Still thinking about Rome

I just finished reading "No Reservations," by Alice Steinbach, a Pulitzer-winning columnnist/reporter for the Baltimore Sun. She took a year off her regular life to travel Europe, spending time in Paris, London and Italy. Of course, I was most interested to read about Italy and that was the shortest section of the book.

Decent book, but what really got me was that she was indifferent to Rome.

How could anyone be indifferent to Rome? I mean, I could see how someone could hate it, and I definitely understand loving it, but to not care?

It got me thinking about how, from the minute I got into the city, I felt at home. I didn't know how to get around, where I was going or anything, but it did not matter at all. I felt safe, I felt welcome and in awe of everything.

I remember stopping to take a picture of a little street I passed that smelled like cinnamon toast, just because I liked the smell and wanted to remember that moment.

And wandering around thinking about all the layers and layers of lives that had been uncovered and those that had not yet been discovered. It was breathtaking to realize how small our lives are in the big picture, but also how we can leave something behind that, millennia from now, will make other people stop and think about us, the time we were here and what we were like.

I never realized you could fall in love with a city. Certainly not love at first sight. But I remember after I checked into my hotel, going for a walk that evening to get the lay of the land in my neighborhood, and thinking "I'm in freaking ROME!" I think that's why I could never write a decent postcard from Italy, because I was so thunderstruck, overwhelmed, in love with it.

That first night, I walked up and down the streets around my hotel, figuring out where to get a "Coke light" and where the taxi stand was and the newspaper stand and seeing Santa Maria Maggiore all lit up, watching the little cars speed past, drivers honking and gesturing at each other. I was so pleased to be able to order a creme caramel gelato (uno gelato, per favore) and sitting on the church steps and just breathing in Rome.

The city might have been dirty; I don't remember. It might have been dangerous, but I never would have known. I just kept looking up and around me, realizing the genius that built that city, seeing angels and saints in the architecture.

I've read two travel memoirs recently, and several others over the past few years, and no matter how good the writer, they can never adequately explain a city and why it so charms them. I'm the same --no words are enough or right.

But I've been thinking a lot about Italy lately. Maybe it's just that I want all good things back in my life, and Italy was the best thing I've ever had the good fortune to experience. Also, I know that of all of what I want back, Italy is the most attainable.

Or maybe I just want to take a crack at a travel memoir of my own.

A candidate for the Darwin Awards...

...courtesy of Ms. Schnakenberg, who works for the dpa and gets to read all the good stuff, comes this story about a man who found an interestingly stupid way of removing himself from the gene pool.

Ms. Schnakenberg said when she first saw the headline, she assumed this was a reporter's way of getting around the prohibition on the word "penis."

But no.

Trouser snake proves the death of Cambodian man

Phnom Penh (dpa) - A Cambodian man who took off his trousers, tied the legs at the bottom and wrangled a 2-metre cobra into them died when it bit him through the fabric, local media reported Monday.

Khmer-language daily Koh Santepheap quoted police as saying Chab Kear, 36, saw the reptile swimming in a river just outside the capital last Thursday during a drinking session and captured it in the hopes of selling it later in the day.

He tied the animal inside his trousers and a scarf around his waist, but as he continued carousing the enraged snake managed to get its fangs free and bite Kear three times on the stomach.

The newspaper reported Kear's last words as being "don't worry, it's nothing a drink can't fix" before he succumbed to the cobra's venom.

Let me take a moment to brag...

...about my incredibly talented nephew, Alec. He's an art director/production designer for movies. He created that ultra-cool plane set in "Flightplan," did "The Contender," "Austin Powers 2 (I'm pretty sure he did the hollowed-out volcano lair)," "Donnie Darko," "Men in Black 2" and other films. He also just built this incredible set for "To Kill a Mockingbird" at the Intiman Theater in Seattle. I'm just guessing here, but that must be Boo Radley's house in the center, all askew. I love this!
The play's run has been extended twice, so more people will be able to see a great play on this awesome set. Nice work, Alec!

Turtle babies!

I get to go cover the hatching of hundreds of baby loggerhead turtles tonight on a beach in North Carolina. The human "nest parents" will help guide the babbies to the sea, past an area of the beach that has recently been renourished with new sand to make up for erosion.

I can't wait! Look at the tiny turtles!

Naughty, naughty

So, if you're ever in Costco here in The MB, look out for the Judgemental Receipt Checker. I bought a "Sex and the City" DVD this afternoon, along with several other items, and when I got to the receipt checker, he looked in my cart, looked me up and down and gave me the raised eyebrow.

Him: "So, you like that "Sex and the City," huh?
Me: "Yes. It was a funny show."
Him: I heard they took it off the air.
Me: Yeah. There was too much sex in it.

Made me wish my cart had an economy-size bottle of vodka, a giant box of condoms and a Marylin Manson CD in it, too.

My favorite Southern name of the week: Withers Swash. He's so famous around here, he has a street and a boardwalk named after him.

Books, bubble baths and Italian dreaming

Wow, it felt great to sleep in this weekend. I finally got my sleeping arrangements straightened out. Feeling a little prima donna, I have so much padding on the bed, but the matresses here are ultra firm. Sure, support is great, but if I wanted to sleep on the floor, I would have.

Now, every time I go in the bedroom to get something or put something away, the bed calls to me, as does the big bathtub, in which I actually started to doze last night.

Rented some movies this weekend to get caught up. Zodiac: Bloody but worth it. It's really well done and the script is written from notes and books and remembrances of the actual people involved. and it was great see San Francisco, cool to see they used an old Modesto Bee (yay, Bee!) in one of the shots, and, in a random six-degrees moment, cool when one of the characters said he was reading a crime investigation book written by my friend David's grandfather, even mentioning Dr. Snyder by name.

Not so great: Lonely Hearts (even with our friend James Gandolfini and John Travolta) and Lucky You.

Thought I might rent more tonight, but chose Barnes & Noble instead. I can never get out of there without a bag of stuff, but I love having books piled up waiting to be read. It feels nice to read again, even though I'm still slow. For almost a year, starting when mom died, I couldn't concentrate long enough to even get through books I'd already read several times, let alone comprehend something new. Someone gave me a book right after the funeral, and I vaguely remember vaguely reading it (yes I meant to repeat myself) over about a month and a half, when usually it would have taken me three days, tops. I remember thinking it was good, but can't recall even one sentence from it now.

Now I'm down to about three weeks for a book I'm into. That's progress, I guess. I'm reading "No Reservations," about a journalist who decides she's going to take a year off her "real" life and travel Europe. It's good so far, but makes me feel inadequate for not having some great artsy reasons for going to Italy in the first place and for not writing adequately about it afterward. But maybe now I have enough persepctive on it to get out my travel journal, look back over my daily entries and write something coherent, just for myself.

Although I'm ready to read, I'm not ready for Jane Austen yet. My sister's copy of "Pride and Predjudice" will have to sit on my side table a while longer. So I got a Dave Barry book, my new AP style book for work (what a geek, I know, but I'm excited to have it in hand again, instead of online) and my Italy and Tuscany calendars for next year. The pictures are so pretty I wish it was already time to hang them up.

I'm already dreaming about my next big trip, which will definitely be a return to Italia. If I had a year to live in Italy, I'd start in Rome and walk every street until I'd seen everything at least twice and found, well, everything. I'd get to know the city like a friend. Then I'd do the same in Florence and Venice. I'd see the Amalfi Coast and Capri, Calabria, the Cinque Terre, Naples and Milan.

For now, I can look at my pictures, write about my trip and start making plans.

Just Got Back...

...maybe? Covered my first planning commission meeting last night, and wrote a story (on C-2 today -- that's not where I like my stories to run) and it felt great. I already feel at home in the newsroom. It's so strange. It almost feels like I've been here for at least months, if not longer.

My editor Sarah is a free-speaking, free-cursing biker chick who's gorgeous and funny. She seems cool. We're having lunch today, so I'll get to know her better then.

I picked up about a box of business cards at city hall yesterday. I love that getting-to-know-you thing with public officials. Also nice: The editorial page editor told me this morning "You must be a pro. That story read like you knew all about it."

It feels good to be a reporter again.