Fani

My day in Philly was remarkably normal. Truly remarkable, in that I did pretty much everything I've been doing for the past two months in the most average and typical way possible. I woke up groggy because I took a sleeping pill last night, which is a habit I'm trying to break. I never know what to do with my energy — it always comes at the wrong time. I scrolled on my phone to try to wake up, which was a horrible idea and put me in a very bad mood. I went for a run to Penn Treaty park with my dog, Cien, because I recently decided on a whim to deal with the feelings of self doubt brought on by my fruitless job hunting this summer by doing something hard that I've always hated, and committing myself to it. I do have a tendency to kick myself when I'm down, but this time it turned out to be a good idea. I actually look forward to running now, which is unbelievable to me. I listened to a Greek political podcast during the run, thinking it would be harder to understand than it was. I've been trying to sharpen my language skills this summer, and I guess it's starting to work.

I had a job interview on Zoom at noon. Like always, I felt like it went well, but I couldn't tell for sure. The interviewer didn't ask me certain questions that I had prepared for, and I worried that I didn't seem confident enough and hadn't really sold myself. After the interview, I paced around. I made a random lunch. I posted something on social media for the small press I volunteer for. I got a new freelancing project, finally. I made a smoothie. I went to the gym for upper body day. I didn't know this at the time, but I'd been over-exercising and my body was preparing its rebellion. I stopped at Riverwards to take a look at the dollar bin. I bought some day-old bread.

My husband, Davide, got home from work around 6:30. He commutes to New York to teach three days a week. We made pasta with butternut squash for dinner and sat around. We might have played cards, but I don't remember. We've been playing the classic Italian card games lately, scopa and briscola. We went to bed early. I've been going to bed earlier and earlier lately, and waking up earlier too, sometimes wanting to run. He fell asleep first, like always. I tossed and turned a little bit. I took a magnesium pill. I read a few pages of Polly Barton's Fifty Sounds. I guess I would call it a memoir about her experience of learning and eventually translating Japanese. I love this book. I love the feeling of reading something for the first time and recognizing that it will likely become very important to me, something I hold onto for the rest of my life. I drifted off to the sound of distant fireworks. There is no word for that sound in English, but I think if there were one sound to represent summer in Philadelphia, this would be it.

Fani lives in Fishtown with her partner and two dogs.