1/16 Connection in Amsterdam did not work out, ended up with a four-hour layover. For the first time I got myself a bed in one of the two in-airport hotels, for two hours of sleep. Very hard to get up after that. Having arrived in Gothenburg, another hour of sleep before I picked up the kids. Also very hard to get up from that.

Best part: going shopping with them.

1/15 On my way to JFK with one-and-a-half mistakes: First I forgot my laptop and had to ask the Uber driver to turn back from 96th and Columbus, which altogether cost maybe 20 minutes. Then he didn’t know, or refused to know, how to use Google Maps and followed none of its suggestions for better routes, which cost us another 30 minutes of total travel time, while the rush hour was locking things up. I had to ask AI for its idea of whether I could make my flight at all. I could, and I did.

1/14 Looks like J can’t come along to Sweden this time, she’s too sick. That would be sad for all of us, and yet – the kids and I will make do on our own, we have a pretty unshakeable life together.

1/13 Sleepless due to a multitude of Jeep questions.

1/12 Of course we need a second car out here, and of course it’s going to be another jeep, and of course – since the model has been discontinued and there’s only a handful of cars left – I’m going to buy it from a dealer in Tucson and drive it back up here in what will be a six-day road trip.

1/11 Beethoven 3 in Woodstock. As I think of the line between Mozart and Debussy, J says you don’t even need to go to Debussy, Beethoven 9 is already astoundingly far. Just remember we have never been able to keep up with the world.

1/10 The concern of being thrown into a sinister police state is giving way to aghastness at the sheer primitivity of this man and the havoc it is wreaking.

1/9 Adults may learn slower than children, but they make up for that by being more disciplined. Unfortunately, they also want to learn everything at once. It is almost as if the main effort and the main achievement of my music learning consists of not letting myself be distracted and focus on that and only that which I am supposed to learn at any given moment.

1/8 Back into the city for less than 48 hours. Moving through the crowds of the rush hour in the subway and on sidewalks, dressed like someone from the countryside.

1/7 With increasing distance, David Bowie is sounding more and more like Rainer Maria Rilke, and I mean that in the best possible way.