.: so comes snow after fire :.

This week back in Venice is almost over, and it went faster than usual. I had a lot of appointments, and that really made the time fly. I went to the bank and I had to spend a whole hour there before they finally did what I went there for; then I had the plumber over and guess what, I have to remake the whole methane gas tubes system thingy, because the house was built in the seventies and it's not safe anymore. Bye bye money. The plumbers will have to come back next time I'm here, and check the chimney, and then we can start installing the new tubes.

On sunday my aunt and uncle came here too, so that today they could go to the cemetery in Venice and make arrangements for my mom's tombstone. I did that twice already, for my dad and my sister, and I seriously couldn't go through all that one more time. So they did everything for me, and then I got a lot of hugs when they came back home, and my aunt is going to make me frittelle because she loves to spoil me. I feel very loved! And while looking for a good picture of mom to put on the tombstone my aunt kept finding great pictures of yours truly that I didn't remember at all, so there was a silver lining. ^^

In fandom news I finally sat down and watched the last season of Person of Interest. I didn't watch it when it aired last spring because I was going through chemo, and watching something that I loved so much ending was definitely too much for my mindset back then. Now that I feel a lot better, I decided to give it a go, and yes, it was as beautiful and heartbreaking as I thought. The ending was a tiny bit different from what I thought it was going to be, but I loved it nonetheless. I'm so glad it could have a proper ending, but it was still a very bittersweet feeling to say goodbye to the team.

I can't believe it's been two weeks already since my last entry! The big news is, I had my quarterly visit with my oncologist, and it went splendidly! She says everything's going great, and that I'm to keep taking the same meds and we'll see each other again in April. That means that this is officially the longest I've been doing the same medicine ever since I started doing chemo. \o/ We also talked about the Concert (it's a concert in London I bought tickets for last May, as soon as I finished the first round of chemo - it's Yoko Shimomura, whose music I adore, but it's also a promise I made to myself to keep feeling better and better so that a year later I could take a plane and visit another country, a promise it turns out I kept!), and she was very enthusiastic about it and rescheduled my March appointment so that I could go! And she asked me to make her a cd of Shimomura-san's music too! How cool is that?

Next monday I'm going back to Venice for a week, as I have to meet with my lawyer and go to the bank. And also tell everyone I know how brilliantly the visit went. :D On wednesday I already have an appointment with my therapist, who I couldn't see last time because of the awful combination of cold weather and delicate lungs. This time the weather should be nice, plus my therapist has started doing pet therapy too, and I'm hoping I'll get to see one of the dogs. She sent me some pictures, they look so cute and huggable!

In fandom news, I watched Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency on Netflix, and I absolutely adored it. It's a fantastic adaptation of a series of novels by Douglas Adams, and it's as weird and funny as you would expect it to be, while having fantastic plot and character development, a diverse cast, great female characters with their own storylines and agendas who are never sexualized, and really great acting. It's eight episodes, around six hours long, and it's *Arthur Shappey's voice* brilliant. *____*

Now I have to run, my uncle went out to buy pizzas, and at 9 pm we're going to the cinema to watch Rogue One (third time for me!) ♥

Great news everybody! Yesterday I had the big exams I have every three months, and lo and behold one of them shows my cancer is in remission! Some parts have disappeared, the rest has strongly diminished. I've gone through all stages of joy and relief, which included vibrating at such a high frequency the doctors told me I had to relax or they couldn't do the other exam. Then I came home and crashed. Goodbye adrenaline, my old friend.

Other highlights of the past few days include one of the doctors, the one who operated on me a few months back, telling me he could never forget me because I'm such a great person he looks up to me and my strength. Which left me blabbering and blushing for half an hour at least. That was so unexpected and so nice!

Then, on the evening before the exams I saved my family's life! We were all sitting in the kitchen, watching tv, and I started feeling weird and it hurt between my eyes. I ran to check the hob and there was gas leaking out. We opened all windows, and sat in the cold night air breathing it in for a while. My aunt got really scared, and now she insists on buying one of those thingies that can tell when there's a gas leak. I'll see if I can get one on amazon. She also called me her guardian angel, and I haven't stopped smiling since. ^^

In fandom news, I binge-watched all of Legends of Tomorrow, and it was surprisingly much better than the reviews I had read said! The first season suffers from a very boring villain, and that Kendra and Carter storyline, but other than that I thought it was intriguing and funny, and there were a couple of plot twists there that had me shouting at the screen. With the second season we got much better villains (one of my favourite villains ever, let's face it) and Sara got an even larger role, so I'm as happy as I can be with the direction the show has taken. Plus I really love Amaya, and I hope that cameo in episode 9 means a certain someone is coming back to the show for good.

I've also started watching Prison Break, super late, I know, and so far I'm really intrigued. I started watching it because of Wentworth Miller and Dominic Purcell, but I'm really enjoying everything about it. I have to say I'm a bit puzzled they did four seasons of it, considering the premise should cover one season at best, but hey, I'm only at episode four, so what do I know? *shrugs*

So yep, it's been a pretty eventful week for me. My cousin comes back from Ireland tomorrow, and on sunday we're going to see Rogue One together, and then have sushi. We did the same thing last year, almost to the day. I had just started chemo, I was still hurting everywhere and I'd just lost my hair. A couple of days later I got surgery for the cvc. It was as tiring as climbing a mountain, but I was so ecstatic to be out of the house for something other than being in the hospital. So now it's our December tradition to celebrate how far I've come: watch a Star Wars movie, have sushi, and this time nothing is going to hurt! \o/

To those who celebrate it, I hope you had a great Halloween! I spent my evening re-watching Over The Garden Wall, even if I almost fell asleep more than once because I'm still feeling cranky from daylight savings time ending last sunday. It's only one hour, but it messes up my body's circadian rhythm like there's no tomorrow. It usually takes me one week to go back to normal.

During the weekend I watched Black Mirror on Netflix, because everyone on twitter was talking about it. Netflix messed up the order of the episodes, and I only noticed at the end, so I watched the third season first, then the christmas special, second season, and the first one at the end. It's an anthology, so it didn't affect anything, but I was wondering why the budget seemed to decrease in time. :D Anyway, I thought it was brilliant! It reminds me a lot of Philip K Dick, so if that's your kind of sci-fi, you'll love it. The acting is always great, and I loved how they didn't demonize modern technology: each episode is a study on humanity, and the technological aspect serves only to enable certain human behaviours. Fascinating. My favourite episode is San Junipero, because I'm predictable like that. ;)

I've also started watching Yuri on Ice, this new adorable anime about figure skating. The characters are lovely, the animation is great, and the figure skating part is done by people who know what they're talking about. It's awesome!

About real life, nothing much is happening: my aunt is spending the week in Sicily with her mom, so I miss her a lot. This evening my uncle is taking us to the cinema to watch Jason Bourne - I wouldn't normally watch it, as I find the Bourne movies super boring, but I love the idea of going to the cinema with my family, so I don't even care about the movie. It's also the week with no immunotherapy, so yay for no trips to the hospital or needles in my arms! \o/

Just like I hoped, my birthday has been a turning point for me. I tend to fixate on dates and anniversaries, even too much, but sometimes that obsession does help. I feel like my birthday ended the awful year of illness and pain, and now I've started a new year of healing. I know it sounds a bit weird and new-ageish, but you know what I mean. I've spent a great week at home, I've made some wonderful new friends (thanks to capracotta, who is amazing), I've been to the bank and the restaurant and I've done laundry and everything feels normal and new at the same time. I feel like I'm taking control of my life once again, a life that includes monthly trips to the hospital, but also hanging out with my friends, going to the cinema, making marmalade with my aunt. I can do it. ^^

And in this spirit, here's an old meme because I need to start posting regularly here again, instead of only when I got news about chemo. New leaf.

day one • a song
day two • a picture
day three • a book/ebook/fanfic
day four • a website
day five • a youtube clip



And now, some fandom news! I finally watched that new Shane Black movie, The Nice Guys, and I loved it. It was funny as hell, the mystery was intriguing and had me on the edge of my seat trying to figure it out first, and Ryan Gosling and Russel Crowe have excellent chemistry. Plus the little girl was amazing, I can't wait to see more of her. I wish Shane Black did more movies, and that they did better at the box office. I think I liked this one even more than Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and that's one of my favourites. Highly recommended.

Brooklyn Nine Nine and Star Vs The Forces Of Evil are back, and they're both still amazing. I know I'm overdoing it with that adjective, but it's true, they're both objectively amazing shows. I still have to watch that new Once Upon A Time episode, mostly because I got derailed by Final Fantasy Type 0: I played it for a month more than a year ago, then stopped just before leaving for the final dungeon. I can't remember why. Then last weekend I finally finished it, witnessed the incredibly depressing ending (even sadder than Crisis Core's, come on!), and now I'm replaying it from start because I'm not ready to let go of these characters. And I love the gameplay. ^^ Also I hurt my shoulder playing drums. Probably the most metal thing I did all year.

So that's it for me today, but I promise to be back tomorrow.

Managed another update before the next chemo, go me! I'm so lazy when it comes to updating, I know.

First things first, last sunday I managed to take a shower all by myself! My aunt left for the week to take care of her parents (who are over 90, have dementia, and live a thousand kms from here). She was so worried, but I felt like I could do it. I also asked my uncle to sit outside the bathroom in case I tripped and fell, because I'm not dumb. Luckly it all went fine, and I was so proud of myself.

On sunday we had the first snow day of the whole winter! Which is weird considering we live on the mountains. I was so excited I sat for hours at the window taking pictures while everyone else made fun of me. I was born and raised by the sea, snow always fascinates me, I can't help it! Today it's already melting, which is a good thing because on friday I have to be at the hospital by 8 am, and it's already a one-hour-long trip without the snow. I'd rather not show up looking like a zombie because I had to get up at 4 am.

What else? I watched all of Mr Robot in two days. I liked it, although not all of it. I still don't understand what the point of Tyrell even is. Like, why is he in the show at all. He doesn't contribute anything to the plot. I don't get it. And I wasn't expecting them to focus so much on Eliot's mental illness by the end of the show, to the point that all the hacking and revolutioning plot was left off screen. Also Angela was way out of character by the end of the show. I really loved the soundtrack, and the acting.

Yesterday I watched Won't Back Down, a 2012 movie about public school with Viola Davis, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Oscar Isaac. I found it hard to follow at times because even after all this time the Americal school system is still hard to understand to me (I just couldn't understand why they couldn't change the school and keep the Union at the same time), but other than that it's a really beautiful movie. Great acting from Ms Davis and Ms Gyllenhaal (like, really stunning), and Oscar Isaac plays an elementary school teacher who plays the ukulele and sings and dances with the kids. He short-circuited my brain everytime he was on screen. I'm trying to focus on the movie, stop being so adorable!

I'm very excited about the Gravity Falls finale next week, I just finished watching the special and I'm trying to prepare myself, but who am I kidding, I'm definitely going to cry like a baby. ^^

First things first, here's the latest health update. Chemio is indeed a magical medicine, like my therapist always says. Five days in, I started having the side effects as they had been described to me by the doctor, and at the same time I started feeling better. The pain is slowly regressing, my back hurts less, I stopped coughing, and I feel stronger every day. The side effects are bland: three to four days of mild flu, basically. I just have to be extra careful not to catch any actual virus, so when I go out I avoid kids like the plague, what with those stupid anti-vaxxers on the loose. My hair hasn't fallen out yet, although I already went and cut it all really short in advance: I look like a marine now! It was a great idea, because I've had time to get used to my face looking like this, I made it a gradual process. I wish it'd just fall already, though.

Fandom update: I have lots of free time now that I'm back home with my family, but mostly I re-watch series I already know and love. It's comforting. The only new thing I tried, I started watching Firefly on Netflix, but I found it disappointing. I know, I know. It's just, the space western thing has been done a lot better by Cowboy Bebop, while I find it quite clumsy here, and it's obvious it was meant to be a much longer series, what with all those filler storylines. Basically, I can't help but compare the Serenity to the Bebop, even if I try not to, and find the former lacking. I still have one episode left and the movie, but I've lost interest. Sorry, fans! I tried, I swear!

Gravity Falls is ending, and we're getting some fantastic final episodes. I keep re-watching them (and old favourites, like Dungeons, Dungeons and more Dungeons) and finding something new to love everytime. This show is perfect. *___*

Adventure Time had that beautiful miniseries about Marceline, and made Bubbline basically canon. Bless them, and bless Rebecca Sugar for that beautiful new song. I bought a new ukulele off Amazon because my beautiful ukulele is back home, and I spent an hour yesterday playing Everything Stays. After all those weeks sick and in the hospital my hands are soft and clumsy, and I've forgotten a lot of chords. Now that I'm feeling better it's time to work on that.

I promise more frequent updates from now on: first because you're all wonderful, and I read every message you left me and cherish them so much. And second because I have lots of free time now and I have no excuses to ignore my blog!

Love you all! ♥

It's been raining for 24 hours, and it looks like November outside. Me, I'm on the first day of my period and woke up with a serious cold, so I had to cancel my plans, as I'm not allowed to go to mom's hospital when I'm sick. Very delicate patients, outside infection, not a happy combination. So I made my calls, made myself some chamomile tea, and rummaged in my hard-disk for something to watch. The lucky winner was Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, an HBO documentary that had been sitting there for a few months. First of all, it's a fantastic documentary: the writing is great, the pacing is perfect, everything about it gets top marks. But it is quite the punch in the guts. I knew it was going to be bad, as it is after all about a cult, but I had no idea they were torturing people. Stupid naiveté on my part, I know.

My first contact with Scientology came in 2002, on my first year of University. I was walking down the street with a friend, in Padova, and this guy stopped us and asked us if we could fill a questionnaire for him. We thought he was a fellow student who was doing that for an exam or something, so we stopped. He gave us a list of questions "what's the meaning of life, what happens after death, why do illnesses exist" and asked us to rank them in order of importance. We did, and then he told us, all smiling, that right around the corner there was a place where we could get the answers to all those questions. I still remember the face of my friend, completely stunned. I recovered a lot quicker, and told him "you're telling me you've got answers to questions humanity have been asking themselves for thousands of years without ever finding a true answer?". He got even happier and said "yes". At that point I laughed in his face, called him a fraud and insane, grabbed my friend by the arm and rushed her away. And then we told all our colleagues what had happened. It sort of became this in-joke, "remember the crazy cult people near the stations? they're still there" or "they stopped me again this morning, you wouldn't believe the shit they're saying" and everyone got a huge laugh out of it.

It wasn't until years later I even found out Scientology was a thing. Like, a huge thing. It was right around the time South Park did that episode, so my reaction was still amusement. I never actually took them seriously. Now, I've been an atheist most of my life, so my brain just doesn't get how faith works. It just doesn't compute. But it's one of those things I respect in others, maybe have a private laugh about it, and then carry on and not think about it at all. And then this documentary comes, and it really opened my eyes, because I had no idea it's been going for so long, and it has so many members, and there's psychological torture, and actual fucking beatings, this is a whole new level. I'm glad this documentary exists and that I got to see it, because I had no idea it was so bad. I wanted to hug all the interviewees, those who had gone out, and I wanted to tell them it was alright and that they were so brave. There were a couple of times I couldn't help but crying. At first I felt like wanting to go back in time and punch that guy in Padova on the nose, but by the end of the documentary I was actively worried: what's happened to him? Is he alright? Did he manage to get out? God, I hope so. So yeah, it's one of those things that really need to be seen by a lot of people, because otherwise they'll just be allowed to keep doing all the abuse they're doing, and none will be the wiser.

What a day, what a lovely day (shiny and chrome)! Two new episodes I'd been waiting for for months were waiting for me when I woke up! That, and I found a lot less ants than I feared: there's been the usual infestation, as they do every summer without fail. This time though I've been battling it with poison spray and vacuum cleaner for three days and they still haven't left the house! The neighbour was completely useless, even if he has the infestation as well, so I've been fighting on my own. Maybe, just maybe, I've finally won. We'll see tomorrow, though. There's also been a lot of printing papers and documents and calls from the hospital and usual depressing guardian stuff. I've been doing it for years, doesn't make it any easier.

But at least on the fandom side I got both Gravity Falls and Steven Universe to cheer me up! A Tale Of Two Stans was so good by the end I was almost hyperventilating. Theories confirmed, theories squashed, so much new information, it'll take me a lot of viewings to digest it all. What a fantastic episode! Cry For Help featured a new character that had been spoiled for me all weekend, because people on tumblr are incapable of using tags, and they enjoy leaks for some reason. I shall never understand the fascination with learning spoilers beforehand, instead of waiting for when the episode airs in all its high quality glory and context. Bah. I've been unfollowing people left and right, so at least now my dashboard looks a lot cleaner. Anyway, Alexia Khadime was wonderful (and I do hope they'll have her sing in a future episode, she's a wonderful Elphaba, it would be such a missed opportunity for her not to!), but the episode was a lot more depressing than I expected. These kids' shows don't mess around. O_O

Yesterday I also watched the X-Men Days Of Future Past Rogue Cut: it's a new version of the movie, with 20 minutes of added scenes and, as the title subtly implies, the return of Rogue. I adore this movie, but I thought this new cut was completely useless: all the added dialogues were redundant, and it made sense to leave them on the cutting room floor. The Rogue's scenes had no point, as she actually doesn't do or say anything, and she's basically a prop. The added scene at the house, with Raven and Hank, was a mess: cringe-worthy and embarassing all around. The only thing I took from this movie is a sense of gratitude that they cut all this stuff out in the original version, which made for a much more coherent plot with great pacing.

There's a new heatwave here, but thankfully it's not as vicious as the last one. Sakura is suffering the heat a lot, though: she sleeps on the marble floor, all spread out like a dog would, and even longer than usual. Poor baby!

On Monday I had a most wonderful evening: a dear friend invited me to a night at the Opera! At the La Fenice theater, the Opera Theater here in Venice, where I hadn't been in years. The philharmonic orchestra there played pieces by Béla Bartók, Johann Strauss and Leoš Janáček (here's the poster), and it was absolutely magical. The Strauss one was especially loved, and after that the soloist came back on stage and played a wonderful improv with four other musicians, who answered his variations in kind. It was so unexpected and lovely, and funny. Everyone loved it, although we were all really surprised, it was quite unexpected. :D



Here's a picture I took before I had to turn the phone off, the musicians hadn't come out yet. We counted 75 of them, a full orchestra, something very rare indeed! They even had one of them playing the tubular bells! I knew of them, but I had never heard them, and they sound exactly like church bells, to the point that more than once I thought the sound was coming from outside. :D

When we came out it was 10 pm, and we had a lovely walk through the quiet, dark streets: no tourists at that hour, it was almost like it used to be when I was a kid, clean and peaceful. It was the city like it should be, but sadly isn't any more.

Sort of on topic, because Venice plays a huge part in this as well, to those of you who haven't watched Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell yet, you should really, really do it. I can't recommend it enough. At first simply because it was one of my favourite novels, but after a couple of episodes it became clear this show is a beautiful masterpiece in its own right. Everything about it is perfectly crafted, the world feels alive, the magic real, and the acting is superb. Do yourself a favour and check it out, and be ready because it'll blow your mind. *_____*