pleasantries

being all by myself, all my free time (usually spent consuming food or beverage) is spent people watching. in the grand tradition of mankind, i'm starting to draw broad generalizations about our italian brothers and sisters. none of them mean anything in the slightest, of course.

1. italian women do not embrace their natural hair color. i believe that i have not yet seen an adult female with her own hair color. it's either jet-ass black, streaked with some otherwordly shade, burgundy, or platinum blonde.
2. italian men have lots of style, but i've drawn up a derivative of the style formula: extremely slick sunglasses, to be worn at all times of the day or night in any social configuration; very nice leather or suede shoes; an adventurous sense of pattern on dress shirts; either closely shorn hair or longer, windblown-looking hair; fearlessness in wearing white jeans and plenty of accessories; a very nice bag in either briefcase or messenger style.
3. everyone has a tan. not just sprayed with tanner at the salon kind of tan. a deeply bronze tan that makes me think i'm in india. there will be hell to pay when they get older.
4. italian women, much like brazilian women, are not any better-looking or more nicely-shaped than american women. they are simply much more prone to dressing younger, wearing heels 24-7, showing skin (even if it's baked and sagging from years of sun exposure - see #3 above), and wearing lots of perfume.
5. italians may be weirder than americans. and this comes from a girl who lived in san francisco, a city where i was stopped at a light once, looked over, and saw a woman on one of those small, superfast japanese motorcycles, wearing a helmet that she'd decorated with furry cat ears and a tail. yesterday i was sitting and people-watching towards the end of the day, and a group of people walked down the breezeway of the exhibition. one woman was dressed like she worked at the gap and was sporting an enormous neck brace. another woman was wearing an evening gown (i kid you not) and sparkly high heels, and carrying a chihuahua. keep in mind we were all at a trade show.
6. everyone smokes. everyone. i swear to god i saw a pregnant woman taking a drag on a cigarette yesterday. in the US - especially in the pretentious bay area - you'd get yelled at by total strangers.
7. italians are down with the swine. during lunch at the 'buyers club' that i'm allowed access to, nearly every dish involved a smoked or preserved pork product. it was like heaven - essentially prosciutto or speck or guanciale in any and every form. and americans are the fat ones? mind boggling. italians also find booze to be an important part of lunch. i concur.

thank god i got out of apparel at an early age and suckered into home furnishings. out of boredom yesterday, i wandered into the pavilions that housed the 'costume jewelry and fashion accessories' vendors. first thing i discovered was that this is where all the asians in the joint were hiding. find me a tacky accessories show and i'll find you my people. second thing i realized was that tastelessness sees no cultural or ethnic boundaries. after a few aisles, i realized that people were staring at me because i kept walking by booths and snorting out loud. after that, i kept my snorts to myself, but really, thank god i don't need to track trends in the apparel world. home furnishing contains some tacky shit, but somehow its less personally offensive when it's for the home, not meant to be worn on the body. if i had to sift through the metric tons of total shit just to find that one cool thing for a living... i mean, really. crocheted 'tibetan' backless clubbing tops?

italians also don't give a shit about you. not that i expected to be embraced by total strangers walking down the street, but really. i mean, even people you ask for help essentially tell you to fuck off. and then they laugh in your face. what? if i wasn't so tired all of the time from scouring their stupid show for cool shit, i'd care. i slept for 11 hours last night and woke up feeling like... i could sleep for 11 more. i want to see the duomo and go to corso como tomorrow, but i have half a mind to order room service and pass out. not really, no. if there's shopping to be done, i'll do it. but damn. i never thought my first trip to italy would be so lacking in ethusiasm. on my part.