with a few minor excursions, i have spent the better part of the last 40 hours in bed. some sort of flu thingie came over me in the night on sunday and i was laid out monday morning, so i called in to work. i spent the day slipping in and out of bad dreams and shivering with the covers pulled up to my chin. nothing got done, i have to do laundry tonight, i only wish i had the time to wash my sheets as well. i also have like 2345325 days worth of dishes to deal with. i need to clean everything in my room.

christ, i need to clean everything in my life.

i spent the last 2 days listening to archived shows from this american life obsessively. i am completely fascinated by every story and every speaker. this country is so wildly vast, so made up of incredibly varied personalities, i wonder what one is really saying when they say "i am an american". it's so much more than the american flag stickers and cowboy boots that people are parading around the office. it's more than a show of solidarity with those who lost thier lives in nyc and dc.

i haven't been able to put my finger on it yet; it's a new thing that i am thinking about. growing up jewish in this country, in a very white bread/upper middle class/christian town has done a lot to me in the way of feeling like i don't belong. i have never felt part of whatever it is to "be american", though of course i haven't felt part of another country either. i certainly haven't felt "israeli", which i suppose, as a jew, would be my other option. i mean, there has to be tons of things about me that are distinctly american, i just can't see them. i would be interested in what that is, though. i would like a reason to feel a part.

this fascination with american life and what it is to be american can only be seen as ironic in light of the decision my brother and i made this weekend:

we are seriously looking into moving to europe. spain, more specifically. i am pushing for italy, but my brother seems dead set on spain, since he speaks spanish almost fluently. as far as language is concerned, it's not going to make a difference to me either way. i studied italian for a year, and i still understand some words/sentences. but production has always been my problem and i figure it's going to be just as bad in spain as italy, so what the hell.

as i write this, i believe my brother is in a meeting with a counselor at his school, finding out information on how to get over there.

as we both see it, neither of us have much reason to stay here and, seriously, why the hell not?

if this does not pan out, i will certainly be moving away from california at the end of may 2002, though. i need out. i need to be in new surroundings. enough is enough.

time to stop wrapping myself up in the familiar and suffocating and for once try to do something to have the kind of life i want to have.

what kind of life is that?

well, i'm not entirely sure.

but i can tell you this much: the "and then i moved to spain for a year or so, and then to italy for a year and after that we kind of just went here and there for 6 months" kind of life sounds fucking great to me.

somehow, i am going to find a way to put writing in there, as well. i am mentally working on a set of essays/articles. i am looking into how to get published, who to contact, how to write for a living. i want to do this.

on a different note, this weekend we had a party in my brother's newly furnished basement apt and holy crap was it fun. there were nice people and djs and good music and great food and i haven't been that drunk since high school, probably. i must have had like 5 or 6 shots of tequila and then mixed drinks on top of that. holy crap, i love tequila. the best part? i wasn't even hungover the next day.

i don't get hangovers. it's a blessing of genetics, one of the few i have.

i was, however, thirsty enough to drink 2.5 bottles of water upon waking up.

after that, though, i was ok.

so, i don't think yesterday and today's sickness is to do with that, unless there is some sort of hangover grenade that affects you over 24 hours after the fact. perhaps he can tell me if there is such a thing.

and finally, thanks to her unbounded generosity, i was able to make her a fabulous mix cd, which i am listening to now. what's on it? look here.

and no, i haven't forgotten about the soundtrack, i just haven't been able to locate a cd burner that is readily available and will work well enough to crank them all out. but i promise you, i am trying.

alright, i do believe that's all i have to say for the moment.