Microsoft Word is evil

something weird is happening with my Microsoft Word Track Changes features--the user names have been replaced with weird characters...

list of potential writers

the following list was compiled from andrew's mind, a sample of past contributors to image journal, and a brief internet search. some of the writers may be dead, may suck, or may write in a non-literary genre:

David James Duncan
Marilynne Robinson
Scott Cairns
Mary Karr
Paul Mariani
Lucy Shaw
Yann Martel
Kathleen Norris
Robert Cording
Annie Dillard
BH Fairchild
Philip Levine
Jennifer Maier
Paul Mariani
Mary Oliver
Daniel Tobin
Deborah Joy Corey
Doris Betts
Frederick Buechner
Andre Dubus III
Ingrid Hill
Wally Lamb
Gina Ochsner
Chaim Potok
Wendell Berry
Walter Brueggemann
John Irving
Garrison Keillor
Bret Lott
Greg Wolfe
Dan Wakefield
Elie Wiesel
Richard Wilbur
Leif Enger – peace like river
Lauren Winner
Donald Miller
Homer Hickam
Mary Kenagy
Athol Dickinson – River Rising
Douglas Coupland – (monotheist) – microserfs, generation x…
Larry Woiwode – What I’m Going To Do, I Think, Beyond the Bedroom Walls
John Updike – the rabbit books, etc.
Ron Hansen – the assignation of the outlaw jesse james…
Anne lamott

deleted tunes, sorted by artist

Abra Moore	I Do	Paste Magazine Sampler 8
Adam Richman	Mary-Anne	Paste Magazine Sampler 16
Al Green	I'd Still Choose You	Paste Magazine Sampler 7
Al Greet	Be My Baby	Paste Magazine Sampler 14
Allison Moorer	Melancholy Potty	Paste Magazine Sampler 10
American Music Club	Another Morning	Paste Magazine Sampler 12
Amy Rigby	Don't Ever Change	Paste Magazine Sampler 5
Angela McCluskey	Dirty Pearl	Paste Magazine Sampler 10
Anne McCue	Crazy Beautiful Child	Paste Magazine Sampler 8
Annie Quick	Hit Like A Man	PasteMusic.com Sampler IV
Ari Hest	They’re On To Me	Paste Magazine Sampler 12
At The Close Of Everyday	Hallways	PasteMusic.com Sampler IV
Autolux	Here Comes Everybody	Paste Magazine Sampler 13
Ben Harper	With My Own Two Hands	Paste Magazine Sampler 4
Ben Kweller	The Rules	Paste Magazine Sampler 9
Bethany Yarrow	Black Is The Color	Paste Magazine Sampler 7
Bill Mallonee	She's So Liquid	Paste Magazine Sampler 1
Bill Mallonee	Life On Other Planets	Paste Magazine Sampler 6
Billy Joe Shaver	Freedom's Child	Paste Magazine Sampler 3
Blackie And The Rodeo Kings	Swinging From The Chains Of Love	Paste Magazine Sampler 9
Bob Schneider	Come With Me Tonight	Paste Magazine Sampler 10
Bonnie Hayes	Still Wild	PasteMusic.com Sampler IV
Brian Houston	Practical Reminder	Paste Magazine Sampler 12
Bright Eyes	Take It Easy (Love Nothing)	Paste Magazine Sampler 14
Brindley Brothers	Playing With the Light	Paste Magazine Sampler 7
Brindley Brothers	Supernova	PasteMusic.com Sampler IV
Camper Van Beethoven	51-7 (Radio Edit)	Paste Magazine Sampler 12
Caroline Herring	Trace	Paste Magazine Sampler 6
Cassandra Wilson	What Is It	Paste Magazine Sampler 7
Castanets	As You Do	Paste Magazine Sampler 15
Cat Power	He War	Paste Magazine Sampler 4
Cerys Matthews	Chardonnay	Paste Magazine Sampler 13
Chip Taylor & Carrie Rodriquez	Keep Your Hat On Jenny	Paste Magazine Sampler 16
Chris Robinson & The New Earth Mud	40 Days [Radio Edit]	Paste Magazine Sampler 11
Christopher Williams	Did Not Draw	Paste Magazine Sampler 14
Clem Snide	All Green	Paste Magazine Sampler 5
Coldplay	Brothers and Sisters	Paste Magazine Sampler 11
Collin Herring	Back Of Your Mind	Paste Magazine Sampler 16
Damien Jurado	Texas To Ohio	Paste Magazine Sampler 4
Dan Bern	Jane	Paste Magazine Sampler 4
Dapp Theory	Trickle Down	Paste Magazine Sampler 7
David Wilcox	Waffle House (Live)	Paste Magazine Sampler 1
Death Cab For Cutie	Prove My Hypotheses	Paste Magazine Sampler 3
Diego Sandrin	Dog	Paste Magazine Sampler 14
Drive-By Truckers	The Day John Henry Died	Paste Magazine Sampler 11
eastmountainsouth	Hard Times	Paste Magazine Sampler 5
Edwin McCain	Let It Slide	Paste Magazine Sampler 3
Eisley	Marvelous Things	Paste Magazine Sampler 14
Elgin James	Runway Song	PasteMusic.com Sampler IV
Emma Gibbs Band	Black Road	Paste Magazine Sampler 1
Erin McKeown	Cinematic	Paste Magazine Sampler 5
Eve Selis	Down To Love	Paste Magazine Sampler 3
Fastball	Airstream	Paste Magazine Sampler 10
FEEL	Won't Stand In Your Way	Paste Magazine Sampler 3
Five For Fighting	Angels And Girlfriends	Paste Magazine Sampler 9
Frank Lenz	The Hot Stuff	Paste Magazine Sampler 1
Garageland	Superstars	Paste Magazine Sampler 3
Garrison Starr	Gasoline	Paste Magazine Sampler 8
Gillian Welch	Wayside/Back In Time	Paste Magazine Sampler 5
Glenn Tilbrook	Untouchable	Paste Magazine Sampler 11
Gomez	Silence	Paste Magazine Sampler 10
Grand Drive	A Little Like You	Paste Magazine Sampler 4
Grandpaboy	Mpls	Paste Magazine Sampler 6
Gus Black	Dry Kisses	Paste Magazine Sampler 4
Hayden	Hollywood Ending	Paste Magazine Sampler 10
Hayes Carll	Hey Baby Where You Been	Paste Magazine Sampler 16
Inara George	Genius	Paste Magazine Sampler 16
Indigo Girls	Perfect World	Paste Magazine Sampler 9
Ivy	Thinking About You	Paste Magazine Sampler 14
J.J. Cale	The Problem	Paste Magazine Sampler 11
Jan Krist	Dressed To Kill	Paste Magazine Sampler 2
Jennifer Daniels	Welcome To Your Life	Paste Magazine Sampler 11
Jesse Harris & The Ferdinandos	All My Life	Paste Magazine Sampler 5
Jim Boggia	Made Me So Happy (W/ Jill Sobule)	Paste Magazine Sampler 15
Joe Henry	Loves You Madly	Paste Magazine Sampler 6
Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros	Coma Girl	Paste Magazine Sampler 7
John Austin	Cool Morning	Paste Magazine Sampler 2
John Brannen	A Pair Of Dice	Paste Magazine Sampler 13
John Butler Trio	Something's Gotta Give	Paste Magazine Sampler 13
John Davis	Me & My Girl	Paste Magazine Sampler 15
John Prine	Glory Of True Love	Paste Magazine Sampler 16
Jonatha Brooke	Better After All	Paste Magazine Sampler 8
Jonathan Rundman	Smart Girls	Paste Magazine Sampler 12
Joseph Arthur	Can’t Exist	Paste Magazine Sampler 12
Josh Ritter	Kathleen	Paste Magazine Sampler 15
Julie Lee	Still House Road	Paste Magazine Sampler 13
Junior Brown	The Bridge Washed Out	Paste Magazine Sampler 12
Justin McRoberts	Undecided	PasteMusic.com Sampler IV
Karrin Allyson	All I Want	Paste Magazine Sampler 10
Kathleen Edwards	6 O'Clock News	Paste Magazine Sampler 3
Keb' Mo'	Let Your Light Shine	Paste Magazine Sampler 8
Kerosene Brothers	Ellie Schaffer	Paste Magazine Sampler 7
Kieran McGee	Waiting For A Friend	Paste Magazine Sampler 13
K's Choice	Losing You	Paste Magazine Sampler 12
Lisa Loeb	I Control The Sun	Paste Magazine Sampler 8
Lizzie West	Sometime	Paste Magazine Sampler 4
Los Lobos	Hurry Tomorrow	Paste Magazine Sampler 10
Lost Dogs	Lovely Man (Full Length Version)	Paste Magazine Sampler 1
Lovedrug	Rock And Roll	Paste Magazine Sampler 11
Lowen & Navarro	Devil's In The Details	Paste Magazine Sampler 15
Lucinda Williams	Sweet Side	Paste Magazine Sampler 4
M. Ward	Sweehearts On Parade	Paste Magazine Sampler 15
Mark Heard	Nod Over Coffee	Paste Magazine Sampler 2
Martina Topley-Bird	Need One	Paste Magazine Sampler 13
Marty Lloyd	Justified	Paste Magazine Sampler 4
Mary Gauthier	Mercy Now (radio edit)	Paste Magazine Sampler 14
Mary Gauthier	Good-Bye	Paste Magazine Sampler 2
Matisyahu	Heights	Paste Magazine Sampler 16
Matthew Ryan	Return To Me	Paste Magazine Sampler 8
Michelle Shocked	How You Play The Game	Paste Magazine Sampler 16
Michelle Shocked	That's So Amazing	Paste Magazine Sampler 2
Minnie Driver	Everything I've Got In My Pockets	Paste Magazine Sampler 13
Nanci Griffith	I'm Not Drivin' These Wheels (Bring The Prose To The Wheel)	Paste Magazine Sampler 2
Nick Cave	There She Goes, My Beautiful World	Paste Magazine Sampler 12
Now It's Overhead	Wait In A Line	Paste Magazine Sampler 9
Of Montreal	Requiem For O.M.M.2	Paste Magazine Sampler 15
Old 97's	The New Kid	Paste Magazine Sampler 11
Ollabelle	Soul Of A Man	Paste Magazine Sampler 8
Paco	My Love [Radio Remix]	Paste Magazine Sampler 11
Pancho Sanchez	Mary Ann (Featuring Ray Charles)	Paste Magazine Sampler 6
Patrick Davis	Rock Myself	Paste Magazine Sampler 8
Paul Melancon	Overture	Paste Magazine Sampler 2
Peter Case	Something's Coming (Radio Edit)	Paste Magazine Sampler 2
Peter Stuart	With My Heart In Your Hands	Paste Magazine Sampler 1
Preservation Hall Hot 4 With Duke Dejan	If I Had My Life To Live Over	Paste Magazine Sampler 9
Pushstart Wagon	Mary	Paste Magazine Sampler 16
Quetzal	This Is My Home	Paste Magazine Sampler 6
Rachael Sage	Of Blue	Paste Magazine Sampler 7
Rachael Sage	Bravedancing	PasteMusic.com Sampler IV
Rachael Sage	Sacrifice	Paste Magazine Sampler 15
Reckless Kelly	Broken Heart	Paste Magazine Sampler 14
Rilo Kiley	It's A Hit	Paste Magazine Sampler 11
Robert Bradley & Macy Gray	Down On Me	Paste Magazine Sampler 15
Robert Earl Keen	Furnace Fan	Paste Magazine Sampler 7
Rosanne Cash	Rules Of Travel	Paste Magazine Sampler 5
Rosavelt	Last Heartache	Paste Magazine Sampler 12
Rufus McGovern	Burn	PasteMusic.com Sampler IV
Rusty Truck	Cold Ground	Paste Magazine Sampler 7
Sam Phillips	The Fan Dance	Paste Magazine Sampler 1
Say Zulu	Wish Me Well	Paste Magazine Sampler 1
Screen Door	Shine For Me	Paste Magazine Sampler 5
Shannon Mcanally	The Worst Part Of A Broken Heart	Paste Magazine Sampler 16
Shelby Lynne	Go With It	Paste Magazine Sampler 16
Sinéad O'Connor	My Lagan Love (Radio Edit)	Paste Magazine Sampler 3
Slow Motion Reign	Isn't It Time? (Rats)	Paste Magazine Sampler 14
Solomon Burke	I Need Your Love In My Life	Paste Magazine Sampler 15
Some Girls	Necessito	Paste Magazine Sampler 6
Sonia Dada	Old Bones	Paste Magazine Sampler 11
Sonia Dada	Baby Woke Up	Paste Magazine Sampler 2
Spottiswoode And His Enemies	Youngest Child	Paste Magazine Sampler 7
Sputnik	Hello	Paste Magazine Sampler 14
Starflyer 59	Teens In Love	Paste Magazine Sampler 9
Starsailor	Music Was Saved	Paste Magazine Sampler 8
Stephen Clair	Stupid Game	Paste Magazine Sampler 15
Steve Forbert	Autumn This Year	Paste Magazine Sampler 10
Steven Jackson	The Leavers And The Left Behinds	Paste Magazine Sampler 1
Stockholm Syndrome	Couldn't Get It Right (Radio Mix)	Paste Magazine Sampler 10
Suit of Lights	Goodbye Sick City	Paste Magazine Sampler 14
Summer Hymns	Pete Rose Affinity	Paste Magazine Sampler 5
Sun Kil Moon	Glenn Tipton	Paste Magazine Sampler 7
Susan Enan	Moonlight	Paste Magazine Sampler 5
Taylor	Follow Me	Paste Magazine Sampler 6
Terry Scott Taylor	LITTLE, big	Paste Magazine Sampler 2
Tess Wiley	The Shadown	Paste Magazine Sampler 13
The Arcade Fire	Neighborhood #2 (Laika)	Paste Magazine Sampler 13
The Black Keys	10 A.M. Automatic	Paste Magazine Sampler 12
The Black Keys	Set You Free	Paste Magazine Sampler 5
The Cardigans	For What It's Worth	Paste Magazine Sampler 10
The Concretes	You Can't Hurry Love	Paste Magazine Sampler 11
The Drexlers	Glass Head	PasteMusic.com Sampler IV
The Elders	American Wake	Paste Magazine Sampler 8
The Flatlanders	Back To My Old Molehill	Paste Magazine Sampler 8
The High Llamas	The Click And The Fizz	Paste Magazine Sampler 7
The Incredible Moses Leroy	Transmission C	Paste Magazine Sampler 5
The Jayhawks	Tailspin	Paste Magazine Sampler 4
The Lost Trailers	Down In The Valley	Paste Magazine Sampler 9
The Polyphonic Spree	Section 12 (Hold Me Now)	Paste Magazine Sampler 11
The Proclaimers	Should Have Been Loved	Paste Magazine Sampler 9
The Subdudes	Morning Glory	Paste Magazine Sampler 10
The Thorns	I Can't Remember	Paste Magazine Sampler 4
The Thrills	One Horse Town	Paste Magazine Sampler 7
The Wailin' Jennys	Something To Hold Onto	PasteMusic.com Sampler IV
Tim Easton	Black Hearted Ways	Paste Magazine Sampler 4
Tim Miser	Sweet Long Goodbyes	Paste Magazine Sampler 5
Tracy Spuehler	Where Do We Go	Paste Magazine Sampler 8
Tywanna Jo Baskette	Pretty Crazy Daisy	Paste Magazine Sampler 6
Uncle Tupelo	Left In The Dark	Paste Magazine Sampler 5
Van Morrison	Once In A Blue Moon	Paste Magazine Sampler 7
Vic Chesnutt	Band Camp	Paste Magazine Sampler 4
Victoria Williams	I'm Old Fashioned	Paste Magazine Sampler 1
Vienna Teng	The Tower	Paste Magazine Sampler 3
Volebeats	One I Love	Paste Magazine Sampler 8
Wanda Jackson	Funnel Of Love (Featuring The Cramps)	Paste Magazine Sampler 6
Wideawke	Everyday Rockstar	Paste Magazine Sampler 1
Wilshire	Special	Paste Magazine Sampler 7
Zak Morgan	When Bullfrogs Croak	Paste Magazine Sampler 4

spiderman III

• although most people might rank the spiderman trilogy in the order that the films were released, i preferred the third film to its predecessor.

• the creators of spiderman III try to weave three or more plots together; it makes the film entertaining, but i think that the added complexity actually makes the film seem more elementary.

• i like that the creators tried to use this trilogy to grapple with darkness. while they're still painfully obvious with their morals and i sometimes had a hard time buying peter parker's nasty shortsightedness, at least the creators didn't settle on a feel-good movie.

• i found this to be the funniest of the spiderman films. when tobey maguire embraced his dark side, i was laughing aloud.

here's a real review.

once i write a review, you will be redirected to that review

italy story

Minding the gap, I pull myself aboard, struggle through sliding doors as they close, and shimmy onto the platform. I ping-pong from wall to wall toward the next seat. Boarding trains with a forty-five pound pack is like playing human pinball. The advantage to train travel may be its ease—the conductors and crew appear to do all the work—but for a novice traveler, things are never as easy as they seem.

To my credit, I maneuver clear of fellow passengers—or they from me—flop my pack onto an empty seat, and slide across to the adjacent bench. With considerably less exertion, other riders take their seats too: scruffy olive-skinned men in slacks and open-chested flannels, women cradling the fixings for tonight’s pesto surprise, and a couple of intellectuals with noses buried in books. Everyone looks tired. It could be the weather; I’ve never known somewhere so humid. Where else can one make small talk like: ‘looks like another sweaty day.’ I’m melting, and maybe everyone else is too. Or perhaps everyone is aggravated at this American and his bulky pack—he’s certainly tired of it—filling an entire seat and muttering to himself in some foreign dialect.

Unfortunately, a foreign dialect is all I know, and—where’s my rail pass? As inconspicuously as possible, I frantically leaf through the many pockets of my Lowe Alpine Sirroco Classic® pack, ruing the day that I appraised an abundance of pockets as a convenience. The pleasant Seattle A giant oversight if you ask me. I could be lost somewhere in the Tibetan highlands, mind a bit fuzzy from the altitude, wasting my last breaths in futile pursuit of an oxygen mask locked far away in some forgotten pocket, or, worse yet, I could be missing my rail pass! Where is it? salesman said nothing about the inconvenience of something so convenient.

I’ve been riding the rails in Europe for a few months now. I first arrived in London with a group of university students from a small liberal arts college in Washington State. We toured Great Britain together, sharing our meals, lives, and love/hate relationships with Arthurian lit. And now I find myself prancing about Italy like a suddenly self-aware Don Quixote, a foolish spectacle for all to see. If my rail pass is lost, it might finally be time to doff the cap of traveler extraordinaire and face the facts. The carefree young man who left Seattle planned to embrace every little cultural unpleasantry with easygoing acceptance. No complaining, and most certainly no whining. I obviously didn’t anticipate this. Really, it’s unfathomable that a middle-class, white boy from the suburbs could expect to seamlessly blend into his surroundings and float effortlessly from place to place.

“Tickets please! Tickets,” hollers a voice in my mind. I’m convinced that any minute a train conductor will burst through the doors of our car with armed guards in tow. On the morning train from Switzerland, the train staff even searched some bags and checked our passports. Tossing shorts, socks, and underwear out of the way, I dig deeper. Hopefully, every Italian city is equipped with a friendly neighborhood US embassy. Although…I could probably write a darn good travel essay from a dank prison cell in Timbuktu, Italy.

The train is rumbling now, but still no onboard announcements or any sign of a conductor (or a rail pass). Groaning, the train flexes its tired mechanical muscles and jettisons forth from the station. Saying a quick prayer, I realize that if necessary I can probably purchase a ticket onboard. Besides, the other passengers, pretending to ignore my antics, have no tickets in hand ready for collection. I sit back and concentrate on the movement of the train, but its faded caramel seats, jarring motion, and cranky grinding of gears conjure unpleasant images of rickety old roller-coasters. Unconsciously, I reach for a lap bar and wonder uneasily if trains cave to the same barometric conditions as humans. Might our car suffer heat stroke and leave me stranded in Genoa?

But the train keeps going. And stopping. And going. And stopping, stopping at every little space in the tracks wide enough to accommodate a few benches of worn commuters. There! Beyond the benches and stucco high-rise apartments I can see thin strands of beach. With any luck, that’s the Mediterranean. But as each fresh likeness of tropical paradise rolls slowly by, the city names elicit no sense of familiarity. Still, these towns look nice. I could cut loose from my itinerary, barrel blindly from the seasoned advice of other travelers, and land myself in some obscure Italian village no one’s ever heard of, besides the Italians, of course. Some ordinary coastal community sifting wages from the sea rather than the wallets of tourists. Rent a raft and float away into the Mediterranean sunset…but seriously, maybe this is the wrong train. I ask a few passengers.

“To Vernazza?” I ask. “Vernazza?” And point to the train.

Someone says the word for floor. Others shake their heads. One woman, obliging this strange foreigner, takes the lead, and offers me a helpful bundle of insight. Unfortunately, the rushing wind carries her words far away to the opposite end of our car. While Italy seems privileged to have experienced parts of the industrial revolution, like this train putting deliberately down the sun-soaked coast, other modern conveniences apparently have bypassed Europe’s boot. Despite the pressing humidity, Italians on the West Coast lack the crucial life support system we know as air conditioning. Thankfully, my train utilizes the predecessor to AC: wide-open windows. But in the context of conversations, Italian AC makes communication nearly impossible. Oh, well, her insight amounted to nothing more than Italian gibberish anyway.

“Prego?” I ask. I’ve often been told that when in Rome, do as the Romans do; in this case that means speak Italian. Earlier, as I crossed the border from Switzerland, a benevolent tour guide explained that the word “prego” serves at least a million functions, ranging from “may I take this,” “you’re welcome,” and “excuse me,” to a brand of spaghetti sauce. Thus, if lost for something to say in Italy, like now, “prego” might work. It does. She repeats her explanation. Great. I muster one last try, putting careful emphasis on each of the syllables. “Verrrr nahhhzzzzz uhhh?”

“Si, si.” So much for blending in. After a few “graci’s”, my bag and I ride the remainder of the trip in self-conscious silence. Cover blown, I discard any pretense of acting indigenous and pull dog-eared pages from a used copy of Rick Steves’s Best of Europe 2001. Staring at the map, I note how close Vernazza should be to Genoa. Barely a centimeter! Oh, well. I stash the map in the front pocket of my shorts with a camera, some German receipts, and a rail pass. A rail pass?! Hallelujah! I nearly jump out of my seat. My Italian train-mates must think I’m loony, or perhaps I’m behaving like a typical American. No wonder we have such a poor reputation abroad. After daring a last glance at my fellow passengers, I turn my gaze to the window and stare at the passing towns—in part to avoid further eye contact with the locals but more importantly to somehow verify that, yes, I am on the right train.

Hours later, without warning, our train unceremoniously emerges from a tunnel to that fabled city of Vernazza. Hoisting my pack, I happily stumble through the door and onto the platform. The haggard locomotive burps, coughs, and finally rumbles from the station, allowing the distant lull of laughing voices to fill its wake. An expectant smile flickers across my face. I can almost taste the gelato[1]. But first things first: I must secure a place to stay. No worries, my friend Rick Steves already allayed my apprehensions concerning the night lodgings: “The town is honeycombed year-round with pleasant, rentable private rooms, […] simply show up by morning and look around [….] Any main-street business has a line on rooms for rent […] no reservations taken, just show up at restaurants” (Steves 578).

So, down a flight of stairs and into the busy breathing city center. In Vernazza, the city center consists of a single pedestrian-populated cobblestone street that empties into a small cove well suited for sailboats and small fishing craft. Forming an artificial canyon of sorts, apartments, boutiques, Internet cafes, and restaurants are stacked one atop the other all along both sides of the avenue. Tourists are everywhere, sipping the local white wine—after all, where else but in the Cinque Terre is wine cheaper than coke?—and languidly reclining on apartment steps, all in all pretending to be Italians well practiced in the art of the siesta.

Following the natural progression of the boulevard toward the harbor, I eagerly approach the waterfront. Sidestepping some sunbathers, I lean forward for my first touch of the Mediterranean. Instead of experiencing a transforming moment where all historical references to this great body of water suddenly converge into one epiphany about my place in time—that’s how I imagined my first meeting with the Mediterranean—the great big bulk straddling my back lunges forward as if to leapfrog my shoulders. I somehow catch my balance, roll to the side, and narrowly escape a refreshing dip.

Shrugging my shoulders in mild defeat, I cautiously walk along the beach toward the first candidate for a good night’s lodgings: Gambero Rosso. I’m not quite sure how this works though; apparently all the harbor-side restaurants set their diners outside in a sea of plastic patio furniture. In fact, the various restaurants seem to encourage their tables and chairs to mingle amongst one another. Perhaps waiters from the various establishments compete, racing one another to each new guest: speedy service, guaranteed! While the lack of indoor seating ensures a marvelous view, it also makes it difficult to determine the best manner of approaching a restaurant proprietor. After a moment of indecision, I head toward the door from which the food seems to be flowing.

Passing through some dangling beads, I step into a dim smoky room. Contrary to my initial impression, this appears to be some kind of a bar. I spot a woman behind the counter and prepare for first contact.

“Uhhh…buona sera!” I greet her enthusiastically. That’s “good evening,” I think.

“Prego…” She says as she polishes a glass, inquisitively searching me with her dark hazel eyes. Apparently yet another use for the term “prego.” With my three word Italian vocabulary exhausted, I turn to the standby communication tool of all oblivious travelers: my hands.

I point to myself, bring my hands together against my right ear in the manner of a pillow, and ask: “Where place to stay? Sleep?” My English grows choppy. I even try a little French. Then, in a rare flash of inspiration, I conceive the perfect gimmick to illustrate my sorry plight. I pull the crumpled page from my Best of Europe 2001 and point to two boldface Italian words that preclude Rick’s explanation of places to stay. She squints at the worn page, shakes her head “no,” and mumbles something I take to mean that they’re+full. As a consolation gift of sorts, she nods and points across the square before returning to her dirty china.

Threading in and out of tourists, I cross the square. Outside the indicated apartment, a few men lounge idly about, laughing heartily through wispy clouds of cigarette smoke. I approach one, about to speak, but he motions me inside. I enter, make eye contact with a young man in an apron, and launch confidently into my new routine. As I thrust the page under his nose, I glimpse a sparkle in his eye. I think he understands. I’m a pro! Perhaps those games of charades really paid off.

Perhaps not. “Sorry,” he says, clear as can be, “You have no reservations? We have no rooms left.” Either I suddenly picked up Italian, or he’s speaking English. “It be tough to find room this time of the season without reservation. Try Paolo at Trattoria del Capitano,” he says, pointing next door at another restaurant.

I try next door. “No, no rooms.”

I try next door to Trattoria del Capitano but am referred back to Paulo. Like the Mary and Joseph of past millennia, I’m faced with the harsh prospect of no room in the inn. Unfortunately, there are no stables either. All these tourists, I belatedly realize, have places to stay. Quaint little Vernazza is brimming with hotel patrons. By eight in the evening, it’s an entire village of no vacancies. I am Cinderella at two strokes till twelve; catch my coach now, or things will get ugly. However, this is no fairy tale: there may be no night trains out of here.

concluded here (at the17pointscale.blogspot.com)

italy story

Minding the gap, I pull myself aboard, struggle through sliding doors as they close, and shimmy onto the platform. I ping-pong from wall to wall toward the next seat. Boarding trains with a forty-five pound pack is like playing human pinball. The advantage to train travel may be its ease—the conductors and crew appear to do all the work—but for a novice traveler, things are never as easy as they seem.

To my credit, I maneuver clear of fellow passengers—or they from me—flop my pack onto an empty seat, and slide across to the adjacent bench. With considerably less exertion, other riders take their seats too: scruffy olive-skinned men in slacks and open-chested flannels, women cradling the fixings for tonight’s pesto surprise, and a couple of intellectuals with noses buried in books. Everyone looks tired. It could be the weather; I’ve never known somewhere so humid. Where else can one make small talk like: ‘looks like another sweaty day.’ I’m melting, and maybe everyone else is too. Or perhaps everyone is aggravated at this American and his bulky pack—he’s certainly tired of it—filling an entire seat and muttering to himself in some foreign dialect.

Unfortunately, a foreign dialect is all I know, and—where’s my rail pass? As inconspicuously as possible, I frantically leaf through the many pockets of my Lowe Alpine Sirroco Classic® pack, ruing the day that I appraised an abundance of pockets as a convenience. The pleasant Seattle A giant oversight if you ask me. I could be lost somewhere in the Tibetan highlands, mind a bit fuzzy from the altitude, wasting my last breaths in futile pursuit of an oxygen mask locked far away in some forgotten pocket, or, worse yet, I could be missing my rail pass! Where is it? salesman said nothing about the inconvenience of something so convenient.

I’ve been riding the rails in Europe for a few months now. I first arrived in London with a group of university students from a small liberal arts college in Washington State. We toured Great Britain together, sharing our meals, lives, and love/hate relationships with Arthurian lit. And now I find myself prancing about Italy like a suddenly self-aware Don Quixote, a foolish spectacle for all to see. If my rail pass is lost, it might finally be time to doff the cap of traveler extraordinaire and face the facts. The carefree young man who left Seattle planned to embrace every little cultural unpleasantry with easygoing acceptance. No complaining, and most certainly no whining. I obviously didn’t anticipate this. Really, it’s unfathomable that a middle-class, white boy from the suburbs could expect to seamlessly blend into his surroundings and float effortlessly from place to place.

“Tickets please! Tickets,” hollers a voice in my mind. I’m convinced that any minute a train conductor will burst through the doors of our car with armed guards in tow. On the morning train from Switzerland, the train staff even searched some bags and checked our passports. Tossing shorts, socks, and underwear out of the way, I dig deeper. Hopefully, every Italian city is equipped with a friendly neighborhood US embassy. Although…I could probably write a darn good travel essay from a dank prison cell in Timbuktu, Italy.

The train is rumbling now, but still no onboard announcements or any sign of a conductor (or a rail pass). Groaning, the train flexes its tired mechanical muscles and jettisons forth from the station. Saying a quick prayer, I realize that if necessary I can probably purchase a ticket onboard. Besides, the other passengers, pretending to ignore my antics, have no tickets in hand ready for collection. I sit back and concentrate on the movement of the train, but its faded caramel seats, jarring motion, and cranky grinding of gears conjure unpleasant images of rickety old roller-coasters. Unconsciously, I reach for a lap bar and wonder uneasily if trains cave to the same barometric conditions as humans. Might our car suffer heat stroke and leave me stranded in Genoa?

But the train keeps going. And stopping. And going. And stopping, stopping at every little space in the tracks wide enough to accommodate a few benches of worn commuters. There! Beyond the benches and stucco high-rise apartments I can see thin strands of beach. With any luck, that’s the Mediterranean. But as each fresh likeness of tropical paradise rolls slowly by, the city names elicit no sense of familiarity. Still, these towns look nice. I could cut loose from my itinerary, barrel blindly from the seasoned advice of other travelers, and land myself in some obscure Italian village no one’s ever heard of, besides the Italians, of course. Some ordinary coastal community sifting wages from the sea rather than the wallets of tourists. Rent a raft and float away into the Mediterranean sunset…but seriously, maybe this is the wrong train. I ask a few passengers.

“To Vernazza?” I ask. “Vernazza?” And point to the train.

Someone says the word for floor. Others shake their heads. One woman, obliging this strange foreigner, takes the lead, and offers me a helpful bundle of insight. Unfortunately, the rushing wind carries her words far away to the opposite end of our car. While Italy seems privileged to have experienced parts of the industrial revolution, like this train putting deliberately down the sun-soaked coast, other modern conveniences apparently have bypassed Europe’s boot. Despite the pressing humidity, Italians on the West Coast lack the crucial life support system we know as air conditioning. Thankfully, my train utilizes the predecessor to AC: wide-open windows. But in the context of conversations, Italian AC makes communication nearly impossible. Oh, well, her insight amounted to nothing more than Italian gibberish anyway.

“Prego?” I ask. I’ve often been told that when in Rome, do as the Romans do; in this case that means speak Italian. Earlier, as I crossed the border from Switzerland, a benevolent tour guide explained that the word “prego” serves at least a million functions, ranging from “may I take this,” “you’re welcome,” and “excuse me,” to a brand of spaghetti sauce. Thus, if lost for something to say in Italy, like now, “prego” might work. It does. She repeats her explanation. Great. I muster one last try, putting careful emphasis on each of the syllables. “Verrrr nahhhzzzzz uhhh?”

“Si, si.” So much for blending in. After a few “graci’s,” my bag and I ride the remainder of the trip in self-conscious silence. Cover blown, I discard any pretense of acting indigenous and pull dog-eared pages from a used copy of Rick Steves’s Best of Europe 2001. Staring at the map, I note how close Vernazza should be to Genoa. Barely a centimeter! Oh, well. I stash the map in the front pocket of my shorts with a camera, some German receipts, and a rail pass. A rail pass?! Hallelujah! I nearly jump out of my seat. My Italian train-mates must think I’m loony, or perhaps I’m behaving like a typical American. No wonder we have such a poor reputation abroad. After daring a last glance at my fellow passengers, I turn my gaze to the window and stare at the passing towns—in part to avoid further eye contact with the locals but more importantly to somehow verify that, yes, I am on the right train.