Sienna, and the Rules of Manhood

Slept late today. And then I went had an omelet and a few cappuccinos and to read. Called a cab and headed to the train station. What an amazing place these train stations are. We just don't have them yet in the states. Maybe America is too big and spread out for them I don't know. but they just never caught on compared to driving. I wasn't sure where I was going. I looked up at the schedule and decided on Sienna. See some Tuscan countryside. And some mediaeval architecture. 

They have the most beautiful ceramic in sienna. Breathtaking. I spent hours drooling over it. 

Yes I am madly insanely and entirely self obsessed. It is something I am very good at. So please, there is no need to remind me of it. I know all too well... Hehe. 

I love the train. I love sitting in the train and reading and writing. hard to write in English now. I am totally losing it. Writing half in English and half in Italian now and then going back and rewriting in English. Crazy. sat next to this old Italian couple. Man they must be 80. they teased me how excited I was. But every weekend I get up and go to some other town and just take off, just me and a book bag. And it is very exciting. in America it seems a lot harder to do that because you have to drive and all or take a plane. Here you just hop on this train and you pay like nothing for it. and then a few hours a later your in another  town. If I wasn’t a tourist I am sure I would hate the train. And fly everywhere. so yea I am aware of that. you hear a lot of languages at the station. Every language you can imagine in a matter of an hour you hear all of them. but whenever someone tries to communicate with someone else they always go for the English. Like if the Italian attendant is trying to help some Japanese tourists she will go for English. Or the Germans or the French or the Israelis or the Spanish. English is now the standard. Its like our blackboard. I am happy I was raised speaking English as my first language. It is a relief. we are lucky with that. Italian is getting harder and harder. It has become a joke in our class how hard it is getting, rather than easier. Yes it is a little like Spanish and Portuguese. But grammatically it is way out there. our teacher takes a lot of pride in it and says that Spanish and Portuguese are very primitive languages compared to Italian and then laughs of course. They have a word for everything. ten words for everything. way more than we do. This is fun but it makes learning difficult. He says they have had thousands of years to perfect it. Grammatically the thing that really throws you the most is this. They have all these rules, and then right after you learn them, he teaches you that they break them all. a lot of times they just break the rules because they don't like the way it sounds the other way, so they change it to a totally different word that doesn’t even exist just because they like the sound better. Its crazy. I guess its no different than if you try to explain to someone why we say ‘gonna’ or ‘wanna’ etc.  

We do not stop sweating here. it is non stop sweating morning till night. one of the students at the school told us last night that he sleeps in the bathroom in the shower. He is from central America and is here learning Italian. He cannot believe it. We were all laughing at him. Everyone has their own way of dealing with it. today it was 41 degrees. Hottest day in like hundreds of years. I don't mind it that much I have to say. But I'm not having to sleep in it so that could be why. 

On the train I met a bunch of travelers from San Diego. Cool people. Seriously asked me if I knew this guy from cocoa beach Florida which is like seven hours away from Miami. That is a classic joke but this guy really did ask me. so I asked him if he was friends with Tony Robbins since he lived in San Diego. And of course he said no. and we all had a laugh. But it was great hanging with some Americans. I love America. 

Museo civico in sienna---amazing frescoes on the walls that span hundreds of feet. It was in this museum that I had this epiphany.

Lunch in Sienna.

I think that these old forts and palaces lend themselves to this kind of introspective philosophizing. I'm walking around and taking it all in. Taking some notes sometimes. Or taking some pictures to use for the album. and sometimes I just sit in a room for a long time and stare up at the ceiling or at the walls and really get to know what's there. I feel it. try to cop what it felt like five hundred or in this case seven hundred years ago when they were making it. and I would observe so many couples walking by. What you mainly see is couples and little families. Hundreds and thousands of them. you get used to it after a while. Seeing all the other tourists. I'm sitting there and I see all these couples and all of sudden I was reminded of what it was like to be in a couple. I remembered that feeling of you know being a tourist and walking around in a couple. And how sometimes not all the time it had this limiting feeling for me. you know how it gets when the girl or guy you are with, maybe your husband or your wife, is like telling you what to say or not to say or lets go here or there or I am tired or lets go home or any of that. or where do we want to go now and just all of that. and then all of a sudden I'm sitting in this huge wooden chair that was built in 1360 in the middle of this little baptistery. And I'm just sitting in it for like an hour. just me. being me. doing nothing. Just thinking. and I realized that if I was in a couple I probably wouldn’t be sitting in this big wooden chair staring at the wall for an hour. and this made me very happy. I think what has always bothered me sometimes about being in a couple is the amount of time you don't get to spend on your own doing your own thing just being you and exploring you. maybe for some this isn't important, or for most, I don't know. but for me it feels very important. It certainly helps you feel more like yourself. More free. More artistic. More inspired as an individual. Although I certainly miss being in a couple as well. Its this amazing dichotomy isn't it? its so fucking funny. You are happily married or have this amazing girl friend or boyfriend and you sit and think about what it would be like to be single, just to get some space and have your own life back, do your own thing. And then of course when we’re single we’re like so ready to find someone to be lovers with, or to be in a couple with. Life: we’re cursed. 

Cathedral de Saint Catherine—this is I think the most beautiful church I have been in so far which is hard to say because I have been a lot of them, but this one you really want to hang out in for a while. It has peacefulness like all of sienna that is very comforting. I must have spent an hour or more just hanging around looking at stuff.

Called mom. Mom you gotta see this fucking church. It was like four am her time. take a picture for me honey. I've got to sleep. O.k. mom here's your picture. Of the church and me talking to you on the phone. God I love my mom. For decades now she has always taken my insane and neaurotic calls at all hours of the day or night and been there to listen. “Mom I have a problem.” “What is it honey? What's wrong?” “I've been thinking about reincarnation. What if it really isn't true? I mean what if we just die... what if this is all there is? I cannot bear the thought of it....” “Fishy go to sleep honey. You can think about this in the morning...” 

I met this girl on the bus in sienna. She was from Turkey. On our way to the train station. And instantly we had a great connection. This instant attraction. Just add water. She just happened to be going to Florence. So we started talking. And within a few minutes she was smiling a lot and very happy and I was surprised at the connection. We sat together on the train. I was very happy. Great smile. Amazing breasts. Dark hair and dark eyes. she spoke o.k. English. Maybe a few hundred words. no Italian. I speak no Turkish. So we had a funny thing. We were born a few days a part from one another. same age. We had fun agreeing that Libras are the best sign to be. this was kind of bonding. we would look in each others eyes. I then looked down and saw that she had rings on her ring finger and then I looked out the window. She asked me ‘what happened?’ in this cute Turkish accent. I said nothing. Then she asked if I was married. I held up my hand and showed her no, but you are. we talked more. She asked me if I would have a drink with her when we got off the train and I said yes. First she needed to go to her hotel to check in with her group. It turned out that she got lost in Pisa, made her way to sienna by mistake on her own, and now was headed back to Florence before they left in the morning for Venice. I thought to myself, isn't it amazing when we meet someone and you just kind of have this thing with them. One minute there is nothing. And then there is this thing with this person. And it can seem so big. So immediate. And so magical. I reminded myself to remember this always. I think it was the message in the encounter. Take pleasure in being alone. Because just around the corner is someone and in a second they will be very large in your life. Little Tree was that with me. one minute she didn't exist and in the next she was a big part of my life. as soon as I saw her, I was captivated by her. But then I reminded myself that this Turkish girl was married. I asked to see a picture of her husband. She showed me him. he looked like your typical Turkish guy. our ride lasted about an hour and half and we talked about everything we could with her English. She smiled a lot. She almost cooed sometimes. I asked her what that was and she said it meant she was very happy. I listened to the battle rage within my head. And I just sat stoically and silently observing it. do her. Don't do her. Do her don't do her. C'mon on just do her. We’re in Italy on a train for God sakes man just do it. do not do her. Do the right thing. Good God man do her! She's form turkey. For God sakes you’ve never done a girl from turkey yet. just do her. No. do not do her. She's married. Don't even think about it. Do not give in to the dark side of the force Luke. Haha. 

We got off the train together and went into a McDonalds to get some water. I ordered a coke. It tasted great. A McDonalds coke always tastes great no matter where you are. And this one was spectacular. Really tasty. Then we went outside to catch a cab. Fun. Italian guys stare at chicks way more than American boys. They have no shame in it. mainly her ass. If she was my girlfriend I would have been fuming after five minutes. They are so obvious. We got into the cab. I stared out the window the whole way to her hotel. When we got to her hotel I paid for the cab and she turned to me and grabbed my arm with this big smile on her face. All lit up. I gave her this look and told her I would stay in the cab and let her go. she looked at me puzzled. It was a weird feeling for both of us. I think we were already in the flow of this thing. I said simply, “you better go catch up with your group. And get some sleep.” She said “O.K.?” I could tell she was confused. “it was very good meeting you,” I said. And again confused, she said the same thing. And then I said, “enjoy Venice tomorrow.” at that point she was out of the cab and about to close the door. We stared at each other for a few seconds. And then she closed the door. 

Although I am a little disappointed now, I think that I feel better than I would have if she would have spent the night, which I think is where we were headed. I pictured her naked across my bed with her black hair over her beautiful breasts while I sang and played my guitar on top of her. Her teaching me some Turkish words to use in songs. But then I would have had this idea in my head of her husband for the rest of my life and how I broke this sacred agreement among men. So I did what I had to do. I called her about an hour later. I felt bad like maybe she got her feelings hurt. Or felt like I didn't like her. She answered and said cheerfully, oh its you. it is good to hear your voice.” I told her that I really wanted to hang out with her but because she was married I thought it was best if we didn't. She said how polite I was for that and for calling. I thought, wow, I don't know if that's polite, I just think American guys in general are more polite than European guys when it comes to love or romance or whatever. This is my conclusion. Girls aren't use to the way we are. to our ‘ah shucks golly gee I would never want you to be hurt’ type of attitude. I think what is great about us is that we are cool and manly but still have manners. Generalizing here but we know how to be a man and have manners and all that. man maybe I should have done her. What an opportunity. 

I stared out the train window and I remembered the old days when I would go over the rules with the Ferret, pounding them into him. Life was simple back then. We were just kids. I tried to remember them all. ‘Rule number one, never get with another guys wife.’ “What if they're not married?” he would ask. ‘That's rule number two. It doesn’t matter if they're married or not. Don't do it with another guys girlfriend either. Would you want some guy fucking your girl just cause you aren't married?” “Good point, but I wouldn’t want her as a girlfriend if she was fucking some other guy.” Well that's rule number three...” “What?” “If your girlfriend or your wife sleeps with another guy, dump her, she's trash. And if she does it once, she could do it again. So don't take the risk of getting hit twice. Dump her right then and there.” “Good rule.” “Its not an easy one. a lot of guys get whipped by their girls and let them do whatever they want to just to keep them. bad move.” “yea I can see that. that's my fucking problem.” “Which leads us to rule number four: Don't sleep with a girl if you know she likes you and you don't like her but you just want to sleep with her.” “What?!” he would protest. “That's crazy. That's our whole MO as men. That's how we get laid.” “Doesn’t matter. It hurts the girl. Makes ‘em feel less than they are. Its not right. Takes a long time to master this rule. I'll give you that... Sometimes you slip cause you need some action. But this is what the noble man does.” Next rule, don't lie to a girl, no matter what.” “No matter what?” “yes no matter what. Doesn’t matter what you need to do or accomplish or how many girls you are with or if you're breaking up or whatever. Don't lie to any of them. Play it straight. Be cool. Don't lie.” “Impossible.” “That's what you think at first, true. But you have to be creative.” “hhhmmm.” “Which leads to the next rule, if you ever catch a girl lie to you, look her dead in the eye, and warn her: ‘if you ever lie to me again you will lose me forever. I will stop loving you and I will leave you.” “What if she lies to you again?” “Leave her and don't look back.” “Just like that? What if you're married? What if she is your wife?” “Doesn’t matter. That's not your wife. That's some bitch who fooled you into thinking she was your wife. You fell for it. Your real wife would never lie to you.” “True that.” “Everyone lies to you. This is just the way it is. Your own family may lie to you. It sucks but its true. You don't work your ass off day and night trying to build a home and family and your own little empire for someone who you can’t trust. Get rid of her.”  “ Any other rules?” “Yea, don't sleep with other guys. Its gross.” “What if you’re gay?” “That's different. You're on your own there.”

Current Read: Everything is illuminated, by Jonathan Safran Foer. This is a great book. A quick read and one of the coolest things to come out of the new century in literature so far. it is in English, but I couldn’t resist.