10.22.76

This will sound ridiculously childish, and I’ve tried to kick the habit, but when my eyes happen to fall on a digital clock bearing the numbers 10:22, my birthdate, I stop for a minute, smile, and think about life. There might be one person reading this who will testify that I sometimes do a little dance too. But the run-up to my actual birthday always involves a good bit of excitement and some reflection.

Long gone are the days when your birthday seems like a national holiday. As a kid, maybe you do have to go to school, but you go there with cake and soda, and everyone gathers around to sing to you. And the parties. How happy was I with pizza and bowling and a million kids running around our neighbor's restaurant? And the presents. Piles of presents. A white box from a department store would yield a terrible moan from the kiddy crowd: "Clothes!" Toys were of course the coveted prize.

Sometime around the age of 15 it becomes apparent that the Earth does not revolve around you on your birthday. I took the PSAT's one October 22nd. College years will be the last time of instant gatherings of friends. Before you know it, you're sobbing in your cubicle, wondering if there could possibly be a worse way to misspend your youth.

For those of us born on the Libra-Scorpio cusp, any pleasant birthday musings come to an abrupt halt shortly after the big day. While the week before is filled with some excitement for me (it’s the 19th, it’s the 20th, we’re getting there!), the days following remind me of the thing gone: the 23rd (still sort of close), the 24th (not my day at all) the 25th (moving on). This inexorable passage of time is not softened by the fact that by this late in the year, we have all fallen into the tar pit of Winter. Did I ever leave the house without a coat and hat? Were my feet ever not freezing? Whatever joy or reflection I feel as I mark another year too easily slips into mind-buckling rage.

Bear with me, reader, as I rant and rave.

Birthdays do not need to be sacred. How many times have I worked on my birthday? But all I ask from the universe, is that my birthday not suck. October 22, 2005, however, had one too many drawbacks. Yes, I had my beloved Vietnamese noodle soup with a lovely friend in the afternoon. Had I done nothing else on that day, I would have gone to sleep happy. But no, although I had looked forward for years to having my birthday on a Saturday, I worked again. A six and a half hour fundraising event that involved me standing around in new uncomfortable shoes, pressing the flesh, and sitting through one too many pitches for donations.

OK, cry me a river. The meal was lovely (steak!), and I like getting dressed up. But at the end of the evening, someone had walked off with my makeup bag. Small emotional loss, but, as I would find out with my first paycheck, replacing the items in the bag would cost me about a half week’s salary. (That is, makeup is ridiculously expensive and I am ridiculously underpaid.) This salary issue is going to come back to bite me. I am 100% committed to grantwriting: it’s creative, interesting, and by non-profit standards, well paid. But here in Boston, although the cost of living is the same as in New York, and the salaries are the same as in Guadalajara.

The fact that I walked home from the event in the freezing rain and was so bone tired that I couldn’t drag myself to a friend’s party also didn’t help create a happy birthday.

For this reason, perhaps, I am somehow more inclined to "celebrate," or at least ponder, little ole me when my numbers come up on the clock rather than the calendar. During my little me-minutes, I think about birthdays past and future, of the me that was and the entirely different one I will become. Of events and people and experiences I can't even imagine right now, that will eventually be memories for another 10.22 moment long down the road. I think of how different I am already from the last birthday, and the one before that. And I give thanks for everyone and everything that I have. But best of all, celebrating yourself by the clock only takes 60 seconds, and unlike a birthday, there's no sense of imperative to have a good time, have some cake, and make the moment outstanding from all the rest. A birthday is just like any other day, but all days are extraordinary.

10.22.76. Just some digits for some other human being. Once a year – but more importantly, twice a day – it’s as if Time greets me personally, kisses me on the cheek and sends me on my way. I'm not the only one to attach importance to these numbers. Just recently, 1,022.76 appeared in my bank account, a way too generous birthday gift from my dear ole dad. Here’s hoping that next year he’ll make it Y2K compliant.    

Roma, continuata

The Forum- Oy the tourists! The ruins of the Temple of Castor and Pollux.




Augustus' Forum, I think? Fragments in a wall of one of the builidings of the Campidoglio.


Borromini's magnificent St. Ivo. The courtyard of the Cancelleria, where cardinals live (including Ratzinger). The architect is unknown.




Renaissance, Medieval, and Baroque, all in one corner! Hydrangea in the Campus Marzius, petals turning white in the sunshine.


A mosaic archway and the nympheum of the Villa Guilia, the airy 16th century palace that Pope Julius the III used not as a residence, but just for a day or an evening of entertainment.


More Renaissance symmetry of the Palazzo di Firenze, which houses, most appropriately, the Dante Alighieri Society.


San Agostino. Its stunning Renaissance facade was built with travertine plundered from the Colisseum.



Vicolo means alley.


A portion of the medieval mosaics in the tiny chapel known as the garden of paradise, in Santa Prassede. The woman with the square halo (for living saints) is Theodora, mother of Paschal I (d. 824).


The charming tortoise fountain of the Piazza Mattei.



I decided to put myself on a diet, but I've only lost lots and lots of time!


A medieval home of a Jewish family (there are Hebrew inscriptions inside).


Santa Cecilia, demonstrating the typical Roman palimpsest: 18th century facade over a medieval portico, 12th century campanile and at the bottom, the top of a classical marble vase. Do you want to guess how many photos I have that look practically identical to this one?

There's something on your face...

As a kid, I wanted to have glasses. I guess you always want what the other kids have, and I thought they were a neat-looking accessory that made you smart and sometimes popular. I would spend time wistfully trying them on at street vendors’ tables.

A couple of years ago, I left work in the evening feeling headachy, and noticed that the world looked blurry. I chalked it up to another day in front of the computer, and that blurry feeling you can get in Midtown. But it was something else. By this year, I couldn’t read signs in the subway from across the platform. And a couple of months ago, while watching a movie with my brother, I couldn’t read the subtitles, just from a few yards away in the living room. He had to tell me what they were saying, as if I were an old lady. And need I mention, the entire summer in Rome, all those ceiling frescoes I was lovingly staring up at probably were not really as Impressionistic as they appeared to me. I could have seen the city even better, it turns out.

Right now, my vision is fine, if just a narrowly defined bit of it. Everywhere I look, my gaze is framed by two blurry rectangles. Inside the rectangles, everything is crystal clear. Outside, the world looks like it’s trying to catch up, moving in a swampy haze.

Mom took me to her eye doctor in August. The doctor dimmed the lights, covered one of my eyes and told me to read the middle line of letters. “Okay, the first one is an S.” “That’s an S?” Exclaimed Mom. It wasn’t a Z or an N either. A similar scene followed with virtually every letter. I was so frustrated that I started to cry. The tears actually served as lenses, magnifying the images a bit, so I was able to read a little a better. “You’re definitely nearsighted,” pronounced the doctor. “Could it be that six years in front of a computer did this to me?” I asked. “Nothing you did or can do will affect your vision,” he replied. “Is it just my destiny?” I wiped my eyes.

To me, people with glasses seem to demand a more gentle treatment. I view them the same way I would a pregnant woman, or someone in a wheelchair. So now I get to look all intellectual, demand a little extra special care, and -what I’ve always found sexy when guys have done it to me- take off my glasses when I start to kiss a boy. But then again, boys don’t make passes at…..

Roma!

A sacrificial altar in the middle of Campus Marcius, where gladiators once trained.


My street, via Luigi Santini.


One of Bernini's Moor fountains on Piazza Navona.



I'm not making it up, this is my name on a (Roman? Early Christian?) fragment in the portico of San Silvestro. What could it mean?? The photo on the left doesn't look like much, but it is what's left of the octaganal room in the Domus Aurea (Golden House) of Nero.



The angel on top of the Castel, right before a lightning storm. The fountain of Piazza (traffic circle) della Repubblica. The statues are of tritons wrestling niads. They ap[parently looked like they were having too much fun, so the fountain caused a bit of a scandal.




Stunning views from Castel Sant'Angelo.



Two examples of Borromini's wonderfully unique Baroque style: San Carlino and the ministry of propaganda (really, that's what it's called). Note the convex/concave play of both facades.



Just a random courtyard in my neghborhood in Trastevere. Pretty sweet, no? And this is one of the eight elaborate Barberini coat of arms (with the telltale bees) designed by Bellini, which line the baldacchino of the papal altar in St. Peter's. The story goes that Urban VIII commissioned it as a thank offering for a niece who almost died in childbirth. Beneath the scroll is a woman's face, in various expressions of pain. In the final one, there's a laughing child.


The twin churches of Piazza del Popolo, taken from the obelisk in the middle of the square, where I would sit, write, listen to the fountains, and gaze. Sigh....


The ruins of the temple to Fortune in Our Present Day (Caesar was murdered nearby), and the head of the statue of the goddess herself, found in the ruins. Deh! Nasconditi, o Virtù! (from Poppea...)



The unexpected epitaph on Keats' grave, and a weeping angel in the Protestant cemetery.


A dramatic allegory of the faith on the tomb of St. Ignatius. And a street near Piazza Navona, note the window frames now buried under street level!


This medieval fresco in Santa Saba depicts the story of St. Nicholas. On hearing a poor man (lower corner) lament that he had no dowry for his 3 daughters, Nicholas tossed a bag of money through their window. And thus the holiday shopping season was born.


The 2-hour line to get into the Vatican Museums (a portion), and the enormous river god (also a portion) who lives inside, along with just a few other works of art.



Women in Black Against War. They're international, I think they assemble in front of the library in New York as well. I went up to them with mom and introduced ourselves as "quacchere" (Quakers). They seemed please to meet us!


A sneaky mosaic!


A fragment from what must have been an enormous statue (the figure is unidentified) and just a small part of a sepulchre frieze, depicting a Roman triumph over the barbarians.


The weird-looking lunch they gave me on my flight to Vienna. Watch for it on airlinemeals.net!


A statue of saint Istvan (Stephen), the church, and cousin Mike in downtown Köszeg, Hungary.


The tallest obelisk in Rome, outside of San Giovanni. Rome has more obelisks then Egypt-I'm so proud! A classic cupid statue as well.


The interior of the Colosseum..... and the so-called Square Colosseum of Mussolini's time. The inscription reads: "A nation of poets, artists, heroes, saints, thinkers, scientists, navigators, and transcenders." Ma dai!



This modern church was built to be Mussolini's tomb, had he not been hanged and dismembered by that nation of poets, artists, heroes, etc. The strong wall separating the forum of Augustus from the fire-prone suburra, where the classic Roman hoi polloi lived.


Part of a Renaissance facade along the elegant Via Giulia. I wonder which victims this sign refers to.


An elaborate mosaic floor and ruins of a ninfeo at emporer Hadrian's Villa, his country retreat in nearby Tivoli.


Porta San Sebastiano, leading out to the Via Appia. An angel etched into the porta's travertine.


Basalt slabs on the Via Appia Antica (note the wagon grooves), and cypresses along the way.


Bougainvillea blooms.


The Piazza di Pietra (stone). The Palatine with the Circus Maximus (it's just
that grassy bit in front.)