I am feeling really thankfull today. I had a luxurious day without hurry or stress. I read in the book ‘The queer art of failure’ and am really enjoying it and being inspired by it. At 14h30 I had agreed to meet Rachel (gf of Mark), she was around 50minutes late but that was ok. We have never been particularily close and there was something difficult that happened between us before (read earlier blog posts). Meeting with her was really good energy. We shared a lot and ate really good Cameroon food. It feels we became actual friends today despite knowing each other for quite a bit now. After coming home Shino was a bit grumpy because my phone was dead the whole afternoon so she could not reach me and she was hungry. I was feeling happy tough (and brought food for her) and this rubbed off on her. Later I also found out she was a little bit grumpy because she had prepared several gifts for me and was waiting for me to arrive home to give them to me. Not long ago we took our time to unpack them and they are SO BEAUTIFUL AND CUTE. sometimes I forget she is really someone who communicates in this way and not always as clearly in words. It was really touching to receive these gifts (self made picture book, self made japanese flashcards, a usb stick, a little gemstone, a sleeping mask from a Russian airline, a framed picture of our ‘son’ Robbespiere, and a beautiful little sculpture depicting her “worshipping my massive ginger ass” (her words). This is also the one you see in the picture. This was accompanied by two short letters expressing her love for me. She did this because we will be seperated for a long time soon when I go to Italy and she to NYC. These are our last days together in this house.