My Italian Memoir

As I casually stroll through Retiro Park on a tired and gloomy Tuesday evening, I can't help but feel a little regret as the cold can of Mahou Clasica sweats in my hand. The Africans swarm me, as they try to out-yell each other. Don't you know it's a competitive market out there...and i'm the customer. Or so they thought. I should have known better than to walk by a group of vending Africans with a tallboy of Mahou in hand. Of course they were going to think I wanted to buy whatever they were selling - and in this case, and I presume every other case dealing with a group of loitering Africans in a park, they were selling hash.

Don't even look at them. Don't hesitate for a second. Any hiccup in your stride will be wildly misconstrued as the tiniest window of opportunity, but that's all it takes. That's all they need - they're desperate. Scraping to make a living, to feed their daughters and pay the bills - I have sympathy for them, but then I see a "HELP WANTED" sign on the McDonald's across the street. Fuck it, someone has to supply the people with hashish.

I firmly wave them off and head to my spot next to the lake. It's been my spot from the beginning. Bums stumble by as I lean against a tree, watching the sunset, and enjoying my cold bier. As the sun reflects off the lake, illuminating Alfonso XII, i begin to reminisce over the past 8 days...my Italian adventure. This is my Italian memoir. Don't let that confuse you, though - I will not be speaking in Italian. Shit, I'm not speaking at all. I will not be writing in Italian in my Italian memoir.....

This is the intro that I wrote 8 days ago, two days before my birthday. However, this intro holds no weight anymore. It is no longer valid. I'm twenty-two now. I can't be meddling around with drug-dealing Africans, and cold biers, and sunsets next to lakes. No. I need to represent the truth, now. I need to write it, how it is.

A more suitable beginning.....

The old man sits on his bed strumming his broken guitar. The guitar is like him in a sense - still making noise, but broken. His soul is young, or so he hopes, but he knows that as the clock struck midnight six days ago, on November 3, 2010, and he turned 22, his prime was laid to rest. He's no longer the young, youthful boy that he once was. It's time to grow up.

The "ding" of the microwave is heard in the smoky kitchen - his raviolis are done. He butters his toast, grabs his OJ, some sriracha, and a banana for dessert. The Tuesday night dinner of an old man. He has to watch his health, and more specifically his potassium intake - that's why the banana.

The wind howls in the night air, and he hears laughter and chatter in the apartment next door - oh how he wishes to be young again...

SUDDENLY, he travelled to Italy and ate pizza and lasagna and gnocci and more pizza and gelato and REAL RAVIOLIS!!! He played fútbol on the beach, and swam in the Mediterranean, and flirted with Italian girls, and jumped off HIGH things...! He hiked, and drank, and cooked, and laughed, and road trains, and buses, and flew on airplanes, and even made JOKES!...he wasn't old! or washed-up!

He was young and full of vigor and life! This is a story of discoverance and self-realization. The message that I'm trying to convey is that you're never too old to jump off high things and swim in the mediterranean...even at 22 years old, the boy in the story lived life as if he was still a young boy.

Well, let me tell you another secret. That boy....is me.

Sorry for not posting in a while. This is all you're going to get right now. I'll update you in detail this weekend, but i'm going into a hard week at school...finals and things. Brief update: My parents just left today. We had a GREAT time exploring the city - did some real local Madrid stuff. Loved seeing them. My trip to Italy was delicious - the food. Great time, beautiful weather, a lot of fun. Only about one month left, and i'm going to try to be in Madrid for most of it...aside from a trip to Morroco and a trip to Barcelona. I miss you all terribly, except for those of you that I don't like - in those cases, I don't miss you. Can't wait to see you all when I get home. I'll update you with more this weekend.

Briefly,

CM Stassel