Category: Everything

Last night when I was trying to decide which top to wear out (I went with a sort of batwing v-neck sort of a thing, which didn’t even matter because I spent most of the night wrapped up in cardies and jackets and scarves and my new hat anyway) when my beautiful friend Giulia, who…

Claw yourself up out of the dream to the windswept surface of the bed, gasping for breath. The alarm hasn’t gone off yet, it’s not time to get up. Fall back against the pillows and look up out of the window above your head—not midnight, not morning, just the cold still insomniac hour. Toss. Turn.…

Was told I was “a little too intellectual” by the tutor of a course I was on for work; drunk many many cups of tea; didn’t get to my laundry until Friday night; went to an impromptu Thursday night living room dance party at a flat where they did not have any furniture but they…

As you may know, this year for my birthday I skipped dinner and went straight to dessert, pausing along the way only to make a tiramisu, which is something I do on occasion, just because I can. I had already separated the eggs and was about the beat in the sugar when I thought of…

I mostly slept or watched TV on the flight and spent the three hours in the Auckland airport drinking hot chocolate and messing around with my New Zealand phone, charging it up at the gate and texting. One more flight and a truly exorbitant cab ride later I was in Mt. Vic, dragging my bags…

Today is a great day to be an American, and a strange day to be leaving America. Yesterday Anna’s dad called her to remind her to watch the inauguration (“It’s a historic event!”) and she said, “Yeah, Chiara’s here and our plans for tomorrow include watching it,” and even though we got up a little…

I don’t know if you’ve noticed but I feel like the tenor of my last couple of posts has been kind of…depressing. While it’s true it’s been a strange couple of months here on the island and also that I’m heading off into another not-completely-stress-free transition time very soon, that’s no reason not to appreciate…

Your evening tea-and-ginger-nuts habit has adhered dispite all the anti-tea sentiment in America, and you’re almost out, so you take a quick walk over to the store in the close clinging night. Sleeveless, still, two weeks to Christmas. The palm trees really do wave overhead and the full moon really does shine as you walk…

I can still hardly think about this without freaking out, so just the bare bones: The visa was returned to me yesterday. They were unable to process it because I, working on some faulty information and neglecting to cross a few Ts and dot several Is, didn’t include everything I was supposed to include. Luckily…

When will the visa get here? Monday? Next Friday? I know someone whose visa came in a week and someone whose visa came in six weeks. When will mine come? Tuesday? Thursday? Three Wednesdays from now? How many pairs of black shoes—black wedges, black sneakers, black heels, black flip-flops, black sandals—do I really need? What…

I just got home from an evening walk to return some library books, for which I put on a sweater and closed-toe shoes, for the first time in months. I am not a huge fan of The Holidays in general but I couldn’t help smiling when I went by the “village green” (otherwise known as…

Wednesday night I went to this alumni thing in Coconut Grove that my high school puts on every year the night before Thanksgiving—not a formal capital-R Reunion or anything, like with nametags, just a meet-up at an extraordinarily loud and ridiculous bar where you stand around and feel awkward, just the way you did when…

I got out of bed pretty late this morning, but since Thanksgiving this year involved only many vegetables and much olive oil and not, say, a turkey that needed to be put in an oven, there was plenty of time to read the paper and drink tea before making the apple crisp. My mom had…

Walk out the door just as the sun is going, because you are not now nor have you ever been immune to symbolism. Dodge the loopy face-sized dragonflies and the delicate lizards on the path to the beach, skip over the filmy purple jellyfish blemishing the heaped-up seaweed. This evening’s sea is smooth and dark…

Yesterday D. got another job offer, to go to Morocco in May. It’s a really wonderful opportunity for him. Taking it, which he has decided to do, means that he will not come to New Zealand to live with me there, that it’s over between us now. It’s hard to believe and it’s also totally…

Celery, carrots—yogurt, do we need yogurt? Cat food, baby kitty formula. Oatmeal, garlic, Parmesan, pinto beans, red beans, chickpeas, pita bread. Broccoli rabe. Hummus. Earl Grey. Tomato paste? Olives? Call the DC Immigration office and ask them how to submit a visa application and a residency application simultaneously when they both require my physical passport.…

Yesterday I wore my beloved pounamu for luck and with love for all my friends all over the world who were so interested in the outcome of our election and in many many cases are more informed and passionate about our politics than some Americans I know. On the way to volunteer yesterday I was…

I early-voted a week and a half ago, getting there right before the polling place closed and therefore needing only to wait an hour, which was certainly not the case for most of Miami-Dade County; my sister works at a library next to a polling place and she said for the past week the librarians…

While it’s true some very nice things have happened lately (video chat with D., semi-gainful semi-employment, a couple of finished scarves, early voting), and that I have had recent moments of great happiness, and that things are going pretty well for me in general (for which I truly am grateful) I have to tell you,…

“How did your nose,” asked one of the wide-eyed kindergardeners last week, “get SO BIG?” “Just lucky, I guess,” I said, and they all nodded, like, yeah, that is lucky. I’m still totally unemployed but last week I started picking up a little cash by working as a substitute teacher’s aide at the Montessori school…

I can’t deny it, I can’t ignore it. I can’t understand it, either, but here it is: I’ve been feeling really…happy lately. It feels strange to write. It feels dorky and decidedly unhip. I want to equivocate, a little. I want to say “I feel centered” or “I feel blessed” or “I feel grateful,” and…

I have never thought of myself as someone defined by what she does for money, but that was before I wasn’t really doing anything and didn’t really have any money. It turns out that a huge portion of my self-identity or whatever has depended on…not work, exactly, but having work, specifically the kind that puts…

I haven’t been very politically involved this time around. In 2006 for the Senate elections I voted absentee, and in fact one of my Kiwi co-workers at the time volunteered to carry my ballot down to the post shop because, and I quote, “that way I can feel like I’m doing my part to change…

I am supposed to have an interview on Tuesday but the contact person emailed me to say that if we get a hurricane then we’ll reschedule the appointment. We’ll go if it’s above a Category 3, says my mom. She’s currently trying to find us a place to stay that’s more inland (you know, more…

For weeks, it seems, I’ve been just kind of toodling along here in Seattle, trying to figure out the details of emigrating back to Wellington verrrrrryyyy slooooooowwly. I haven’t had access to a car so I’ve been depending on other people to help me get things done; I haven’t been sure about how to go…

This time one year ago, it turns out, I was having the time of my life in ridiculous (but fun! if you’re a backpacker! and if you have low standards!) Cairns, Australia, meeting lovely people, getting ready to learn to dive, and going out every single night wearing my newly-purchased boob tube. That is extremely…

51. Anna and I walk back to the dorms past the reservoir after sneaking around in the storm tunnels by ourselves (read: without boys) at three in the morning, under a still strange moon and silver clouds. 52. Lydia and I drive through the Catlins in the freezing cold and pull off the side of…

26. D. and I arrive at our beach fale at midnight and shake the sand off our shoes, unable to believe that we’re really in Samoa, together. 27. The baby kangaroos come over to me in the hot outback winter afternoon and rest their heads on my knees, just because they are tired. 28. I…

I don’t know if you remember when people were doing their 100 Things

Shouldn’t be writing, shouldn’t be awake–when I woke up this morning, whatever time it was, whatever time zone it was, I was in D’s childhood room while he himself was in Rome finishing up his work training. Just like when he left a day before I did in Samoa, I kept looking around for him,…

Yesterday I went out the back door of Mom’s new-to-me house and went over to the beach; she moved two blocks closer so it was about a five minute walk, through a little grape-tree shaded path. Bare feet, sun dress, hot day. The tropical foliage makes me feel at home like nothing else does; in…

1. Seeing Jem waiting for me at the gate at the Auckland airport as I stumbled out of customs, all tired and jetlagged and confused. 2. My first bowl of hot chocolate at Espressoholic. 3. Going work clothes shopping in the rain with Cherie on Lambton Quay, not sure of any of the brands or…

Everyone, we are going to look at my hippie beach pictures now. Please also be aware of the following: Actually when I was looking through these online again I was struck by how many things I didn’t photograph while I was there–admittedly, this is a thing that strikes me quite often concerning my vacation snaps.…

A combination of slow internet access and being busy having fun has prevented me, my dears, from updating quite as often as I’d like over the past, what is it, four or five days? I’m in Paihia, in the Bay Of Islands, for the moment and as I’m here for a couple of days and…

Let’s keep looking at South Island pictures, okay? It’s pouring down rain here in Auckland and I very much fear that my projected lunch on K Road is going to be sloppy and damp, but that’s not for a few hours yet, allowing me to hearken back to sunnier times. You may remember that the…

I have been absolutely terrible about writing since I’ve been in Wellington, over two weeks now. I had all these photos to download, and then I never had time to write picture posts, and then I was going out too much with too many friends, and the days passed and passed and Istill haven’t put…

Hey, does anyone remember when I went to Rarotonga in February? No? Me neither. So much has happened since then that these pictures don’t even really make sense, two months later, but whatever, let’s look at them anyway. This is what I saw every morning when I woke up, sat up in bed, and looked…

Yesterday as I was walking to Newtown from Mt. Vic on Adelaide Road two things happened: a friend with whom I was trying to make plans texted “You are very busy for an unemployed person,” and I thought, walking past the kids on their way to school in their uniforms in the cold and the…