Euro-Gay Commuter

Before a couple of months ago, I had never heared the term “Euro-commuter”. Now, I am one: in the UK during the week, in Paris on the weekends. The train that takes me to work is the Eurostar, zipping beneath the English Channel on the way to the office on Monday mornings. It’s temporary. Job titles move faster than contracts. Contracts move faster than house-hunting. House-hunting moves faster than relocation companies. In the interim, I am a Euro-commuter. We cast our minds forward to the move, looking forward neither to leaving our current home, nor to the kafuffle of picking up and putting down everything in it. Not knowing where, exactly, we will live, we cannot yet look forward to it. Like getting a birthday present from someone who doesn’t know us, we are guardedly excited to find out what lies ahead. We have no idea whether it will suit us. What you do not understand and are a little aftraid of, you mock. So, we have taken to declaring that we will decide the location of our new home solely based on the joke potential of its name. England offers long lists of possibilities. Just a few within easy striking distance of my new office: Cockpole Green Hurley Bottom Crazy’s Hill Goff’s Clump The English don’t find these names the least bit droll. And I’m sure they don’t realize that that, in itself, puts them in the same category as folks who call happy people “gay”. But they have history on their side. Writing this, I am sitting in a pub that has been open since 1135. Not the time, but the year. AD, not a.m. I’m kind of well-traveled but I’m still impressed both by the scope of European history, and how casually the natives interact with it. I’ve spent most of my life in places that consider the 12th Century virtually pre-historic. If they had anything built in 1135, it’d be a tourist attraction. This place, by contrast, is just a neighborhood beer joint. Even though, like, Fred Flintstone got smashed here. You know, back in the day. I think he was feeling gay. ..