21 Feb 2019 | Rome> Bin a bit of a roller coaster ride, this hole house-buying experience, tho probly not nearly as bad for us as other folk. We've had a few nerve-racking moments, but for the most part it's been perty quick, painless + ez... tho it still ain't a done deal just yet. Rats have entered our dreams a few times recently (1 of witch we logged 2 posts ago) + also w/ our bedder-½ + for the 1st time the other day we saw a rat in Rome (not down by the river, but on the streets). If u look around on Inurnet sum folks think rats got negative connotations, like "i smell a rat" or as symbols of deception, witch might be a relevant expression in regards to the skeptickle anxiety we've bin feeling as of late. Others say if a rat scurries cross yo path it means u being aksed to assert yoself in areas u aint yet explored, that it's high time for new biginnings. True dat. Or that we need to evaluate the clutter around us + purge old baggedge, witch mos def = true, as we exorcised at length in the last post.

Also bin doing our taxes... bit of a tricky situation living abroad w/ our bedder-½ working for the U.N., the upside of witch is dat they remiburse us for taxes paid... if we can trust they will, they've cheated + swindled us of most everything Ls they promised, like housing subsidies + moving expenses... chalk it up to a hellish learning experience for our bedder-½, 1 that allowed us to live back in Rome for a year, but we won't say much beyond dat. For our part, Calamari Archive has continued it's downward spiral into hyber-stagnation... we din't publish no new books this year, tho we did release the Sleepingfish mixtape + our one Sound Furies album. In typickle annual fashion wheel divulge the ongoing financial shortcomings of Calamari Archive:

... tho actually last year we actually turned a profit of a few hundred bucks! The K-OS actually starting to form a linear pattern, to at lease break even... of course these are only the direct costs, the cost of printing books vs. income from selling them... tho just realized we forgot to inkloot the cost of making the Sleepingfish cassette in the expenditures total. As usual, Calamari Archive is essentially a tax-write off, to offset the earnings of our bedder-½ if we file jointly. However, under the scrutiny of mort-gauge brokers, our yearly losses jeopardized our chances of getting a loan, to the extent we had to take our name out of the mix.

This house-buying business also gots us not only re-evaluating how to bedder monetize the remnants of Calamari Archive but also how to apply our editorial/design/production chops we picked up along the way (not to mention to make use of our Adobe CC subscription) to hussle up some freelance work or even get a job once we're back stateside. Damn, we starting to sound like a grown-up! Cal A Mari can no longer be the charity case it's been now that we're strapped to a mort-gauge. Got to spruce up our resume + start hussling freelance work, or become a dog-walker or haberdasher or sumping. Know any 1 who wants to hire us?

+ for our weekly mixtape, related to rats + taxes:

Feb 22> Walked 18 km around in the outskirts, around Vatican city. Got slices at Pizzarium Bonci. Last dispatch we posted a series of SPQR sines. This week we collect up sum of the numerous nsaoni fonts all around Rome that we've drunk from over the years:

in Parione rione

pinecone fount in the namesake pigna rione

in Monti rione

3 nozzled nasone in Trevi

Celio rione

S. Angelo rione

in Testaccio

at base of Aventino

in Borgo rione

another 3-way in Campitelli

in Ludovisi

in the ghetto

barrel nasone in Campo Marzio

in Esquilino

in Monteverde

Anon I'm us drinking from a font in 2008

also in 2008

+ annuder in 2008

A.I. drinking from a buffalo font in front of Luigi Serafini's house in 2012

book nasone in 2013

also in 2013

wolf in 2015

no nippled nasones that we know of in Rome, but here's 1 from Amalfi

+ this 1 in Bologna, tho more of a fountain not for drinking