It's been six months since my last update on this blog. More than once I had thought I had something to say, but probably my introverted nature took over. Or, more probably, the disappointment for our big project –our new home to renovate– is too big.

In Italy, we have this crap called superbonus with which, after the COVID pandemic, the government promised benefits to the citizens who needed to renovate their houses. It seemed too good to be true, but because of those basis we decided to buy a ~200-year-old tiny country house and work on it. This Spring, after fifteen months of waiting, we finally bought the house! 🍾 The renovation project and the mortgage were ready, what could go wrong? Well, anything with the Italian way of doing things.

Long story short: we currently have the house half-destroyed, a half-finished project, and no money to continue the construction. We keep seeing a far light at the end of the tunnel, but I don't dare saying it too loudly.

Worlds Apart

Something good is happening in Italy and in the rest of the world in the last few months—I don't want to mention the war. When Elon Musk announced that he was going to acquire Twitter, many people moved to federated alternative social networks, as Mastodon. A couple of years ago, I created an account to play with, and in April, when I found out the birth of LivelloSegreto.it, I took the opportunity to move the account there. I am a little bored to use English language to write on internet, so an Italian instance full of nerd people is good fresh air.

I don't agree with the huge wave of outrage because of Musk's move. Social networks were already bad long before that. As often, in my opinion, people focus on the wrong side of the coin.

About the Fediverse, the cool name of the alternative and federated social networks, another promising website is Lemmy, a Reddit clone free of much of the garbage. This is the Italian instance, which for now is a happy tiny island.

Signe

During the pandemic, I sold my old acoustic guitar, an almost-fifteen-years-old Takamine who kept me company during the "wild" side of my music life, when I made some live shows with my friends — I miss them so much, both the shows and the friends now spread around the world. The nostalgia hit hard and, in April, I decided to buy a new guitar. The decision fell on a Fender, even if I had the prejudice that I'd have never bought an acoustic one. I'm quite happy with it and I finally started playing more finger-style and less with a pick.

Then I made some not-very-wise decisions, for example to learn Signe by Eric Clapton. I think that... some songs have to be played everyday, if you want to learn them, or not forget them! That rhythm, those devilish details.... what a song! I also discovered myself good at playing Tears in Heaven, though I had thought it was almost impossible. Next step: open D tuning!

Honestly, I can't wait to sit in our new garden, on a hammock, with the guitar, watching the sunset and playing. I want to live in that house mainly for this image in my mind!

Also, I finally finished a story I had in mind for months. It is about fetches and reincarnation. It still has not everything I wanted to talk about, but... it's a beginning. 👶👶