Relationship tip:

1. Write on your weblog that you are going to find a way to manipulate your partner without them noticing.

2. Make sure they read it.
3. Sit back and enjoy.

You don’t have to do anything. It’s better than hypnosis. They’ll think they’re being manipulated into being nice to you and anticipating your wishes, and suddenly will be nice and anticipate your wishes.

Until you blow it by writing something else about placebo manipulation, that is.

The tattoo parlor was more expansive than I’d expected; low-ceilinged, but with many rooms and passageways leading off who knows where; well-lit and spotless but with a late 1970’s Austrian decor – fake wood panelling/linoleum that I found vaguely depressing.

The tattoo artist had lank, long blonde hair, in sort of a mullet. He was a little on the heavy side, unremarkable. I’d wanted to ask about where to put a tattoo, since shoulders/back are probably out as I tend to get these pre-cancerous things I’ve mentioned, and should probably not decorate those regions so I can spot them when they appear. But somehow we never got onto that subject.

Do you want a pain pill beforehand, he asked. At the dentist I always ask for laughing gas or novocaine when I get the chance, so I figured why not?

He gave me two light green lozenges, made of translucent glass. They had what looked like small metallic electronic elements inside. I swallowed both at the same time, although they were as large as cough drops.

He then showed me a small booklet, about eight by five, with maybe eight pages – designs I could choose. All were somehow Lord of the Rings-themed, however. Elvish script. Tribal designs that somehow said, Gandalf.

It was disappointing. So I left. Then my alarm clock rang and I woke up.

What’s on TV tonight: piece of hardwood, behind it a stick of kindling, on top of which crumpled newspaper, 6-egg egg carton, kindling (soft and hardwood), another larger piece of hardwood, and more crumpled newspaper (to flare up and get the draft going at first).

Gamma: [Currently fascinated by anything in print] What’s this say?
Miguel: “Holiday revelers splash in an uncertain New Year with war and economic collapse on the horizon.” [article illustrated with picture of people frolicking on a beach]
Gamma: And this?
Miguel: “North Korea exploits South Korean anti-Americanism to undermine opposition to nuclear program.”
Gamma: Okay.

Rowing workout went better last night.

I have achieved my cello goals – I can play a couple songs, and I can sort of hear notes, and I have a greater appreciation of the instrument. Alas, I don’t want to quit. In fact, I’d like to learn bass as well. Stay away from the cello kids, it’s a steppingstone to harder instruments.

I’ve been reading “Underground” by Haruki Murakami, about the Aum-sect poison gas attack on the Tokyo subway in the 1990s.
[Historical note: Alpha just missed taking one of the trains that was attacked because her colleagues wanted to take a taxi that morning, making these stories extra-interesting to me.]
Alpha cooked a big pot of lentils for dinner yesterday, providing an extra element of realism.
Anyway. Murakami. I like him a lot. Speaking of the Aum cult members (and by extension the rest of us) he writes,

Haven’t you offered up some part of your Self to someone (or some thing), and taken on a “narrative” in return? Haven’t we entrusted some part of our personality to some greater System or Order? And if so, has not that System at some stage demanded of us some kind of “insanity”? Is the narrative you now possess really and truly your own? Are your dreams really your own dreams? Might they not be someone else’s visions that could sooner or later turn into nightmares?

He was talking, see, about how we are each of us storytellers, each with our own “narrative that you call your Self… You are the whole and you are a part. You are real and you are shadow. “Story teller” and at the same time “character”. It is through such multilayering of roles in our stories that we heal the loneliness of being an isolated individual in the world… Yet without a proper ego, nobody can create a personal narrative, any more than you can drive a car without an engine… But once you’ve consigned your ego to someone else, where on earth do you go from there?”

Field snow-covered this morning, more snow falling gently on post-holiday snarled traffic, which made no difference since I got stuck behind the usual garbage truck for 15 km through Vienna, my weekly orange honor guard accompanying me to the office.

No deer in the field this morning, but light was better and I could see that the spot they had been grazing lately was at the base of a hunter’s blind.

We went skating. The sky was mostly blue, sunny and snowing lightly at the same time. The rink was packed. Some kids were practicing hockey moves. Alpha bent over for Gamma to push her along, sort of a learn to skate exercise she invented. Gamma wandered off and I snuggled up behind my bent over wife on the ice, thinking, In the Kama Sutra this is known as the Lusty Penguin. Other people were doing ice dancing. Such variety among us humans. Then we got tired and went home and I made pizza.