string theory

Today I had one of the most bewildering experiences since working in Milan. And it is so bizarre I need to recount it here in detail, lest I forget it when I am in my late 60s.

I get summoned by this reputable design professor at an equally reputable design university in town. The reason? He has a project for me, but needs to tell me face-to-face.

I arrive around lunch time, entering his studio with a younger professor I know personally and who has been invited to witness the meeting. He asks me to close the door firmly. I comply and sit down next to him.

"I have been a very fulfilled man in my life, sexually speaking - he starts - I have been married 3 times and at 65 I am proud to say I can still please my wife, who is 25 years younger than me".

A little drop of sweat fills my forehead.

"Yet - he continues - at my age one needs some... how shall I put it... perks. Which is why I have invented something that I wish you to bring to the market".

The younger professor looks at me in complete shock, although I try to avoid his glance because I fear I will just burst into laughter and blow it all up. The elder professor produces a black string from his pocket, and with a few swift movements he ties it into a sort of noose.

"You see - he shows me wrapping it around his thumb - the string acts as a cock-ring, but doesn't feel as uncomfortable and it can be adjusted as one pleases. No more one-size-fits-all solutions. And this only costs a few cents"

I recover from the initial shock, point out how he could market his "invention" and promise a thorough investigation when I am London (Milan certainly isn't a place where his invention would go down well). He grins and pats me on the showlder.

"Here, have the string. It's not only old men like me who need it to avoid taking Viagra. Young men like you can enjoy it too".

I thank politely, slipping the string into my pocket with a little shiver. Sadly, as I search my pockets to take a picture of it for the blog tonight, I realize a friend I was telling the story to earlier on has taken it with him. Clearly the string is far more attractive than I had imagined...!

To the cock-ring market: get ready to meet your fate!

experimental idleness

I am sitting here, late in the evening. Although I have a flat now - not a pretty one, but one that does the job - I have no internet connection there, thus I feel removed from the world and have to download everything I need before I go home. And I love this place at night, no one in it, just the gentle humming of the photocopier and the occasional voice of a Chinese neighbour telling her kid off. Chinatown is an odd place where to live, yet it feels so perfect in this alien city. Being surrounded by people who speak and write a language so incomprehensible to me makes me feel at home in this city, where those who speak my language are the ones I mostly don't understand. Nothing personal. The gap is just too wide. The habits have hardened. The ideas are set and we all think, underneath, we are right and the others are wrong. There is very little place for sympathy at this time of my life. I don't feel as passionate as when I was 20, and I don't feel as wise as when I will be 60. I am caught in a limbo of experimental idleness, content with what my brain has accomplished so far, rarely willing to be pushed out of my ideological comfort zone. Do I really know what I want? Do I really know what I believe? Does it matter, in fact? Can a sense of infinite possibility co-exist with a sense of finite accomplishment? If it can, 35 years is the perfect age when to feel this strange contraddiciton.

counting

I seem to be spending a lot of time counting these days.
I count the days before I can get back to London.
I count the days I have left before heading back to Milan.
I count the number of planes I have to board every month.
I count the time gaps between trains and buses that will take me to an airport.
I count the times we are forced to move in and out of our new home.
And I count underwear and tshirt I have left before running out in my 1-bag based existence.

But one thing above all I count: the days separating me from meeting this little one.