I hear if you play enough games of freecell, it actually does the work for you

I have played more freecell games than is scientifically proven to be healthy for man. I have also probably eaten enough to feed a small nation, and I’ve listened to some songs about 75 times. However, that’s not showing up on itunes because I restarted every single one before it actually reached the end. I started to initiate this method of listening since Andries actually organized my itunes library once by the “play count,” and I nearly died of mortification when an exceptionally drippy and romantic song graced the top of the list.

Me?! Drippy and Romantic!? Julie must have gotten into my music library again, gosh darnit.

Faithful readers of my blog will have picked up on the clues. Freecell games…compulsive snacking….

Either Adrianne is recovering from a recent heartbreak, or she is writing an essay. More precisely, 3 two page responses for a take-home final. And working on a presentation for art history on a church that apparently has no information about it. Oh, and a powerpoint for Italian. Let me tell you, this is all some superior therapy when you’re looking to recuperate from an extremely interesting and exciting lifestyle you never had. Because I don’t have a single health problem and GOD, what kind of a life CAN you have when your biography would be entitled Adrianna: The Healthiest Person on Earth?

However, I am not freaking out yet. I have “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm” sung by Dean Martin stuck in my head. It’s impossible to freak out over anything when you’ve got a Christmas song stuck in your head. For one, even if you re-write the song to reflect the utter despair reigning in your life at the moment, it doesn’t quite succeed in sending you to the proper level of anguish.

Case in Point #1 (sung to Jingle Bells):

Shit shit shiiiiiit
Shit shit shiiiiiit
Shit shit all the way

See? Or a more sophisticated song:

Case in Point #2 (sung to I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm)
The work is crushing
And the snow is slushing
I do not want to see you
I really do think that I will die
I think I might commit suicide

Not very dreary or bleak, are they?

(Ah, Adrianna Gyorfi…freecell player and song writer extraordinaire)

Strategically placed picture so Jimmy Salvatore will want to read my blog

And two, Christmas is the time of good-will and joy. Oh, and of Christmas break, which I hate.

So today’s blog topic might take a serious turn. A very serious turn indeed, since I have less than a week left in this place. I should do a very serious reflection of what I learned here from people, places, and things while habiting Rome.

Well. What a learned from the people merits a separate entry. On to inanimate and impersonal things!

1. The Pyromaniac Tendency

Before I came here, I had an inordinate fear seated deep in my heart of cigarette lighters. Don’t ask my why. I had visions of them burning off assorted appendages when they were within 15 feet of me.

However. We have one of those gas stoves where you have to manually light it. No problem, except we never had matches. Only had the cigarette lighter. This proposed a problem in making coffee. Either I had to eat the coffee grinds raw, or I had to suck it up and take the heat. Literally. And let me tell you, not that I’m tooting my own horn or anything, but I am so good with cigarette lighters by now that I could light anything within 5 inches of me. I light up that stove like it is NOTHING.

2. The Desperado Lifestyle

I learned to live the life of an outlaw. Since I never got my Permit to Stay, I was never technically legally residing in Rome. I can outrun any group of carabinieri you put on my tail.

Also, by traveling on the bus a grand total of 3 times without paying any time, I learned how to dodge ticket control. Marisel had the misfortune of being fined 50 European big ones the other day. Libby and I have perfected the runners pose poised right in front of the door, plus the shifty eyes scanning the bus doors.

With this, I also learned to fear woman authorities. Generally women are portrayed as being the gentler sex, right? They’re the ones who get all big for 9 months and they want to take their kids to the playground and play house with them because they’re all maternal and stuff? HA! What I learned is that they are the scarier ones.

Look at Anna Lucia on Lost. I would rather have Sawyer angry with me than Anna Lucia.

Why are women scarier? It has to do with attitude. With men ticket controllers, they’re just jerks. They’re doing their job, they catch a tourist, they say “tough luck, buddy, you’re giving us 50 euro,” they take the 50 euro, and then they move on. Sure, they’re jerks in the process, but you can brush off their arrogance pretty easily because guys smell worse than girls. (I might just be saying this because I don’t have any really vivid recollection of being reprimanded by a man)

But women are an entirely different manner. They don that uniform and board that bus like it is their blessed vocation. A woman ticket control has enough bite in her to put the fear of God in a very bored slug. They perform any job with the slightest modicum of power as if they were doing this for The Good of Humanity, and not only to show that they’re better than you. Woman teachers are the same way, I think. Nevermind my high school freshman teacher who would jump on top of his desk and wave a chair threateningly around you if you asked a “dumb” question. I’ve got the memory of having to put my head down for 5 minutes at the round table in kindergarten branded into my mind with Mrs. Anderson menacingly staring me down while wondering if I would taste better salted or sweetened, and that moment is re-enacted every time I’m dragged into the police station by a woman officer.

Because that uh…happens so frequently, Adrianne.

I've also perfected ways to waste time. Back to work!