Au revoir, Praha!

Program's over; apartment lease is up. I'm on to bigger and better things. (I hope.)

I'm thinking overnight train to Budapest, a couple of days lollygagging in Turkish spas, perhaps a day or two at Lake Ballaton, then on to Croatia and the Dalmatian Coast, maybe a side trip to Mostar, then back to Dubrovnik and across to Venice, see a bit of Italy before heading to Le Cote d'Azur! I really should consider a budget, but I've never before done such a thing. It just all seems to work out, as long as I only splurge every once in a while and live meagerly the rest of the time. Eastern Europe is pretty cheap; I need to save my pennies for Italy and France.

This time of year seems to be crazy with tourists everywhere. I almost prefer travelling when it's bleak and gray and when I'm the only crazy person around. Where is it quiet; where have these people all come from? Those places must be dead empty, unless it's Paris and London from which those people are escaping to get away from the tourists. . . .

But how dare I complain as I traipse around the globe?

In other news, my ipod is ready to retire and so are my pants. They're ready to walk right off me. Time to go shopping. . . . As for the ipod, well, it displays a horrible little exclamation point next to a file folder when I turn it on. I did everything the troubleshooting website told me to do, but I can't even restore the thing because my Mac doesn't recognize the ipod. Sheesh. The dude at the Apple store told me the ipod wasn't long for this world; they're not made to last very long, and I've had mine for two years. Wah. No more muzak of my choosing in Eastern Europe.

Last night Kiki and I went to see "A Prairie Home Companion" in English with Czech subtitles. All the movies in the listing were written in Czech, and it was the only film we recognized. Bad screenplay. Wonderful performances. How does that happen? Are actors so giddy to work with Altman they'll do any old shit?

After the film, we went to Le Cafe Louvre, a famous joint where Kafka used to hang out and write (or so the story goes), to get a bite to eat. The waiter dumped off some particularly stale bread (the only kind there is in the Czech Republic) and a tray of condiments, neither of which we ate or used. Then we got charged "couvert" for these things--a cover charge for the privilege of eating stale bread and paprika sauce! I tried to explain to the waiter that we neither asked for nor ate the stuff, but he wasn't having any of it, and I couldn't stand the smell of his pitted-out waiter uniform anymore, so we paid the charge and left in a huff, ugly Americans open to getting ripped off that we are.

I'm getting tired of this place. Itching for adventure or home or both at the same time. When I thought I had no money and no identity of my own, I looked into changing my flight. It would cost an additional $930 to do it. Yikes! Yet far less than I'll spend the rest of the month gallavanting around. Less fun. More practical. This is the debate I've been having inside my head. And sticking my head into the mouth of the monster is where I'm going. Facing the unknown, arms open wide.

It helped to read the NYT this morning and take a look at some articles about Croatia and the South of France. Got me excited about what's in store. Imagine the unimaginable for a bit.

How're y'all's Sundays?

Problem solved.

Hurrah!

It was scary there for a little while--imagining the Russian mob in Karlovy Vary had taken over my identity, leaving me with no way home. . . .

But turns out the bank blocked the card after my charges at the spa. Once I talked to them, they unblocked it and now I have moolah again!

I did feel like George Bailey. People came out of the woodwork to help if I needed--and some people were pissed that I didn't go to them immediately. I easily could have financed my way anywhere with all the help and money people wanted to throw my way. Thanks, y'all. I am the richest man in Bedford Falls.

Penniless in Prague

Discovered today that my ATM/Debit card decided to up and quit on me. It's times like these that is sucks to be a gal without a back-up plan.

I've emailed my credit union to find out if they've blocked my account or what. I guess the strip could be used up or God forbid someone's gotten a hold of my account number and drained all my dough. I just don't know. But I hate it.

I do have some euros and some dollars I could change (or use) and I've got a functional credit card with which I could take out a cash advance. I also have friends who can spot me a little money. . . .

But dang.

I hope I can resolve this soon, or I might just have to beg my way home early. . . .

Longing to dream it all up again, y'all.

So, here I am, almost two-thirds of the way through this here writer's workshop in Prague--nearly halfway through the second half with Patricia Hampl. She's good, she's very good. I had my workshop yesterday, and I got some good stuff. But honestly, I'm feeling a little directionless. Like it's time to remove myself from everyone else's babble and return to what it is that I do: write. Reclaim this book, this project from everyone else's clutches. It's good to hear what readers have to say about what I've got down, but then there comes a time to forget about all those bitches altogether and just fucking write. The story is mine, the aesthetic is mine. I need some distance to remember what it is I'm up to.

And I'm tired. You know? Just worn the hell out. I could spa my way through Eastern Europe, but that would get old and overly self-indulgent quick. I think what I need is to rent a humble villa on the sea, perhaps in Dalmatia to swim, lollygag, and write. Away from the grind. Even the beautiful grind in Prague.

Because the beauty has gotten to be a bit much. I can't stand it. I think the art and architecture is sapping my magic or something. Weird, I know. But I've been dreaming of slaughtered elephants, and whenever I dream about dead and dying majestic creatures, it means I'm losing my largesse. I need rejuvenation.

So, does anyone have a grandmother or know someone with a room to rent on the Adriatic Sea? Got any other good ideas?

My trip to Karlovy Vary, or The Weekend in which I finally got naked with a big cocked stranger

Kiki and I were planning to head west, something that in my experience has always been a good thing. West resonates with me, always has. And Western Bohemia makes a hell of a lot more sense to me than Prague. Maybe that's where my people are from--lots of them, the Bohemians, the Prussians (okay, my geography sucks, but this is working for me in my imagination). They're kind of German there, and the city of Karlovy Vary is run rampant with Russians. One woman told me they bought the town with money from the black market shortly after the Velvet Revolution. Them Russians are pushy. But being pushy doesn't always work, now does it?

So, on our way to class on Friday, Kiki hemmed and hawed about the trip when I expressed great exhuberance about it. He never shows his bare legs, much less the rest of himself, so he had already decided he wouldn't go in for the spa treatments Karlovy Vary is famed for. Then he had an insulting workshop. We went for cake and decided it would be best for us (spoiled little only children that we are, accustomed to lots of alone time) to go our separate ways for the weekend. I could get my spa on, and he could have the flat for himself to work on his plays.

I arrived Friday afternoon, booked into a quaint hotel, and headed straight to the open-air thermal pool.I swam laps for an hour. I had forgotten that swimming is a natural state of being for me--it slams me back into my body, weightless, yet the movement allows me to meditate without trying. Most everyone else there was farting around: little girls with their daddies, and couples making out. When I got out of the pool, I found the sauna, which was marked by all kinds of unreadable signs (for this ugly American). A lady took my ticket, gave me a tablecloth, and pointed me to a room that contained several shower heads, a cold pool, a few lounging chairs in a room off to the side, and a small sauna with three stacked benches (stairstep style).

I rinsed off under one of the shower heads and brought my tablecloth into the sauna to sit on. After about three minutes, a very tall man with a ginormous schlong in full view came in and told me in no uncertain terms (albeit in Czech) that I had to take off my bathing suit. It was kind of like how Tomas in "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" has this power over women when he simply says, "Strip!" And they all do. It was just like that, except totally not erotic. I took off my suit, and big dick and I sat around staring at each other, naked and sweating, just like you're supposed to in a sauna. Hot, yet so not hot.

Afterwards I felt like a million bucks.

Saturday I signed up for the "superior" package at a spa,but they couldn't fit me in until the afternoon because a huge group of Japanese business men came in before me. They were all pissed off that they had to wear swim suits in the spa. They hadn't brought any with them, so they all had to buy little swimming trunks that were waaaaay too small for them.

So I hiked all over town, found the Russian Orthodox churchdecked out in glittery gold and a nice little monument to Karl Marx.Then I followed the trail behind Marx that took me to what I believe might be the highest point in Bohemia.It's such a steep climb that they built a funicular railroad to take the throngs of tourists to the top. Me, I walked it. Then took the friggin' train back down. But the views were gorgeous, and I had my spa treatments to look forward to.

Lounging around in a Romanesque bathhouse for a good four hours is totally my idea of a good time. In between my little treatments of inhaling mineral-infused air in a cavern (felt a little like a gas chamber) and skipping from a hot foot bath to a cold foot bath for 15 minutes ("very good for foot," the big, blondie "nurse" told me) I lollygagged around a big, fancy pool and sipped tea with cranky Russians and their frisky children. Then came the highlight of my trip: a full-body massage from a flirtatious, fully-clothed Czech dude with a goatee, who tried to teach me better pronunciation of the few Czech words I know.

Again, a burly man gave me the command to take off my clothes. "Complete!" he said, and accentuated his seriousness with a sweeping hand gesture. He looked at me approvingly (certainly because communication was successful) and then told me to get on the table, which stood below a deep, cylindrical skylight and a security camera. I awkwardly flipped over a few times before assuming the position he wanted: face up. What ensued were among 40 of the most delightful minutes of my life. It's a damn shame it's taken nearly 30 years for someone to touch my ass like that. Well worth the wait.

I hope I won't always have to pay people to rub me the right way.

To top off the spa experience, a very nice lady prepared what they call a pearl bath for me. Again, I stripped and then placed myself into a magic bathtub that shot out little fizzy bubbles systematically through pinhole-like jets. Another full body massage of sorts. Made me tingle all over in a different way. The number of ways a gal can tingle in one weekend seems to increase exponentially in Karlovy Vary.

It's been a long time since I've slept so well. This spa trip was exactly what I needed: to get away from the tedious ego-bruising and back into my body. It's a good place to be again.



(Karlovy Vary also happens to be the home of becherovka, a beverage the Czechs like to refer to as the real Jaegermeister. It sure tastes like hell, but it ain't so bad mixed with tonic and drunk after several rounds of pivo. Oh the things one learns whilst abroad!)

Officially off my high horse.

So I had my second workshop with Lopate today. It was impromptu--no one had read the piece ahead of time; I read it aloud.

And got cut down to size. Lopate nailed all the problems I didn't even know the piece had. Damn. He's good. Brutal. But my ego's wounded. I know what I have to do, but I need to wallow in self pity for a little while first.

It's a perfect moment for feeling sorry for myself because I washed all my clothes this afternoon and then realized I have nothing to wear but my party dress. So, I'm sitting around naked, trapped in the flat, crying when Kiki sends me a text message: ("Marin, yr an excellent writer. U w-shopped a brand new piece. It wasn't ready. U didn't live with it long enuf. It isn't bad. Stop beating yrself up"), and finally, listening to Madonna, as I'm wont to do when I need to shake myself out of a funk.

I found a spot in my room where I can steal someone's wifi.

Good idea or bad: a boilermaker of Gambrinus with a shot of Absinthe? You decide. I imbibe. Or not.

Oh, and I'm reading Ivan Klima's Love and Garbage. It's not resonating with me. Anybody read it? He's giving a reading and a lecture as part of the program.

Today I tutored a Czech high school student--yet another unpaid job that landed in my life. But she's adorable, young, precocious, delightful. And she worships me. So we had a working lunch after my workshop. It was a good distraction for a little while.

I need to get out of town. Today I hate Prague. I hate writing. I hate the sun.

Tomorrow I'm going swimming. I feel so disconnected to the myriad parts of myself that make me feel like myself. Being focused and committed to writing is really scary when it's not going so well. I'm much more comfortable in a world in which I spread myself across lots of different activities. Here I'm just writing and walking and eating and drinking. I miss running and dancing and watching movies and mowing the lawn and wearing my beautiful shoes. It's tough to feel fabulous when you're wearing nothing but sensible shoes. And sweating all the time. And being told your writing is self-congratulatory and it needs work when you're used to applause for something you haven't worked that hard on. Damn it. I'm spoiled.

I've been dreaming about everything and everyone. Pointe shoes, broken teeth, embarking on unknown voyages.

I guess I'm still struggling to define and redefine myself in constantly changing circumstances and contexts. And asking myself, "What good am I?" It's hard to remember when you're separated from the things and people and routines and sensations and language that make you feel at home.

Where is my home?

I didn't actually touch him, but I got awfully close to Vaclav Havel during the ceremony in which WMU gave him and Arnost Lustig honorary doctorates.

The middle three dudes, from left to right are Havel, the program director, and Lustig:

It's a strange phenomenon--to witness history and have an awareness of it at the same time.

And then there's one's own personal history. Friday night I kicked off the student reading series.

I had written a new piece the night before about my grandmother and her body. The theme of this year's program is home, homeland (security) and its relation to artistic ambition. We've been listening to people talk about Czech and Central European national identity in various lectures and conversations, and the idea of home and homeland as a woman, a mother, a feminine figure keeps coming up. And this notion has invariably been created and perpetuated by dudes. So I started to wonder, "what must home be for a woman?" Then I thought about Virginia Woolf's quote "As a woman I have no country. As a woman my country is the whole world." So then it occurred to me that the only home a woman knows, really, is her own body, which is in large part, psychically created by her own mother. Are you following me here? So that's why I went back--remembering my own sense of a physical self through my mother's mother.

The new piece was well received. Today I'm working on more new stuff. I'm looking forward to a second workshop with Lopate.

Just for kicks, here's Kiki sitting on the roof of our local.

He's such a good kid. He kept me from joining a stag party of 20 tattoed Brits yesterday afternoon. We went home and ate curried chicken with dhal and more beers out of small glasses. I am like fucking MacGyver in that pathetically underequipped kitchen. Then we watched Germany pummel Portugal and turned in. We're both recovering from weird colds. Beer and ice cream seem to be helping.

I miss my Sunday NYT and CBS Sunday morning. I think I'll check them out online. Happy Sunday!

Got what I came for.

Had my first workshop with Phillip Lopate yesterday, and after he made another lady cry with his blunt dislike for her work ("This didn't work for me at all. Show me something else if you want."), he delighted in my manuscript, stroked my fragile little ego, and gave me some real guidance on where to go from here. Although he did say something like "When writing's this good, just keep going, go for it. I don't have much to say about marvelous work."

This is wonderful for a couple of reasons:

1. Duh.
2. Having worked with a mentor who confessed to falling in love with me and then mercilessly manipulating me (okay, I know I had to be complicit to some extent), I began to question if what he had to say about my writing was actually about my writing, or if it was about his doing anything to make me submit to his desires. Buttering me up, so to speak. Well, now it doesn't matter, because someone I respect much more than him has validated my project in a huge way.
3. Yikes! Maybe I am a real writer.

Whatever that means. I guess I realize I suffer from having been a young, lousy "poet" and playwright who then became a philosophy major who mastered mediocre academic writing, only to go to journalism school where they beat that shit out of me (thank God) so I could become a working journalist. It's only now that I've taken the real risk of attempting literature, telling the story I've needed to tell since I can remember in an artful way. You never know with your own work whether it's any good until a trusted reader gets his hands on it. And trust is something I've questioned and wrestled with a lot lately.

So, this isn't an end point, not at all. I'm not in this to be told I'm good. I'm in this to get something done. And I'm ready to keep going.

In other news, I'm getting more and more adjusted to the place, to the culture. Kiki, delicate flower that he is, is also making a valiant effort to quit being a poopy puppy and overcome his homesickness and desperate loneliness and isolation in being away from his boyfriend. Yesterday we ate: pastries for breakfast, crepes for lunch, and a much needed dinner of grilled meat at a Columbian joint a block from home--all at outdoor cafes; found H&M, Marks and Spencer, and a Sephora (hot damn!); got ice cream twice; and watched what we think was a Czech movie on cable. We also walked eleventyfive miles and had our first really good night's sleep. Today I cooked scrambled eggs with veggies for breakfast and I'm working on ratatouille with couscous for dinner. It's fun playing house with someone again. We also attempted to use the Czech washing machine in the flat, but I think we ended up deep frying our clothes.

Good thing we already found the H&M.

Tomorrow I give a reading, and I better figure out what in the hell to read. I might just write something new. They say not to do that, but I do lots of things people warn against, much to my own delight.

What's going on with y'all?

Praha!

I arrived, safe and sound, and fully capable of blogging again after a good night's sleep. Apartment's fine, the city's fine; I'm plugged into the program that starts officially tomorrow; I've hooked up with some friends from back home, yay! Had my first couple of beers in this country, and life is good.

This is the view from my apartment:



Enjoy!