Writing things down

There's this friend I used to see much more often some time ago, and due to a series of circumstances (first of all, me living abroad) it's become very hard to see each other. It's one thing to keep in touch online (most of my friendships were born through the internet, to be fair!), but when you meet in person semi-regularly you start missing the little things. Drinking coffee together and going "this one's on me". Eating out and sharing a dish you both want to taste but wouldn't finish on…

Have you ever been to Pompeii? Wait, do you know about it? It's an ancient Roman city that's been completely covered by ash and pumice after a particularly violent eruption of a nearby volcano, Mount Vesuvius. It's often mentioned together with the city of Herculaneum, which suffered the same fate, but I suppose Pompeii is slightly more famous1. I was in elementary school when I went there with my family, if I'm not remembering it wrong. I was a kid who loved Greek and Roman mythology, but was…

I've already talked about most of the books in here in my last post, but here we go. Books 📕 L'uomo che scambiò sua moglie per un cappello (Oliver Sacks): Italian edition of "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat", a series of short stories focusing on people affected by peculiar neurological conditions. I've read another book from Sacks a looong time ago, "Musicophilia", which focused on auditive issues, and my January read of "Neurotribes" mentioned this book and Sacks himself made an…

As previously stated in my last monthly log, I've started taking notes on the books I read. It's been a month now since I started, and I think I got enough data to draw some conclusions! This is a report on the matter, and something I hope might help if you're also someone who'd like to take notes to better remember the stuff you read. I'll be retelling my approach with each book I've read so far. L'uomo che scambiò sua moglie per un cappello (Oliver Sacks)Starting up with a non-fiction book…

If you had to point at your body where your self is located, where would you put your finger? Logic dictates on the brain, but is that where you feel it? Besides, research shows that reactivating a brain won't revive its former owner's conscience. I consider this question to be open enough to deserve a romantic, subjective answer. A popular option is, of course, the heart. When the world around you is completely silent, if you listen closely you can still hear your heart beating. Besides the…

Posting this on the last day of the month instead of the start of the next one, but I'm not on the verge of finishing anything and I'm not watching a movie tonight so I think it's fair. Books 📕 The Murder at the Vicarage (Agatha Christie): My mind was NOT in this book, and not because of how it's written. I love Agatha Christie's prose, and despite being very absent-minded in my reading she still managed to get me through the end and have a laugh too! I always find the way she writes narration…

I've never asked myself before if it's a common thing all around the world, but in Italy, each school year, kids buy a diary to write in. I don't think I've ever seen one outside of Italy, or maybe I just haven't looked for them now that I'm an adult, but they're a pretty big there. You've got diaries based on popular cartoons, TV shows, or even just brands liked by teenagers... it's a whole thing. When I was 6, in my first year of elementary school, I asked for a Pokémon diary. I liked it a…

I used to read Blue Period back when a friend of mine bought it, but then she moved away and I stopped despite really liking it. A few days ago, I started from the beginning and started saving some panels or pages I wanted to remember.

Being publicly witnessable is something that's been tragically hard in the past weeks, if not months (that's why I ended up blogging about Sudoku), but I went out to the mountains yesterday. I admit it sounds like I did some kind of ascetic training and sat under a waterfall to meditate about mortal sorrows. Actually, I've been wanting to go for a while. I grew up on an island, but my family used to travel to the Alps every summer and spend a week hiking: even before I was able to walk on my…

This month I had it ready. Books 📕 Swiss Made (Oriane & Clemént Grandjean): Bought this on a trip to Lugano (the MASI shop is great, I love it) and read it in a couple of days, as it's decently short: a list of 43 Swiss-Made inventions, with a nice collection of pictures and some pages dedicated to the Swiss industry. Some things I didn't even know were Swiss, like the potato peeler! This is also the book that made me discover Betty Bossi is not a real person, which is kind of like when your…

There's a page at the end of my Hobonichi Day Free that's titled "My 100". I think it's standard in every Hobonichi, and it's supposed to be a list of 100 custom entries to one's own discretion. Mine is "100 Things I'd Like To Do Before The End Of The Year", which sounds more daunting than it is. The rules are simple: All activities can be done alone and don't require specific input from other people There is no goal other than "doing the thing". No judgement, no streaks, not set results needed…

I was born on an island I don't like. Italians knows what Sardinia is. Jojo fans do also. A friend of mine once joked that I was just like Diavolo because "you both really don't want anyone to know you're from Sardinia". It's kind of hard to explain to strangers when they comment "oh, that's such a beautiful place! Why would you ever want to leave?" because it really is a gorgeous place, and I'd like to love it as well. People born and raised in small towns, islands or small countries with…

I have a complicated relationship with gifts. I like receiving them and I like giving them, but I'm a bit wary of gifts related to special occasions: birthdays, Christmas... it's sadly been ingrained into me (and in many others, actually) that there are times when you must give someone a present, and that present must have certain qualities. What are those qualities? You cannot know. Guess. If you get it wrong, you're awful and should be ostracized by the whole community. How dare you fuck up a…

Did you know? If you type "devmodeon" on your Kobo eReader's search bar and press enter, you'll turn dev mode on and have access to a variety of extra features: Landscape mode, additional viewing options, sudoku. Did you know? Adding fucking sudoku on your Kobo is the perfect way to stop fucking reading. Guess who am I talking about? Funnily enough, I've never been a sudoku enthusiast; I used to prefer pictograms, and Super Mario Picross has had a grip so deadly on me and my free time that 1)…

I wonder why too much love can be off-putting. Is it a boundary thing? It feels like a boundary thing when I'm the one who feels that way about someone else's boundless love. That said, I don't want them to stop loving so intensely, just the freedom to keep myself at a distance. Because I'm the same. It hurts a lot too, to feel so strongly about things and people. If I try counting the times I've been mocked and ridiculed for caring VS the times it made me able to connect, the former win by a…

Last log I put in things on the month I started them since I grouped together 3 months, but from now on I'll do it as I finish them... which means no Stray Children for now. Books 📕 Otherside Picnic 7 (Iori Miyazawa): I love Otherside Picnic so much. This is the volume that made me fear the moment I'd get to it because of its cover, but... in the end it turned out to be much less worrying than I expected. It really makes me think "What about now, though?", but the plot has thrown enough new…

I mentioned in my latest Monthly Log that I've changed how I journal this year, and that I might write about it someday. Today's the day. Last year I was keeping three journals: my usual Hobonichi Day Free, a 5-Year Techo Book (also from Hobonichi) and a Dragon Quest Habit Tracker. I'm not counting the additional casual stuff like all the notebooks in which I keep separate brainstorming processes, or where I take notes about music or language learning. This is strictly about my daily life. The…

Last Sunday I went to a concert with my brother and his wife, starring a celebrity that everyone in Italy born in the 90s knows: Max Pezzali of 883 fame. My brother was a huge fan, and me being the little sister I was spoon fed all his major successes until the age of 18 (and at that point, both me and my brother stopped following recent releases). 883 songs are an incredibly telling product of their time, and while Max and Mauro Repetto (the other member of 883) were in their mid-twenties when…