Lucca (I Am Your Father...)

After Cinque Terre, it felt good to get back to my previous routine; back to just me. I was surprised to catch myself feeling...relieved on my way to Lucca. What was that about? I had really enjoyed my new friends - in fact, I was quite sad to see them go - yet there it was: a renewed lightness one feels after lifting a heavy load. Hmm, perhaps protecting my independence was more important to me than I realized. Interesting.

In any case, Lucca lay before me and I was beholden unto it. Unfortunately, the rain from Cinque Terre followed me there. I continued to do my best and shrug it off like a true Northwesterner, but soon it picked up to the point that even I couldn't ignore. No sight-seeing today. So I cheerfully grabbed my laptop, found an internet cafe and set up camp. Shortly after I arrived it absolutely POURED! I couldn't help but smile; I was more than content with my computer and a warm cup of tea (TEA! My long lost friend!) within arms reach.

Eventually I made my way back to the hostel and this is when I had my very first interaction with Sally, the tangential talker. Now, at one point or another, all of us have gone off on tangents. We've probably all even met someone who tends to wear us down with their inability to stick to the subject. However, Sally doesn't quite fall into either of these categories. Instead of taking the conversation into a slightly different thread, she starts in a completely unrelated place and eventually you find that it does, in fact, tie into what you WERE talking about.

So imagine a conversation as a circle. The normal person's deviation from the conversation would be represented by a line that is tangent to the circle (hence the term...), leading away from the conversation. Eventually the person will acknowledge the tangent and return to the circle, siting the point of tangency as a reference to get back on track with the main dialogue of the conversation. (See diagram below.)

Sally is not like this. If we continue with our illustration, then Sally chooses a point no where in the vicinity of the circle and eventually talks her way toward it, until the line DOES (somehow) become tangent to the circle. The conversation then stays on course with the circle for a brief time, until she chooses another unrelated point and again works her way back toward the circle. (See diagram.)

The disadvantage of this is (obviously) that it is quite difficult to stay on par with Sally. However, the advantage (I quickly learned) is that you can tune her out and limit your end of the conversation to simple "uh huhs" at the appropriate pauses. By the time you consciously return, she's come back to the circle and you miracuously know what she is talking about*. This method served me quite well, seeing as Sally is not only a tangential talker, but she also talks non-stop; smoothly and evenly she rolls on and on from one seemingly unrelated topic to the next. Honestly, it was remarkable. In more than one of my departures from attentiveness, I was trying to fashion a way I could document via video her tangentiality for you. However, I decided that neither one of us has that kind of time, so I abandoned the project.

(You're wondering what she looks like, aren't you? Well, she is short and a little stocky, but still kind of tan. She is over 65 and has dark gray hair that is cut very short and like a boy in the back (yet curly and girly up front...yes, it was kind of unusual). Her top teeth look like dentures and her bottom teeth seem to be sawed down at an angle; the teeth on the lower left are taller than those on the lower right. She truly was one of a kind.)

So after AN HOUR of Sally to myself, our other roomie comes in: a cute red-head from Australia named Sarah. We all swap brief stores (who we are and what we're doing here) and make plans for later. Sarah has already eaten, so she and I agree to go out for wine and tapas (snacks) after dinner, but Sally and I** are going to catch a bite now. Fortunately, there is a Rick Steves pizza reccomendation right across the street from the hostel, so Sally and I hit it up. She slows her conversation a bit and we have a nice time. The pizza is okay, but not close to the best I've had so far. Soon we head back and I find Sarah. We head out and have some good convo over wine and snacks. Unfortunately we have to leave after only a half hour or so because the place is completely reserved. We strike out finding another place to go (it was a Sunday evening) so we call it a night. Even though I've "seen" very little of Lucca so far, I like it very much. The entertainment has been impecable; hopefully now the weather will finally shape up...

*For the record, I realize this sounds quite mean, but it believe me when I say it wasn't intentional. When she gets going, it's not possible to get a word in edgewise, and since you have no idea where she going with any given topic, it becomes difficult to follow and your mind naturally wanders.

**Before you get to thinking I'm generous for volunteering to spend additional time with the tangential talker, let me just say, I actually really liked Sally - she was funny in her own way. Plus, in a group of three, she was quite pleasant and her convo was much more linear...er, circular - if we stick with the diagram from before...heh.