unexciting update
No particular catastrophes or triumphs since I came back to Melbourne. My son, having come up third (out of 90-odd) for the Netherlands job, is scribbling away at his dissertation, apart from odd seminars (he gets paid!) in other states. I am working, looking after my health after a slight scare in Italy (have started peeking into a gym twice a week!), trying to finish the translation of the Italian memoirs, trying (mostly successfully) to see my life as reasonably useful and reasonably good. Count blessings (health still good; only a few, small, financial worries; I live in a country where the political problems do not burst into flames; I have good friends).
That I would like to stop working, and that I would like my best friend (who is almost, but not quite yet, in recovery) to look at me differently, are wishes that I live with every day, accepting them for what they are, wishes.
My fannish inspiration seems to have gone walkabout. (Am trying, am trying: have ordered the British WWII novel The Tunnel, in the hope that my warm, vague fantasies may coalesce into a narrative). I guess that the closest I can come to a snappy analysis of my flattish feelings is the old (probably Jewish) joke, "Relax, things could get worse." So I did and they did.
Recommended Film With Subtitles: Chinese Takeaway, set in Buenos Aires. Two men, an Argentinian and a would-be immigrant from China, meet by chance and spend about 10 days together without speaking one word of each other's language. No slashy vibes, but lots of humanist vibes. And it's very funny.