Language: English + Italian.
Mood: Relaxed. Upset.
Listening to: Surf Curse's Freaks, covered by Forest Slater. -> Well, strangely fitting with the rest of the post.
Drinking: Water.
Eating: Nothing. Ate pasta in rosso ("in red", tomato sauce) an hour and a half ago.
Watching: Nothing.
Reading: This old article on the Jacobin + this article from the Cartoon Brew.
Playing: Nothing. I'd like to.
Moon: Idk lol.
Weather: It rained all afternoon and throughout the evening, I think. It was sunny, but with fresh air until noon.
23:41
I had my volunteering shift at the dog shelter today.
We were a bit understaffed and I arrived later on, so I helped in rows where I am less familiar for some time and then switched to my usual familiar doggies near the end.
I saw Y., the dog I'd like to adopt spying me from his kennel; I learned how to clean T.'s ass (stop cutting animals ears and tails, y'all, especially you, my Balkan and Southern European friends), I got to know some new fur-babies and I walked with S. (which my tarot cards say will be the next adoptee from "my" rows) and Z. the Husky who is just happy whenever he sees me because he. Yearns. The. Big. Adventure.
I make sure to talk to Z. in Serbian but with an exaggerated Russian accent so he doesn't forget his roots because his ancestors come from Siberia. He seems to respect me more when I do that.
He's very intelligent, bilingual and understands just everything: he's capable of distinguishing left from right as well.
Good times.
I'll return tomorrow and I know they're all waiting. :(
I want to make sure to be there by 08:30/09:30 tomorrow.
THE POST ENDS HERE FOR YOU.
VERY GRAPHIC TRIGGER WARNING. I DON'T BELIEVE IN TRIGGER WARNINGS AND I THINK THEY'RE USELESS AND A SIGN THAT WE'RE GETTING DESENSITIZED TO THE REAL DISCUSSIONS SURROUNDING THE REAL WORLD MOST OF THE TIME, SO IF I'M USING TRIGGER WARNINGS, YOU NEED TO KNOW THAT I AM VERY SERIOUS ABOUT IT.
DON'T PROCEED IF YOU ARE VERY IMPRESSIONABLE OR ARE EATING OR ARE HAVING A GOOD TIME AND CAN'T STAND GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF DEGENERATIVE ILLNESS AND OPEN WOUNDS.
23:55
Okay, I'm not relaxed anymore because my mom, who works as a private caregiver, keeps having panic attacks about the conditions of her new patient (actually wrong term since she's not medical personnel, but beneficiary or recipient sound too cold and wrong, so enlighten me), who is an old grandpa who used to be a professional basketball player and now is just a skin and bones smiling dude with lots of tumors and a hole in his mouth.
Re-read it slowly.
Like, the hospital discharged a multi-tumor-infected geriatric person with a literal infected hole on his flesh. This guy barely talks, "eats" with a hole in his mouth and everyone around him keeps repeating "it's just a small hole [according to my mom, it's true], there are no issues", doctors included.
How sick is that.
And if there are any Republican Americans around here, is not because of socialist healthcare (thank god for social webs and public welfare), is because of capitalists who transformed the doctors, the hospitals and the clinics around the world in semi-private little machines, money-grabbing industries.
Sure, most of this is seemingly free where I live, but most of the doctors hardly look their patients in the... face anymore. They have to be faster, greet fast, ask fast, reply fast, scribble some useless treatment which will cure the symptom fast, dismiss and discharge fast - next patient, please.
You know who works like that? Me. The difference is that I work in a factory with actual machines.
Understand that this person was sent at home to die and no one cares enough to say it out loud because it would be a bad look for the Italian public sanity system.
This opens the usual debate.
As a conspiracy theorist, I'm glad the government doesn't endorse euthanasia because imagine what kind of under-the-table deals we would end up having here and in the rest of Southern Europe, yet I am definitely ashamed because this person "eats" bread and soup with an infected hole in his cheek, while my mom needs to wipe the food, spit and blood exiting the hole. His doctor prescribed him tons of medicines and makes sure to remind him to disinfect the open smelling wound once-a-day with a safe amount of "medical" bleach, without any vitamin supplements on the side, when all the food he eats doesn't even reach his organs, meaning he's not receiving nutrients. This is what slow euthanasia looks like to me and it's legal because there is an entire medical team working on this case + the family... Isn't aware? I guess? Or they're just waiting?
This person is clearly not meant to be alive anymore or at least, there's something very wrong with the treatment he's receiving.
I am not saying this with bad intentions, I am saying this because keeping someone this ill alive just to suffer is cruelty.
The same thing is happening at my dog shelter with old and ill dogs. Sometimes, you need to let go, even if it hurts because imagine how much your egoism is costing to them.
Yet, this guys is smiling and seemingly unaware because he states that he doesn't feel anything on that side... So he is meant to live? So is it just my social conditioning that is making me think he needs to die? Wait, but who decides who needs to die? How does the conversation even begin?
Anyways, it's her first day and she wants to quit but she probably won't for legal reasons.
Update, 05/06/2026, 22:53 - It turns out my mom is also a giant worrywart and this guy's fate is still somewhat okay-ish. Although, he suffers of frequent fevers. That's because he has a hole on his face.
Life is unfair, man and I blame corruption because if the desire for status, money and power wouldn't be this prominent, we would live in a better world.
In the current state, though, I don't want to end up like Canada, which sends colorful informative and guilt-tripping pamphlets about assisted death to the young and mentally capable disabled people.
I will correct the grammar, the syntax and whatever tomorrow, for now just know that:
- I swear I didn't pick the song to make fun of this situation: that cover found me and then my mom dropped the bomb (again), upsetting me and then I realized how cynical the Matrix is. I won't change my "now" song to fit the narrative because I want to stay true to myself and I am genuinely upset now.
- I really thought a lot about publishing this post or not. I chose blabbering over silence.
- This is not a political or informative blog, some or most claims might be unverified or partially inaccurate because I don't give enough fucks. In fact, you are in a pink nostalgic driven blog that caters to my ego entirely.
- Everything you read here or not is based on my opinions and direct or indirect experiences only, I don't represent anyone and anything other than myself and my ideas or ideologies.
- I have the right to be ignorant. I know nothing. I am not an idiot.
- Are you humble enough, though?
Btw, I actually wanted to talk about that paraculo of Zerocalcare who grew up amongst the realities of left-leaning centri sociali when he says "he didn't know" the animators for his social commentary animated series about unfairness and ITALIAN work explotaition are underpaid by Netflix etc., but I guess we'll live.
Still, credo che tu sia un po' paraculo Michele e mi sai sempre più di industry-plant con tutto sto virtue-signaling.
I acknowledge Zero isn't responsible for the labor wages, but he is a talented Italian artist who works in Italy and comes from the centri sociali, which are loudly against big corporations and wage exploitation.
How can he not imagine what is happening?
THIS BLOG IS NOT SO SERIOUS BTW STOP READING IT
Era anche una bella giornata.
All in all, today I'm grateful for: dogs, animals, nature, the weather, the sun, the wind, the rain, the cicadas, dialogue, Z.'s eagerness to walk with me, although he's probably just excited to exit his enclosure, Italian dog shelters and volunteering, my health, my family's physical health, Y. spying me with his pretty dark eyes and that little truffle he has as a nose.
Dreams dreamed: ? I did sleep, but I think I just ended up reliving my day at the shelter in my sleep.