As I’ve mentioned before, fools, it’s tortoise, not turtle. Testudo hermanni. Protected species: I practically have a license to kill.

Important difference: turtles are aquatic, tortoises are not. I wish someone would tell that to Mig’s loopy father-in-law, who give me “swimming lessons”. Christ, I shit myself with fear every time that guy comes near. And when he actually dips me in a bucket full of water – my heart’s beating so fast I sound like an electric razor. We sink like stones, dude, that’s why we have a fear of water. Jesus.

The thing I hate about living in Austria is it’s so fricking cold. Here we are, mid-September, too early to hibernate, and I’m already shivering my little ass off out in my cage at night. So okay, they put me inside, but what are my options – running laps like a neurotic wolf in this little tub-like contraption with some bark and leaves sprinkled on the bottom of it, trying to escape by climbing the walls until I get stuck in a corner at a 45-degree angle or reach vertical and fall over onto my back and sit there with my tail exposed, counting the spiderwebs on the ceiling until some idiot finally notices me, or running laps around the baseboards in the fricking kitchen.

I try to will my metabolism slower, I really do. But there’s no fighting millions and millions of years of evolution. Things happen when they’re meant to happen and not before. Have to wait for the digestive tract to empty itself out, for one thing. And how’s that supposed to happen when I’m still hungry and they keep feeding me? Lettuce this morning, little pile of it in the middle of the kitchen, with some protein pellets, the small kind, sprinkled on top.

Protein pellets, you know this, right? Protein pellets are a bit sticky when they’re damp. Softer, easier to chew, but they stick to your fucking head. Put yourself in my position, hungry, all you’ve got to eat is this pile of bland lettuce and the last delicious protein pellet is stuck there in the middle of your forehead driving you cross-eyed. It’s like having a full bank account and you can’t remember your PIN code to withdraw the money – it’s a bit comforting to know it’s there, even if it’s not doing you any good, and no one else can get it, especially if you withdraw your head into your shell.

If you’re riding the public transportation in Vienna and it’s crowded and you’re standing next to a pretty 15-year old dark-haired girl, you might somehow think it’s a good idea to stealthily put your arm around her, but it’s not. In fact, it’s a sure way to get a very sharp elbow in the ribs.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.