This morning I walked past a café. I imagined Pessoa ordering five different drinks, one for each of his heteronyms. The girl would write the different names and specifications on each cup with a marker pen. I thought about that today. I suppose there are people who made better use of their time in that café. People with their computers, people chatting. Finalising editorial copy, studying, talking about work. A woman with wet hair sending messages from her phone, no doubt pulling the strings of an office.

Useful things. Useful work, useful thoughts, useful phrases. Stories in which everything happens. A society that worships the verb. The famous concept of utility, the pursuit of usefulness. The old story of separating the wheat from the chaff. If everything is divided into two, I’m on the side of the chaff. And oh, it smells so good.

I’m writing this by hand, but I wonder if fonts are facets of character. If Times New Roman says something about the people who use it, if Comic Sans would reveal something else. It suddenly seems like a lot of things fall within the semantic fields of fonts, and that we choose them because they resemble us in some way.

Jonás writes in Georgia, and I prefer Garamond. I have no reason for thinking this, but these fonts seem compatible, like the music we listen to. That’s one good thing about living together – we’re into more or less the same things. As I make myself something to eat, I’m going to listen to some Georgia-style music.

Listening to music has the power to dissolve tension. I wonder if this also applies in politics, if music can dissolve any kind of tension.

Misfortune, difficulties and obstacles have value. Difficult times make you look inside yourself. Make you listen and observe. Hardship can be transformed into strength. I wonder if this applies to politics too, if disaster can become social strength.

I ate in the Japanese restaurant with Carolina. I saw another dwarf; she was having dinner with a man. I smiled at her.

This evening I went for a walk in the park with Luis Felipe. He’s so good to talk to. In his opinion, Jonás is trying hard to be ‘the good son’ in the wake of his mother’s death.

I wish I’d met Jonás at a different time. Grief has a protagonist and a host of minor characters. The protagonist is the one who suffers, like Jonás. Deep down, he thinks he’s misunderstood. He shares part of it with his sister, and part of it with his father, but there’s something he doesn’t know how to express, and he keeps that from everyone. He’s the protagonist, and I’m secondary. That’s why his return is being postponed.