Fall Back, Struggle Forward

I don't know about you guys, but I find this time change business extremely rough. Look, I know it's only an hour, and I've certainly faced worse and greater jumps in the time space continuum (you try flying from London to Dubai to Shanghai being chased all the while by an Icelandic volcano and you just tell me how you like that), but I feel like it's different when you travel. For one thing, you are traveling. so you can justify the lack of sleep and complete confusion as to what day it is by saying, well, everything is foreign here, and time is no exception. Time hasn't actually changed, I'm just one French time,and bound by the laws of cigarettes, or English time, and bound by the laws of tea and class warfare, or Chinese time, and bound by the laws of....never mind, China has no laws, just suggestions. It's much like Italy that way, really...

But this whole hour ahead hour behind thing has really got me rattled. For one thing, I resent the syntax that tells me I'm losing or gaining time. How did I lose that hour? Is there a hole in my time-purse? I was so careful with it, too! Can I replace it? No, it just returns to me in the Fall, like a prodigal son. And I don't even have any children! See, right there, that all sounds like the crazy person who sits outside of your local 7-11 and asks you for change. But I'm not that person. I don't even know where the nearest 7-11 is! (This is a lie. It's on 22nd and Lombard. And it's creepy. Don't go in there.) Time is not a pair of socks or a debit card, you can't just let it fall out of your pocket or lose it in the dryer. But SOMETHING has happened to that hour that disappeared on Sunday morning, and I miss it. I want to put up signs, have you seen this hour? Do people put things on milk cartons anymore?

Or maybe that's just the exhaustion talking. Because why my clock says 4:40pm, my body say 3:40pm. So when my clock says 12:40 in the evening, my body says, silly brain, it's only 11:40, stay up, read, you have all the time in the world! But body, my brain says, the time, I've lost it! You can't lose time, silly brain, that's crazy talk. But, the farmers, my brain queries tentatively....Farmers? Says my body, What farmers? What is this, the feudal system? And then my body and my brain start to fight about the validity of an agricultural based time system in these modern days, and I stay up even later. And then I think about what it would take to reserve myself a spot behind the 7-11.

So I haven't really caught up yet with this whole Spring forward business. But as it grows miraculously lighter, and ever so slightly warmer (never trust a groundhog, people, they get you every time), I start to believe that maybe, just maybe, someday I will finally grow accustomed to this hour forward thing. Though, knowing me, that will be just in time for fall.

A Struggle is Worth A Thousand Words: Amsterdam Edition

Yeah. There is a lot going on here in Amsterdam. A LOT. And I don't just mean in the drug and prositution areas, though of course, that is where most of the tourist population flocks, year round, undetered by the Dutch Winter and Spring (or lackthereof). Though, to be fair, apart from that, Amsterdam is lovely, tranquil and adorable. Yeah, I take it back, 99% of the struggle lies in the drugs and sex. Though, honestly, when DOESN'T it?

Tidings of Struggle and Joy

So I recently had to explain to a room full of people what the miracle of Hannukah entails. In Spanish. Yeah. Are we having fun yet?

Look, it's not like I didn't expect for this country to be a little, shall we say, Jew-deficient. I'm neither crazy nor particularly stupid, and I've read, you know, at least one book about European history, like, ever. But to be fair to myself, it's not like I've ever really spent a long time in a place that had no knowledge of Jewish culture, practices or general sense of humor. I mean, after 5 years in an Episcopalian elementary school, which was, to say the least, slightly confusing, I ended up spending 10 years in Quaker School, so, well, in Struggledelphia that pretty much means bring on the bagels and shmear because you couldn't swing a dead cat around your head without hitting a fellow tribesman in that place. And while I myself considered not-Yale pretty damn Christian, 30% of the population does indeed, in theory, shun the pork products, so, really, not too shabby. So I suppose you might say that I've pretty much spent the majority of my life among the chosen people, and, hey, it's not like there is anything wrong with that. We generally tend to be funny, self-deprecating, and we nosh like no one else. All in all, I'd say it's been a pretty good deal, thus far.

However, the one thing a life lived in Hebrew hasn't really given me is the concept that there are large groups of people out there for whom the term "latke" means nothing at all. So when Hannukah came around here in Madrid I was, shall we say, at a bit of a loss. One problem is that the Jewish community here is, well, chicitita, as the Spanish would say. We as a people tend not to return to those places from which we've been asked to leave. Of course, the consequences of this mean that we are currently looking for a new planet. Still, I figured, if Mount Sinai wont come to Noah, Noah could go to Mount Sinai. So I decided to throw my own Hannukah party, in defiance of several hundred years of Papal decrees. And while I actually was able to convince a large group of people to come and celebrate the festival of lights with me, I ran into some trouble explaining to them exactly what it was.

To be fair, it's not as if Hannukah is really our most important holiday. While fun and chock full of fried foods (how can you go wrong), it's not nearly as significant as Purim or Yom Kippur, and it doesn't hold a candle (see what I did there?) to Passover. The only reason it's gained such popularity in recent years is because it falls so near to Christmas that we can pretend we've got something to equal the birth of the Christan Messiah. But what further hindered my celebration was the fact that here in Spain there is no cultural context for Judaism. It's not as though people have any kind of association with the term "Jewish". They don't consider us greedy money lenders screaming for our pounds of flesh, nor do they see us as lawyers and doctors who love a nice brisket, nor do they understand us as hilarious if neurotic comedians who marry their own step daughters. They've got nothing when it comes to us.

So when you are trying to explain the Maccabes and oil lamps and dreidel and gelt it's like you are speaking another language. And if you are in fact accustomed to speaking another language altogether, well, that, my friends, is what we call a struggle. Put it on the list you are keeping at home.

In the end I just sort of had to throw in the towel and tell everyone this was our version of Christmas. It's not entirely untrue, to be fair, and honestly, after some wine, it's not like anyone was listening to me anyway. I suppose some things are just untranslatable at a certain point. Upside? They really seemed to understand the concept of latkes. You have to take the victories that you can.

Struggle Fills the Time

I've got a lot of grievances against Spain. Look, let's be fair here, this is a wonderful country. The bread is delightful, the wine isn't half bad, the people are certainly friendlier then the French (though for the love of God who ISN'T), and the people tend to dress so oddly that should you go out in a less then cute ensemble, well, you fit right on in. But in the long and uncomfortable history of Espana which includes but in no way is limited to introducing syphilis to native peoples of all sorts of lands, killing or deporting anyone with an interest in Elohim or, for that matter, Allah, and, of course, the fact that no one in the country can speak any other language other then Spanish because despite the fact that Franco has been dead for 30 years apparently we can still blame him, for, um, everything. Sure. Let's go with that.

And I wish I could be noble and say that my complaints against this place have anything at all to do with the history and persecution of the Spanish empire, but, alas, I am far to shallow. No, in fact, as I'm really all about the petty, my unhappinesses here tend to be of a far more strugglesome origin. You know, it's all the little things, the way the internet only works on oddly numbered days or how there is no good Asian food anywhere or how strangers just straight up stare at you in the subway. A cornicopia of little moments, really, each one more painful then the next. As the Christmas season, or, as they say here, La Navidad, draws closer, well, let's just say the thought I tend to have in my mind when viewing the city is along the lines of "What fresh hell is this". So when my friend Andrew, (hi Andrew!), arrived to visit me this past Friday, well, let's just say I was feeling less then enchanted with Spain's capital. The hundreds of people unironicilly wearing reindeer horn hats didn't really help.

However, if there is one thing that will renovate your enthusiasm in a place is seeing it through someone else's eyes. While I am at the point here where all I can see is struggle abounding like it's going out of style, well, Andrew sees jamon ibirico dripping gloriously off pieces of bread, rivers of Ribera and Rioja wine gushing through the streets and amazing pieces of art at every turn. Trotting around the cobbled streets and crowded avenues of Madrid I was struck again by the complicated and uncomfortable beauty of this city. I wouldn't say it's tranquil, or even charming, but it has it's moments of excitement and beauty, even when you are being harassed by strange beggars who implore you to buy a sprig of Rosemary from them for good luck. Yeah. Because there's a lot of logic going on there.

As I waved goodbye to Andrew this afternoon in the frantic and garishly lit Puerta del Sol, I couldn't help but consider just how lovely Madrid can be, or would be, if there weren't all these other people wandering about. I have to say, sometimes they sort of ruin it for me.

I currently have less then two weeks left in Madrid. That's probably a good thing. In a perversion of what Oscar Wilde once said, either I go, or this city does. Given how disorganized Spain has been since the fall of it's empire in South America, well, I don't really see it having much of a fighting chance.

Struggle Would Like to Give Thanks

Ah, Thanksgiving, that special time of year where it's socially acceptable to eat so much that you either pass out and drink so much that it seems like a good idea to scream at a group of men in strangely tight pants as they throw a ball around a large field of grass. Well, to be perfectly fair, back home in the States both of those things tend to be socially acceptable ANYWAY, but I think you see my point. The fact is that I actually usually find something strangely comforting about this holiday, the food, the family, the copious amounts of alcohol (oh, dear, is your family not like mine? Pity). Despite it's puritanical heritage, it isn't a particularly religious holiday, so everyone can pretty much celebrate it as they like. As my mother reminded me, the true origins of the holiday really lie in a group of desperate and isolated people who were probably so thrilled to have lived through the year in that terrible and strange land we now know as Massachusetts that they were just looking for a little celebration. I'm sure they never dreamed that one day their distant ancestors would be honoring the tumultuous early years of settlement and slaughter by covering sweet potatoes with marshmallows and trying to eat our weight in turkey. How proud they must be.

Of course, this year I'm not spending Thanksgiving in the States, so I supposed it's a whole new ballgame. As turkey is one of the few native foods of North America it can be fairly difficult to find here in the land of smoked pig products, so that was out. And because my decision to come to Madrid was spontaneous, to put it mildly, I don't really know enough people here to cook a whole bird of any kind, I mean, considering all the people I know here, frankly, a cornish game hen might be pushing it. So what is an American girl in Spain to do? Well, the only thing she can, frankly, which is make a nice meal for the few people she can rope into bringing wine, and count her blessings. Frankly, considering how cheap wine is here, that's not so bad, all things considering.

There are a lot of things I'm thankful for this year. As always, I'm thankful for the big things, my family, my friends, my wireless internet connection. However, I've always said that it's the little things that make life worth living. Here is the short list, in no particular order:
1. Mad Men, Season 3
2. Impossible dogs, and the people who put sweaters on them
3. The fact that I saw an old man hit a waiter with a cane today in a Cerveceria
4. Modcloth.com
5. The fact that I no longer live in a hostel, though at times my apartment feels like one...
6. Free tapas with every glass of wine at basically everywhere in the greater Madrid area.
7. In light of the temperature fluctuations here in Madrid, the fact that I brought multiple layers to Europe.
8. The fact that I will be back in the US by the time Sherlock Holmes comes into theaters
9. Free entrance to El Prado and El Reina Sofia daily.
10. The fact that no matter where I am, my flourless chocolate cake still sames to taste the same.

I must say, while we in the States might think we know what it's like to love sports, but we have NOTHING on Europe. I saw a group of men crying the other day when Real Madrid won in a seasonal match with Zurich. Take THAT, Superbowl. To all you football fans who are offended, well, call me when you start crying.

As for the rest of you, Happy Thanksgiving! Eat some extra turkey for me. I myself will be contenting my stomach with chicken. Same difference, right?

A Struggle le gusta el vino

Let's run down the pros and cons of hostel-dwelling, shall we?
Pros:
1. It's very very very cheap. For the price of around 25 dollars an evening you can have a bed, bathroom access, free wireless internet, laundry services, a safe for your valubles and daily breakfast. Not bad, for Europe, where sitting on a bench in a park can often run you at least a couple Euros.
2. If you are the kind of person for whom traveling in foreign lands is an opportunity to get wasted in a variety of bar and club-like locations, a hostel is a great place to stay, because for a set price you can do a "pub crawl", which is an event, as some eager young Canadians explained to me, in which helpful strangers lead inebriated travelers through a series of "pubs" and clubs. Traveling really does broaden your horizons, doesn't it?
3. There is a bar in the basement.

Cons:
1. It's very very very loud. It's more then possible that because you pay so little to be there they had to make the walls out of paper, cleverly concealed as walls.
2. The lack of personal space can overwhelm one, as can changing in the bathroom, sleeping on a bunk bed (how do children DO this?) and hiding all your stuff because as nice as other travelers are, well, you gots to live by Hitchcock rules and TRUST NO ONE.
3. There is a bar in the basement.

Nevertheless, as uncomfortable as hostels can be, and as much as my friend Jon makes fun of them (hi, Jon!), I do enjoy staying in them overall because, well, did I mention cheap? But more then that, really, is that you can meet people of all kinds, which is a blessing and a curse in it's way. Currently as I type this a stressed out Korean man reads in the bed near to mine and a Brazilian guy dozes, which is socially acceptable during the day here in Spain, point to Europe. Last night I sat in the hostel bar ( I mean, I could leave, I guess, but it's RIGHT THERE, so...) with an extremely, painfully earnest german boy and about 20 loud french teenage girls. Ah, the world, it's such a great place where teenagers everywhere all dress exactly the same. Like a Delia's catalogue just threw up all over them.

Luckily, my Spanish classes here have started, so I no longer feel obligated to connect with strangers in the hostel, because I can now connect with strangers in my classes. Speaking Spanish with a dutch girl, an austrian girl and a french guy can get a little awkward, but I'm not going to lie to you, it beats watching french girls writhe around a hostel basement to the soothing sounds of Rhianna. And not, you know, new, post haircut Rhianna, but old vintage Bring it on: All or Nothing Rhianna. Some things travel so slowly across the Atlantic Ocean...

While is is a commonly held belief that Spain, and, in fact, all of Southern Europe, is a balmy land of sunshine and smiles, the sad truth is that Spain enjoys a winter just the like the rest of the world (or the rest of the Civilized world, as I believe I've made my thoughts on California crystal clear). When I walked out of my Spanish class this afternoon, it was cold, rainy and disgusting. Just like fall at home.

Rosh Hastruggle

Call us "alternative" or "weird" or, as many have through history, "mystical banking lawyers with medical degrees", but we of the nation of Israel have our on special New Year which we consider far superior to the regular "get so drunk you can't remember your own name time". Not only do we get to spend any where from a few hours to an entire day praying at temple, depending on our denomination, but a guy with an uncoiled animal horn plays music for us as we communally speak in a language that sounds like it was developed by a tribe of people with serious sinus problems. Jealous? Well, you should be. Because whatever else it is, our New Year comes at a time when I think we need it most.

Think about it. Fall is the time when the days become shorter, light starts to fade from our part of the world and it's no longer really that acceptable to drink white wine. People are putting on clothing as opposed to taking it off (a practice I really can't support) and the golden promise of summer has faded with the realization that you did approximately one eight of what you had planned to do with your time in the sun. If there is any time to reflect and reconsider just what exactly it is you are doing, it's now.

And just what am I doing, you ask? Well, I'm about to go do what every young Ivy League graduate with no job prospects or health benefits is doing. I'm going to an organic farm in Spain for 5 months. You know. As one does.

When I told my friends and family about this decision there were mixed reviews. Some people were delighted by my choice, despite the fact that it seems totally unrelated to my interests, college major, television watching schedule and hair care regime. Others were more skeptical. As my friend Jon and I discussed in our post-synagogue brunch and gimlet fest (Hi Jon!), not only will I be missing a large chunk of pilot season, but I wont be back in the US for a good 7 months. Which is, well, terrifying. But frankly, not as terrifying as staying would be.

Look, my friends have been lucky. They have gotten jobs (which in an of itself is just some miracle right there so it seems my praying on Saturday worked, thanks Rabbi!). In fact some of them have gotten jobs that they actually like, which considering how hard that is at any point in time, not just with the economy looking like it just survived a four car pile up, is amazing. But really while some are doing well more are doing poorly, or not doing anything at all. And as cynical as we can all be (hi, self) the truth is that with the new year dawning, at least, according to the Jewish Calender (seriously, can anyone read that thing? I can't.) when it comes down to it I would rather be doing something to help the world then nothing at all. So come Monday, after the wild and crazy day of fasting which Yom Kippur promises to be, I will be heading off to a more shall we say organic way of doing things. What better way to start the new year?

Please stay tuned, for updates from the farm and all my travels about the great struggle we call the world. No matter what I do or where I go, I can guarantee you, I'm embracing the struggle as it comes.

Struggle Does Some Housework

I know you've all been dying to hear from me this past week, and you feel stunned, betrayed, hurt and saddened that I haven't had a chance to write. Maybe you talked to some food about this. Maybe you went a little overboard with the prescription drug and vodka cocktail that I like to call "the junior high delight". But whatever your coping mechanism was, I apologize for putting you through that, and I assure you, I will try not to let it happen again. But Leah, darling struggle of our hearts, you cry, where WERE you? Well, my chickens, I was in the land that time forgot, the world of yesterday, the struggle behind the struggle. Yes, that's right. I went back to San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Now, before you moan and groan and beg me to take that silver spoon out of my mouth before it CHOKES me, let me remind you of a few key facts. One, it is now August, so Puerto Rico is face the approximate temperatures usually seen on, say, the surface of Jupiter, or a particularly warm moment in Hell. Two, this event may well have been titled: Puerto Rican Highways have I known, because we spent at least two full days marveling at the complete lack of logic that went into Puerto Rican highway design. And three, most significantly, we went to Home Depot.

There may be people out there that love, nay, adore Home Depot. There may be people who live for the lighting displays, the stacks and stacks of thinly sliced wood, the floor tiles which go on as far as the eye can see. I, however, am not one of them. Frankly, having once gotten lost in a Home Depot at the tender age of six and finding myself sobbing at the front of the store until my parents heard the loudspeaker announcement and came to my rescue, I'm not so much a fan. And despite the claims that everything sounds sexier in another language, asking for drill bits in Spanish didn't really light my fire. Wandering the aisles and aisles of screws and bath fixtures, I couldn't help but think that no matter where you go, home maintenance is a huge bitch. Thanks, terrible economy, for saving me that lesson first hand.

I ended my trip by being an extra in my cousin Jessie's movie, which meant three hours in a studio with 50 other people pretending to be the audience for a fake talk show, Nada Que Perder, or Nothing To Lose. As my aunt Jeanie plastered make-up on my face ("this is no-glow, dios mio, Leah, your skin! You gonna thank me...), I though back to the live iguana I had seen days before, strolling the streets like a lazy tourist. Now that's a creature with nothing to lose. Me, I'm still somewhere in the Home Depot. Check in the kitchen section. I like the stove tops.

Dance, Struggle, Dance

I like dance the way that I imagine cats like swimming, it's not something I can really do, per se, but I admire the effort in others. I appreciate watching dance, I am excited and fairly un-critical, or, at least, less critical then I am of the things I have any talent at all at, like cooking or walking quickly and efficiently down the street without disrupting other people (yes, crazy mumbling homeless man from this morning, I'm talking to you). So it was with great pleasure that I learned that my mother had gotten free tickets to Balletx, a local company whose work has pushed the envelope that is classical ballet, or so I had heard. Alas, when it comes to my life, nothing is free of struggle, because struggle will, despite ones best efforts, abound like hell.

Feeling pleasantly calm after dinner and two glasses of wine, my mother and I took our seats in the Wilma Theater, surrounded by a fully filled audience of wide eyed theater-goers ready to experience the magic. And, frankly, I'm sort of still waiting.

The show, which was really three separate pieces created by the company and divided by two intermissions (which was the first mark against it, I mean, two intermissions? Seriously? Don't these people dance full length ballets? If the outfits for each piece are just various different sweatpants can't we just cut some time and save ourselves the price of a costume designer? Come on, now), began with a dance that showed us all why most dancers never cross into acting (though they SHOULD). The dancers, standing in a line on a blank stage staring seriously into the audience began moving awkwardly yet gracefully (awkward in a way only really graceful people can be) and speaking short lines of text that were repeated over and over again like a round. The next piece featured four "set" pieces that resembled four small barres which the dancers had to awkwardly trundle around the stage as they lept and moved to four very different songs. The last piece, and my personal favorite, was a vicious and stirring dance to Ravel's Bolero, a piece of music I have always enjoyed. I will say this, that what made this piece stand of from the two others was the violence and savagery in the dance, juxtaposed with the song itself. Swan Lake, eat your heart out.

Look, don't get me wrong, these are some amazing dancers. Most of them come from our best ballet company, and their training and precision is impeccable and evident. Their sheer abilities are wonderful, but at the end of the evening I was left with the question of why? Why had they made these pieces? What was the purpose? Each one was too close to ballet to be truly groundbreaking or innovative, but far enough away to feel like modern. The images themselves were interesting, but what did they evoke? What lasted from this encounter other then my continued appreciation for Ravel and my envy of the svelte ballet silhouette? I couldn't really tell you.

Still. It's not like I could do that.

Summertime and the Struggle is easy

I must say, I do so enjoy this season. Some might say that Spring and Fall are the best of all possible times, and I understand that those times of year are delightful in their own way, all temperate and breezy and whatever, but me, I like the Summer, I really do. I like the heat, I even like sweating, as my friend Lisa says, there is something that feels healthy about it, even though she is far too much of a lady to hug someone while she is doing it (me, of course, I have no such a compulsion, ask my mother's silk shirt collection if you are curious). And, well, as for the humidity that haunts our fair city of Struggledelphia, well, my hair wasn't going to be up to any good in the best of circumstances, so really, I can't complain.

But it's the humidity that really gets me. Living in a city means putting up with a lot of strange smells under normal circumstances, but something about the combination of humidity and sunlight really brings out the bouquet, shall we say, of this fine wine that is a Struggledelphian summer. On my way to an appoint the other day I walked through Rittenhouse Square park, a wonderful place to people watch, eat your lunch, and watch women of many nationalities and cultures care for white children. I fondly remember a wonderful evening I spent in the park with my friend Mariel as we dined on Japanese food and bud light and heckled capoeristas as the sun set. Good times. Anyway, on this particularly painfully hot afternoon as the sun beat down turning my once cute outfit into a hot mess of awkward looking, I turned my head to see a Labrador retriever calmed seated in the fountain, up to his doggy ears in water. Is it wrong to be jealous of a dog? Well, if it is, then I don't want to be right.

Looking into the eyes of this particular canine, I saw a spark of understanding in his gaze. "Find your own fountain", he seemed to say. Would that I could, my friend, would that I could. Shaking my frizzy little head, I headed off to the free library to pick up the book on Fidel Castro and compilation of Chinese fairy tales I ordered. I told the librarian I have eclectic taste.

Of course all that humidity had to end at some point, and now it seems monsoon season has reached the east coast. The rain scares the hell out of my cats, and hilarity ensues. Unlike a certain dog I know, they don't seem to be big on water.

Strugglesome Still Lives and Renoir Overload

For those who live in or around the proud city of Struggledelphia The Barnes Foundation will not come as an unfamiliar name. However, as I try to account for those of you not living in our beautiful town of corrupt politicians and dreadful public transportation. I know, I'm really selling this place. The truth of the matter is that I very much adore Struggledelphia in all of it's insanity because it is that same level of crazy that has us hosting "The Fattest Day of Summer" (beautifully covered at Philebrity.com), or the hipster's paradise in cycle form, a biking and sodium filled evening once a week of pretzels and skinny jeans, or the Barnes.

The Barnes Foundation has faced a huge amount of scandal in the last couple years, and I certain don't feel qualified to explain the history of the foundation (not that that usually stops me) but suffice to say, the Barnes is a large art museum located in the suburbs of Struggledephia. In the museum hangs one of the largest private collections of impressionist art in the world, which was painstakingly collected by Mr. Albert Barnes, who, as my friend Andrew described him, must have been like Henry Clay Frick on crack. . Mr. Barnes developed some kind of pharmaceutical product (oh for the days before the Food and Drug Administration. My dreams of being a traveling con-man/doctor will never be fulfilled now) which earned him his millions and allowed him to pursue his true passion, Art. Barnes went on to buy lots and lots (and lots and lots and lots) of art, which he offered to the Struggledelphia Museum of Art, who found Cezanne's landscapes and Renoir's cherubs outrageously avant garde, and rejected him out of hand. Not to be defeated, Mr. Barnes established his own damn museum, which now is available only by appointment, at least until it gets moved to it's new downtown location in the next few years. However, given the lawsuits surrounding the move (Barnes specified in his will that the collection was never to be moved or re-arranged) that might take a while.

Where do I come into this story? Well, in celebration of my 22 years on this planet, my friends Andrew and Becca were in town for the weekend, and, savvy art history majors that they are (were? what's the etiquette here?) they decided that we should sojourn to the suburbs and face the museum head-on. And what is the museum, you ask? It is a struggle. A huge, terribly displayed, wildly strange, Renoir filled struggle with strange iron hinges and tools hung next to and surrounding each painting like some kind of medieval torture chamber with an appreciation for bowls of artfully rendered peaches. There is amazing art in this museum, beautiful stunning paintings that beg to be seen and studied, but four rooms in you realize a series of things:

1. Renoir is unbearable for more then two paintings in a row. Barnes bought his whole studio.
2. Putting tiny paintings close to the ceiling of a room may deter perspective thieves, but only because no vision is strong enough to see the thing from the ground.
3. African tribal masks? Great. Matisse? Great. But not in the same room. (I'm having nightmares)

This museum is, in short, a thrill ride of crazy with some struggle thrown in for good measure. I salute you, Mr. Barnes. You make struggle look easy.

Struggle Grows Up

I don't know what it is about birthdays, but they always strike me as odd events. When you are little they are whirlwinds of excitement and cake, and, because at that age it's still acceptable, you can have a theme. I remember one favorite birthday when my parents had a woman from the Struggledelphia Zoo come in with cages full of live animals and I spent the day joyously chasing roosters around my yard with a boa constrictor decorating my shoulders a la Britney Spears. I also got to hold a hedgehog. Best day ever. But, as we grow older and wiser, we tend to shy away from parties with matching Aladdin napkins and plates, and are more attracted to parties with matching tequila shots.Certainly last year, my 21st birthday, was celebrated with the theme of "shwasted". I fondly recall proudly stepping into a Strugglevania liquor store and presenting the clerk with every form of id in my wallet, including my Russian student visa and my library card. She was unimpressed, but she gave me my first legally purchased alcohol ever. I guess Cyrillic wasn't her best subject.

Some might say that 22 is a massive let down from the birthdays which have come before it. It doesn't have the wide eyed wonder of my zootastic event or my Disney themed pizza party. I don't feel like a responsible part of the country like I did at 18 with my new-found ability to vote and buy pornographic materials (anyone else think it's weird that those two go together? Don't blame Clinton. It's not his fault. Damn you Supreme Court!). I have been legally drinking for a year (sorry, liver) and so the bloom is sort of off that rose. So do I have to look forward to as I celebrate my departure from the womb? The world being what it is, and me being a young college grad fighting not to be nauseous when observing the job market, honestly I think there are times when we all wish we could just hop back in.

But I'm choosing to take a more positive approach, and view this birthday as a step forward. Hope and change, right? I mean, that's what I voted for. In my power yoga class (which I take twice a week with my parents. Say it with me: Never been cool) a middle aged father of two with huge tattoos and a shiny bald head guides us through an hour of intense poses and stretches in a room heated to 100 degrees. While my usual response to his voice goes something along the lines of "oh, for the love of god stop talking and get to the part where we lie down on the ground because my arms are about the EXPLODE", he did say something the other day that made me think. When discussing pain, like the pain that shoots down my legs in downward dog as I scowl at my feet and sweat, he said that what pain really is is change. We feel the pain of changing when do something different, and difficult as the pain can be to stand, it's that pain that makes us something better.

I'm all for self improvement. Especially now that I can legally drink my way through it. So as painful as growing older may be, I say, bring it on. Another year of struggle, coming up.

Struggle Shops Around

I love food shopping. I love it as much, if not more, then regular shopping, because you don't have to try anything on and face the cruel judgmental dressing-room mirrors and their stupid awful lights, nor do you have to deal with salespeople, at least, not ones telling you that bedazzled sweatsuits are all the rage this year. If I wanted to live in the Disney channel I'd call Selena Gomez.

But not only do I love food shopping, I love food shopping at the Chinese Market on 5th and Spring Garden right here in Struggledelphia. Not only is it filled with all kinds of items, from ramen noodles to tripe, but it is a hilarious journey of asian and american items, interspersed at random. Take a gander:



Asian food, is it? Any particular kind? No then? That's cool...





Afternoon snacks made easy!




It's so important to have beverage options, don't you think? Mmmmm, refreshing!

Who needs dinner theater? Point me towards a supermarket and I will make a night of it all by myself.

Sunday Monday Struggle Days

Very few things in life feel like Monday morning. It's an indescribable feeling, a Monday morning, it's like being lightly hit in the face over and over again by an affable but annoying friend whose presence in your life seems accidental at best. That or it's like getting into a really lovely outfit, something that makes you feel "right fit" as the British would say, (I've been listening to a lot of Lily Allen lately) and then being splashed by a bus the moment you walk out of you home. It's either of those, or maybe both at once, you can decide for yourself. This Monday morning met me as I lay curled in a small ball on my extremely uncomfortable dorm room bed with a gray and dreary sky, which is always a lovely way to start the week.

Now, typically I try to be productive with my Monday mornings. While I don't have any classes I do like to use this time clean my room, make my bed, get reading done, and by this I mean I watch my netflix in my pajamas and eat whatever I have lying around because the dining hall is just too damn far away for me to make an effort. But, you know, it's a plan. However, this morning I just couldn't be bothered, even for my less then lofty morning plans. I simply lay in my bed staring at another cloudy and dreadful day here in not-New Haven and wondered what has become of my motivation.

When I was a freshman in college it was not uncommon for me to spend a Friday night studying. Not only was I spectacularly fascinated with the work of Kierkegaard and Burke and Dostoevsky, not only did I have VERY few friends, but additionally I thought it was what I was supposed to be doing. I had drive, I had the fire, I HAD to be reading and working, using every moment, cramming my time full of work, reading, writing, pondering, in general being extremely impressed with myself and my adventures in higher learning. But as the years have passed and with them my intense and fiery neurotic motivation I seems to have lost the urgent feeling that every moment needs to be filled to the brim with my productivity. Don't get me wrong, I'm still a totally compulsive crazy, and if you put a book in front of me it WILL get read. Eventually. Just not this morning. Because this morning I was struggling in bed, cursing the weather, and wondering if not-New Haven ever gets any better then this. But then again, that might just be the Monday.

The weather got you down? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmx0gR7wpYo

Struggle with a flare for the dramatic

Though it is well-known for it's drama school, not-Yale's undergraduate community also has a vibrant and thriving theater scene, which amuses outsiders and consumes insiders in it's inferno of productions and factions. As a freshman this world is intriguing and exciting, but by the time you have reached your senior year you might have, if you are like me and have decided sleeping is something other people do, participated in some 35 productions in some capacity or another. From director to props master, I've pretty much done almost every task that you could think of might be included in creating a show, and some that you wouldn't. My freshmen year I spent the better part of a week trying to create a believable looking but edible fake blood recipe in my dorm bathroom, and had to face some very suspicious looks from the janitorial staff. And of course it becomes a vicious cycle, you do a show, you meet some nice people, they ask you to do another show, you agree, you meet more nice people, you direct them in a show, they ask you to design lights, you meet more people, you do more shows, it goes on and on. However, far worse then the obligation to be involved in other people's productions is the obligation to SEE other people's productions. Should someone ask you to be a part of show you have no interest in you can politely, exclaiming that you couldn't POSSIBLY give the project the effort it deserves with your jam packed schedule, and that the task of costume designer/role of servant #4/set painter/coffee bitch is just WAY to important to be given to someone who can't fully commit to it. Fine, no harm no foul, everyone is still friends.

However, the demand that you ATTEND other people's outputs of creativity is no as easy to escape. On one level you feel the need to support that friend whose production you were unable to direct/light/choreograph, and hope that going to the show will make up for your lack of participation. On another level you have made all these friends along your adventures in theater at not-Yale, and you want them to feel that you are excited to see their efforts. However, when so many shows go up each weekend, each of which stars/features/exploits a good friend or mild but amusing acquaintance it often comes down to some difficult decisions. Do I see the futuristic production King Lear at 8pm, then the neo-colonialist performance of The Importance of Being Ernest at 11pm? Then I would have to see the matinee performance of the interpretive dance of the life of Abraham Lincoln tomorrow, so I can catch the performance of Glen Gary Glen Ross set in a clown college at 9. Choosing the weekends events becomes not about quality but about quantity, specifically, how many people do I know in the production, who will be the most angry if I don't show up, who couldn't care less, these are the calculations I have to perform before even leaving my room. I would say that I flatter myself in thinking anyone would notice my presence or absence in the audience, but I have been blessed (or cursed) with a highly distinctive laugh that only emerges when I watch a play. Halfway between a snort and a squawk, with a little bit of donkey thrown in, it erupts from my mouth almost against my volition, particularly when I think something is funny that other people find deeply sad or troubling. So while others may be able to come and go unnoticed and unsung, I am always a felt presence, which makes every weekend's struggle to decide what shows akin to tap dancing on a minefield.

However, as stressful as this weekly dilemma has been for me over the past four years, I have never even considered halting my compulsive attendance of as many shows in a weekend as possible. For one thing, theater here is for the most part totally free to attend. For another thing, nothing at not-Yale starts before 10pm, so you might as well spend two hours in a darkened room with a bunch of people pretending to be someone else, because it's better then spending that time alone in your own room pretending YOU are someone else. But I think the real reason that I go to shows regardless of their quality or, often, my interest in them, is that I know when the time comes and I'm involved in something really important some of those people will be right there, in the front row, possibly bored, possibly drunk, possibly imitating my own animal-like laugh, but present, watching me or my work instead of doing something else. It may be a huge struggle on a weekly basis, but it's one of the struggles I
know best.

Saturday Night's Alright for Struggle

You know how you hate those people who say things like "Last night was wild!"? Well prepare to hate me, because last night was WILD. It was a roller coaster ride of thrills and chills and all sorts of happenings. I spent the first part of my evening attending a video installation themed theatrical piece created by Colombian Theater Company Teatro Mapa. I watched a stocky Colombian woman prepare some sort of fried corn dough object as footage of the destruction of a neighborhood in Bogota played behind her on giant white panels. And that was pretty much all it was. I understand that at it's heart there may have been so much more then that, perhaps it was celebrating the rich and varied history of Columbia, it's people, it's culture, the destruction that gang warfare and drug cartel have wrecked on the community. Possibly. But, as my friend Gabriel noted, something must have been lost in translation, because from what I could figure out this was a 80 minute cooking lesson with colorful moving scenery. What have I gained from this experience, you might ask me? Well, they gave us the fried dough business at the end of the show and now I know I NEVER want to go to Bogota. Seriously, that place looks scary.

Still reeling from the impossibility of this production, I met up with a few friends for drinks. Ah drinks. But I digress. Some friends of mine had wanted to go to a party hosted nearby, so we set off into the night to attend said event. Well, I must say, by not-Yale standards this party was pretty, what is the term the kids are using nowadays, raging? Is that it? Whatever it is, this soiree was that. People were spilling out of the building like water from a basket. When I inquired as to where these people had come from, I was told that this was the celebration of the 25th year anniversary (that's silver, for those of you playing along at home) of an Improv Group here at not-Yale. Now, I think I have made my thoughts and feelings about improv fairly clear, but I did know a lot of these people and this was free alcohol, so I was in. Once inside the event I had the startling realization that many of the people in attendance were alumni of not-Yale. Here is the funny thing about alumni of not-Yale, they don't become much cooler, but they DO become more nostalgic for their experience here. They also become lousy drunks, but, you know, college is another world. Additionally they talk about themselves QUITE a bit, but, you know, welcome to not-Yale. I must say, however, there is something supremely amusing about watching a group of drunk former college students attempt to use the English language properly. One bright spot was seeing my gloriously gorgeous friend Ashley Fox, whose presence highlights my life. Speaking of highlights, here are some of the strugglesome things I did while wandering around this party:

1. I told a distant acquaintance that I have a massive friend crush on him because I recently found out about his deep seated love for Battlestar Galactica.
2. I hugged my friend Alex so hard I think I might have broken the poor girl.
3. I lost the friends I entered the party with. Major bad party behaviour.
4. I roamed the house for a good thirty minutes trying to find a bathroom. Lost that battle.
5. I gave up on the bathroom and went for chinese food. Delicious delicious chinese food.

You know who sings pretty? Priscilla Ahn. She shares her last name with my friend Presca, so she automatically rises above any struggling that might come her way.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKfDwChOoHI&feature=related

Struggling on back

When I woke up this morning my neck was sore, my eyes were blurry, my mouth tasted like I had decided to go on an all cotton diet and this incredibly annoying light they tell me is called the sun was cheerfully poking it's stupid big head through my window. What was wrong? Had I gone on a bender the night before? Indulged in gallons of diet coke and vodka and finished the evening with a pack of cigarettes? Well, no, sadly, I hadn't. What I had done was return to school. Now, I recognize that as a student I am very lucky to be getting regular vacations (though all that ends soon, ask me about how that makes me feel if you want to see a spontaneous physical meltdown). However, and anyone in the world will tell you this, the thing that is awful about vacation is the return from it, not only because you are no longer on vacation, but because assimilating back into pre-vacation mode takes twice as long as the vacation itself. That's a scientific fact. Well, it could be.

So even though I have been back here at not-Yale for three days (which has felt like three lifetimes, I swear, I'm in my late eighties and retiring to Florida next week) I still have not gotten back in my groove. I'm feeling all jittery and sleepy at the same time, and even my good friend coffee hasn't been able to help. The worst of it is that my sleep schedule has gone all too hell, and Hulu has recently added three full seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I mean, no it hasn't. And I certainly am not up to the second season. Not even a little bit.

So as I lay awake in bed last night, unable to sleep, hating the fact that in the morning I would be waking up early and, more importantly, still in not-New Haven, I thought about all of the other things I currently dislike. For your amusement and enjoyment, the list is as follows:

1. Decaffeinated Coffee. I refuse to acknowledge it. I don't see the point.
2. One Tree Hill. Truth be told, I've never seen the show, but something about the fact that it's out there really irritates me.
3. August Strindberg. What a douche.
4. Ugg Boots. Come on now, can we just let this trend die?
5. Goth clothing. In any incarnation. At any point in time.
6. Very smelly people who sit next to you in public places.
7. That new Ciara song.
8. Improv Comedy.
9. Chapped lips, my own, or anyone else's.
10. Apartheid. What? I can hate serious stuff too.

There. Now I feel MUCH better. Here's hoping this will help me get some shut-eye! Or at least think less bitter thoughts while I'm not doing so.

Above is a photo I surreptitiously snapped of a huge gothy struggle at the Philadelphia Flower Show.

Struggle at Sunrise

As is often the case when I spend time at home my mother suggested that we take a family jaunt to Reading Terminal, an old train station that has been converted into a large indoor market where the Amish of Pennsylvania peddle their wares and the scent of scrapple fills the air. If you don't know what scrapple is I'm not going to be the one to tell you, but it's best if you just eat it and don't ask what goes in it. Anyway, we had agreed to go, as we enjoy shopping for interesting produce and breakfasting at a delicious food stand while observing the impossible beards of the male members of the Amish sect. And a few of females. I must say that while restricting the use of technology developed past the 19th century may be saving their souls it is NOT doing much for their appearances.

So when my mother woke me up this morning alarmingly early (and by this I mean at 8:30. Oh, come on, it's my vacation! I need my sleep!)I by all rights should have been prepared and excited to venture into the world of homemade jams and freshly slaughtered poultry. However, I wasn't. What could possibly have made me less then my best self this morning? I'm so glad you asked! It was the events of the previous evening. In one of those rare amazing moments in time a handful of my friends from high school were in not-Philadelphia at the same time, so we all decided to go out to dinner. The thing is, however, that when Mariel, Elyse, Ben, Michael, Jon and I do go out to dinner, we tend to fall drink heavily, and, because we don't want to become outrageously large and die alone, we don't eat much. That's not really fair, Ben and Michael eat. And once we leave the restaurant we tend to want to go to another dining establishment, one that includes a bar, and keep drinking. This particular evening took us to the downtown hotspot (as hot as anything gets here in not-Philadelphia) Bump, a gay bar/dance hall. As I observed Jon being activily checked out by the entire bar, male and female, and sipped on my vodka tonic, I realized a few things. One, not-Philadelphia needs some better bars. Two, mesh is definitivly not a good look on everyone. Three, it's wonderful to have people who drink as deeply as you do from the haterade bottle so you can dine and talk shit about pop culture icons (Twilight? Seriously? Have you tried to read that thing? It actually made me less intelligent. I got literally halfway through. People like this crap?) And four, I really really didn't need another drink, because even my thoughts were beginning to slur.

When I did finally make it home (thanks Jon!) I slumped in front of my computer for a while, watching Hulu and furiously attempting to hydrate.

So you can see how this morning I wasn't at my best. But my mother and father, bless them, motivated my strugglesome self out of my bed and into my seat at the Down Home Dinner, a delicious brunch place located within the market. As I allowed the eggs and biscuit to enter my system I savored a cap (or four) of coffee I began to be a human being again. Ah, mornings.

Struggle with Tuesday

As you and I and everyone paying any attention to the universe are aware, human beings are totally irrational creatures. If you disagree, I would advise you to look as subjects like anti-gay marriage advocates and women who think putting anything on a salad means it's healthy for evidence that logic doesn't live here. And there are many reasons that this is a good thing. Love. Faith. The mass consumption of reality television and the Harry Potter franchise. Okay, based on your personal feelings those last two might not work, but surely you can find something that does. The point is that I am not one of those "purists" that demands that everything "make sense" or be "logical". As someone who adores the struggle that is existence I am clearly more interested in the absurd then the rational, the inanity then the significant. Any idiot on the street can talk about the big picture but I flatter myself it takes a real genius to care about the awkward kid asleep in front of me in class. Flatter being the operative word there.

Now, in terms of my own irrational behaviour, as a rule I like to attempt some semblance of logical sequence in my day. You know, breakfast before lunch, cream cheese before lox, bros before hos, death before dishonor. The standards. Y'all know what I mean. But there is this thing I do that is totally insane and irrational (as opposed to all the other insane things I do) that this very morning bit me in the bottom. For reals.

You see, as a very young child I went to a school quite far away from my home. And while my mother is wonderful for many reasons she is not a morning person, so every morning at 5 in the morning my father would wake me up on several intervals, every 5 minutes, to be precise, until it was actually the time for me to wake up. Now, I'm not blaming everything about my personality and behaviour on my parents (yes I totally am) but this practice has stayed with me for quite a while. So much so that every morning I set my alarm at least an hour before I actually have to wake up. It's very satisfying to wake up and laugh at your alarm, mocking it's stupid buzzing little stupidity and then go back to bed. Despite the lack of any medical evidence to support this, I secretly believe this is the best kind of sleep, the sleep you know you are having. Its delicious. There is nothing better then feeling like you have gotten one over on a piece of machinery. It makes up for every time your computer crashes, I swear.

However, there are times when this practice can truly backfire. Like, for example, this morning. When after some of the nicest snooze time I'd ever had in my life, I awoke in a blissful haze to peer at my clock and gasp in horror at the time. 9:10 am. When, of course, my first class of the day was at 9:25 am. How charming. I took a moment to enjoy the strange delightful contours of the universe and then sprinted through my morning routine like a flannel clad tornado. Somehow, perhaps with divine intervention or superhuman speed bought on by adrenaline and self-berating inner monologues, I managed to grab a half a bagel and roll into class with my work for the day ready to go. I looked a hot messy struggle, but that really isn't the point, now, is it? No, the point is that I made it. I pushed through the struggle. I feel victorious and very zen right now.

So, if you will excuse me, I have to go to bed now. So I can do it all again tomorrow.

Struggle in LaLa Land

So, contrary to my deeply held belief system, it turns out the Los Angeles really does exist. I know! I too was floored! It's not just a well kept secret, it's out there! It's real! Well, sort of real. Kind of real. Diet-Real. But kind of sort of maybe possibly real, none the less. And it's prrrrreeeettttyyy. So that's me proven wrong, at least on that one count. A rarity, to be sure, so note it down.

However, what I was NOT proven wrong about was my equally deeply held belief that LA, despite it's bright and shiny exterior, is a huge struggle. For example, people say it's a city. I'm sure they even believe it to be a city. In their sweet, dumb, hemp covered California hearts this delusion comforts them at night as they stare through the haze of smog and pot smoke at the ozone burning up through the atmosphere at sunset. As they gaze upon the sprawling monster of a city, hidden by peaks and valley and gang territories it looks like a game of shoots and ladders, all of the highways and streets bisecting the mountain ranges. But this, my friends, this is not a city, no, no indeed. This is just an obese suburb that wont stop eating. Everyone in LA asked me when I was coming out there to stay, and all I could think was, really, you actually want more people to come out here? So that the traffic can get even worse? Because that's something they aren't lying about, the traffic. It's awful. That's a struggle right there. Millions of people means millions of cars in a "city" where without a car you might as well never leave the house for all the places you can get to. I have never walked less in a city. I honestly can say that my best workout was wandering around the LACMA Art Museum. Plus I had to stretch my neck a lot, thinking all those deeply important and profound thoughts about art. So at least I had that.

Now, I can honestly say that most people in LA actually were quite beautiful, though if you're coming from not-Yale the bar is set pretty damn low. LA has a way of making you feel fat and pasty regardless of your actual level of athleticism and skin tone. My brother, who was a saint and drove me all around the city, took me to Barney's near Rodeo Drive and as I marveled at the 100 dollar plain white t-shirts and 600 dollar sweaters that looked like they had been the bedding for a community of homeless men for more then a year, I realized that though my weight and appearance hadn't changed the moment I walked in the store, my perception of myself had. Dramatically. I hated everything I was wearing, I realized my hair was better suited to one of the witches from Roman Polanski's Macbeth and I never wanted to eat again if it meant I could lose three sizes. Then I got a frantic text from my brother who alerted me to the fact that Kayne West was in the building. I charged up the stairs, thinking, well at least this is some cardio, and hid behind a display to spy at Kanye as he flipped through racks of horrendously expensive clothing and his entourage following from a discreet distance. As I crouched lower behind a Marc Jacobs mannequin all I could think was, what the hell am I doing? I'm hiding from sunglasses-display-model Kanye West in a Barney's in Beverly Hills. I should be doing my homework right now. I should be thinking about Brecht. Instead I'm thinking about just how odd looking this person is and hoping his Entourage doesn't throw my ass out of Barney's.

And that's the thing about LA. Everyone wants to be famous, and everyone wants to be friends with someone famous or see someone famous. People collect brushes with celebrity like trading cards, stories to trot out to underline just how LA they are, how cosmopolitan, how exciting and excellent it is to live in a non-city removed from all normal weather patterns and thought processes. And it may be all those things. Certainly lots of people absolutely adore living there, and if you want to make movies, or money, or a combination of the two, it's the place to be. It's filled with fit smiling well dressed people and beaches. I mean, hell, it's literally called the city of angels, right? Heavenly as it might be, I couldn't help but heave a sigh of relief as I landed in New York and was once again a part of a cold, rushed struggle for my train back to New Haven. Dark, gloomy, crowded and pasty as it might be, with a large coffee and a bagel in hand, that was a struggle I could get behind.

Song of the weekend? Awesome French Pop Princess Yelle. Thanks Alex! See her super cute video on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsrN3qxX2Yw