Man, my desk is a mess. I've got a pile of tissues here, because I've been sneezy mcsneezerson all week. A bunch of pens I have neglected to return to the pen jar. The rings I was wearing last night. A few used toothpicks, which was my clever idea for helping to stop biting my nails, and it works, mostly, but it's maybe a little disgusting. The other day a man sincerely stopped beside my table in a bar and told me I was too much of a lady to be biting my nails. This is probably nicer than what I usually tell people, which is that their IQ drops every time they put their fingers in their mouths. so toothpicks. My favorite book by Josef Skvorecky, who just died. He and Havel off somewhere having a good beer together, I expect. I used to make little stars next to all my favorite lines in books, and then when I'd finish the book meticulously copy all the starred lines into my journal and erase the stars, give the book away. Now I have a house so I keep the books with the stars inside instead, which probably is a little irritating to people who borrow my books, all those Deep Thoughts so generously pointed out for them, but is easier on my poor old lady hands. My Christmas presents for which I have not yet written a thank-you note, and which therefore cannot be put away. A whole bunch of new music that needs to be put into iTunes so I can carry it around in my ears, so you can whisper to just me. My big Christmas gift this year was a washing machine. It is very happy with me and is not constantly making a break for it like the old one. Also it gets the clothes clean. Also the spin cycle actually spins the clothes, which means they get dry faster. It is not as quiet as I had hoped a new washing machine would be but then I'm hardly going to worry about disturbing my neighbors when they make plenty of noise of their own. Like right now. What else is on my desk? The rejection letter from the school that Squire had most wanted to go to. My voter registration form. Some useful things, like my timer and a calendar, but they're almost buried under what doesn't belong. You wouldn't think of me as a messy person, but this desk, this desk is my dirty secret. 

I'll probably clean it off now that I've told you about it. 

I dreamed I had lost the ability to read. The words were on the page but my eyes couldn't focus, or my brain couldn't sort it. I tried to Google to find out what was wrong: had I had a stroke? But I couldn't read any of the information. Absolutely terrible. My dreams lately have been this very literal and tedious expression of my basic fears. Thanks brain. Can't a person get a train ride with a good looking somebody wearing Chanel up in this bed? Torrid>terror.

I am having the same damn parenting struggle I have in other relationships, which is "when should I do something for someone's own good vs. when should I let them learn from their own mistakes". I'll dole out advice at the drop of a question mark, but keeping my mouth shut otherwise is an endless battle. My general feeling is that my job as a parent is to be a safety net while he does all the highwire action; the funambulism of adolescence in particular is best conducted independently. But lately I've found myself up at the anchor point, nudging nudging nudging him just to take a damn step out on the wire. GAH! DO IT! It is not good for me, because I feel less human doing it – having for example learned for myself the lesson that the teenage lesson learned alone is the one learned most thoroughly, it irks me to feel like I'm robbing someone's independence by telling them what they should learn for themselves. On the other hand I was a teacher once, and I know sometimes a steadying presence is needed. So I'm up on the anchor, cajoling, motivating, etc., and then it's like I wake from a dream in which I have become the very person I didn't want to be, the over-controller, and I scootch back down into safety net mode, where I feel better, but then I see my tiny boy way up there on the wire, a little fearful, and does he need to learn for himself that he is brave or shouldn't I just whisper it to him etc.

I'm glad I only had one kid. I frankly don't have the guts for more. Hats off to anybody who does; that's tightrope walking while juggling.

I have plans for pretty much every day from the 25th to January 1st, but I don't feel particularly festive. We decorated some. I'm mostly excited about midnight tonight, when the days officially start getting longer and I can stop worrying that I won't make it through a Czech winter. I'm not saying it's OVER, but every minute more of sunshine counts.

Squire drew a picture of me. It is probably true although I think my eyes are less clear. My eyes are my feature (my one feature) but I don't think they actually glow in the dark. The wrinkles coming up now are mostly the result of gravity, which is interesting. When I was younger the hollows under my eyes were caused by sleeplessness and a hunger that had nothing to do with food; now they are small sacks in which I can carry a pint of tears, the memories of things I've seen, and possibly a small loaf of bread. Poor eye sacks, so laden they will burst at some point.

Also I have jowls, but let's not think about that right now, as there is nothing poetic about the gravity plus weight of that.

I've been quite social lately, which is interesting to me. I've had a bottle of wine in the fridge for about two weeks and haven't had any of it after the first glass, which at first struck me as odd as I was once incapable of keeping an open bottle of anything for more than a day or two. But I've been out out out, dinner party quiz night game night coffee date tour guide whatever. I'm a butterfly is what, a social butterfly. According to Wikipedia I will be dead in a week or maybe a year. 

As is my wont in winter I have been looking at places warmer and varying distances away. Somewhere better than this place, with its promise of snow that never comes true, just bitter cold and wind that freezes my tears to my face. California for Christmas is more expensive than in the summer, ridiculous, so out of the question. Egypt is temptingly hot and reasonably priced, as is Turkey, but being sensible I decided to save the money for the summer and stay inside for the holidays instead. Stacking up the Christmas movies, starting with Die Hard. And I want to work on being still for a minute, and on resolve, and Squire needs to study for the high school entrance exams in January, which promise to be horrifically difficult. 

Sometimes I feel like I would be better cut off from people altogether, but then we are on the leather couch in the corner of the bar, talking about the transformative powers of ballet, and I think: nowhere better than this place, right now. 

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Justin Bieber, Kim Kardashian, Lindsay Lohan

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anything to do with the Republican nomination, Michael Jackson's death, or television shows

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Last night we went to the ballet. I wanted to see the Israeli ballet style – more Russian or more New York? Like I know what I'm talking about. Seriously they used music by Erik Satie, and that's why I wanted to go. We got total nosebleed seats. It was three different short ballets by three different troupes (the one we wanted to see was second, "Things I Told Nobody") and I thought: well, variety is good. The program had typos in it (they misspelled the name of the ballet, awesome) which did not bode well in terms of their attention to detail, but I had hope anyway.

The sets were 20 minutes, plus about 10 minutes each for clapping (MAN do Czechs like to clap), and then 30 minute breaks. The first set was fine, the second set was also fine, and we walked out before the third set because a) we were tired; b) the people behind us were getting drunk and annoying me (cheap seats, whatever, I know, but why give people an hour of drinking for forty minutes of dancing? is it a ballet or a disco? grump grump); c) the third set used Philip Glass music, and I have already had to run out of one Philip Glass performance in hysterics, so why risk it. 

Anyway, as Squire said, the Satie was played so slowly that it looked almost too hard for the dancer. And I said how classical music was sort of open to interpretation in a way, but he pointed out that 3/4 time is 3/4 time, and that was not. So I agreed to keep him and we came home and ate tortellini and watched an episode of Community and that was perfectly fine.

Yesterday I had 200 Kc credit mysteriously added to my phone. One of my numerous fans, I assumed. About an hour later a stranger called to say she'd made a mistake and could I send the credit back to her? She seemed not entirely convinced I would do it. In the store, the clerk forgot to charge me for the credit and I almost walked out before I realized and went back, giving her the 200 Kc. I can only hope that sooner or later someone will succeed in just handing me 200 Kc because I'm awesome, and not because they're confused. It does seem like the karma wants me to have it.

Yesterday evening's pub quiz (where I went despite sort of knowing it was a bad idea, healthwise) was fun. And yes, we won again, duh. It helps to have savants on the team, is my thought. I mean, knowing the band Boy George played for is child's play, and the twin ship of the Mauretania is fairly easy, but to identify a few bars of Neil Young's Heart of Gold played backwards takes a certain kind of brain. It does not help to have me being sick, because everything irritates the heck out of me, from other players to factual mistakes in the questions, and it's hard for me to remember that it is my problem, and not that the world conspires to annoy me. Anyway, winning team gets half off on drinks. I stuck to hot whiskey with lemon for the throat, which probably kept things from getting worse.

Last night I dreamed someone was yelling at me and it was awful; trapped in a house with less space to maneuver than an airplane and being shouted at to get out of the way. I wished to be smaller than a dormouse but even that would have been in the way. When I tried to speak, I found had no voice at all, and when I woke that was true, and my general malaise had escalated into a fever.  

Drifting in and out of fever dreams all day today, then. I fell asleep in a sunbeam today and woke up an hour later, disoriented, in a different sunbeam. Read some Gertrude Stein because it fit and drifted again, dreaming of circles. The next time I woke up, the little old couple across the street had assumed their afternoon stations at the window, watching the traffic pass, pedestrian and other. Can they see me through the window, resting in these dusty shafts of light, and if so do they think I am lazy or ill? Perhaps both.

Squire is at the store. Today he will learn to make chicken soup because both my previous chicken soup makers are gone and I need a back up plan. It might be better to teach him to make hot and sour soup, which I think is what might actually cure me, but we'll start with the basics so he can take care of people besides me. Generously expanding the resume. I'm thoughtful, even when my head is on fire.

Well, helLO there, soldier. Buy me a drink and I will tell you all about my summer vacation. Or anyway that's been my last week, minus the soldier part. Lots of drinks, lots of recaps, lots of how you doing no how you doing. And in the midst of this return there was a Rocky Horror party, and that was fun. And now I'm home, settled, checked in with my people, getting ready to get back to the business of, you know, life.

The summer was… well. Squire and I flew to California with his friend; Squire and Friend went to Grandparents, where it was believed to be more fun (and probably was: at Grandpa's they made bows and arrows and Grandma took them to a bunch of 3D movies; I wanted them to get up close and personal with the black widows in my sister's backyard while we cleaned it out, so). For three weeks the kids bounced back and forth between the lap of luxury and the school of hard knocks (though we also took them to Six Flags and stuffed them with hamburgers, so it wasn't all bad), and then Friend finally bounced back to the Czech Republic, where his parents that he basically hadn't bathed for three weeks and were quietly horrified. What? You try arguing hygiene with a teenager and tell me how it goes. We had a lot of visitors, which I enjoyed tremendously. Look, I flew eleventy thousand kilometers, and you can make me feel like a Special Guest Star by traveling a mere hour (and if you travel further? Then I am really really really happy). This is true. 

I did think a lot about how television shows work, and how normally it is My Show, the Anne In Brno Show, which is like a sit-dram, but this summer was totally sweeps week on other people's shows. I brought in viewership like whoa. I will so be getting an Emmy. Because you like me, you really like me.

I will NOT be collecting any awards for the Rocky Horror party (although I did absolutely win a costume contest, a hundred years ago, at a convention). Oh, my misspent youth. Remember when my editorial pointy-headedness was applied towards correctly quoting the movies I'd seen a hundred times? We had fun, though, throwing rice and confetti around the classroom with wild abandon, and then sweeping it up immediately afterwards like the good little adults we are now. Cards for sorrow+ water gun rain+ great scott toilet paper is kind of sticky, for future reference.

So now I'm home. Following the massive Summer Furniture Rearrangement of 2011, I felt pretty inspired to Change My Life, too. So I came home and got over the jet lag instantly (the trick: take short naps even if you can't sleep or if you want to sleep more, the whole day and the night before you travel; by the time you get where you're going you won't know which end is up, and you will sleep all night the first night = instant cure), so my body got a cold instead to make sure I was sufficiently miserable. I think I might have preferred the jet lag? Hard to say. Anyway. Got home, started working again, and in breaks dismantled my bed and made it into a new desk/office area. I kind of rock, with the hardware and stuff. It's a nice office. Maybe I'll take a picture.

Anyway, that was my summer. Photos are up here. I hope your summer was splendid too.

a sofa bed

a spare mattress

a bus

an airplane

Nell's bed

a bed in the garage

my sister's bed

the couch

pillows on the floor

the parking lot of a produce stand

behind a coffee shop

the riverbank

next to Suzanne's pool

a hotel room near you

So, California. Here we are. I am a bundle of confusion and yet clearer in my head in many ways than I have been in previous visits. Sometimes I think about moving here, because the houses are sweet and the weather is lovely and there are so many things that please me here and that are important. Family. Food. But then I remember that back home I have a job I love, and health insurance, and friends who make me laugh until it hurts. So I think this is tourist lust.

I like the signs I see everywhere that are certainly nouns but I pretend they are verbs because my mind is nothing if not amusing to me. Waste. Change. Produce. Dump. 

I've been thinking a lot about guests and hosts. "Looks like some kind of guest/host relationship to me." I want to be a good guest; I want to be a better hostess now that I've had some great modeling. I wonder how it is that some people are able to make others feel comfortable, valuable, and others seem to not even consider that important. Whether it's something that can be learned as an adult.

Also various forms of communication – how it is so easy to talk to some people and others require real Dale Carnegie skills.

I am strong in my likes and dislikes and yet hate to think anybody could ever dislike me. If you dislike me because I am fussy and clever and gorgeous, I guess I don't care, but it keeps me up nights wondering if I am being judged for something I didn't do, or didn't mean to. "I want all my hurts to be intentional."

There have been swirling sounds in my head regarding who needs what, who gets what. It is my own thing that I don't ask for what I want or even need because I am afraid I will not get it, and this convinces both me and everybody else that I don't need or want anything, and I get by just fine but sometimes I feel like I want it anyway. And then I get all tangled in wet hair and longing. It bothers me horribly to see my brain go traipsing down a road that I know ends in tears and yet be only able to control how little we cry. Like, couldn't we just focus on what we have, couldn't we just NOT DO THIS. Gack. 

I've been wine tasting twice, to amusement parks twice, rafting once. Got one massage so far and should get another. Got a tattoo. Painted my fingernails too many times to count and my toes twice. Painted half of a room. Rearranged furniture a few times. Went shopping for clothes a few times. Went shopping for house stuff also a few times and nearly sat in an aisle at one weeping because of what I could accomplish with so many things. Isn't it pretty to think so, that it is the availability of stuff, rather than my own lack of creativity, that stands between me and some sense of personal completion. See it doesn't take me very long to bring my empty hand around and slap my own face. 

Made the trip from Sonora to Sacramento with some old CDs I pilfered from my friend, Talking Heads and REM. What a pleasure to be on a road trip with Squire, listening to the music that I used to depend on for road trips 20 years ago. Driving up 108, God's country I told Squire, and I am still so satisfied by the sight of one lone tree on any horizon. Still pleased when hills make me think of a woman's body rolling itself out before me. Still glad to sing along, to know the words. I'm not supposed to be like this, but it's okay.

Or maybe that’s too much violence, I don’t know. I have so much anger, and like my other feelings it is cumulative. This one is to do with unawareness of others and I know that, but it feels so deliberate, it feels like “I know you’re there but I can’t be bothered to be courteous” and so wanting to call attention to my existence seems hopeless, because a blindered horse is not helped by being startled, and the fact that these blinders are self-imposed means nothing. So I curl my fingernails into my palms, spare the rod, and wish instead that you will be ignored, utterly ignored as you’re ignoring me, but that it will be something that counts. Yes, you there hugging the ticket punch so that nobody can use it, you with your dirty look when I ask you to step aside so I can stamp my ticket: I am ready to hope your heart gets horribly broken if it will teach you a little empathy. Failing that, I will hope the door closes on your fingers if it will teach you the courtesy of holding it open for others.