Just 196 days...

Sometimes in shitty Seattle, you need something to look forward to.

Calling for backup.

So, I am in Praiano, and my friend Deb joined me here on Sunday. The Amalfi coast is more beautiful than any place I have ever been. It's stunning. And stunningly steep. I thought the stairs of Vernazza kicked my ass, but this town is so steep that when I checked into this rental house, Mr. Tony got me all settled and then said, "When do you want to go to the market? I will send a car, you will shop, and they will bring you back home." It's so f'ing steep here that even restaurants will come pick you up for dinner because if you don't have a car or scooter, there is no way you can really get around.

So the downside is that it's not that easy to go get gelato. The upside is that the views are magnificent.

God bless Deb, because she brought her computer. So, this is the first German-glare-free internet moment I have had since I got to Italy. And today, right now, is the first time I have been able to use it because our wireless was broken until this morning, when Mr. Tony said he would call a guy to come fix it. And who shows up? The police. And frankly, I thought they were here to arrest us because we're very low on toilet paper and I vaguely remember Deb proudly showing me a fist full of TP swiped from the restaurant bathroom and after that bottle of wine I thought that was hilarious, but also awesome, because we really need it. And then I saw the policeman coming up and I thought, "They know. We're busted." But he was the internet guy. The police showed up to fix our internet. I suppose it only makes sense that a guy who can unstick notorious Amalfi coast traffic jams can also unstick the interwebs for the hopeless TP-thieving American girls up on the hill.

First of all...

I leave for 6 days and you guys let Henry Louis Gates, Jr get arrested at his OWN HOUSE? Seriously, guys. WTF?

Because I am paying like 80 billion euros a minute to be on this computer, I could only skim the details, but jesus h christ.

Anyway - that makes me angry just thinking about it, so I need to move on. Let's talk about me.

I was supposed to go to Lucca today, but the woman who rents her aparment to me, Louisa, shook her head disapprovingly at me and said in mostly Italian with enough hand gestures and serious looks for me to translate exactly what she meant to say, which was approximately, "Oh, but it's molto caldo (so hot!). The Lucca people, they come here now, to the sea. Too hot in Lucca. You go in May." And like the 3 nights before, I humbly ask if I can stay again and she smiles broadly as I produce my euros and she says, "Ah, si, va bene." And that is how Louisa gets me.

Louisa is living high on the hog now. MY HOG, I may add. The day I arrived tough winds blew apart a few of her potted plants. The next day she came to my (her) white-washed apartment and showed me a new cactus she bought to replace one of the old. She was beaming. And then the next night I saw her walking with her old friend, going to dinner. To dinner! With my fat euros in her pocket. And then yesterday she warned me that today she would be gone mezzo giorno and that she was getting her throat checked. After a long mutual mime-attempt at understanding one another, we managed to act out that she has lesions on her throat and would be heading to La Spezia to have it checked out. She would be getting "exams" and doing "exclusions" (ruling things out, I think she meant). Look at her. Flush with American money, she's splurging on exploratory surgery. The nerve.

Every time she comes to see me, she looks out the window with me, at the tower, and the pink and yellow and pastel green buildings with the laundry fluttering underneath windows and she beams, saying to me, "It's special here," like she needs to make sure that I understand just how great it is to be here, in this town, in this house.

I do.

Hot as balls.

I love that phrase. I don't even have balls, but I can certainly imagine the suffering of men who get those things stuck to their thighs in the hot, hot heat. It's not a nice thing to think about. And let me tell you this: It's hot as balls in Vernazza today, and everyone's junk is in a pinch. There's no avoiding it.

Despite some of you telling me that my luggage situation wouldn't work, I am delighted to report that this ain't my first time at the rodeo. It was a breeze and I made it through without checking bags.

Milan is a dump. I spent one night there and felt like clawing my way out. Get me ON THE TRAIN. A train to anywhere but here. You know that big famous duomo in Milan? It's gorgeous, but guess what everyone is cropping out of the pictures? A gigantic Times-Square-like LCD screen with ads running on it. Italy, I thought we talked about this... you're not supposed to modernize in garish ways... that's what Americans are supposed to do. You're supposed to stay the same and never change. Keep it classy, Italy.

Other questions I just saw require follow up. I have angry Germans staring at me while I type this at the internet cafe (to their credit they are in a LINE glaring at me, so that's one redeeming thing. Germans and Americans are the only ones who know how to get in a line. I am talking to YOU Italians and French at the Manarola boat today....)

Make up: Great Lash (of course), Nars lip gloss in... I dunno, actually, but it's the best. I will get the name later if you care. Small powder compact, blush, liquid eyeliner, Stila lipstick, MAC concealer. That's about it, but that's all I ever really wear.

The dresses. Yes, I know I brought 4 and they are all black. As I mentioned, it's hot as balls here and the dresses are perfect because they are both breezy, and they don't show stains, so I can sit on a dirty bench or dusty rocks while I wait for the boat, and it's no big deal. Today I am wearing cuffed up jeans and a white tunic with jingly-jangling gold bracelets and gold hoops. And I did the walk from Riomaggiore to Manarola in this get-up because, well, it's hot as balls and I am going to sweat in anything I could possibly wear, so why not. Once on the boat, it was so windy it was good to be wearing jeans, actually.

The BEST thing I packed so far, however, was this wispy-thin swim cover-up from anthropology. Good over a suit, and good over a tank. Just plain good. And it's not black. So, you know, bonus points for breaking the mold with that one.

Alright. The Germans are about to declare war on me, and you know how THAT goes.

More later.