Antique Market and Apartment Move!

August 30, 2009

Well, it is Sunday, and I had full intention to go to the hospital and paint after attending mass at 11:30. I got on the tram to leave for the hospital to proceed with my 40 minute ride, but as I was passing the Navigli waterways, I noticed that there was an antique market lining the canals. I couldn’t help myself—I jumped off at the next tram stop, and I went to snoop around.

I was happy that I brought my point and shoot camera because I immediately started taking photos. There were so many piles of stuff, so many colors, and the streets were teeming with Italian Sunday browsers-people taking passeggiatas with cardigans tied around their necks, walking dogs, having casual and animated conversations, smoking cigarettes, eating ice cream, and shopping around the different stands. I was inundated by the accumulation of things—the clothes, flamboyant hats, gloves, jewelry, vintage purses, millions of buttons, mirrors, door knobs, knick knacks, old books, records, scary baby dolls, antique furniture, yonder year phones, scary manikins, and all the antique what-z-dos you can imagine! I was in my glory because I love the idea of lost and old objects, forgotten by utility and pleasure—pointless objects, overflowing amounts of homeless buttons and pins, unnecessary trinkets, mounds of glassware and old intricately painted porcelain, collector items, old Mussolini propaganda, abandoned art of dubious origin, Asian decoratives, chandeliers hanging off of stop signs, and everything else that is searching for new meaning to exist.

It is fabulous because it is all like a romantic tragedy, the pathetic nature of decadence, the melancholy of the heaps. I feel like it would be an interesting and rather endless life mission to collect, for instance, all of the buttons of the world—a mission that has no plausible end, destined for poetic defeat--just to save them from lying in random piles everywhere—why are there so many of them!!! And what can we do about it!!! Thinking about all of the unwanted buttons in the world really makes you so perplexed that it makes the economic crisis seem manageable. I feel like I have a mission to save them from the fall, from the island of lost things—I have an urge to buy pointless things just because their pointless existence actually makes the irony or my purchase too Shakespearean. My new goal would be finding their home in my wandering and somewhat pointless direction in life. Really, the antique market could be a lovely analogy for my current state of mind—searching for different truths, meanings, and homes for my scattered desires.

In fact, I almost envy those that vend antiques because they have a somewhat heroic position to believe in that junk, excuse the expression, to the extend that it is worth their while collecting it all. They might just have to be OCD or something.

I went crazy over the visual imagery, and I decided to return to my apartment to get my nice SLR camera, newly fixed and ready for use. I tried looked pretty in a black and gray sundress with a purple scarf, and I set out on my photo shoot mission, trying not to seem very intrusive or creepy in my photo-taking. Needless to say, I got some great shots—of the many diverse antiques and the life around the Naviglio market. I tried to capture the personality of the many people selling, buying, and strolling by. I was very sneaky with many of my shots, and I consider today successful even though I nixed the hospital painting.

Yesterday, Matteo helped move most all of my belongings to my new apartment, and we made it in two trips in his car. Writing that sentence does nothing to describe the annoying sweat-covered move of all my crap. In addition, Giulia—my old roommate who is now studying in Sweden for a semester--asked me to bring her remaining boxes, those that she could not bring home to Rome, to my new apartment for her boyfriend to collect next week. Lets just say that I considered it somewhat inconsiderate of her to ask her American friend to move boxes of her shit whithout even asking if I had a friend to help me move, someone who has a car, or a means to facilitate my own arduous task of changing houses—a foreign girl who has barely any resources, with most all friends still in vacation. Whatever, thanks to Matteo, we moved it all.

I am currently living for a few more days in this apartment, and I really don’t have much of anything here. Embarassingly enough, I was trying to avoid grocery shopping until I made the “official move.” Therefore, during my day spent with Matteo, I didn’t think it necessary to buy toilette paper. Well, I found myself this morning without any freaking toilet paper, and of course--no stores, especially supermarkets, are open on Sundays in Italy!!! After church this morning, I had to resort to go to a coffee bar nearby to get a coffee and use the facilities!!! How shameful!! I should be incredibly embarrassed for my behavior, but in fact, I am just being honest with a bit of stupid self-hating humor. To correct my predicament, I went to a bar later in the day to buy another coffee, and lets just say that I stuffed enough toilette paper in my purse to not panic until I can go to the store tomorrow! A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.

Besides the apartment transfer yesterday, Matteo and I had a fabulous time together. He is really intelligent and passionate about politics and journalism, and we have really interesting conversations. He helps me out with my Italian, and for now, I like the fact that he isn’t able to speak a word of English because I am forced to always exercise my Italian. We had a pizza after the big move because we were both sweaty and starving, and afterwards, we took a long passaggiata to the Duomo and the Galleria; I have to say, holding his hand as if I were his ragazza felt kind of exhilarating. Later on, we found ourselves at a restaurant drinking wine and snacking on aperitivo on Via Porta Ticinese, a popular street near where I live. I couldn’t believe when I looked down at my watch and it was already 11 pm! Matteo is currently a research assistant to a political economist professor who he claims looks exactly like Dick Cheney; one of his duties, for example, is digesting large amounts of information and delivering a concise and correct synopsis to this professor for conferences and publications. He gets very into his work, and his interest is admirable.

He is very much into journalism, and he has a rare Italian attribute of altruistic passion to improve the state of affairs in Italy. Put simply, he is mortified of their prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi—The prime minister’s many clumsy and detrimental slip-ups in front of the world audience, his illegal corruption charges, his monopoly of television and media, and the control he has over the country after over ten years of false promises and huge scandals, including a divorce and sex scandal that he is currently facing. You would have to read a book to understand the magnitude of this man’s shadow that is cast over the country; however, the situation is almost humorous considering how he has maintained the empire he has built.

Matteo mentioned that he finds it so ironic that an American girl comes over to Italy, and she is more interested in the politics and the current situation of the country than most of his peers. In fact, it is a good thing that I am fairly well versed in the basic political and social reality in Italy, let alone very interested because it would really detract from our conversation considering his fervent enthusiasm. I, however, don’t think he understands how lucky he is to have found an American who cares as much as I do about his country.

I told him about how I felt about Italian men and their masculine conversations that tend to exclude their women friends; I also finished by describing my surprise at how many Italian girls seem to not notice, looking away distracted while their “men” discuss things. I used an analogy of the girls being lamps that men can click on and off—“everyone look how she shines, but honey you don’t have to talk.” He listened intently, and he had a really humorous response. He said that unfortunately many Italian women are very much alike, and that they usually desire one thing from their men—at this point, Matteo makes the motion of pulling a lamp’s light switch. I almost peed my pants with his simple description.

He went on to elaborate that it is hard to find an Italian girl who is different from the crowd, not sporting the same hairstyle, or a girl who is interested in talking about certain matters of importance. Given this point, he also went on to say that it is becoming more prevalent to find men that are self consumed and disinterested as well. Considering my experience with Giulia and the other girls that attend Bocconi, Italy’s prestigious business and economics school, I have probably had a more liberal taste of the feminine population in this country. Considering the fact that Matteo comes from a smaller town outside of Milan, I would bet that his exposure to worldly progressive women is much less than if he lived in a big city. Despite his proximity to Milan and his time spent living in Genova along the Ligurian coast of Italy, I am sure that his encounters have been less frequent. However, he did well in explaining the bothersome behavior that I have noticed.

We can note that Italy compared to the US on the whole, is most certainly behind America in terms of women’s social consideration. This is taking into consideration how they as a whole function in all parts of the country. However, now women everywhere are much more privy to worldly ideas thanks to the internet and globalization. For example, facebook has hit Italy like a huge blue wave, and it has taken many by storm. The access to flying information is good and bad for the development of any society because some people tend to spend too much virtual time surfing or wasting away time stalking people on facebook or myspace. We have come to the point where we have to manage two lives—our real life and our virtual life. It just gives us way to many things to do. To this effect, women as anyone, can pick and choose from the possibilities of cyber connectivity.

To end Matteo is a very good kisser.