How rich are you?

“I know how to ride a bike, dad! You just don’t think!”

Good advice. Thinking is overrated sometimes.

She rode a mile with us on Sunday against a strong headwind. One of those strong headwinds that manage to be a headwind both coming and going. She was careful to stay on the side of the path away from the creek, wise, given her father’s tendency to cycle down the bank and into the water.

And fall is coming. Chucked the hanging baskets, getting dry. Washed the glass front on the woodstove; now waiting, kindling and matches in hand, for the first crisp evening.

A guy was telling me about his trip to Sweden. Now I want to go to Sweden, now that I know it’s not so expensive, unless you drink alcohol there, and the long days and summer light is nice, and that they are nice to children. Only my children want to go somewhere hot.

You want to know what Greece means to me, what I think of when I hear “Greece”? Bottles of ouzo I purchase and never finish because I don’t like ouzo but always forget, and plastic shopping bags cutting into my hands as I lug flat mineral water, watermelons, white bread, instant soup, retsina, nectarines, jam and yogurt from the shop in town up some hill past tavernas full of lobster-red British tourists to a nice little bungalow.

And skin cancer.

Okay, and beaches and sand castles and kids having lots of fun. And cocktails at sunset with my wife.

And mosquitos and cocky rats that jump this high.

Today’s guest blogger is Missy Elliot

Mig asked me not to mention him when I was making my acceptance speech for the MTV “Best Video” award for my video “Work It”, and I respect his wishes, but first of all I’d like to make up for that here and say, from the bottom of my heart, Thank you Mig for the idea with the bees!

“Don’t say anything smart,” Mig said when I asked him what I was supposed to write here, so I decided to talk about the meaning of life, as what is lamer than that? In fact, although I do not like to be pigeon-holed, I would have to say that my belief that asking what the meaning of life is is the wrong question makes me more a nihilist, in some respects, than anything else.

What do you mean by life? I’m always tempted to ask in return. Because life does not exist, you see, only circumstances; and what is the meaning of circumstances? Whatever meaning you give them, is what it boils down to.

Life, schmife.

I eat a plum, and the plum tastes sweet.

A lot of things happened, then we had tea in ritzy cups I bought on sale at Harrod’s back then. Classy tea, poured out of a real pot, not made in the cup with a teabag. And some sort of cookies, with coconut in the recipe.

Then we went to the parking lot and when our youngest daughter got tired of riding her bike in a straight line from me at one end of the lot to her mother at the other end, she began to ride in circles around the lot.

Not too close to the bushes at the sides, because the bushes dash out and grab you when you are six if you get too close.

There’s a slash in the bicycle seat to prove it.

Then she crashed and landed on both hands and ouch. We thought she’d broken her arm.

Her wrist hurt. We went home. Put something cold on the wrist. No swelling, but tender. We took her to the hospital, all four of us. Big sister along for moral support.

X-ray. An X-ray is called a R

First the old flower lady tells me my hair has gone white. Then I realize my boss is younger than I am and telling myself I rejected a stressful life of uncool soul-selling careerism is cold comfort because part of me asks, Then why am I feeling so stressed out and soul-sold then, huh?

Then I get home and find a virus has swept across the land making two out of three females insane. Various events transpire, then one of the two puts the other one of the two to bed and I stand there in the relative calm feeling like a man who has just stuffed a lynx into a mailbox.

Then the third one, the calm one, is nice to me. Eldest daughter. Someday she be doctor, cure something. Live in big house.

I ask her how school was. She’s going to a new school where all the other kids are geniuses with attitudes. I can feel that she’s sort of exploring the world of attitude, trying various ones on. Her attitude this evening is: Affectionate.

“All the other dads walked their kids clear up to the classroom.” She has the classroom on the highest floor of the school, in the furthest corner. I was in a big hurry to get to work and just sort of walked her into the school and dropped her off. We were early, she was the first one.

“Did anyone mention me not coming clear up?”

“No, I was the first one. No one saw. But it doesn’t matter. E’s dad even gave her a kiss and she didn’t punch him for it!”

“Wow.”

“And I couldn’t believe the other dads. You’re by far the coolest and best-looking.”

“Really?”

“All the rest were like already bald on top with a gray fringe and a grey moustache.”

[I silently give thanks that I shaved the grey goatee I grew on vacation.]

“And wore funny little glasses.”

[I pocket my reading glasses.]

“And they all look like, I dunno, bank directors.”

“Bank directors are bad…”

“Very bad.”