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Could it possibly be? Photocopied articles and book chapters haphazardly stacked on my desk, stuffed in drawers and left lying on top of books on their shelves for a year were all organized in a half hour with a few binders and 5-hole plastic sheet protectors. 5 years of daily struggle folding two blankets to the right height for meditation, put to nought with a meditation cushion bought at a store I must have passed 100s of times.

Wherefore the procrastination? Whence came this newfound lucidity?

And you? What half-hour task awaits to unclutter your life, to bring days and months of simplicity and happiness? To the trash bin, old underwear! To the hardware store, drip-drippety sink!

The Italian expression pieno come un uovo has never convinced me. Surely, to describe how stuffed you are after an antipasto, pasta, smoked scamorza cheese, chicory sauteed in olive oil, garlic and red pepper, tiramisu and espresso, there must be something more appropriate than “I’m as full as an egg.” An egg? Since when is an egg the fullest thing imaginable?

Here is a tentative list of things fuller than an egg.
Sono pieno come…

• Napoli
• un’elefantessa incinta (A pregnant elephant)
• il pranzo di natale (Christmas lunch)
• Calcutta
• un politico di bugie (a politician is of lies)
• Kishke
• il GRA alle 18.00 (the ring road at 6pm)

Add your own!

Stefi (pronounced Shtefi like in Naples, never mind that she’s Bavarian) is the third in a string of glorious housemates, even if only for a month. The other day she asked for a ride to Villa Borghese, which I was happy to offer. Driving through Trastevere I began elucidating the logic behind driving in Rome. “You see, in August it’s like after sundown, stoplights are optional…”

“..and when you see a police car” she continued, as my hand jumped from the throttle to the brake, “it’s immediately September.”