Today, I Am International. Sort of. Not Really.

I feel so European today. Not that I even know what that means, really. But if I were to wake up tomorrow, European, I believe my average daily life would occur much as mine has today. Well, western Europe anyhow.

I got to work at 10am. Fuck me. Europeans, as productive as they have been in the (rather distant) past (my ancestors included), have pretty much fallen off the work wagon. I’ll take the slings and arrows for that comment. I realize it’s a generalization, and that there are a handful of twenty-somethings in Prague, busting their asses and working some wicked 9 hour days to build some real accomplishments. But really, Europe is no longer known for doing a whole hell of a lot on the business front. Go ahead, fume, collect some questionable statistics on various GDPs and shuffle them my way. In the end, I will be right. And here’s why:

1. They have enough to get by, so they aren’t stressing the dough. I mean, they gots castles and shit.

2. They figured out, generations ago, that slaving away all of life’s daylight hours (save for some precious carrot-esque ‘vacation days’) is quite possibly the worst way to live. So the priority to work hits them after a nice, calm and enjoyable morning (ending around 10am) if it hits them at all. Live first, work later.

So don’t assume I’m knocking them or their seemingly lazy ways. Not only do I respect them, hell, I subscribe to their philosophy (and I’d like to have a castle to match, but not a dirty one, thank you).

I dicked with exchange rates all morning. While I was doing this, as part of my paid-job, I was reminded of my visits to Europe. Constantly balancing those damned currencies against each other, wishing everyone would just GET WITH the EURO already. I mean, fuck. Shit or get off the goddamn pot.

I hated on Bush and the religious right for like, an hour. I read this guy’s blog, which is a fascinating read, and even though it doesn’t tell me anything I don’t already know, it mixed with the two cups of coffee (with grounds floating about the bottom) to fuel my irritation surrounding the way the US governs and considers itself. Ourselves. Europeans do this regularly, and they’ll tell you as much if you ask (but don’t accuse them of thinking about the US too much, because they’ll tell you to stop acting like the US is the center of the universe. Which will confuse you. Okay? Okay.).

I am wearing a black shirt with grey slacks and black dress shoes. This, of course, is a total Americanization of what it means to ‘dress European’, as it is more the dress code for all metropolitan, deeply urban cities throughout the western world (hello NYC, Toronto, Dallas, Seattle, Tokyo, blah-blah-blah). But somewhere along the line, this wardrobe arrangement became synonymous with French bistro revolutionaries, Italian Vespa riders, and “Now It’s Time Shprockets Ven Vee Dance!” Berliners. So. I’m pimping the European look. With spiky, mangled hair atop my skull. I feel like I should be typing this in Dutch while eating a gyro, sipping my espresso and putting through the streets on a dented moped.

I feel like I should stop typing altogether. So I will. Right now.