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All night it rained hard, and I had crazy dreams about sex and drugs.

Somehow, life for me has taken a rather abrupt turn. It wasn’t like I didn’t want it, or didn’t expect it to eventually happen. It’s just that it happened sooner, and quicker, than I thought it would. From one way of life back to another, in a heartbeat. It’s a good thing I am adaptable. I’m not sure I can handle life not changing constantly. It’s been my only constant, change. I foresee Paris soon, perhaps at Thanksgiving. Just because I can, and because I cannot sit still, especially when I am alone.

I think it might surprise people that some days I go without speaking to a single person. I hate chatter. I think this may be a fatal flaw. At least where relationships are concerned. Why is talking so important, anyway? I have always been fascinated with deaf people. Once I fell in love with a deaf guy in a bar who had cat’s eyes. He looked at me all slanty eyed and he could not speak and I will never, ever forget the way he looked at me. Once, one of my ex-boyfriends was writing a book about a guy who started a cult, and I wanted him to make the guy deaf. I thought that would be so cool, a deaf cult leader.

I guess I will probably go deaf eventually, because I am truly reckless when it comes to Giant Speakers. Or maybe I was deaf in a past life, hence my fascination with and my proclivity for deafness. Whatever, in the end it was just a guy with cat’s eyes that did it.

One of the best things about ending one thing is thinking about something that could possibly begin and just thinking about things beginning leads one to think about things that might have begun, but didn’t, like Cat Eyes (and that was fifteen fucking years ago.) At least it is for me.

I guess me and Mark, my boyfriend, are sort of growing apart. He just moved in to a little house over in University Heights, and he is hardly ever here anymore. We still talk on the phone, but things are just, different.

So it came to no surprise to me that last night, instead of seeing a show with Mark, I saw a show by myself, because Mark was at a different show. We just have totally different taste. Though we both love Wilco and the Dandy Warhols and The Who, I’m a little bit Britpop and he’s a little bit Alt-Country. Last night Mark went to see Bob Dylan, and I went to Hollywood to see Clinic. Clinic are from Liverpool, and they are really, really weird. They have a totally unique sound and a sort of crazy energy with blasting piano and what I like to call Chris Isaak guitar. I had to go see them – it was mandatory.

Made sales calls all day, and then went and checked in to one of my favorite Hollywood places, the Best Western Hollywood Hills. I poured a glass of wine and turned on the five o’clock news because the L.A. news shows are so tabloidy it cracks me up. (Once I watched a segment where, during the holiday season, an escalator in a mall sucked up some people’s limbs, and there was mass destruction. I am serious.) There was a little bit on the escalating price of gas, and everyone interviewed had an SUV. One woman said, “well, my husband and I both drive all day for work, so there is nothing we can do about this…” Yes, there is, you silly cow. BUY A SMALLER CAR.

Anyway, after the news I went downstairs to my favorite place in Hollywood, the 101 Coffee Shop and ate a BLT and corn on the cob. I don’t know how they make that corn so good. They put this lime chili stuff on it, and it is seriously the best corn in Southern California, if not the world.

This left me at about 7:30 with some time to kill, so I went out into the night. I stopped by the Frolic Bar to have a cheap drink before getting raped by the cost of drinks at the theater. I ordered up an Absolut Mandarin and soda, and it tasted vile, like stale limes. There was a lime in my drink, and I fished it out. I have this little problem with my face, or making faces. Sometimes I make faces even when I am not aware of it – like a nervous tick. So the bartender comes over and asks why I am making a face. “Too limey!” I say. (The point being, if you are ordering Mandarin vodka, you want it to taste like orange, NOT lime.) “More soda?” he asks. DUDE. “No…” I say. “More vodka?” he says. Now that’s more like it!

I am such a picky, pain in the ass date.

The Frolic Room was sort of boring, so I left and headed to the Henry Fonda Theater, figuring I might as well check out the opening act. In line at Will Call, there was a couple behind me who did not look like the types who would like a band like Clinic. They reminded me, looks-wise, of Larry and Cheryl David from Curb your Enthusiasm. The guy even tried to be funny. As I pushed my confirmation from Ticketweb towards the box office person, he said “Ticketweb? Do you ALWAYS get your tickets from Ticketweb?” Huh? What kind of inane question is that? “Uh,” I said to Mr. Funny, “only when that is where the tickets are sold.” “Are they the same price?” He says. Ummm… what are these people doing at a Clinic show?

Thankfully, the bar was not far away. The bartender made me a rockin’ Mandarin and soda (Grey Goose this time) but for NINE dollars! Add a two dollar tip to that one, and it is shaping up to be an expensive evening. Damn, I had sort of forgotten what an expensive date I am.

The opening act, Sons and Daughters came on, and they were really good. They were sort of twangy and after awhile I realized, they were totally into Johnny Cash. The guitarist was SO into what he was doing – he kept staring violently into the audience during his solos. It was pretty damned hot, let me tell you.

After they were done I made my way to the rail because I hate having to look at the back of people’s heads during a show. There was a guy there, arms stretched out, saving a big space for someone. “Can I squish in?” I asked him. “I won’t take up too much room.” He had promised his friend not to let go of this space, and I totally understand because I always make people guard rail space when I am at a show. He let me in, though, so I offered to buy him a drink. Please, please don’t order a call drink, I thought, and was pleasantly surprised when he only wanted a Coors Light. That, and another drink for me, was only $13.

Eventually the friend of the rail space saver came back. She was a young hot thing who met the bass player from Clinic after the last show and got to go backstage. She told me the show would be weird, but like me, had some trouble describing Clinic. “They are really… antiseptic, on stage,” she said. Hmmm. Well, I understand how it is hard to find the right words.

Finally Clinic came on and something like forty minutes later they were gone. Just like their records, frenetic and bizarre. But I think I psyched myself up too much, because in the end it was disappointing. Even with their surgical masks and brown scrubs, Clinic were just Not Weird Enough. A great band, definitely in the studio, and I am sure they have put on some really amazing shows. But I longed for the intensity the guitarist for the Sons and Daughters had.

I could have hung out with Girly Girl and her friend, but instead I split – I am always nervous about possibly meeting the band, because I sound like such an idiot when I talk to musicians. I went back to the Frolic Bar, for no better reason than it was just too early to end my date. After a couple sips of another really nasty drink, I was like what the hell am I doing here? This drink SUCKS. Luckily I had some Doug Margerum Rhone Blend, half a corn on the cob, and some cold sweet potato fries back in the room.

Let’s just say, today I am sort of recovering. One last note, one more HUH? When I checked out, my hotel bill was $87, and I handed the hotel guy a $100 bill. He asked, “don’t you have anything smaller?”

HUH?????

I got an email from Bill Clinton today! Bill Clinton! It was pretty cool to come home from a long day driving around Southern California in a hellish storm and see that, let me tell you.

Bill, I already sent in my ballot. Oh… you already know who I voted for? Oh, you just want me to send some money? Is that all I mean to you? Damn.

Tonight I feel pretty good about the future of the world. I think it all comes down to karma. And today, the good karma people won. Take, for instance, the Red Sox. A few days ago the evil empire (Yankees) had won three games in the series and no one in the universe thought the Red Sox had a chance in hell. But they won the next four games! Totally unbelievable. The good karma people (Sox) beat the bad karma people (Yanks.)

Yo Yankee fans, before you flip out on me, please know I really don’t care about baseball too much, but you’ve got to know the Yankees are almost universally disliked. The only people who like the Yankees are, well, people like you. It’s all fine and good to have the owner with the most money, but basically it all comes down to karma. And yo’alls bad karma just kicked in.

I had a little karma treat myself this week. I had two extra tickets to the Wilco show in L.A. next month, because when they went on sale I was so scared it would sell out immediately I called my friend Colleen from a parking lot in Atlanta and made her buy me tickets when they went on sale. But at the same time my boyfriend bought tickets, so we were covered.

I could have sold the extra tickets on ebay and made a profit with which to buy some cocktails at the show. But I know that out there, there are many people like me, people who love Wilco but maybe had class that day tickets went on sale, or didn’t think it would sell out. I sold my tickets to an uber-grateful Wilco fan in Pasadena. When he sent me his check, he included a special treat – a bootleg CD of a show on Wilco’s 2002 tour.

I can’t tell you the happiness this brought me. For one thing, this CD will bring me pleasure for years to come, while a few cocktails at a club, while pleasurable, would soon be over, with no record. I will remember the show, but not the cocktails.

So the karma police are hanging out. Sometimes they take a little break, but I think they are around right now. It’s important to acknowledge them, just as it is important to be a nice person, and to be the best person you can be. Spit lightsparks at assholes, and we can change the world.

So, after nine nights of working with the public, I think I am ready to take a little break. Nine nights of pouring wine and making cheese plates – whateves, I can handle that. But nine nights of TALKING to people? I can’t deal.

I’ve got one more night and then I am done till the next time the owners of the wine bar, my friends, go on a trip again. So I am done for a year.

Funny how everyone wants to talk to the bartender. Well, at least, the people at the bar do. The people at the tables are in a zone where they get their wine and then leave the bartender alone for a while. But the people sitting at the bar… they are in need of something to do, and often, they are staring, and trying to talk to, the bartender. Which is cool, unless the bartender (let’s just start calling the bartender “me” now) is trying to go to a table to take an order, deliver wine, make a cheese plate, polish glasses, or whatever work function I must perform at the time. I might be listening to you in sort of a freeze frame, so that as soon as you finish your sentence I can run to the next spot I must inhabit.

And the small talk, and the no-talk. The opening of mouths and the issue of meaningless babble. I am no intellectual, but mi dio, sometimes all the babble (also the weirdness in the babbling people, not as hidden as one may think) is extremely boring. Here is an example.

Last night, a very soft spoken military weirdo came in. I know he was in the military, because he told me he worked at Fort something or other near Barstow. He had been swimming, and at first he spoke of how warm the water was, but soon the train of thought turned to sharks. And sharks never left his mind the whole time he was in the bar (two glasses Pinot Noir, one cheese and olive plate.)

“I love being in the water,” he says. “Except I’m scared there might be a shark.”

“Well,” I say, “I suppose they are out there.” Thinking that would be it. Yeah, right.

Little sputterings happen everytime he can get something in between the other orders and the glass polishing. Quietly he babbles… “I always try to stay away from seals, because where there are seals, there could be sharks…. have you been to Sea World? I’d go, but I don’t want to see any sharks… if you are in the water, and see a shark, don’t splash, because the shark might think you are a wounded fish…”

And this went on and on for quite a while. When the guy left I couldn’t help it. I yelled as he was walking out, “watch out for sharks!” He nodded, solemnly.

For the most part, people are pretty cool. My venting now is sort of like the venting you hear at the airport when all the flights are delayed. Like every flight you ever took has been delayed, but of course that is not the case, it just seems like it.

After the shark guy, I was in no mood for another trying customer, but at the end of the night I got a doosie. A blond woman came in 45 minutes before closing, and talked on her cell for 20 minutes, at the bar, only coming up for air long enough to order a Cabernet tasting. When she was done, of course she wanted to talk – to me! Because people that talk at a bar on their cell phone for 20 minutes, HAVE to talk. If they don’t, they will shrivel up and die.

Anyway, Ms. Thing was waiting for a guy, and he was very late. He finally got there 10 minutes before closing, a bit buzzed, apologizing all over the place. I immediately hated him. “Can I have a glass of wine?” “SURE, I say, how about a HALF GLASS of something.” (We serve half glasses, so people can try lots of wines.) “I have been drinking HALF GLASSES all night.” He says. “Can’t I just have a FULL GLASS?” OK, asshole. Prick. Here is your fucking full glass, you fucking fuck.

Anyway, now I am done with everything and ready to go but instead, I have to sit at the end of the bar and listen to this complete nothing talk to his date. Take the shark guy, multiply him by 8000, and you will get what I am talking about. He went on, and on, and on, to his date (who was hanging on his every word, because she was a bimbo and also, desperate) about his sisters, how he got held up with one of them and that was why he was late. He talked about his business and himself and then his sisters again. He went on and on, slurring a little more as he drank some of his full glass. He wanted to take the bimbo home, which wouldn’t be too hard as she was getting all smoochy and snuggly. I wanted to scream at her – what the hell are you thinking? The guy has been talking for twenty minutes and hasn’t once asked you a question! (Right at that moment, he says to her, “so what about YOU?”)

He was vile and repulsive. You can’t get much worse than that, unless you are a peeping tom masturbator guy.

Anyway finally they got up to leave, muttering, “I think she wants to go home.” I noticed there was no tip on the bar. I was like, you mean to tell me, I just sat here for half an hour past closing listening to this drivel and he’s not even going to TIP me? I walked over to them and got the empty glasses off the bar, giving the guy a glance I only use on possible pickpocketers and small children who scream in restaurants. “Uh,” he says, stupidly, “did I pay you?” “Yes,” I say. “Did I TIP you?” “NO.” I say.

He fumbles through his wallet. He cannot find the bill he is looking for. Plus he must impress the bimbo who he is going to try to get it up for. So finally, he throws down a twenty. I pick it up. “That’s what you get for being patient,” he says. “Thank you,” I say, and lock the door behind them.

Friday night I got home from Venice. Sunday, I went to breakfast with my brother, came home, and got slammed with one of those wonderful “I must have caught it on the plane” bugs. The rest of Sunday, and all day Monday, I totally out of it. Weird how that always seems to happen when you get back, not when you go – as if your body has a built-in travel immunity. (Though I did get really sick in Chicago, in June. Maybe travel immunity doesn’t work for work. Though, the Venice trip was sort of work. Hmmm….)

Tuesday I felt better but of course the past two days I have had that end of the cold mega-mucous and hacking cough thing. How does the body produce all that stuff? Not to be gross, but I am really wondering. Nothing I learned in High School taught me about the human body and mucous.

Anyway, yesterday I had to go up to Huntington Beach for a Pinot Noir tasting and seminar, followed by lunch. I was there to sell a new book on North American Pinot Noir to the attendees, and of course I was invited to the seminar and the lunch. After that I had to drive back to Encinitas and work at the wine bar I work at when the owners are not around. So it was to be a long, long day.

All the way up to Huntington Beach I was coughing. I figured there would be no way for me to do the seminar and lunch, because I would be making a spectacle of myself. It’s the kind of cough where you cough so hard you feel like you are going to puke, the kind where mucous comes out of various orifices and you cannot help it. I’d just have to sell the books and try not to cough all over people’s credit cards. No amount of Halls cough drops was helping.

Then, during the seminar, which was going on in a room with a closed door, thankfully, one of the staff members brought me a glass of Pinot Noir. It was something really good from a small producer in Oregon – the kind of Pinot I never get to taste. And I am telling you – that shit cured my cough!!! It was gone! All of a sudden I felt way better, and I was able to go to the lunch, and drink more Pinot Noir with the people from the seminar who clearly had not been spitting and were all fairly buzzed at 1:00 P.M. No cough, until I got back in the car to go South. Then I was coughing a little again.

Went to the wine bar and opened. Really the cough doesn’t get to the “I am going to puke” stage until I have to speak, which, at the wine bar, I do. I take an order, then run back into the storeroom and cough. Get the wine, then run outside and cough. That is, until I POUR MYSELF A GLASS OF PINOT NOIR. Then, the coughing stops!

I swear this is a true story. I couldn’t sleep last night, because of the coughing. I was wishing I had a Pinot Noir cough drop. I think this could be a revolutionary new medicine for coughs. I want to develop, and market a product like this. Besides coughs, the Pinot Noir drops would be good for Pinot Noir junkies, they could pop one after their morning coffee, on the subway home, whatever.

I was telling a customer about the Pinot Noir cure last night. She said, “do you think Zinfandel would work? Merlot?” I’m not so sure but I have to work at the wine bar again tonight so I will check it out. But it was Pinot Noir that saved me, all day and all night, yesterday.

So, I am back from my research trip to Venice. I ate, drank and walked for ten days. It was a fantastic trip, and one of the highlights was the discovery of one of my new favorite places on the entire planet. That place is Il Refolo.

I am a pizza junkie. I really am. The first three nights I ate pizza and probably, all in all, I ate something like eight pizzas in ten days. I can’t even imagine the number of pizzas I’ve eaten in my lifetime. Probably over a thousand pizzas. Maybe even more.

I had sincere intentions to eat at some of the more well-known, expensive restaurants of Venice on this last trip, like Alle Testiere and Al Paradiso. But I didn’t, until the last night when I went to Cantinone Storico in Dorsoduro. Since Ruth goes to all these places I think I will leave those to her, because seriously, I am a cheapskate. Or maybe, I am just value oriented. Plus I am relatively poor since I spend all my money going places all the time. If I am going to blow 18 Euro on a plate of pasta, it had better be pretty orgasmic pasta. But usually it is just pasta, like you would get for 10 Euro somewhere else. Anything over 18 Euro had better have gold flakes sprinkled on the top.

Anyway, back to Il Refolo. Before I left for Venice I entertained thoughts of taking myself to Da Fiore, Venice’s “best” restaurant. After all, I can write it off, now. So I looked at their website and noticed they have another place, Il Refolo, run by the son, Damiano Martin. Well of course I never made a reservation at Da Fiore (I’ll save that should I ever get me a sugar daddy) but on my second night, I found myself walking to Il Refolo.

Il Refolo is behind the church of San Giacomo dell’ Orio, with a bunch of outdoor tables next to a canal. I walked up and asked for a table, and one of the servers went and fetched Damiano Martin who told me he’d seat me in a minute. Damiano Martin, who owns the place. He sat me and asked me if I wanted an aperitif, so I ordered a Spritz. It came out and it was a fairly large Spritz, one that would take me at least twenty minutes to drink. I didn’t want to order food and have it come out while I was having my Spritz. One server came to take my order, I told her, uno momento, then Damiano Martin came and tried to take my order. I told him I really wanted to finish my Spritz first.

“I tell you what,” he says. “I’ll let no one bother you until you are finished with your Spritz.”

OK – this guy doesn’t know me, but he KNOWS me. I am already in love with him, and his place. This is what great service is all about.

I study the menu. It’s a pizzeria, but there are some other interesting things on the menu. A couple of pastas, some kind of Irish beef thing, and even a chicken curry. Nothing is over 15 or 16 Euro. The only thing that seems high to me is the wine – 8.50 for a half liter of house – gulp.

There was really no doubt, from the beginning, as to what I would order. They had a pizza, with FIGS. Fresh figs and Prosciutto. How could I not go for it?

There was a large table of Venetians next to me, with a little girl who was kind of a brat. Funny how Italian brats seem less obnoxious than American brats. Nearby, a table with two Italian guys and what appeared to be two Polish hookers (or mail order brides? They were pretty hot.) Candlelight flickered and gondolas glided by and I sipped on red wine and breathed Venice.

Then the pizza came. I still can’t get over how good that pizza was. How totally sensuous and absorbing it was. The first few bites were surprising, because it seemed the figs had lost some of their sweetness by being cooked. But as I ate (and became more and more enraptured) the figs started to vary in sweetness and texture so that each bite was different. Squishy, sweet; salt and crunch. I even broke my rule of always eating the crust – I wasn’t about to waste valuable stomach space on crust when figs were involved.

An Irish couple was eating at the next table. Eventually, we would become friends, but before we did, I watched, and listened, as the Irish girl ate her chicken curry. After each bite she would make a little noise of pleasure. Damiano and his staff were all running around, making sure everyone was happy, replacing candles, pouring wine. Four star service in a pizzeria. I didn’t want to go, so I ordered a Sgroppino.

I was very curious about Damiano Martin. With his pedigree, why open a pizzeria? In one of the least touristy areas of Venice? Because he wanted to do something for the Venetians? Because he loves pizza? Eventually I called him over because I wanted to ask him, Why?

He told me. He wanted a traditional pizzeria, but also to have some interesting things on the menu. He just wanted to have a good restaurant. He spoke with no pretense and he was so young and sweet that I wanted to stand up and kiss him right there. He grows the figs, for the pizza, in his backyard. That pizza, a pizza I, THE pizza freak, will never forget.

A few nights later I went back – Il Refolo is definitely going in the 2nd edition of Chow! Venice, so I have to investigate further. Alle Testiere can wait for Ruth to come back in December. It was a Saturday night, and the place was full. I asked for a table, and Damiano, again there overseeing everything, told me to wait a minute. Then he and a waiter rolled a table out of the inside dining room and set it up.

This time I tried a lasagna special with blueberries on top, and a salad. It was a good, basic lasagna – the blueberries added an interesting twist. While it was a tasty meal, it was nothing like that fig pizza. The service was again exceptional, with Damiano Martin running around doing just about everything, backed by a smiling staff.

I went one more time. Two nights before I left, I brought my friends Cheryl and Sue with me. We started with a bowl of a smooth pumpkin soup with pieces of fresh porcini mushroom in it. Three women and a bowl of soup – we managed to share equally, but it was tough. I got whatever was in the bottom of the bowl onto a piece of bread. Sue ordered the chicken curry and Cheryl and I ordered the fig and prosciutto pizza. The chicken curry was something like half a chicken with a good, spicy green curry sauce and basmati rice on the side. Accompanying it was an intensely hot yogurt sauce. As in, mangiafuoco hot. The kind of dish someone who lives in Venice and is sick of pizza would die for. And the pizza? Cheryl kept saying, “this is the BEST pizza I have ever had.” I wanted Sgroppino again, and Sue and Cheryl both got Panna Cotta. At Il Refolo, you can have your Panna Cotta with strawberries, chocolate sauce, vanilla sauce, Zabaglione, Frutto di Bosco – Sue got the Zabaglione, Cheryl the Frutta di Bosco – all kinds of berries, including the hugest blackberry I have ever seen. Cheryl kept saying, “this is the BEST Panna Cotta I have ever had.”

On average, each meal was somewhere around 25 Euro a person – this with everything you could possibly want. The night after this, I ate with Sue at Cantinone Storico where we had one antipasto to split, two plates of risotto, and a crap bottle of wine for 50 Euro per person. And the service? LAME. (Homie tried to tell me bresaola was the same as prosciutto. Dickhead.)

So, I guess I am a convert. Not to the four-star Da Fiore, but to Il Refolo, where the service is four-star, where the fig pizza is a slice of heaven, and where Damiano Martin will fix that, if it slips.

This has been the most incredible trip. I do not want to go home! The weather, since the freak storm on Friday, has been fantastic – beautiful and sunny during the day, a bit chilly, but nice, in the evening.

Full moon here. Cheryl Alexander is here. Monday night, we went to eat at La Zucca, and there was a table of six with a copy of Chow! Venice on the table. I went and told them I wrote it. One woman gets up, exclaims “are you SHANNON?” It was Linda, from North Carolina, a poster on the Slowtalk message board! It was a very cool and exciting moment for all of us.

Yesterday I ran Cheryl all over the city doing research. We ate cichetti and drank wine all over the place. I am happy to report that in general, the bar and cichetti scene remains good. Last night we had dinner at my friend Andrea’s, where his girlfriend Marta cooked us fresh seafood and a fantastic pumpkin cannelloni. We drank wine and talked for a long time. Though we left late I made Cheryl go for one more. We got glasses of wine at a new bar in Rialto, called Mora (I think) and we took them down to the Grand Canal and sat on the window ledge of the courthouse, near the fish market, and drank our wine. It was magic.

While I was in Piazza San Marco yesterday, I helped a couple find their hotel. Then there was another couple, asking for help. So I think I am going to start a new business, I will stand in Piazza San Marco with a sign that says “help, one Euro.” Or, I can be a boat-meeter-take-them-to-the-hotel person. That would be more Euro, though.

And the night before, I was walking home from my dinner at Il Refolo, walking through Rialto, I passed a couple that were lost, tipsy, and arguing. They were from Ireland, and the woman was fairly pissed off. I asked them if I could help them, and they said they did not know where they were. They were staying at the Luna Baglioli near Piazza San Marco, and here they were on the other side, with no clue! Plus they were, well, kind of drunk. I knew they would never find their way home, so I told them I would take them there.

So I walked them over to San Marco. The woman kept saying, “I am going to divorce him!” The man walked behind us. I tried to calm her down a little, and eventually she did calm down. They kept asking me, “why are you doing this?” The woman told the guy, “you need to tip her.” I told them I did not want a tip, I only wanted to get them home.

Finally we get to the Piazza, and the guy stops and buys all the roses from one of the rose sellers – something like 30 roses. I told the woman, “look, he is buying you some flowers!” She says, “NO, he is buying YOU flowers.” And he was. So I thought that was pretty nice, so I accepted them. We got to the hotel.

“Here you are,” I say. They were so grateful. The man pressed a bill into my hand. “No… I don’t want this…” I said. But he said I had to take it and then they were inside the hotel.

It was 50 Euro.

I asked Cheryl if she thought it would be tacky to post this story here, but I was so shocked, I cannot keep it to myself. I really did not want any money, I really did just want to see them safely home. After all, I have been in this condition before.

But I think maybe I have found a new vocation.

Time is moving way too quickly here. One forgets how you can easily lose an hour or two, just sitting in a campo and staring into space.

I am staying in an apartment on a main calle in Rialto and every morning I hear the click-click of heels, all the Venetians going to work. I love looking down at all of them. I think I recognize half of them. At night there are happy voices and laughter in the calle.

Today is a beautiful Saturday. Especially beautiful, because yesterday there was the most insane storm here. I had no idea it was going to storm. At around one in the afternoon, I was walking up through Dorsorduro to go to the train station to buy a ticket for Rome. All of a sudden, the wind kicked up, and I looked at the sky. It was green and black. I love the summer storms in Venice, but this was no summer storm. And I was wearing capris and sandals. No umbrella. Uh oh. Everyone, tourists and locals, started to run.

I was thinking I would go and have some lunch, but I was not really hungry. So I ducked into the wine bar Vinus Venezia. A minute later, the sky opened and massive water fell. The bartender and I just stared out the window. Vinus Venezia would be my home for the next two and a half hours. I sat in the window and listened to good jazz, played loud. The calle started to flood. Across the way, in the Osteria Al Pantalon, many happy people ate pasta and drank wine and I watched them eat. A guy with a striped shirt kept coming from the restaurant, to the wine bar. He would have a wine, then run back. He would have a sandwich, then run back.

This whole time I am thinking about Luke and Lisa, the British couple I showed around Thursday. They are getting married at 3 PM, in this storm! I had talked to Roberto at the Pizzeria Accademia, for Luke and Lisa to have the best patio table to drink Prosecco and look at the view, but surely they would not go there with this weather.

Finally I knew I had to make a run for home. It was freezing. At home I read for a while and then thought I might try for the train station again. It had stopped raining, but it was still freezing, and windy. I think at that moment I thought “I don’t think I am going to Rome.” I flipped a coin and it said, go to Rome. But I cannot leave Venice. I just cannot do it.

I had only eaten a tramezzini at noon, but I wasn’t really hungry until about 8. I went downstairs and ate a great meal at Osteria Vivaldi. I ate pasta with shrimp and lemon zest and cream, then fegato alla Veneziana. I could not finish all my liver but I finished enough that I felt sort of like a overstuffed piggy at that point. I walked over to Il Sole Sulla Vecia Cavana, because I knew Luke and Lisa were having their wedding dinner there, and I wanted to see how it all went. Plus I really needed to walk.

Luke and Lisa had just finished, so it was good timing. They looked great. They had actually WALKED from Rialto to Piazza San Marco for pictures, and then WALKED to the Pizzeria Accademia, even though there would be no sitting outside. They said everywhere the Venetians were coming out of the shops and congratulating them. Roberto and his crew were waiting (probably surprised they even showed up.) So it all worked out.

So who is at Il Sole Sulla Vecia Cavana, but the guy with the striped shirt from Al Pantalon! He owns it now. He tried to tell me he saw me in Vinus Venezia and I tried to tell him I knew. So now I am going to have to try Al Pantalon.

Anyhow, this is the story of my lost day. I am off to meet some Irish friends I made the other night… I am taking them on an afternoon bar crawl of Dorsoduro and San Polo. They are very good at helping with the research.

It seems a million years since I last wrote. In Atlanta, they don’t have much in the way of internet. At least in the ‘burb where I was staying they didn’t. Hurricane Ivan! That was INSANE. I have never seen rain like that. I have never been so scared driving around.

Anyhow now I am in Venice. I got here yesterday. Now I AM writing about the flight. Before we left JFK, I saw a flight attendant looking at a map of Venice. So, I gave her a book. I had planned to give some copies of Chow! to the flight attendants anyway. Note to Ruth – if you think Delta attendants are snippy, give them books. I walked off the plane with a bottle of Champagne and three overnight kits from Business Class, PLUS got wine served in a real wine glass in Coach! All the attendants were very attentive, to me! I gave three more of them books and everyone thought I was some big shot signing books in my nasty-ass wrinkled jeans. From this day forward, I will always give copies of Chow! to flight attendants headed for Venice…

Of course I did not sleep, I just drank wine out of that wine glass all night long. So yesterday, I walked and walked, trying not to sleep. It is warm here, balmy. There are lots of tourists in San Marco, but they are mostly hanging over there. I ate lunch at Casin dei Nobili. I really wanted tramezzini, but while passing Casin dei Nobili I suddenly felt like I would pass out if I didn’t eat. So I ate monkfish with tomatoes and olives and anchovies and drank some white wine. I felt like I was on another planet. After that I walked to the Piazza San Marco – can’t not go there on the first day in Venice – then over to the bar Il Cavatappi to check things out. Much has changed over there. The bar seems very lived in now. Almost everything I wrote in the book has changed. It is still a great bar, but things are different….

Lots of new places everywhere. New bars in Campo Santa Margherita, new bars in Rialto. There is a new restaurant owned by the Danieli Ham people, in Rialto. Prices are higher everywhere but it seems like all the new places spent more money, too.

In the afternoon, I went to Bancogiro and sat outside on the Grand Canal and drank a glass of wine. It was very quiet there, only a few tourists, and a lonely, whistling gondolier. A typical Venetian afternoon, all the Venetians sleeping or eating or making love at home, none of them out in the sun at three o’clock. The gondolier made his way over to me, offered me a “free” ride. “I sing, I dance, I kiss…” he says to me. “if you want, I like you.” But I know there is no free ride, and I don’t want a kiss, either.

After the wine I could not stop sleep. I passed out for an hour and then woke up at six, to meet my friend Andrea downstairs at the Osteria Vivaldi, at 6:30.

And thus begins my very first night in Venice. We have a prosecco at Vivaldi, then move on to meet Marta, Andrea’s girlfriend. We go to a new bar, owned by the same people who own Vitae, a happening place in Campo San Luca across the Canal. This bar is also very hip and we have another Prosecco. Andrea goes outside to make a call, Marta and I have another Prosecco. This is only the second time I have hung out with Marta. She is a very animated girl, and much prettier than I remember. We head out to eat pizza at a new place, but on the way run into friends of Marta and Andrea, and I can’t remember their names… of course we had to sit down and have a Spritz with them. They all talked in Venetian so there was no way I could understand a word, but the girls were both so lovely I couldn’t stop watching them. Sometimes they spoke some English, just to keep me in the mix. I didn’t care… I was just happy to be sitting there.

Soon though I was desperate for a pizza so Andrea and Marta and I went to Al Nono Rosorto, instead of the new place, because it was getting late. I ordered a diavola and was practically peeing my pants for that first bite of Venetian pizza. We drank a bottle of wine and talked, then we drank some huge grappas. I thought for sure, after, I would be exhausted, and I was, but of course they talked me into one for the road. We went to Do Spade, now owned by the guy who use to own Vivaldi. There were a few Venetian drunks there. Gotta love Venice around 11 P.M. No cars, only weaving Venetians.

I really like Marta, and Andrea is one of my favorite people on the planet. It was a perfect night, and so typically Venetian, and finally, at midnight, I got home and passed out for eight hours straight. I am on Venetian time now, and nothing else matters.