In a Foreign Language

Now, I am what should be a stereotypical American in the sense that I am mutlicultural and multilingual. I am comfortable with difference and the encounter of the foreign. I feel myself connected to many identities, racial, ethnic, and national. As we encounter in American mainstream and underground arts, gender is fluid for me as is my sexuality. American is a word that encompasses two continents and the cultures formed through the dialogical dynamics of oppression and resistance. However, my Italian sucks. And the specifics of my personality, or my Britishness...perhaps my paricular Britishness which is Scotch Irish, I cringe at the thought of going to the supermarket on my own unable to speak the language. The cringe is isolating. I want to just stay in the apartment working on my dissertation in English. It is much more difficult traveling with a dissertation than I anticipated. It is such a vampire in that it pulls me away from connecting with the people around me and turns me into a creature of my own desires where I sleep when I want and eat when I want and lock myself in my coffin when I want with a great feeling of jouissance.