mr anguish and the sins of the throat

Well, the reprieve may be temporary. My new housemate is grating my cheese at the moment. I don't wash up right. I don't mop the floor right. Whenever I want to have someone over for dinner, apparently it's not the right time. I have them over anyway. Well, she asks, could I possibly confine my guests to my bedroom as soon as we've finished eating? Because she needs 'just a little bit of space for herself'. Like... every other room in the house?

And she had a friend of her's over for dinner, and as soon as he got me alone, he went into this monologue about 'poor R-- (that is, my housemate), who has a big thing for him and wants to have his baby, but alas, he doesn't feel that deep connection he so requires from a woman,' and so no joy for poor R--. He said he was a poet. I asked what he wrote about. 'Anguish.' Then he told me he felt we had an amazing spiritual kinship, even if we had just met, and he would be glad to loan me some books if I were to come over to his flat. When he left, my housemate said, 'Ah, M-- and I... there's a sort of electricity between us. Something transcendental. Did you sense it? You must have noticed.'

Sigh. I'm racking my brains for male acquaintances over thirty who might like to visit Tuscany for the weekend and get in some serious nookie with her, because I feel that might solve her man troubles and my neurotic-housemate troubles in one fell swoop.

This weekend, the town is turning into one great market. Every street is being quilted over with marquees, with just enough space to squeeze between them and regard the mountains of dried tomatoes and olives, the stacked loaves the size of sofa cushions, the sausages like tree trunks from which one's order is carved by the slice. It's going to be a very fun place to be.

I walked past a fast food joint yesterday and noted that it was called Sins of the Throat. Just thought I'd throw that out there. And a bit of trivia for sneaker lovers: the Italian word for 'throat' is Gola. The Italian adjective 'goloso' (throaty) actually means 'having a sweet tooth and a slight tendency towards gluttony.' One can imagine an age-broadened maiden aunt admitting wistfully that she has always been a little 'golosa'. It's one of my favourite Italian adjectives.

in bocca al lupo

I’m so excited. I feel like Lucky Jim at the end of Lucky Jim. It’s like this. I got the job at Arezzo, the One True Job, for which I was saving myself in the face of several very sensible offers, watching my money run out (it’s still running), not knowing what exactly I was waiting for. It was this town, this school, I know now. There was still the question of where to live. The school, because they are great, had found two places for me: a place on the edge of town with a big window opening onto a busy road (no), and a big apartment in the very centre of town, sharing with one studentessa seria, as they are described in the rooms-to-let ads here.

Now this apartment was indeed huge, and centralissimo and all that, but this studentessa was a major major slob. I stayed in the place for a couple of nights to test it out, and the state of the bathroom and kitchen made me feel physically ill. Enter the mamma of this creature, who apparently flies in once a year from Sardinia. She came in cursing, calling this girl cretin and stupid and exclaiming at the filth of the place, and started cleaning. And telling me what to do. Not to go in bare feet in the house. To dredge the blocked bath drain with a plunger (blocked with long, dark, curling hairs that bore no resemblance to the brush bristles on my bony scalp) and then scrub with bleach. Not to use her daughter’s plates or forks. What a mamma. And what a daughter. A frowsy, sexless thing, stuffed toys all over her bed and saints all over her walls. She showed me her ‘pet’, a terrapin she kept in a half inch of water so filthy it stank, and it was all I could do to resist taking up the poor thing and dashing its brains out against the wall so as not to see that sad existence prolonged one second longer. This girl, and the house that was her exoskeleton, breathed out that unbearable sadness of being forever peripheral, of not distinguishing oneself or standing up for oneself in any particular. I don’t like to loathe people, and I especially don’t like to loathe harmless people for their weakness. It makes me feel dirty in my grain. And so, obviously…

Me: ‘It’ll be fine. I’m sure it will work out. Tell the landlady I’ll take it.’ (Why? Why do I do these things?)
My boss: ‘Are you sure? I could put her off for a day or two.’
Me: ‘No, tell her I’ll sign.’ (Genius.)
My boss: ‘Okay, I’ll call her now.’

Cue sleepless night on a narrow camp bed that smelt like someone had died on it (and I fervently hope I was mistaken, because nobody should have to draw their last breath on such a meagre, threadbare thing).

Me the next morning: ‘I’m really, really sorry, but I can’t take that apartment.’
My boss: ‘That’s okay, don’t worry about it.’
Me: ‘But I’ve put you in a tough position, since you called her and accepted already.’
My boss: ‘No, I didn’t.’
Me: ‘Why not?’
My boss: ‘We have this expression, right? The night brings good advice. I never make a decision before I’ve slept, and I wouldn’t let you do it either.’
Me: ‘How do you say you rule in Italian?’
My boss: ‘More importantly, what the hell do we do now? You have to sleep somewhere.’
Me: ‘In fact.’ (This is a sentence in Italian)
My boss: ‘There’s this one other place. I dunno. I’ll call her, see if it’s still available.’

It was, I went to see it. No tasteless junk, not so much as a plastic jesus above the (double) bed. My housemate: a woman a bit older than me, with the open face, untouched by gravity, that comes from doing what you love. A photographer from Rome. A clean, loved, well-tended home, with her darkroom in one corner and her photographs all over the hall, a cosy kitchen that directly overlooks a ruined Roman amphitheatre. She said, ‘you have an interesting face. I don’t know. I get the vibe. If you’re happy, I’m happy. Move in tomorrow. Oh yeah, do you mind if I smoke?’

Cue the wildly grateful dance of the reprieved.