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.