… then this may seem rather incoherent and confusing, but that’s okay. Dive into the archives, it’ll all make sense. Are you 100% Miguel? Take the test at the right! What’s your chaos coefficient? Use the chaos calculator and find out. Then visit all those sites I link to and make me popular, you won’t regret it – they all suck less than Feral Living does. And don’t forget to leave a comment!

Gamma is ill with some sort of strep infection. Everything hurts. High fever. The doctor said to expect her to vomit. Pathetic little thing.

She woke up at 4 this morning, thirsty. Drank a lot of water. Went to the toilet. Went back into our big bed. I went to the toilet. Heard her drinking more water, then: the groan. She jumped out of bed, dropping the bottle of water, and in an amazing burst of energy for a sick little girl, sprinted to the toilet as fast as her short little legs would carry her.

And she made it!

Yay!

“Alright Gamma! Gold medal!”
“But I dropped the bottle.”
“That’s okay, it was plastic. And you even got the lid back on first!”
“But it rolled under the bed.”
“Don’t worry about it.”

I never expected a novel about lemurs would make me cry so hard.

Bread in Austria normally comes unsliced. We have a big honking serrated bread knife in our kitchen, and I am the only one in the family who can cut normal-looking slices with it.

The most common exceptions are “Toastbrot” (looks like square, white bread) and tramezzini bread, which looks roughly like toastbrot without the crust.

You can get sliced dark bread, but it’s fairly uncommon.

Parents should be involved in their children’s education, I think. So I let myself get suckered into serving as president of the local music school PTA for the last two years. I resigned at last night’s meeting, and it was a relief.

I am neither a public speaker nor an organized person. I had to give a report last night on what I’d done in the last year or two. It went okay, better than I’d feared. Having root canal earlier in the day sort of relativized it, or, at least, it put me in a daze so I sort of glided through.

I started a school newspaper, the organization bought a bunch of instruments for the school, including a concert harp, etc etc. Then I said I was resigning (it was no surprise), they gave me a going-away present of tulips (my favorite flower) and a bottle of Irish whiskey, we elected a new president, sat around saying blah-blah-blah for a while, then ate little sandwiches and drank champagne and red wine.

Nothing humiliating happened the entire evening. A real blogging disappointment. Well, one woman, sort of a retired homewrecker, very charismatic woman, told me I needed more self-confidence. That and a haircut. She kept touching my hair, and heckled the new president. It made me wonder if she maybe needed to get her meds adjusted, or whether she’d been drinking before the meeting.

“Normally I’m not crazy about short hair, but you’re an exception.”

And another woman there had recently split from her husband. Suddenly, she’s 20 lbs lighter, wearing makeup and a plaid miniskirt and looking good, despite the plaid. What is it with this strange attraction divorcees exert on married men, anyway? (Hi, Alpha! Just kidding!)

Yes, anyway.

So I need self-confidence. (And a haircut.) Maybe I am too nice. Feh.

Life: “Hey, Mig. How’s it going?”
Me: “Eh, not so bad, Life.”
Life: “Hows about a slice of cake?”
Me: “Whatcha got?”
Life: “Hows about a Sacher torte?”
Me: “That sounds good. Gimme a big, fat slice.”
Life: “Here ya go.”
Me: [takes bite] “Ehhhh! This isn’t Sacher torte!”
Life: “Heh.”
Me: [chews a little more to be sure] “This is Sacher-Masoch torte!!”
Life: “Heh, heh.”

Driving to work this morning, I was chewing gum because I’ve been cranky because I’m quitting smoking again. A filling fell out of a molar.

But that was okay, because I got an appointment right away at my dentist today.

But just as I was going to leave work to go to the dentist, I had to take some urgent documents to my boss, who is attending a conference at the U.N.

But that was okay, because I managed to race to the U.N., give him the documents, return to work, get my own car and make it to the dentist nearly in time.

In fact, I was 20 minutes late, but that was okay because it turned out I had to wait two hours in the waiting room.

But that was okay, because at least I got to read some magazines.

Unfortunately, there were only three magazines – some dumb society magazine about what celebrities are wearing, a financial magazine, and one about musicals.

But that was okay, because not only do I now know that Gwynneth Paltrow is unhappy with her figure, they made a musical out of “Reefer Madness” and apparently have an impressive musical about Tin-Tin showing in Belgium, I also picked up some good advice on tax evasion in Germany.

So, after two hours I went in to have the filling replaced. The assistant wanted me to decide between plastic, amalgam, gold or ceramic, the latter two which would take two visits. Decisions, decisions.

But that was okay, because as it turned out, I didn’t have to make any decision.

“Hm,” the dentist said. “Looks deep.”

“Maybe root canal,” he said.

He drilled around a little. “Yep,” he said. “Root canal. Do you want a shot?”

That was an easier decision to make. (I once had a tooth drilled without anaesthetic to see what it was like.)

It’s really amazing what they can fit into your mouth.

But that’s okay, because as he drilled and stuck oddly-shaped things into my tooth, I got to lie there and listen to the music on the radio.

Like “Mack the Knife.” And, lieing there in the dentist’s chair, with this blue latex sheet over half my face, and three pointy doo-dads stuck into my tooth, and this cold metal hook holding my mouth open, and a metal ring around my tooth anchoring down the dental dam, and various drill-bits making, alternately, sharp grinding noises and pulpier grinding noises, listening to “Mack the Knife” on the radio and now and then suffering jags of medium pain despite the shot he gave me, I couldn’t help thinking, “I’d still rather be doing this than presiding over the meeting of the parents’ association at the music school.

Which is what I’m doing tonight.