A lazy afternoon

I spent most of my day in the patio, reading, with birds singing and the neighbour's pool splashing in the background. It was hot today, but not as hot as it's in other parts of Europe. Which is funny, because we're in the deepest South here. But being squeezed between mountains and sea creates these specific conditions. Micro climate, they say in Seville, where they fry in much higher temperatures. But theirs are dry, and all you need to do is to hide in a shade, and it's by magnitude better. In this humid heat here, there is no escape. But today, there were 31 degrees, while my friend in Warsaw had 38. I sent him a picture of my thermometer, and he simply replied, "go fuck yourself." I always have better weather here, but it's the first time it's better because it's lower than his. What time to be alive. Welcome in the 2026, the hottest year on the record. The hottest so far.

Xena, our newest dog, who's shadowing me everywhere, came out and lay a bit in the sun, but when she finalised this activity, she started walking back and forth, not being able to find a place. Neither the chaise lounge nor the other part of our patio sofa were satisfying for her. She was coming out and coming in and checking the outside but returning every time, back to the shadowy comfort of our living room. But then she came and stayed. She's cuddly, so she lay down next to me. Being a Spanish hound, she's basically skin and bones, and yet, she's very warm. I think that's how it works: she's just losing her warmth at a crazy pace. It's fine now, but she'll require warm clothes in the winter. As I said, a Spanish hound.

The birds were chirping a bit less than on colder days, but still enough for me to forego music. I love listening to music on a lazy afternoon, but it would feel like a waste of good nature sounds. I've been abandoning music for a while now because of that. The birds. The water. It's a pool, but I don't see it from my patio, and water splashing is water splashing. Cozy. Comforting. I'll go back to music in the winter. For a moment, I was thinking again about bone-conducting headphones. They allow you to listen to whatever you want, while not cutting you off from the surrounding. Good for bicycle riding, so you can hear potential dangers. And I heard they're amazing underwater. But they're also expensive. Maybe one day. I would listen to solfeggio frequencies or binaural beats from J.S. Epperson. He's excellent for playing chess with Duolingo. It would have blended perfectly with the sounds of my patio, too. But not today.

However, after 3:00 P.M., it got warmer, and I got up and left. Xena followed. But the book was good. "The Passenger" from Cormac McCarthy. I left my phone charging in the living room, so it was only me and the book. All these new means of communication damaged our collective attention span, and reading things is much bigger of a challenge than it used to be, so every opportunity at reading without interruptions is welcomed. I've read somewhere that just having a phone next to you hampers your attention. Just a notion of potential notification makes our brains run wild. So, no phone, only the book. And it worked nice. It inspired me to start thinking about the text that I'm writing now, in McCarthy's style. I did not omit the commas, however. I don't wanna copy him. I'm trying different ways of expressing myself to build my own style. It will resemble others, fo' sho', but it will be mine. Every writing choice will be mine. How long sentences. How much punctuated. Everything.