I wake up abruptly having dreamt my hands are asleep and itchy with needles, but when I open my eyes into the darkness my hands are no more asleep than the rest of me, and we all get out of bed.

In the morning I make coffee out of habit and then decide to drink it when I feel like I really need, rather than want it, and by the afternoon there are three cups of cold coffee in a soldierly row on my desk. I want everything to be what I want and balk at need and there is no faster way to make me give something up than to tell me I can't walk away.

Lately I've been considering the degree to which my stubborn self has put its queer shoulder to the wheel in the interest of getting me somewhere I did not necessarily want to go. If someone had told me I couldn't be a scientist because I am a woman, I would be wearing a white coat right now and I would know a lot more than you do, but I'm glad nobody told me that because few things interest me less than test tubes. I did make a mess of choices because I was told I couldn't, one way or the other, and some of those choices I really, really regret now. Still, I guess I mostly did okay.

There is still a typo on the White House web site, and it's messing with my ability to be purely delighted with it. I WROTE TO THEM about it, says Crotchety McEditpants, but apparently they think they have other, more demanding things to do or something.

I can't go to sleep at night because I need to get to the end of the chapter and then I need just a little taste of the next chapter which I then need to get to the end of, and I am torn between being distressed at my lack of self-control, which feeds me more vinegar and keeps me awake until 2 a.m. and shouldn't have said that, and my spontaneous nature, which loves the quench of hunger and the next chapter and anything revealing.

Then I fall asleep with the book under my head and when I wake up the bookmark's shape is pressed into my cheek, and I make a pot of coffee.

How did it start? Uhm we were talking about tattoos and how it seems a
waste to bury or cremate a body all covered in tattoos, all that art going to waste, and I remembered
how a hundred years ago reading the RE/SEARCH about body modification
and wasn't there some guy who collected yakuza skins and wouldn't that
be awesome art or even better if it could be of use. It would be better
than prayer beads from nun knuckles to have a yakuza skin something. A jacket?

Yakuza lampshade! It's the name of Mig's next band,
which is one of a dozen reasons I like Mig so much. It's just an
extension of the idea that a tough guy goes through exquisite pain to
get a flower put on his back, anyway: and after he shuffles off his life of shadow, he's shedding
light on some living room. It's all about being absurd. And it's not
like I'd be all "It puts the lotion in the basket" about it; the guy
would die a natural death first. Or he could go out in some mafia
shootout thingie but I mean it's not like I'd pull the trigger. And
beforehand I'd take him out for karaoke and sing "You Light Up My Life"
or something.

But really. It's just recycling. Repurposing. It's no less icky than
burial, is it. Maybe it is. I will admit it's a little morbid (though
like I say I wouldn't kill anybody so maybe it's co-morbid, ahaha so
funny).

Listen, I've got entertaining company. You can't expect me to be 100%
on track. And it was this or telling you how I lost the battle of who
gets the armrest on the bus ride to Prague on Tuesday, and really: yawn.

In better news, I found my camera! Pictures next week! Really!

I was off baby-wrangling again and totally forgot to write anything.

HAPPY HROMNICE! Happy so I've heard the sun might come back someday, that's nice.

Uhm. It's Squire's birthday today. We're all very excited as he hasn't canceled it yet. There used to be a story around here somewhere about how he canceled his sixth birthday, but that sort of went away in the Great Blog Tragedy of 2006 (because I was writing this thing back in 2003, my friend, back when we kept blogs on typewriters) and so you'll just have to trust me that it's a really good story. But anyway he hasn't canceled this one, so apparently Friar and I are hosting a mess of boys (that's the collective noun, right?) at a bowling alley. We rented the whole bowling alley! Your 12th birthday was never so good, was it.

The funniest thing that happened in my brain this week was trying to theoretically explain Alanis Morisette's cover of "My Humps" to someone who has never heard the song or heard of Alanis Morisette; the Obvious Logical Comparison was "It's like if Sylvia Plath wrote a version of 'Hills Like White Elephants.'" It would be full of bloody clumps of hair and tissue and you would feel somewhat soiled after you read it.

I think I have time to shave my head before the party. The hair (though not in bloody clumps) is getting Really Long, like possibly even 2 inches, and it looks ridiculous when I take off my hat. Am I more likely to scare the kiddies if I'm bald, or if I have hat head? These are the times that try my soul. I won't speak for the rest of humanity.

We were going to go to the cottage last weekend but then I had this
dream about squatters and I couldn't face them so we didn't go. I
wanted to make a Productive Weekend to compensate, so we stayed home
and did Important Things like figure out why my pretty iPod hates me
and I closed out all the 2008 paperwork.

And I cleaned out the closet. I am ratty girl who works in her ratty jammies and that's how it is.
But sometimes I start thinking maybe all my clothes don't have to
be so ripped punk rock and I go on a rampage. Such it was this weekend. And when I
had a bag full of horrific nasties I gave them to Squire to take down
to the trash.

Wow, this is kind of harder to tell than I thought. Okay so the way
trash goes here is you obviously take your plastic, glass, and paper to
the recycling. Then you put IN the trash can the things that are trash.
You put NEXT TO or ON TOP OF the trash can the things that are trash
for you but might be treasures for others. I have a certain amount of
pleasure in running stuff down to the NEXT TO trash and then waiting to
see how long it takes to disappear. In particular outgrown clothes are
fun to watch: when you have a kid, they outgrow shoes at an amazing
rate, and since I don't feel like dealing with second-hand stores we
just put the shoes by the trash and pouf! Gone!

But these clothes were not for anybody but the trash man. I mean: who wants toeless socks? So Squire went down to the trash cans but they were full. So he came
back up with the bag of clothes. And I said: just stuff it on top. But
he misunderstood, I guess, and so he placed the bag on top of the trash
can.

And this morning I woke up to watch the trash men take things away and
there were my rip torn underpants all draped all over. Like somebody
went through this bag of old socks, torn sweats, and nasty old
underpants and draped them out nicely for the next customer.

I don't even know if I can show my face in the neighborhood again. That is all.

Basically it's been a whirlwind. On Wednesday and Thursday I visited my
new favorite baby (…next to yours, of course), who is very beautiful
and smart. She is beautiful because she is two months old and she is
smart because when I read her the New Yorker article about Gary Snyder
she was very raptly attentive to his outdoor wilderness retreat
lifestyle, but when I tried to read her an actual poem by Snyder she
burst into tears, which is about how I feel about him.

Then I came home and had a day of relative normalcy, and then a series
of events got me really, really upset and at some point I decided I
wanted a divorce or at least A Break because I am Not Appreciated and
Not Cared For and Oh, Man, the Weeping, and the house was so cold and
then I realized that I had a fever. Yeah. Sunday I barely left the
couch, and was brought tea and soup and tempting bitlets and
alternately read to or left to watch television and basically I just
drifted in and out of a fever haze, and Friar put a clean shirt on the
heater so when I woke covered in sweat I just changed into a warm, dry
shirt. Generally I felt like a tool but I kept taking everything
anyway, because hey. Sunday night I wrote bad poetry to amuse myself
which is how I knew I was getting better. Here is one:

I wonder what Mr. Rogers would do
if Mr. Rogers had the 'flu.
I like to think he'd quietly lie
against his pillows, fluffed quite high

by his wife, at whom he'd smile.
And she would read to him a while
and maybe even kiss his head
or touch him gently as she read.

His son would bring tea on a tray,
and Fred would blow his nose and say
his gratitude was really boundless,
though with this throat, it's kind of soundless.

And so far things here are also good,
in mine as in his neighborhood,
I'm sick, and gladly taken care of
Though I am also most aware of

the fact that I am not the good guy
(despite all attempts to be such)– I
have merely surrounded myself with
sweetly loving kin and kith.

and now it is Tuesday, and other than the fact that I think I may quit
smoking since it's been a week and I dunno, it just doesn't sound that
good, well, things are back to normal. Going out tonight to celebrate
OUR NEW PRESIDENT OH YEAH!

And you?

So: a Muslim, an atheist, a homosexual in a committed relationship, and
an unmarried person are all running for U.S. president. Who wins? If
you get this solved too quickly, you can make one or more of them female. If that's still
too easy to figure, make one or more of them Republican.

I had to go to the post office to pick up a package yesterday. It's
below freezing now, and still not a snowflake in sight, though it is incorrect to say that it is too cold to snow. So: hat, gloves, scarf, coat, sweater, all of which
have to be shucked the second you enter any overheated building, which
is all of them. Oh but first: day before yesterday we went to see the
Nutcracker, we meaning me and Squire because as if Friar's going to sit
still for a whole hour without a cigarette. There were women apparently
equally unprone to theater, wearing maybe their old prom dresses,
tighter than they'd remembered, summery shimmers of sleevelessness,
winter boots on under. The first hour was boring as hell for me but the
second hour they had this delicious group doing the "Arabic Dance" in
some Thai costume looking thing (Oh, Brno, you're so cute when you try)
and they were like the Bodies exhibits, if the bodies had had skin on
and been dancing around; it was like: the human body is a work of art.
And then the "Russian Dance", the guy (Takeru Shimizu) whipped around
the whole stage in I think grand jete en tournant, and he looked so
totally joystruck while he did it that it was all you could do to not
stand up and applaud, and in fact some people did. So that was day
before yesterday.

Then so back to yesterday: I went to the post office and I was
thinking about how easy it is to get bogged in irritation in this
weather and standing in line at the post office with my cranky face on
because it's hot and stuffy and I'm holding my hat and scarf and coat
but still sweating and nobody's happy and I think, okay, you know, I'm
PICKING UP A PACKAGE. It's the holidays and somebody sent me a present.
This is hardly torture. So I smiled to myself, and I smiled at people,
and I got four people to smile back (two wrys of the "here we are, all
standing in line" variety; one sincere; and one a kid who was already
pretty much smiling but I'll take it) and so this is what I did for the
remainder of the day, which was two lines at the post office, one line
at the drug store, one line at the grocery store, two trams, and a stop
at the wine bar, was let people in line in front of me if they were
older or looked more miserable, and smiled at people until they smiled
back. I have no doubt I looked like an idiot and it's not like I'm
making new year's resolutions here, but social experiments are always
fun and more so if they don't involve electric shocks.

conversation:
ME: Put your hand on my back.
HE: Aie! Hey! You need to tell me when you're going to do things like flip over backwards.
ME:
Well, I didn't want you to actually hold me. I just wanted you there
for orientation. So I could figure out which way was up.
HE: You could know which was is up by standing up.
ME: I like seeing it all mess up and then making it right.

punchline:
I
am sure we can all agree that "It was the wrench, with the revolver, in
the study" might have even thrown Drs. House and Holmes for a loop.

Standing in front of the chocolate selection at the grocery store. This grocery store has two aisles only; it is not The Saddest
Grocery Store (where the check-out woman, always the same woman, was
walleyed and threw your things down again as she rang them up and
looked like when her shift was over she would likely kill herself if
she could get up the energy) but it is pretty damn sad, and it is also
the only grocery store between here and home and you have to buy some
token gifts. So you have decided you need to buy some chocolate and in
this store there is 1/3 of an aisle devoted to chocolate so you're
thinking: 10 people, 10 bars? or 10 boxes? you don't want to look cheap but at $3 a pop the tokens are adding up.
And
this old man is standing next to you and also looking at the chocolate,
and you do the thing where you shift a half step to the side to imply
that you're allowing him space I mean you
can't really open up much space when you're both looking at the same
thing but this is elevator manners, right. And he says, "There's a lot
of chocolate to choose from here!"
You're like an old man magnet you
were saying just the other day and here is evidence. They like to
flirt, they like to pinch you sometimes, it's a whole thing. You
find them sweet as long as they don't breathe on you. Part of the thing
is about staving off the moment when they realize you're foreign
because then they get all flustered and it's so much for everybody. So
you venture "yes" to the chocolate comment cause that seems safe.
He says, "With such a selection– I'm sorry, do you mind listening to the ramblings of an old man for a moment?" and
so you swing around the eyes. He's wearing the intellect's beret and
surprisingly smells pretty okay, which since you've cut back on smoking
everything smells like it has a foot in the grave so this is altogether
good, worth a smile at least which your smiles are worth more than the
stock market these days.
And he goes into chocolate and varieties
and the chocolate of his childhood and basically the plot turns on his
desire for a real hot chocolate, a hot chocolate like from Holland,
like from his childhood. If you had any idea what he was talking about
you would bring him home and make it for him, but you don't and so
you're smiling watts and looking helpless. And he says thank you for
listening to him and you grab 10 bars and go and pay.

Oh, Christmas. Today Squire is at a "concentration camp" (survey says:
this will never not be funny) and so Friar and I were at odds and ends
as to what to do for about thirty seconds before we decided we would go
to the pub and play Scrabble. But Domov was noisy and Severka was full
of reservations and even Sklipek (which I love but Friar does not as
the owner is a little too Uriah Heep for his taste) was fully booked.
We tried Pisek and Prokop, too, with no tables empty. We tried the
herna down the street but they had a big screen TV and a jukebox (two
strikes) and we were out. Havran was rejected for their tendency to
open the doors and windows and Hawaii has nasty low tables and the
weird wine store doesn't have a bathroom and there we were. Seriously:
10 pubs walking distance from the house, and I felt like Mary and
Joseph. FINALLY we decided to go to the new(er) wine bar and maybe get
a couple bottles and just go home, and LO,there was room for us in the
inn, so we sat at a moderately uncomfortable table and played Scrabble
(I killed) for 3 hours while they brought us glasses of tramin and beer
and the wine bar owner's grandchildren played semi-obnoxiously
underfoot and the radio played, and I swear I am not making this up:
Queen, Joanna Newsom, Nik Kershaw, Joan Jett, Support Lesbiens, and
Depeche Mode. I mean, this is what I remember right now. It was three hours of bizarrely awesome music.
I hate the winter with more unreserved passion than I have ever loved
anything, and I am frankly unbearable from basically November to March,
and it is merely December. I don't know how anybody manages to like me
right now; I imagine it's like how I managed to like Squire when he was
two years old except that I do not have sweet baby fat that you can
kiss while I'm sleeping. I'm sorry I'm an asshole, really I am.
BUT! I am counting my one two three to seven blessings this week, and let
me tell you: ten pubs within walking distance? TEN. WALKING. I am sorry
but that is awesome. And I love love love the mix tapes that Czech
radio makes for me every day, and I'm sorry every day that I don't talk
about how my control freak tendencies have met their match in the stuff
that gets RADIO PLAY here, because really: Nik Kershaw and Joanna Newsom? FIND me a radio station that will do that in another country.
And so that's that. Tomorrow we're going to the cottage, because with
Squire in absentia we simply don't know what to do with ourselves other
than the same thing we usually do.

1. FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE = FUNNY
HER: Sorry I was in the restroom for so long. I met an old friend in there.
ME: Wow, I've never heard that before! That's funny!
HER: …?
ME: It's a great euphemism. In English, I think there's one about a visit from your auntie.
HER: I… didn't meet my auntie in the bathroom? I met an old friend from college.
ME: Oh, you mean you really met an old friend? Oh. Well now it's a different kind of funny.

2. PRAISE = AWESOME
ME: Here is the edited document.
HIM: I used all your suggestions- it is really important to have feedback from you.

3. KAPOW = TOUGH
Wii boxing is going to change my life.

4. MID-TERMS = IRONIC
A midterm meeting that starts with the teacher crying cannot end well,
but is so much better than having it start with me crying that I am
sorry to say I felt pretty awesome, all things considered.

5. COTTAGE = STILL
As in, it is still going on and it is one of the few places that I can
be still. I had a full Proust weekend, finished a book, ate a ton of
food, successfully started a fire without being backseat firestarted,
and generally am having trouble letting go of the notion that I might
live there some day.