Don't Ever Go To Pisa

Often, hip and youthful Americans living abroad, particularly those in Paris, maintain an online journal detailing their exotic new home and life. These weblogs, or "blogs," as they are called by those in the 'know,' are then shared with friends and family members and random non-acquaintances as proof of the superiority of the blogger's oh-so-cultured-and-counter-American-culture existence. That is the first purpose of these humble writings. The second, and foremost, purpose of these journals is to score a book deal.

The trajectory proceeds as such: Blogger's writing doesn't suck (a lot). Blog fulfills primary American Abroad narrative criteria - I 1) moved to Paris/Barcelona/Florence, I 2) got my heart broken/fell in love/had impromptu sex on a futon with a European/bought really cool shoes/all of the above, and then, suddenly, I 3)discovered I could speak the language/found myself homeless/knocked-up/in jail, whereupon I 4)founded a wildly successful international dot-com/called that random guy I know at the Embassy to bail me out/found my true calling as a post-modernist slam-poet. In the end, I realized that 5)America really is the best/everything is more romantic in Paris-Barcelona-Florence/syphilis can be cured with penicillin. Blogger then strategically builds readership while teaching business English to pay rent. Blogger secures the notice of Small-Time Publisher who happens to be having an affair with Big-Time Publisher who steals Small-Time's manuscripts and clients away, thus securing Blogger their first book deal/heartless act of self-promotion. Finally, Blogger's book will be introduced to the (American) world with tepid acclaim. It will detail all of the above adventures, plus act as an off-color European travel guide with biting regional commentaries such as:

"People go to Rome to see historic works of art. People go to Pisa to see a historic fuck-up."

Of course, this weblog aspires to no such literary heights. Here, we're happy just to get spell-check's approval. (Currently we are falling short with "weblog." Irony is our friend.) So, while other, more enterprising bloggers fill their Macbooks with tales of love and triumph over European adversity, we will be at home with our cats, haphazardly typing our Mad Libs Moveable Feast.