Tag Archives: People we like

The Internet is full of liars and charlatans – just like real life.

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I’m not entirely sure why people are either surprised or, even, angry.

It’s the thing about the Internet. It’s impossible to say if it’s real or not. And so, the Syrian lesbian blogger who turned out to be some American guy living in Scotland and the lesbian blogger who also turned out to be a man are being hounded and made a lot of people angry. But why?

Karl, posing as (or should that be ‘was posing as’?) a very ugly man wrote a blog for 2 years before finally revealing he was, in fact, nothing of the sort. People got angry. People get angry, I think, because they feel they’ve been duped. But they only have themselves to blame. With the ‘Syrian’ blogger, there’s even a woman (in Canada, I think), who thought she was having a relationship with him/her, even if they’d never actually spoken (obviously)!

In a way, I have to admire these people. To create (and, in some cases, go to great lengths to give credibility to) a persona that’s not only not you, but isn’t even your sex and doesn’t have your sexual orientation takes some skill and creativity. They need to be good writers, one would think. But is it any different than, say. JK Rowling creating a whole host of characters for her Harry Potter series?

One could argue, of course, that JK Rowling doesn’t pretend that the characters are real. And yet, in her head, at least whilst she’s writing them, they do have a sort of reality. When they become films, they take on a more substantial reality. OK, so pretending you’re someone in the real world and carrying it on is different – but only slightly. You didn’t have to believe it. In fact, why should you believe anything you read on the Internet?

There are some people who read my blog who I know and have met. Lola, for example, Pietro, a colleague, Karl, the once ugly man or Stef, a good mate are people who know I am a real person. Stef and Pietro knew me ‘before the blog’, Lola and Karl, afterwards. Then there are those (Gail, The Store Manager, Man of Roma and Ruth, the friend of a friend) who don’t actually know me at all. Well, Ruth knows I’m real, I guess. Yet, I have a friendship with these people. I don’t actually know them either. Does that invalidate the friendship? Not really. If, for example, MoR turned out to be a woman living in the USA, would that make our discussions irrelevant? No, not at all. And I trust that these people, when they blog, are telling me the truth. Would it matter if they weren’t? Again, no not really.

There is a woman with whom I am a ‘friend’ on Facebook. Solely for a game that I used to play. She has all sorts of ‘problems’ but I don’t know that it’s all real. Perhaps she is just making it up? She certainly craves attention both in the game and on Facebook. I don’t know if it’s all real or whether it’s just being said for the attention. And I don’t really mind either way.  I take the Internet for what it is.  I believe the people that I read about but I’m not really emotionally involved, I suppose.  How can I be?  I don’t know them.  I can read about things that they do, empathise with them over problems that they may have but deeper than that it’s impossible for me to go.

And, anyway, it’s not like real life didn’t throw up the odd con-man (or woman) or two?  The Internet just makes it easier and, certainly, makes changing sex very easy too (not that that hasn’t been done in real life).

So, whereas I’m not especially impressed by what the two guys have done I’m not really shocked and I’m not outraged.  It’s what you should expect unless you have proof otherwise.

It’s his way of showing me.

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“You go and get them”, he says, “because you’ve got to go and do it when I’m not here”.

I don’t say anything at the time. He makes me laugh. I tell him when I get back, as we’re eating the two sandwiches I’ve just bought. I can do things but he seems to feel that I must be ‘trained’ as to ‘how’ to do things. Of course, he’s just making sure I will be OK. I want to say ‘I’ve been here for 6 years. I think I can get by, now. Otherwise I would have died from starvation!” I don’t, of course. It’s quite sweet, really. Bless him.

It felt more than 2 days and 2 nights.

It felt like a week or something.

He had worked hard on the house. I said all the right things. It’s amazingly light. All walls are white, of course. It’s not perfect in that the sink in the bathroom only has cold water; the toilet doesn’t flush properley but you can’t have everything. There were new toothbrushes, soap for me, food for the dogs and many other things. A new telly was bought, rubbish bins, etc. The dogs love it although they are exhausted within a day.

His friend, R, had cut all the grass so the dogs could use the garden.

He’s happy even if it’s not perfect.

Someone asked him how long we had been together. “Almost 2 years”, he replied. It seems longer than that. Like the weekend.

I was shown our place on the beach. I bookmarked his Mum’s place, the house, the beach and the dog walking area on my navigator, as he needed to be certain I would be OK finding everything. He arranged that, when he’s not able to go, I will be able to meet R, have dinner with his Mum and Dad, etc. He wants to make sure that I’ll be OK. It’s like ordering the sandwiches at the beach. He wants to make sure I will do it.

Of course, that also puts pressure on me. a) to go down and b) to go to his Mum’s, go out with R, etc.

So now I will have to go down, even if he’s not there. But all this is his way of showing that he loves me, I guess.

Dinner with B

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There’s just never enough time.

Or, at least, that’s how it seems. It’s how it seems with some people, anyway.

And then, I talk too much. And too fast. Like there’s not enough time to get everything in. Which there isn’t.

The talking too much is not entirely my fault. B seems to bring that out in me. How different I am with different people!

The Orange Pasta was scrummy too.

Or, maybe that should read Pasta with orange otherwise it makes it sound as if the pasta were the colour of orange (which it was, sort of, but it’s not really the point).

And I never, ever say ‘thank you’ properly. I never seem to with B.

Actually, I was thinking, she would be a reason that I would live in Rome.

Some people you just love to bits for no obvious reason, if you see what I mean.

Here and there.

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He was happier last night, which was good.

I’m not so happy, though.

He’s not here. I’m not there. There’s the two or three hours distance.

It’s difficult to find interest. There’s many things I could do. You know, keep busy. Stop thinking. Stop being without or alone. Stop feeling.

A said it was stupid. I could have punched him in the face. Then, I thought, perhaps he never feels like that? That would explain a lot. In fact, it would explain everything. To never have that feeling would be much worse than having it.

He says it is looking good. There. Where he is and I am not. I look at the weather forecast for there and here. It’s not particularly good at either place. I try to tell myself that it would be dreadful being there, with the rain. And the decoration ‘in progress’. I would be in the way. We would be in the way, which is true. And we wouldn’t be able to do anything. Them for sure and me because I am, quite frankly, worse than crap at this sort of stuff. Not that anyone believes me. ‘How difficult can it be?’, they think. I know they think that. In theory it should be straight forward. But, even when I try so very hard, paint doesn’t seem to get onto the walls as much as me and the floor and other places where it should not be. And the stuff on the walls is streaked or globular or thick in places it should not be, running down. No, it doesn’t work for me.

He said, “You can come down if you want”, adding without a pause for breath, “but it will be a complete mess”. He doesn’t want me there whilst he is doing it. I will be a distraction. So will they. They, maybe, more than I. They, who demand attention from him without even demanding it. Because they are the ‘poverini’, of course. Unable to demand and by being unable to demand, demanding more and with greater urgency. At least for him.

I don’t let on that I’m not happy. After all, that would be unfair. It would be selfish. He is doing this for us. For me, he says but in reality, for the four of us. Or, maybe, mainly for him? Or, maybe, for me too. It is ‘More than Words’. And he had to have an injection for his back, last night. He ‘couldn’t move’, he said. I told him he should stop but he said that he wouldn’t. He’s very stubborn like that. It’s no good arguing with him. He won’t listen anyway or, rather, he will listen but then do what he wants. I don’t demand, I’m far too old for that!

I told him I was on holiday. He knew, of course. I just wanted him to know. So, I was being a bit selfish after all! He told me to relax and enjoy it. I said I would, even if I knew that I can’t as much since he’s there and I’m here.

So I sit here and write this. Rather than there and not. In a moment I will do something. Something else. Washing, cleaning, the dogs, sorting out English stuff, a box, some editing. Something. Or not. Not here nor there.

Damn!

It’s life Jim, but hardly logical.

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When you look at it, logically, there’s nothing actually wrong.

Just like those times when I feel angry for no reason at all.

But I am really pissed off.

Except when I’m with F. For some reason, everything just lifts when I’m with him.

Take last night. After a really dreadful day, followed by a lesson and then a dreadful drive home, meaning I was later than I wanted to be, meaning that, although I really rushed a shower, I arrived at the shop later than I wanted to, once I was with F, I was relaxed and happy. For the next couple of hours, even if he wasn’t with me all the time, I was still happy and relaxed. I knew he was there. It was enough.

It was the “Aperitivo”. They were holding it because it is the Furniture Fair. It was nice. I had several glasses of prosecco. And a couple of the small finger food ‘dishes’ they were handing out. There were lots of F’s colleagues there, of course. They are always so nice to me.

One thing struck me though. F, not usually overly demonstrative towards me, completely changes when there are a lot of his colleagues around. It’s quite funny. He seems, almost, to be jealous of any attention given to me – but not jealous that I’m getting the attention and he’s not. Rather jealous in that I’m his. Phrases such as ‘keep your eyes off him, he’s mine’ tend to come out (or something similar, since it is in Italian). It does make me laugh, inwardly. Of course, part of it is for show, I know that. He is, after all, a showman. It’s what he does best. It’s why he’s good at his job.

And now, as we rapidly approach 4.15, it is the weekend. And the weather should be OK (average for this time of year) and so, I hope, F & I will spend some time together and take the dogs for a walk, etc.

These are the times that make me really happy.

a

Nope. I missed that one. Doh!

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“You are very happy”, he says.

I hesitate. I mean to say, I’m not unhappy but ‘very happy’?

“Well, yes, I suppose so”, I reply.

“Now you are living together”

We are? I query in my head. But, nothing has changed. Why did he say that?

“I read your blog. He will be there all the time.”

Ah. It dawns on me. I feel stupid. I should have realised the significance of this. I did not. Maybe it was a seismic shift, after all? Hell, yes!

I can see the logic. It never even crossed my mind. But, of course.

He is going to take the dogs out every morning – except when he’s away or, maybe, if it is raining. To do that, he has to be there. To be there, he needs to sleep there ……. here …… in my flat.

So, we are, sort of, *whisper* living together!

Don’t say it loudly.

Of course, it will never be said. Like all things that he does, these things are kept within his head and not said. But the real significance of all this was only shown to me by Pietro – in the car park – as we were about to go home.

Thanks mate! I really hadn’t got it until that point.

Fighting with demons

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Yes, I’m sure.

It is, almost certainly, the drinking bit that’s the problem. I am British and it is the ‘British disease’ and I have definitely caught this and I need to find the cure.

It’s not that I’m an alcoholic. Far from it. No, I can go for days or maybe even minutes without alcohol.

I jest, of course. About the ‘maybe even minutes’. Did I need to say that? Probably not but I thought I would just in case. You never know who is ‘watching’. I do have ‘lurkers’ on this blog. People who come but never post a comment.

But when they put a bottle of some digestivo on the table and the other people insist on staying and talking, it seems only right to top up my glass. Several times. This is in addition to the two beers. And I didn’t really need the two beers. I just had the second because everyone else was having one. And I’m British, so one has to keep up, doesn’t one? And I should have just stuck with the one glass of the digestivo and then I wouldn’t have had to concentrate on keeping in a straight line for the five minutes it took to walk home. Sometimes, I’m even almost angry with myself.

And when I looked in the mirror this morning, I could see I had that old-age paunch. Part of me doesn’t care and part of me does. And I know it must be the beer. Too much. I should be sticking to my wine diet. I really should. That never made me fat.

Of course, it could be that I’ve reached that time in life and I have become fat because my body says something like ‘OK, well you’ve had it pretty good up to now but did you really think you could continue to eat and drink what you wanted forever? Well, …….. did you?’

And, yes, I kind of did.

Damn!

And damn the bottle of digestivo too. I bet that didn’t help.

Damn, damn, damn!

iTunes is crap!

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OK, so that’s not entirely true.

Actually, iTunes is a wonderful program. It does the things you want. It keeps all your music in one place, you can create playlists as you want, you can play songs in shuffle mode – and you can make CDs for people (apparently).

I don’t really use it much. I have moved all of my CDs onto iTunes and find it great to be able to play a certain album or track – easy to find, etc. The quality is quite good and, I suppose, if I could be half-arsed, I could set up my stereo to play the music through – except music is nice but not that important to me.

To F it is. F creates CDs for people. He used to DJ on a local radio station (local to where he came from) for a number of years and likes to create CDs where the music follows correctly. It is beyond my understanding, to be honest, but just because I don’t understand (why, even, one song follows another and another song cannot follow) doesn’t mean I don’t like the result. F has something over 2000 CDs and buys individual songs as well so has a collection of something like 15,000 songs on iTunes. He has given me an appreciation of Italian music that a) I never knew existed and b) I would never have had without him.

Since he’s always used iTunes (or, rather, used it for years), he loves it.

But ………

He wanted to download a special playlist to a USB key instead of burning a number of CDs.

And you can’t. Well, you can but you lose the playlist order.

He’s spent days doing this special playlist for someone and now he can’t give it to them. Worse still, whilst he was trying to do this thing, he nearly, but oh so nearly, lost all his songs – and, in the process, lost all his playlists – including the one that he had specially prepared.

And I have trawled the internet looking for a solution and can’t find anything that seems to do the job properly.

I had heard/read that iTunes could just wipe your music (if you were used to synchronising with your iPod) but since I don’t own an iPod (I know, you can hardly believe it,I know) I just thought ‘oh well’. Now, however, I feel bad for F who only wants to do something so simple and yet Apple won’t let you do it.

And so, my conclusion is that iTunes is great – as long as you just want to do everything within iTunes.

Whereas, if you want to do something a little bit ‘out of’ iTunes, it is crap with a huge dose of crapness on top.

Stuff I have done and not done.

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Well, let’s see what I’ve done.

Firstly all the windows have curtains now. Well, except for the kitchen, they had curtains before. What they now have, in addition, are nets. It means I can walk around naked without anyone seeing :-)

Not that I do that – it’s just that now I can ……… if I want to :-)

The bedroom has dark blue nets and the lounge, cream-coloured nets – floor to ceiling stuff (well, not ceiling, but top of windows). It makes the flat seem more private. I like it.

The kitchen used to have a cross between nets and blinds. These have been washed and are now back up. I leave the shutters open all the time in the kitchen and although no-one can see in unless they crane their necks, it’s nice to have that feeling of privacy.

And I have a printer/scanner/copier – and it seems to work, well, the scanner and copier work anyway. This means I can give people the stuff from my lessons without having to do stuff at work. Or, at least, when I’m not AT work, I can still give them stuff. OK the quality is not the same high quality but at least it doesn’t stop me or mean I have to do a ton of scanning when I get back. I must try out the printer, of course.

And it’s all wireless stuff so it means I can move it so it’s out of the way – but that’s a job for tomorrow, or Friday.

I say tomorrow or Friday because I need to move some stuff to make room for it. And moving some stuff means moving some other stuff. And that means trying to sort out the bedroom …. a bit. And that’s not for now.

I also tried to watch Black Swan again. But it kind of fell apart when I had to sort out the printer and so, halfway through, I gave up on it. I don’t think I actually like the film very much. I took note of TSM’s comments abut it being a psychological thriller but, you know, at that level it just fails so badly.

Tomorrow is shopping and lunch with FfC. Or the other way around. I don’t mean nice shopping – just grocery shopping. I was going to do my favourite pasta today – pasta with broccoli – I have broccoli but, horror of horrors (considering the country I live in) – I HAVE NO PASTA! To be honest, I was a bit shocked. How can I have used the last bit of pasta and not got some more? I was devastated and somewhat embarrassed. But I have a lesson tonight so not really enough time to go out and get some and come back and cook it (AND get the printer working). So on a priorities basis, pasta will be got tomorrow. Well, not cooked tomorrow ‘cos I will be out to lunch. But Friday, maybe. Not Thursday because F HATES broccoli. And cauliflower. He is a bit strange, sometimes. Thursday I might do a Shepherd’s Pie for him – as I know he likes that a lot. And, maybe, Rice Pudding, which I haven’t made for ages. Or we use one of my Groupon vouchers – else they will have run out. Yes, probably that. It’s a holiday, after all.

Oh, yes, and it’s still raining. This is exactly why I didn’t want a holiday now. Grrrr.

p.s. My student for tonight, M2, just Skyped me to ask for the meaning of quadrifoglio. I looked it up and the answer was four-leaf clover. I thought it must be wrong and he means something else but he was happy with the answer. Now, why on earth would someone want to know the English for quadrifoglio? Why? What sort of conversation is he having that he needs to know that?

Printers; I want to learn English NOW!; Update to weather and stuff.

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Those of you who know me or who have been reading this blog for long enough will know this is me.

I have been putting it off for about 3 years. But now it’s simply not good enough and I really do need to do something about it.

I am going to buy a printer – which has a scanner and a copier as well. I did a lesson today and I need to scan the resulting log sheet AND copy a couple of other things. I am not in work for over a week so I have no choice but to get one.

About bloody time really, to be honest. As usual (like the shirts I was going to buy the other week (and for the last couple of years) but didn’t),I keep ‘managing’ until it just becomes so difficult or so much of a pain or I have no choice.

I am, indeed, very lazy!

Or, maybe, very, very tight ;-)

Either way, sometimes, I do seem to make it difficult for myself.

Maybe I’ll get shirts tomorrow too?

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Today, for the second time in four days, I get told that the person wants ‘to be perfect in English’ – giving themselves an impossible timetable. Of course, it’s not ‘impossible’, just highly unlikely and impractical.

But, what does one say?

I want to say, ‘Did you learn Italian in one month?’

But I don’t. I say nothing or try to guide them as to the impossibility of this.

One wants to be in the UK soon. The other has, kind of, told her new employers that she speak English well and is now, rightly, scared that the reality won’t match their expectations. And, anyway, we spent the whole lesson talking about her inability to progress to the third date with her boyfriends – in spite of me trying to move on to different things.

Hmmm. Does this make me a bad person? Should I just say, ‘Don’t be stupid’ or something?

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The weather forecast, unfortunately, was right. Heavy and prolonged rain. In fact, heavy rain all day. However, the forecast for most of the rest of the week has significantly improved. On the minus side, F informed me last night that he was going to work some of Friday after all. Ah well, it’s not a disaster as we hadn’t planned anything. But I think I might try and persuade him we should go to Mantova for the day next Saturday :-)