Night Train to Rome

I have always been a train geek. While the other kids in Cresco (the odd name of my home town is attributed to an unknown 19th century typesetter whose misspelling in a railway timetable altered forever the course of history for the town of Fresco, Pennsylvania) played football or shot holes in road signs, I sat under the ruined roof of the disused railway station and imagined great steam trains rumbling in to my little town, impatient engines belching steam and smoke while tourists from New York and Philadelphia streamed from the carriages and into the resort cabs.

When Steamtown, USA moved its collection of historical trains from Bellows Falls, Vermont to Scranton and the town honoured their arrival with that most American monument - a shopping mall - I trespassed in the trainyard at night, clambering through ancient Pullmans and onto rusty tankers like some middle class teenaged hobo.  As an adult, it was mostly the joy of travelling by train that made my three hour commutes from Downingtown to New York bearable.

So when my friend Clive informed me that he and a friend were going Interrailing in February, I was jealous. The idea of travelling around Europe by train, bumping and clanking through the meadows and mountains of the Continent was so appealing that I got to thinking - why not do the same? After all, the kids are just about old enough to make long stretches of inactivity bearable, the rail network in Europe is reasonably well-run, if not entirely profitable, and there are many places I'd lik to see.

Clive suggested that I let the kids plan the trip. Caroline's keen, but Michael shows little interest apart from swiping around the rail map on the iPad. We spent a good part of last weekend working out an itinerary (Caroline's been an active participant throughout, although I must admit that I've done most of the deciding).

Our general plan is to take the Eurostar to Paris on the Thursday before Easter and an overnight train from Paris to Rome.  We'll spend Easter weekend in Rome (and hopefully meet up with our friends the Becks who are sailing their yacht Moxie around the world - if they can ever tear themselves away from the sun-drenched Mediterranean) and then dawdle our way for two weeks along the coast, heading in the general direction of Spain.  We'll stop at a few places along the way (Cinque Terre for sure, maybe Nice).  Our only real obligation is to get to Barcelona in time to catch another overnight train back to Paris and from there back to London, school and work.

I'm unreasonably excited about this trip.  My commutes (by train, of course) these days are spent reading travel books about Provence and the Ligurian Coast, and squinting at endless columns of 6 point Times New Roman in the European Rail Timetable.  I'll let you know how it all works out.

Details

I was in a pub last week with a bunch of guys, some I'd known for ages and others whom I'd just met. One of the just-mets showed us his third nipple. Just like that.

At the risk of offending all bearers of superfluous nipples, i think that little show defines the term 'too much information', at least from someone I'd known for only a few hours. I generally like to get to know a person a bit before I go showing them my body parts, extraneous or otherwise.

Don't get me wrong - I wasn't offended or disgusted by this. Well, maybe vaguely disgusted. The issue for me was that I'd have preferred to have had a choice in the matter. Generally such a choice would involve having the opportunity to decide whether I like a person enough to want to spend more time with them - to at least have a foundation of a relationship before I have dirty laundry or spare nipples thrust full in my face.

I realize this probably sounds shallow, and maybe it is. We're told that we should accept (or not) people for who they are, warts or extra nipples and all. I agree with this. But I like to start slow. I will happily sit for hours and talk with you about a painful childhood or a difficult divorce, but before we get to that, I'd like to know a bit about how you think, how you see the world, whether we have something in common. Otherwise you're just dumping your shit on me and I'm not so interested, thanks very much.

I wonder, though, am I unusual in this regard? Do 'normal' people share every detail of their lives and bodies with everyone they meet? Has the relentless progression of social networking caused a permanent northward shift in the 'normal' level of sharing?

I have some 'friends' on Facebook that I rather wish I hadn't. If you use Facebook, you probably have some, too. They're the ones you accepted friend requests from without thinking, back in the early days, when you were trying to get the numbers up. The people you knew a long time ago, the people who share every detail of their life with no attempt to make these details interesting, humorous, or even particularly relevant.

Why do I not take the same liberty and tell these people to keep their details to themselves? I suppose I'm sort of lazy, for one thing. Moreover, though, I won't do that for the same reason that I didn't tell the guy with the extra nipple that he'd shared too much, too soon. Because I'm polite. Too polite, really, something I must change, I think.

So if someday, you find this post and realize, "Hey, I'm not connected to him on Facebook anymore," let me say that I'm sorry. Sorry that I didn't have it in me to tell you personally that I'm just not that interested in your weekly visits to the grocery store, your endless whining about being tired, or your griping about your family.

OK, 'unfriending' people from one's youth not really much of a step, but it's a step. "But wait," you say, "if you cut out everyone who slings more detail at you than you really care for, will there be anyone left?" Yes. Because if I genuinely like you, if I've gotten to know you and you me, no amount of detail is too much - bring it on.

See you on the other side.

Resolution

I've resolved to write more in 2013. I don't know what 'more' means in this context, since I've written almost nothing in the past 18 months, so the bar's set pretty low.

I also don't have a specific notion of what constitutes 'writing'. There's this blog, certainly, languishing in a corner since last year. It will receive some attention; but there are also three stories that I'd started work on, one as long ago as 2010. Maybe 2013 is the year those will see daylight.

The trouble, you see, is that I have both a very short attention span and a low tolerance for mediocrity, at least in my own work. Combined, these two traits make it nearly impossible to finish a first draft of anything longer than a paragraph, since a first draft is by definition rough and imperfect. The numerous typos and grammatical errors I make when I get in full flow drive me nuts, but correcting them while I write distracts me from the act of writing. I can't write longhand either - I don't think the same way with a pen in my hand as I do in front of a keyboard.

Another challenge is that I don't always have something to write about. Like today, for example. The only subject I have to write about today is how I'm going to do more writing. How interesting is that? Not particularly, not even for me, and if I'm not interested, it's a good bet that no one else will be, either.

A third - or fourth, I've lost track - difficulty is finding the time to write. Given my short attention span, writing for me is an all-consuming avtivity. My thoughts are increasingly slippery and when I lose my grip on one, it swims away quickly, lost forever in a flow - or more accurately, a trickle - of other less interesting thoughts. I can't tell you the number of Really Good Ideas that have escaped over the years by blending in with others. Writing, like fishing, requires all of the patience and attention I can gather. I don't catch many fish, because the requirements for doing so are at odds both with my own predisposition for distractedness and with the rhythms of a young family. The kids just don't seem to get that I need to be left alone when I'm writing, and to tell the truth, as grumpy as I get when they interrupt me ("Dad? Dad? Daddy? Daddaddaddaddad!" "What?" "Hi!"), I can't bring myself to tell them to get lost. Writing is, after all, a wholly discretionary activity. It doesn't feed us or clothe us, and I'd really rather spend time with them than do just about anything else. Besides, let's face it, they're going to have to support me when I'm old so I'd better be nice to them now before I forget who they are.

Finally, there's the thorny issue of subject matter sensitivity. There are topics I'd like to write about, topics that would make for funny reading, but I can't because it would be impossible to sufficiently disguise the people involved. They would instantly recognize themselves in the material, and that would be bad for everyone. (If you're wondering right now whether you're one of these people, you've made my point for me.)

Maybe I should revise my resolution: I'll write more when I have an inoffensive subject, when I have enough time, and when the ideas leap like spawning salmon into the jaws of a cleverly-placed bear. In other words, I'll write in 2013 about as often as I wrote in 2012.

Soap Bubble

It was the bra that hit me hardest.

I've always known that my children would grow up; that, apparently, is the one consistency among children. And of course family and friends with older kids have always helpfully advised me to enjoy the children being children because, like that big sale down at the Honda dealer, "when it's gone, it's gone".  I suppose I'd never really taken this advice entirely to heart - no matter how final the sale is, you know there'll be another - but I looked over my shoulder the other day and saw my own youth smiling and waving back at me in the distance.  Now my daughter is outpacing hers.  Incrementally, yes, but perceptibly.

In my mind, Caroline's still a toddler in the sunshine, squishy-cute, blowing bubbles and catching them again. But in real life, she's a preteen.  Her limbs have lost their childish bandiness and she really needs a daily shower.  She has a social life from which I'm excluded, and a private life inside her head that I can only guess at.  I've thought I'd adjusted to these changes well, but they've been so gradual as to be entirely unnoticeable day to day or even week to week, so the adjustment was easy.

When I left for work yesterday she didn't own a bra.  When I came home last night, she did.  And that suddenly, while I was commuting or eating lunch or composing another email, she's gone and changed.

Even now, when she laughs, she's the messy-haired toddler who's caught a bubble - it quivers, soapy and spectral in the sun. And then it's gone.

The Fuckit List

Apologies for the title, there are only so many words that rhyme with 'bucket'.

With Michele and the kids back in the US for the summer, I am, with the exception of a few weeks in August when I will join them for the annual sunburning and sand eating event at the beach in New Jersey, knocking around London on my own.

This annual familial summer migration has in previous years afforded me the opportunity to do touristy things, to go hiking in Scotland and to spend time with various friends in various pubs.  This summer, though, I intend to use the time to tackle a somewhat fluid list of chores, errands and pastimes which I've been either too busy or too lazy to undertake with the family around - the list of things whose undertaking I have, throughout the year, momentarily considered before concluding, "anh, fuckit."  The list consists of mundane things like cleaning the black gunk out of the washer, learning to play tennis, writing a novel.  That sort of stuff.

Today I spent most of the morning getting my iPhone to sync entirely with one computer, rather than partially with two and, as I would be in technology hell anyway, decided that today would be a good day to organize my applications on the phone into folders so I can find them a bit easier.  I currently have to scroll through 8 or 9 pages of applications to find the one I want.  Occasionally I discover an application that I'd forgotten I bought, neglected and gathering electronic dust in a remote corner of the phone.

Unfortunately, the mechanism Apple provides for moving icons around involves a great deal of dragging while the software helpfully arranges all the other icons around the one you're moving.  Placing an icon in a particular spot relative to others is about as easy as arranging a school of live fish in size order.

After an hour of trying to drop icons into folders that skittered away like cockroaches as I approached them, I'd finally gotten everything organized the way I wanted it.  And then the software crashed.

Anh, fuckit.

Loose Linguistics

I've written before about how English vocabulary is so specific in some regards and so vague in others, and reading a BBC account this morning of an attack on a young Lithuanian couple which lasted several hours in which the man was beaten and the woman was raped multiple times by the attackers, I was struck by both the vagueness and the incongruity of the reporter's choice of words in recounting the timeframe (I'm paraphrasing a bit since I can't find the article now, but the below is accurate on the salient points):

'Police believe that the attack began in the early morning and was concluded by tea-time.'

"By tea-time."  Seriously.  That's what it said.

I recently came across a blog post titled "Why is Language Vague?" which refers to an academic paper of the same title and which briefly explores the subject from an economic point of view.  The writer posits that people generally choose to use vague language rather than being forced into indefinite vocabulary due to a lack of language to sufficiently describe the desired concept.

So I wonder why was it that the reporter covering the attack chose to use what seems to me a vague colloquialism ("tea-time") when other more specific phrases are available and would arguably have been better suited to the business of factual reporting.  A few possibilities present themselves.

First, I am forced to admit the possibility that, as a native speaker of American rather than British English, I may lack the cultural context which would allow a native British speaker to interpret "tea-time" in the way the reporter intended, namely as a reasonably specific time of day.  I am well aware of the folly of relying on Wikipedia as a primary source for research material, but I think it's useful in this specific instance to show whether there is broad agreement as to what "tea-time" means.  From the guilt of cultural ignorance, the Tea (Meal) entry pretty well exonerates me.  According to the wisdom of the mobs, "tea-time" can be anywhere from 2pm to 7pm.  Or thereabouts.  So even if the precise time of the conclusion of the attack wasn't known to the reporter, a slightly less vague phrase like "early afternoon" or "early evening" would have served to better frame the time.

A second possibility is that the reporter was simply lazy.  I don't think the BBC is in the habit of employing inept journalists, although a number of BBC reporters staged a walkout yesterday so it is entirely possible that this reporter was, shall we say, not on the varsity squad.  It's also possible that this particular reporter lacked experience in crime reporting.  He may, for example, normally be assigned to the culture desk, where a phrase like "tea-time" might reasonably be applied without attracting much scrutiny.

A third and, I think somewhat more interesting possibility arises when we challenge the assumption that the reporter's interests are directly in line with the readers.  Broadly, we assume that a reporter investigates and provides facts to consumers who accept them as such, but we frequently adjust this assumption depending on the perceived reliability of the publication. In other words, most of us would be less inclined to accept as factual a story about, say, an invasion by extraterrestrials if that story were reported in the Sun than if the same story were printed in the New York Times.  The story in this case was reported by the BBC, generally considered to be a reliable news source, so we can assume that the writer wasn't fabricating his facts, but it is plausible that he chose the phrase "tea-time" deliberately to influence our interpretation of the story.

I know nothing about the political or personal motivations of this particular reporter, so let's consider this possibility of misaligned interests theoretically.  What could a hypothetical reporter hope to convey by the use of an incongruous and vague phrase (such as "tea-time") in a factual article about a violent episode?  It may be that the reporter wants to impart to the piece a certain levity if he wants us not to take the news too seriously.  Perhaps he is a xenophobe (the victims were Eastern European immigrants, an oft-reviled category here), or he may be a misogynist.  Maybe he doesn't quite believe the couple's story and wants to send the reader a wink and a tap of his nose.  Or maybe he's having a go at the police who are investigating the report, intending to give us the sense that the officers on the case may not exactly present the finest examples of investigatory prowess.

There may be other possibilities, but I think the point is made.  If someone uses vague language it may be a mismatch of context between the sender and receiver, or intellectual sloppiness on the part of the sender; but it may also be intentional and strategic, allowing the sender to transmit a specific message encapsulated in non-specific words.  In this instance, though, I'm forced to conclude, as the author of "Why is Language Vague?" did in his abstract: "I don't know."

Now I'm going to go do something else.

My Recount of the trip to The Tower of London

By Michael Conroy

I went to the Tower of London with my class. I got there by a boring and smelly coach. It smelled like gum. I got sick when we were getting off the coach. I got sick again. I got sick four times in the same sick bag. Mrs. Marsh helped me.

First, I walked past a bakery that was called “Fish and Chips.” Next, I went into the Tower of London. Then I saw the Crown Jewels. The crown looked shiny. Then I saw some short movies in the Tower of London. Only one was about Queen Elizabeth. The next movie was about soldiers in red suits and black hats with one black gun in their hand. After that I went into one of the rooms. The room had Henry VIII’s knight clothes in it. They were golden. Then I ate lunch. Well I tried to do it in a building but we got caught so we had to go out of the room and sit next to a tree. I kept on sliding off of the bench. After lunch I went to the loo. It smelt like wee. Then I went to a workshop called “Fire, Fire, Fire.” It was about the Tower of London. Samuel Pepys looked out the window and saw the fire. He went back to sleep and gave no orders to the people. Then somebody woke him up and then she told him that nine buildings burnt down. Six people died in the fire of London. I saved a snack from lunch then ate it up whilst I was doing the “Fire, Fire, Fire” workshop. Finally, I went home. Whilst I was on the coach I ate an apple and I had a sick bag. When I ate the apple I didn’t get sick. Then I got off the coach. Then I waited for a little while next to the gate. I saw a ladybird in the green net. I tried to get it out but its head fell off. Then I waited for a little longer. Then I saw my mom. Then I walked home.

My favourite part was when I did the workshop because people did some acting and it was funny.