Owlspotting

A little more than six months ago, Lavi coined the phrase “life 9,” to describe a series of decisions she decided she had to make: find a job and a place to live. “Life 9” is “viata 9” in Romanian, which, when the number is spelled out reads “viata noua,” which also means “new life.”

I loved the phrase because it played on the idea that life is a series of successive stages, and each time we move on to a new one, we make choices to get there. One thing we cannot do though is predict how happy we will be when we get there. Making choices and predicting how happy they will make us (they most often don’t because our prediction power sucks) is the thesis of a wonderful book called “Stumbling on Happiness.”

Choices, future happiness and assorted trivia of the human condition have always fascinated me, although the tendency to consume information on how our brains manipulate us has been exacerbated lately (those of you reading this blog don’t need to be reminded of that).

When, last October, I left Romania after a three months stint, I was skeptical that it was the right decision. I had spent such wonderful moments at home that I didn’t want to leave. I also made my dilemma known to friends and family, which has made my dad ask me numerous times: Wasn’t it the wrong decision? Wasn’t it just a waste of time?

Today, typing in an empty apartment in Bucharest, this time having returned home for an undisclosed period of time, I want to stress that the answer is: NO. There were things left for me to do in America, goodbyes to say, and I wanted some distance from a decision to return or not. In Boston I turned to books and essays, mostly by exiles, which explored longing, the myth of the impossible return and the pull of nostalgia. I often felt like a coward, saw myself as somebody who didn’t have the balls to make a decision and was hiding behind tomes of books to find an answer.

One freezing night this winter, I was having dinner with a friend in a Thai restaurant after having suffered through Pan’s Labyrinth. Rubbing my hands together, I was hopelessly stuck trying to tell her that talking about how people act and the ways in which they analyze their actions is easier in English than in Romanian. (My self-awareness works much better in English, maybe because it was the language it matured in.)

The point of the story is that she didn’t think language impotence was worthy of conversation. There were no deeper meanings or themes to analyze there. Things just are, why did for meaning?

Life is and life happens, but I believe that we can understand some of it. This is why I loved the book on happiness. It talks about the ways in which imagination fails us when we try to anticipate whether our choices will make us happy. Imagination cheats and it fills voids of knowledge with assumptions, it makes predictions on future states based on present ones, and it refuses to understand that once the future happens it can feel differently than we predicted. So if we can’t use our own selves to predict our happiness, what should we do? Daniel Gilbert suggests we do something most of us abhor, and I personally enjoy a great deal: take the experiences of others as a guide, because in the end, we are more similar than we think.

My friends laugh at me because I like to say a movie is good or bad before I watch it—a recent habit of mine. Of course, I rate movies on a subjective scale, where “good” means “I liked it”; it doesn’t mean “what an unworthy piece of art” (even though I often sound like I make that judgment call, too). I usually base what I say on the experiences of a few movie reviewers with whom I agree; to me, their experience of a movie is often a decent predictor of my own (Pan’s Labyrinth is one of the exceptions; I didn’t like it).

This is also why I believe “This American Life” to be the most amazing kind of journalism. The stories they tell are stories of people’s experiences and what they thought at the time they were engaging in them. You connect to some of them because you’ve felt the same, or you can take others as guides.

Last summer, before the whole “life 9” phase, Lavi told me it was crap to feed on other’s people experiences rather than live them yourself. At the time, I did a shitty job of explaining why it’s not feeding on them that I was talking about. It’s treasuring them for the wealth of information they carry about who we are, who we were and who we might become if we take this road or that. Learning about the lives of others is not just a voyeuristic experience, but a reassuring and rewarding trip that can help us in turn.

As I write this, I’m working on my own “life 9,” one with the most unknowns of all I can remember. I have already made a few mistakes by allowing imagination to predict future events, but I soldier on as I prepare to make some of the important decisions Gilbert mentioned in his book: what to do, and with whom to do it.

But this time, I won’t be ashamed to look to others for inspiration (tomes of books and people included) while I revel in the happiness of the choices I have already made: where to live, and with whom to live with.

Originally published December 2004 in Vox Magazine.

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The Intercontinental Divide

I had not seen my mother in 314 days since we parted outside her apartment in Targu-Mures, Romania. But on the night of June 4, when she burst through the door of a New Orleans hotel room for our reunion, it seemed as though we had parted at lunch.

“Don’t you dare come home,” she said, dropping to the floor her blue plastic shoulder bag with the name of a drug company written on it. “I paid $40 on a cab to get me here from the airport. That’s a third of my monthly salary! You should stay in this country, where they will respect you and your work!”

Smiling, I replied, “Hi, Mom.”

My mother came to New Orleans for a medical conference. She is an oncologist, a medical specialist who deals with cancer and death. When my parents got divorced after 18 years of marriage, my mother reinvented herself by devoting her waking hours to my younger brother and me and her dying cancer patients. Our cat, Bubu, came third.

She makes peanuts in American dollars, the equivalent of a couple of grocery shopping sprees, but it’s enough in Romanian Lei to keep a third-floor, two-bedroom apartment on a street named after a Transylvanian poet, George Cosbuc.

She is alone there. My brother moved two hours away last September when he started college, and I had been away from home for five years, four of those in Bucharest. I would visit every three weeks, but these greet and eat sessions stopped two summers ago when I came to Columbia to earn a graduate degree in journalism.

Back in our bland Holiday Inn room off the highway, the scent of domestic familiarity lingered in the thick air. Especially because most of my mom’s luggage got lost in Atlanta. I was sharing the outrage and postponing the joy of our reunion. We had five days to get to that. We were busy being angry at Delta Airlines, the Romanian government and all institutions that give employees miserable rewards for their efforts. That night the list included the medical school where my mom teaches and the oncology clinic where she works.

This was the same energetic, strong, redheaded mom I had left behind, the same mom who thought I would have a brighter and lighter future in America because I wouldn’t worry about having money or being kicked around by an incompetent budding democracy.

While she smoked her last menthol cigarette in the lobby, I lay on my bed to draft a list of reasons for returning home to help a limp, Romanian journalism walk a straight line.

I knew my list of reasons could not include family, friends or the elusive idea of home. My mom’s family consists of two sons, and she would let both of us go if she thought we would be better off. She knows my Romanian friends are as practical as she is in matters of living without worries. And that night my mom was about to sleep in the clothes she had been wearing for 20 hours. She could spot cheap nostalgia and idealism the way I could spot potential party animals on Bourbon Street.

The conversation about my staying in America came up daily. We talked about it during breakfast as we enjoyed American free-coffee refills and scrambled eggs. We talked again when her luggage, wrapped in plastic because it had broken during transport, finally made it to New Orleans.

She tried to persuade me to stay using Maslow’s five-level pyramid of need, which argues that basic needs such as food, water or shelter are sometimes hard to satisfy. Even our visit to the National D-Day museum in New Orleans had a feeling of persuasion to it.

And of course, I heard the speech about her having to drive a Dacia, the stupid Romanian-made car, even though all the gangsters and post-communism profiteers cruised around in steel-gray BMWs.

I responded by pointing out that what she liked in America were things I couldn’t stand. I kept a small journal for the duration of the trip, in which I wrote at one point: “I just have to get her crazy, stupid tourist ideas out of her head. No bus tours, no organized $20-walking-tour rip-offs, no random things that looked colored enough for a picture.”

I even got her to agree on some things. America had too much political correctness, too much junk food and awful public transportation. America was also ignorant about the world. Then I tried to educate my mom in the things worth appreciating about America: not the malls, not the blow-out sales, not the $10 glittery sandals, but academic freedom, Whatchamacallit bars, increased personal safety and fascinating presidential politics. I even tried a lesson in American history.

“Hey, Reagan died,” I told her while we dined in a bar and watched TV.

“Hmmmm,” she replied.

To her, America wasn’t cool because of the media frenzy around Reagan’s death. It was cool because of voodoo dolls and soft beef steaks. The haziness and sugarcoated decadence of New Orleans didn’t do much to change our perennial dynamic.

But I had more fun observing our interaction than I ever had questioning it in the past. We parted at the airport over chicken salad after another expensive cab ride and my mom saying, “Think about staying,” and me replying with a smile, “Yes, Mom, I will.”

When I go home for Christmas, I’ll find the same mom who shops for ugly earrings for her sisters. I’ll be the same idealistic son who believes in a future at home. The New Orleans blues will be a Danube sad song, the alcohol-laden hurricane a cup of warm wine, the gumbo my mom’s eggplant salad. The background will change, but my mom and I will probably be the same.

And I will hang my head, hang my head low
And I will hang my head, hang my head low
(The crane wife 3)

I was never one to appreciate music for production value, innovation, legacy and all the other attributes of “great legends.” I am of a more simple mind. If it moves me, I will embrace it and love it. If it doesn’t, it’ll fail.

That said, nothing has really ever moved me as much as Colin Meloy and The Decemberists. This post serves multiple functions: it’s an appreciation of the band, it’s a call for people to come to Vienna and see them live in September and it’s my own private form of exorcism.

My brother in arms
I’d rather I’d lose my limbs
Than let you come to harm
(The soldiering life)

The spring of 2005 was beautiful. I had my own little apartment in Columbia, Mo., which I had decorated with all sorts of second hand and vintage furniture picked out from Goodwill or the Salvation Army. I used to wake up to the sounds of National Public Radio, stroll along the living room barefoot, and yawn in terror at the hours I’d have to devote to reporting and editing. The projects I worked on that spring, including my master’s project, won’t be matched for a quite while. I really wasn’t doing much but being a journalist and loving it. I still do that occasionally, but there was something special about those days.

I fell on the playing field
The work of an errant heel
The din of the crowd and the loud commotion
Went deafening silence and stopped emotion
(The sporting life)

My master’s project required that I write a short weekly journal detailing how my work was going. As I always do when I’m assigned to write something that is not for publication, I made it highly personal. My journals then were a struggle to define my work and the vision I had for my journalism. As corny as some of them sound, it was some of the most honest writing I have ever done. There was so much passion in every journal entry that I wonder how (and when) can I bring it all back. I wrote:

What is journalism? This question has been racing through my brain for a couple of weeks and it popped up every five seconds during a recent Missourian brainstorm meeting on the Islam story. As we went around the table, we were not only talking about various angles, ideas and approaches to the story – we were sharing and debating our definitions of journalism, our ways of telling stories.

Let me back up a little.

I have been searching for a personal definition of journalism for close to six years now. What is the goal and purpose of MY journalism? Yes, there is the mission of the profession as a whole, but whether we are conscious or not, we all have a way of interpreting and applying it. My journalism has slowly, but surely, pushed me in the direction of explanation, telling the story of the story, tackling ideas not events, having people stand in for phenomena.

All I heard was a shout
of your brother calling me out
and you ran like a fool to my side
and the shot it hit hard
and your frame went limp in my arms
and a lull of love was your dying cry
(O Valencia)

How easy it all seems when the only question that plagues your day is: “What is journalism?” Did I find an answer? Not a final one, but I did find a working definition:

What is journalism? Journalism is the ability and the opportunity to share stories of the world and the people in it with those around you.

It’s not perfect yet, but I can live with it for now. The key word is sharing. As a journalist, one has the opportunity to immerse in a phenomenon or someone’s life. He probably influenced it just as much as it influences him. And he brings back a story that hopefully explains the world a little better. (…)

Here’s an image. Journalism can be a tennis ball: fast, easy to handle, easy to look at and easy to discard. But what if journalism was a gigantic Earth shaped sphere? It would be slow, complicated, hard to handle but hard to forget about and ignore. And then a good story gives it the needed push and once it’s in motion, one can’t take their eyes off it. Every few rolls something else catches your eye and you make note of it going “wow.” The imagery changes, the speed varies and the experience is profound.

And we’ll remember this when we are old and ancient
Though the specifics might be vague
And I’ll say your camisole was a sprightly light magenta
When in fact it was a nappy bluish grey
(July, July)

So what does all this have to do with The Decemberists you ask. Everything. First of all, it was in the spring of 2005 that I heard a song that broke my heart. It was called “We both go down together” and it was about two lovers committing suicide by jumping of “the cliffs of Dover.” The song was by was off their recently released “Picaresque,” which was the best record I’ve heard that year. Second of all, the Decemberists did with music what I wanted to do with journalism–they told intensely personal stories. On Picaresque they had the feel of medieval Gothic ballads set to slow strumming guitars, violins, mandolins and what have you. They were songs of death, fear, tragedy, but played in an oddly upbeat, yet appropriate way.

Here on these cliffs of Dover
So high you can’t see over
And while your head is spinning
Hold tight, it’s just beginning
(We both go down together)

I’m not ashamed to admit I discovered the Decemberists late (they started in 2001 and had produced plenty of music before “Picaresque”). I’m not ashamed because I embraced them so completely that I felt I never skipped a beat of their existence. Almost everything you read about the Decemberists will talk about Colin Meloy and his lyrics. The man loves big words, loves tragic stories, and loves performing them.

Pretty hands do pretty things when pretty times arise
Seraphim and seaweed swim where stick-limbed Myla lies
(Song for Myla Golberg)

I saw them the first time in Washington, DC and I loved it. The Decemberists are a soft band, they don’t “rock” in the traditional way. But the way the throw themselves into their more up tempo material is riveting and addictive. I left buzzing, wanting more–more stories, more songs, more of this experience. Here is the thing with a good story, or rather with how I react to one. My knees go weak, my heart starts racing and my mind starts screaming and running in circles. It engulfs, enthuses me and brings out unrelenting joy. I have a hard time explaining that I can divorce content from execution and intent. Tell me a sob story in which children die from cancer and I will sit there teary eyed and joyous. Because it was beautiful, because it did real life justice, because it taught me something valuable and it made me feel more connected to the world. Take the lyrics I treasure most from the Decemberists (see below). To me, the words of “Engine driver” speak to the need of telling the stories of your life and the lives of others–as a way of exorcising pain and pleasure, but also as a way to give something to the world.

And I am a writer, writer of fictions
I am the heart that you call home
And I’ve written pages upon pages
Trying to rid you from my bones
(Engine driver)

There is one more aspect to telling stories. Good stories can make you feel differently depending on the context. I married most bands to the context I discovered them in. I have a hard time separating The Arcade Fire from the small venue I first saw them in. Something Corporate will always conjure the smell of screaming teenagers smelling like vanilla. Guster will always be a road-trip soundtrack. When I brought the Decemberists to Romania in the summer of 2006, “We both go together” played and mean different things. So did “Engine driver.” And it is here that I first heard “O Valencia” and their latest album, “The Crane Wife.”

So be kind to your mother, though she may seem an awful bother,
and the next time she tries to feed you collard greens,
Remember what she does when you’re asleep.
(A cautionary song)

Before I left America, I went to two Decemberists shows back to back in Boston (no. 3 and 4). The first one was good, but my friend wasn’t fully into it, so we sat to the side, taking in the songs and the joyous crowd (both shows were sold out). But the second night I went up front to scream and sing my heart out. That night I kept thinking about leaving, thinking about the times I had in the US, the stories I heard and told, and the stories I will hear and tell in Romania. I was sad and overjoyed at the same time. It’s this time of one’s life when the Decemberists work best. They are an outlet for sadness and a tremendous source of joy.

I stepped out of the Avalon into the last snow of the season with tears in my eyes. As I slowly walked towards the subway, I couldn’t help repeating the mantra of one of the band’s closers, “Sons and daughters.” Somewhere, in an evil world, an unkind life, a bad day, the dark clouds will part. And as tragedy fades, joy eventually sets in. The Decemberists know that. It’s their story and it’s my story. And if you think about it a little, it’s your story, too.

See you in Vienna.

When we arrive, sons & daughters
We’ll make our homes on the water
We’ll build our walls of aluminum
We’ll fill our mouths with cinnamon now
Hear all the bombs, they fade away
Hear all the bombs, they fade away
(Sons and Daughters)

PS: Here is a Decemberists “best of,” fitting perfectly on an 80 minute CD. If assembling that sounds like too much work, stream the band at Hype-Machine or on their website.

1. The Decemberists – The crane wife 3 (4:20)
2. The Decemberists – The soldiering life (3:48)
3. The Decemberists – The sporting life (4:40)
4. The Decemberists – O Valencia (3:45)
5. The Decemberists – July, July (2:53)
6. The Decemberists – Summersong (3:27)
7. The Decemberists – Oceanside (3:29)
8. The Decemberists – Los Angeles, I’m yours (4:16)
9. The Decemberists – The engine driver (4:17)
10. The Decemberists – We both go down together (3:06)
11. The Decemberists – The chimbley sweep (2:53)
12. The Decemberists – Here I dreamt I was an architect (4:29)
13. The Decemberists – Red right ankle (3:29)
14. The Decemberists – A cautionary song (3:08)
15. The Decemberists – Sixteen military wives (4:54)
16. The Decemberists – Eli, the barrow boy (3:13)
17. The Decemberists – Song for Myla Goldberg (3:33)
18. The Decemberists – The mariner’s revenge song (8:47)
19. The Decemberists – Sons and daughters (5:13)

On Wednesday, Starbucks opened its first store in Romania. Regardless of whether you view the Seattle chain as the incarnation of evil or as a savior of the coffee-hungry world, this is big news for Romania, where coffee culture is still largely domestic.

The arrival of Starbucks signals that the coffee wars of Eastern and Central Europe are about to begin in earnest.

But that’s not what this post is about. Jo was there, tested the goods and liked it. While in the US, I spent countless hours and dollars there. I hate their regular brew (hate might not be strong enough a word to describe my feelings toward their bitter regular blend), but I loved getting a skim caramel macchiato or a skim latte. Not to mention the seasonal (and awesome) pumpkin spice and eggnog lattes.

Yes, I bought the skim versions because Starbucks fancy drinks also pack a mighty calorie punch. I hope Romanians don’t dive head-first into the frappuccinos; better count those calories first.

Although I miss having easy access to caramel macchiatos, I probably won’t be a regular at the Bucharest location even thought it’s five minutes from my apartment there. Why? Because in America, the amount I paid for one couldn’t get me much else. The amount I have to pay for one in Romania though, can get me a whole lot.

Here’s a quick table I put together. Take a sip.

My name is Cristian and I like my world organized.

My tendency to plan, structure and organize stuff has been mocked by many. It lost me numerous romantic opportunities (how does one plan a one-night stand?!). While it got me jobs and assignments, it also probably made a lot of workmates insane. Someone once told me that I’m unable to live the moment because I’m busy thinking about what will follow. Hey, that’s just how it goes. You can’t control the moment, but you can have tons of fun controlling your ideas of the future (even though you can’t control the actual future).

The planner and organizer in me has just completed a gigantic project. For the past three months I have been cleaning, organizing, sorting and tagging my collection of digital music. I started with some 40 CDs of MP3s files, most of which benefited from little to no tags (the file names had been clean though). Today, my IPod claims to have some 7,367 songs and other audio files on it. All have ID tags for most if not any of the following fields: title, artist, album, year, genre.

I won’t go into detail–suffice to say this: if I had only a couple of songs from band X then I did not try to find the exact album name or year; I just put the band’s name in the album field (I am not that anal). But album’s are well tagged. I used the trusted and awesome Mp3tag.

The main reason I did this is because Ipod’s are miserable at reading file names. They need proper tags unless you want your screen to say you are listening to “No Artist-No Title.” Uploading about 40 gigabytes of music onto my machine took more than 4 hours.

Boy is this baby ready to rock.

Curious what tracks correspond to a certain number? According to WinAmp, my trusted music player, here are some highlights:

17. 3 Doors Down – I feel you
69. ab4 – So away
666. Beirut – The long island sound
1000. Bright Eyes – Classic cars
3003. Hallelujah the Hills – To all my scientist colleagues I bid you farewell
4573. Neutral Milk Hotel – In the aeroplane over the sea
5000. Papa Roach – Broken home
7367. Zwan – Settle down

If you don’t speak Romanian, please consider the ridiculous question I will pose next not as a dismissal of your worthiness, but as genuine solicitation of your opinion. The truth is that I’ve always had a problem dissociating an online space from the purpose it was created for. When owlspotting started, it was meant as an English language blog, largely about America and my interaction with it. It then added elements of reflection on country, language and memory, but they also came from a Romanian parsing things from an American vantage point.

I wrote once before about the difficulties I faced restarting this blog after my three months in Romania last summer. I feel the same problem coming on now, when I’m once again an active player in Romania for an indefinite period of time.

So, should I start another blog–this time in Romanian? Should it be separate from this one or an extension of it? Should it be as constrained to a few topics (as this one is), or should it be more blog-like, thus prone to rants on God knows what?

If you speak Romania, feel free to throw around some names.

In short, I want your opinions. Why? Because as someone who is a trained journalist, the idea that I’d be starting something without an audience (as little as it may be) is not an appealing one.

I returned home to Romania three weeks ago today and I would be lying if I said I’ve fallen into place. It more or less looks like everything is falling around me (the government and president in tow). I didn’t expect clarity of purpose or vision when I stepped of the plane, but I did hope for a routine of settling in. If I am living a routine, it’s one that is making me uneasy, antsy and permanently susceptible to over-analyzing all facets of daily life.

In the past six months, my struggle to determine an immediate future (or more likely a setting in which to live it), has made me even more self-aware of my decisions and the process I underwent to reach them. I remember reading an article in the New York Times science section recently that talked about free will and how we humans are so willing to believe we have it, when we actually have very little control over our urges. The article, if I’m not mistaken, enforced an idea I had picked up before from my spell of reading about nostalgia: we don’t really make decision, we just witness them bubbling up to the surface.

My return home had little to do with Romania and almost everything to do with being close to my family in some trying times. All the other reasons involved considerable self-deception, but the kind of self-deception tainted by optimism. I have told numerous friends over the past couple of years that at this moment, professionally speaking, I could probably hold a more important position in Romanian journalism than I would in American journalism. While peppered with truth, the statement rationalized away issues of quality–Romanian media is largely awful, confused, vengeful and arrogant. The optimism of it all tells me that in the clusterfuck of any potential job, I could be overlooked and left alone to produce according to my own standards. I still cling to this optimism.

Optimism is not an easy state of mind to live by in Romania. Day after day, politicians of all stripes play around with laws, statutes and pillage the self-worth of any citizen dumb enough to pay attention. As the president was suspended yesterday, my friend Lu told me she had to hold back tears to get through the work day. My father, who has never really entertained the thought of leaving, told me last night he’d be willing to give it all up. What’s striking–and saddening–is that they weren’t protesting the decision to suspend this particular president, but the string of events and the circus around it. They weren’t going to bat for the president (I’ve heard them both cuss at both sides) but they felt betrayed and trampled on by a few hundred well-dressed politicos who have made Romania their war-zone.

The people I’ve met with since I’ve been home keep asking me this question: “Te-ai intors de tot?” This translates as: “Are you back for good?” “Tot” doesn’t mean “good” though. “Tot” means “everything.” So the word itself is much stronger and the question much more leading as the tone often implies judgment. I know the mantra: don’t listen to what every other person has to say. But there is one thing I don’t want anyone to conclude: that I have returned to Romania because America was disappointing. That I have returned home because I have become disgusted by America. So I answer the question with a twist: “M-am intors cu tot.” This means “I have returned with everything.”

The meaning is simple: I am not willing to say I will live out my life in Romania. But I am willing to allow that I have packed all I’ve had and returned home, willing to make a strong commitment to everything and everyone for as long as I feel my presence is necessary.

For now, as confused as it all seems, I believe my presence is necessary.

Today, out of the list of minor social improvements I’d like to see, I’ll pick this one: I wish salespeople would stop asking me for change. I wish salespeople would stop telling me: “I can’t make change, can I give you a chewing gum instead?” I wish salespeople would stop putting the burden of exact change on me, especially in supermarkets, train stations, and convenience stores. I am not responsible to have change. It’s not my fault you don’t have enough bills or coins of one kind or another. I don’t give a damn. I don’t want a piece of gum, extra bread, or a shrug. I want my change back and I want you to stop being an asshole about it.

I am boarding my flight to Romania in a matter of hours.

Below are a few of the things I will miss about America (43 is also the number of months I’ve been away from home). Although this is a numbered list, it is not a ranking. I hope that one day I will return to add to this list. Until then, goodbye.

1. Being here.
2. Being Bufnita to the Huhurez.
3. My friends.
4. American breakfast, complete with pancakes, big omelets, bacon, waffles, grits and coffee refills.
5. The rooftop of my Washington, DC apartment.
6. The “thump” sound the Sunday NY Times made when it dropped outside my door.
7. My other magazine subscriptions: The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Esquire and Wired among them.
8. Thursday Night Fights in Boston (Bang the nut, bitch!).
9. Tuesday Night Margaritas in Columbia, Mo.
10. The American dinner and a movie date.
11. Biking the trails of Missouri in the summer.
12. This American Life.
13. The “light as a feather” bureaucracy.
14. Being responsible for little else but myself (aka “Having a savings account”).
15. Spending hours in coffee shops with wireless fired up to the max.
16. The smell of New York City.
17. Thanksgiving dinners (more mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce, please).
18. Going to shows of bands large and small (I heart The Decemberists).
19. Feeling safe on the streets.
20. Talking about American politics (especially presidential contests) and the culture (wars).
21. A functioning media landscape.
22. Small art-house theaters (big up to the Ragtag).
23. My soccer teams: The Church of Soccer (in CoMo) and Powder House (in Boston)
24. Everyone who put up with my pestering self and was there for me regardless of it.
25. Discovering roads, cities, places, people, food (I want oatmeal raisin cookies!)
26. Putting on a non-iron shirt and looking serious.
27. Dissecting football plays during playoffs (pass interference, damn it).
28. Speaking English.
29. Writing English and getting paid for it.
30. Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
31. My bosses and my mentors–they’ve taught me more than I learned in 20 years of school in Romania.
32. Micro-brews and not so micro-brews (I heart Blue Moon beer).
33. Goodwill and The Salvation Army (always the best collection of furniture).
34. Using and abusing the word “awesome.”
35. Saying: “Our nation’s capital.”
36. Doing a strong Romanian accent to entertain the troops.
37. Waking up to NPR’s “Morning Edition”.
38. Being this other person called “Cristian”.
39. Learning and anguishing over becoming “a writer.”
40. Explaining America to the less understanding Romanians.
41. Toilet bowls–high water level is what the whole world needs!
42. Making lists about it.
43. Did I say all of it?

November 2005: Washing dishes after an awesome Thanksgiving dinner complete with yummy desert.

December 2005: The horrid (and condom-looking) National Christmas Tree, which stands right outside the White House fence in Washington, DC. Scary!

January 2006: The Washington, DC studio at its cleanest. This is after the addition of new furniture pieces, a carpet and a television set. So BoHo…

February 2006: Snow on 20th Street; a view from the 8th floor.

March 2006: Soccer on the National Mall in the shadow of the phallus. There is something to be said about playing the game of games in such a setting.

April 2006: The Cherry Blossom Festival. More here.

May 2006: Watching the Washington Nationals get their ass kicked at RFK Stadium on Memorial Day.

June 2006: My mom was visiting DC and we ended up (again!) next to the phallus. An odd bit of trivia: Washington, DC is the only place in the United States that I been to in each of my four years (Thanksgiving in 2003, summer vacation in 2004, lived there in 2005 and 2006, and visited again in 2007). Contrary to this trivia, DC is not my favorite American city.

July 2006 – October 2006: No American life during this time; I was in Romania waiting for an upgrade in my visa status.

November 2006: My room in Boston. Some said it looked girlie. That did not bother me as much as the temperature inside this room. The climate ranged from friggin’ cold to polar winter.

December 2006: Sharing stories and journalism gossip over drinks at Brendan B’s in Jamaica Plain.

January 2007: Whether they come from the corner coffeshop or from Starbucks, I will miss the morning lattes.

February 2007: Violent and sexy roller derby action.

March 2007: Colin Meloy of The Decemberists rocks the Avalon in Boston. This was the last of my American shows and one of the top three. The Decemberists make up most of the soundtrack of my American life, and they are my favorite musical pleasure. For example: And I am a writer, writer of fictions/I am the heart that you call home/And I’ve written pages upon pages/Trying to rid you from my bones. (Picture from here).

* View the first two installments here and here.

October 2004: Barton dresses up a bunny to surprise his girlfriend, now wife, Alyson. I had the pleasure of petting this furry creature.

November 2004: America votes 2004. This was snapped in the early morning as people were slowly trudging to the polls in Columbia, Mo. Opinions were split. Boone County, where Columbia is located, went for Kerry. Missouri went for Bush. The rest is history.

December 2004: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome (fear and respect) The Church of Soccer. We never won any trophies but we did injure players on opposing squads–including breaking the toe of one poor soul. His bone was showing afterwards. Gross.

January 2005: Upon returning from a month long visit to Romania. Being back home was fun, but back then, returning to America was much better. After all, I owned a bike and some awesome mod furniture!

February 2005: During my second year at MU I lived in a nice apartment only a couple minutes away from a biking trail. The trail went through the woods down to the Missouri river, which you could follow for miles. Biking a few miles on Saturday mornings was a pleasure. And so were the burritos that followed!

March 2005: Nashville. Oh yeah!

April 2005: With Sara and John–celebrating the end of our graduate school years.

May 2005: This was a design project–for real! How worldly are you?!

June 2005: With Elle on the roof of my Brooklyn sublet. My two months in Green Point, a Polish pocket of Brooklyn, were some of the best I had in America. Owlspotting was born here (on June 21). dbrom died here. And much fun was had.

July 2005: Times Square, New York City, on July 4. That night I watched the fireworks show above the Hudson river. Sweet.

August 2005: By August 2005, I had moved to Washington, DC. This is a shot of the pool on the roof of my building. It was open from April through October and it was heated. Yes, that was hot stuff.

September 2005: Thomas Friedman, architect of the “flat world,” is something of an oracle of the business and political world. Here, he was “performing” at a DC book fair (with many rich middle aged people in attendance)–while a gigantic anti-war protest was taking place just five minutes away. Only in the nation’s capital!

October 2005: Sunset in Florida.