So my daughter Beta attends a school so cool that they got a famous Austrian artist to come give a talk to the kids. Hermann Nitsch, I’d love to see him in action once. I would go to great lengths to hear him speak. Not as far, say, as leaving work early and going to my kid’s school, but you know. Who wouldn’t want to see someone throw a couple buckets of blood around?

Beta’s really enthused, too.

Girl: Eh, Nitsch.
Man What do you mean, eh? It’ll be fuckin’ amazing. The guy’s brilliant.
Girl: [Stares at man over her glasses, only she's not wearing glasses.]
Man What? I’m serious! Go listen to the guy, by all means! Do yourself a favor.
Girl: Don’t ask him what he earns.
Man What?
Girl: Our art teacher told us not to ask him what he gets for a painting.

Man Heh. So of course you’re not going to.
Girl: I’m going to ask him if he does birthday parties.

Briefly I considered writing a serious post about being hypnotized but the sort of corny humor inherent in hypnosis just makes it impossible. Also, the story gets a little personal and nobody here wants to hear personal stories, right.

Nevertheless, I was hypnotized last night, or something very much like it.

I watched “K-Pax” a couple weeks ago, and there is a scene where Jeff Bridges hypnotizes Kevin Spacey by counting him down from five, and brings him back by counting him back up. I watched that scene and was all like, Oh sure, no watch?

Well, last night this person who hypnotized me didn’t even count me down from five. He didn’t even tell me I was being hypnotized, for that matter, which makes me wonder whether I was actually hypnotized or something else, hence the disclaimer in the second half of the first paragraph up there.

OTOH, he did count me back up from 5 to 1, which made me think, “Holy shit, I’ve been hypnotized!!!” (Verbatim quote, BTW, from around “4”).

Don’t ask me what went on in between, because I haven’t the faintest idea. I may have been doing naked George Burns impressions for the staff for all I know, although I did not smell of cigar smoke. Also, there was no staff. Anyway, another Kevin Spacey moment in my life.

It was really amazing; at least, I was really amazed. I still am.

Have you ever been hypnotized?

Just when certain positive life changes conspire to make one feel less Bug-like, threatening the very existence of a certain on-line “comic strip”, school starts again, and with it long drives into the city with a teenager.

If Iraq descends into a civil war, will Bush get to count it as one of his?

Provisional results of the ongoing Metamorphosism research project on how to attract people, executive summary:
Subject M, 45-year old male

• Crazy people: Leave your heart chakra too wide open. Winos and crazy people would generally pick Subject M out of a crowd to share their life story, or plans for mass murder or other revelations until Subject M learned to close his heart chakra. The drawback of this method is, if you close your heart chakra to avoid attracting these people, then your heart chakra is closed.

• Men: Lose ten pounds. Since he lost the weight, lots of guys have been flirting with Subject M. Or at least more than before, if not “lots.” Depends on your definition of “lots”.
• Hedgehogs: Build cute little houses and leave food out. They’re such little bums. Also, open your heart chakra.
• Beautiful women: Fart in your office. The effect is like rubbing a lamp and a genie appears. Worked for Subject M twice yesterday; both times, attractive co-worker appeared out of nowhere, entered office, sat down and did not leave again until she had smoked half a pack of menthols and explained how easy it is to change the locks on a door, she does it all the time when her husband walks out after a fight, she keeps fresh locks in a drawer in her apartment just in case.

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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