When English isn't expressive enough......

Jovanotti ha scritto proprio una bella canzone... più che altro ha scritto delle belle parole.

Non so perchè tutto sia difficile... ma so che lo è sempre stato. E più che il tempo passa e più che le cose diventano difficili. Non so cosa succederà in futuro. Nessuno può saperlo. Ma so che ho anche vissuto delle cose meravigliose che nessuno potrà mai rubarmi.

Everyone's Muse

Writers, performers, artists, dreamers.....we each draw inspiration from somewhere. Couched in poetry, music, or neoclassic snapshots, we are each trying to say what our mouths often cannot express so eloquently, wrapping our feelings in brightly colored ribbons, monochrome steel boxes, or rainbow colored humor.

People ask me "Is this based on someone you know?" and I answer glibbly "Yes, vaguely, it's based upon a friend I knew when I lived in Zanzibar", politely sidestepping further probes about my black sheep past. Soon enough they will move on to mind-numbing boring talks about how turquoise the water is in East African archipelagos and the true protagonist of my words remains my secret.

It doesn't bother us when our acquaintances are fooled. Sometimes we prefer their naiveté. It keeps us from having to spill the skeletons from our protective closets exposing our naked muses for prying eyes to see.

But when we share something we have created with a loved one, and they fail to recognize themselves in our painful shyness, when we can only speak obliquely, the wounds of their oversight are crushing on the soul. It is as if their blindness has the ability to makes razor thin cuts over and over again, crosshatched up and down upon our psyche. Looking into their eyes, we search, furtively, hungrily, then angrily, desperately, for some small acknowledgment, a glimmer of insight, that gives us hope, and helps us to believe that they really do understand and perhaps love us enough to see through our fictional characters.

Until we finally give up and stop trying.

Our truest friends will read our words, hear our music, or watch our movies, played out like a passion play, and know instantly that there is something more here than just pretty thoughts strung together like colorful pearls.

They are the ones who cry with us, wrapping us in their warming coats when we mistakenly seek acceptance in sugar cubed glasses of peridot colored absinthe. Sometimes they just listen, patiently on cell phones while standing on noisy streets or quietly as the sun comes up, half the world and an ocean away.

I often wonder why it is that that so few can hear what isn't said, see what isn't shown, read between unwritten lines. What gift do they possess that allows them to sense in us something familiar, touching it, finding it beautiful, no matter how vulnerable, no matter how scarred, no matter how naked a soul can be.

E non riuscire ad incontrarsi in mezzo,
e l’orgoglio ci impedisce di
uscire allo scoperto.

Quanto è più facile dare la colpa a te,
perché non sopporto il peso di
guardare quel che c’è

dentro me….

E non potere ritornare indietro,
quanto è alto da pagare il prezzo
per quello che abbiam detto

Far finta sempre che niente sia successo,
ma la volta dopo è sempre peggio
e non troviamo il verso..

Fai un passo anche tu
ed io 1 in più.
Non importa chi ha ragione sai,
non stiamo bene mai.
Fai un passo anche tu
ed io 1 in più.
Non rimane troppo tempo ormai
e il male, gratis, non guarisce mai.

Rabbia e rancore non sono parole,
fucili spianati,
trincea di dolore.

E come l’acqua va via fra le dita,
in un batter d’occhio,
la vita è fuggita.

Fai un passo anche tu
ed io 1 in più.
Non importa chi ha ragione sai,
non stiamo bene mai.
Fai un passo anche tu
ed io 1 in più.
Non rimane troppo tempo ormai
e il male, gratis, non guarisce mai.

Wine and well...more wine.

OK many people have commented on why I haven't blogged in a dogs age but the fact of the matter is Life interrupted. First surgery, with nasty overtones of pending doom which thankfully have turned out to be less dire and then a boo koo of writing work and personal angst that has kept my creative pen less than dry.

To change that I am adding two links. One, to my most recent wine article, which aside from some HTML problems...I like a lot.

A Multitude of Zins

The second is to toot the horn of a fellow wine aficionado and colleague Gary Vaynerchuk. Gary tilts at the wine world's windmills reminding folks that wine is about taste and not about pretentiousness. His motto is “You, with a little bit of me… we’re changing the wine world.”

If you haven't seen him setting the wine world on end, take a look. He tapes almost daily and aside from actually being reachable by e-mail, he's bound to make you smile. I like his style because like me, he reminds you that drinking wine is about enjoying yourself, not about being pretentious.

The Perils of Policlinico

To update everyone on the medical hamster wheel I have been running on I just woke up from a much needed 10 hours sleep recovering from my most recent trials and tribulations at Umberto Uno - Rome's largest hospital complex..

To give you an idea of the daunting task and maybe why I am so overwhelmed by this whole being sick/maybe having cancer in Italy thing, I have included a map of the buildings as I am not sure if anyone, even Romans, unless they are sick or work in the medical industry, realize just how fucking big this place really is or that they have separate palazzi for each medical area, ophthalmology gynecology, cardiology etc etc.

My day was supposed to begin by meeting Angelo at the subway stop and then proceeding to the OB/GYN hospital (building 35). Angelo is one of my best friends and it seems that one of his suitors in the head OB/GYN night nurse supervisor and he is going to try and get me fast tracked through some of these tests. Arriving at the metro on schedule, Angelo calls to tell me he is blocked with his car in traffic and to go on in to the campus by myself and see if I can find my way....he will be there as soon as he can, as he is ditching his car as it is totally useless and taking the underground too. He doesn't want me to wait on him as the doctor his friend has scheduled me to see, Dr. Pecorini (don't know if I should trust a doctor named little sheep) has agreed to squeeze me in before for his medical school teaching rounds and his full surgery rotation as he is going on holiday starting today. That said, he wanted me to be there no later than 8:30 and we want to be on time as Angelo has arranged this through his friends. Looking at my watch, I see I have 40 minutes so I think surely....

I then proceed to wander around the complex for 20 minutes because as nice as the attached little map is, it isn't permanently embossed inside my head and there are only about 4 of these posted in the entire medical campus and no staff at any of the four information booths I passed. I begin asking people standing outside buildings with IV bottles and cigarettes dangling from their arms and they keep telling me " piu in fondo" and waving me forward.

I arrive to the OB/GYN building at 8:10 and see that the main entrance hall that says something to the effect of babies and delivery, and information about student residents and where they are supposed to report. The one sign I find about doctors offices says outpatient ambulatory around back. So I exit the building, follow the signs and sure enough, oh happy day, see a sign pointing towards the basement that says OB/GYN Outpatient. At this point i "Vai piu in fondo", taking the steps indicated, and find myself in a scruffy little used alley complete with 10 year old plastic coke bottles and a door leading to the hydro plant. Apparently this disintegrating portion of the hospital WAS outpatient ,......50 years ago. It now serves as a garden shed.

Retracing my steps, I have 10 minutes here, and am starting to get antsy. I go in the main entrance, ask 11 people where is the offices of Dottore Picorini and am told "vai su" to the 1st floor Room 4, I go there and am told "via sopra e in fondo" to Piano Terra, Room 3, I retrace my steps there and am told by a nurse drinking coffee (I am fasting...) he is not here today. Frustrated more by the smell of coffee beans, than by my first round of circle jerks, I call Angelo who has just popped out of the metro and is running the 6 blocks to get to the hospital and he insists that Dottore Picorini is expecting me, not for regular appointments and that I should tell the coffee drinking nurse this as perhaps he is in another location of the hospital.

Going back, she tells me " guarda piu in fondo" but doesn't exactly tell me where in the fondo he is or what in the fondo he looks like. I proceed up the hallway to where she is vaguely waving me, and stumble across what I think is the ultrasound and X ray area (yeah your reading correctly NOTHING IS MARKED!!!!!!!!!!) and see everyone and his brother waiting but am at a loss as to what to do next.

About this point it is 8:25 and Angelo arrives, and we both walk back to the not so helpful nurse to see if I am actually waiting in the correct area and what the doctor looks like. She tells him we should go to another area (not where she told me) and ask at the obstetric wing. Racing up another set of stairs we arrive, door closed and locked and after buzzing and pounding we are told he left 5 minutes earlier for emergency surgery, but we can go.....guess where......"piu in fondo" and perhaps catch him when he comes out.

So we sit for the next hour, doctors and expectant fathers waiting and see no one. At 9:15 Angelo needs to leave for work, and thinks that it is hopeless for me to wait for a doctor I do not recognize who already said he could only see me before his rounds began. He suggests we run to his office on the far side of this complex a (He works for the university La Sapienza) and he will call his friend Sergio, who made the appointment and perhaps I can come back late this evening.

20 minutes later we are in the center of an equally large labyrinth of university buildings, where Angelo speaks to Sergio who wants to know why we left, the doctor can still see me. Afraid I wont be able to manage on my own, as I am already looking quite tired, Angelo leaves his office and returns with me to the same place we were before and we sit panting like tired dogs having crossed the equivalent of 5 football fields, where we wait until 10:30 while Sergio calls the head nurse, who talks to the doctor, who talks to the nurse, who talks to Angelo, who talks to me, who says hopefully not much longer. An hour later, the doctor arrives and Angelo has to leave (he is already waaaaaay late for work and he hands me off thinking we are at the end of my misadventures).

I go in and speak with the doctor who wants to do another specialized ultrasound, wants repeat blood work because my color looks bad (probably for running) and he is concerned about platelets and WBC and a few more really scary things. They take me to an ultrasound room where he and the tech stand there (no pretty curtains , no paper gowns, no female nurses guarding you with modest concern) and tell me get up on the table they are going to "Fare una visita" ! eheheheheheh... I'm not really sure if he is going to be having tea and crumpets with me or do a pelvic exam, so totally red faced and still trying to understand words like stirrups, speculum, and KY Jelly in Italian, I drop my knickers in front of god and everyone and pray i don't die of embarrassment or bleed on anybody.

Test shows same results as previous, enlarged masses on my ovaries and perhaps, though he isn't certain a myoma....so guess what, they want a second endoscope! They also want to do an EKG and full cardio and of all sorts of crazy hairball things including a pregnancy test! I have been bleeding off and on since April, have had no sexual partners (aforementioned putting a damper on that) and have already fielded 2 ultrasounds and an endoscope last week. Who do they think I am the fucking Virgin Mary?

Anyways, I pull my clothes back on, and the doctor hurriedly writes three new prescriptions for blood work, Cardio and Endo and then rushes off as his day is a disaster after the emergency in the morning and squeezing me in. Cost of visit € 0.00 , thank you Sergio. I then head downstairs to try and make the appointments alone, again vexed by the lack of signage and the "piu in fondo" which I am beginning to realize doesn't really mean father ahead, but go to hell, I don't want to be bothered with your silly questions about where things are.

After going from second floor, to the first floor I am told the doctor cannot write the prescriptions using the forms he has (they are not the official national Health Care bar-coded pay the hospital ones) ......as I think he was still trying to do these further tests as a friend (i.e., no charge) but I have no way of proving that and of course that would be DEFRAUDING the system.

I go back upstairs, get the official forms (thankfully because if I couldn't have gotten them from him, I would have had to trek across town to my ASL doctor and then bring them back. I am told where to pay (just closed) and where to make the appointment for the endoscope (3 weeks hence). They tell me I need to have the blood work and pregnancy test first, and also the cardio. I then spend another half hour looking for the CA125 lab (closed on Thursdays) and then exit the Obstetrics hospital to find the Cardiology building (Number 7).

Racing there as fast as I can because it is almost lunch time. Again same thing, no maps, no signage just a piece of paper that says building 7 but all the maps say building 7 is plastic surgery, not cardiology. I walk the length of the complex and arrive to Cardiology /Cosmetics, whew it is there, 5 minutes after they close for the day (Labs done only in the morning) and today what the hell, I guess they wanted to go have a coffee!

About now, I start to lose it......find a tree in the shade, sit down and have a good cry out in the parking lot by the motorini. I am tired, I still have another 6 hours worth of tests to do at this godforsaken place that mean I must run around here, there and everywhere and none of them can be done today... two friends call out of the blue and I cry even harder and click cancel, too overwhelmed to talk. A full twenty minutes later, sniffling, I call Angelo and he comes and takes me to lunch, calming me down by the sheer fact that all this doesn't seem at all strange to him. He tells me he will call Sergio and see if I can come in to the obstetric department Thursday or Saturday morning early and do all these tests as originally planned (free) or if not, I start again next Monday at daylight.

We eat, he walks me to the metro (our fifth walk across the complex for the day), I buy a new pair of shoes because my feet now have blisters from running in my sandals and come home and stare at a book by Italo Calvino all evening instead of writing because I am too zonked to be creative.

Well at least its free.

Leaving Behind Something Good

While I am sitting here, in the cozy comfort of my Rome apartment, complaining for weeks about the horrors of writing about which shoes are must-have's for this years fashionistas, and what color is the THE NEW BLACK, other journalists are out there doing more.

Reporters Without Borders writes on what many of them are doing, the risks they take, their persecution as well as a cold reality tally of those who give everything, even their lives.

To date, in 2007, 75 journalists have been killed in the line of performing their duty, 43 of those in Iraq. Yesterday that number increased again, bringing the number to 76.

Salih Saif Aldin, a reporter for The Washington Post, originally from Tikrit, died while taking photographs in the volatile south-western Baghdad neighborhood of Sadiyah while covering the ongoing conflict in a section of the city plagued by violence.

Shot at close range, Saif Aiden was the 118th journalist killed since the start of the war, 100 of whom are Iraqi nationals trying to get the word out about what is happening in their war-torn beleaguered country.

In my line of journalism, the worst I have to worry about is a corked bottle of wine or being snubbed by a haughty fashion atelier. “Getting the word out” for me means writing a travel guide with the hot shopping spots or making a wine recommendation. It doesn’t mean that my son or daughter loses a parent.

Saif, a determined risk taker, is quoted to have said 'What's life, really, if we don't leave something good behind us?'

Maybe that good is his six year old daughter.
Maybe that good is his reminder to all of us writers that there are more important things to be complaining about than word count rates, slow paying invoices, or boring assignments.
Maybe that good, is that I feel sad. Sad because before I could even finish writing this blog post and verifying facts, that number increased yet again.

Salih Saif Aldin was 32 years old.

The second victim is said to have worked for the newspaper Salahaddin. His name hasn’t been released yet.

Update....
17 October 2007
Number 77

The second journalist mentioned in this blog post was Eyad Tariq Al-Takriti, an editor of al-Watan, a weekly newspaper in Tikrit. Eyad was killed along with two security guards for his news organization after dropping off a colleague at the airport.

When a House can be a home

Home = The place where a person lives and where one's domestic affections are centered.
House = A building where people live.

Italian isn't specific enough to make the distinction between house and home and even English, though it tries and has 10-20 diverse definitions (try explaining the verb form sometime to an Italian), English speakers still tend to lump the words into two primary catagories.....often, to explicitly emphasize the presence of the former, when you have only had the latter.

This is a good thing in the sense that it is a way for the spirit to recognize when you've found that special place. But coming from an quirky background like I have, where I have moved around a lot (I stopped counting after my 20th) I have come to realize that for me....a home is also a place of refuge, a place where the heart can rest or restore itself, retreat to when necessary, and sometimes grow in ways that it doesn't realize. I have been lucky in that for all the hardship involved in packing up again and again, and never seemingly having permanent roots to any one place, I HAVE found this other definition many times in my life, and in several places. Places where I could lay my head and close my eyes and feel at least that I had a sense of comfort there, even if not ownership or autonomy or even, ahhh the magic crux for us all humans control.

Maybe this is why (for me) where I live is less intrinsically tied to how and why I got there and more intertwined with what I live while I am there.

For me that means my little street in the SVBVRA is home, for now anyway, maybe not for a lifetime, but for now my itchy feet feel comfortable in my Roman shoes.

C'è una strega dentro l'anima

Letting go of someone you love is never easy.....for some it takes a month, for others years, and then for those really special ones, even a lifetime isn’t ever enough.

With loves that deep, the wounds their loss inflict go deep, cleanly slicing through your best laid defenses, and forever leaving shrapnel scattered about the recesses of your soul.

Sometimes the pain is merely dull, a thudding managed easily enough with a glass of wine or laughter and vervé, maybe perhaps a walk in upon a sunlit boulevard crunching first autumn leaves gently underfoot.

Other times, though, the scab seems securely in place, the wound healing to outside eyes, yet an abscess simmers, feeding upon the very tissue of your spirit. You are never sure when it will spill over to your day to day leaving you quiet and introspective, and quite a few times impenetrable, even to your closest of confidants.

“Tell me about you” you deflect, hand tenderly covering soul as you mop up your leaking heart discreetly with a silken scarf.

You are good at helping others, occupying yourself and them, with your caring. And others neediness usually takes front row quickly enough to allow you the privacy to tend your wounds as you see fit, even if not without notice.

Those closest to you know, and care enough for you to allow you your diversions or silence, so as not to disturb, to push, or better yet, to remind. They want you to dress your wounds as you see fit, and even though they know full well your pain, they are there and ready to help you into your armour, silently respecting your strategy to battle your own ghosts in the way you see fit.

If you look around, you will see there are others that are standing at your flank to help you, and though you hope never to call on them, you are comforted by their presence.

Just in case.


C'è una strega dentro l'anima
Che mi porta dritto a te
La sua magia e la sua pratica
fanno di me
Una preda da stanare
Senza scampo e si va bene
Non sarà la fine del mondo
se ho toccato il fondo
I need a new direction
I need a new direction
C'è una strega dentro l'anima
Che ogni giorno mangia un po di me
Ed è fuori da ogni logica
ma forse c'è
Un messaggio da capire,
c'è una pista da seguire
Noi facciamo tutti parte
della stessa sorte
I need a new direction
I need a new direction
E' tempo di cambiare
di non lasciarsi andare
Di vivere la vita così
Come un angelo o un assassino
Ognuno nel suo passato
Ognuno col suo destino
C'è una strega dentro l'anima
Che ogni notte mi parla di te
Nel suo libro c'è
una formula per me
Che ho bisogno del tuo amore
Ho bisogno di star bene
Io non voglio indifferenza
Voglio più coscienza
I need a new direction
I need a new direction
E' tempo di cambiare
di non lasciarsi andare
Di vivere la vita così
Come un angelo o un assassino
Ognuno nel suo mondo
E' tempo di cambiare
di non lasciarsi andare
Di vivere la vita così
Come un angelo o un assassino
Ognuno nel suo passato
Ognuno col suo destino

Curious minds want to know

Yeah, yeah yeah, I know I haven't been writing much of anything here in these days....but whilst running away from the Hare Kirshnas, who had just bumped into that rabbi dude who is always conferring with my therapist, who said a hypnotist he knew thought a life coach would be right for me I suddenly found out that I could possibly have the big C word.

And with this panic inducing "oh! shit!" fear I can't even begin to think clear enough to listen to the goodly advice proffered by said stellar life coach Curt. How am I going to straighten out the life that is my mess when said life could be rudely interrupted or at least significantly altered.

And how can I do much of anything at all when 90 percent of my time is spent racing around getting every medical test known to man, (sometimes two or three times each) at two or three different places?

Maybe I should give the idea of coaching up for a little while and spend my remaining days working at a bordello (how else am I going to pay rent next month on top of all these bills).

I think I can learn everything I need to know about life in a house of ill repute. Where else can I spit on such repressed puritanical life threatening fears the medical ninnies have "stai tranquillo'd" into my brain and solve complex mathematical puzzles if not in the presence of all those dirty, half naked, coworkers speaking in fake accents? (French of course)?

Blue, I think I will paint the ceiling blue....

ps...there are not enough batteries in the world to explore the inner recesses of my currently confused mind...