TMI: My Sketchiest 24 hours in Rome (that I think I remember)

( I know its TMI Thursday and everyone is so looking forward to it but this week I really haven't had anything pressing or remotely interesting or psychological in my head and now that I think of it I am not in the right introspective frame if mind to hypothesize on causes of transsexuality so I'll put that off again. Anyway this is from an e-mail I sent to my girlfriends back when i was in Rome; my computer says it was created on october 19th and I'm not sure if I was newly drunk or still residually drunk but some of the writing seems like I had been imbibing. It What I posted is about the second half of a very long, maybe like a 5 day weekend, where I was bored and really wanted to hook up with someone, namely a hot Italian named Enzo. This documents friday through saturday which was one of the strangest 24 or so hour periods in my life. Pardon any confusion or inside jokeness or sloppiness, its about two years old and it seems a little jumbly and I'm kind of embarrased about the actual writing but whatever; this is how I wrote it including all my grammatical errors though I did change some of my friends' names to protect their innocence, and a few clarifying comments and editor notes but I mostly just cut and paste. So enjoy and if you have any questions I guess you can always email. We're all friends here. Anyway, on with the show)

Friday. My Italian class in the morning is a joke. Everyone is just hung over and no one says a word. But once again class is unimportant here. Again I am not able to nap. Instead I research some more clubs and mark them on a map. Night comes. I make myself another rum and coke and head off with the words of the Smith’s song “ How soon is now” stuck in my head and on my away message. I head to the metro and then realize I don’t know what time the metro stops running and I really don’t wanna be all the way across the city drunk off my ass with no way to get home. Hell I barely made it home and was shitfaced lost one night when I was only in Testaccio. So I look for clubs that are somewhat close and I pick the Hangar, which is pretty close to the Coliseum on Via Cavour. I figure if I get lost at least I have one hell of an identifying landmark. So I head out and start to look for this place and at one point am behind 3 of the most gorgeous men I have ever seen and I follow them for a bit to see if by chance they’re going to the same place I am. Alas, no. sigh. Beautiful boys, beautiful beautiful boys. So I find the Hangar and it’s on a very small side street with very poor lighting and just looking like the shadiest place in the world. My heart starts beating out of control with nervousness cuz it looks like one of those stereotypically icky and disgusting gay sex places that people like Pete’s dad rail against. I walk around for a bit, make the sign of the cross to Santa Maria Maggiore and go back determined not to go in, because I really don’t wanna be raped. I walk by it just to see if my gut was right and I see two old Brits go inside.[Ed. note- like 50 year olds, bald with bad skin and worse teeth] Yeah it was really sketchy and I have a feeling if I had gone in I would have been the youngest person in there by 25 years. I check my map again and look for the places that are supposed to have young crowds. A lot are in Trastevere, which I know where it is and am reasonably certain I could have found my way back home. So I head there to the main street where a pretty hip place is supposed to be. I walk the area like 4 times and see no sign of any of the 3 clubs that are supposed to be around. I remember how I read how some of this clubs close up rather frequently so I’m crushed and I decided I’m on a mission to obliterate that night. Not the healthiest or smartest thing to do but my disappointment and frustrating had been building.
I go to this Irish pub and get this incredibly huge gin and tonic for like 10 euros and this is one of those drinks where no matter how much you drink it doesn’t seem to be emptying. It was ridiculously fantastic. So I’m down with that, it’s around 1145 maybe but it’s a Friday night and I wanna do something. So I head to the “American Bar” (that’s the name) and its one of those places that seems to try a little to hard with weird lighting and like translucent floors. So I go in and I see about a mojito because they have a 4 euro special and also cuz its empty and I feel bad. The bartender is one of those Italian women who seems like they could be a model or were at some point, just tall with a gorgeous face and long flowing hair. The mojito is wonderful and I head to the Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere, a square outside of a church and there are tons of people sitting on the steps of the fountain. I hear a guy playing guitar and (this part is pretty damn fuzzy) I meet some Americans and Canadian girls, [Ed. note-I think I remember us talking about nothing important but as always when you're drunk everything seems important and amazing] really nice, and we start singing along to the Italian playing a medley of like American rock/pop songs. Absolutely awesome, such a good time. I talk to the English speakers and rock out with the Italian. If I remembered any of their names they would be always in my heart [Ed. note- Whenever Jenny and I would love something or someone and want to remember the good memory we would declare "so and so always in my heart"]. But eventually at some point I make it back to the convent. I think I may have imed [MLS] cuz in the morning I check my computer and I sent something to her at around 4 or late whenever, this being similar to the message “h $^F&^Rnhjg ,lp[l” So that was Friday. An incredibly fun, incredibly drunken night. I didn’t even and don’t know regret the fact that it was another fruitless night in the hunt. (A side note about that night. Apparently I walked for a good long time with one of the kids in the program back to the convent and he asked me where I was and what I did and apparently I responded drunkenly to all his questions "I don’t know". One of those stealth blackout nights.) On to Saturday. The single most bizarre day of my life.

To be honest if I had to do it again I don’t know what I would changer, but since I don’t believe in regret it’s a moot point. The day started with me waking up at around 11. I really wanted to go to Cinecitta where Fellini and other famous directors worked. Scorsese filmed some of Gangs of New York there and maybe the Passion of Mel Gibson as well, but anyway its incredibly famous. On the metro there is a Cinecitta stop so I figured I’d just hop on and hop off and see this famous studio. I hate Italians. They were so pushy on the subway and in the station like they really had someplace urgent to be or important work to be done. I mean come on! Every day for 3 hours the whole city basically shuts down. There really is nothing urgent in their lives. After like 10 stops, so far away, standing the whole time I make it to the Cinecitta stop. Outside it’s so dirty and dusty and hot. I look around searching for the studio expecting it to be basically the whole town. I can’t find it or any signposts directing me to where it could be. Its super hot so I walk around looking for something to do. I find what looks to be a mall. Awesome, I think, not cuz I have money but awesome just because I can see what an Italian mall looks like. I enter and its pretty much like any other mall. I window-shop from a distance, y’know respecting the whole separation of gender spheres and what not. I go into a best buy type place and just marvel. I walk around it a few times, getting lost as I look for a record store, but by this time I’m pretty hungry. I see a McDonalds so I head there cuz its always great people watching. The nuggets really leave something to be desired, besides sauce at no additional charge, but the people make up for it. I really hate the sexually ambivalent and androgynous Italian male; they’re so confusing and frustrating. The murals in McDonalds were classic though. One had an ancient statue being torn down and one of Ronald McDonald being set up in his place. It was awesome and said so much. [TMM] may say something about globalization and I’ll just say, eh. So I head out around 5 because I have plans for the evening and I wanna shower and shave. On my way out there is a group of Italian giggly 15 year old girls. As I walk by one shouts “Scusa” at me and as I turn around the one who did it hides herself. I’ve decided I’m incredibly attractive to like 15 year old girls (that happens to me a fair amount), and also apparently to sketchy supposed American high school graduates that are living in Florence straight out of school. I finally make it to the metro after enduring strollers (not the kind with cute babies in them, but rather those people who walk so damn slow and take up the sidewalk) and street merchants who take up half of the remaining sidewalk.
My plans for Saturday nigh were to watch the U.S.C.-Notre Dame game at this really cool sports bar then go to L’alibi for “gay house music” night even though I hate “ gay house music” I shaved and took wit me a violet shirt that reads Buongiorno Princepessa that is soo small I’m not sure it could fit those of you with actual boobs, maybe [Mo]. J/k. [Ed. Note: This has totally changed; I am a solid A cup now; Woo!]
I went to the bar early cuz Notre Dame kids invade it whenever Notre Dame plays. Yeah so Fox didn’t sell the European rights so they weren’t showing it. I watched the OSU-MSU game which was pretty fun but I was secretly relieved because it (U.S.C.-Notre Dame) was a 930 game and would have been over maybe at 1 and then another half hour I would’ve gotten to the club at 130 maybe and that seemed pretty late. So when the first game I ended I went to Trastevere to kill time and pregame. I walked around a bit. Got a few drinks, at one point I was double fisting with a long island iced tea and a mojito. I forgot to add I hadn’t eaten since around 4 at McDonalds so the alcohol did its thing. At around midnight I get to the club, L'Alibi, and I’m pretty toasted. I take off my K-Ville resident shirt and put on this shirt, which amounts to a belly shirt, which combined with what were hip hugger jeans, I looked pretty slutty. There would be no repeat of Thursday. [Background- on Thursday night I had come to this club wanting to hook up and assuming I would be the belle of the ball. Needless to say nothing happened that night] The door guy waves me in and I feel special…until I get in and its pretty empty. I get another drink, which was “free” with the 15 euro cover and wait. I begin to chain-smoke out of nervousness but eventually it fills up. I get another drink and this is when the night devolves into WTF? I have to use the bathroom so I go to the restroom and there’s this couple; guy with a shave head and eye makeup dressed in all black and this girl with dirty blonde curly hair. I’m waiting and they both go into one stall, or door, they see me and I think they signal me to come in; it was like a beckon with the index finger. I looked shocked and point to my chest asking Me? They giggle. I use the bathroom. I come out and go to the terrace, because I hate the music that’s being played. I meet up with them again. They both had been giving me eyes all night. I head over and we begin to talk in both our broken languages. The guy buys me a drink; I don’t refuse. They ask me how old I am. I tell them 22. They both seem a little disappointed. You’re just a baby the blond says. I ask them how old they are; he’s 31 she’s 33. I’m like that’s not that old. They then walk away and the guy leaves me the rest of his drink, which at this point I don’t refuse, even though I’m really confused. Pretty sure I was being sized up for a three some. Looking back I wondered what would’ve happened… The thing is I’m pretty confident if I ever wanted a totally sketchy experience like that, I could get it any time I wanted it there.
There had been a girl who had been there almost as long as I had been. I was pretty sure she was a transvestite if not a m2f transsexual (for a difference email I’d be happy to explain) [Ed. Note: wow this was a really long time ago; I'm pretty sure they knoe the difference now...], I could tell by her jaw. She intrigued me and I really wanted to know where she got her estrogen cuz I’ve decided that is the next and only step. Either way one of us approached the other. I asked her name, she said Laura and asked if she was a natural woman and she answered that she wasn’t. We talked for a bit more in bits of Englian or Italish if you want, me confessing that I’m transgendered and all that good stuff. I then kiss her cheek and we begin to make out. We go to a couch in a pretty dark corridor and things begin to get intense. Really quite intense. She suggests we go to the bathroom and me in my innocence agree. She leads my by the hand through the club past the Italian matron who collects tips for the bathroom. Laura talks to her for a second then she takes me in. To spare details when two guys who both think their girls are trying to hook up it’s a very complicated bizarre experience. [Ed. note: let's just say I learned that night that I was definitely not made to be a Top] People start to bang on the door so we compose and collect ourselves and she tells me to go first for appearances sake. I meet her on the terrace and we talk for a bit then some of her “[trans] sisters” comes and she says hi. I’m very confused a bit weirded out, quite tired and very drunk so I tell her I’m headed home. I leave and walk back to the convent wondering what exactly had happened and all of a sudden realizing how cold it was. I got back around 430, I think I saw the score of the game and began to devour articles about it. Very strange night. It even tops the Roundtable night when I hooked up with 6 people [Background: I think I made out with 4 guys and 2 girls that night, one girl the length of the c-2 bus ride from West back to East. The next morning I woke up with the taste of one of the guys in my mouth, it was bizarre]. It was one of those days that sort of makes things clear in your mind but also makes you wonder deeper questions.[Ed. note- I don't actually remember what this line meant or referred to except maybe to make clear that I'm not that dominant, don't know what I wondered] So I did technically hook up with an Italian guy, I guess. I just wish I had been the girl in the relationship. That distinction will be clear next time. So I guess on the last night of the hunt I made a kill. Va bene.

{Ah Roma, Ti Manco}

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