white chocolate is gross

I went to a poetry reading the other night. The woman was from Normal, Illinois and is now living in Prague, I guess. She has a collection being published in 2009. The reading was at this expat coffeehouse called the Globe and was in English, which is really exciting when you live in a city where a lot of things are not, so I dragged Jen and our friend Drew. Now, I don't make any claims to being a fantastic poet. I've dabbled. I do it for my own amusement, the majority of which happens when I read it like a day later and want to slap a mr. yuk sticker onto the page. I also have to respect anybody that gets in front of a room of people and reads something they've written. I've been asked to do it and I didn't have the guts.
So anyway, we were sitting on the second floor of the coffeehouse which overlooks a big chunk of the first floor, and lady poet was right underneath the balcony, so we couldn't really see her reading, which made it difficult for me to hear. So I'm not even going to try to critique her actual material, since I couldn't hear a lot of it. But as soon as she finished Jen and I looked at each other and rolled our eyes. She was using the poet voice. If you've ever been to a poetry reading, especially with female poets, you know what I'm talking about. Their voice takes on this saccharine quality and starts into this quasi-musical pattern and then they start speaking faster in the same tone and breathing strangely but it all sounds so ridiculous and fake. Why would you ever talk like this, let alone read something of importance to you?
Another thing that annoyed me was that she prefaced her reading with, "I don't know how you people live here. When I lived in London, I grew a real hatred for tourists and this place is full of them."
Ok, first of all lady. You're not speaking to a room full of "real Czechs." Look around you. Listen around you. Everybody is speaking English and we're all twenty-something expatriats, half of which will probably be gone in a year, and that's the next worst thing to tourists really, if not worse.
Additionally, I hate people who hate tourists. Especially people who are vising a town or have only lived there for several months. It's so snobby. People come to other places because they want to experience something different from their own lives and see what other parts of the world are like. They should be applauded for that. A lot of tourists can be jerks, but a lot of people genuinely want to learn about and are respectful to the culture or else they wouldn't be there. So, is lady poet suggesting that people never leave their homes or towns? Or is she suggesting that when they do, they act as innocuously as possible, taking no pictures, acting completely unexcited and bored to be somewhere new? Should they feign misery so they don't appear "touristy?" Do you speak Czech, lady poet?? Because when you go into a restaurant and order your food in English, you're being a "tourist." I admit I've been annoyed by tourists before. I was so pissed off when I was in the Sistine Chapel that I had to leave, because people were taking pictures (which they really stress NOT to do, because the flash is bad for the paintings) and talking loudly. When people display little to no respect, yes, that's annoying. But if you're in an international city like Prague, London, New York, etc, you have to accept that there will be people there who are A) so super excited to be there that it may become slightly annoying and B) have no idea what is going on. And if you live there, that's what you get for choosing to live in a major city. If you don't have pride in your city, don't want to see people enjoying it, and don't want to occassionally help somebody find their way, then move out. Don't be a crotchety bastardess. I know she doesn't live here, but still, its the same sentiment, and it fires me up.

Some kid at work today kept throwing chess pieces at my butt and it was kinda funny, but then it started to make me paranoid.

I think I have the spanish sleeping flu again. This ailment first appeared in the spring of 2006. I barely had energy to go to class and I missed two full days. And when I was home, all I would do was sleep. But it only lasted a week, so I don't think it was mono. But I've had that again lately, in case you wanted to know.

Also, I finally watched Lost in Translation last night. Sooo good. Walking around alone in a big city, insomnia, post-graduation uncertainties and doubts, crushing on Bill Murray--so many parallels to my own life.

Really though, If I could marry Bill Murray as Peter Venkman, I would glady live in a world where ghosts are a normal daily annoyance.