The Narrative Within

Dinos in the Park

Posted on March 24, 2026 by Art for Housewives

Yesterday my daughter and I went to vote on the referendum. Our polling place is at the elementary school in the neighborhood of San Lorenzo (Rome). Afterwards we went to a nearby park to sit in the sun pretending to be lizards.

The park is part of a new residence called The Social Hub.

foto of a building with a cloud above it — building with cloud

The park has picnic tables and benches and even swings and two ping pong tables. It’s a perfect place to take a sack lunch and enjoy urban outdoors.

photo of a building with a metal dinosaur standing near it

I was surprised to see a dinosaur walking around in the park as I had read about them the day before. The spiky tail of a stegosaurus is called a thagomizer. But the Dino in the Park doesn’t have a spiky tail. There are over 700 distinct species of extinct non-avian dinos. Unfortunatley, I don’t know how to distinguish one type from another.

The rails seen are from the train station. If you’re lucky, you can be looking at the dinosaur when a train passes by. Anachronistic.

photo of a building with many windows and a nearby dinosaur

Here Mr. Dino has a Godzilla vibe to him. Luckily he can’t move.

photo of a building, a tree, and a cloud in the sky

The building on the right is the new residence. On the botton left is what remains of the Ex-Dogana di San Lorenzo. The Dogana served to control goods travelling on trains. But now, under the tutelage of the Beni Culturale (Cultural Heritage), it’s been transformed into the Accademia Italiana that has the objective of being the first campus of its kind in Italy dedicated to design.

It was Sir Richard Owen who came up with the term “dinosauria”nfrom the Greek words “δεινός” meaning “severe” and “σαύρα” meaning “lizard”.

What we know about dinosaurs is based mainly on fossils.

Non-avian dinosaurs went extinct c. 66 million years ago.

Most bidepal dinos had feathers and not all dinos were huge. Sometimes dinosaurs got the sniffles and some even suffered with respiratory illnesses.

Dinosaurs roamed the earth for more than 165 million years and became extinct c. 65 million years ago.

The stegosaurus had a brain the size of a walnut.

The chicken has the closest DNA to the T-Rex.

The water you drink, technically, has a little bit of dinosaur urine in it.

Dinosaurs didn’t roar and probably made sounds like a dove cooing.

The first scientific account regarding dinosaurs wasn’t published until 1617.

Some dinos were vegetarians. But birds evolved from the theropods, meat eating dinos.

Horseshoe crabs are twice as old as dinosaurs.

crocodiles can’t stick their tongues out, while alligators can

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Appropriations for AI will be jinxed.

San Lorenzo come Amsterdam: dov’era l’Ex Dogana ha aperto The Social Hub +

Ex-Dogana project + Nasce il primo campus di design in Italia + Roma, l’ex Dogana di San Lorenzo diventa un polo di disegn e si mostra al pubblico +

Is There Dinosaur Pee in Your Drinking Water? + Is Water Made Out of Dinosaur’s Pee? Scientists Claim 100% Probability +

Accademia Italiana +

Posted in Daily Aesthetics, Lifestyle, Rome/Italy | Tagged Accademia Italiana, dinosaurs, Ex-Dogana di San Lorenzo, San Lorenzo Roma, The Social Hub | Leave a comment

The Pencil Case

Posted on March 21, 2026 by Art for Housewives

photo of a pencil case that's being mended with fabric scraps

My pencil case is purple with big white dots. I’ve had it for a very long time. The inside, made from some kind of rubbery material, has dried out and constantly crumbles. I have plenty of unfinished projects and promised myself not to start any new ones. But my pencil case made me break that promise.

“Worn out” doesn’t bother me like “neglected” does. It’s a matter of daily aesthetics. And, as I use the pencil case daily, an immediate restyling was necessary.

The easiest way to transform the pencil case was to cover it with fabric scraps. And I have lots of scraps. So, I dismissed my programmed chores and gave priority to the pencil case makeover and subsequently passed all morning and a great part of the afternoon stitching scraps onto the case.

There’s another reason why I needed to transform my pencil case. The War.

Marcus Aurelius wrote this to himself: When circumstances force you to some sort of distress, quickly return to yourself. Do not stay out of rhythm for longer than you must…you will master the harmony the more by constantly going back to it.”

The quickest way for me to “return” to myself is by hand sewing. Stitching tranquilizes me and helps me reconnect with my core. The focused attention and the repetitive movements are soothing. Mellow meditation.

Seeing the world crumbling and in flames weakens me and makes me feel impotent. But despite all the destruction going on, if I can repair something, I can escape that feeling of powerlessness. Just because I can’t repair the world doesn’t mean there aren’t those things that I can’t save. So that’s where I’m focused. At least for now.

So why not mend something?

colored drawing of a little boy wearing a bunny hat

Don’t forget about our Bunnies!

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Appropriations for AI will be jinxed.

Mending as a form of Aesthetics + The Aesthetics of Mending +

Posted in Beauty, Daily Aesthetics, Furniture, Introspection | Tagged Andy Warhol, Daily Aesthetics, hand sewing, hand stitching, Iranian War, mending and repairing, pencil case | 4 Comments

Ciao Giuseppina

Posted on March 20, 2026 by Art for Housewives

Photo of an elderly lady lying in a hospital bed

Thank you, Giuseppina, for reminding me just how lucky I am. What a pity l can no longer tell you in person.

Posted in aging | Tagged Giuseppina | 2 Comments

Feckful or Feckless

Posted on March 7, 2026 by Art for Housewives

for the men in our lives

drawing of a pair of cowboy boots down on the ground

Three million years ago, the genus homo first appeared. And, after much morphing, the first homo sapiens appeared 300,000 years ago. But, only 3,000 years ago, these sapiens invented and imposed monotheism. Goddesses were exiled and their temples destroyed. Because monotheism is patriarchal. *

Patriarchy has obviously restricted the equal participation of women in society. However, patriarchy has restricted men as well by forcing them into harmful macho roles that obstruct their personal growth and their own idea as to what the ” pursuit of happiness” means.

Patriarchy gives men, whether or not they can handle it, a disproportionate power. And this power has produced a bunch of men who strut around crowing and flapping their wings because that’s what they think that a man is supposed to do–impose his presence then subjugate those in weaker positions.

But not all men feel the need to be bullies. Not all men are so insecure that they have to minimize women so that they can feel superior. Because there are men who believe that we are all created equal and that men and women have complimentary and not conflicting roles. These are the men who need to raise their voice and express themselves. Because, to continue our evolution, we need poets, not soldiers. So keep the boots at home.

*Timelines are extremely difficult to establish–interpretations are always changing and, with new technology, we have new ways of studying the past.

drawing of a little boy with a bunny hat on

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Appropriations for AI will be jinxed.

Related:

Human evolution + Timeline of Homo Sapiens, Scientists share the findings that helped them pinpoint key moments in the rise of our species +

human evolution (Britannica) + When Did The Earliest Humans Appear on Earth? +

Posted in Conditions of Possibility, politics | Tagged boots on the ground, goddesses, homo sapiens, patriarchy, war | 4 Comments

Venus in a Niche

Posted on March 4, 2026 by Art for Housewives

photography of a driveway with a niche sheltering a statue of Venus

Yesterday I had a dental appointment. My dentist’s studio is in a very pretty part of Rome with very pretty bourgeois aesthetics.

In Ancient Rome, niches were popular as they provided a display space for statues and urns. Until minimalist low budget buildings became the norm, niches were an architectural habit. That’s why I’d never given much attention to the niche outside my dentist’s studio. But yesterday that changed.

The niche displays a statue of Venus holding a pitcher in one hand and something that, from a distance, looks like a cell phone (which of course it isn’t).

In Rome, we have all kinds of Venuses: La Venere Capitolina, Paulina Bonaparte as Venus Victrix + Venus Callipyge + Esquiline Venus Pudica.

My dentist’s Venus holds a pitcher that represents water, a vital element for life and thus a symbol of fertility. Venus, because of her birth, has a close relationship with water. Her dad, Uranus, ruler of the cosmos, was overthrown by his son, Saturn. To emphasize his victory, Saturn threw his father’s genitals into the sea. The penis swam around in the sea foam and, voilà, Venus was born.

Current events are existentially crushing and the feeling of doom is omnipresent. It’s easy to go into a depressive loop. But the other day internet offered this advice: “The amount of good things in your life depends on your ability to notice them.”

For unfortunate reasons, I’d missed my last dental appointment and was sure my dentist and his assistant were going to reprimand me. Instead, they embraced me, told me they were happy to see me, and asked how I’d been. They made me feel special.

When I left the studio, I was still high on the good vibes. And for the first time in the 15 years I’ve been going to my dentist, I stopped and looked at Venus and decided to photograph her to remember the moment.