One nice thing about a long, solitary early-morning commute is you get to think deep thoughts like, if life is a disco and god is a dj then is life a zen disco where you experience it in a series of strobe-like individual moments, or a tao disco where it flows through you and you realize you’re the flow as well?

And I’m thinking, the details will save you.
And I’m thinking, hello mojo and mojo says, hello mig and I say where were you and it says I was here all along you were just looking the wrong way and I say well I was cleaning house.
And I’m thinking, I’m a fucking genius, how could I forget. And mojo says, sure thing, pal. Or at least a conduit. And I say, quit while you’re ahead okay and leave it at genius.
And I’m thinking, there could be worse fates than getting stuck in an airliner restroom with Pink (on a good day) and discussing philosophy with her. Like, Pink, are you a comedianist or a prestidigationist? Is life a joke or is it a trick?
And I’m thinking, do we have just one good idea and that has to last us our whole life, one authentic core realization, or can we have many if we but pay attention?
Cause I’m thinking, I still agree with what I said years ago about efficiency, and have little to add to it. Which is too bad, because if I could stretch it from just a rant to book length, I could call it “The Efficiency Trap” and usher in a new era of something. A new era of me having a book published, such as. Pad it with statistics or something. Graphs.
And I’m thinking Gamma wanted cereal with little chocolate pillows in it for breakfast and was really upset that we were out, because she had personally bought two whole boxes of it with mom just like ten minutes ago and now we’re out how can that be? The tears one can shed over cereal. Instead I talked her into toast with Nutella and chocolate pillow cereal ASAP, I promise.
And I’m thinking, it’s raining this morning, and I needed the rain.

There he is in a full-page wristwatch advertisement, resting his chin on his hand, ear close enough to his wrist to hear the ticking of that fat, posh wristwatch strapped there as if it were a gang of Tibetan monks beating on his front door. If he’s a Buddhist, isn’t he supposed to live in the moment? Is he the right guy to be advertising watches?

I have a problem with the expression “live in the moment” anyway. It strikes me as like dancing in a darkened disco with a strobe light going. Living in this moment, and this moment, ad infinitum. Tick, tick, tick.

It’s better, isn’t it, to jump into the tao? Not to go with the flow, but to be it?

And don’t forget the details. The golden flecks in his eyes, the deep blue of hers, the bloody veins in mine.

Got out early this morning, driving the big one into town. Dark, with fog and had to scrape a little ice off the windshield before we left. I’d be pretending, though, if I were to write something sentimental about the drive in with her in that light, and trying to talk to her, and rounding the curve to see the sunrise over Vienna, how it’s different every day. All I want to do today is throw things away and file things. Purge my life. Get rid of all these stupid distractions and these useless things that have accumulated. I’m not sentimental and I’m not nice. I am here, though, and I am paying attention.

Question:
If it takes one person three hours (including setting up and cleanup) to paint a 2.5m X 6m changing room, and one person and two fifteen year-old girls three hours to paint the same room, how long does it take one person, two fifteen year-old girls and two fifteen year-old boys to paint it?

Answer:
About six hours, unless the kids take a lunch break after an hour or so and the person can paint like a maniac while they’re gone.

Beta and her friend K. got two boys from Beta’s class to help them paint the women’s changing room at the rowing club. They did it like this:
Beta: Help us paint the changing room.
Boys: Okay. Will there be spiders?
Beta: Maybe. Oh, and come a day early so I’ll be sure to have someone to dance with at the ball. And buy your own tickets.
Boys: Okay. You promise there will be spiders?

The kids were very good to work with. They were just normal kids, especially the boys. Beta and her friend… fifteen is a funny age. Girls are more evolved than boys at that age.

Eventually we catch up. At least I hope so.

I remember being fifteen. It’s a watershed age, when boys are on a threshhold: the boys are more interested in girls than in big cellar spiders, but still feel more comfortable around the spiders.

So a lot of time was spent yesterday with girls, and a grown man, masking stuff off and taping down plastic sheeting and so on while boys poked spiders the size of pie plates and said, “hrhrhrhr”.

They were great, though, all of them. Big help. They were proud of themselves when we finished, as they should be. Looks great.

That stupid joke goes through my head every time I try to dance at the ball. When I lived in the United States I avoided most physical activity requiring anything resembling coordination. I don’t know whether people are more active here in Austria — I suspect they are — or whether it’s just me trying to be more active with my kids, but I find myself doing things here that remind me painfully of my career as a consumer of the physical education dished out in the public school system of my country of birth. Same as then, if they picked teams for these things, I wouldn’t get picked last, but only thanks to the halt and the lame. Skiing. Rowing. Playing cello. Ballroom dancing.

But, you do it and it doesn’t kill you.

There was a big difference this year, too: I danced with my daughter. What can I say? Proud dad. Classy kid. I managed not to cry noticeably on the dance floor.

Going to the local ball tonight. Wish me luck. More later.

Beta is going to France at the end of the month. She will be staying with a family for six months, as an exchange student. We are not only excited about the usual things, we are also looking for a harp for her to borrow or rent while she is there so we don’t have to ship hers from here.

Last night we were googling around trying to find something and turning up articles on Islamic law written by someone named Harpe and things like that. No idea what else we found because I don’t speak French (yet: I bought a teach-yourself-French course Wednesday and started listening to the CDs in my car this morning). Overall it was a pretty funny evening, us fighting over the keyboard, the mouse, and which search terms to use and what to put in quotation marks.

If any of you have an idea where to look, or at least which search terms to use, I’d appreciate any advice.