3rd

Today I have done what I have wanted to do for all of ten minutes.  Someone coughed up a lung for half the night, and then decided to be awake at 6 am.  At 9 am I was logged into Teams for no other reason than to apparently be there.  Nine hours of invoicing hell ensued; checking contracts, checking statements, checking if it was legal to carry guns in the Netherlands.  Back home, the routine started; in no particular order:  Reading ‘Grandude’ to the infirmary, brushing the upper teeth, massaging the lower back of the one housing another alien, cooking a soup, making seven teas, buying whatever was on bonus for the week, pretending to be a cat, horse, tiger and a sane human.  Days like this defeat my spirits.  Quite simply I don’t want to live like this.  I want to live.  My back hurts, something is wrong with it, but there is no time to rest or to do the stretches to rehabilitate it.  The ten minutes was spent having a coffee.  I wish I could write to you about birthdays, I wish I could write anything, I wish I could think, I wish I could sleep.  Autumn 2022 is going to look like childsplay in comparison to this. It’s 22:17 and he’s still awake.

4th

Sanity has returned.  After yesterday’s psychotic straightread episode, in the bed of a toddler no less, I fell asleep fully clothed.  The radiator is right next to the bed, it felt like I was snuggling next to a fire.  The Gods further blessed us because the cough was suppressed.  I am alive again!  For the next few hours, at least.  

I’ve clocked fifteen kilometers over the last two weeks, and I am already feeling the negative effects on my body and clearly my mind.  One would say I should prioritize running.  I will try.   It’s insane that every hour of my life demands one thing or another.  Yesterday in the background of SAP some podcast spoke some wisdom about never being able to do it all.  Agree.  But it feels like I’m in danger, not of doing it all, yet somehow doing nothing.  The psychiatric hospitals in Denmark you say, do you have a good impression of them?

In twenty days the house will be occupied by four.  In thirty days, five.  Every square inch of space is already occupied with a book, a toy, clothing (clean or otherwise).  We’ll have to start piling on top.  No, no matter, your impression, I’d like to book a spot already in advance.

Yesterday, Park’s ‘A Season with Verona’ arrived, and I took a peak under the hood.  Boy, did I like what I saw.  I had to chuckle when within the first paragraphs he said he had to explain to his wife that he really had to travel to Rome, Naples, Florence to watch football for work.

But before I indulge, a mother-in-law must be welcomed, a baby must be born, ‘Hunger’ must be finished.  It got better, and then it got worse.  Kind of like my life, at the moment I suppose.

6th

It’s past midnight.  A little indulgence took place this evening – an hour spent on the Serie A football fantasy.  The group called together to buy players following the close of the transfer window.  It’s been a tough season – my stalwart on defence, Gleison Bremer went down with an ACL tear within the first few weeks and my star striker Zapata followed suit the following week.  Both under the knife, both out for the season.  Which means I occupied the basement in the standings, before miraculously pulling together an undefeated streak (2 wins, 3 draws) over the last stretch of games, lifting me to second last.  All hopes of attaining a top three finish to win a prize have long since been dashed, I’m only playing for dignity.  A player you might be familiar, Giminez was the crown jewel for tonight, but I didn’t have enough credits to get him.  Juventus’ loanee Koulo Mani was next, but I also couldn’t afford him.  I had enough in the bank to go for the third most sought after player, but the rest of the attackers were really slim pickings.  Instead of opting for starpower in Joao Felix, I played it safe and took Empoli’s Esposito, and I’m already kicking myself for doing that as Felix scored in the Coppa Italia that took place this evening.  The rest of the players I bought are all bit players, I can’t say I’m happy with how my auction went.  If you’re a casual Serie A fan, I’m willing to wager that you’ve only heard of one player on my entire squad:  La Joya.  Maybe Locatelli?   There’s only one positive surprise on my team:  nineteen year old attacker Santiago Castro of Bologna.  The biggest disappointment has got to be my entire midfield, highlighted by an expensive Pelegrini with one goal to his name.  No, it just isn’t the ‘Thunderbastards’ year.  But I”m still having fun.

6th

One of the things that keeps me going these days is a line from a song that I like.  “When we were living in squalor, wasn’t it heaven”.  I look at the chipped kitchen tile, I look at the cream coloured living room curtain that has been freshly christened with splashes of coffee, the oven with the missing knob, the bathroom mold that withstands industrial grade cleaning agents, the toilet seat that is hanging on by one screw – I look at all this and can take it in stride because I know, or rather hope, that one day I can look back on it and laugh and be happy that we lived through it and survived.  The song continues a little further on, claiming that “Eventually terrible memories turn into great ones”.  Five human bodies to sixty square meters and one paltry middle class income.  This is living!!!!!  Or rather, this is a hell inconceivable to man, yet one day, I’ll sit in my wheelchair and proclaim that this was living!  The trick is to somehow believe it now.  And when that is not possible, believe that in an indeterminable  future, it will feel as so.  

Speaking of the future, today I blew on a dandelion flower, an act that I thought would’ve been inconsequential, yet I suppose that is how nature intended it to work.  One of the seeds will stick.  And so it was, the soil didn’t reject the idea that I floated out to Fatima while pointing to Park’s book.  Jitse and I were going to do the same, in a couple of years.  We’ll follow a team in Italy for the entire season.   Which team, she asked?  Woah woah woah, we didn’t know yet, and it won’t really matter.  The fact is, she said if I can settle the family, I’ll be allowed to do so.  The dream Jitse, the dream!  I can’t wait to nurture and watch this flower blossom into something beautiful, or, I mean bellissimo.

7th

One commenter asked a prolific reader and reviewer on Goodreads, just how they manage to read so much?  His first answer was eschewing social media.  Secondly, he went on to explain that since he is not in a relationship and hasn’t bore offspring; a true solitary type – he misses out on much of the ‘human experience’ by which he turns to literature to gain.  I must keep this in mind.  For it’s true – if I am by myself, I am finally at the age where I feel I’m more or less in control of my emotions (gripes with ‘the system’ aside – though a lot of that is for shits and giggles).  Not a stoic purist yet, but if I eat, sleep and read well, the system is humming.  So this weekend, as I’m spending time with Milo, while eyeing the half read Hamsun out the corner of my eye, I must remind myself that through Milo I’ll get to experience emotions that are every color of the rainbow, and this too, is a part of life and a compliment to literature.  To add to that, there are hormones abound floating in the room – some on the rise, others on the decline – especially since I’m putting up kilometers like a middle aged suburban weekend warrior.  

Heading to Soestduinen in the afternoon.  Weather conditions:  great, I’d say – rather windy, which I think deters people from golfing?  The swimming pool in the basement is the final destination.  I hope to run in the forest (5 kms max) and use the hotel gym.  We’ll buy a bath bomb and frolic.  Fatma’s motivation:  The free cookie one receives upon checking in.  So no Hamsun, I’m currently reading:  The Book of Life.

10th

There’s just too much to do.  I’m in my basement and it feels like the only safe place I have, but that’s not entirely true, because I am ‘on the clock’ and at any time a Teams message could pop up demanding my urgent attention to one useless thing or another.  Once I hit the ‘appear offline’ button, there will be a few minutes to decompress, but then some kind of pressure starts building from above – literally I will hear the footsteps of Milo causing a raucous and my fatherly instincts will take me upstairs where I’ll have to one of two things:  chores or entertain Milo.  What I’d like to do is go running, stretch my back, read a book, smoke a cigarette, think.  It’s impossible.  The last few nights have taken a turn for the worse, culminating in some light substance abuse.  As the grocer’s conveyor belt moves forward I nonchalantly reach for the cooler next to it and grab a can of coke.  This happened four times last week.  I find I need to drink this to get ‘over the finish line’, as they say.  The relief it brings me is tantamount to, I dunno, I guess drugs.  For a good hour I’m on cloud nine – the chores get done, my body and mind reach a stasis, ‘the kids will be alright’.  Taking the coke straight is too much, so for further stimulation I couple it with something greasy and salty.  The latest find, from the same dealer, are frozen Surinam rotis that I roast on a pan, whose chewiness I enhance by adding some jong cheese to melt.   The chewy cheesy salty roti and the fizzy bubbly sweet cola bring up my spirits, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, I can conquer the world, for an hour, before the inevitable crash.  Goodness, it seems that that hour is upon us.  I’ll deal with the cavities, cancer, and mental health issues later.

11th

I couldn’t bring myself to take the train to Leusden this morning.  For one, I had a couple of hours of work to do, so I thought it rather pointless to spend 2 hours of my day travelling to just sit there in silence working.  The second was that it was cold.  My main motivation for going would’ve been some ruffling of the feathers in terms of ‘performance evaluation’, meaning there are a couple of these meetings in the not so distant future, and showing my face could be a good idea to prove my worth as a noble employee.  So far the organization and my boss have proven immune to this sort of bullshit – there is no such thing as goal setting and I don’t think there is a formalized evaluation where I can ‘exceed expectations’ followed by some generic comment that I assure you is done by Chat GPT by the middle management braintrust.  So, Thursday I’ll go.  At least then we’re having a presentation by the running team which might prove worthwhile.  It’s a rather ordinary day, and after putting in the requisite two hours of work, I quite frankly don’t feel like doing anything.  There’s a new Roth that has been borrowed, there are some administrative things to tend to, but by and large I just feel like doing nothing for a solid hour or two.  Which is an odd mood for me to be in, but quite frankly I just feel finally I have an iota of room to breathe, since Milo is at daycare and the work done to a reasonable degree, and I need to have this time to remember what it feels like to exist.  So pardon me, I’ll take my leave and stare blankly into space.

12th

Oh yes, the Ferrante hype machine is real.  As soon as the greasy HBO fingers latched on to it, there was no turning back.  You could probably go to a frat house in So-Cal, name drop My Brilliant Friend and have a discussion with a meathead while chugging Bud Light through a funnel. Some say she was slated to perform at the Superbowl half-time show.  It’s still good, and 75% of what makes it good is Naples.  Imagine it was Rome!

I see you’ve dipped your toes into some national fervour as well.  Right now there’s a huge campaign in Canada to ‘Buy Canadian’.  Nothing like a little trade war to kick start the local economy.  Still, I’m a sucker for that and if I was there I’d also do my part.  

One of the questions you asked, in what seems ages ago, was the Canadian immigration process, which we are currently amidst.  The amount of paperwork and bureaucracy is incomparable, it pales in comparison to any European red tape.  We’ve had to list any trips we’ve taken outside of our country of residence for the past 10 years.  The hardest part is obtaining police checks.  There are translations and notaries involved.  I’m visiting Facebook pages to get help navigating through all the forms.  It is simply mad.  I’ve repeated it several times; it’s as if we’re asking to go to a land with milk and honey, but in reality it is a place like America; you either swim or sink.  Swimming means sorting out your own shit, work like a motherfucker, bow to the gods of the capital market; any weakness and you’ll be sussed out and on the street sucking fentanyl from a disregarded Coke can.  Nevertheless, we continue on.  The fee to simply submit an immigration requests amounts to $1500 CAD.  Then we have to wait for god knows how long.  A year ago, I think it would’ve been quick, now however, with DEI out of fashion, it can take much longer.  Anywhere between 6-12 months.  Then you get an approval and need to do medical tests (you they’re going to take on any weak motherfuckers that can’t work?).  Then there’s an interview.  Then, and only, then, will we be allowed entry, straight to the bottom of societies ladder.  Property less, a meagre investment portfolio, car less, house less, and having to fork over 20 CAD for a dozen eggs.  The true north, strong and free, as the anthem goes.

Despite that, with the talk of the 51st state (politics, which alluding to your other post, I also ignore for the most part), I came across a Reddit post that asked what we do if USA invades.  The top comment with more than 1,000 likes, followed by several others was, ‘I will fight’.  Now I’m a pacifist and abhor all violence out of the ice hockey rink,  but this sentiment stirred me.  So moved I was, that I had to put down my phone and take a long walk.

13th +14th

Soon enough, at the customer service desk at the Central Library in Utrecht, when I approach the worker at the counter, they’ll point their finger at me and smilingly say “Let me guess, Roth?”  The copies I am after are stored away from the general collection – one must summon a library worker to climb a ladder in one of the reading rooms to collect the requested work.  I’m not quite sure what the criteria is to be stored in this ‘top-shelf’, like a fine bottle of bourbon.  More than likely it is the publication date, as I’ve been reading his books from the 70’s, so they’ve seen their heydey.  It’s not hard to imagine Milo approaching doing the same in forty years to ask for copies of My Struggle or the Neopolitan quartet, though I’d prefer him to read my own.

Yesterday while one minion collected ‘The Professor of Desire’ another book caught my eye.  They set up little islands with book themes, I think this one was woman power, and on a whim I picked up “The Politics of Passion”.  Passion.  Desire.  Valentine’s Day tomorrow after all.  A study of working class Creole women in Suriname, authored by a Utrecht University professor, after reading the first paragraph, I was convinced enough that the writing style – very classic and academic – could be a nice counterbalance to Roth’s agony.  

During university, we were required to choose a few elective courses.  Oftentimes one would choose on the basis of a mark, for example one would take Geography 101 (Rocks for Jocks) because it was so easy that you were almost guaranteed a 9 out of 10 to bolster your Grade Point Average.  A pretty good educational model, this North American one, if you ask me.  Anyways, during my four years, I twice chose Dr. Rodman’s anthropology courses as an elective.  He had done fieldwork in Vanuatu for decades and was an adopted member of the tribe.  Perhaps these courses were the only truly valuable pieces of education at my time in McMaster University.  The rest was spent memorizing formulas about how to price bonds; which I shortly forgot after the year end exam.  

The Politics of Passion, or the first chapter at least describes the fieldwork of the author during a couple of years in the 1990’s when she lived in Paramaribo, where she studied something called mati – which, after nearly finishing, I’m still not exactly sure what it is – but I guess I could best describe it as the exact opposite of the nuclear family model that is shoved down our throat from day one of our existence.  The author stays with Juliette, who has done ‘mati’ work; meaning has sexual freedom and takes on many woman lovers.  Meanwhile she also mothered nine children with three different men.  By the time the author visits Juliette, she is seventy years old.  The author herself is of Suriname origin but grew up in the Netherlands, a lesbian in Amsterdam against the living models of monogamy and possessiveness – so the ‘mati’ concept is not too radical of a concept for her (as opposed to me).  Eventually, despite their age difference (the author is 40 something), she becomes a ‘mati’ to Juliette and they have a relationship and there’s an interesting section on the ethics of the ethnographer.

Perhaps another reason that I picked up the book is because my former girlfriend was a member of this faculty, and for her, reading about ‘mati’ work in Suriname would be just as normal as me reading about why it is important to re-invest dividends from stocks.  I’m forever grateful for that relationship; for having my eyes opened, and for her parents – for without their encouragement I probably wouldn’t have read anything other than Dan Brown my whole life.  In the end, it was maybe our ideological clashes that defeated us.  

Maybe somewhere now she’s doing mati work or research, and here I am processing financial transactions.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

17th

Ikea.  Babycinno’s.  Playgrounds.  Houses made of Lego.  Monsters, everywhere.  

That was the weekend.  

And now, in the fifth hour of the most useless meeting/training imaginable, I am decompressing.  It’s a blessing, really.  I lay on my couch eating plantain chips while some guy went on and on about a vague theory of change that is straight out of an 1980’s deck (ok probably then it was still paper flip charts but the essence is the same).  I swept the balcony from the winter debris.  Artichokes, three of them, were baked in the oven.  Not quite the Roman artichokes that I’ve heard a lot about but never tried, but dipped in butter and as adventurous a lunch one can eat.  Yes, I can say that for me the weekend has begun.  The only skill I have to master is tuning out the guy while I read.  I’d say there is a 2% chance that I’m asked some kind of feedback or would miss something important.  No, risk taking is not my forte.  Right now there’s a break, so I’m writing this, but not fully up to the task either.  Decompressing.  There are some thoughts floating in my head, but divinity is telling me to do other things – in short, there is no desire to do anything requiring any focus – such was the strain and demands of my weekend – that I feel I owe myself the luxury to finish the bag of plantain chips.  Did I mention I was upside down on my couch when I was eating the first half?   Also, there’s a storm a’brewin.  Fatima feels the baby is coming early, so any day now the period of approximately two years of no sleep begins.  Honest question; to whom can I go to when it all gets too much?  The state?  The market?  Family?  The guy leading the training?  Because the fear is real.  

18th

Yes, I admittedly picked up on this weak point of the interview, this tosh about romanticism.  That blip aside, I thought it was a discussion, in the sense that Knausgard posed some questions back to the interviewer, which I haven’t seen before, not from him.  The parts about both their fathers were deep and challenging enough, for me at least.  Surely you could appreciate the discourse regarding writing as an act of self-destruction?  Which I thought the interviewer navigated well.  Or maybe overall I am so enthralled with Karl Ove that to hear him in the flesh is enough to pull the wool over my eyes in respect to the interview.  If I may add another critique, it did seem that she was bowing a little too low at Karl Ove’s altar, a little too smitten.  I believe the whole thing was done with some tongue in cheek, if you caught the accompanying video on Spotify, you’d see that Karl Ove lays down on a couch with a mic and camera hanging above him, this an obvious ode to Sigmund, the interviewer’s great grandfather.  Which I suspect is also why Karl Ove agreed to talk about fashion.

There’s no way I could put it as succinctly as Nick, and please don’t take it as a cop out when I tell you that what I wanted to say was along the same lines;  which is that we are all monsters, every last one of us; so we must allow some room for this.  Apparently Mason Greenwood is a good footballer.  Also without a doubt someone that beats the shit out of women.  Should he be allowed to play football again?  Roth, who I am currently enthralled with (sorry KOK) by all accounts, seems to have beaten the shit out of his wife.  Nevertheless, surely, there has to be ‘a limit’?  Wife beating at the edge?  Who’s to judge?

20th

It’s been a difficult week.  I have worked, far, far more than I comfortable with.  Well below what is in my contract – Wednesday was largely spent attending to tantrums – but still enough to feel that work, grunt work occupies most of my time and energy.  The little snippets of things I want to do leave me unsatisfied.  When will I start living the way I want to live?  I feel it’s coming sooner rather than later.  I feel a monumental shift on the horizon.  Where life is cheap but fulfilling.  Don’t ask me for the blueprint.  This is purely vibes.  The metaverse.  The zodiac signs and tea leaves.  

Partially to blame is the lingering due date.  I wanted to leave on good terms, having sufficiently dug enough salt from the mine, as a good comrade does.  Shareholders, I will not fail you!  I’ll gladly sacrifice my family time and my own personal development, to protect your bottom line.  I wish you good hookers and all the luxury goods your heart desires.  

Seven nespresso’s and two full sized snickers put me over the edge today.  I’ve felt like shit all evening, managed a paltry thirty minute trumpet session, a few pages of Roth, and now this.  

Mmm.  Ok let’s put it this way.  Take the quality of this little post as your sample.  Shit, awful, the dredges of my energy.  Now apply it to everything else I want to do to my life.  Is there any wonder why I’ve turned to sugar to keep the demons out?

In twenty minutes it’ll be midnight.  I’ll expire then and Milo will be up at 6 am or 7 am if I say hail mary fifty times while holding a rosary.  Then more mails, more postings, more misery.

21st

“My, how easy life is when it’s easy, and how hard when it’s hard”.  Philip Roth, The Professor of Desire.

Amen, sir.  Why can’t there be a middle ground?  Why do the latter outnumber the former, not by a margin, but by the distance to the moon.  The retort I like to ‘first world problems’ is that, I live the first world, buddy.  It’s the tiredness that does it.  That is what makes doing everything, in every waking second hard.  A shadow is cast on every endeavour, and you can multiply that by two, if the endeavour isn’t a picnic, say, posting an invoice in SAP or attending the third meeting of the day where my only contribution is hi and bye.  There’s no escape either.  It’s going to get worse, too.  Will social services come help me with my parental burnout, or must I live like this for the next decade?  Another solution is to stop doing everything and go to sleep at 8 pm so that the 6 pm wake up siren is less harsh.  But then I’m not really living, am I?

Eyes are closing.  We’ve run out of coffee and I’m awaiting some inventory straight from the source – Fatima’s mom is bringing me some Peruvian brew.  Thankfully I don’t have to write on the weekend because this will get ugly.  It’s 18 degrees outside, and rather quiet in the library.  I’ve no energy to go outside again.  I just want to sleep.  I will pay for your ticket over here if you take Milo for two days and let me sleep.   

Had I the energy, I’d write to you about Canada vs USA ice hockey tilt where we scored in overtime to beat the Yanks.  Even though political tensions are high, it still doesn’t top the 2010 Vancouver Olympics when Jarome Iginla responded to the cry of “Iggy!”  to a streaking Sid the Kid Crosby down the center of the ice, who received the pass and within an instant beat Ryan Miller with a low shot.  This was perhaps the peak of my homesickness and when I was still a fervent ice hockey fan.  You have to understand how magical that was.  On home ice, against the USA, a young but already bonafide superstar in Crosby cementing his hero status.  He was still on the ice in last night’s game captaining Canada.  This is the equivalent of “Frankie De Jong”(?) scoring in extra time against the Germans in the final of the World Cup against the Germans.  

 Man I’ve literally fell asleep at the library.  This close to being asked to go sleep outside by the library like the bum I am.

24th

Coffee inspired post.  I’ve just dropped off Milo at his gastouder.  He was fine on the bike ride there but once inside, he was overcome with sadness at the thought of me leaving.  As he bawled relentlessly, I was this close to spending the day at the gastouder myself.  I could use some nurturing myself, as we all know, so this wasn’t the worst idea.  

Fatima has always dropped him off, so I’ve only experienced the joy of picking him up.  So it is perhaps for this reason I decided to go to a nearby cafe, a minute’s cycle from the gastouder on Amsterdamstraatsweg, should he truly be unconsolable I’ll go back and get him.  

Amsterdamstraatsweg is undergoing reconstruction; the street has been torn apart for what feels like a year.  So it’s a pity that I’m the only seated guest at Sultan baklava cafe, and I’d like to think once the street is back in business, so will the traffic inside the cafe.  On the other hand, it is a gray Monday morning.    I must have been here before at some point – any storefront with endless piles of baklava cannot be bypassed, but it’s the first time I’ve sat inside.  

One might be put off by the four TV screens on one wall boasting four faux fireplaces, but this would be a mistake.  I find it rather cozy inside, the craftsmanship of the tables and booths, like the one I’m sitting at are excellent.  The main dining area mixes modernity with tradition.  I’m certain it was a Turkish carpenter who came and built the walls on the streetfront corner.  They’re some kind of wave pattern, rising planks resembling an organ – a design that wouldn’t look out of place in some rich Scandinavian concert hall.  The music, also Turkish, is a little too loud to make it a true WFH destination, though now I’m wondering if I relocated to the wooden wall corner, they ingeniously sound- engineered it so you could sit there in silence.  

To add to the current challenges of my life, I’m attempting to only eat between 12 pm – 8 pm.  This makes all the baklava superfluous – for now, if I can camp out here for another 2 hours and 15 minutes I’ll turn those mountains into rubble.  

So for now I tell the waitress that all I’d like would be a Turkse coffee.  Taking my seat and setting up shop (plugging in the laptop, taking out my ultra-ergonomic mouse, and Roth’s The Professor of Desire), I’m quickly brought over my order, and it’s a delight.  The coffee is served on a silver platter and contains three items.  The first to catch my eye is a small vessel of water; meant to counterbalance the intensity of the coffee, the sprig of mint floating in it is a real nice touch – something I haven’t seen before in all my coffees, and there have been many.  The second is a miniature silver dome – I’m not sure what the name of it is – if one would see it they would upon lifting the lid expect to see a whole pig with an apple in its mouth.  It is a cookie, however.  Lastly, the demitasse containing the coffee is also in a silver domed container.  Lifting it, all I see is a deep black – black as the soul of a life-long salary man whose been on the road to nowhere for his entire journey.  My only complaint is that it’s over all too quickly, and before I know it I’m at the grounds, the hallmark of the Turkish coffee experience.

Alas, play time is nearly over.  I’ll switch over to a few pages of Roth, before numbing myself with SAP.  I’m thinking of ordering another Turkish coffee – though I’m sufficiently lubricated with caffeine – I want to experience the silver platter being brought over again, as if I’m some kind of Sultan and not a pitiful office worker.   

28th

And all of a sudden it is the eve of March.  Three grueling days of SAP training in Leusden – you want to talk about being in the trenches – and now on Friday I have perhaps two hours to mix work, errands and administrative matters before a weekend full on with a two and half year old that has realized a wailing siren cry causes his parents to teeter on acquiescence to anything, or gauging our eyes out, much to his amusement.  Then if I look to the sky, in the not so far distance there is a stork flying around set to drop another bomb.  Feels like I’m knockin on heaven’s door!

I’m not sure if I can write in March.  I suppose I will try to give you updates on the state of my mental health – if the posts get too out of hand I will provide you with my mother as my emergency contact.  Rest assured that they won’t be interesting, unless you are like Milo and take an interest in my suffering.  

Yes, I had eagerly logged in to read about your Ferrante analysis, all good though, the Matterhorn and interview critique was interesting enough to tide me over.  As I already mentioned, I’ll be with Hellas Verona for quite some time it seems, given the circumstances, and I like it enough.  We are on matchday two after drawing 1-1 with Bari in the away opener, so a lot more to go.   Mixed with some essays about Naples, it should provide enough fuel for the Italian fantasy fire.

This is all I have.  I’m signing off for now.  There are still several questions about Canada that I’ve left unanswered.  I will try.  Please continue to write here or Whatsapp and excuse any silence on my part.  Ferrante, Knausgaard – I am curious.

Arrivaderci. Forza Verona.