Metamorphosism

Happy holidays

Doing a few things, mostly spending holidays with the family and trying not to be a jerk, not always successfully. See you early January.

Merry Christmas from the cats

Look what we got from the cats.

Bush twins naked in a hovercraft

Happy Christmas.

It's a wonderful life

• 2.30-4.00 AM: Gamma on toilet with bucket in her lap, blowing it out both ends simultaneously.
• 6.30: first shopping trip to nearby store.
• 8.00: Gamma to school, where she's reading etc at the school Christmas thing.
• 8.30-10.30: Mad shopping: groceries, last-minute presents.
• 10-30-12.00: School Christmas thing. Gamma did a great job.
• 12.00-18.00: Some cooking, some video-watching, some hanging out, bunch of working on stuff I've forgotten.
• 18.00-19.00: Take Beta to hairdresser for hairdo appraisal for the ball.
• 19.00-22.00: Wrap presents. Drink Guinness. Get cranky, be mean and nasty to wife and Beta (Gamma already in bed). Regret it. 22.00-24.00: Watch traditional Christmas movie of love and sacrifice: Donnie Darko.
• Next day (today): resolve to be nicer. So far so good.

Monday at the sex shop

I did some last-minute shopping on Monday.
[Although I do employ a literary device in this post to convey the gist of the story without embarassing anyone, be advised that it is of an adult nature.]

First of all, driving to Mariahilferstrasse, Vienna's busiest shopping district, in the days prior to Christmas is a really bad idea. But I just had to go browse Vienna's best sex shop and look for last-minute inspiration.

Unfortunately, all that shit is like totally expensive. And, also, how many lalalalala does a person need, anyway?
Fortunately, a really hot person was cashiering. Not only cashiering, she was walking around giving advice.
She was tall and slim, gothically beautiful, black hair, bangs, a few piercings. Polite, professional.
If Hollywood were to do this story, her part would be played by a boa constrictor and mine would be a small white rabbit in a black suit.
I browsed for a while. I didn't even bother looking at the lalalalalalalala cause that's something one has to buy for oneself.
You know how in bookstores they have notes next to some books, written by staff who have read the books, recommending them? They have notes like that here. It is a clean, well-lighted place with a relaxed, bookstore ambiance.
There was a note beside a lalalalalala which had the beads inside a light-blue plastic covering, washable I suppose; the note gave it a positive rating but the device ended in a handle that resembled too strongly for my taste the grip of a lawnmower starter cord which I found rather disturbing to put it mildly.

I finally talked to the saleslady about the massage oils for a while. Then to make conversation I asked her about the difference in usage of the lalalalalala and the lalalalalalala and her explanation was just marvelous. Knowledgeable without being lasvicious, hit just the right note of professionalism without sounding cold, managed to give a complete run-down without mentioning a single body part by name, but at the same time this did not sound prudish in the least.

When she said "bodily orifice" you wanted to chisel it in marble.

I browsed some more after that. The incense looked pretty good. They had some neat-looking restraints. I wasn't too crazy about the books. I suppose, because of the traffic I was just not in the mood, but somehow nothing really screamed "stocking stuffer" at me. I picked out a bottle of lalalalala and drove back to work.

Two peas in a pod

I was thinking last night, and then this morning again, about the similarities between Titian, who revolutionized painting with his broken colors, dirtying up his colors, moving away from the pure, clear hues of the Flemish masters, and myself. Cause that's what I do, man. Mix blue and orange.

Blogs worthwhile after all

Thanks, Novala. This is my favorite thing to do for Christmas, and I had totally forgotten about it. I'll buy a bunch of cloves and oranges at lunchtime.

And: I drive past this every morning.

Before sunrise

Three deer barely visible in a dark field beside a dark forest. Smokestacks here and there dispensing smoke or steam into the sky. Everything is grey and washed-out, nothing is grey, it's already vibrating with potential color. The black naked trees are already deep brown if you look at them closely.

"So how was the mental hospital? Was it scary?"
"I didn't think so. Just sad. That one lady screaming all the time because she thought everyone was poisoning her."
"Not the one who thought she was being anally raped?"
"No, the poisoning one was doing the screaming."

Beta is writing a paper on familial murder-suicide for school and met with a psychiatrist yesterday.

"The mental hospital seemed sad when your great-grandma was there. We all drove up, but then only dad went in to visit her and the rest of the family waited in the car in the parking lot."

It was a 1969 (I think) Pontiac station wagon. Blue. We had a 3-pound coffee can in the back seat, empty, for when us kids had to pee on long trips.

"She was in for manic-depression. I don't know if they sent her in while she was depressed, or manic, or how that works. She got electroshock treatment. I don't think it did her any good, to put it mildly. They stopped using electroshock for a long time. Now they're using it again. I hear they're being more careful with it."

A friend of mine told me a story about fixing a lamp and touching the wrong wire and being knocked clear off the ladder onto the floor. At first she hoped it had given her new mental powers. When I was little I touched an electric fence and my hand closed around the wire and I couldn't let go. I was standing in a wading pool at the time. I used to wonder if that was what made me so much smarter than the other kids in my class. Now I just wonder whether my parents had taken out a large life-insurance policy on me around that time.

Yesterday Beta played a new piece on the harp that sounded just like sunlight on water.

Last weekend I played bowing exercises on the cello that made my kids want to learn cello.

The sun's up. Lately I prefer the dark.

La Fée Verte

Last night, around bedtime.

Mig: You want to what?

Beta: Poke you in the ear with a skewer and you tell me where you feel it.

Mig: Okay.

Beta: [Pokes her father in the ear with shish-kebab skewer]

Mig: My left shin. Interesting.

Beta: [Pokes father in other ear]

Mig: My right arm. Where'd you get the idea to do this?

Beta: Traditional Chinese medicine.

Mig: I wonder if Marie Curie's dad let her experiment on him. Want some of this absinthe Anne gave me?

Beta: That's that stuff.

Mig: Your mom says I'm not supposed to drink it because artists used to drink it and it made them crazy.

Beta: Uh huh.

Mig: But I think this is made without wormwood. They used to have like spoons with holes over the glass and a sugar cube in them and an ice cube over the sugar cube and it would melt and dissolve the sugar cube.

Beta: They don't sound like busy people.

Mig: Want a taste?

Beta: I'll drink it by the sink so I can spit it out.

Beta: [takes sip]

Beta: Ptooey! Ptooey, ptooey, ptooey. Ptptptptptptptpt. Ptooey.

Mig: [Commercial narrator voice] Just as disgusting as ouzo, but green!

Beta: Ptptptptptpptptpt.

Advice, part II

I had a short fantasy about Gwen Stefani at a traffic light in my wife's car this morning.

The fantasy was about Gwen Stefani on a golf course: I was in my wife's car because the Doblo decided this morning the weather was too damp for the windshield wipers to work.

The fantasy goes like this:
Mig: I'm going to catch 40 winks in the cart, Gwen. Wake me up when we get to the 19^th hole.
Gwen: Okay, Mig.

Advice: see what I'm thinking with this is you have the cultural wisdom, the wisdom you grow up with, that which your parents or society in general try to impart. And then you have the wisdom you figure out for yourself.

There are usually good stories attached to the latter kind. Like, don't try to climb stone monuments while drunk: I'd love to hear the story behind that one.

At a bookstore recently I was looking at a book about taking your life back at midlife (i.e. reclaiming one's life, not committing suicide). It depressed me so I put it back on the shelf, but it mentioned the value of what we have learned, the wisdom we gain through living and so on.

Right there in the bookstore, I couldn't think of a damned thing I had learned that anyone would be interested in. I suppose if I would apply myself, I could think of several. But application takes effort, so I'm just asking you for your wisdom instead, with stories where interesting.

I am of two minds about self-help books. On the one hand, I would like to help myself. On the other, most self-help books strike me as a single seed of wisdom (or not) expanded into a book by some twat with an editor and time on his hands.

Any of these pearls of wisdom here could be expanded into a book. Think of all the time and money we are saving when we post them here, and all the idiots we are putting out of business. I will go first and try to add a few after all:

• Again, to lose weight eat less. I am repeating this because the weight-loss book/etc industry is so large. This is all there is to it: burn more calories than you take in. Is that so hard? Get used to the feeling of hunger. Relax, you won't starve - the food is available, you're just not eating it. Skip a meal or two. Daily.
  
• Again, because the stop-smoking industry is fairly large: to stop smoking, you have to stop smoking.
  
• Relationships: avoid romantic relationships with people who have one or more screws loose. Also: if it feels weird, it is weird.
  
• Fashion: you can't go wrong with a dark suit, unless you work in some fashionable industry in which case you don't need fashion advice, or if you live somewhere where no one wears suits. But the world would be a better place if all grownups wore dark suits, at least the men. And drank whiskey. The women could wear little black dresses and they would all be hot and look like Gwen Stefani and drink gin.
  
• Woodworking: cut away from yourself.

Advice, part 1

• To lose weight, reduce the amount you eat and drink.
• To stop smoking, stop smoking.
• Don't buy a Fiat.
• To improve your kids' performance in school, reduce their stimulation. Lose your TV, for example, and sugar.
• If you want to write, write.
• If you're not sure about something, ask someone who knows what they're talking about, but still make up your own mind.
• Be good, but remember anything can be overdone. God loves you because you're you.
• Seriously, watch the sugar. Especially that corn syrup stuff.
• If you're unhappy, consider therapy, although it's okay to be unhappy. Maybe you have a good reason.
• Have I said don't buy a Fiat yet?

What's your advice?

Still-life with big bed

• One big bed with sheets, down comforter, pillows, buckwheat neck thing.
• One man who has gone nearly without sleep for past two nights.
• Three stuffed rabbits, one stuffed fish, one stuffed owl.
• One lava lamp (red) employed as night light.
• One Gamma (from Greek word meaning "snores like Cyclops")
• One Beta (from Greek word meaning "filthy blanket thief")
• One red cat, purring on man's chest like this.
• One cell phone set to ring at 4.00 AM by Beta "so I can fall back to sleep for another three hours".
• One ceiling, stared at by man between 4.01 and 4.45 when he finally gives up and goes into kitchen to make lots of coffee.

Why I quit chess

So my wife is out of town on business. The two advantages of this are one dad gets more quality time with his kids and two she can buy her own damn Coach bag in Japan because they have no outlets in Vienna but apparently line the streets of Tokyo like Starbucks in other places.

This is my idea of quality time:
Beta: I went to that Indian restaurant yesterday at lunch.
Mig: The one next to that great sex shop? Off Mariahilferstrasse?
Beta: Um, yeah, off Mariahilferstrasse. That one.
Mig: What'd you have to eat?
Beta: Eh, it was too full.
Mig: Did you check out the sex shop at least? Last time you were at the restaurant with mom she called and mentioned you guys were looking into the windows of the one across the street but that's the wrong one, that's the condom shop, the sex shop is on the same side of the street as the restaurant and down about 20 or 30 meters. It's not sleazy at all, it's for women and the woman who runs it is excellent, gives great advice. [Note to self: get some sleep.]
Beta: ...
Mig: I love that place.
Beta: You've bought stuff there? What, exactly?
Mig: No comment. [Note to self: start thinking more than one move ahead] Why are you so interested in sex shops, anyway?
Mig: But seriously, go check it out sometime.
Mig: Like, when you're 18 or something maybe.
Mig: I suppose you're still too young to be getting your girlfriends dildos for Christmas.
Beta: I got them shower gel from Bodyshop.
Mig: Plus, dildos are like incredibly expensive.
Beta: Coconut, tangerine... the mango is really good, too.
Mig: But those hand-blown glass ones are beautiful.

Quitting the paint factory

Idleness is good. Read this essay, it is very important. Then, the next time we go out for a beer or are stuck in traffic, ask me about efficiency.

[Via Briankaneonline]

Utility vehicle

Sorry I'm late. Beta and I got into an argument over economics on our way into town and I missed my turn. It occurred to her that she hadn't been only braiding in history yesterday, because she remembered her teacher saying something about how politicians should be well-paid, while she believed they ought to do it for I don't know what. Love of politics I guess, or perfection of their natural talent for politics.

Money would attract more people, though, I said, some of whom would be talented.

It was like walking barefoot into a roomful of hungry weasels. Scraps of bloody skin were dangling from my argument in no time. Nevertheless, I'm proud to report I held my own. It helped that I'm 45 and have a degree in economics, and she's 15.

Not that it was easy. I got a bit bogged down over the concept of utility when it occurred to me mid-argument that while utility is a useful conceptual tool, it is also not your most precisely delimited concept.

"Everyone makes economic decisions all the time," I said. "Every decision is based on some form of cost-benefit analysis, in which a person takes their utility into consideration. Not only money or income, but also how good something makes them feel, the respect it gets them, and on and on."

"Why is everything economics with you?"

"I'm 45 and have a degree in economics, baby."

"Economics."

"And you're 15."

"So what is utility exactly, then?"

"A useful conceptual tool. Shit, I totally missed our turn. Money is part of the mix. Someone may become a politician for any number of reasons, but income is part of the utility equation. Look at teachers -- there are some good ones who do it for charitable reasons, but many otherwise talented candidates don't go into that line of work because the pay is so bad, respect is so low and they get so little support from parents, government, etc."

"That's what I'm saying. If you pay politicians more, then it would attract all the bad teachers into politics, and you have even more bad politicians."

When I was a student, I once tried to explain the concept of futures markets to a woman of my acquaintance using the example of babies, thinking it would be easier for her to imagine babies than pork bellies or foreign exchange.

"You could buy the product now, and take delivery at a future date. Babies, for example. In nine months."

"Why do I want to buy a baby? That's terrible."

"It's only an example."

"I could just make my own baby."

"I'm only saying."

"Or adopt one."

I ended up marrying her, and making Beta, among other things.

15

Beta played a gig Friday night and I ended up driving around with a carload of teenaged girls having typical teenaged conversations:

Girl 1: Yeah, we're translating Pyramus and Thisbe too.

Girl 2: Ovid, God.

Girl 3: We did him too, and I'm a grade behind you guys.

Man: Metamorphoses, hehe.

Girl 1: When Pyramus and Thisbe, who were known the one most handsome of all youthful men, the other loveliest of all eastern girls,-- lived in adjoining houses, near the walls that Queen Semiramis had built of brick around her famous city, they grew fond...

Girl 2: Thou envious wall why art thou standing in the way of those who die for love?

Girl 3: And then he thinks she's dead and falls on his sword, and she finds him and kills herself.

Man: O happy dagger, this is thy sheath. Ovid like so totally stole that from Shakespeare, man.

Girl 1: Dad, dad, dad.

12 or 1

Last night I fell asleep at twelve or one. The house felt empty, and too hot because I'd built a fire earlier in the day and sat on the sofa and read a book with Gamma and the fire really heated up the house. Around ten at night I made Beta shut off the DVD we were watching - Braveheart - in the middle and get to bed because she has an English test today. Around eight I got Gamma to bed, letting her sleep in the big bed because she often gets to do that when her mom is out of town, then I started watching Braveheart with Beta. She says Mel Gibson was better looking when he was younger.

Around six or so I warmed up some food for the girls, then played cards with Gamma and tried to practice cello and played along with her when she played a Christmas song on the piano.

Fourish I drove to the in-laws and picked up Gamma, where she'd spent the night, then went down the hill to the Advent market in the village center, where a number of women greeted me. I must have a doppelgänger there. I was polite and friendly to them, not wanting my doppelgänger to get a bad reputation or anything. Got something for Gamma to eat and drink while Beta hung out at a stand selling puzzles. They were impossible looking puzzles made of string and wood and she solved one while I watched and started another. I talked to an artist selling paintings. He started painting after he retired. I told him the light in his forest scenes was great. Nice landscapes too.

Twoish I picked Beta up at her girlfriend's house, where she'd spent the night. I drank tea there and ate some cookies before they let us go. Then we went and bought a Christmas tree which might be a bit large for the room it's going into but we'll see. The guy will deliver it on the 21^st.

Oneish I walked back to my car at the airport parking lot, paid at the machine and drove to get Beta. I noticed that the stripper's jeep was still there.

Alpha's plane to Tokyo was scheduled to board around 12.30 or so, so we walked around the airport first, went to the toilet, looked at some books, got some stocking-stuffers at the Body Shop (no vanilla!! no, wait, vanilla bath beads turn out to be okay, just not vanilla skin cream is all, Moon Flower or something) and went to the Irish pub there where one of us had tea, the other one a pint, and we shared a basket of potato wedges, tempura-ed tofu and veggies, and three dips, of which the guacamole was still frozen. We sat there talking like relaxed old friends.

We got to the airport what, eleven-thirty-ish. The car in front of us entering the parking lot was a Jeep with a fancy spare-tire cover on the back, with sort of a fantasy airbrushed picture of a platinum blonde in a bikini with two black dogs. The driver leaned out the window to get the ticket out of the machine, which then opens the gate so you can drive in. I noticed that the picture on the spare tire cover was a portrait of the driver. I assumed the driver was a stripper who had a boyfriend who gave her the car, had the picture done, etc. Not very fair of me; she may well have been a substitute teacher. There's no reason a substitute teacher can't be hot. I haven't personally known any hot substitute teachers that look like strippers, but that doesn't mean they don't exist somewhere.

Substitute teacher by day, stripper by night maybe.

Why I don't get a tattoo.

Metamorphosism, schmetamorphosism. Changing, pfff. You work at it, nothing happens. Or you think something happens but nothing happens. Or less than you thought. Or you change back faster than you'd wish.

But sometimes something does change. Sometimes you turn around and look back and see you've come a lot further than you thought. You've wandered clear across the mall and your parents are nowhere in sight.

I smell like four or five different products this morning. Hair wax, because I got my hair cut short. Some deodorant. Two different colognes, one on each wrist, because I couldn't decide. I like the right wrist better. I also smell like soap, I suppose, and toothpaste and the gum I'm chewing: Orbit professional herbal mint.

Used all this stuff because I couldn't take much of a shower this morning since the dermatologist cut something out of my back last night and I'm supposed to wait a few days before getting it wet. A few days before Christmas my kids get to take the stitches out.

On jealousy

Conversation one:

Woman: Anyway I just don't get it, jealousy. I've always figured, either they want you or they want the other person. What's the big deal? Although I would want to know. My husband wouldn't want to know. If you're going to leave me, I'll find out soon enough, he says.

Man: That is exactly how I have always felt. I've never understood jealousy one bit. And I wouldn't want to know either. What good does it do? Someone cheats on me and feels guilty, don't come confessing to me in hopes of feeling better. Suffer, man.

Woman: You're not jealous of The Philosopher, are you? You understand, right?

Man: Of course. Do whatever you want. I know you love me. Go ahead and hang out with interesting people. Life's too short not to. Anyway, I never really understood jealousy. I'm just not a jealous person.

Woman: Huh?

Man: What?

Woman: What about Break All Their Bones and stuff?

Man: What?

Woman: That's what you said. If you caught any guy, you know, and so on.

Man: Pff. I said that?

Swear to God, Joseph, a dove!

Gamma and I celebrated Mary getting pregnant yesterday by unexpectedly taking getting the day off and buying some paints and painting a desk I made for her out of scraps around my shop so she has a place to paint and stuff in her playroom. Everyone knew the holiday was coming, even I knew, but it still took me by surprise. Somehow I thought it was not until next week.

I'll bet Mary was a real fun person to be around. Not only does she get pregnant out of wedlock, she manages to tell such an interesting story about it that Joseph still you know and not only that a whole religion and so on.

I caught Gamma composing yesterday. Sitting at her piano, tinkling away and jotting down notes on a light blue postit pad. It's called Mäusetanz, she said. Which means The Mouse Dance. You bet I spanked her ass. This is how Mozart got started, I said. And look what happened to him.

Solar rectum syndrome, what can I say?

Everything's just a setup for a joke to you, isn't it, Mig?

The joke is on the pacifists.
The joke is on you.
Yesterday's joke is today's news.
A joke is a crime.
A joke is not a thing but a process.
A joke is a very serious thing.
A joke is no joke.
A joke is like a story.

A joke is anything which makes the audience laugh.
A joke is something else entirely.
A joke is never funny if it has to be overly explained.
A joke is to offend.
A joke is a prank; if you play a joke on someone.
A joke is distasteful.
A joke is as old as the spoken word.
A joke is easy.
A joke is funny.
A joke is intellectual property.
A joke is set in the hotel bristol in 1944.
A joke is; for example.
A joke is a bare gag.
A joke is good for your health.
A joke is truly an effective weapon.
A joke is and how to draw a line from reality.
A joke is a suitable educational device.
A joke is just a joke.
A joke is a display of cleverness intended to engender yux.
A joke is seen to contain several hidden violations.
A joke is told between two or three people that others might find offensive.
A joke is a part of my everyday life.
A joke is on life support.
A joke is a type of short story.
A joke is a joke.
A joke is a joke is a joke.
A joke is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable .experience has established these laws.
A joke is a joke only if it shouldn't be explained.
A joke is an epigram on the death of a feeling.
A joke is “the truth yet not the fact.
A joke is an excellent ``black humor'' commentary on everyday life.
A joke is conventionally defined as a short narrative text.
A joke is added every week.
A joke is anything the teller thinks of as a joke.
A joke is not a joke.
A joke is a response to some experience the mind remembers in pictures.
A joke is performed past the reveal.
A joke is anything that is said or done.
A joke is not funny to me.
A joke is 6.
A joke is to signal that we understand it and to some degree assent to the fundamental truth of what it says.
A joke is funny and your not funny.
A joke is not a joke about religion or morals.
A joke is a short story and thus has an a.
A joke is certainly not sufficient.
A joke is not original.
A joke is when i am at my in.
A joke is made.
A joke is like a good piece of tail.
A joke is politically incorrect.
A joke is pretty horrifying.
A joke is a sportive sally designed to promote good humor without wounding the feelings.
A joke is good.
A joke is not funny if you have to explain the punch line.
A joke is just a story.
A joke is built in two regions.
A joke is incredibly annoying to me.
A joke is salvaged by the fine performances of.
A joke is an impossible task.
A joke is coming they will brace.
A joke is that it's impersonal.
A joke is a defensive device.

Blah blah vanilla blah blah blah

The sign outside said Happy Hour but the drinks cost the same as always and the waiters were delightfully cranky. I sat across from Anne, feeling suave as my penultimate cigarette dangled from my lip and I felt my pockets looking for my lighter.
Anne made the international gesture for "turn your cigarette around, you're trying to light the filter".
She had come all the way from Brno to watch me smoke my final pack of cigarettes as we wandered around Vienna.

We did the standard Mig tour of Vienna. Luckily Anne likes to wander around aimlessly, or at least she's not a complainer. We walked through Stephansplatz station and I pointed out the restroom where the guys hang out and the Virgil Chapel.
We went and had coffee at the Hawelka coffeehouse. Mr. Hawelka was there, directing visitors to tables, as he has for the past 100 years. Then we went to the coffeehouse restroom, separately, and then we wandered over to this nice courtyard I always try to show visitors, only it is always locked. "It's nice inside, I said." We pressed our faces up to the windows in the doors.
My wife called and told me to get her some skin cream for Nikolo, which is today, 6 December. It was really noisy when she called and all I understood was blah blah skin cream blah vanilla blah blah.
So I started wandering towards Body Shop and then she called back and said don't buy anything after all because she bought herself something I should buy myself something instead. So we wandered in the opposite direction and got sushi for lunch. Anne paid.
Then we were going to wander back for a book for me but my wife called and said get a shepherd for our nativity scene. How big I said. She said she was on her way home to measure Joseph and she'd let me know. So we went to the advent market at the palace, Schönbrunn palace where I realized buying a figure for a nativity scene would be easy in principle, but in fact a suicide mission because there was little chance I'd get the right one so we had punch, which is a hot sweet drink here with rum.
Alpha called and said Joseph is seven centimeters tall, hand painted wood. The stand had either 6.5 cm, plain wood, 6.5 cm plastic painted, or 9 cm wood painted, and upwards from there. I called back and asked if Joseph was kneeling by any chance, in which case 9 cm would have worked. But no, he was standing. I told the woman at the stand. She said are the colors bright or subdued? I called Alpha and she said, subdued. So I got a 9 cm shepherd with a sheep over his shoulder. At first I was going to take Anne home to meet Alpha but it would have been too big of a rush so we decided to go back into town and wander around some more.
Alpha called and we talked about something and in the course of it somehow it was decided that I should get her something else after all so we went back to the Body Shop and got her vanilla skin cream and went and looked at Vienna's oldest church and bought a book for me.
It was quite cold. At Stephansplatz station I gave Anne 50 cents so she could go to the restroom (you have to pay the toilet ladies here). I risked a pee in the men's room and my old buddies were all there.
Overall it was a lot of fun. Anne is good to talk to. Alpha likes skin cream, any fragrance but vanilla.

But otherwise, everything's okay?

My dad's in poor health. I called him at the hospital last night and tried to cheer him up:

Mig: But other than the vomiting blood and the heart attack, you're feeling okay?

Dad: Heh.

Life back on IDX-E

7: Tell me more about life back on your planet, dad.
45: They hate the color gold there.
7: Why?
45: It's the color of poison on IDX-E. Like here on Earth, you know, don't eat any red berries you're not sure of? There it's gold.
7: So they don't get married there?
45: Not usually. And if they do, they wear grey rings.

7: So what color do they like?
45: Grey. They can't understand why Earthlings think it's a boring color. They have the most beautiful greys there.
7: Do they have Christmas?
45: Well, as you know, we have three suns on IDX-E. So we have Christmas three times a year. December, January and May.
7: Who brings the presents?
45: Santa.
7: What about Easter?
45: Also three times a year.
7: Who brings the stuff?
45: The Easter Egg brings bunnies and hides them in the yard and the kids go look for them, and it's a bitch finding them because they keep hopping around.
7: What god do you have?
45: Same god all over, honey.