I am engulfed in sound. It’s familiar in tone, but when I try to separate it into words, it becomes chaos. It hums — and sometimes, roars — around me, punctuated by the bright noise of wine glasses meeting. Tink!

Eating out is intimidating. Just ordering – no, asking for a table – makes my mouth sweat.

Tonight, I order wine and the scallop mezzalune with lobster ragout – by pointing. It feels so caveman, but I’ve learned my lesson. I made the mistake of speaking Italian at the first restaurant. A mistake, only because I did it correctly. And in reply, came a flurry of songwords — some vaguely familiar because of their closeness to Spanish, but mostly foreign and confounding. I simply shrugged in response.

Mi dispiace. No parlo Italiano.

And still, she looked at me as if certain I was telling a fib. As though she wanted to say, But you just did speak Italian. Finally she gave up, grabbed a menu and smiled.

“Okay, dee-ner for one. Yes?”

Sigh. Yes. Dinner for one.

The roar dies, just for a second, and I think I can hear one of my own thoughts. But then poof! it gets lost again as the table next to me erupts in cheers. Accustomed to restaurants where people make polite chit-chat over dinner, the Italian dining experience is an adventure in frenzy. Loud and indistinguishable – it makes me feel drunk. Or drugged. Or underwater.

But I don’t mind too much. Because the wine is so excellent – my nostrils get a taste before the glass in to my lips – and the food is equally hypnotizing. And before I know it, it’s gone. All the Porcini mushrooms and the roasted pork. Gone. And then another face is floating in front of me, singing words that don’t register. After a moment, the face darkens, then brightens.

“Ooh, eez Een-gleesh, yes? You want something else?”

Yes. Dessert.

(I recorded 30 seconds of ambient noise at the restaurant to share. It recorded at low volume, so you may have to turn it up. In fact, DO turn it up. You know, for that next-best-thing-to-being-there feeling.Download it here.)

It is the capital of Awesome.

I have found a laundromat in Turin, and now I have clean, really clean, clothes. I have eaten Parmesan risotto, had what has to be the realest, yummiest espresso ever, and now, I’m going to go on a walk and take some pictures. There is a skinny mirror in my hotel, the towels as big as ME, and I’ve been drinking wine all day long.

This place is okay by me.

The camera: is a point-and-shoot, Pentax Optio M10. Flickr has a nice little write-up on it.

From: Heather
To: Jamie
Date: Oct 25, 2007 11:11 PM
Subject: I just…

had the best food of my whole life.

and now, i’m going to a discotec with my waiter.

he has a cute bum.

(Further adventures at On the Road. For you, Kim.)

Stuck in Waterloo Station with an hour to kill, I ducked into a bookstore to find something to pass the time. My eyes, and then my hands, fell on a copy of Skinny Bitch, some sort of diet book in which the authors are rude to you, and then magically, all the tenets of weight loss will suddenly be easier to stick to. Um, okay.

They may be bitches, but they are skinny bitches. And you’ll be one too-after you get with the program and start eating right.

My first thought was, that if anything excuses being a bitch, skinny is not it. Funny, yes. But not skinny. Skinny just gives you the right to turn heads and wear the clothes the rest of us only dream of wearing. But bitchiness requires talent, not a low calorie intake.

Anyway, flipping through the book, I learned that to be skinny and (healthy, natch), you must abstain from sugar, meat and dairy products. Abstain from dairy products? Pfft! You’re not skinny bitches, you’re crazy bitches! I tossed the book back onto the shelf, like it was on fire.

“Uch.”

“Zat bad?”

A French woman, most probably in her 40′s, was standing behind me. She was, incidentally, skinny, and dressed head to toe in rich creams and taupes. She looked like a magazine cover.

“Yes,” I said. “It’s just… if cheese is wrong, I don’t want to be right.”

She laughed, and made a flicking gesture, as if mentally sweeping those skinny bitches right out of existence.

“Zey don’t tell you how boring it is being skeeny.”

I laughed, wondering if she knew from experience just how boring it is being skinny. We made a bit of small talk, then the woman checked her watch, and said she had to be off. But not before stopping by the checkout counter… to buy a chocolate bar.

Apparently, not.

I’ve just been madamed for the tenth time in as many minutes, and I must have frowned involuntarily, because the attendant stopped in the aisle and leaned over me.

“Something is wrong, madame?”

“No, no. Everything is perfect.”

The rhubarb raspberry cream tart was perfect. As were the marinated mushrooms and caramelized onion quiche. Ridiculously so, for train food. It’s all this madame business. It makes me feel old! The last time I was on the Eurostar, I was traveling with my mother. She was madame and I was mademoiselle and that was great. It made me feel very young and cute.

I’m still young and cute, dammit! At heart, at least. I mean, I obviously look every second of my (almost) 30 years. But still.

I’d suggest we just dispense with the formality altogether, but they’re all very polite here in first class, it might cause some sort of train malfunction. Did you catch that? First Class. Because I am a classy gal. Actually, when I was given a Eurostar voucher to get me from Point A (London) to Point B (Paris, to catch a night train to Barcelona), it was for a round trip ticket. And when Nigel, the friendly Eurostar agent, learned that I wouldn’t be returning to London, he sent me an email,

“Since you won’t be returning, we would be happy to offer you a one-way ticket in first class.”

And I’d be happy to accept!

Unless, of course, they don’t bother with this madame crap in standard class. And if that’s the case, I’m picking up my rhubarb raspberry tart and going to sit with the commoners. Where I will be blaming Nigel for making me suddenly feel very much my age.

Madame, my ass.

This afternoon, I sat next to Aaron Eckhart in a cafe on Piccadilly. The last time I saw him, I ran ran face first into his chest on a temporary construction sidewalk in New York. He had strangely orange hair at the time, but that didn’t matter — I loved him just the same. Today, his hair was normal colored, but he was busy reading a script and drinking coffee and it just didn’t seem appropriate to interrupt and inform him we were meant to be.

I think I’ll wait for him to figure it out.

I just want to be let alone.

This is not, by any means, a dig at my traveling companion. If not for her, my stupid German-accented driving commentary wouldn’t make a ripple. I love laughing ourselves to sleep and sharing desserts and playing the synonym game we play when trying to find new words for ‘pretty.’ Because, of course, Scotland is pretty. And gorgeous and exquisite. And… well, it’s Angie’s turn now.

I’m just not used to this. Eating, sleeping, teeth-brushing – I’m accustomed to doing it all alone, on my time, and to no soundtrack other than the thoughts in my own head. And Angie isn’t really one for companionable silence. And that’s totally alright – not everyone prefers to sit in absolute quiet. But boy, I sure do. I love quiet in the car, and quiet while I’m wandering, and I don’t necessarily want to have the street signs read to me. But saying this kindly and diplomatically can be hard — if not impossible — because it’s usually at wit’s end that it occurs to me to mention it.

Speaking of the car and wit’s end: Driving on the left side of the road is, incidentally, totally nerve-wracking. The streets here are incredibly narrow. And if it looks like a turning lane, it probably isn’t. And if your GPS tells you to go right, she probably means left – so that’s no help at all. And by the end of the day, I’ve very nearly had three strokes and a total emotional melt down, and then, I still have to buy gas at EIGHT DOLLARS a gallon. Man, am I glad I’m done with that whole thing and back on the train, letting someone else do the driving.

And even in all this missing my alone time, I know that when Angie leaves on Sunday, I will wish her back again to read me road signs.

As a side note: I have to say I’m amused by the comments that express displeasure that I’m blogging about traveling (and, god, the nerve, linking to where I’ve posted the photos I’ve been taking). I’m not sure what I’m expected to write about… when this is a personal blog, and personally I’m traveling right now. For the next several weeks. I’ll be staying put in Barcelona next week, so I hope to be able to get out, meet the locals and have some fresh, funny stories. In the meantime, jump ship if you must, or stay and have a look at some photos I took in the shire and on the moor.

“I was just wondering if it would be impolite to lick the plate,” I said, when he came to check on us.

“I won’t tell if you won’t tell,” he said, smiling.

We were just spooning the last bits of desert into our mouths, seriously considering the plate-likcking thing, when he made a sweeping gesture with his hands.

“I could put a curtain up right here, so no one else can see.”

Apple crumble. Toffee sauce. Rich vanilla ice cream. It was exquisite. And after a disappointing day, it was miraculous, too. I learned years ago, while traveling with Jen, that if you want to save a bad day, you eat it out. Spend too much money on ambiance, wine, and food that will go straight to your backside, and can undo whatever ills the day has done.

And Aberdeen was ill. Whatever degree charm Edinburgh possessed, Aberdeen had it crowded chaos. We walked the city with a “This is it?” cloud hanging over us, sorry that we’d made the detour. Turns out, we’re Aberdeenshire people. Country not city. Can’t win them all, I thought. And then, I turned to Angie,

“I think my credit card should buy us dinner and rescue what’s left of today.”

She didn’t argue. We arrived at the restaurant expecting upscale Italian, only to find it had been replaced by an uppish scale not Italian place. Sea bass with carrot puree, chicken stuffed with broccoli mousse, cream of broccoli soup, warm bread and olive oil and apple crumble – steaming hot and heavenly.

I only wish there were more days that needed such saving.

(More travel adventures at On the Road.)

“Are you girls from here, then?”

“No,” we laughed. “Texas.”

“You’re easily mistaken for local girls,” the man told us, before offering us a round of drinks.

Pleased and flattered, we politely declined and went back to listening to the band that had assembled in front of the pub window. Angie does fit in here, with her ginger-colored hair and warm freckles.

“Sure, I look like I belong here,” she said, under her breath. “Until I open my mouth and Texas comes out.”

By 9PM, our bellies were full of warm food (shepherd’s pie) and good drink (rich, red wine) and the pub was full of local patrons and a folk band – a guitar player, a fiddler, a bagpiper, a bodhran player, and an elderly storyteller. The old man sang a Capella, traditional songs about wars and famines and death – as all good storytellers do. But the guitar player, whose vocals were thick and mellow – not unlike John Denver in tone – sang of pretty girls with hair swinging about theirs shoulders and sunlight in their eyes. The feeling that invaded the room was, for lack of a better word, generous. It felt like a gift.

I kept my head long enough to save a bit of the gift for you. Have a listen.

Update: the player isn’t working. Sorry! I’ll try again later.

For more adventures (and photos!) check out On the Road.

“Ooh! I know! I have a protein bar!”

“Yeah, and I have a big old bag of Shut Up,” Angie said under her breath.

I snorted at Angie. The two rows of women behind us had ceased talking hours before and had taken up squawking. That’s really the only word for it. It was infuriating. Our plane had been diverted to JFK because of something to do with a computer glitch and a fuel gauge or somesuch – the crew had been sent to their seats mid-dinner service. And now, four hours later, we sat there on the tarmac trying to sleep off our frustration and hunger. And the crows behind us would not shut up.

“I eat a power bar every day!”

“Don’t they like, make you fat?”

The crow directly behind me was now standing up, yanking at the back of my chair as she went on and on about protein and calories. As my head bobbed from its pillow, I declared I’d had enough. The entire plane was full of exhausted passengers, plunging ear plugs deeper, trying desperately to sleep. And these four were making it impossible.

“Ready?” I asked Angie.

“Mmm hmm.”

I pushed the button on my armrest and leaned back with as much force as my 5AM body could muster, sending the Protein Crow tumbling to her seat.

“Well that was rude!”

I swallowed a laugh. Angie bit her lip.

“She did it on purpose,” Friend of Crow cawed. “I saw her look back.”

I rolled my eyes into the back of my head. I was disappointed she’d only seen me look back once. I mean, I’d been sending withering glances for a solid hour.

They were pissed. But a mighty miracle had been wrought. The crows, who’d been shushed by everyone row 30 and back for the better part of… I don’t know, eternity had finally shut up. They spent the rest of the flight talking in low(ish) tones about what a raging bitch the girl in 37J was.

A raging, immensely satisfied bitch.

I leave for the airport in about, oh, five minutes. My hair is still wet, I haven’t brushed my teeth and… well, a dozen other things. But I wanted to announce the birth of the new travel blog! Go over and have a gander. I’ll be updating it regularly on my trip with tips, lessons learned, what to love about each place I’m visiting and, of course, photos.

There will be an actual blog post coming later today – from my layover in Chicago, most likely. But for now, it’s ready-or-not, here I come. And good grief, I hope I’m more ready than not.

I started a post about the varied and interesting characters I see on the Katy Trail in the mornings – the Giantess, the heavy-set man who sweats Rorschach tests into his gray t-shirt, and the Adonis of the Katy Trail (or Donny, as we’ve come to call him), but then I got distracted. Lost my train of thought completely. And just like that, the title of this post went from “Trail Mix” to “Boob Jog.”

This has to be what men feel like – having their senses take leave over a pair of boobs.

And today? My boobs look amazing. Simply amazing. I admired the ladies in the mirror this morning before I left to run errands. Hello, darlings. And then, as I was walking into CVS just now, I caught my reflection in the automatic doors.

“Holy shit!”

I said this out loud, not caring in the slightest if anyone within earshot took offense to my language or my unabashed vanity. After all, there they were, sitting atop my rib cage, peeking over the top of my tank looking perky and, with each step, bouncing just so. A sight to behold. Even the pharmacy patrons had to be enjoying the view. I mean, they’re like Halle Berry boobs. Only, pre-pregnancy and with not-quite-as-ravishing skin. But you get the idea.

Jamie and I have been diligently (and daily) working our way up and down The Katy (I’m prepping myself for Cinque Terre) and after all this work (seven miles! every day!) I’d expected to see a little change in my thighs. And maybe my butt. You know, the parts that the slimming of makes you dig into your bottom drawer for those jeans you can only hope to wear after a good bout of food poisoning. But I completely forgot about the effects those long miles could have on the rest of my 2,000 parts. Like, my waist. And my ta-tas.

Phenomenal I tell you. If only I had somewhere to show these off.

On Friday evening, I will be tired (we arrive at 7AM Friday morning), and a glass of wine or two is bound to turn making it my bed into quite the effort. So, in an attempt to keep an effort from turning into an ordeal, Friday’s London Meet-up will take place at the King’s Cross Holiday Inn bar.

I know. Boring. But you’d be much less impressed if I fell asleep face down at the bar. I promise.

London Meet-Up
Friday October 12
8:30 PM
King’s Cross Holiday Inn

Dear You,

I didn’t even realize you were on my mind until my phone lit up with your name. I smiled, and said to my empty living room, “Oh, hello you!”

I like how it’s almost impossible for me to keep my hands at ten and two while you’re telling a story. I want to throw my hands in the air; one to cover my mouth and the other held out in front of me as if to say, Stop! You can’t be serious! I like that you’re embarrassed to say “sex” in front of me.

“I’m not delicate,” I say.

“It’s graphic…”

“Tell it out the window!”

I like how I don’t have to worry — or wonder, for that matter — what you think about me. You tell me. No one does that. You’re proud of me; you’re happy to introduce me to your friends; you like my pink dress and my hair worn down.

I like how when we’re drunk, we can say ridiculous things and not be embarrassed. I like that I get to act like I’m living in a movie and you just hand me another drink. I like that you know the answers I don’t. That you let me bust your chops. That we grew up, and now we get to be friends.

I think maybe that’s what I like best.

Like,

Me

Ari: Does the Internet know about your first time? Because I’m realizing I do not.

Heather: Yeah, I think they do.

Ari: No, no. We don’t!

Heather: Oh, come on. It’s very uninteresting and anticlimactic… but I’ll tell the story, just for you.

Ari: Oooh, yay!

As firsts go, I’m not kidding when I say mine was uninteresting and anticlimactic. It was, because I planned it to be that way. The story goes a little something like this:

I’d just gotten out of a several month long, high drama relationship with an older man. He was 11 years my senior and a highly experienced control freak. He didn’t want to do the actual deed if I wasn’t on birth control. I had grown a little tired of his charmless ultimatums and Guinness fueled temper, so I said no and settled for everything but. By the time I got out of that mess, I’d come to the conclusion (which, I suspect, will be unpopular with this crowd) that I wanted to do it and I wanted to have no lingering emotional attachment to the experience. I’d had emotional and wasn’t cut out for it. One night, my roommate and I were at a party. I’d had a few to drink, and from the cab made a drunk dial to a friend. “Hey, I’m drunk. Wanna make out?” I knew what his answer would be, and I knew how the evening would unravel. His reputation as a ladies’ man, and the fact that we’d found ourselves tipsy and making out on street corners on several occasions, made it a sure thing.

And that was that.

I walked home the next morning, laughing. It’s a memory I hold with absolutely no regret. And regret, I know. I regret the night that J carried me up my front steps, not because I was drunk, but because I was crying too hard to walk. When nine months into us, he said he was so sorry, but he couldn’t love me. He couldn’t stand the thought of being without me, but he couldn’t love me. That, I’d rather not have experienced. Or the time, when after a night of wildish sexcapades, the man I’d been involved with for over a year made fun of something I’d done in bed. In front of his friends. He mocked my voice, my facial expressions, and I stood there betrayed and humiliated. I’d love to make that one go away. It affected me so profoundly – broke my trust mechanism, perhaps beyond complete repair. Every once in a while, I think about retaliating — exposing him as the Oedipal mess that he is and revealing to the world his confessions about mother-lust. But then I think, that would be mean. And exceptionally satisfying.

At any rate, I understand that there’s great value in the sex/love connection. But I also know the value of sex without love. Or hate. Or embarrassment. Or envy. Or guilt. Sex without anything but warm, naked flesh and twisted sheets. I know it’s not something to build a lifetime of love on, but for me, it can be a lot more palatable than mornings spent sobbing in the shower over lopsided love affairs and good things gone bad.

I think I just fell a little bit in love with the guy behind the counter at Whole Earth. I’d stopped in there for ultra-glamorous items such as fast-drying underwear, a clothesline, and long johns, and somehow stumbled on a cashier crush. Monday, I might become a fan.

Quick tangent: Let me just break here to get into the whole fast-drying underwear thing. First, rock on, you clever inventors! You sure saved me some space in my backpack. But for a girl who hasn’t purchased anything but itty-bitty thongs in eight or nine years, the selection process was just plain ugly. Now, I’m what you’d call a lobster (all the meat is in the tail) and that’s why I gave up regular seat covers in the first place. I don’t like buying things in size large. It makes me feel perfectly crappy. Sure, the store gives off a nice Love your body, love the Planet vibe, but you might as well plaster the package with a bright red sticker that says, “Junk in the Trunk!” so the adorable cashier knows exactly what he’s dealing with.

Anyway, up I went to the counter with more than I’d come in for (a lock, a quick-dry towel, some very earth lip balm) and the tall, dark, and witty guy at the cash register wanted to know where I’m going with such remarkable purchases. So, we chatted about that. About Italy and how stupidly lucky I am. Then he took my credit card, and asked for ID.

“Ah, New Yorker, huh?”

“Kinda. On and off. Mostly off, now.”

“You know, I have to disagree with people when they say that New Yorkers are rude. I think that if you take the time to understand them, and what it’s like living in all that hustle and bustle, they’re some of the greatest people out there.”

“We are pretty splendid,” I said, with a half-smile. “Until, you know, we’re late for work and you step in front of us with your gigantic map and your stupid fanny pack. Then we get cranky.”

Soon, I’d signed the credit card slip and I knew our time was drawing to a close. How could I tell him what was in my rapidly beating heart? Let’s go away somewhere and make snide, perverse comments about the general population. We could share silly stories and very earthy lip balm and maybe you’d let me wear your leather wristband. Ooh, let’s!

He finished a rant about grocery store idiots and stapled my receipt. My heart said, Let’s go make grocery store enemies together! but my mouth said, “Thanks.”

“Well, I guess, um, have a great day,” he said. “And come back and see us. Soon.”

“I think I just bought every provision I’ll ever need,” I said. “But I’m sure I can invent a reason.”

And then I went out to my car to daydream about our very earthy, very sarcastic babies and how I’d look wearing that wristband.