A Girl...

Picture Pages, Picture Pages

Right now I'm finding it very interesting that since returning home late Thursday night I haven't felt one little bit of jetlag. I've been sleeping when it's dark and sitting on my ass in front of the tv when it's light--just like old times. I even went to the gym yesterday because that's what I do when I feel like I have for the last two days, which is to say that I'm in a condition I'd really love to elaborate on but can't, see, because my life is one big secret that I am bound by the laws of honor and insanity to keep some things to myself, even if it kills me. Gee, does the awesomeness never end?

For the last ten hours, I've been sitting on the couch with the laptop, catching up on blogs, pushing the razor-clawed cat off my stomach every three minutes, and wishing I were anywhere but here. If I told you that I was fiercely homesick from Day 4 of the vacation and couldn't wait to get home, you might think I was one of those people who was never satisfied with what she had--when I'm at home, I want to be away; when I'm away, I want to be home--but I'm really not that type of person, so don't go jumping to conclusions, you. Or maybe I should say that I am not historically that type of person. Maybe generalized unhappiness is actually my lot and I just don't know it yet. Maybe August will be different. Maybe I'm kidding myself.

As much as I want to wallow and wail, let me attempt to take care of the business of those 1,800 photographs, taken with The Camera that Must Be Placed on a Lofty Pedestal and Worshipped as a God. The clickiness of the shutter is downright delicious. The following slideshow is an accurate representation of what I looked like from July 13 to July 28:

And while we're at it, let's just get the whole vanity project out of the way. Even though my parents said they were taking pictures of me with their camera all along, I didn't catch them at it more than thrice, so I suspect most of their shots will be of my backside, arguably my best angle, but still...So, you see, if there were to be any evidence of my having been on vacation at all, I HAD to resort to self-portraits, which are one thing when you have a compact point-and-shooter but are quite another when you have a big, professional-looking piece of photographic equipment and so you end up looking neither sophisticated nor saavy (both promised by the people at Canon) but more like, as they say in Italian, uno completo retardo. Alors, self-portraits; don't laugh:

Okay, enough about me. Now is a good time to acknowledge the work of my guest bloggers. Thanks, guys, for taking care of things while I was away. I heart you all and if you need any favors, I'm your gal. It was wonderful to drop in on my own site and see your posts during the sole half hour I was allowed to get online during the trip before my mother stormed into the Internet cafe in Monterosso and announced loudly in front of about a dozen kids giddy with senior trippiness that I had been online long enough and she was hungry and was going to eat RIGHT NOW so I'd better get off the computer if I wanted dinner. "JE-SUS CHRIST," I said in the universal language of Exasperation, and when I paid my Euros to the Italian guy running the joint, he grabbed my hand and held it for a moment while looking deep into my eyes and saying in English, "I am so very sorry." All those eighteen-year-olds must have wondered why a girl my age was stuck travelling with her parental units. That and an unfortunate hairdo surely convinced them I was president of the Rosemary Kennedy Club, although they probably don't even know who the Kennedys are because, my god, have you noticed how dumb high school kids are these days? Shameful, shameful. And speaking of dumb--Note to self: Don't vacation with your mother, even if you like her. But that's a topic for another day.

Here's another self-portrait--one of my favorites from the trip. Is the cotemplativeness (contemplivity?) not tangible?