So my daughter Beta attends a school so cool that they got a famous Austrian artist to come give a talk to the kids. Hermann Nitsch, I'd love to see him in action once. I would go to great lengths to hear him speak. Not as far, say, as leaving work early and going to my kid's school, but you know. Who wouldn't want to see someone throw a couple buckets of blood around?
Beta's really enthused, too.
Briefly I considered writing a serious post about being hypnotized but the sort of corny humor inherent in hypnosis just makes it impossible. Also, the story gets a little personal and nobody here wants to hear personal stories, right.
Nevertheless, I was hypnotized last night, or something very much like it.
I watched "K-Pax" a couple weeks ago, and there is a scene where Jeff Bridges hypnotizes Kevin Spacey by counting him down from five, and brings him back by counting him back up. I watched that scene and was all like, Oh sure, no watch?
Well, last night this person who hypnotized me didn't even count me down from five. He didn't even tell me I was being hypnotized, for that matter, which makes me wonder whether I was actually hypnotized or something else, hence the disclaimer in the second half of the first paragraph up there.
OTOH, he did count me back up from 5 to 1, which made me think, "Holy shit, I've been hypnotized!!!" (Verbatim quote, BTW, from around "4").
Don't ask me what went on in between, because I haven't the faintest idea. I may have been doing naked George Burns impressions for the staff for all I know, although I did not smell of cigar smoke. Also, there was no staff. Anyway, another Kevin Spacey moment in my life.
It was really amazing; at least, I was really amazed. I still am.
Have you ever been hypnotized?
Just when certain positive life changes conspire to make one feel less Bug-like, threatening the very existence of a certain on-line "comic strip", school starts again, and with it long drives into the city with a teenager.
If Iraq descends into a civil war, will Bush get to count it as one of his?
Provisional results of the ongoing Metamorphosism research project on how to attract people, executive summary:
Subject M, 45-year old male
As I've mentioned before, fools, it's tortoise, not turtle. Testudo hermanni. Protected species: I practically have a license to kill.
Important difference: turtles are aquatic, tortoises are not. I wish someone would tell that to Mig's loopy father-in-law, who give me "swimming lessons". Christ, I shit myself with fear every time that guy comes near. And when he actually dips me in a bucket full of water - my heart's beating so fast I sound like an electric razor. We sink like stones, dude, that's why we have a fear of water. Jesus.
The thing I hate about living in Austria is it's so fricking cold. Here we are, mid-September, too early to hibernate, and I'm already shivering my little ass off out in my cage at night. So okay, they put me inside, but what are my options - running laps like a neurotic wolf in this little tub-like contraption with some bark and leaves sprinkled on the bottom of it, trying to escape by climbing the walls until I get stuck in a corner at a 45-degree angle or reach vertical and fall over onto my back and sit there with my tail exposed, counting the spiderwebs on the ceiling until some idiot finally notices me, or running laps around the baseboards in the fricking kitchen.
I try to will my metabolism slower, I really do. But there's no fighting millions and millions of years of evolution. Things happen when they're meant to happen and not before. Have to wait for the digestive tract to empty itself out, for one thing. And how's that supposed to happen when I'm still hungry and they keep feeding me? Lettuce this morning, little pile of it in the middle of the kitchen, with some protein pellets, the small kind, sprinkled on top.
Protein pellets, you know this, right? Protein pellets are a bit sticky when they're damp. Softer, easier to chew, but they stick to your fucking head. Put yourself in my position, hungry, all you've got to eat is this pile of bland lettuce and the last delicious protein pellet is stuck there in the middle of your forehead driving you cross-eyed. It's like having a full bank account and you can't remember your PIN code to withdraw the money - it's a bit comforting to know it's there, even if it's not doing you any good, and no one else can get it, especially if you withdraw your head into your shell.
If you're riding the public transportation in Vienna and it's crowded and you're standing next to a pretty 15-year old dark-haired girl, you might somehow think it's a good idea to stealthily put your arm around her, but it's not. In fact, it's a sure way to get a very sharp elbow in the ribs.
Because that girl is my daughter Beta, you see. Somewhere in Vienna this morning, a man with strong B.O. is rubbing his ribcage, replaying the events of yesterday afternoon and wondering what went wrong. Or maybe he's being more polite to women.
I'm awfully proud of her, but I do hope she doesn't get her ass kicked some day. I'm trying to talk her into taking the dirtiest dirty-fighting class we can find, just in case.
I've always felt short. If I'm talking to a tall person, I feel short. If I'm talking to someone shorter than I am, I feel about as tall as they are. Generally speaking. Personality matters too -- if they have a large personality, I also feel shorter than them, no matter how tall they are.
According to my American driver's license, long expired, I am 5'11" tall, but I always thought that was fudged upwards a bit -- when I originally got that license I was about 5' 10", I think, but figured I'd still grow some so added the extra inch.
A few weeks ago, I was at the American Embassy here to renew my daughter's American passport. The form she filled out asked how tall she was. She asked the clerk for a calculator so we could do the conversion, and the clerk pointed out a thing on the wall? What would you call it, a strip of paper six inches wide with feet and inches marked off. My daughter stood up to it and we knew how tall she was.
For fun I stood up to it and it said I was 6'1" tall. Minus an inch for my shoes (which are not really that high) and I would be at least 6' tall.
In an instant, I went from feeling short to feeling, if not tall, at least taller. It was what could be called in German an Aha-Erlebnis. Which could be translated as an epiphany, although I would not be completely happy with that translation. Literally it would translate as "aha-experience". Something that makes you say, "aha."
I may have even said, "aha!" Or I may have said, "hey, I'm tall."
Since then, I've been living in a different world. I had always envied people who were six feet tall, and now I am one of them! All thanks to that paper thing on the wall of the American Embassy!
I'm sure it was accurate: surely, the Embassy does not want people putting inaccurate information on their passports. So there is absolutely no need to ever again measure myself. I'm six feet tall. At least. Even taller in the mornings when my hair is standing straight up.
Although Monday, today turned out to be a windfall day off for me, so I won't be online much. One of the cats injured his left foreleg and has been spending the weekend in the office, and it smells like it, so I'll be outside in the fresh air today, shopping for new kitty litter boxes and hedgehog food, working out, taking a cello lesson, driving kids here and there, going to my shrink, in general doing all those things one does on a windfall day off.
To demonstrate what a nice pre-autumn day it is here today, here are a few pictures of the flowers growing in front of my house. They are ten feet tall.
Did the Twilight Zone ever do an episode about a guy trapped in a children's book?
Wait, before I start: guys, go get your prostate checked. Fucking another Ramone just died, of prostate cancer this time. I went a while ago and the doctor did it via ultrasound, no invasion at all. It was almost... I hate to use the word "anticlimactic" but nothing better occurs to me. Anyway. Seriously.
Now, the guy trapped in a children's book: he comes home and the helianthus patch is growing ten feet high in front of his living room windows, in full bloom and glowing golden in the setting sun. A happy little girl with glittery trinkets in her tangled hair runs out to greet him, dancing in her pyjamas. He forgets his sore back and the story he had wanted to tell about having to unload a vanload of luggage at the airport and how fucked up he is from the pain pills. Instead he eats his food until he's called out into the dark to watch the antics of a new hedgehog, Little Black Face, son (?) of Black Face. No, wait, LBF is in the left house, this one's even smaller and in the far right house. Look, he's tipped over his food dish. Look, he's climbed underneath. He's totally manipulating the food dish. It must be the Little Guy. LG is playing with his dish. The man goes back into the house and finishes his food. Cats are snoozing on the kids' beds. He snuggles with the smaller kid and tells her a story but falls asleep in the middle of it and wakes up and moves to his own bed. In the morning it is reported to him that LG has taken up residence in the far right house, to which the man added extra straw the previous day as LG had been tearing up the newspaper and moving straw and leaves inside for a nest. LG has figured out how to use his food dish as a door, rolling it in front of the entrance to keep others out. LG is the Einstein of hedgehogs.
The man feeds the cats. He looks like he is wearing furry boots, but it's just cat hair on his suit. He goes outside and calls the tortoise. It responds, climbs out of its new house (deeper, tapered for a greater sense of security, better insulated) and comes over to eat some lettuce and protein pellets.
Tom Waites probably has pets too, the man tells himself.
My absentee ballot arrived in the mail yesterday and boy is it complicated. I'll sit down eventually, with a pot of coffee, and try to figure the damn thing out, but I can imagine stuff like this is a real barrier for some people. The envelope is full of computer-card type cards, in various colors, with little holes to punch out. And what appear to be several instruction booklets. I just glanced at them last night and quickly shoved them back into the envelope, promising myself to study the material soon when I was less tired.
I'm not sure whether Washington State is a hotly-contested state in the upcoming presidential elections, or not. I have heard that Kerry has pretty good chances there. Just in case, though, I thought I'd announce that I will be taking offers to sell my vote(s) during the next week for the local and national elections.
My sound card works now, and I bought some speakers yesterday, and I have a fast connection at work. I would appreciate music suggestions, when possible with a URL from which I could download interesting MP3s.
The sky couldn't decide what it wanted to do this morning. It started out raining at my house, but by the time I got my umbrella packed into the car it had stopped. Then it restarted and rained off and on as I drove to work. The clouds were low and not really serious about raining though and by the outskirts of Vienna it was like, fog or rain? Mist or what? The windshield wipers worked most of the way. When they stopped, all I had to do was wiggle the wiper lever and they'd restart every time.
It was good deer weather and I saw two in a field by the road.
My thoughts on the way in revolved around two or three ideas that I forget now. One thought I remember was looking forward to a pain pill. I don't take them until I get to work since I consider the Dobló heavy machinery. Another thought that comes back to me now was, I wonder how hard it would be to get people to pose for nude poetry, or nude short stories. Why should painters have all the fun?
Actually, way more than two or three thoughts now that I think of it. Now and then a careful part of my brain would remind me that the roads this morning were genuinely wet for the first time in days and therefore slippery and to therefore maintain a little more distance to the car in front of me. Another was about how life brings people, or lessons, our way when we need them, if we have our eyes open for it, sometimes. Like, I'm reading the Sufi literature at the moment, but I'm broke, so I meet a woman who lends me books from her collection.
And that thought led to some general thoughts about what do I exactly think about the Sufis, which is not a lot at the moment as my knowledge of them is minimal now, besides that Coleman Barks' translations or re-doings of Rumi's poems are something. I don't think about them so much right now as feel them, which I suppose is leaving out half of it, who knows?
And that segued into the question of whether feeling can replace thought, and how important are categories and Gamma's recent request to her mother to explain to her the word "category".
And a bunch of other stuff.
When I was a boy, I thought "Playboy photographer" would be the perfect job.
More recently, I thought, "guy who builds fun habitats for animals."
Now I'm thinking "test subject for side-effect studies," because I'm experiencing just about everything listed on that sheet of warnings that came with my painkillers.
Disorientation? Crankiness? Hornets flying out my ass? Check.
Flatulence? Sorry.
What would your ideal job be?
Mig: Arrgh.
Beta: EMOL
Alpha: Your back again, honey?
Mig: Maybe if you massage it, the spasms will stop.
Gamma: Thanks for getting me the princess veil at the medieval festival.
Mig: You're our little princess. Arrgh!!!
Beta: XNOR.
Alpha: Remember what happened last time. It just got worse.
Mig: It couldn't get any worse.
Beta: FLOYMZ.
Gamma: I don't know who I want to marry yet, but he will be big, and handsome, and nice, and have time for me and our children.
Gamma: [Dramatic pause] Just like daddy.
Mig: Aww.
Mig: Arrgh!! Jesus!!! Oh!!! OH, FOR F*CK!!!!! Arrgh!!!!
Alpha: I warned you. Now you're paralyzed with muscle spasms and I feel guilty because I'm Catholic.
Beta: MOZ.
Beta: Okay, finished.
Alpha: More alphabet soup, Beta?
Beta: Yes, please.
[The next day, Monday]
Gamma: Lucky today is a holiday for you, dad.
Mig: Yep.
Gamma: I never knew a grownup who had to be helped getting dressed before.
Mig: Eh, well. I remember tieing my dad's shoes when I was your age.
Gamma: Hahahaha. I can tie shoes, no problem.
Mig: We'll go with the flipflops, that eliminates the sock problem.
Alpha and I celebrate the 24th anniversary of our first kiss today.
I'm not saying exactly how, though.
On the plus side, my wife puts out hedgehog food and sits on the steps at night with a glass of nice red and observes the little guys' behavior and interactions as they come to dine. It calms her and makes her happy. It's like being married to Jane Goodall without having to deal with monkeys.
Also on the plus side is there are fewer mosquitos.
On the minus side is the mosquitos that remain are
Normally, the time I spend in the bathroom in the mornings is when I get the peace that sustains me throughout the rest of my day. Today these two little guys just wouldn't leave me alone. I went after them with a rolled up Japan Times for a while, but finally gave up. They'd fly up to the light in the ceiling, which would dazzle me, and then they'd fly somewhere else and I wouldn't see where etc etc.
When I was shaving, I'd had enough and went after them again, and overlooked a cabinet and thought I'd broken my hand. I finished shaving, holding the Bic disposable razor between my thumb and the only finger that wasn't temporarily paralyzed and fled the room.
Then I drove Beta to school. I had a nice summer, but I sure missed those drives.
So this field of gladiolas I pass on my way to work, you can see it, but are you seeing the field I mean? It's September now, so they're not as grand as they were earlier in the gladiola season. The ones that haven't fallen over yet are beginning to look more solitary in their rows, outnumbered by the weeds now.
It's a U-Pick flower field. In a dangerous maneuver, you leave the main road and drive over to the flowers on a dirt access road and park and take one of the steak knives that are in a plastic cup on the sign ("Gladiolas!") and wander around (if the field isn't muddy) and try to find some that are still presentable and replace the knife and briefly consider leaving without paying like other people you have seen, but you decide stealing flowers is about the limit, you can't go lower than that under normal circumstances so you pay and even let them keep the change, "them" being the heavy metal coin box welded to the pole that holds the sign and the steak knives. You do the math in your head, slip a bill through the slit and go about your business, shaking earwigs out of the flowers and delivering them to whomever, some young person, someone your own age, or some old person who's recovering from some operation in some hospital.
Traffic is heavy this morning since school has started and everyone is back at work. Not only back at work, even more of them are on the road this morning, driving their kids to school etc. Going past the McDonald's you let a dump truck merge because you used to drive truck and know how it is and he's just a working man doing his job, and because your dad used to do that too, and because you could use the automotive karma points right now.
Then, at the next intersection, the driver of that dumptruck lets another dumptruck merge, you know, professional courtesy, but luckily that second dumptruck quickly takes the next exit again so you're only stuck behind the original sorry bastard for the first three miles or so of your commute, but not even that matters because he's stuck behind someone else, a tractor, going even more slowly.
Then after that it's smooth sailing until you hit the traffic jam. Accident somewhere, freeway down to one lane, you take an alternate route but so do a lot of other people. So you call your wife and warn her and she changes her plans for the day. And you ogle pedestrians on the way to work and wonder what is with these pleated plaid quasi-schoolgirl miniskirts all the women are wearing? All the women, that is, but for the real schoolgirls, who are dressed normally? Pleated plaid quasi-schoolgirl miniskirts are a traffic hazard, they should be banned, or at least subjected to a hefty tax.
That would also make a tax collector's job more fun, probably.
There's no fog and no deer when you get back onto the freeway. Traffic remains heavy but it's great compared to the traffic in the town on the alternate route so you're happy. When you get to the office, you're a half hour late, but you're still the first one there, but for the hot receptionist, who is wearing a pleated plaid quasi-schoolgirl miniskirt.
That gladiola field. That's the one I mean.
I was just standing there last night, minding my own business when my wife began doing situps in the hallway, coached by my oldest daughter.
My wife was topless, by the way. I can say that, right? We were all getting ready for bed and she remembered she still wanted to do situps, so she did some while my kid stood there and gave her pointers. We encourage exercise in our household so I did what any husband would do: ran into the office and grabbed the digital camera.
Unfortunately for me, my daughter is a competitive rower and amazingly strong and I did go through that phase when she was little, you know the phase, where dads teach their girls to throw a punch?
Anyway Beta went all bodyguard on me. I felt like a papparazzo trying to snap a shot of a Baldwin brother. Since I'm her dad, I guess, she only hit me in the shoulder, but man. Medium-sized fists of death. She pummeled me backwards, back into the office where I sat down.
"Knock it off for a second, kid."
"Delete those pictures."
"Will you quit hitting me."
"Delete those."
"Right away. Knock it off. Will you stop."
"Delete."
"Yeah, right away. I already said. Just let me check if any turned out first, okay?"
Got a couple good ones of the palm of her hand up in front of the lens, bodyguard style.
I was going to mention this, but the Aardvark beat me to it.
...would you mind sending me an email when you have time? metamorphosist@gmail.com would be best, or anything you like at this domain. Thanks.
It feels like fall now when you go outside; the air is a little fresher, a little sadder. It was foggy when I drove through the woods to work this morning and I saw three deer bounding through a field towards the trees, looked like a doe with twins, but would they still be hanging out together this late in the year?
Yesterday at lunch I went out to my car and turned the key and wiggled the windshield wiper switch, because that sometimes gets them working again. My logic went as follows: maybe something got wet and messed with the connection or something.
But it didn't help. So I opened the hood and stood there in a mild rain shower looking inside. What looks electrical? I asked myself. There were various tubes and wires, something I identified as the battery. I saw the place where the oil goes in and where you put the fluid that then gets squirted onto the windshield and theoretically wiped back off if the wipers are functioning and gave a bitter, ironic little chuckle. I saw various other things. I saw a part with wires going in and out that my father-in-law the mechanic told me the Fiat mechanic had replaced. I gave that a wiggle and also the wires leading in and out of it to make sure they were plugged in well. Ultimately my hands were good and greasy from wiggling everything that would wiggle.
When I closed the hood and tried the wipers again, they worked and I went back into my office still ignorant of what the actual problem is, but somewhat happier.
I met an American woman once who had been to Indonesia and who told me they had what they call "black magic mechanics" there. Your car is locked into a darkened garage and you stand outside and hear tapping and stuff, which are the noises the spirits make who fix your car.
They do both mechanical and body work.
I mentioned this yesterday to an Indonesian friend. He filled me in on a few new details: the practice has its roots in the animist tradition in Indonesia, and it is primarily the mechanic himself who does the work (he thought). The mechanic can, for example, fix a dent by a laying-on of hands.
I told him I had fixed my windshield wipers that way earlier in the day.
It doesn't last, though, he said. Either the repaired part goes again eventually, or something worse happens. Sounds like the Fiat mechanic I take my car to uses one of those guys, I said.