12:05pm
"I push the broom and the broom does the rest. Me, the waves and the broom in tune. We travel back and forth, the broom and me, crossing the oceans, back and forth. As longs as I push the broom. It’s just going on. Like the ocean. So all I have to do is trust the broom. Nothing to worry about as long as I trust the broom. As long as the broom picks up the dirt. May be that’s why people in here feel awkward when they are watching me clean. All they see is me. They don’t see the dirt, because it’s too small. And they don’t see the ocean, because it’s too big. All they see is me."

12:34pm
"Table 7 today. It’s all the same cotton thread until an accident happens. Everyone likes the exceptional, but no one likes stains on their white tablecloth.
Where did I read that the average American woman spends about $1500 for dry cleaning per year? How many metal hangars are these? A typical garment costs between $3 and $5. That means each woman uses about 375 metal hangers per year. That’s about one hanger per day per woman. I guess that’s about right. I use at least one new tablecloth that comes on a metal hanger per day. Isn’t that funny? First time I fall into the category of the average woman."

1:13pm
"I need to get out more bread for tomorrow. There will be only 6 slices left after today. And I should get a new cucumber as well. And a pack of sugar cubes just in case.
If you take a spoon of water out of the ocean and divide it into 1000 drops, 965 drops are water and 35 are salt. That’s how salty the ocean is. And if you took out all the salt of all the oceans, and would spread it over the land part of the earth, the layer of that salt would be 500 feet deep. 166 meters. Every piece of land covered with a salty crust of 166 meters. They would call it the salt age, I am sure. Everything white. Everything clean. If everything is white, there will be nothing around to stain that whiteness. But it has to be pure. Completely pure. Not like a white elephant with dirty feet. Or a white tiger that poops brown poop. Good bye white Elephant, good bye white tiger, good bye polar bear, fly away cute dove, dry out white whale."

1:22pm
"The weather report! Let me get the book. My stats. Yesterday was the 5th of November. 4 non-tea drinkers. 12 tea drinkers. 4 female. 8 male. The outlier included.
It's partly cloudy with temperatures steady around 62 F. The winds
are approaching from WSW with 20 mph, gusting up to 25.
The sun will set today at 4:36pm already, it will be dark outside before tea time is over.
My throat is scratching again. I can feel the roughness in the back of my mouth building up. Like stalagmites in a dark cave. I am sure it has become sensitive to the exhaustions of the room, the depression of the atmosphere. The fatigue of the air. Loose dust is known to aggravate the problem. Dusty occupation, dusty lungs. Let’s be happy I am not a chimney sweeper. Or a bagpipe player. The outlier said if there is one utopian place for bacteria to grow, it’s inside a dark, damp bagpipe."

1:55pm
"I hope no one shows up today, so I just can eat all the sandwiches myself. Not all of them, but a few. And some biscuits. But I should be careful with the biscuits. Just because they are free, doesn’t mean I have to eat them all. The average weight gain on a weeklong cruise is 8 pounds. 8 pounds per passenger per week. A medium slice of bread has 90 calories, in 10 grams of magerine are 40, plus the American cheese slice has 60. My pants don’t seem to be any tighter though. Still. Two Triangles are 280 calories. Meaning: I should eat not more than 7 sandwiches a day. That’s manageable. I never ate more than 4 a day so far."

2pm
" Oh, tea time. Now the fun part starts. I guess I like it better because of the background music. Easier to keep the flow. Easier to pass the time. "





3:57pm
"What time is it? Three minutes to 4pm. Only one more hour of music. Time rushes by in big waves, even when the ocean is calm. I am glad I never started counting the waves. It’s hard to keep track of them since I only have the partial view out of the porthole. If I would work on the bridge and had the overview I might try. Counting waves or spotting planes.
The first indication that Charles Lindbergh approached the European coast in 1927 was a small fisher boat. He circled over it and a man’s face appeared, looking out of the cabin. Charles thought he should ask him for directions. He circled the Spirit of St.Louis around the boat, closed the throttle and as the plane passed within a few feet he shouted: “Which way is Ireland?”
What a beautiful scene. In the middle of the open sea. Nothing else around but even ripples. And then that little fisher boat and that little single engine plane and two men in their vehicles facing the situation of having lost common ground. One flies, one floats."



4:19pm
" I bet she is watching me. That’s ok. I am allowed to have a break.
Nothing is better than eternal happiness. A cup of tea is better than nothing.
Therefore, a cup of tea is better than eternal happiness. No. You can’t equate nothing-as-a-thing with nothing-as-absence-of-a-thing. It’s invalid logic."