Das Aha-Erlebnis

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.

Briefly

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.

Trapped

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.

Chad

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.

Small request

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.

So these two deer walk into the rain

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.

Never read that little piece of paper in the package your medicine comes in

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?

Weekend, condensed

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.

Kiss

Alpha and I celebrate the 24th anniversary of our first kiss today.

Autumn in Austria

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

1. Tough and evasive little bastards
   
2. Desperate

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.

Do you speak Manglish?

Your score was 13 out of a possible 15
Pat yourself on the back. What a flawless performance. You are the ideal partner. You can read the opposite sex like a book. You know that when a man says 'I love you' he really means 'let's have sex' which means there's not much confusion in your relationship and you both know what you want. You, my friend, have a secret weapon. Use it to your advantage.

This is interesting

You know about these already, right?

Urn

"Let's say your mother died this summer..."

Gladiolas

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.

Minding my own business

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.