I sometimes get the urge to listen to French music, and yet I still can't understand the lyrics.

 I have always wondered how it feels to have a place to call home: I have lived in so many places, that I still wouldn't be able to tell where's mine.

Each of them was home, for a short while; in each of them I put my hope and my trust, again and again, like a betrayed child who still can't help looking at the world with innocent eyes. But something always led me to leave - a new opportunity, an insurmountable problem, or just life.

I felt a bit like dying when I left France after four months, and when I moved out of the flat I shared as a student as well; and yet I knew I had taken all I could from those places, I knew they had already given me all they could offer to someone like me. After all, in Italian, leaving and dying are two verbs that rhyme; no surprises, right?
On the other hand, the day when flying to London stopped being a pious hope and became a fixed date on my calendar was one of the happiest ever; perhaps, I have been happier when my flight actually landed: hey, I made it, I've been dreaming of this for years and now I'm here!
So long to leaving and dying, then; actually, I prefer much more the English assonance with living.
(I wonder how many times I confused them when I was in school; I remember it took me ages to learn the difference between forgive and forget...but of course this is less subtle, less troubling).

Yes, I'd like London to be my home. Actually, I'd like London to treat me well: to recognize my perseverance, to accord me an accomplice wink from time to time...at least, because I have dreamt of it for years.
Ten years, almost eleven now. Way more than I granted to any of my fleeting, unconfessed teenage crushes - and yet, I can tell you each of them resided in this messy mind for quite a long time, back then.
London has been my true love for almost half of my life; now that we're finally bonded together, I love it even more.
Like all careless lovers, it keeps messing with my mind, continuously asking me for absurd sacrifices that every time I say I won't make...but in the end I just can't help falling victim of its charm, believing its promises, reopening the innocent child's eyes and hoping for the best.
I desperately want London to be my home. I don't want the place I grew up in to make any more maternity claims - see, I AM your home, you just booked a flight to come back on a weekend!
Come on, I answer angrily, you're a shithole, you'll never be more than a hit-and-run retreat...and it relentlessly insists: HA! You just admitted I give you relief, unlike that other friggin' metropolis.

It sounds like an argument between an abandoned, old mommy and her young daughter claiming she must have been a changeling. Who loves who, and who hates who other, is probably destined to remain unclear; what's sure is that I still want to believe in London and me.
I want to see the world, travel, explore, walk upon each and every street until my legs can't take it anymore - and yes, I also want to be looked after in my hate-loved shithole, from time to time. But at the end of all holidays, of all trips, of all vacations, I want to come back to London, and know for sure it still has something in store for me. Something I'll have to struggle to get, perhaps, but I don't really care; not anymore.
Anything goes, as long as this is not another one-way affair.

(On air: Saez - J'Accuse)

Schadenfreude, anyone?

So here I come again, after the umpteenth day of wandering around in search of an open library. Who would have guessed that May 2nd was Bank Holiday? Good for you, vacationers; my Easter holidays terminated today.

Wait: did I say holidays? Actually, during the last two weeks I have been more busy than I have in the previous two...months. And I utterly, definitely, completely, absolutely loved it.

As I said when I started this off, most of my happiness is all about keeping my brain busy. Because I'm a heavy thinker with an unpleasant tendency to pessimism, yes; but also because I 'm more brawn than brain, I love doing things and I hate the eternal, optimistic wait of the day when I will finally be able to achieve them.
Surprise surprise, that's not at all how life happens. Not mine, anyway. I know people who are constantly overwhelmed with opportunities, cues and  chances; I call them lucky, but perhaps there's a little envy, here, and they're just more competent and bold than I am. More, how'd you say it? Entitled: to do what they do, to be who they are, to get what they want.
Yes, I'd so much like to learn how to become the right person at the right time; unfortunately, as Jonathan Coe writes in one of my all-time favourite books, "it is my destiny always to be offstage whenever the main action occurs, always to wander away at the most important moment, drifting into the kitchen to make a cup of tea just as the denouement unfolds".

See, when I say that thinking too much is my doom you can definitely believe me. And yet I've been born, bred and raised to be a thinker; you'd laugh to tears if you saw the reaction my mother has every time I mention to her that I'm definitely not going to study for the rest of my life, as she'd like me to.
"But sweetheart, why don't you apply for that other Master, you know, just to have one more chance to..."
Sure. I'm twenty-four (right, almost), living away from home since when I was nineteen, and all I have been doing is taking one dead-end road after another, rushing to reach the end of one-way streets I entered from the wrong side, and thinking, and thinking, and thinking to escape the count of the hours remaining before the day when I finally would stick my hands in the batter and build a life of my own. And that's how you advise me? Another Master? Thank you, Ma, that was helpful.

It's not that I'm not already trying; probably, one more time, I'm simply doing it wrong.
Again, that's one of those things that would make you roll on the floor laughing if it wasn't happening to you.
In the last six months, I applied for almost any job I thought I could do - any one, from ice-cream seller to press officer, from part-time biscuit cutter to receptionist to editorial unpaid intern -; have a guess on my percentage of success?
Zero, yes.
I can hardly believe it - and careful, not because a disproportionate self-esteem keeps me from realizing that I'm unsuitable for anything but reading academic manuals and losing my sight typing essays I will never pass. What I mean is...come on, do you really  need proof of two years' experience to hire someone who'll sell ice-cream behind a counter? Do you truly ask for relevant experience for an internship...which is supposed to train me? If you're so keen on talking nonsense, sit down, let's have a chat about the green dragon standing right behind the staircase. Sure as hell, it's as real as my chances to find a job before I reach the pensionable age.

At least you've got creativity, says my mother each time I mention a new improbable job I applied for.
Oh, true, I never lacked creativity. That's the one thing I'm proud of, if there really has to be one.
Still, the amount of application received was very high and the quality level outstanding, we're sorry to tell you that we rejected your application for the Creative Writer position. Sincerely yours, the Big Chief Editor of Whatever Serious Publishing House You Just Contacted.

No, please, no more constructive lectures about the utility of dedicating seventeen years of my life to studying. Just give me a good excuse to close my coursework files and have a walk in the sun, and I'll be ok, I swear.

(on air: Arcade Fire - Suburban War)