what have I done?

Despite living in UK for a while now, the drinking attitude never made it for me.
Happy, yes. Euphoric, yes. But I have to admit never loosing the control completely.

Just once in my life I experienced the "dark side" of alcohol: pretty awful state, and not just laughing or being depressed or such. What I do remember is that the morning after I didn't remember anything. I was up and working as usual. When I saw Ilaria, who reminded me about my performance, small pieces of a memory puzzle started fitting together, and I clearly remember thinking: "Oh gosh, what have I done?"

The movie Hidden from Michael Haneke gave me this type of feeling: for once, the director is not imposing his or her visions, or finale, on the story. In the end, you are left rummaging on the scenes just seen, with a vague sense of "that's useless cinema".

But then all the pieces start falling into place and you're left with a:


" oh my"


"what have I just...."


...


"seen?"

ongoing quest

Everyone with an uncommon name and/or surname knows this: when you're young, naive pupils make horrible jokes about assonances (i remember myself in the first grade making fun of a friend called maffiotto, of course associating it with the infamous southern italian respected families), and parents sometimes do not help in the choice (having a surname "Impalato", Empaled, the choice of "Crocifisso", Crucifixed, is not ideal: all true...)

I remember in the past being called many many different surnames, the best being Scialuppi, or the more updated Cappuccino, but I wasn't that pissed with my first name. That fitted quite ok, overall.

This before coming to the UK. Andrea is lately a joke to me: when i claim this as a male name, people giggle and look somewhere else; still it is one of the most common names in Italy!

Today I just found out that I'm not alone in this misunderstanding. Ordes of very italian, very masculine "Michele", stay put: your name here is meant to be for a Miss, a Mrs, or more gently a Ms.