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.

My life lacks adventure right now. Adventure and romance. I have this urge to sit in the woods all night and look at stuff, such as the sky, or to go explore something. Get in the car and drive around looking for neat stuff, or walk through the city. Have a romantic date with my wife or draw some pictures of her or see a stupid action movie with my kid before she leaves for half a year in France. Meet someone new and interesting. See a concert. Have an intelligent conversation. You know, adventure.

I live west of the city so I drive into the sunrise in the morning and into the sunset on my way home. Poor the people who live east of the city and have to look into their rearview mirrors to see that.

They repair the freeway with tar here, when it’s just a small crack, leaving small, narrow strips of tar here and there in the lanes. The lanes are light-grey concrete or asphalt, which although you’d think asphalt was black is actually a medium to light grey all things considered, besides there is no black in nature as I have said before, and the French Impressionists back me up on this.

The strips of tar are shinier than the surrounding road. This morning they were all purple, reflecting the sunrise which was especially extravagant. Nature really outdid itself this morning.

I’m that tar, sometimes. And everything else is everything else.

I was debating with myself whether to go out into the not-so-cold-but-windy and get something to eat at the store down the road, or to just sit in my office and be hungry and shiver because I haven’t gone downstairs to reclaim my heater yet.

If you go outside, you’ll be gone for twenty or thirty minutes, get some fresh air and your co-workers will get used to you being gone and leave you alone for the rest of your lunch break so you can work on that creativity project you started to dislodge your blocks, I said to myself.

But it’s cold out and I’d have to stand up and put on my coat, I replied. It was an actual debate, not a metaphorical one.

Then I checked my wallet and remembered I have no money today and that ended the debate.

Now I think I’ll run downstairs and steal back my heater while my co-worker is away at lunch.