.: so comes snow after fire :.

The reason for my absence from these shores for the past few days is that winter in Piedmont arrived all in one day, and the temperatures dropped 17 degrees overnight, so obviously on the morning I had to take the train back home I woke up with an awful cold and a terrible case of wryneck. Couldn't breathe, couldn't turn my head, it sucked. I spent the last three days eating soup while wrapped in three blankets in my favourite armchair, full of paracetamol and using my cat as a hot water bottle.

Today I feel a lot better. My neck doesn't hurt anymore, which I celebrated with an impromptu dance party in the kitchen this morning. Sakura joined in enthusiastically, and now I have a feeling she's going to sleep from exhaustion for the next three days. She's not a kitten anymore. :D The cold is almost gone too, and I can even smell things again. More or less. On friday I called everyone and moved all my appointments to next week so that I could take the weekend off to get back on my feet. It's been raining and pouring and there's even been acqua alta downtown, so I chose the right weekend to spend in bed, no kidding.

First of all, a big hug to all of you always leaving me wonderful messages! You make me feel all warm and fuzzy and loved, you're the best!

Health update, the side effects are basically over, although I still get tired easily, as the meds will still be in my system for another week. Yesterday, for the first time since this all started, I went shopping on my own. First I went to the hospital to change the bandages on the cvc, then I went to the pharmacy, then to the farmers' market. It was a lovely sunny day, the air was crisp and cold, and I did it all by myself. It felt amazing! I'm slowly winning my old life back, one step at a time. \o/

I also bought a train ticket for the 12th, when I'm going back home for a week. I'm so excited! This time there won't be no side effects slowing me down, I'll even be able to go downtown to the Lush store, and the Disney store, I can't wait!

And now, as promised, fandom news! A couple of weeks ago they released Kingdom Hearts Unchained Chi in North America. I downloaded the apk, and I've been happily playing it ever since. I set up a party, and having so much fun! The only downside is, it consumes battery life like there's no tomorrow, so I always try to play connected to a power outlet.

Last November I started watching Rick and Morty. I stopped after three episodes, not really feeling it. Then recently I read both the creators of Steven Universe and Gravity Falls praising it on twitter, so I decided to give it another go. And I loved it. As it turns out, I just had to wait until the Meeseeks and Destroy episode. I loved how they explore sci-fi concepts, like multiple universes and hive minds, in a new and unique way. And I love, LOVE the fact that it's set in a universe with no god. As an atheist, I really wish there were more shows exploring the universe as ruled by chaos, instead of always having some fate/religion/destiny plot. It's refreshing.

I also watched all the Erased anime. It's one of the best series I've ever seen. And so devastating. I cried once an episode, no kidding. And I loved it to pieces.

I promise I'll try writing more frequently now that I'm feeling better. ♥

I'm writing this entry on my cellphone. I've been in hospital for the last ten days: I had a pretty serious case of pleurisy that still hasn't resolved, I'm doing antibiotics and all sorts of tests, and soon breast surgery. Next week I'll know more: if it's serious or not. I'm doing my best, making friends with the other patients, eating and resting. Can't wait to be out of here.

Posted via m.livejournal.com.

Lots of things happened last week. Mainly, I had a very important medical exam, where at first they told me the situation had gotten worse, and then they told me nope, it was all as before. Cue panic attack, visions of my own mortality, and then murder plans. Thankfully I had therapy right after, and I felt a lot better after that, but still. Some doctors aren't just meant to interact with human beings at all.

Speaking of therapy, my therapist asked me if she could write about my case, keeping it anonymous, for a medical study. My first reaction was to feel very flattered. As in, my problems are worth studying, that makes me feel important! It's dumb, but sometimes that's the way my brain goes. :D



For the "A Book Outside Your Comfort Zone" square, I read Joyce Carol Oates' 1992 novel Black Water.

I went with that square because while stream-of-consciousness novels aren't outside my comfort zone per se (that would be biographies, my least favourite genre), this particular one hit all my triggers. I still went with the "I liked it" stamp, because it is beautifully written, but I wouldn't have read it if I had known more about it beforehand. It is a fictional retelling of the Chappaquiddick incident, so for those who already know about that, that's basically it.

One night at a party, a young woman meets a Senator she's always admired, and after some flirting they decide to leave the party together. Some reckless driving on his part gets them into an accident, and the car ends up in the water. He manages to escape, while the woman is stuck inside, with the water slowly filling the habitacle. Terrified and in pain, she thinks about her life, how she met the Senator, and about the pain and terror she's in, and her faith that he'll come back to save her. Her thoughts get more and more splintered and chaotic the longer she's stuck in there, with the black water slowly drowing her.

In a word, it's brutal. It's powerfully written, a fascinating insight on that period, but holy shit, it's not for the faint of heart. It gets more and more realistic and disturbing the longer she's stuck there, and quite frankly I don't feel like recommending it to anyone. Hey, you're my friend and I love you, read this traumatic novel and have nightmares about it! You're welcome!

In other news, I finally watched Interstellar, and I loved it! I know, I'm incredibly late to the party. :D But hey, what a fantastic movie! The science was so accurate for a sci-fi movie, the acting was great, and Nolan finally abandoned his trite depictions of female characters, and went in a completely new (for him) and wonderful direction! Could have used more diversity, but other than that it was a truly wonderful movie. ^^

I also watched the Shaun The Sheep movie, after a friend of mine, who has a little niece, recommended it to me, saying it was fun for all ages. She was right! It was cute and funny, and the choice to have it basically silent was a lovely touch. I must check out the tv series now! *____*

It seems the days of hellish heat and obligatory air conditioner have taken their toll on my body. I have a simple cough, but even with the aerosol therapy it's proving hard to get rid of. I only use the dehumidifier mode on the air conditioning unit, but even so I guess I couldn't escape the obligatory summer cold. At first my chest hurt when I coughed, but after two aerosol sessions the pain stopped, and only the cough remained. It's more annoying than anything else.

Yesterday we had a storm around midnight: it didn't lower the temperatures, but it cleaned the air and at least the ozone levels are back to normal. We've been on high alert for three days, and the air tasted chemical, it was awful. So at least today it's back to normal, sweaty heat, nothing poisonous to it. I just finished washing the floors and doing the laundry, it's nice to be able to keep the windows open for more than a couple of minutes at a time, and the house smells nice and clean. ^^



On fandom news, I finally finished the game Transistor. I first bought it on the PS4 last year, did the tutorial and then forgot about it. I started playing it again last week, and quickly finished it a few days later. It's not a long game, but it's very beautiful, and one that deserves a second playthrough.



The main character is Red, a singer who's lost her voice in an attack at the start of the game. Her fiancee shielded her and got killed, but his soul was preserved in the weapon used by the villain. He's reduced to a voice coming from the sword, the Transistor, that can now only be used by Red. During the game you esplore the city, Cloudbank, while searching for the men who unleashed killer machines on it, and tried to kill you. The soundtrack is splendid and mournful, and while Red cannot talk, her fiancee talks to her constantly, reminisces, helps her, even makes little jokes. It can be very dramatic at times but it's still an amazing experience. It's also on Steam and iOS. ;)



Not to mention, it looks a lot like the anime Gankutsuou. *________*

I'm finally feeling better! I had an awful two-day-long headache, because of the sudden and repeated changes in the weather; ever since the surgery back in 2007 I get an headache everytime the weather changes, but this past few days it's happened drastically every six hours (humid hot to rainy cold and back), and my head kept reacting accordingly. That also meant nausea, and a constant grumpiness on my part with every person who crossed my path. Yesterday the painkillers kicked in, and I'm finally pain-free. What a lovely sensation!

Some of you may remember my quick guide to Netflix for users outside the USA that I wrote a few months back: today I have an amendment to make. When I wrote it back then I suggested Zenmate to use as a proxy. Sadly during the last few weeks they implemented a premium service, and the normal service became slow and broke down repeatedly. The other day I finally got fed up with it and looked for alternatives. I quickly found a much better extension called Hola. It's much faster, completely free, and it works a lot better. Hola lets you choose a different country for every website you visit, and then saves that preference: this way, for example, you can open a tab to watch a movie on Netflix with a USA proxy, while checking your email on another tab with a German proxy. Plus, it's really, really fast. It's absolutely wonderful, I can't recommend it enough!

EDIT: Yeah, forget about all that. Two days in, and this shitstorm happens. They just found out that Hola was selling IPs and bandwidth space to, simply put, criminals. And since it's your internet traffic that's being used, legally you're responsible. Terrific. So I deleted the whole thing, cursing and swearing, and started looking for an alternative. I'm testing AnonymoX as we speak: it works fine, although it's a bit clumsier than Hola, and it doesn't do anything criminal, so that's a plus. Netflix works perfectly, although I would recommend not to have other tabs open, as it slows the whole thing down.

I'm only testing free options for now. If I ever decide to spend money on it, I'll probably use Hide My Ass: it was featured in a BBC News article, so at least there's some solid research there that they aren't doing anything horrendously illegal.

So um, carry on as normal. ^^

I literally just finished watching the latest Supernatural episode, The Book of the Damned, and now it's official, this season just reached season 8 levels of greatness. I had this feeling for quite some time, but holy shit, with this episode, these storylines, where they're taking them, they sealed the deal. Amazing.

I also would like to point out that the new music supervisor is insanely good. I've always liked the original soundtrack, but this season I love it. It has more personality, it's different and bold. I love it.

Also, this morning I had my last dental surgery for the year, and I'm very, very happy. I asked him to use less anesthesia than usual, considering that last time my face kept sleeping for 12 hours, and it was definitely too much. Now it's only two hours later and my lips are already feeling normal. Perfect timing too, because I'm getting hungry. I'll get some ice cream from the fridge and watch the episode again. ^^

I'm feeling better! My back still hurts, but not as much as it did before, and I can move more freely. I still can't lift stuff heavier than a mug of tea, and this is annoying Sakura a lot, as I haven't lifted her in my arms for almost two weeks. The other day she got so pissed that she just started screeching at me and making little hopping movements. It was kinda hilarious. :D

The other day I finally watched Into The Woods. I knew absolutely nothing about it beforehand, except that it was a Broadway musical and there was Meryl Streep in it. Good enough for me. And I absolutely fell head over heels in love with it. The music, the story, the characters, I loved everything. All the actors were great, and great singers too. I've downloaded the original musical on my ipod, and I can't wait to listen to it, although from what I read the changes they did were very minor. I like how they decided to fuse The Witch and The Narrator into one character, but that's probably because of my insane love for Meryl Streep. ♥

Yesterday was Tati's birthday, so the two of us and her sister went to the cinema to watch Kenneth Branagh's Cinderella. We were all a bit sick, so I'm planning on doing another, proper birthday celebration as soon as we're all feeling better, but we still loved the movie. I'm not sure I'll watch it again, though. There's a reason why every Cinderella movie starts a couple of days before the ball: her story is too depressing, and it should be only told in a very quick voiceover. Branagh chose to devote half the movie to how the girl got to become an abused slave in her family home, and it is heavy. The magical parts were lovely and funny, but the rest of the movie was very dark, even with that joyful colorful cinematography.

And we also made a lot of whispered jokes about Robb Stark being the Prince. Who's escaping an arranged marriage. And wants to marry the peasant girl he met on a field. Come on! I think everyone in the audience who's over 18 was hearing The Rains of Castamere in their heads everytime he was on screen!

I'm back! It's been a hectic week, and most days I couldn't even find the time to turn the computer on. This morning I woke up with a terrible pain in my back, to the point that I couldn't even take a deep breath without feeling like being stabbed. I took some painkillers and it finally feels a little better, but I definitely should take this as a warning I'm not as young as I wish I were.

My cousin arrived last tuesday and stayed until saturday. Even with all the stuff we had to do, we found time to play tourists, thanks to the surprisingly wonderful weather, hot and windy, with blue skies perfect for taking pictures.





I also did a bit of shopping at the Disney Store, because I have zero self-restraint.



They're called Tsum Tsum, and they were invented in Japan. They're soft and huggable, and the tummies are made from the same cloth used to clean tv screens. I got one for Tati and one for myself, and then we got in a long discussion about which one of us is Chip and which one is Dale. We usually agree on everything, but this time we almost ended up fighting. :D

And then I bough this dress at H&M solely because it reminded me of Gazelle from Kingsman The Secret Service. I only have a quick crappy selfie I took for a friend, but you still can see what it looks like:



And one month later my hair is still blue! Usually it washes away pretty quickly, as I use non-aggressive dyes, but this blue one is great. I got a lot of compliments for it!

On saturday Tati and I went to the Cartoomics convention in Milan. We met a lot of wonderful cosplayers (two Thorins, a Wirt from Over The Garden Wall, historically accurate Elsa and Anna), and I bought mochi. Two boxes, red bean and green tea, my favourites! We had a tea party on sunday, with green mint tea my cousin bought me in Morocco. Absolutely delicious, and they worked so well together.

Then yesterday I had another dental surgery, which didn't leave me in as much pain as the last one, but for whatever reason it got me really angry and annoyed. I have a huge anger issue, as in I do not feel anger at all. I'm working on it in therapy, obviously, but those very rare times I happen to feel it I'm still unable to deal with anger. Instead of letting it run its course I sit in a corner, brood and do nothing. Yesterday I hid under the covers and watched Hot Fuzz on my laptop, which worked for a while, but by the end of the evening I was snapping at everyone and everything. What an unpleasant feeling.

Looks like my back isn't trying to kill me anymore, but it's still sore. I should probably go lie down.

Drumroll, please! It's my first entry of this year's Reading Bingo!



For the "A Book With A Female Heroine" square I chose Alexander McCall Smith's Tears of the Giraffe, his second book in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. As with the first one, we follow the story of Precious Ramotswe, the owner of Botswana's only detective agency. It's a very relaxing and charming book, that made me fall in love with Botswana all over again, and with the wonderful characters of this book. Mma Ramotswe takes various cases, all while organizing her wedding, and her boyfriend adopts two orphans. It's a cozy, beautiful story, the cases are intriguing and the characters fascinating. With every new chapter I had to run to my cousin to tell her what was happening and how worried I was that the main characters would fall out of love over his abrupt decision to adopt the kids, and we would worry together and share theories about the murder mystery. It was a great experience, I can't wait to read the next one. *______*

In other news, I started playing the Lego: The Hobbit videogame. I had only played another Lego videogame before, and not even to the end. I almost threw my controller out of the window when I couldn't figure out how to open the very first door, but after that it's been smooth sailing. The puzzles are intriguing but not so difficult to be annoying, and it is hilarious. My favourite thing to do is to link arms with whoever I'm standing next to and just skip around. Even while the dragon was attacking Erebor and I had to rescue the king. :D The dialogue comes from the movies, and it's so wonderful to just sit there and listen to all my favourite actors delivering lines I know by heart. I still have to get used to the fact that to finish every level I have to build stuff, though. As Bilbo, I had to destroy all my furniture to build a table large enough for 13 dwarves, and it took me a while to realize that was the only course of action. My poor furniture!

In real life news, same ol' same ol'. I had a dentist appointment scheduled for the past monday morning, and I slept very little the night before (I'm worried I'll have to go through a new string of painful surgeries like last summer), but then over a very sleepy breakfast I got a call that the dentist was sick, and they moved the appointment to the 23rd. I feel like I wasted a perfectly good worrying!