only yours truly could go to another country without learning this word

6:30PM Genoa 3.3.08

There are words one never bothers to learn in any language, especially a second or third. You could fill a book with the words I don’t know yet in Italian. Yet at around ten thirty this morning, it became increasingly clear that I would not be able to continue life here without expanding my vocabulary in a very specific direction – in the direction of the bathroom.

So I never bothered to learn the word for restroom in Italian. I take my meals at home (they’re bigger and cheaper that way), don’t go out drinking much (drinking alone is better done at home anyway ha ha ha), and haven’t gone on any day trips since I’ve been here. I never lost much sleep over it, never gave it a second thought. Right up until the time I needed it. At which point, of course, it was already too late.

There are moments in time when your mind moves into high gear, when your creative potential in whatever area reaches a crescendo of activity, and you find that things begin to tumble out of your consciousness without the ability to substantially shape or control them. Within ten to fifteen seconds, I had already produced, tried, and rejected between six and ten different ways to explain in Italian what it was I was looking for, and was on my way to a dozen when I left my seat to find someone to try them out on. Unfortunately for the betterment of my Italian, I blundered into the restroom on my way to the office to ask where it was. So as of now, I still couldn’t tell you how to say it.