it makes me think that although they are doing their best to support a tourist industry, they aren't going so far as to polish off their buildings. despite the greyness washing over everything -- years of built-up exhaust and grime -- the city stays colorful. the red tile roofs, the charcoal bridge, the odd yellow building, the blue tiles. i also dig the setting of oporto, right on the river and near the sea. the bridge through the center of town is perfectly beautiful and useful: elegant, convenient and multipurpose.

we walked up hills and climbed a tower -- setting the template for the rest of the week's activities. windy medieval streets, check. stairs, check.

well there's lots more but my pictures are being uploaded to blogger at a snail's pace. more asap.

vacation message

my bags aren't packed but i'm on my way. tomorrow i leave for a week's vacation to portugal, galicia and asturias. i'll have my computer but i doubt i'll get around to blogging.

but before i go,

an early shout-out to my friend paul, whose birthday is tuesday. paul is my bff, except when he isn't. he's the best customer of my terrace hair salon. and although he calls me kiddo, he's still younger than me. happy birthday, beavis.

also, my friend joie has a new website along with her group of writer friends. check it out: crutial minuiae. joie is a writer and a thinker and i'll be checking out her kidz today column every wednesday.

see you when i'm 30.