they call me the Heidi of il mondo di heidi

After launching my first little online shop for my Florence-inspired stationery, I wanted to help launch an ETSY shop for my favorite collana designer commessa. Her site, Il Mondo di Heidi, doesn't get enough visitors so I think that ETSY will be a better marketplace for her handmade necklaces, gadgets and bags.

Until we launch the Il Mondo di Heidi Etsy shop officially, you can see the fotos on my Picasa site.

Doc, are you sure you can't get me a vaccine for this?

Doc, I am not feeling too healthy. No, it's not the flu. But sometimes it feels like it. I think I've come down with an illness and it's both mentally and physically painful. I have headaches and chills and nausea and insomnia and I feel emotional and unstable. I'm nervous and irritable and ansiosa and paranoid. When my head doesn't hurt, my heart does. And I think it's contagious! Everyone else is affected by it...

Uh huh, I've had these symptoms for a while. Well, it all started back in 2006 when I realized that I needed to get out and get away. Away from myself. I managed to go far away, far away, but I started to understand that "Wherever you go, there you are." For a while the symptoms went away. I had changed my environment, my lifestyle, my attitude, my language, my friends, my goals, my priorities. But then I changed my mind. Then I was ready to get away again.

I'm back here but the illness follows me wherever I go, Doctor. Once I'm here, I have to leave again. First I want to be here, then I want to be there. I came because I needed to hold on to it and be wrapped up in it, surround myself with this place, live in it. The idea of leaving makes me ill, but the idea of staying makes me ill. The symptoms just won't go away. All this coming and going. It's like the opposite of vertigo, it's like horizontigo. Flying back and forth really makes me feel it!

Doc, so what is it that coerces me to take the risk of coming back here. To remind me that I want to take in this place and take on these obstacles and these goals and this language and this life and then just reject it and throw it away?

Yes, I can assure you it is a mental and physical pain I feel. It is in my heart and my body and my soul. So if it's not the flu then what is it? Perhaps a vitamin deficiency?

Oh I understand... I see. And it's a rare illness? And do they have a cure for that?

What? They call it that?...Nope I've never heard of it....Residential aversion. Sometimes known as Binge living. Also known as geographical intolerance. Defined as the ambivalent attachment to your environment and physical location. The tendency to move frequently. A vicious cycle of moving back and forth between two countries, whether it was your desire or not. Often has strong mental and physical symptoms similar to the flu.

Doc, but what is the cure? I can't live this way anymore! I need to stay put. I need to stay in one place. This place needs to stay with me. I need to stay put. I want to stay put in this place.


Time? Take time? What is that....a vitamin?

Trust me, I've been taking plenty of that.

i found this on a walk.

If la bambina had seen this, she would have cried out, "Look! look! Naughty BIMBI!!"

Carissima Firenze...

The other day I met up with three alumnae from Smith College at Kitsch for the city's best and biggest aperitivo-actually-dinner and a mini-reunion. We all have long-term sometimes long-distance relationships with Italian amanti and we all intend on staying in Florence forever. Since my bf was the only Florentine and their fidanzati were Sicilian and southern, we could only compare the common stereotypes...sono mammoni, forse le loro madri non si fidano di noi stranieri, viverebbero negli USA? magari..., capiscono la nostra cultura? ah forse, aspettano che facciamo tutto per loro? pulire, cucinare...forget it!!...

well, not really because they are fortunately more 21st century worldly bfs who are very respectful and don't really fulfill those stereotypes. It was my bf who practically taught me to cook and who knows how to do things on his own (although he does live at home with his parents), and he was extremely understanding as well as respectful and open minded to all of my family values and cultural barriers. We have had as many culture clashes as would a Californian and a New Yorker. Two years later and we are not culturally clashing but culturally cooperating.

Among us ex-Pat girls, we talked about how we love Florence and want to stay (understatement of the year) . Later that night, I took out two current JYA Smith studentesse to see the best bars in the city (via dei Benci) and to meet some Florentine ragazzi because I know it is hard to integrate without the help of a local. But at the end of the night they asked me a daunting and burdensome question:

What do I love most about Florence...

I began to stutter. I began to search their faces and think of a cliche' answer just to give them something, anything. But I couldn't bring myself to make up some quick response. I felt that would offend Florence and all Florentines. I have not spent two years here just to say one measly thing about why I love this city, like "My favorite thing is the Duomo."Although the truth is that I get i brividi everytime it pops up from behind a rooftop... So instead I politely gave the most general all-inclusive unspecific elenco saying I love tutto tutto from the language to the people to the aCHenHo (said in a SUPER STRONG accento fiorentino) to the bistecca Fiorentina. I surely offended Florence with that pathetic, unsubstantial and unoriginal response.

It was just my luck that today I found an excuse about why I don't have to list the Reasons-I-love-Florence. Melinda Gallo, a local writer I will be fortunate enough to meet on Tuesday, has found the perfect way to personify the city of Florence, a place that has changed my life, in the words that I have been searching for...

"I could probably come up with a million reasons about what I like about living here in Florence, but they all sound trite to me. The true reason why I love living here is because it just feels right to me. It is like being in love with someone. You could certainly list the aspects about the person that you appreciate, but when it comes down to it, it is a feeling deep in your heart that can't be labeled."

-Melinda Gallo on her blog

And she is absolutely right.

Stick together

Ciao....wow I finally did it! hello, YOU! Hello, me! my blog! i finally made a blog. i put it off for so long because of a few reasons: I was lazy...I was busy, I had my excuses such as homework...but really it was for all these insecurities and fear of being vulnerable. I mean now that I've written this, it's out there! It's published on the web...I already feel like I'm known! I also have a fear of being judged by friends and strangers alike.

This needs to change.

Oh, this blog is about change too! GOBAMA! The change we need! That's a big inspiration to make a change in my life now: to do something instead of putting it off. To speak my mind and to let other's know it...instead of hiding my opinions in fear of criticism. I've always admired those that speak their mind, whether to defend someone passionately or to make a risky comment that could result them humiliation. I love that courage. I mean why do I really care if my entry is perfect? ("perfect" doesn't exist) If they laugh or don't laugh at my jokes (I admit my future is not in television)? If my spelling is wrong (that's Microsoft's fault) or my stories are meaningful to me, yet meaningless to everyone else? (I'm not an author and who is this "everyone" anyway!!?) Maybe no one will read my blog.

And that' s fine with me because this blog will be my space to write cazzate about my life. To analyze and over-analyze things as boring as "why did I chose the pink scarf today?") and of course to express my not-very-exotic identity as a broke college grad white girl trying to find my destiny in a crystal ball (or on the horoscope websites) while building my future on a foundation as solid as jello, because i am building my future on love. This blog will be about my hybridity as an American, Italophile and ex-Pat...which will be extremely evident in my obsessive referencing to Italy, and through my hybrid lexicon of Italian and English.

This is my space to record the inner monologue that gets tossed around in my brain all day like dice in the dice popper of the 1990's "Frustration" board game. It's going to reveal a lot of frustration in fact....all my curiosity and confusion about the future. That's why my story starts with my open ended dot-dot-dot sentence:

So, Lil e' Qui...now what?


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Welcome to my soliloquy.