New Boyfriend? Humiliation.

September 13, 2009

Just for your information—Matteo could maybe be considered my “boyfriend.” I am very timid to give it a label. We spent a day last weekend in Genova together—he gave me the grand tour because he has lived, studied, and worked there these past few years. It is a lovely port city, and it is famous for its international boat shows every year. Historically, Genova was also one of the main cities to ship Italian immigrants to America, and in fact, my great grandfather came to American leaving from Genova. The great pier is lined with millions of boats and incredible yachts that we took turns choosing our favorites. I personally would prefer to have a boat rather than a house later in my life. He took me to eat the famous focaccia Genovese—an amazing pizza with cheese in its flakey crust, he toured me around the city, I took tons of photos (him humoring me and enjoying my habit), and we watched the sunset while sitting on the pier, listening to opera music from a nearby stage. It was very romantic, and we finished the night with an aperitivo—a northern Italian tradition of huge buffets that accompany your order of a drink in various competing bars. We had a lively debate about different topics, and I managed to hold my own even in Italian. As we drove towards Milan, he played some of his favorite music from U2. I thought it was cute that he had memorized all of the words in English—as he looked at me singing and smiling, very handsome. I was terrified that the words reminded me of Mark.

You wouldn’t believe what happened yesterday night. Well, I went out with Matteo of course, but you won’t believe what happened—tragically funny I would say. More tragic than funny, in reality. Anyways, the night started off great—always with kisses. Haha. However, he brought me a really interesting book to read by a famous Italian journalist, Marco Travaglio. Matteo has got me into reading the Reppublica newspaper, which at the moment, is currently waging a war against the government or prime minister for freedom of the press, attacking him in the current prostitute scandal, and continuing to expose his many conflicts of interest. That is beside the point, my little aspiring journalist was very nice in bringing me this book, even though it will prove to be a very challenging read. We then went out on a passagiata to find a good aperitivo restaurant. We bypassed all the locales along the Naviglio waterways, and we made our way up to Porta Ticinese, which is another section of town with hopping outdoor nightlife. I took him to a rather popular aperitivo bar, and we ordered a bottle of wine, Nero D’Avola—delicious from Sicily!

Well, we had a great time together, and we always get involved in complicated conversational topics, which I love. He is a very interesting boy, and he is a good listener especially due to the fact that my Italian is not very articulate in the realms of high-minded subjects—I always search for more complicated verbs, adjectives, and expressions. Anyways, we ended up at another cool bar that exists in the courtyard of a building; it is always hopping, and I love that it comes as a surprise to newcomers existing in the courtyard. We decided to drink a long island because in my opinion, the bar tender with the dreadlocks makes really great long island cocktails. FIRST MISTAKE OF THE NIGHT.

To skip ahead of good conversation and exchanges of kisses and googley eyes under the courtyard’s twinkling lights, I will say that we indeed stopped at another bar on the way home. I remember dragging him in the direction of another favorite bar along an alley. We had a beer. MISTAKE NUMBER TWO.

I have to say that I am slightly ashamed at my poor life choices last night. Being a Penn State graduate, I should have a little more drinking common sense than to skip from red wine, to strong long islands, and finishing with blond beer!! There is no explanation. I had not drunken more than a glass of wine for maybe months, and I think this rendered me stupid with a false friend of invincibility. On top of drinking too much, I also got food poisoning from the restaurant. Well, Matteo will recount to you the rest of the night, as he did for me.

This sentence will give the rest of the night away: I have never thrown up due to drinking alcohol. I swear.

It was nearly 3am, and he was obviously crashing at my place. His presence was both my salvation and a personal embarrassing tragedy. I can only imagine how attractive I was when I woke up an hour later, vomiting on myself, my covers, and sadly a portion of his leg!!!!! NOOOOOOO!!! Apparently I was very stubborn with him when he asked that I take off my vomited t-shirt. “NOO!” I cried, and I flopped my head down on the table. I was also speaking to him in English, which also wasn’t helping the situation. Anyways, I woke up three hours later to discover the wreckage--all of the covers off of my bed—me with different clothes, with an incredibly sick sensation, lying in bed.

I get up to survey the scene and go to the bathroom—he looks at me, and I storm, “Matteo, what the hell happened here!?” HA—haha-haaaaaaaaaaaaaa--ahhhhhhh. Wow, I put two and two together, and I wanted to die. I asked him to not give me all the details of my sickening spectacle, but he did with a comforting amount of humor and kind reassurance. Che vergogna!! How embarrassing!!! I wanted to crawl into a hole!

Well, we had a lovely evening. I will never be so stupid as to make the same decisions again, lets hope!! However, the biggest problem of the night was my food poisoning. It rendered me violently sick last night combined with the drink mix, and I have been sick all day today—allll day, barely holding my food down. I never have trouble holding food down—ever!!--even when I have fevers!!! I always eat, dammit!

Just for your information, Matteo was very sweet with me, and he took good care of me when I was ill. The next morning, we laughed about the night, and we went to my favorite breakfast place where they serve an “American breakfast.” I could barely walk there, but I needed a long American coffee---if you can imagine the arduous treck with him supporting me, you would think I was heading to a holy destination! I ordered a breakfast sandwich with scrambled eggs!! It was delicious, but the eggs were not satisfactory. In fact, it all tasted the same, which could have just been my sick little stomach depriving me of flavor. Who knows! Matteo got apple pie and an Italian coffee, and I paid as a part of my recompense for the nightly episode.

I really like him, and I think the feeling is mutual. He was so tender with me, and I really appreciate how he took care of me. He sent me a text message when he got home saying: “ Ciao Cara, I am at home…every time that we are together it is really difficult for me to say goodbye. Don’t worry about last night, the night was really wonderful and the only thing that I feel bad about is that you were not feeling well. I send you a kiss and a big hug.” Aw how sweet. I guess my little Italian was not deterred by my throw up, and he made that apparent before his departure—whew. We are hanging out this Thursday night, I believe. Two art shows—one of a political illustrator, Giorgio Forattini, and the other is of famous photojournalists. I also want to bring him to see my hospital murals. What a lovely romantic evening!