Park car. Get out. Look at all the dirt on it already. Leaves. Scratches. Nicks.

Actually, no scratches yet. Not really any nicks either. Couple small, really small ones, from pebbles bounced up by other cars. One… that’s a big one. Is that a nick? Or dirt?

Scratch at it with nail of right index finger.

Bird shit. Apparently bird shit. Not a scratch.

Carry mineral water and banana into work.

Bird shit. Wasn’t very big. When they say “migratory bird,” they mean like swans and stuff, right?

Sign in at work with pen chained to counter.

They don’t mean like wrens and blackbirds, right?

Push button for elevator.

Or tits and finks and stuff. They’re not migratory, are they?

Wash hands good before taking a pee, just in case.

Imagine my surprise when I poured myself a cup of coffee Sunday morning and opened the newspaper to see, on the front page, a picture of myself the previous night, tie askew, dorky expression on my face, staggering out of a Viennese bar with my arms around the necks of two skanky starlets. Journalists work so fast nowadays, I thought.

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If you read this blog, then you know that I hate cars. Mainly because they have moving parts, and cost an arm and a leg. The weather here today… nice fall days, really nice ones like today, with a sky so blue and foliage so golden, are hard to beat in Austria, let me tell you. I’m sitting here listening to the breeze sussurate through the trees outside at this very moment. Do you like strolling along the sidewalk, kicking through piles of leaves as you go? That sound your feet make kicking through the dry leaves? I love that. And all that fresh air. Despite all that, though, it was all I could do to walk down to the corner store for something to drink at lunchtime, and a bag of tangerines for the skinny receptionist, and a second bag for me, because I figure if you want to be skinny eat what skinny people eat, but also some peanuts because I was hungry for peanuts, and not just sit in my brand new car smelling that new car smell, which is probably carcinogenic but so is toast.

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Got mad at Beta on our drive into town this morning because she asked me why I was doing that, doing what, that thing, what thing, that thing with my hand, moving my hand like that, like what, what hand, that hand, doing this?, no doing that, you’ve done it like ten times or twenty times, doing this?, yeah, hm, maybe it’s a nervous tic no i see now i do it so i can see the speedometer it’s still a new car and i don’t have the steering wheel adjusted right yet, why not, because as i just said it’s a new car and you know what i’m tired of taking shit from people and i don’t like your tone, except i didn’t say the last bit i just sulked. And drove in silence. And noticed how wonderfully beautiful a field full of fog still is in the sunrise and looked briefly for deer before keeping my eyes glued to the road because, new car, that would really suck to slam into someone on only my second trip into town with it and boy do I like this little car.

Later I patted her leg a few times, not too much, I didn’t want to get punched. And I took the long way to work so I could let her out at a spot where she had a faster commute into school, because she has a test today and you figure, can’t hurt to get to school a little early. And I told her I love her even when I get mad at her and she said she knew. And I got to work and did stuff and checked my stats and see Teh Bgu is #1 in a google image search for fatherly love, at least as of this writing, and it was as if life had forgiven me. I cheer up easily, maybe.

My new car is a dark navy blue Mazda 2. I love it very much. I have this CD of some Italian playing Vivaldi on a cello made (the cello) I assume in Venice because that’s where most of the good ones were made; the recording was also made in Venice, which is also where I bought it, on our recent trip there, in ye olde Vivaldi shoppe, and it sounds just perfect in the new car.

I had a dream about Venice a couple nights ago. George Clooney was in it. In fact he starred in the first half, as himself. But first I want to say “hi” to all the Swedish readers who dropped by while I was gone over the weekend; that’s always the way it happens — someone famous links you or something, and you get a spike of traffic, and either you’re gone or tongue-tied when it happens, or your site goes down.

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She stands on my feet and looks up at me. I hold her head with my hands where skull meets neck and she leans back and stretches her arms out and grins while we dance. Slowly, just the two of us here in the eye of the storm, for as long as it takes.