As for this project of losing weight by writing about it on the blog, you’ll understand that, hell, I’ve failed spectacularly. Despite Manuel’s friendly prodding, I gave up a good while ago. Coming back from Brussels, along with good beer and good chocolate, I’ll also be bringing home a generous package of good intentions as a souvenir.
It means knowing every time we leave that the passport we’re holding is a political object that represents rights and privileges together, that a return ticket isn’t just a piece of our logistical organization, but – as we were saying before – what’s missing for migrant people in how they manage their idea of time, that is, the promise that a decision we’re making is reversible, that we can change our mind, that we can go back, that we can break a continuity, that we can leave a place we don’t like.
At the beginning of July, my daughter tripped while playing basketball. It seemed like a simple sprain, but it turned out to be a hairline fracture of the fifth metatarsal. Brace and rest. Two weeks later, we were supposed to leave for the seaside.
I’m writing much less because I’m thinking, much less. I’m thinking much less about what I watch, what I read, what I use or what I eat, what I do and who I am. It’s a period, it must be summer, it’s a period in which I watch, read, use, eat, do and am, and that’s it. Nothing more. There’s no lightheartedness, only commitments and unexpected events, with unexpected events that quickly turn into commitments. Not even on vacation, damn it, we managed to spend a few days relaxing. Never mind, it’s a wheel. And even a wheel that’s followed a caravan of horse-drawn carriages, sooner or later, gets clean by walking. And so we walk.
We repainted the entire house. All of it. I spent two months boxing up books, paintings, toys, digital devices, more books, and candles and mugs and pen holders and desk photographs and dozens of miscellaneous knick-knacks, and glasses and goblets and bottles of wine and liquor, and documents, various speakers and lamps, only to spend two weeks with the house in disarray and me working in the dust and catching first allergic rhinitis and then tracheitis. Finally, now that they’re finished and the house is starting to feel like a home again, I can finally say I’ll never do it again. Ever. You’d better sell the house, if I have to think about it again in a thousand years. That’ll be the right time.
For almost six years on my desk, in addition to the monitors and the current Mac, a mechanical keyboard IQUNIX F96 Coral Sea – now out of production, this one – has stood stable and proud.
A dear friend of mine is no longer working. She was laid off last May 2025 and hasn’t been able to find a new job for a year. A whole year without work. She was a copywriter. Today, her job is done by an LLM. Bad, but sufficient for the vast majority of clients of mediocre communications agencies in Italy.
I read Kevin Wammer’s latest post with interest: he switched to Android a few months ago with a Pixel 10 and talks about all the apps he’s installed – replacing some he used on iOS – and how he’s using them in his new ecosystem.