So, What's My Deal?

Is there a psycho-analyst in the house?

I'm just sitting here trying to figure out what my mental block is.

Here's the sitch:

I'm in Rome, for the semester. It's now gone from me being in that "vacation" mode of like "Hey! I'm in Rome! Let's go see stuff!" to now I'm living here. Like living here. How many days do I spend sight-seeing in NYC? Exactly...

Anyway. I feel as though I haven't done a ton of sight-seeing in Rome (as I was here and did most of that 4 years ago) but find myself spending too much time either in my apartment or that of my friends. I think I'm just sort of in that slump where the novelty has officially worn off.

I think the best remedy would be to travel a bit and do something exciting, but it feels silly taking a weekend trip somewhere when I'll most likely be doing 3 different cities over Spring Break which is in 12 days. That will probably be the remedy and I'm just wasting time trying to figure myself out right now.

I was talking to Jacquie about it today. I think that its not that I miss home, but that I'm looking forward so much to this summer. This summer I'll be in NYC, which is just too fun in the first place, I'll have my one of my best friends finally home after not being here for 9 months, I'll have my nephew 25 minutes away, I'll have endless amounts of shows to see (Um GYPSY? Xanadu? Anybody?), and on top of all of that my boy will be back in town. That feeling of excitement toward this summer is being felt in tangent with me sort of in the "lull" of my time here is creating an interestign dynamic in my mind.

Its not that I want to be back in NYC right now, its that I want to fast-forward to May 11th but have had an amazing time here and not feel like I've wasted my time/money. The perspective this trip has given me toward my life and lifestyle was worth the price in the first place. As I've said in previous blogs, its made me realize a lot of the toxic things in my life and given me the distance to be able to enjoy myself and realize that they are just that, toxic. My worst fear is leaving here and feeling like I wasted time, so thats why I've lowered my expectations.

I came here with many expectations not only from other people but from my first trip here on the Italian Exchange in 2004. Its a completely different experience this time around and I'm fine with that. I was giving myself so much grief because I wasn't hanging out with Italians and I wasn't fluent 5 weeks into being here, but ya know what? Who care?! I sure as hell don't (anymore). In 2004 I was living with an Italian family and hanging with all of my host's Italian friends. Now I'm basically back to dorm living (without the rules) and making American friends from all over the country, but ya know what? I'm OK with that!

I've found myself sort of apathetic toward going out in the past week or two. I have no interest in going to the gay clubs anymore because I really haven't been around gay people in so long that I don't feel I need to immerse myself in the "community" in order to have friends. I'm doing just fine on my own in the "straight" world. At the same time, I'm sort of tired of going to the straight clubs as they're just not fun or thrilling. If there was something like Happy Valley here that'd be a different story. The straight places are either all R&B/Rap or EuroTechno.

I just want a place I can go that will play Cyndi Lauper then like Camillionaire then Blondie and it just makes sense to the crowd and we all go wild. I guess thats sort of something I'll only be able to find back in NYC.

As much as I love my place at home I'd love a change of scene. I'd love to go back and just live in Long Island City in a luxury building for $1100 a month. Yea, I'd be one stop out of the city in Queens, but I could be looking at Manhattan through the big glass windows from the pool in my building. Ugh wouldn't that be nice.

Well, on to another night of apathy toward going out in Rome lol.