faccio cose, vedo gente

Let the cannon shoot: it’s open war between me and Sheila Cech. I arrived 10 - ten - minutes late to the meeting with her; why did I do that? Because I had to find a parking space close enough to UCSD to avoid spending the 6$ fee for a daily parking. So I had to walk 20 minutes from that place to the International Center. And before… I had to find the place! When I entered the room she smiled at me, a smile of the size of… uhm… a watermelon?… and she told to me: “I’m sorry I’m full, I’ll see you next Wed at 9.30 ok?”. Full of what? Full of shit I guess. Why should I attend a stupid meeting with no meaning, where she’ll give me no more information of what I have and where she’ll tell to me what I already have on paper? Just because Sheila wants it.

Our war started a while ago: when I went to the International Center - the less efficient office at UCSD - for some paperwork and because I live 13 miles away from UCSD well, I prefer to collect a certain number of things to do and do everything in one day. That day I went to finish some immigration stuff and at the end I asked the girl at the reception: do I need to do anything else? And the answer was a clear sequence of the letter “N” and “O” that both in my language and in english means a negative answer. Fair enough: I arrive at home and there’s this email of Sheila:

Luca,

Thank you checking in at the IC today. I was expecting you to leave your DS 2019 so I could sign it under Travel Validation (lower right corner) but I don’t see that you did. I need to sign in this section in order for you to use this DS 2019 upon your return to the U.S. later in August. Please stop by the office between 9-1 tomorrow for my signature. I will not be at my desk after 1:00. There will be no one to sign this document after this time so please be careful to stop by before 1:00.

Oh oh hellooooo?!? You were expecting? Where does this expectation come from? I’m expecting to win a billion and buy a house in Miami. Now I have to go back for just a signature, and two days before my departure to Italy, when probably I have already a lot of stuff in mind. So that my answer was a bit sour:

Sheila,

my magic ball is probably broken because I didn’t read on it about the document. Nobody at the IC then told me about that (I had the DS 2019 with me though, and it showed up on the reception desk), so the document is still here in my hands. I’ll try to come tomorrow before 1 even if it wasn’t planned in my schedule: wait for me.
Cheers,
Luca

After that a rebellion at the International Center started, and I was nominated the meanest italian on Campus, by all the staff of the IC. That’s cool, because I nominated the International Center the less efficient office on Campus. And today I nominate Sheila the most bitchy employee on Campus. So, who’s the best now?!?!?

Let’s be completely honest: most gay guys in San Diego are almost completely retarded and I’m doing some huge compromises to my usual behavior. When in Italy somebody doesn’t call me back for weeks, doesn’t respond to text messages or emails, doesn’t show any interest in me I usually give up and archive the phone number. Meeting interesting persons is not simple, and everybody should be ready to admit that in most cases the thing could not work well. But this is not how it works in the different environment we’re talking about: no! Here people always smile, always make you compliments and wish you the best, always ask for your phone number and want to keep in touch, except that they don’t do nothing for this purpose. And the funny part is that you can’t get offended, or you’re the one on fault. Which is what in fact drives me nuts.

Like this evening, when I chatted after a long *long* time with Charlie, this nice doctor I met two months ago. And everything seemed to work fine ad the very beginning, except that it didn’t work out at all, because the doctor is busy, so busy that he can’t even find the time to answer my messages back, he skips invitations (but only after a confirmation) and so on.

Hey Luca, why getting offended? There’s no meaning, because we’re still friends, he still wants to keep in touch. An just to be a little more clear, in front of the direct question “do you wanna to keep in touch?” he answers yes. We are separated by an electronic wall, nobody is looking to the other one, he could answer no and exit in a safe way from this situation but buddy, we’re in America, who ever says no in here? Nobody! And the doctor says: sure, as time permits.

Sure. The time. Really the main problem, especially if you act like you wanna keep something that you don’t really want: there is really no time for that! And I still don’t understand why certain people are not just… clear to themselves! I always go to bed and I cross my fingers: God please, gimme the time to answer text messages! Give to my fingers the power of completing a 160 characters long set of sentences! Give my brain the power of articulating an answer! Please, God!

…the flu Yeah, that the bad news: since last Monday I’m stuck at home with a flu. The first three days were just horrible: I felt very weak and I spent the whole day in bed. When I started to feel a little better I decided to go to the doctor: unfortunately with my current health insurance I’m obliged to go up to UCSD, which is 20 miles away from where i live now: ok, it’s 15 minutes by car but when you don’t feel very good it’s probably not the best. The doctor found an infection in my left ear and now I’m taking antibiotics (penicillin): and also lots of rest, and no social life, and hermitage in my room. Poor Luca!
The positive think is that in these days of forced exile I practiced myself on italian cooking, with many positive results: let me tell you!

The first attempt was the tiramisù: I made it for Dan’s departure from home. I didn’t have an italian coffee maker, the caffettiera, so I had to make it with instant coffee. Horrified by the idea I made a super strong instant coffee to simulate the italian relative. I asked Dan to buy me some Ladyfingers (the italian savoiardi) but at Ralph’s they gave him some fluffy and short pastries with the name Ladyfingers on it (so that I can take a peach and label it watermelon and astonish you with my new tasty peachy watermelon). I was kinda worried about the final result but I have to say that it came out very very well!
The score for Tiramisù: 9 out of 10

The second attempt was an eggplant parmigiana: on thu I decided that I was feeling well and I went to do some grocery shopping; when I was at Ralph’s I suddenly discovered that I wasn’t feeling that well and I ended up resting for a second in front of the vegetables desk, exactly in front of the eggplants, so that the idea came out. After that I decided to go to Trader’s Joe and buy some mozzarella (they have a pretty good one, close to the italian one) and when home I started preparing the recipe. I made some mistakes: for example I didn’t put parmesan in every layer of the ingredients, which gives to recipe less taste; I didn’t grill the eggplants (I’m pretty sure my mum lets them to cook directly in the oven but whatever); I didn’t finish with mozzarella on the top and in fact I didn’t cut the mozzarella in little cubes, but just in big slices.
The score for eggplant parmigiana: 7- out of 10

Two days ago I invited Francisco to come over for lunch. I was feeling kinda better, and I decided to prepare a classico in my recipe book: the spaghetti ai funghi. It’s a super simple recipe but it’s also super tasty!!! Most of the taste comes from the heavy cream, the italian panna da cucina. So you just sear the mushrooms in a large pan and at the same time you cook the spaghetti, and when the spaghetti are ready you strain the spaghetti in a colander and mix them with the mushrooms and put the heavy cream and mix for a little while. Yummyyyyyyy!
The score for spaghetti ai funghi: 8 out of 10

There was this movie when I was a child, and I think it was with Steve Martin, but I wasn’t able to find it on IMDB; the italian title, translated in english, should be exactly “The craziest plane in the world “. Which was the last part of my trip, the one from NYC to San Diego. Imagine you’re on your seat, your seat-belt fastened, and the captain announcing with the most shiny voice that we’re happy to start our flight and in a few hours we’ll be at Honolulu… what?!?

You see the worried faces of people looking to each other and asking how could they catch the wrong flight, and checking the boarding pass, and calling the hostess, and the captain laughing and saying it was a joke, and everybody then following him.
No problem, it’s just a joke of the captain! Which immediately after started asking if someone was having a birthday that day; the birthday guy or girl was supposed to press the button that calls crew member and… yeah! there was this birthday guy, and the captain itself came out with a cocktail singing Happy Birthday, Joe! Everybody’s clapping! But still waiting to leave the airport: yeah, the captain says a couple of guys forgot some wallet in a café at the airport and when they’d be back everybody should clap his hands again… and that’s what happened: clapping hands and enthusiastic screaming for the two late guys! And ready to go!

During the trip - a classic 6 hours long flight - the captain offered some fun when we encountered a turbulence, and some more lively comments when we were landing in Honolulu… ops… I mean… San Diego. From there he just continued wishing to all the passengers the best journey in the sunny california and finally yeah, no more jokes, I was outside the plane!!!

Sono all’aereoporto di New York ora, e sono le cinque del mattino. Boarding time del mio volo: 6.20AM. Sono arrivato ieri sera da London Heatrow dopo un piacevole volo con British Airways: il destino ha voluto che avessi un posto semplicemente favoloso in entrambi i voli, precisamente quello vicino all’uscita di sicurezza, dove si possono allungare le gambe a piacere e non si disturba nessuno. Le mie due compagne di viaggio erano mamma e figlia, la prima che riportava a casa la seconda dopo un anno di studio a Oxford, per aiutarla con i bagagli e perché con lo sciopero della settimana precedente - quando mai avevo sentito di uno sciopero British Airways before? - preferiva condividere l’ondivago umano destino a tu per tu con la sua bambina. La mamma tra l’altro lavora nel campo dell’informatica, si occupa di database e network administration - e che noia! - e già penso che mamy, leggendo questo, dirà: le hai chiesto se ti trova un lavoro?
Il volo era piacevole anche perché BA ti vizia: c’è uno schermo LCD per ogni passeggero, con 18 canali televisivi, 16 canali radio, la mappa del volo (quella che nel volo Lufthansa vedevo su un televisore attaccato al soffitto, di tanto in tanto, e con un po’ di fatica). La cosa che mi ha mandato in estasi è però questo micro-kit contenente:
• un paio di calzini
• dentifricio e spazzolino
• un paraocchi

Ed è il paraocchi firmato British Airways che mi fa impazzire, perché è proprio quello di cui, in quel momento, sentivo di più il bisogno. In TV ho visto prima un film con la Kidman (The interpreter), poi uno con Jennifer Lopez (Monster in law) tanto per restare sul leggero. Poi ho visto uno stralcio dell’inizio di Priscilla, perché poi siamo arrivati. Per tutto il viaggio ho avuto l’impressione che British Airways viaggiasse più lenta dell’equivalente volo della Lufthansa: la velocità media è stata intorno agli 800km/h.
Sono al terminal 4, ma il mio volo parte dal terminal 8. Poco male, c’è l’airtrain ogni 5 minuti, non sarà un problema arrivare in tempo: il check in é già effettuato. La notte l’ho passata qui. Speravo di poter sbolognare le valigie ad American Airlines alle 11 di sera ma mi hanno detto che non li avrebbero presi in consegna prima delle 3.30 del mattino successivo e quindi, povero Tuka, niente girettino per Manhattan… sarà per la prossima volta! Cosi` ho dormito sempre al terminal 4: speravo che qualche airline lounge fosse aperto e accogliesse i pellegrini che viaggiano in coach class ma anche questa, nel prontuario delle mie speranze newyorkesi, e` tramontata. MI è quindi rimasta questa seating area, circondata da presunte opere d’arte, con delle seggioline né comode né scomode, né belle né brutte, quasi insignificanti. C’era un tipo poco distante da me che russava molto bene, un vero concertista, e ogni 20 minuti la voce mi ricordava che se lascio bagagli in giro arriva la polizia e me li distrugge. Esaurimento nervoso o distruzione del bagaglio? La risposta è semplice: avevo così tanto sonno che probabilmente avrei dormito anche in piedi. E poi da Viviana ho imparato l’arte del 15-minute-nap che mi permette di ricaricare le batterie per un po’: così tra sveglia e dormi, dormi e sveglia, e dormiveglia, si son fatte le 4. E le 4 al terminal 4 mi ricordano che posso andare a fare check in delle mie due scomode valigie.

Sono seduto al caffè “au bon pain”. Ho preso una pasta con una specie di crema e un caffè latte. La cosa che mi urta di più dei viaggi intercontinentali è che il mio stomaco è la parte di me sempre meno contenta di viaggiare. Il senso di fame precipita e non faccio altro che fare stuffing of it, lo riempio con tutto quello che mi danno, anche se non mi piace, anche se non ne ho voglia. Quando ero a Londra l’impiegata di BA, al check-in, mi dice che non c’è cibo sul volo. Io dico: cosa? E lei mi da un voucher da 5 pounds, poi mi manda con le valigie dalla parte opposta del terminal. All’altra estremità, frustrato per la notizia del cibo, decido di ingannare l’altra e le dico: mi ha detto che lei mi doveva dare un voucher per il cibo, e così ne ottengo un secondo. Poi vado a spendere i miei 10 pound da starbucks: si, proprio lui, il mio beloved starbucks.
Lo starbucks di t-mobile e la sua wireless network.
Lo starbucks di Joe Castiglione e di mr. Tom.
Lo starbucks del frappuccino light (quello senza grassi, tutti più magri).
Lo starbucks su University Avenue.
Lo starbucks dove si studia Fondamenti Logici.
Lo starbucks dove io e Patrick facciamo share della connessione con un cavo di rete.
Lo starbucks aperto 24 ore a Times Square.
Lo starbucks senza le insegne a Boston, raffinata ed elegante (leggete The Improper Bostonian!).
Lo starbucks dove ci siamo persi a San Francisco. Non dentro lo starbucks, fuori!!!
Lo starbucks che quando stavamo a NYC sulla 95esima, dalla scrittrice ansiolitica, ce n’era uno sulla 94esima e uno sulla 96esima!

Alla fine scoprirò che avevo capito male, non servono cibo caldo a bordo, ma qualche sandwich ce lo danno, per il bene del mio stomaco. Quindi potevo fare a meno di spenderli, i 10 pounds, ma tanto erano aggratis e non riutilizzabili quindi via, si puo` fare.

Sono seduto su una dura panchina di legno, colorata di azzurro. Davanti a me c’e` Sbarro, la pizzeria. Qualcuno la mangia, la pizza alle 5 del mattino. Questo terminal e` abbastanza futuristico. A che ora ci sarà l’alba oggi? Non ricordo come sia dall’aereoporto, se riesco e ne vale la pena la fotografo. Il mio stomaco é in subbuglio, da domani si ricomincia una dieta equilibrata. Speriamo di non vomitare volando verso San Diego. Poi mi metterò il paraocchi e dormirò. Vado a riprendere il treno dell’aria.

But I really want tonight to last forever
I really wanna be with you…