new years resolutions

today as i was getting on the metro, an announcement came over the loudspeaker: "use of pyrotechnics is prohibited in Wenceslas Square."

so tonight should be interesting.

here are the new years resolutions:
1. this year i'm going to do more things that are not expected of me.
2. i'm going to make more "stupid" decisions. well, not that they're stupid, but maybe decisions that are more of a risk than those i'm accustomed to making.

i'm also going to try to give up coke.

stastny novy rok!

the patriots can go to hell

so, the new england patriots are 16-0.

i hate them.

i hate that they are a dynasty, and that everyone thinks they are one of the greatest teams in NFL history. i hate tom brady. i don't think he's all that good -- i think he got lucky to be on a strong team. i'd like to see what he could do with the miami dolphins.

remember the first year the patriots won the super bowl? when they played the oakland raiders in the snow, and they won that game mostly because of a bad call? i think it was fumble vs. forward pass. what if the call had gone the other way? our lives would be 100% better.

i might not really have the sports knowledge to argue that the patriots are not as good as everyone thinks they are. but i can say this: the patriots at 16-0 proves that the NFL is boring. most people think it's a good thing to have these dynasty teams, that it proves what an exceptional group of people have been behind the management and coaching of one club in the last decade or so. but i can guarantee you the only people who are REALLY excited about this live in new england, whatever states or cities make up that region (massachusetts, vermont, new hampshire...connecticut? does maine count? what about new york? rhode island? do they even get any input? i have no fucking clue). to everone else? they resent the hell out of it.

i honestly don't care if the steelers get nowhere in the playoffs this year. i just want the patriots to lose, embarassingly.

so, if it were the steelers winning three or four superbowls within a decade, yeah, i'd be whistling a different tune. this also proves that the "rules" of what makes football good change relative to whether they are happening to your favorite team or one of the other 31.

that being said, since the steelers are not the 00s patriots, i'm pissed that they are doing so well. it's boring and predictable. at the beginning of the season, everyone thought the patriots would be unstoppable. and they were. it's yet to be seen what will happen in the playoffs, but so far. i'm bored. if the patriots win the superbowl, this might be one of the most boring seasons ever.

wouldn't it be more interesting if there were a good story to this year's winning superbowl team? like, an underdog winning (like the sixth-seed steelers two years ago). i'd much rather see the packers win this year, so brett favre can finally retire. he deserves it. everyone thought he should quit years ago, and he didn't, because he loves the game. he deserves it. i hope the patriots and the packers meet in the superbowl this year and brett favre makes tom brady look like a 12 year old playing pickup football in the backyard with his older brothers on christmas.

that would be interesting. the patriots undefeated? lame.

it's been a long december

i missed yesterday. i didn't get a chance to get on the computer all day, except for exactly 9 minutes at globe yesterday, after a lively little exchange with the clerk in the bookstore (who i think is half of the guitar-comedy duo that performs at the globe's open mic night, but i can't be sure).

me: can i use the internet?
guy: i don't know, can you?
me: um. may i? is that what you're looking for?
guy: oh you know that one?

in a perfect word i would have responded "yeah, i've been to third grade." but much like george costanza, i often find the perfect witty, biting remark coming to me hours later.

anyway. i don't have anything interesting to say. we watched true lies last night.

a few months ago i asked my mom to send me some DVDs. i intended for her to send me DVDs i already owned, but instead she bought a few at wal mart. "there were a bunch there for only $5!" in the mix were match point, barefoot in the park and true lies.

i wasn't actually all that excited about watching it, but boy was i mistaken. what a great movie! i totally forgot about it. everyone was making fun of me as i squealed during the action scenes. but come on! there was a lot of dangling from unsteady perches hundreds of feet from the ground, which is one of my worst fears apparently for others as well as myself (second only to being chased up stairs, which also happened!).

we felt that james cameron was jipped by not being given an academy award for his directing. fuck titanic... true lies was amazing.

also, another thing i was thinking... whatever happened to the actor who played Sam on Clarissa Explains It All?

lastly, things i'm not excited for:
a. going back to work.
b. making new years resolutions.

ugh.

the smokiest bar in prague

last night i got a call from drew. i met her at the globe and after a few beers/glasses of wine and some dishing about our respective boy troubles, we decided to mosey elsewhere.

we ended up at u sudu, which i had to make a point this time to remember the name of because i usually can't. when drew asked if i had any idea of where to go, i described it as "that bar that we were at that one night, it's downstairs, looks like old catacombs, the really smoky one..."

eloquent, i know.

most bars in prague are smoky, but if you say to anyone "that really smoky bar," they'll probably know that you're talking about u sudu. it's amazing the amount of smoke in there. i've been there three or four times in recent weeks and every time i wake up the next day ill from the smell of smoke lingering in my hair, in clothes i wore and ones i didn't even have on, on the sheets and pillowcase and blanket. it soaks into your skin, you can taste it in your mouth. i swear, for an entire day after drinking at u sudu, a cloud of smoke follows you around like Pigpen.

so drew and i were having a good time by ourselves, just talking and drinking and whatnot, when a guy came up to us. he rattled off a long schpiel in Czech and i was delighted to be able to proudly exercise my only language skills and say "nemluvim cesky!"

but he got me. english? he asked.

he said something about his friend and himself wanting to sit with us, and that they were going to do a shot and they wanted to buy us one too, so what are you drinking? i'm not as graceful in these situations, so i looked to drew and she said confidently "sure! we'll both have a beer."

so these guys sat down and we talked for a while. the one that was talking to me asked "do you want to play soccer?" and by soccer he meant foosball. we played several games, of which i think drew and "vaclav" beat myself and "honza" (we managed to meet two guys with both of the most common names in prague). honza had some particularly excellent defensive skills, executing some backfield passing on a foosball table that my high school team could never master in real life. i was disappointed to learn that we weren't allowed to spin the handles as hard as we could, and thats just about where my foosball skills end.

it started to get a little creepy when vaclav kissed drew square on the mouth in a post-goal celebration, so we bounced.

i don't know if you noticed but i'm not good at conclusions. basically i woke up this morning drenched in smoke and feeling the several beers and shots of jager. those were the first honest to god czechs i've really talked to, and it was interesting to say the least.

some archives

i'm afraid of losing all the files on my hard drive, so i'm trying to put most of my writing here as a back up.

i just posted my senior seminar story. it's in May 2006 (i wrote it from January - April 2006). it's quite long but if you're interested, go for it.

i can't decide what i think of it now. i suppose it's not fair to retrospectively edit; but there are things i would change. there are also lots of things i still wouldn't.

it's called "the things we hold on to." i think only 3 people have ever read it.

the world by road

so i'm here at reporter's, again. christmas is officially over (yet, the christmas markets are still open... which i don't understand. close them already so i can walk from mustek to the post office without running into 157 people, milling around eating those sugary roll things and not paying attention to where they're going).

i feel pretty terrible because i've had 6 days of vacation so far and i've been just sitting around. having fun with the girls, of course, but feeling like i/we should have taken advantage of this time off to travel. some did -- lori to budapest, anna to the mountains, julie, amanda and marie to vienna -- but i just didn't get it together in time. i had wanted to go to italy, but after christmas shopping for myself, buying a new metro pass and filling my phone with credits, i've got about 400Kc leftover.

i've been in europe for almost 4 months and i've barely been anywhere. dresden and vienna for less than a day combined.

one advantage of staying in town was the opportunity to meet lori's friends, steve and steve. all of those stranded in prague for christmas gathered at drew/marie's apartment saturday night. lori had just returned from her trip to budapest and bratislava, which she embarked on with her friends from college -- the aformentioned steve and steve -- who are in the midst of travelling around the world.

i can easily say that every one of the people i've met so far while i've been abroad have opened me up to a new experience or worldview and whether very or maybe only a little different than mine, they've all been valuable. but these two blew my mind. they dropped everything -- quit very secure jobs, cashed in 401Ks, planned for two years -- and have been travelling now for almost a year.

and they're driving all of it. they started in LA, went through new zealand and australia and asia. lori met them as they entered eastern europe. they came through prague on the way to berlin to go through denmark, sweden and norway, back through london and eventually to africa. they still have about 10 months or so left to circumnavigate the globe latitudinally and longitudinally.

talking to them was fascinating. we couldn't stop asking them questions (that i'm sure they've heard a thousand times), but they were always willing to share their stories. they talked about catching dengay (sp?) fever, which causes internal hemorrhaging and at its worst makes you cough blood and bleed from your eyes. hat-of-child steve showed me a scar on his elbow from a cut he stitched himself. i can't remember all the things he told me, and that was only the tip of the iceberg.

it was pretty inspiring. they're smart guys but there's nothing unusual about their story other than they both were willing to do anything to have this experience. it made me feel pretty bad about never having left the united states until i was 23 and staying here in europe without taking advantage of the opportunity to travel.

i can't really put into words how cool it was to meet them and how amazing their story is. you can check out their trip on http://www.theworldbyroad.com. they have a blog and pictures, and you can meet up with them for a part of their journey.

some artsy-fartsy writer shit

i know what it's like to be close to someone without ever having kissed them; a different kind of closeness. the closeness you feel when someone takes your finger and traces the skyline of their bottom teeth. when they can tell you they don't change their underwear everyday. when you tell them things you've never told anyone, like fights you've had with best friends or things you've stolen or that you sucked your thumb until you were twenty.

i didn't tell you that yet.

but i haven't decided yet which kind of closeness is more dangerous; the sexual kind or the other kind. i don't know which kind is safer or which one is less likely to rip open old wounds.

ugh

dear audience,
i miss you. please come back.
Jen

simply having a wonderful christmastime

i want to write a blog today but i really don't have much to say.

i woke up later than usual, around 11, and figured i'd spend the whole day in bed. i was out late last night and i sort of didn't feel like getting dressed, going out in the cold, etc. my gameplan was to sleep and read all day.

i finished "the god of small things" by 1 o'clock or so and then got bored. i headed into town, hoping to find an internet cafe run by someone with very little christmas spirit (so it would actually be open). instead, i ended up at lori's. so we're internetting, possibly watching nip/tuck soon, and eating leftover carp and potato salad.

i never disliked christmas as much as i do this year. my dad always hated it and i could never understand why -- i knew the reason, that it was a holiday he used to celebrate with my mom and it only reminded him that they were divorced. he never bought into all the hoopla -- he hated having a real tree (if it was up to him we wouldn't have had one at all). he played along for a while, but after i reached high-school age, he stopped wanting to put the effort in and we were forced to settle for his compromise -- a three-foot artificial.

i remember senior year, BJ and i drove to the tree lot at the "pitt rent-a-center" and picked out a tree by ourselves. we bought it, strapped it to the roof of my old black cavalier, and put it up ourselves in the living room. we spent hours decorating it as my dad sat in the next room, uninterested. (i can remember every ornament. the gingerbread men, one for each of us -- mom, dad, bj and myself -- made by our family friend, the huge Coca Cola balls that, as a rule, went on the bottom branches because they were heavy, the stuffed animal Flounder from the Little Mermaid. there were so many more, and they're all broken now, water damaged or lost. the lights were the 140 set that played christmas songs and had 12 different blinking patterns.)

my brother would also be left in charge of putting up the outside twinkle lights.

being alone at christmas in prague has helped me understand a little better how my dad must have felt. it's a holiday that makes you appreciate all the good things you have -- family, love, wealth or comfort -- but also highlights the lack thereof. i never thought i'd feel sad about not seeing my family on christmas, or not having anyone special to spend it with. but when i woke up this morning, i didn't want to see anyone -- i just wanted to sleep the day away.

it's even worse because every single person i have encountered makes it seem like the saddest thing ever that i might be alone on christmas. students, friends. i couldn't understand what the big deal was, but now i think i do.

i think the saddest part of christmas is that it ends abruptly -- on the 26th it's over. weeks are spent shopping, decorating, planning, then its gone in a blink. you put away the stockings, the decorations. the lights come down. the tree is un-trimmed. the christmas dinner is now some scant leftovers packed into tupperware. wrapping paper discarded, greeting cards tucked away. on december 26th its like none of it happened. all that build up for one day and then its over.

christmas used to be one of my favorite holidays. i never thought i could be so pessimistic about it.

anyway, we had a great christmas, the six or so of us stranded alone in prague. we made the carp and turkey, got drunk and went to a casino. lori and i even stepped into midnight mass for a few minutes. i'm not a churchgoer but it was amazing. easily the most beautiful church i've ever seen in a country full of atheists. tonight we'll watch nip/tuck and eat leftovers.

tomorrow will be december 26th.

christmas eve

so tonight, for christmas eve, the girls got together to have dinner. lori made a turkey and i was in charge of the carp.

apparently the traditional meal in a czech christmas is carp and potato salad. i don't know why. so, being the testers of new culture that we are, we decided we should eat carp on christmas, too.

yesterday lori and i went to namesti miru to buy the carp. about 6 days before christmas, the carp stands turn up along the streets. it's amazing.

we walked up. a little timid at first, we stood around watching, hoping to see some other people order their carp so we'd know what to do. lori asked the "carp man" if he spoke english, and he didn't. so we decided we needed to ask for "jedna" or one, and if he asked us any other questions we were screwed.

we observed that someone would walk up and say something, then the guy would fish a carp out of a big bucket with a net. he'd throw it on a scale and then ask the person if it was big or small enough. so, we thought we could just say "okay" or maybe say "malo" which is pretty close to saying "small."

we tried that, but he started asking us questions in czech that we couldn't answer. we gave him a thumbs up and a "dobre" to okay the size of the fish, but then we got stuck. luckily, a red-headed lady behind us in line spoke some english. otherwise i think the guy was ready to hand us a live fish. she told him to kill it and gut it.

it was disgusting. maybe i'm just not used to seeing it. a little girl, maybe four years old, was with her father and she seemed to be loving it. she kept leaning over the bucket, trying to touch the live fish. she didn't seem phased at all by the three guys less than five feet away who were chopping the heads off of those same fish.

so they take a fish, weigh it, then the guy promptly kills it by severing its spinal cord (i think?). then he cuts its head off. when we first got there, four heads were sitting on the butchering platform and one was still "breathing," or i guess its gills were gasping for water. this guy was laughing as he chopped off the fishes head. they seemed to take their jobs lightly; five minutes before they were butchering our fish, elbow deep in blood and guts, all three of the fishmongers were chowing down on sandwiches.

they handed back our change, crowns covered in fish blood and guts, and a bag of insides and the fish head. cleaning, skinning and cutting up that fish tonight was one of the toughest things i've done for a meal in my life. it's pretty cool to know what it feels like to actually work for a meal instead of only having it slapped down in front of you.

we've proudly displayed our carp head, named "vaclav," on lori and anna's dining room table.