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.

First of all, a critique of international organizations: congratulations to the IAEA and its director general for winning the Nobel Peace Prize… Also: what bugs me about the United Nations? The blue marlin is dry, in the cafeteria, although the pasta was okay; and the vending machine? It’s been out of peanut M&Ms for four days now. Four days.

Sitting there at the conference taking notes on a laptop on my lap, I got no reception on the headphone/receiver set that is supposed to receive the simultaneous interpretation and I figured out that was because I was wearing it around my neck, it was too close to the laptop and getting jammed. I moved it away and reception was fine. Which made me realize they’re not calling them notebooks now for nothing. Calling them laptops suggested to users that you should be able to keep them on your laps. Imagine what that field does to your johnson, man. To your poor testicles, toasting all day in that field. And I was sitting like that for a week.

I’ve got some odd electrical field action of my own going on. I burn out lightbulbs a lot. Turn on the light, and blam. Walk under a ceiling lamp, and zzzt. Like Yul Brynner walking down that hallway in Westworld with all the lights going dark.

This would explain all the electrical problems my Fiat had, if I wasn’t convinced it was just a piece of crap. The muffler just went out last night, by the way. Did you know that? When did I have that fixed, just a couple months ago man.

Static electricity. In winter, I get lots of shocks when I try locking the car after getting out after a drive. And Beta, you don’t want to come anywhere near her upon getting out of the car. She inherited it from me. We climb out of the car, we avoid each other for a while.

The radio mouse we have on the computer, it went on the blink again this morning. Beta was home all day from school yesterday because all she had scheduled was an hour of French so she just decided not to go to the trouble and sat home and chatted on the PC or something all day probably. And now the mouse is broken.

“It’s all Beta’s fault,” said Alpha. “She and her electrical field.”

Apparently what Beta’s electrical field does is sap the batteries in the mouse, because I just inserted two new ones and it works again.