This time: michellanea

1) Please introduce yourself (Name, Location, Age, where do you come from)
My name is Michelle. I’m currently in Milan, Italy. I’ve lived here for nine years. I am American. I grew up in Ohio, but I moved to New York City after college. I moved to Italy from New York. I hate to be one of those women who doesn’t want to discuss her age, but, um, I don’t. I’m in my late 30s!

2) Which countries/cities have you lived in?
I have lived in the United States, Mexico and Italy.

3) What is your blog about?
My blog is about my life in Italy, which I think is very different from some of the other Italy bloggers’ lives. I certainly don’t mean to Italy bash (though I do a fair amount of that), but I try to offer a realistic portrait of what living in Italy is like (for me). I have never felt obligated to gloss things over or write those posts that are like “Oh, look at my bella vita in Italy. It’s so fantastic. Tiramisu, yummy!” I do have moments when I feel like that, but those things don’t really inspire me to write because they’ve pretty much been covered.
I think journalism school prepared me to look at things critically, to deconstruct them and tear them apart. You might say journalism school ruined me in that way. If I was ever a Pollyanna, I wasn’t by the time I came out of J school. I came charging out with my little notebook and pencil in hand, ready to take on the world and uncover conspiracies and corruption. How I ended up in Milan writing about ruffled tops and platform heels, I’ll never know. Though I am doing less fashion stuff. On my blog I write about what it’s like to live in a large city trying to eke out a living. I am not a retiree. I didn’t come here to restore a farmhouse or open an agriturismo. I basically attempted to transfer the life I had in New York to Italy, and it wasn’t easy. For a long time, I felt as if I had failed in that. What I finally realized was that it just wasn’t possible. That allowed me to go through a mourning process for that old life and create a new life here.

4) Why are you blogging? Do you have any goals with it?
I began my blog at a time when I was at a crossroads professionally.
As a journalist, I write for a living. I was kind of tired of writing “for the man,” and my blog was a place where I could write whatever I wanted, be it profound or inane. Mostly it was inane. I had recently lost my job at the website of a big international fashion magazine and there was no longer anything holding me back from having a Web presence of my own and writing whatever the hell I wanted. I was pretty bitter about my job situation in that period, and the blog was at times the thorny tree where I hung my grievances. I think I got a reputation as being very anti-Italy, and that wasn’t necessarily the case. I mean, that’s not the case. I actually love Italy, and will always have a connection to Italy if only because of my son who is Italian-American. But Italy for me is often like that boyfriend that “you can’t live with, can’t live without.” Maybe I’d be happier if Italy were only a Facebook friend whom I saw in person a couple of times a year. But then who knows? Maybe it’s all a schtick I have created, and I have truly been converted over to the Italian way after all. I guess I’ll find out when/if I move away. In the beginning, I had no goals with my blog. And I still don’t have any particular goals, but I have just written a book and the website is definitely meant to be part of the “platform” for the book.
I am not all that good with self-promotion, but I am quickly learning that if I want to get my book published, I need to self promote. In the beginning, I was even against Google Ads on my site because it truly was just meant for fun. But I’ve come to the realization that I enjoy keeping up my blog, and why shouldn’t I earn a little money doing something I enjoy? I’d never hit people over the head with too many flashing ads or pop-ups.
But I’m at a point where I want to earn a living on my own terms, so I’ve realized that the blog can be part of that. I try to be informative on my blog as much as I can, and while I sometimes write through what could be seen as a skewed controversial filter, I think that people reading (especially if they don’t live in Italy themselves) may learn something.

5) Your favorite Italian meal?
I’m a carboholic, so I love bread and pasta. I was fortunate enough to meet and marry an Italian. As a vegetarian, I don’t know what I would have done if I’d met someone from some really meaty place. I love Spain and France, for example, but I have a hard time eating in both countries. I usually have to go ethnic. My favorite pasta dish is Pasta alla Trapanese. There’s a recipe for it on my blog.

I don’t know if it really authentic from Trapani or if it is an interpretation of a dish my Milanese relatives ate while down in Sicily.

6) What is your favorite Italian song?
I really like Lucio Battisti even though some of my Italian friends recoil when I say that. I’ve heard that he was a bit of a misogynist and politically extreme in unpleasant ways. That curbed my enthusiasm on him a bit. “La canzone del sole” reminds me of summer, of driving somewhere beachy and singing along to the lyrics. It’s a song about a love story that begins in adolescence and how the two people change over time. He sings about the beginning of their relationship with one line that really strikes me: “la cantina buia dove noi respiravamo piano.”
It’s so suggestive and I don’t even know if it translates well in English but he is saying “Remember that dark cantina where the two of us breathed softly?” As I write that, it sounds cheesy but in Italian it just gives you this idea of being a young teenager and being so nervous to kiss the other person that you are almost not even breathing.

7) Do you have recommended links concerning the subject of your blog or Italy in general?
I go on expattalk.com a lot. That’s a good place to ask questions if you are planning on moving to Italy. Or just want to lurk and see how others have done it and what problems or issues they run into on a daily basis.

8) Anything to add?
Thanks for interviewing me. I like the name of your blog. I bet that was Jovanotti-inspired! If you happen to know any of my relatives in Germany (Schoenungs/Schoenings or Strines/Streins), have them get in touch! I’ve been meaning to get in touch with my German roots.

Vielleicht interessieren Dich auch folgende Artikel:

• Introduced! Burnt by the Tuscan Sun (burntbythetuscansun.blogspot.com)
• Introduced! Ms. Adventures in Italy
• Introduced! Moscerina

27. April 2009
Vorgestellt!