Looking back, I can see that it was a moment of identity crisis. Not a real big crisis perhaps, nonetheless, but it was a difficult moment.
I had come back from the walk with the dog. Nadia, my wife was busy watching a soap that I can't stand. She is very considerate and while watching such soaps uses headphones, so that I am not disturbed. If I am not disturbed, I will not disturb her by making uncharitable comments about the new crisis facing the stars of those soaps, and she can watch them in santa pace (that is "saintly peace" for you non-italians).
My son and his wife had gone to the cinema. As I switched on the computer, I was wondering if this was all of what one was supposed to get in life? TV switched on at one end and computer on the other and the dog yawning on the rug in the middle!
Perhaps I can write a post on excitement of old age on my Hindi blog, Jo Na Keh Sake (That I could not say), I thought. Quite an inappropriate name for my blog, I agree. Those who know me would have called it, That no one wanted to listen to (Jo Kisi Ne Na Suna), since as Italians say, non ho mai avuto peli sulla lingua (literally, "never had the problem of having hair on my tongue").
In the end, I didn't write in my blog and instead stumbled on the site of Panna Smontata (Flat cream), with lot of new free skins for blogs. It is true, Italians have a flair for design, I thought as I looked at the different skins, some of them looked very good indeed.
So my evening was spent setting up new skins for each of my blogs. It was not so difficult and in the end, I was full of admiration for the new look of my blogs.
Since then, the comments so far have not been very encouraging:
"That chair looks like the couch of a psychiatrist, it puts me off."
"Sorry, you mean that chair with the world map printed over it? I thought it was a good way of saying that my blog was talking about the world!" I asked.
"Oh, I didn't notice the spots, I had thought that they were like those spots they have on those dogs, I think they are labradors."
I was too offended to tell that it is the dalmatas who have the spots and not the laboradors and anyway, people making bad comments should be allowed to remain ignorant.
"They are a bit cold, all these new blog designs, not like you at all!"
"A little monotonous, they all look the same."
"That birdy thing, it looks like a cartoon, not at all like your image of a serious person!"
Do I hate those comments? I don't care, I tell myself. And yet, here I am waiting for new comments with anxiety. In the mean time that chair I had liked so much, has been substituted with a yellow clown. The face with the tear of the blood is replaced by another face, hopefully less cold. The landscape on the Italian blog is replaced by a group of girls showing a bit of purple skin. But I am not going to bow completely to the public pressure. I have some self-respect. That bird, cartoon or no cartoon, is going to stay. Today evening at least. Guess, I am heading for another mini crisis!
