1, 2, 3 - here we go

Why not just start with it. This blog has been over and in and around my head for a couple of days now. Why not just start writing it. Not knowing how to write blogs and which personal – formal relation to follow, I decided to write down three different things. The first one will be very banal and concrete, an event from today. The second will be more abstract, it will follow my thinking from the last couple of days. And the third one will touch upon how I feel about doing it – starting to write this blog.

1. Our cat peed on Živa's chair today. We are quite sure she did it out of jealousy. I took the textile off and put it in the washing and drying machine. When I wanted to put it on again it was too small.

2. Živa is different every day. But never so different that we would not recognize her again. Thinking about how people never really change – you can always see the past in them and you consider them the same person as they were before. The complete change may be impossible because of the person changing or even because of the observer. The result is the same: we can never become someone else.

3. It's always scary and exciting to start something new. I feel quite ok. At the end here is my conclusion for the future: no explanation, no introduction, just going straight to the point (if there is one).

In the Movies

"I have a headache, stomach ache and my legs hurt from going up and down too many times yesterday..." That much I managed to write down before the lights went out in the cinema and the film started. All this happened on Sunday. I was wrong, as I usually am when it comes to judging people and their intentions, and L.V. really was thinking over the money, not my reliability, as I suspected him of doing in my previous post. So in the end we did go to Karlovy Vary to do our "crazy waiting" in the town's most prestigious hotel. When we fought off some initial uneasiness (L.V. experienced a juggling disaster there which he did not want to go back to and we went through a shared entertainment catastrophe in a similar hotel in the same town at a posh New Year's Eve party 2008), we changed into costumes and produced our tiny red carpets to welcome the 400 distinguished confectioners one by one (hence the hurting legs a day later). There was one specially distinguished guest, the town's mayor, and we were warned to be careful. He turned out to be a nice man with a charming wife (of course). When we approached them the second time in the course of the evening and L.V. offered him a piece of cheese in a mouse trap, he made an unexpected move and spilled half his wine into the coffee of the lady standing next to him, the other half travelling the extra bit further to her chest. We avoided him for the rest of the night. The evening was a success.

During our journey back - a long one, late at night - it began to snow and we discussed life and films, which we seldom do. The conversation was going so well that I forgot to fall asleep in the car and went to bed at around three a.m. (hence the headache the day later). 

At least the stomach ache eventually proved to be caused by something else than laborious comedy-making. I went to see a doctor. His name and the pictures on the walls in the waiting room suggested he was Lebanese. He had a very strong voice and it was almost impossible to read while waiting for the examination, as I could hear all the details concerning the medical condition of the patients who went inside ahead of me. This was only fun until the moment I realised that my turn was coming up. So, after some crazy waiting in the waiting room, there was time for comedy again. The doctor's accent, I realised, was the cause of many misunderstandings, which usually resulted in the doctor blaming the patients for withholding important information from him. And yet he seemed to be enjoying it all very much. He spent a lot of time with me (considering how many people were waiting outside), explained everything three times and told me not to carry heavy stuff and not to do one more thing, which I am too shy to disclose. I felt "not guilty" on both those counts, but agreed to be careful none the less. In the end he gave me an ultrasound photograph of my private parts to keep and I promised to carry it around in my wallet (I did not, but I should have - I am sure he would have enjoyed it). When I finally left his office, people were looking at their watches a bit too obviously.

So, the lights are going down in the cinema and the film starts: L'Instinct de Mort, "the most expensive French film of all time" - not surprising, really, given that it is really two films. Most of the money seems to have been spent on realistic violence and I ended up disturbed, as I should have expected. Instead of going to see the most expensive second part of all time, I went to Jamajka to drink beer and read the magazine I bought for M. and T., because it has the same name as their daughter - Živa. I learned some exciting news from the life of trees and ants. I will have to buy another copy to keep. At one point an elderly woman, all dressed in white, came to my table and said "Good evening". I replied accordingly, wondering, whether she would join me. After a minute or so of standing she left without saying good bye. I got up, paid for the beer, deliberately forgot a lighter with some evil design on the table, and left. It began to rain. The temperature was just above zero.

Four Spots

After a week or more of freezing weather in Prague the temperature has swung back above zero. I was beginning to get used to the everpresent cold, getting the feeling I always get when something lasts for days rather than hours, that this was going to go on forever. At least there will be less infection-spreading insects in the summer, I consoled myself, trying not to worry about all the other things that got frostbitten as well. 

Yesterday the thought occured to me of setting up a post office rather than a blog (or notice board rather than a post office), where my life might run parallel to the lives of friends, or should I say colleagues, living abroad. The project's ambition - if it has one (and if it can be called a project - I will use neither of these words here anymore) - is to act as a place where letters are left and picked up (so I was right with the "post office"), letters that are private to us, who know each other, and public to anyone else who might for any reason be interested - outside audience, while welcome, is not, however, a prerequisite for its existence. I do this without having consulted the friends in question, i.e. Maja, Helga and Pasi (I hope I am not to be accused of any bias towards two-syllable names), in advance, which makes our post office an experimental one. I am prepared to close it down if I fail to persuade you, dear contributors, that leaving your letters here is a waste of time. Let us get writing, then.

Besides the easing of temperatures, we even got some winter sun today, which also marked the end of the girls' week of fever. Since M. has finished her work and I could not go clowning in hospitals not feeling well myself, we spent almost the entire week at home, fighting the children's temperature, listening with fear and interest to their fever-induced comments, making ourselves much nicer meals than we are used to, and watching DVDs at night, with pauses to put a cold wet blanket around little J. when her fever ran too high. Even now the girls are still very cranky and J. just fell asleep on the ground in the middle of a game, after a fit of anger aimed at her older sister. In this (I wonder if relaxed is the right word) state of mind I took every phonecall as an unwelcome intrusion. Luckily I only had a few, one from L.V., who offered me to go to Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad) tomorrow to perform as "crazy waiters" at a confectioners' convention. Sweet. I took some time to think it over and when I called him back I said I would like to try, as I needed some encouragement in this field of work. He sounded happy but did not understand what I meant by encouragement. I said I was not satisfied with our last jobs. He became even more concerned. I specified I was not happy only about myself, but that I still wanted to give it a try (I thoughtI sounded enthusiastic, because I really was). But he was not convinced. "You mean you did not like the mind reading stuff we did last time?" I said again I merely disliked myself. He said: "I don't like the money they are offering, it's black mail (in fairness, he did mention this before). I'll think about it." We were back at the beginning and I took it as a no, I changed my mind, we are not going. Did I loose his trust, I wondered. Is this a solution to my dilemma of doing things primarily for money? Boring. Banal. But the phone rang a second time. It was J.Z., musician and poet, for whom I do small translations. He asked me for a quick translation and also whether I will come to the launch of his new CD. I excused myself on the grounds of time ("we were all sick, you now") and still feel ashamed about it. How would "I am not really interested in your music" sound? 

I plan to see Murnau's Nosferatu tonight, in a cinema, just as I planned to see another film yesterday. However, leaving house these days feels almost like breaking a vow. Or am I making up excuses even for myself? But I have to go anyway, as I am required to make a boat out of a watermelon (F.'s wish), which will probably keep me busy until early morning. Now I remember that a similar thing kept me from going anywhere yesterday - I was trying to fix the inner tube of a scooter wheel. I discovered where the hole was, fixed it, broke a bicycle pump, fixed it, put the tube laboriously back in the wheel, discovered that in the process of fixing one hole I created three more and ran out of patches.

Reading this article over, I can see it is not a letter at all, as it is full of "I". How about "you" then? Will this be a quadrimaculate blog after all?