Bits and pieces

I'm a mermaid! There, I've said it. Whew! What a relief to come out of the closet at last.

I just wrote a piece for the Remnant all about it, and someone did the photo for that.

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NERDS!!

"I feel like I'm in science class but I'm getting dumber!"

Solution?

Watch Fringe.

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Since not having internet at home, I find I'm actually starting to revert to reading books and writing things in a notebook with a pen!

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Nature notes:

Fireflies! In the garden every evening. They started a few days ago.

There actually seem to be two kinds. There's the actual fireflies that fly around and flash white, and there's a terrestrial kind, (I've just looked it up, it's Lampris noctiluca) that glows steady and yellow and that looks a bit like a dragonfly larva, with a long segmented abdomen and a few claw-like legs near the head-end. But there's lots of them every night, especially when it's warm, which it is today.

Many of the streets in Norcia, including mine, are lined with Tilia oliveri trees, called "Chinese white lime" which are in full bloom right now and are making the whole town smell like heaven. I keep my studio window open while I'm working and the scent of flowers wafts in on the warm breeze.

The bees love them too, and the other day while the kitties and I were making the long walk up the hill to see Dr. B (just a check-up) I sat on a handy bench under one of them to take a breather, and the air was alive with buzzing.

There's lots of nature in the house too. I've let the harvestmen set up shop in the corners of the ceilings in the hopes that they might deal with the flies which are generated with grim abundance by the cow farm across the way. Their webs just get bigger and bigger, and I see with interest that they develop into a big dome shape, with the harvestman sitting inside. They're also very tidy about their housekeeping. There's never a body hanging about, but a little pile of mostly fruit flies develops on the floor underneath.

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The elderflower champagne was a huge success. I've opened the smaller bottle and it was lovely, sparkly and light, and scented with the flowers. I've got seven bottles left. Next up, mead!

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I remember when I was younger being concerned that the adults of my time, the "boomers," were going to make really awful old folks. When I was a child, the Little Old Ladies were of that generation born before WWI, and, no kidding, many of them still wore white gloves and flowered hats. My grandmother's generation (b. 1903) were still raised and trained to be civilized people.

But they're all gone now and the creatures of the "me generation" have indeed turned out horrible. I was reminded of this the other day when I saw an old woman wearing jeans and a tight t-shirt emblazoned with a rainbow and the slogan, "Love with pride."



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Life in a tourist town...

oh, how well I remember it...

Maybe we should get someone to stand in front of the basilica of St. Benedict and Scholastica here with a big sign saying, "Hic domus Dei est et porta cœli, so shut the hell up!"

Srsly people! Who told you it's OK to stomp into a church and talk in your normal outside-voice?

American tourists. Oh, che gioia...



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Possibly the weirdest Beatles cover I've ever seen


in a lifetime of Beatles covers.

Is it time to freak out yet? ... How about now?

Awake half the night, alternately worrying about signs and portents and looking up the rental prices of caves in Umbria.

This morning was a three-cup coffee morning.



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Nobody loves me; everybody hates me; guess I'll go stand in the corner

Woot!! My first genuine death threat via email!

I know what you're thinking. First?! Seriously? In a 15 year career of anti-woman, anti-choice, homophobic ranting? What have I been doing wrong all this time?

Beats me, but at least now I can hold my head up in Kathy's company.

Name: Liberty Columbia
Email: ______@aol.com

Message: Another violent, blood thirsty, fascist barbarian who would make Mussolini proud. You will meet the same fate as he did.

You are going to legally hang for your crimes against humanity, Hilary White, you grotesque, illiterate Fascist whore. This is a promise. You are going to die and your death will be cheered. Every contributor to LifeSite News is going to be legally tries [sic] and sentenced to hang.

Date: 2014-01-17 11:48:15

Illiterate?!

Oh yeah? Define the subjunctive in English!

Huh. Illiterate my foot.

And of course, the irony is forever lost on these promoters of peace n' tolerance. I'm the evil fascist, but you're the one issuing death threats.

It reminds me of our old friend David the painter, who said that because he believed so deeply in tolerance and diversity, and I was such an evil fascist, he could not possibly tolerate me and I had to remove all links to his 'blog and go stand in the corner.



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Puffin Count

There are puffins out there, and they need counting.

A couple of friends took me out to dinner on my onomastico the other day and we were talking about our respective works.

I said, "You know what I want to do?"

My friend, who knows me all together too well, said, "Quit your job and become a marine biologist?"

"How did you know?"

"You've been saying it constantly since we met."

Oh.



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Feel my pain

Occasionally we have to deal with complaints that it's all "negativity" and bad news. "Can't you write about happy things? Pope Francis just wants everyone to cheer up."

Aristotle said that there isn't any drama without conflict. Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch said, "Murder your darlings". Frankly, bad news is the only good news. I really only like bad news. For the same reason I like spicy food and gummy sours and whiskey.

Every year, I'm asked to write something warm and cuddly for Christmas, and it's always a huge struggle. How do you make it not boring if it's all happy n' nice n' sweet n' stuff? Blech.

I'm off sweets and if you want to cheer up, go watch cat videos.



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…to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee.

Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God: depart from me therefore, ye bloody men.

For they speake against thee wickedly: and thine enemies take thy name in vaine.

Doe not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee?

I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies.

Just writing about the German Bishops...



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I wish I weren't such a damned idiot! I knew perfectly well that sitting too much was messing up my back, and sitting on the sofa instead of at the desk or the dining table to work was certainly making it worse. And now I'm totally seized up, can't move, and have to spend a week taking those stupid meds and doing all the exercises to fix it and I've only myself to blame.

I think one of the worst things about becoming a grown-up was the realisation that nearly all our pain and suffering is either directly or indirectly caused by our own stupid, lazy, selfish and pleasure-loving selves.

I have to admit that I rather miss the feeling of pleasure it gave me in my teens to blame someone else for all my woes.

I can certainly understand why so many people, when the culture presents them so abundantly with the opportunity, never give it up.



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Holy Silence

Lawks-a-Mercy! Why is tea in this country so BAD!?! It's got to be the water. Or maybe that they take the hot water out of a machine that makes coffee all day.

My home internet connection has been futzy for two weeks, and died all together this week, and due to not the best health I'm reduced to working out of an internet cafe today instead of dragging my sorry sniffly self into the City. Which is fine in many ways. The WiFi works and I'm happy to give some business to the nice fellow who runs the place. And my noise cancellation headphones make it possible to drown out the screechy women on the TV with Johann Sebastian, and the coffee is just fine (being an understatement of course ...compared to anything in N. America) but the tea... Dear HEAVens!

But what a difference it makes to have no internet at home! This morning, I read most of a new novel by a friend and the peace and tranquility in the sitting room as I read was almost like music. The silence was broken only by the sound of pages turning, and the little chink of the tea cup. The sun shone down through the umbrella pines in the garden into my bay windows and became dappled in shade of my pink flowering hibiscus. The cat even had a fit of friendliness and came and actually sat on my lap; astonishing behaviour for Winnie-the-famously-cranky.

And I managed to read the whole book without experiencing the least urge to look anything up on the internet, with an unbroken concentration that I don't think I've experienced in years.

On Monday morning the Telecom Italia guy is coming back to fix and/or replace the modem and the net will go back to being the dominant feature of my home life. It means that I can work without having to fight with either Trenitalia or the noisy TV racket at the WiFi cafe, and will save all kinds of money on lunches and trainfares and whatnot.

But what is the price of silence and domestic peace?

Not sure.



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Mystery solved

I hate to say it, but I took one look at this and thought, "Actually, I'd probably give it a shot".

I may have discovered the reason I can't seem to lose any weight.

That and the sitting-around-on-my-butt-all-the-time thing.

(Actually, mostly the second thing.)

I've more or less got through my horrible jet-lag sleep timetable screw-up problem, and my back seems finally to have recovered. So I've got no excuses left not to be at the gym every day.

Except... every day?! Srsly?

~ * ~

OK, I've got an embarrassing secret to admit: I like Chagall.

I know, I know, he's not with the realist programme, and I am betraying a modernist streak that most people would not really credit to me, but well, there you are. I look at his paintings and I see something Real. Frequently, it's something that I don't find in a lot of the new classical and contemporary realists doing the work now.



The floating wiggly people, the angels and purple chickens and dancing goats, the winged cows playing fiddles, the magic rabbis in snowy Russian villages... it all speaks to me about my inner symbolist dream world. Can't help it.


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Random Saturday ramblings

Well, when you put it *that* way...

"Does 'intrepid archaeologist keeps Nazis from using the Ark of the Covenant as a laser beam' sound like a beloved box office blockbuster?"

One way in which I know that Kathy and I aren't secretly the same person is her weird taste in films, (and she doesn't like sci fi... ???) but I always appreciate her hilarious movie reviews.


~ * ~

And people say we criticise the bishops! Yikes!

It's hard to argue against his points, though, no matter what you might think of the terms he puts it in. (I actually have no problem with Michael's "tone" and think that people who do are a bunch of prissy little old ladies... In fact, wait... I know lots of prissy little old ladies who have tougher sensibilities. That's an insult to prissy little old ladies. Get a freakin' spine, people. Shee!)

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Full cup of hot espresso...white linen sun dress...

Yep. Aaaaaall over me. And the sofa. Miraculously missed the Mac's trackpad, though.

~ * ~

Still enjoying the amazing modernian experience of jet lag. I took the melatonin at midnight, two of them!... and was still awake til four am.

Winnie the World-Famous Pest has discovered a new hobby: yowling. Her efforts to get me up at eight-fifteen this morning; walking over my legs, patting my arms, meowing right. in. my. face, sitting on the next pillow and staring at me - all failed, so she went outside the room, sat down in the hallway and, facing the door like a concert master, started this exciting new yowling thing. She's getting pretty good at it, and indeed, it got me up. Yes, I got up, picked her up and dumped her in the spare room, shut the door and went back to bed.

I really tried to get up before noon. I really did! But it took a phone call from a friend, very cheerily asking me all about my trip and talking some very interesting work-shop to get me back to the real world.

Got to go buy groceries today though, so maybe a little exercise will help. Maybe a swim in the green, green sea. Chase some fish. Have a little weekend fun so's I don't get all bleurgy and, as my Auntie Gill says, "lose the benefit" of having the weekends off.

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Home, home, homity-home!

So, I'm very confused about what day and time it is. I got on the plane in Toronto on Tuesday evening, and arrived about noon in Rome after an eight and a half hour flight. My brain thought it was still late Tuesday night. Then I went home and promptly fell asleep on the sofa. When I woke up it was dark, and I didn't know what time it was because I had forgotten to change my computer and phone clock back to Rome time and my brain was too fuzzed-out to do the math.

All I knew was that it was dark o'clock and that someone had slipped a mickey fin into my tea, except that I hadn't had any tea yet. Went to bed, slept until it was still dark and got up. Went back to bed when it was just starting to get light out.

Woke up to the pussy cat patting my arm and meowing in my face, "GET UP, monkey! What are you doing still in bed?" She had loads of food and water in her dishes so she wasn't trying to get me to feed her. She just thought that I'd slept enough.

I just took a look at the clock and it says it's Thursday!

Something has just occurred to me: how come Indiana Jones didn't have to spend a week in bed when he got off the plane in Nepal, or wherever it was he met Marion? And again when they flew from Nepal to Cairo? How come they weren't staggering around Cairo mindlessly buying random things in a fog of insensibility and complaining of their sleep-deprivation-induced gastro-intestinal distress?

Crikey! I really do HATE that trans-atlantic thing.



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At Garda

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Running off at the keyboard

Stop me if you['ve heard this one...

I'm sitting in my pjs consuming pop culture. And coffee. And everything I'm supposed to do, everything in the whole world, feels intimidating and overwhelming and impossible. Everything.

So, I'm in full avoidance mode. On my fifth episode of my first re-watch of TBBT, season one, and it's 31 degrees out and I'm pretty much hiding. Inside the flat, it's pretty good, temperature-wise. For some reason this flat doesn't really get too hot, even in the really worstest part of the summer.

(Also, I made an important neurological discovery the other night: if you have temporal lobe epilepsy and run a fan at full blast next to your head 24 hours a day for a couple of days, the constant white noise will trigger a seizure. Good to know. Don't let this alarm you. I was diagnosed when I was 12 and get them so rarely now that I sometimes forget I have it. TL seizures, moreover, aren't that big a deal. They can be scary when you're a kid and don't know what's going on, but as an adult it's just a kind of glitch and over pretty quickly. Sometimes it leaves a headache. But the new rule is to turn the fan off once in a while, no matter how hot it gets because it's hard to concentrate on work when someone switches off the universe and you can't tell the difference between here and there, near and far, up and down...)

Anyway, since getting back from Gardone, I've mostly been sitting about in my beloved cave apartment every day, mostly in my pjs, (or on really hot nights my linen beach dresses that double nicely as summer night gowns). I don't feel particularly depressed. I don't feel especially lonely (yay Facebook!). I just feel faintly disgusted with myself.

I did pretty well at Garda with not eating carbs or drinking too much hoochies, or eating any ice cream (yes, the whole two weeks and not a drop of gelato. Really!). I think I skipped the pasta dishes at dinners every time except once, and I only had about two cocktails the whole time at cocktail hour. For a Garda trip, it was positively abstemious.

And I played tennis a bunch and really loved it. Like, LOVED it. Man, tennis! Who knew? Really amazingly fun, even when you suck at it. Like fencing only with fewer bruises.

So, overall, I had a pretty great time at Garda, and didn't come back thinking I'd blown the diet and exercise thing. And when I got back, I was pretty eager to get back to the gym, which I did, when I first landed. It took a couple of days to get untired after the trip, but then I went straight back to the gym lady. For two days. Then last Monday, I told the gym lady I was coming back on Wednesday, (that's a week yesterday) and I didn't.

It's just too fricken hot to go outside the house in the day time. It's been 30-35 degrees every day, and it's getting to the stage where it doesn't cool off at night, so sleeping, not so much. Anyway, that's my stupid excuse.

And it's a bad one, because honestly it was every bit as hot at Garda, and every day after lunch, I would grab the tennis racket and go running down the hill to the other hotel and bug the guys until they would come and play with me. Seriously. Like I was eight years old. It was just so fun to play tennis with Chris and Mike. And they were nice about me being really bad at it, and didn't yell at me or anything... not like in school.

So, I feel kind of crappy for quitting everything. And playing tennis in the roaring Italian heat reminded me that when I was a child, I didn't care about the heat, at all. I would just go running around the world and the weather was just the background, no matter what it was. But then I guess I lived on the Island, where it never got to be more than 28 degrees, even in mid-summer... But still, as a kid I never let the weather stop me running around and having fun.

Maybe that's it. When I was a kid, it was running around and having fun. There wasn't any baggage or obligation or goal. The having fun was the goal. Now all I can think about is the fact that I'm (probably) creeping up to 90 kilos and don't fit into my clothes any more. Then I start thinking about the h-word and cancer and All That, and I start freaking out. All of which makes going to the gym not "fun" but something I'm reluctantly obliged to do. So I don't do it.

You can tell I've been drinking coffee and not having too much social interaction, since my brain is running off a the keyboard.

Also, I keep looking across the room at the painting I did in Jordan Sokol's class and wondering why I suddenly quit arting immediately after it was finished. I abruptly cancelled all the classes I was signed up for for the rest of the summer. Not really sure why, exactly (except that I ran out of money to pay for them, which is a pretty solid reason, but wasn't really the reason, you know?). Just cocooning up. Haven't so much as picked up a pencil in six weeks. Am I intimidated? I think maybe. It really is difficult being neurotic.

Aaaaaanyway. I feel like a big blob now that I've gone over a week without going to the gym, and really without going outside much at all. The more I sit, the worse I feel.

And the neuropathy is back in my fingertips. It's ok after getting up in the morning, but by evening it gets really bad. Fingertips on fire, feet burning. Awful. Probably because of not enough exercise.

But in a week or so, I'll have to move. I have to go to Ontario, did I mention? I'm coming back to Canada next week. Like I promised myself I never would. Also awful. Leaving the house. Getting on trains and planes. Heaving luggage around. Not having my stuff around me. Being in crowds. Dealing with officials. Interacting with strangers. Waking up every day not at home. Being away from the cat. Having to act normal all the time.

Lawdy, but how I hate traveling!

But also been thinking lately how much I miss BC and want to go back to the Island again. Haven't been there since 1996 or so. And my Dad is out there somewhere. I want to see him.

What? Nothing. Just sharing too much. Sorry.



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Coffee experiment

So, day two of the coffee/gym/metabolism experiment was a bit of a disappointment. I'm figuring out, I think, how to use this legal stimulant but I can see it's going to be tricky to balance everything.

Tired out from the Huge Gym Day on Fri, I didn't get nearly as crazy again yesterday and was pretty draggy most of the day. And that was with double the dose: I downed four... yes four ... double espressos through the course of the morning while puttering about the house, and it wasn't nearly the same. Got a bunch of housework done and later was still perked up enough to get on the bike and go pay the bills, but didn't make it over to the gym until 2:30 and discovered that, being Italian, the nice Gym Lady doesn't open in the afternoons on Saturdays. I wasn't disappointed, in fact, and was just as glad to go home again. Not a lot of energy left over by Saturday evening. Artificial stimulants, at least the legal kind, have limits, I guess.

I'm guessing that the explosion on Friday, and the 5.78 km power walk, increased weights etc, just made me more tired than usual and it's taking an extra day to recuperate. I'll go back tomorrow morning and see how I get on.

Also, have to remember to eat. The biggest factor in the equation in getting draggy was probably food. I forgot that one of the things caffeine does to you is suppress appetite. In fact, it gave me a kind of gloopy tummy; not sick exactly, just not interested in food. When I got back home on Friday, I just went to work as usual and felt fine. Just had cucumber salad and little gorgonzola on pomodorini for dinner.

On Friday morning I'd had protein, vitamin and iron-rich leftover Fegato alla Veneziana for breakfast, with a couple of peaches, and then poured in the coffee on top. Saturday morning, I was feeling gloopy, so just went with a little fruit, then forgot to eat anything at all for the rest of the day. By the time I'd got to the gym at 2:30 I was starting to get light headed when I stood up too quickly. So it shouldn't be surprising that I was feeling most of the day like I was wading through mud.

Sleeping was definitely interrupted. I was truly pooped by Friday night, but unsurprisingly had trouble sleeping. Last night, I had a work thing to finish which took till nearly one thirty, then couldn't sleep at all until nearly three.

Taking a control day today. Nothing but iced tea and fruit and yogurt after church, and am about to make some lunch and then might take a snooze. I'll try a little short dose of coffee again around five to perk up enough to go to the beach-o for a swim. That's about when Wicked Old Yellowface has eased off enough to make it safe to go out. Nothing like an evening snorkel to make you feel alive.

My friend who works in a fancy-schmancy Tea Shoppe in Vancouver tells me that the caffeine in tea and the caffeine in coffee are actually two different chemicals. Too much tea caffeine has always just made me jiggly and clumsy. Coffee caffeine makes me think I can RULE THE WORLD. So it'll be interesting to see what comes of this new thing.



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Philosophy geeks

"I've got an appointment with my ontologist for a metaphysical".



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Becoming Italian

The weather this month has been, by Italian standards, mostly crap. We've only had a few warm days and I've only been swimming once. Normally, we'd have been in the water all month in May, but we've been averaging no higher than 15-18 degrees C and lots of stormy, cloudy, rainy days. The Italians are staying away from the beach in droves, and walking around bundled up in their ugly padded jackets and scarves like it's the start of a new ice age.

Of course, this Canuckistani is still wandering around in shirtsleeves and skirts, (hey! 18 degrees! woot!) but even so, I'm starting to think wistfully about all the beach days we've missed and wondering if my 50 spf is a little redundant. Last year I noted out loud that I seem to be acclimating to the Horrible Heat and didn't mind it nearly as much as before. Of course, last summer was milder than usual too.

And as an acclimated Canadian in Italy, last night I had the following conversation with my Brain:

"I'm cold. I'm going to put the heat on."

"Don't you dare. It's May! In fact, it's almost June. You can't put the heat on in Almost June in Italy."

"But I'm cold!"

"Put a woollie on."

"I don't want to put a woollie on. It's almost June!"

Of course, I see that other people are getting their summer early, with 30-35 degrees in the Toronto time zone. Bleah. I'd be begging for death. So I guess I won't complain too much when the gas bill comes.

Here's a Blondie song to put you in the summer mood




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Stop the clock

I've decided I don't like time, the way it keeps going and going, dragging you along when you're mostly not ready and don't want to go anywhere or do anything or have anything happen.

I wish there were some way of making it stop.



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Sick

Got the lurgy.

And I want cake.



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