8.1.07

two facts about my life of late: i work at a search marketing firm and i'm dating an actuary.

or, rather, we're in a relationship, but like it used to be with karina, it's going to take awhile for him to be personally present in the partnership (partnership being, in my view, the only reason to stick around). he grew up moving around africa, then moving between canada and the states. as a result, he's got a wall up and an inherent distrust of the universe. not conducive to the kind of natural, intuitive communication i require. still, i'm interested in his existence. things he says surprise me. i'd like to stick around and see what he does next. he's moving to boston for a new job at the end of this month, setting up shop in an unnervingly sterile, manufactured luxury high rise literally one hundred feet from his new building. it's in the seaport area, a brand new, shiny concrete wasteland with no trees and no buildings under twelve storeys. taking the silver line into a sea of silver.

i'm looking forward to visiting him there, if only to walk bemusedly across the bridge into that purely geometric landscape. and to tell him to put his shades up, so he can neglect to look out at the harbor.

prague, day two

castles and cathedrals in the morning. stained glass, seas of tourists. noses cold and feet sore at the bottom of the castle, drinking cups of steaming spiced wine, too hot to hold. the slavic equivalent of crêpes, folded into floppy triangles and sprinkled with powdered sugar and lemon juice. later, brazenly buying scarves and trinkets in tourist shops, remarking on the matrioshka dolls portraying the different phases of britney spears.

in the early afternoon we set out across the bridge in search of u fleku, a beer hall that's been around for over six hundred years. it took us out of the tourist area and into quiet, residential side streets where everyone was gone to work. map in hand, matching the letters on the map to the letters on the street signs, we wove through cobblestoned streets. clean angles, like someone had neatly cut our path through multi-colored cakes. petit-fours. some of the only other people around were two men about our age, lanky and young. niki stopped short in the empty street, and said, loudly, clearly, "matt?"

matt was another fulbrighter, someone niki had met for 15 minutes during orientation and who was doing film things at the university in prague. he was wearing nothing but shades of brown, his clothes cut close to his body and beautiful hair falling over his eyes. his shirt has little pine trees all over it. he was with a friend, a romanian who worked for monster.com. upon hearing we were in search of u fleku, matt the hipster failed to produce a decisive reaction, but his friend knew precisely what to do. two girls, two guys, everyone able to speak english with a chance meeting in the back streets of prague and a stated desire to get mid-afternoon drunk.

so to the beer hall we went. there were endlessly long tables piled with people smoking, old men playing accordians, families with baby strollers. everything. we found a place to squeeze in, me next to the romanian and niki next to the hipster. u fleku serves only one beer, the beer they've been making for centuries, and shots of becherovka, an herbal liquor. they start putting steins in front of you and keep a hash-marked tally until you tell them to stop. a what-we-think-was-german family wedged in next to us, an incongruous pearl-earringed mother, a cherubic, mischievous toddler, and what niki and i agree was the single most attractive man we've ever seen. the person he most closely resembled was jared palmer, but it wasn't very related to his appearance. a married man with a child, short, even, radiating undeniable appeal. it's the only time i've ever felt something like that. niki and i spent the next two days exploring the intensity of seeing this man, who came to be known only as "the husband."

we parted tipsy ways with the romanian and the hipster at the river, then proceeded to get unbelievably lost in a very short period of time. we ended up two miles in the wrong direction and four from where we wanted to be, falling far off the edge of our map. we walked and walked back the way we'd come, trying to remember where that beer-blurry path led. after what seemed like hours (and likely was), we found the new city again and stumbled into a pub for pierogi and goulash. niki just had tea with rum.

this was after we'd spent an hour looking for a pub that carried kozul dark, a hard-to-find variety of a common beer. out of the fifteen or so places we checked, the first and second that had it were out and the third was having a private party, so we were kicked out after much confused language swapping that ended in shouting. tired and beaten, we were thankful to find it in bottles when we did. a night of actual drunkenness ensued, first at the abode of the kozul dark and then, later, at a truly hipster bar that matt had recommended. niki was out of her element and drunk, which meant she kept loudly discussing why everyone there had to be such a pain in the ass, and why wouldn't those guys just come over and hit on her like any normal person would? the end of the night found us drunk, her drunker, lost in echoing (but well-lit) alleys and arguing over how to get home. it's the only time i've ever managed to exchange sharp words with nicole wilson and, drunk as i was, it will endure in memory.

we woke up our doorman again, showered, and fell into our luxurious bed. i might not have savored anything so much the entire trip.