If only I could get a decent night’s sleep, just one night.
If only this rain would stop.
If only I could lose 10 pounds. If only you would love me.
If only I knew a decent therapist/masseur/mechanic/Mexican restaurant.
Yes, if only there was decent Mexican food in Austria!
If only I could get published, wasn’t such a moron, was a better listener.
If only I had bought Microsoft stock back in the day. If only I could win the lottery.
If only I was irresistable, a better father, a better husband, a better cook, a better friend, son, brother.
If only I was taller. If only I could concentrate, had a better self-image, was better in social situations, had bigger biceps, thicker hair, better hearing.
If only you could keep god after finding him, the Ramones weren’t dying like flies, radio didn’t suck, other people could fucking drive.
If only I could calm down. If only I’d had mentoring. If only we didn’t die, were gods. Wouldn’t that be great.

Today just kept getting better and better, not a hard thing to do when a migraine wakes you up at 6 in the morning on a Sunday when you’d been planning to catch up on sleep after an insomniac week. Coffee didn’t help, I felt sick, dreams had been weird. But Beta and a girlfriend spent the night in a tent in the backyard and it’s hard to be crabby around happy (and non-giggly!) 12 year old girls who are polite and leave you alone. And Gamma slept late so I had a lot of time to sit around drinking coffee and feeling sorry for myself.

Then Gamma woke up and she was in a great mood, and Beta helped me put the tent away, and the friend’s dad picked her up and he was friendly. Then I dropped the girls off at their grandparents for a couple hours and went to the gym.

It was the first time I’d lifted weights with a migraine headache. It wasn’t really a problem, workout-wise, especially in the beginning, except for the blinding pain at the end of each set. But I could get roughly the same number of reps as always; maybe I was working at about 80%. And towards the end of my workout I felt so sick I finally gave up and went back to the inlaws.

Today is Father’s Day in Austria. It’s always a week earlier here than in the United States, and it fucks me up every year. I can never remember which country has it first, and every year I end up giving up in confusion and my dad never gets any ties or aftershave or Playboy paperweights from me, just a flakey long-distance call, and neither does my father-in-law, although the latter seemed genuinely happy when I shook his hand and wished him a happy Father’s Day. And I meant it sincerely, I am very fortunate to have him as a father-in-law. He is an extremely good man and wacky enough to be interesting. I felt like hugging him but that would’ve freaked him out so I just sort of patted him on the back.

Beta and Gamma gave me two nice potted flowers, which made me happy.

To celebrate the day, my mother-in-law cooked, and she is a great cook. She makes everything from scratch. Her mother was a cook in an inn someplace and she inherited the talent. We had the usual old-country cooking, some noodle soup today, some sort of beef thing and gigantic dumplings in a wonderful sauce. I’m sorry that I can’t describe it more precisely than that, I am still getting over this fucking headache, but it was good food. The girls even ate a lot. Of course it totally messed up this diet I’m on but hey, it was Father’s Day.

Actually, I’m wondering whether this was really a migraine, or if maybe I was poisoned. It had a real hangover feel to it, similar to a couple of times in the past when I’d had food poisoning, and I *was* at an embassy function yesterday where there *was* a buffet and I *did* eat a lot of these tasty spring rolls that *had* been sitting out for a long time andn *did* contain egg…

Then after lunch we hurried home, which wasn’t easy because the girls wanted to watch television and I had to talk them into leaving because Alpha had said she *might* be able to come home early for a few hours so be home at 1.00 but don’t tell the girls so they won’t be disappointed in case she can’t make it. But she was there, we were all very happy to see her. The day just kept getting better and better.

What else happened? Gamma took out the braids I’d made her and looked like an angel with her long wavy hair; so a few minutes later I was braiding Beta’s hair too. I enjoyed this because it’s not often I can spend so much time in Beta’s proximity so pleasantly. We’re going through this awkward phase of redefining our relationship sort of, as teens and parents do. Are we nice to each other? Do we slug each other? Head butt? She’s sort of standoffish at the moment so it was nice to do her hair.

For some reason I’ve always been the hair person in our house. I like it. I’ve always liked French braids, for example, and taught myself to do that (more or less) for the kids.

And now the day draws to a close. The girls are in bed. The cats are outside. The rain (and lightning) seem to have stopped. Alpha will be home in an hour or so. The headache is almost gone, and I’m sitting here, scanning Bugs.

Which Ramone will be next?

[Fans of the insect are cordially invited to stock up on merchandise at the Bug Stores]

Two things I like best of all (besides some people, some of you know who you are, some don’t): art supplies and electrical storms, the bigger the better. So yesterday was a great day – I bought a couple drawing pads and a couple pens before my cello lesson, and when I got home we had the mother of all lightning storms for hours and hours.

It started like this: it got humid. It got windy. Clouds rolled in. I ate dinner. I put Gamma to bed, in the big bed, no debate this week because her mom’s away on business, she misses her so gets special privileges. I logged on. Lightning started striking all over the place, so I logged back off because last time I was online during a storm the telephone line got struck and it fried my modem and screwed up my PC. I put Beta to bed, she ended up in the big bed too because by now this was the coolest storm I’ve ever seen. Lightning was flashing like strobe lights at a Bulgarian disco in such quick succession that you lost track of which roll of thunder went with which bolt of lightning.

Rain was hitting the windows so hard it was like being inside a boiling pot of water. Gamma talked to herself in her sleep. She dreamed of a house that could fly when you opened the windows, and a friendly witch. The storm went on for hours. It started 8-ish and last time I checked the clock it was after midnight and still going strong.

I went out and got the turtle at midnight, because I was afraid she’d drown in the garden. Turned out she was fine, but I let her run around the office anyway. No cats to be seen anywhere, they’d all found shelter.

When I finally woke up at 4 am and could no longer get back to sleep so got up and made coffee instead, the world was calm. The sky was blue with occasional rainclouds showering thing, and the radio was full of flood reports. This village underwater, that road closed, etc.

The cats came in, one by one, and ate. Two of them dry, the stupid one soaked (but only his rear half, no idea where he’d been hiding). Traffic was light on the way to work. And I’m hungry because I forgot to eat breakfast.

But what a storm! This is the one nice thing about global warming, I suppose. My theory on this is that global warming doesn’t just mean all temperatures go up by a degree or two – only average temperatures do that. It means more energy in the atmosphere. And that means more violent storms. So, as much as global warming dismays me, I’m looking forward to more eight-hour lightning storms. I mean, man!

Getting struck by lightning, but surviving without damage and possibly with superpowers (like the ability to remember names and PIN codes, and what day of the week it is), wouldn’t that be cool? And then you go out and win the lottery too, or give birth to sextuplets or something!

There is a valley or plain or something somewhere, I think in the US southwest, where an artist planted a whole bunch of lightning rods to create this little lightning garden. Wouldn’t that be cool to watch in a storm?

New shoes at the Feral Living Shoe Project: Joeri and yecal woman. Yay shoes.

If this keeps up, The Bug will eventually pay for his own URL and hosting. I’ve just added another store with Zona Nuda merchandise. Any design/products requests or feedback is welcome (like, does it look like ass or fall apart?).

The Bug store in English.
Dutch Bug Store

French Bug Store
Swedish Bug Store
Zona Nuda attire and collectibles available at the
ZONA NUDA Shop (do you think the orange is too drab?).

On a related note, if you’re absolutely dead-set against contributing a naked picture of yourself, front-on, non-pornographic, to the incipient Zona Nuda Naked Blogger Project (that’s miguel@surreally.com, folks) then how about wearing something from this fine line of fashion: alba couture.
[Link from Joeri, who else?]