shutitdown: livin' for the anecdote

When I lived in New York I used to live above a pizza joint called 'Little Frankie's.' Ever the lazy slob, I'd order delivery from upstairs and sit around playing video games while the poor delivery man walked my pizza up four flights of stairs. I ate a lot of Little Frankie's during this period of my life. I think it's likely that I was also clinically depressed, but the pizza certainly did help temper that.

Little Frankie's pizzas were amazing. Very thin crusts and simple topping were the key. After I left New York and went to California I found a few places that had good pizzas. Dopo on Piedmont Ave in Oakland was one. But the wait for Dopo was ridiculous, and so were the prices. So I started making my own pizza. Not by my own hand, mind you. I bought fresh pizza dough at Trader Joe's and despite it already being made for me, spent a good long time wrestling it into a circular formation and onto a pizza pan. I also ate a lot of pizza during this period of my life.

But then when I moved to Dublin, I gave up on pizza. No one would deliver gorgeous thin pizzas, and no one wanted to sell me ready-made dough. I thought my pizza life had ended. But recently, being inspired by the grocery delivery services available around here, I decided to give it a go. Somehow, having yeast delivered just made the whole thing more manageable and I decided to make pizza from scratch. I'd been hearing and resenting Fran's casual "oh, we have homemade pizza twice a week at least" stories for years, so I figured I might as well make her recipe.

I was remarkably pleased with myself. The crust was thin but not mushy, my guest was delighted and I was full and smug. Pizza? Yeah, I made you.

Fran and Dan's pizza dough recipe, adapted from the Cook's Illustrated Best Recipe bible: Fastest Pizza Dough

1 1/2 c. warm water (about 105 degrees)
1 envelope (2 1/4 tsp. rapid-rise dry yeast
1 tbs. sugar
2 tbs. extra-virgin olive oil
2 c. unbleached all-purpose flour
2 c. whole wheat pastry flour, plus extra for dusting hands and work surfaces
1 1/2 tsp. salt
extra olive oil for oiling bowl
1. Set oven to 200 degrees for 10 minutes, then turn oven off.
2. Meanwhile, pour water into a large bowl. Sprinkle yeast and sugar into water and mix. Add oil, flour, and salt and mix until the dough is cohesive. It should be soft and a little sticky. (If it’s too sticky add a tablespoon or so of extra flour at a time.)
3. Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and knead by hand with a few strokes to form a smooth, round ball.
4. Place the dough into a deep, lightly oiled bowl and cover with a damp kitchen towel (or plastic wrap). Set the bowl in the oven for 40 minutes or until the dough has doubled in size.
5. Remove from oven, punch the dough down, and turn out onto a lightly floured work surface. Use a chef’s knife or dough scaper to halve, quarter, or cut dough into eighths. Form each piece into a ball and cover with a damp cloth. Let rest for 5 -30 minutes.
6. Set one dough ball aside and wrap the rest tightly in plastic wrap. Store them in the freezer.
7. Place a large cookie sheet in the oven and preheat to 450 degrees.
8. Using your hands, flatten the dough and stretch it outward with your fingertips, rotating the dough to form a circle or oblong rectangle. Use a rolling pin to further flatten it, if you like.
9. Gently transfer the dough to a pizza peel dusted with flour or cornmeal (we use a flexible cutting board — we don’t have a pizza peel) and top as desired.
10. Use a quick jerking action to transfer the pizza from the peel (or cutting board) to the hot pan in the oven. Bake for 5 to 12 minutes, depending on the size of the pizza. Serve immediately.

By Lina on December 5, 2008 3:35 PM

Lina: Pig in the City

My first day in London left me chastened. Despite all of the dire warnings from the Dublin taxi drivers, ("You'll not like it there, love, everyone always in a rush") I was certain that London would be no problem for me. I've lived in New York, after all. New York has twice the population density of London, so I was confident that I was twice as tough as I needed to be to live in the Big Smoke. I was surprised, then, when I found myself being the sort of person that would stand still in the middle of crowded pedestrian thoroughfares, looking up at gigantic buildings, mouth slightly open, until I've been run into and yelled at by loud, angry Britons.

I'm still confused as to which way to look when crossing streets, and the added traffic of a major metropolitan city has me completely befuddled. I'm not yet familiar with the coins yet, so rather than holding up lines of people, I've been paying only with bills. After two days, already, I have a huge pile of useless change. I went to the store today to buy sugar and stood at the counter for a few minutes, desperately trying to figure out which coins to hand the woman behind counter. I was embarrassed and sweating, and finally the woman took pity on me and grabbing my hand, took the appropriate change out of it, and handed me the remains. Awkwardly I thanked her, trying to neutralize my accent, and trotted out the door.

Then yesterday, I decided to explore the cities Korean restaurants. My first stop (Korean Kitchen. 32 Windmill Street, Picadilly Circus, London, W1D 7LR) served me a bowl of soup with a hair in it. I showed the waitress, and she sent it back. I waited 10 minutes for another soup, and when it arrived, it had a black hair delicately balanced on top of a piece of tofu. Interestingly, I was not offered a free meal or anyone's firstborn, but they did suggest I wait for a third bowl of hairy soup. I left, and made my way to Jin Korean Restaurant, 16 Bateman Street London W1D 3A. As I was eating my lunch, a cockroach crawled out from the in-table bbq equipment and pranced across the table. He finally crawled back in, and I attempted to ignore the situation until a pair of antennae poked out and waggled at me, as if laughing. I put an upside-down plate over the hole, and mentally teleported to my safe space.

Last night I went to visit some friends in Whitechapel, in London's East End. When I left, I didn't take directions, confident that with the help of my A-Z I'd make it to the tube station. "It's Ay to ZED not Ay to ZEE, Lina. Yank."

Of course my ingrained sense of direction--my father calls me a topographical cretin--got me completely lost and as I wandered the streets of Whitechapel at midnight, I grew increasingly more terrified.

Lina stream of conciousness: I'm going to get mugged. That will be so humiliating. Wait, I know this street name. This is exactly where the serial killer Jack the Ripper stalked his prey! I'm going to get murdered here. Hang on, Jack the Ripper only killed prostitutes. I'm not a prostitute. I'm going to be fine. Oh shit. Everyone here thinks all Americans are whores. I'm so dead. I'm so dead. I'm so dead. Oh wait, there's the tube station. Yeah, I'm street smart. Phew.

So my first 48 hours left me feeling less cosmopolitan than I had hoped.

But then this morning, after having a crumpet and a cup of tea (seriously), I hit the streets and found a Chinese market, a Japanese market and a Korean market all within 7 minutes of my flat and I perked up. Even the local Spar (it's like 7-11) carries strange Asian snacks. After stuffing myself with a half-dozen Korean delicacies, I sat back, content with my new geographic position. I know that going to a couple of Asian markets and eating a little banchan doesn't sound like a big deal, but to me, it is. I'm so delighted to be back in a big city and to have access to all of the funny little things that one can't find anywhere else.

By Lina on October 5, 2008 9:06 PM

Shylater, Dubs

I'm at the airport, 122 pounds of luggage safely checked, waiting to move to London. It's almost two years to the day that I first arrived in Dublin, and for all of the things that I've complained about, for all of the abuse that I've taken here for my exotic accent, I'm really going to miss this crazy old country, so.

By Lina on October 3, 2008 12:31 PM

On to India

One of my friends lived in India for six months. I thought about doing the same, but when I asked her if she thought I would like it, she burst into explosive laughter. Kerrie is a very sincere sort of girl, not the type to cruelly make fun or laugh at a person. "Why are you laughing?" I asked.

"It's just," she said, wiping the tears from her eyes, "I can't imagine a person who would hate India more than you."

I'm interested to see how this trip pans out because I've not been particularly looking forward to my trip to India. I'm glad to get it out of the way because I think to be the sort of asshole I want to be in life, I have to have a large stack of Lonely Planets casually piled somewhere highly visible and to be able to drop references to 'my time in India' in irksome Berkeley cocktail parties. This necessitates some time in India, and I've decided to start with a week-long business trip.

If I had to stereotype--and god knows I don't have to, I just love to--I sort of like Indian women. Although it drives me berserk, I like the way they stare at me--it's so bold. I don't like the way their husbands stare at me, though. Their husbands, in fact, disgust me. I hate everything about their look. Their beer guts (or are they dal guts?), their mustaches, their hair that is too long and parted so intensely that the back is always out of place in a way that brings out my maternal urge to fix it while at the same time making me hate them for not taking care of themselves, their sandals, their young wives. But most of all, it's the stare. The stare is at once lascivious and condescending and freaks me out most considerably. I sort of feel this way about all men between the ages of 40 to 60, but the thing about Indian men is that they act and appear to be between the ages of 40 to 60 from about the age of 9 until 90. I'm fine with the very old and the very young of India.

However, I've been told that things like the stare are just a cultural difference. Cultural differences are things one needs to accept. In the leadup to this trip, I've tried very hard to not focus on things, or stereotypes, if you will, that irritate me. I want to be the sort of person that could bring up the possibility of going to India for six months without having anyone laugh.

But then I attempted to get an Indian visa. This took a few weeks, two hundred and three euro and three trips to the Indian Embassy. The Indian Embassy in Dublin is much like the disused teacher's lounge of an Indian elementary school. There's mismatched furniture, piles of Indian picture books, pamphlets on Indian teas and bulletin boards with aged notices about things long past. The Indian Embassy in Dublin is mostly empty when I visit.

They have a filing system that is interesting--it doesn't involve computers as you might expect, but consists of giant manila envelopes at least three feet long, each with a year written on them, piled on top of a bookshelf. I don't really understand why it is is so difficult and expensive to get a visa for India.

Most countries I don't have to get a visa for, or can get one issued upon arrival. Most countries are grateful to have me come spend money on worthless knickknacks, overpriced drinks and on duty free goods. Some countries, such as Turkey, wish they didn't need my money, so they let me get a visa at the airport but make me pay for it as a small sort of fuck you on arrival. The visa stamp even has the price printed on it, an entrance fee into the country. But Turkey only charged me fifteen euro on my last two visits which is a far cry from the two hundred and three euro that India demanded of me. I wasn't even allowed to pay in any normal fashion but had to get a postal money order as if India were some decrepit eBay seller that was unable to accept credit cards or other standard forms of currency.

India, I think, should be grateful to have me. We have a lot in common, me and India. We were both colonized the the same dickheads, right? We both still struggle with trying to stop ourselves from loving those dickheads and realizing that it's not really possible. We both speak English with slightly ridiculous accents. We both constantly struggle with disaster. We both love fancy words. But India is not grateful to have me, and instead wants to test my dedication to setting foot on its soil. My friend Pam planned a trip to India not long ago and was refused at the airport because, not knowing, she hadn't gotten a visa in advance. She was clearly not dedicated enough.

The first time I went to the embassy they told me to come back in 10 days. In the meantime, I got a typhoid shot and a lecture on cultural sensitivity. Two weeks later, I went back. "Leave your passport," they told me, "and come back tomorrow." I do not want to leave my passport in a place that considers manila envelopes an adequate means of organization. As an expat, one learns to hold onto their passport rather tightly, as losing it means being stranded in a foreign country and a lot of unpleasantness at the American Embassy.

But what can you say in the Indian Embassy after all? "No, sorry, you've given the impression of a complete lack of competence and no I will not leave my passport here."? Of course not. I hand over my passport, stomach in knots and after a surprisingly restful night, return to the embassy the next day.

"Who?" Shuffling of paper but giving no appearance of finding any particularly relevant paper or related paper. "Come back tomorrow." I cannot, I declare, come back tomorrow. I have a cab waiting for me outside. I'm heading for Cork that evening, which is a foreign country by all accounts, and I didn't want to leave my passport into this documents graveyeard for a weekend. This is my third trip to the Indian Embassy. I was told yesterday that it would be ready today. The man behind the desk gives me a condescending look as if all of this was somehow my fault.

"By whom?" a woman next to the desk asks. I begin to describe the woman that I had spoken to the day before, and then notice the woman in question trying to hide behind a manila envelope.

"Her," I declare. The woman, who was next to the desk and who is now at the desk since the condescending man wandered off after realizing that my case was not important enough to deal with, shoots the woman behind the envelope a death stare, and tells me to sit down and wait. I do, mindful of the taxi driver waiting for me outside, which I now realize was a bad idea.

Finally, I am handed my passport which now has a sticker with my details hand written in it. This is what I paid two hundred and three euro and waited nearly three weeks for. This hand-written sticker is not a tracking mechanism for some sort of larger immigration policy as I would expect, but is really just a little bit of a "You think you're so superior? Pony up and hold your horses. We're in charge now."

By Lina on August 19, 2008 9:36 AM

The sun's just after going behind a cloud...

Now that I'm sort of half-heartedly thinking about leaving Dublin, I like to run little scenarios of what my post-Ireland life will be like. "Oh!" people will exclaim, "You lived in Ireland for two years? (Or eighteen months or however long I end up lasting.) What was that like?"

Then, during this daydream, I try and sum up Dublin in a single, crisp anecdote. It's a game I like to play when I'm walking to work. I love to sum things up. I'm the sort of person who, when ending a relationship, replies to some moronic thing he's just said by saying "Well that just sums it all up, doesn't it?" and then slams out of the room.

If someone put a gun to my head and told me to sum up Dublin at this very moment, I'd go with this:

Imagine that an Irish person was telling you this. Insert brogue. "So I was on the bus, like, going past Grafton Street. Absolutely gorgeous day, but the sun was just after going behind a cloud, and it was starting to get grey. There was this group of knackers on the bus, probably just past their Junior Certs, absolute jonners. They start commenting on the sun going down and then one of then raises her fat little fist in the air, extends her middle finger, and to the sun says in her little skanger voice 'faggot.' Like, she called the sun a faggot for going behind a cloud. It's the sun! It's what the sun does! Ah, jonners."

So if someone asks me to sum up Dublin, it will be the time that a teenage girl wearing a tracksuit with overly straight hair and too much eyeliner raises her middle finger to the sky and calls the sun a faggot.

By Lina on June 16, 2008 8:16 PM

Cancelled gigs

Prince cancelled his Dublin gig this weekend. The message boards have been awash in anger and speculation. One poster responded to the thread of grieving fans saying,

This is what it sounds like
when Dubs cries

In other news, I (randomly) bought a ticket to go to Tokyo in nine days. I'm very excited, as I'm a big fan of ramen. However, this means I won't be able to see Morrissey when he plays here at the end of the month. Sigh.

Today I was talking to a friend of mine about places that would be good to live. He ruled out a few, and then I said "But what about London?" Pause. "Giddy London?"

"Ah Jaysus. Ya fookin' Yanks." It's really a shame that more people don't appreciate my sporadic interjections of Moz lyrics.

By Lina on June 11, 2008 12:03 AM

Repressed but remarkably dressed

My commitment and attachment issues aren't content to stay in the arena of male humans and has now extended to cities. After an eighteen month romance with Dublin, I spent this last weekend having a completely unforeseen and vaguely torrid affair with my old flame, London.

I was supposed to be in town just for the day on Friday for a meeting but after missing a flight and making a measured decision to be more spontaneous, decided to stay the weekend and come back Monday night.

I don't know what happened. I've always liked London, I've even loved London before. Over a year ago I secured a visa for myself, which was one of the hardest things I've ever done--it involved compiling over 100 pages of original documents and affidavits--and then never moving. It wasn't an easy breakup for me, but I thought Dublin was a more stable relationship; Dublin would appreciate me more.

But then after seeing London again, so dashing, so handsome, I've started to reconsider. Things haven't been going well with Dublin for the last little while. We don't have any serious problems, but it's those day-to-day issues that are the ones that I can't handle. It's the things that I initially loved that are starting to irk me. It's too small. It's too laid back. There's no Ikea. We're just not as compatible as I once let myself believe.

But then I start to wonder--is this about me or Dublin? Why haven't I lasted anywhere, settled down? Since leaving my parents' house at 17, I've moved to New York, to California, to New York, to California, to Dublin, to California, to Dublin. I've never lasted more than a few years each time. Is my inability to geographically commit an endearing foible or can I just not keep my wanderlust in my pants?

By Lina on May 29, 2008 12:01 AM

I left my heart...

My last two trips to California have left me with a deep sense of homesickness. This homesickness was not inspired by my family, who manage even at this late stage in my development, to irritate me more than ever, but by two key moments.

One was in that bastion of consumerism and the free market economy, Target. I've learned that places like Target don't seem to exist outside of America. That part's not a surprise, I guess. The surprise was when browsing the dollar aisle at Target, I nearly burst into tears. Whether it was due to the sharp decline of the dollar or my own mortality, I don't venture to guess. But needless to say, Target evoked a deep yearning, a hole in my soul that Marks & Sparks cannot and will not fill.

On this trip, it was a day in the People's Park in Berkeley. In general, I sneer at hippies, but on this day, they made me nostalgic. In Dublin, naked men in their sixties with tattoos do not smoke marijuana in public parks. In Berkeley, they do not only this, but at the same time they bend over and do stretches so their old man balls jiggle and they have looks of proud contentment on their faces. When my eyes weren't arrested by the senior testes, they were focused on the stage where a quadriplegic with a stick in his mouth was pointing to letters on a chart and a woman next to him was reading his words aloud.

I A-M am, I am, H-A-P happy, I am happy T-O to B-E, I am happy to be, H-E here, I am happy to be here, I- in T-H the P-E-O-P, I am happy to be here in the People, P-A-R-K, T-O-D-A, I am happy to be here in the People's Park today! Weak applause all around.

The quadriplegic, as it turns out, is running for president of the USA. (Watch his YouTube video here) Between the dogs named after characters in Greek mythology led around by gutterpunks with tattooed faces, the overwhelming smell of patchouli and pot, the mentally ill man screaming randomly and thrusting his middle finger high into the air, the sagging, naked men, the overweight lesbians waving pink flags of solidarity, the dreadlocks, oh so many dreadlocks, the pot brownies and politics that didn't include Hillary, Obama or McCain, I thought to myself, welcome to California.

But really, it was the weather that got me on this trip. I've been in Ireland for over a year, and I can remember one really nice, sunny day. Sunny enough for a sunburn almost. This isn't saying much as I get pink if I stand too close to a toaster. But there was a sunny day last summer. June 9th, I think. After that, it rained 70 days in a row, and that was my summer. These last two weeks in California have been painfully gorgeous. The weather is the one thing that I think will stop me from staying in Dublin forever. I miss the sun.

Other California moments. I stayed in the Tenderloin which is rather strangely, the home of all of the mentally ill people in the country as well as a large portion of its crack, and most of the nicest hotels in San Francisco. I saw a man walking around in a fur coat, a woman sitting on the sidewalk trying to slyly smoke crack with a coat covering her head, another woman sitting on the curb, stripping wire that trailed seven or eight feet behind her, a man sleeping contentedly in a puddle of his own urine, crack dealers standing on corners five deep, a woman standing in an intersection, eyes rolling crazily all over the place as if they hoped to escape this cracked out, insane body that held them captive as she gyrated her hips wildly, hoping to pick up a date, a few dollars for more rock, completely unaware that her tube top had long since slipped to far below her navel and that her nipples were also wall-eyed.

There's a game they play in the Tenderloin called "That's Not a Crack Rock." When you see someone crawling on the ground, picking up any little scrap of dust, jibs of dirt, rocks stuck under people's shoes and then smoking it, they are a contestant. I once saw an interview with the woman whose life the movie Rush was based on, and she talked about how as a undercover police officer, it was the moment when she found herself crawling on the floor of a hotel room searching for jibs of crack that she realized that she had hit her bottom. In the Tenderloin, they hit their bottoms before lunchtime.

When I was on the BART train a man walked on wearing a sandwich board that said in two-inch high letters "THERE'S POOP IN THE MEAT." He was passing out flyers for a vegan action organization. Next to me, a man popped out his jewel-encrusted gold grill, and meticulously cleaned it with his BART card, nonplussed.

Later that night, as I drove through the 24 hour Taco Bell at 2 am while listening to 2Pac, I thought to myself, now this is California.

By Lina on May 26, 2008 10:17 PM

How I found my favorite middle grade books

I've been in California for the past two weeks, and no trip to to America is complete without me spending some time rooting around in my parent's garage, looking at all my old stuff. I've been reading a ton of my favorite books from when I was short. My tastes spanned the gamut, much more so then than now.

The more obvious ones, like Harriet the Spy and Encyclopedia Brown I got from R.I.F., Reading is Fundamental. Once a semester or so this program in school would give everyone a free book. I still have some of these. I read recently that they're ending this program, which is sad. For a lot of the kids in my school, this was probably the only time anyone ever bought them a book. Luckily, my mom used to take me to the local bookstore and let me run around and pick out books all the time. Luckily, I was part of the petit bourgeois and was semi-literate.

When I was in third grade or so, I read Cheaper by the Dozen. I remember that I picked it because the reading level was fifth or six grade, so I thought it would make me look smart. Even at eight, I was an asshole.

I loved that book so much. I remember when I read the follow-up, Belles on Their Toes, there's a post script that says that one of the dozen children, Mary, died of diphtheria at the age of six and how horrified I was. The descriptions of the bobs and 20s fashions fascinated me. At the, I hated my brother and loved the idea of having a bunch of older brothers who wanted to help make me incredibly popular.

I read all of the Nancy Drew series at the library, and there were dozens and dozens. I read the originals and even started into the new series that made Nancy a little too modern for my taste. I remember her hair being described as "titian," a word I've never heard before or since.

I think I probably read read every middle grade book in the library. When I think about how much I read then, as compared to now, my head spins (not literally). Now, I read a book every six months or so. This is mainly because Google Reader has taken over all of my free time, filling it with tales of nipple slips and other salacious celebrity gossip.

Other books that I read during that time were delivered to my house in big brown grocery bags from the daughter of my parents' friends. Vida was older, cooler, and had new wave haircuts. I read every book she gave me. This was the path to coolness. One was The War Between the Pitiful Teachers and the Splendid Kids by Stanley Kiesel. This was the most unbelievable book ever, and there isn't even a listing for this guy on Wikipedia. I'm bringing this back to Dublin to re-read, because I suspect that much of it was beyond me. It was the darkest, most ridiculous piece of children's literature, ever.

(Big Alice is a girl who was raised in the wild by wolves or dogs or something, but has come back to help the kids win the war against the adults. Mr. Bullotad is the muscled, bullying gym teacher. Here, they are in an epic battle that Big Alice is winning.)

excerpt:

At some period in the past, during the times that Big Alice was given the privilege of participating in human, cultural affairs, she had been exposed to an Appreciation course. That experience had left an indelible mark on her mind.
"Na-chin-skee! Na-chin-skee!" she abruptly began to yell.
Mr. Bullotad was red as a beet and gulping great breaths of air. "What? What?" Mr. B. gasped. He was ready to collapse. "Na-chin-skee what?
"Na-chin-skee! Do Na-chin-skee!"
"Oh my God!" cried Mr. Bullotad. I never saw Nijinsky!"
"Na-chin-skee! Do Na-chin-skee!" continued Big Alice, moving closer.
"I never saw him, I tell you!" screamed Mr. Bullotad, tears in his eyes.
Big Alice opened her mouth and displayed her canines.
Mr. Bullotad executed a beautiful entrechat.

endexcerpt

* Didn't know what an entrechat is? It's a jump in ballet during which the dancer crosses the legs a number of times, alternately back and forth. I remember looking this up in the dictionary and giggling wildly when I read this book.

Absolutely effing hilarious. And as usual, I didn't actually get to the two authors that I had started this post intending to write about, but I'm too sleepy right now. To be continued.

By Lina on May 6, 2008 2:26 AM

Good Friday

Today is Good Friday. This is, I've learned, a big deal in Ireland. It's one of the only days of the year that one cannot buy alcohol, resulting in a dipsomaniacal Holy Thursday, the shelves of the off-licenses pillaged by Irishfolk hoarding as if they were about the face the Great Depression, terrified that they might have to face an evening dry. And today, the pubs are all shuttered, and as every other storefront is a pub, the face of Dublin has become joyless, somehow. Luckily, the one-day prohibition makes it a big day for house parties and illegal raves, so with a little work, one can still manage to keep reality at bay.

Yesterday, one of my co-workers asked me if Jews celebrate Easter. I looked at him skeptically. He couldn't be serious, but of course, he was. They don't actually have Jews in Ireland, I've realized.

"We don't. We sort of see it as the nullification of all of our hard work." Now it was his turn to look confused. "Well, we had just gone through the trouble of killing Jesus and all," I explained.

Most days now, I forget I'm in Ireland. I don't even hear the accent a lot of the time, which saddens me. Days like today, though, remind me of what a strange, religious country I've landed in. The other night one of my close friends admitted to me (after marinating herself in wine) that her parents had met under unusual circumstances; her father had been a priest and her mother, a nun. I suspect that even by Ireland standards, it's a noteworthy "how we met" tale, but I was flabbergasted. These are not the kind of stories I would hear in America.

By Lina on March 21, 2008 11:58 AM

A short break for positivity - I love Dublin

I think my SAD lamp must be working, because I just posted a very chipper entry on my friend Rene's site, ilovethisworld.com. I've realized that I tend to post all of my happy thoughts on that site (note that I post rarely) and my bitchy thoughts on shutitdown. So I've decided to plagiarize myself and post it here as well.

I love Dublin

I guess it's finally hit me, but I'm pretty sure I'm having a love affair with Dublin. I've been saying that I love Dublin for a long time. Every time I get in a cab, which is often (I'm still a lazy American, after all), the driver asks me where I'm from after hearing my accent, and then asks me what I think of Dublin. This is not the time you want to complain about how you have to go sit in the immigration office for 4 hours every six months or point out that in America you can call other mobile phones for free rather than paying 20 cents a minute to call someone a ~~mile~~ km away. So I always say "Other than the weather, I love it here!"

And now I'm not lying anymore--other than the weather, I love Dublin. I love the people here. They're hilarious without seeming snotty in that particularly British way. I love how nice everyone is, it constantly surprises me. I love the way people talk and their accents and the language they use. I love the buildings and the brightly painted doors and the way things here are so old and beautiful. I love the countryside; it looks like a poster of what Ireland is supposed to look like, except it's completely real. I love how everyone here has been forced to take Irish dance--Riverdance, to you and me--lessons. I love the knackers. I love the taxi drivers. I love that people from all of the world are moving here in droves because they love it too. I love my friends. I love the Asian grocery stores. I love the way people are so old-fashioned about really silly things and don't even realize it. I love the way boys drink tea. I love that I live in a cottage next to a canal with swans and ducks. I love the history. I love the perpetual feeling of oppression. I love the way all of the good stereotypes are true. I love the scene most of all--there's more going in the disco/italo/electro scene than in places like New York or San Francisco. I love going out here. Parties here aren't over by 3am, they last at least two days, minimum. I love the fun, there's loads of it.

By Lina on February 13, 2008 10:18 PM

No knock on their door

Verve show last night. So, like, as with all things, I was disappointed. I've reflected, though, and have decided that this is my fault, as once again, my expectations were unreasonable. So, yeah, it was annoying, but I still had a fucking great time.

Okay, so I flew over to Glasgow yesterday and went straight over to the show. I know in saying what I am about to say, I'm going to stray into the territory of ugly, fat girls (as I so often do), because those tend to be the types that have creepy long-standing relationships with bands. One time, in the mid-nineties, I went to an Afghan Whigs show in San Francisco. This was probably around the time that Honky's Ladder hit, ie. when they were finally making it "big." We were bopping along, and then this fat, ugly girl hisses in my ear "You don't even know this song." I did, indeed, know the song, and I specifically remember it because the song's title is "Retarded." She assumed I didn't know the song because it was on one of their older albums, and of course all cute fans show up once the bands go mainstream. Anyway, I went home that night with a wad of gum in my hair (seriously), but content that I was I not only had a wide breadth of pre-emo musical knowledge, but also that I was cuter than that fat girl.

Anyway, my point is, that everyone at the Verve show was completely unaware that they had a back catalog. Urban Hymns was it. Now, I don't really feel like going into all of the brutal details, but I could have given a shit by the time that album came out. I mean, I had it, don't get me wrong. And I sold my food stamps to see them on that tour, but like, it was not A Northern Soul. It didn't even have a Gravity Grave. Slide Away. Christ. So the girl next to me would just go mute during the few times they played a tune off of anything other than UH and then do these really annoying finger-extended wrist twirls throughout the other songs. Frankly, I want to sleep with one of these types of girls because for the life of me, I can't find anything else redeeming about them, and there must be some reason that you people keep them around.

I kind of got the feeling that Richard Ashcroft et al cared more about being a big rock star and having people scream at them and all that than actually making great music and making their fat, ugly fans happy. And that made me sad. Like, I understand that they want to play their newer stuff, but at this point it's all old. Do they really not think that History is a better song than some shit about catching butterflies? Because unless butterflies is code for AIDS, I'm just not interested.

I'm not 15 anymore. I've met guys a lot taller, skinnier, and more strung out than him. And even though this band meant a whole lot to me back then, I'm not sure if I'm willing to fly around the world to prove it again. Like, they represented something to me, and I'm not even sure what it was, but probably something loosely correlating to depression and drug use. And like, what can't I loosely correlate with those two things? That said, A Northern Soul was a fucking deadly album, right?

Anyway, the show was still really good, despite my gripes. Afterwards I went to the Art School to see Modeselektor and hear some dirty disco, made some new friends in Glasgow, came back to Dublin and am now gearing up to go hear Mr. Pauli, the man who is going to bring the vocoder back. Can't complain.

By Lina on November 3, 2007 8:53 PM

DJ please

Sorry kids, I still don't have internet. I promise to be better in the future.

Somehow, I've fallen into a scene. Having been a perpetual scenester since my early teens, I've seen a lot. Overambitious gradesters hustling for GPA, intravenous drug-using punk rockers, riot grrls with questionable gender politiks, sexually perverse photography involving tennis racquets, grain-eating, therapy-loving "motivation" examiners--it's endless. But I'm not sure if anything I've been a part, or on the fringe, of, could possibly be as weird as what I've gotten myself into now.

Techno.

I know. Seriously, I don't think there's anything I can say to explain this away or even make sense of it. I can only being by saying moving to a new country is a very, very lonely time in one's life, and one's decision making abilities are often clouded by the desperate longing for human companionship and free drinks. Also, I think we all know that overall, I'm a miserable person. But the times in my life when I've been happiest are when I've had a gang and been on a scene. That's my best justification.

When I moved here, my only close friend was a DJ. Before I met him, I had been told he was one of the top DJs in Dublin --"Like being the best speller in your 3rd grade class," I later quipped to him--and thoroughly unimpressed, I proceeded to give him the notorious Lina stink-eye and brush-off when we first met. The second time, though, I said "So you're a DJ, eh? Do you know this tune?" I proceeded to list some of the stupidest songs I could think of, and he not only knew them all, he knew their 12" b-sides and the Razormaid mixes that sampled them.

Now, I'm known for having the most random musical preferences on the face of the earth. And not in a cool I-listen-to-60s-French-pop tunes sort of way, but in a kind of lame I-collect-Samantha-Fox-singles sort of way. So to find someone that although didn't necessarily support it, but at least knew it, was a breath of fresh air in this strange, new country.

Little did I know that this was like when the drug dealer gives you your first hit free. Talking about my favorite 80s new wave songs slowly brought us to italo disco, one of his--and now mine--passions. Italo is a word to describe music from the late 70s and early 80s, mostly Italian in provenance, and cheesy and wonderful beyond belief. Think Baltimora's 'Tarzan Boy.' I'm not going to write more about Italo right now because I have too much to say about it to do it all now.

Anyway, as it turns out, my new best friend is known for DJing two types of music, Italo and techno. Mainly techno.

It started slowly. Invited to a show or two, meeting a few people who became friends, getting perma-guestlisted at weekly clubs, but it wasn't until I had a shocking realization that I finally got into it. The predominant fan base at techno gigs are boys. Young boys. This in combination with the free ins I get to the clubs have made me a regular on the scene, albeit a ambivalent one. Don't get me wrong, I love anything with a synthesizer; I was there for the original Electroclash, after all, but I never thought I was going to be having idle chats about 808s with Dutch techno djs. Just last week I was talking to a German techno dj who was in town to play, about dubstep. I was telling him that I had heard it had to be listened to with a ton of speakers, festival-style, to be appreciated and I wondered what he thought about it. "I think if music is good, it sounds good at any volume," he said.

"Like Chris de Burgh, 'Lady in Red,'" I squealed happily, looking up for a sign of agreement.

"Uh, yes, like that."

So clearly I haven't quite learned to fit in yet. That night, I was in the club, leaning against a wall watching said German play. I was watching the dance floor as if it were a controlled experiment and I was a sociologist trying to sort of the relationship between man and ape. I can't begin to describe what really, really, enthusiastic teenage techno-heads behave like after midnight. I was standing with one of my other dj friends--I have about a dozen now--and finally he turns to me and says, "do you even like techno?"

He's caught me. My face turns red. "I just come here for the boys," I say, abashed. "I just come here for the boys."

Anyway. I have a lot more to say about what's going on musically in Dublin, and how last night, a DJ saved my life. Promise to update more.

By Lina on July 23, 2007 11:23 AM

American girls

On corpulence:

As I stepped onto the elevator the other day, I was pleased to see a grossly obese young woman already squeezed into the metal compartment. The girl couldn't have been more than 25, and was tucking her fleshy folds into her elastic-waisted jeans--this was, I had been told, a feature exclusive to Yanks, and I was quietly jubilant to see that the Irish, on their diets of potatoes and creamed everything, were finally catching up. I grinned openly as we rose from one floor to the next.

As we got to the sixth floor and the girl got off, she squealed to the woman next to her in a distinctive American patois, "Dude, did you see Project Runway last night? It was, like, awesome!" Sigh.

On accents:

In Dublin, one gets used to hearing all sorts of accents. The city feels truly international sometimes, sometimes more so than New York ever did. So many countries are basing their European operations in Dublin now, that there are people from all over Europe and beyond crawling the cobbled streets.

This, of course, means that there are a lot of funny accents around.

When I was a youth (but not young enough that writing this doesn't humiliate me), I asked my mother why everyone else in the world had accents but Americans didn't.

I had learned about the pilgrims, and was trying to understand why the Americans wouldn't have the same accent as the English. Clearly they did to begin with, but then, somehow, we managed to throw off any sort of defining accent and emerged like blank slates, unable to be tied to any geographic area by our well-modulated voices.

My mother looked at me and and in horrified disgust said "you moron." This was when I learned, however harshly, that Americans have accents too.

I was reminded of this lesson when I was on the patio of the local pub, enjoying the last dying rays of the Irish sunshine. One might say that a good craic was being had. I was surrounded by locals and few friends from Northern Ireland, who sound more Scottish than the average Irishman. We had been there for a length of time that is too embarrassing to admit here, when a girl from California sat down at our table.

Her voice was jarring. I'm not even going to pretend that her voice was expecially annoying or that she said anything particularly idiotic, but after not hearing an American accent for so long, I finally had a sense of what we sound like to others. The answer is, simply, fucking stupid.

By Lina on May 6, 2007 6:20 PM

On being an immigrant

After spending 4.5 hours at the immigration office yesterday, I guess I'm officially here. On one hand it feels like no big deal--I was in Dublin for nearly four months not too long ago. But on the other hand, it's terrifying. Sometimes while staring blankly at my screen I think "what the eff am I doing?" But then I remind myself that even if I have a miserable time, this is good for me--this is what I wanted.

Right now I'm on a plane headed to London, thus continuing my habit of only updating this site when I'm in transit. I resisted my urge to eat a full dinner at the airport, but it seems that I was the only one. Most of my fellow travelers were eating a full Irish breakfast--sausage, ham, eggs, fried mushrooms and tomatoes, beans, white pudding and of course, blood pudding. I always assumed that Irish people don't actually eat these heart attacks on plates, it must be a tourist thing. But no, they really do eat this stuff and drink Guinness constantly.

I like the way the Irish say my name. Every time someone with a strong accent says "Lina," I get a little thrill. When I was here before, I resisted picking up any of the Irish lingo. But already, after two weeks, I've found myself saying "fair play," which is one of their favorites. The Irish are concerned with fairness, it seems. "Fair play to you," is a way to show acceptance for someone's actions. Often people end their stories with "in fairness." "In fairness," they say, "he did give it his best."

"Your man" is another one that they use frequently. This is the Irish equivalent of "that dude." Say you see a guy walking by in leather chaps. The Irish would say something like, "your man over there is looking good today." The first time I heard a statement like this I squealed indignantly "he's not my man!" I got only bewildered looks.

They don't say thank you, it's "thanks a million," or even better, "thanks a mill." They don't cut out of a party early, they "leg it." One of my new friends is from Cork, and his accent is so unintelligible to me that my side of the conversation consists mainly of "excuse me" and "what?" His use of language, though, is thrilling. Even when I understand the words he is saying, I have no idea what they mean, or even if I do, the context is so strange that the original meaning has vanished. Langer, gaff, odd, locked and most often, fucked. For fook's sake.

By Lina on April 24, 2007 9:52 AM

Delays

Lina: im at LAX
Lina: delayed two hours
Lina: but
Lina: who is going to be an ex-pat by tomorrow?
Max: when you leave it will be ex-LAX

I think it's noteworthy that 50% of my recent posts have been written in airports. LAX has now joined my most-hated airports--until now, experiencing only their domestic-terminal ambiance I had only considered them neutral. And now, here I am, stuck in yet another airport for yet another delay. This has given me the opportunity to spend a lot of time chatting and to consider my position as an almost ex-pat. Fucking weird, is all I can say.

Due to being given a really sweet relocation package, a team of movers were sent to my humble 500-square foot apartment, and instructed (not by me) to pack the whole thing up. This was an elite company, used to moving billionaires into their Silicon Valley uber-mansions, not grubby Oaklanders like myself. Out of embarrassment, I had already packed (or thrown out) most of my things. However, due to some sort of exciting insurance issue, the movers were forced to unpack all of my boxes, and then re-pack them. They clearly did not want me present for this procedure, but due to my overbearing way, I couldn't force myself out of the room. I watched for a while, and then seeing the movers bubble-wrapped a box of my tampons, I finally allowed myself--cloaked in shame--outside for a cigarette. Finally, they were done and as they piled my boxes next to the truck, I became filled with terror.

In total, there were 23 boxes, one of which was larger than those some homeless people live in. In addition to this, I've brought nearly 180 pounds of luggage (what's that in kilos?) and am having my tennis racket and 15 pairs of shoes air-shipped to me. Honestly, if I think about how much stuff I have brought with me, I become physically ill. But my plane is boarding in twenty minutes, and when I disembark, I will be a Dubliner, at least for a while. With the amount of garbage I've insisted on bringing with me, it's probably going to have to be a long while. Wish me luck.

By Lina on April 4, 2007 5:20 PM

Good news and bad news

The good news: I now have a work permit and visa for the UK.
The bad news: The picture on my visa makes me look fat.

The good news: I now have a work permit and visa for Ireland.
More good news: Strangely, although the same picture as for the UK visa was used, I look decent on my Ireland work permit. The visa remains to be seen.

I bought a plane ticket on Friday and I'm moving to Dublin next Wednesday. And then maybe, in a while, to the UK. So many countries to conquer!

Back to frantically packing.

By Lina on March 26, 2007 7:57 PM

Airports and my life

Airports are funny places--the normal rules that apply to one's life seem to be discarded the moment one enters the airport. 10 days ago, I found myself eating tempura udon at 8 am at SFO. I wasn't the only one, though. I was surrounded by seemingly normal looking people eating triple-decker burgers and refrigerated sushi platters at a time that most of us would be warily eyeing a coffee. A full meal before a flight, no matter what the length, seems perfectly justified. At any other time fast food tempura udon would not be acceptable, but in the airport, it's breakfast.

I've been spending a lot of time in airports lately. I know which ones I hate (Charles De Galle makes me want to tear my eyes out, Heathrow's 2 mile walks between terminals, shopping mall and depressing food choices have added it to the list) and which I like, (Zurich has got to have the cleanest airport I've ever seem in my life, and both Munich and Hamburg were so orderly! so effecient!).

I was looking through my passport today while filling out another customs form, and started to finally realize that I'm getting the life I had wanted for so long. In my early twenties, my inability to travel had me sobbing in fetal position more times than I could count. I resented my parents for getting to travel and live abroad without having to actually work to get there. I resented them for their refusal to give me the same opportunities that were handed to them on a silver platter. I'm not going to lie, I still resent the hell out of them for this. But I'm really freaking proud of myself for creating these opportunities for myself, without anyone's help. In the last two-and-a-half years, I've gotten 27 stamps in my passport.

In the last year or so, I've been to Spain, Italy, Mexico, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, Turkey and the Czech Republic. And save for the trip to Rome that nearly destroyed my life and psyche, I did all of it on my own. I got to live in Ireland for nearly four months with an expense account, and my teeth are like gleaming Chickets lodged in my gums. I've been granted a work permit to the UK, and I have one for Ireland pending. If all goes well, I hope to move to Dublin permanently in March.

The Polack and I have titled, and I am now officially be introduced as "the girlfriend." This is terrifying, but at the same time I feel optimistic (the self-help books must be working!). At least, it gives me hope that I can successfully date men that are freaking hot even if this one doesn't work out. My last run-in with a real hottie was approximately six years ago--a male model who shouted "I'm married" during an intimate moment that quickly became a me-running-out-the-door moment.

I was at a party with the Polack on Friday night and two separate girls pulled me aside to tell me how hot he is, how lucky I am. One of them used the term 'gorgeous' which in Irish-speak can mean either incredibly attractive or just generally wonderful. Another also tried to physically molest him in my presence, which I was less thrilled about. The whole thing is just so weird, still. I'm so happy about it, about him, but that's usually how I feel just before some emotionally manipulative egomaniac stomps on my heart. So I'm trying to relax and think about all of the horrible things that may happen to me in the future as little as possible.

As part of my attempt to chill out, I'm currently flying from Dublin to New York where I will spend a week (and my birthday!) before going back to California. I plan to engage in any number of decadent activities, most of them food-related and all bound to be incredibly gratifying.

By Lina on February 26, 2007 11:52 AM

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