roma ti amo

yesterday was a truly marvelous day.
as i said, i ran into rachael ray and her hubby in campo de fiori. shortly after i got over my fit of giggles at this unlikely encounter, i turned around to face the La Carbonara building, and there was blake, weighed down by his 70lb backpack, looking flushed and exhausted. we embraced and i took his camera bag and led him toward antonios apartment, the whole while blake exclaiming, "this is incredible! look at this place!". i was thirlled with his positive response to rome so far, and my mood went from jubilent to ecstatic.
once we got to antonios,we had a celebratory campari, and blake settled onto the futon for a brief nap (his plane had left berlin at 6am, so he had not slept the night before). while he was sleeping,i went out to the market to shop for vegetables for dinner. the cooking situation at my dorm in udine is dismal at best. there is a ginormous kitchen in the basement,a huge warehouse sized room, that contains 2 tiny electric stove burners, a spaghetti pot, a collander, and a small wooden spoon that one might,say, serve an hourdeurve-sized tasting of caviar in. this is all. oh, and a tiny sink with no soap or sponge. needless to say, despite my best efforts, i have not been able to cook very much over the last month. even though antonios kitchen is the size of a broom closet and also only has 2 small electric stove tops, it is equipped with sharp knives of all sized, cutting boards, silverware, and everything else necessary to make a great meal. at the market i bought lots of fresh vegetables: eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, snow peas, carrots, parsley and cilantro. i went to the butchers and got two huge chicken breasts, went to the cheese shop and bought a bit of parmesean, and at the grocery store i bought a 3euro bottle of delicious white wine from montepulciano.
i woke blake up when i got home,and we went out exploring. it was a rainy stormy day in rome, the first one i think i have ever experienced. we decided that such weather in rome is a treat, as the dark sky makes the city look even more daunting,even more severe and beautiful. we went to the pantheon and saw the rain falling in through the hole in the ceiling, and to the spanish steps, where we huddled under an umbrella and watched the tourists skitter through the puddles at the foot of the stairs.
that evening we hung out at the apartment, waiting for the rain to clear, watching moulin rouge and cooking dinner. when the stars began to show through the clouds, we began to get ourselves dressed for a night out in trastevere. it was during this period of after-dinner wine glasses and outkast-on-the-stereo and lipstick application (for me, not blake), that i decided that seeing racheal ray in campo de fiori was funny enough to warrant ntoifying my favorite celebrity gossip sight, dlisted.com. dlisted is written by this vicious young queen in new york city, a guy named michael k, whose positively hilarious, mercilous attack on celebrities and commentary about the entertainment world is one of my truest pleasures in life. i read dlisted almost every day. i went to the website, got his address, and wrote in an email: sighted! rachael ray and her husband in campo de fiori etc etc. rachael ray is on michael k's "dispise list" (most everyone is; the only nice things ive heard him say were in regards to paul newman, REM, natalie portman, brad pitt,etc...good, or at least not totally obnoxious, celebrities). anyway, i wrote him about my celebrity sighting, and about 45 minutes when i went to check my email before leaving the apartment, i found that MICHAEL K FROM DLISTED HAD WRITTEN ME BACK!!!!!!!! it was a brief, bitchy message, and one that i will cherish forever:

In Italy? UGH! Gross. Thanks Eleanor!

x

when i read it i shreiked loudly, frightening a pigeon that had been resting on the roof of the building across from ours. i yelled, "oh my god,he wrote me back, i just got an email from michael k! hes my most favorite homo!"
blake thought this was hilarious.
i was hopping around the apartment in excitement, clapping my hands and giggling madly when my cell phone rang. it said 'private number' so i assumed that it was john or someone. i answered "hello!!!!!" ready to relay the news of my double brush with fame, but the person on the other end of the line said, "oh, uh, hello!! this is brian!" at first i thought it was my father. was confused. finally figured out that it was my old friend brian davies, who had been blakes very good friend when he was living in beijing. when i came to stay with blake in beijing, brian had hung out with us all the time, and he became one of blake and my most colorful life characters, and someone who we will both love forever and speak of fondly, no matter how long we may go without seeing him again, if we ever even do. i was thrilled to hear from brian, "a rare pleasure!" as blake described it, and we chatted for a while, it finally coming out that blake had given him my number and told him to call (i was like, did he call my mom or something?) anyway, the combination of my dlisted success and the call from darling brian and the fact that it was our first night in rome was all just so wonderful. blake and i went down to trastevere, which was teeming with life and laughter as usual. i took him to my most favorite haunt, the cookbook bar, where i was greeting with cheek kisses from the beautiful alessio, the owner. blake and i hung out there all evening, chatting with alessio and my dear friend estevan who had been so sweet to me my time before in rome. people who i had met before kept coming in and greeting me warmly, and the conversation and wine was ust wonderful and warm, despite the uncharictaristically cold weather outside. blake and i walked home late that evening,munching on paninis and avoiding racing mopeds. blake and i agreed that it had been one of our very best days, and a fantastic beginning to what is sure to be one of out best adventures ever.