dutch me gently, please

by popular demand...

2008-10-13T14:25:00.004+02:00

it's true. sad, but true. i have not written for one month and one day. that point was brought to my attention by my legion of fans, and i thank you both for your patronage.

many things have happened over the past month that inhibited me from writing. i present a summary list of these things not as an excuse but as a reason. i hope you will understand, and i promise to do better.

sept 12

ate when hungry, slept when tired; a great strategy for dealing with the unwishable.

lesson learned: bad things happen to good people.

september 13

wrote poetry. not very good, and not a little disturbing.

thursday morning

the stomach rumbles from hunger
and the vibrations ripple down to
groaning, pre-arthritic knees

the mouth is gritty and raw, the fetid breath
escapes through clenched teeth and
breathing is laboured

sitting up, the back creaks its protest
and the hips momentarily pinch before
settling back in resignation

the head shakes in wonderment
that it is woken so early
and with such anger

the hand grasps the wall
with barely enough force to pull
the body onto its feet

it stands, swaying, the nimble wall
staying just out of reach before
slumping forward to the door

never again, rumbles the stomach
never again, groan the knees
never again, hisses the mouth
never again, creaks the back
never again, shakes the head
never again we will let the
heart make our decisions.

lesson learned: regular personal hygiene is not optional.

september 14-16

ate when hungry, slept when tired.

september 17-21

entertained my father, who was on the continent for a business trip.

lesson learned: the value of parents cannot be overstated.

september 20-23

entertained friends from germany. or rather, was entertained by their 10-month old daughter.

lesson learned: there is a remarkable similarity between the necessary response to both atomic weapons and baby sneezes; stop, drop, and roll.

september 24-27

ate when hungry, slept when tired.

september 27-29

trip to stuttgart. made a nice trip to heidelberg and environs. watched a friend get the job done (scroll down to the story "lap two crash hinders...). respect.

lesson learned: birthdays are better when they're celebrated with family.

september 30-october 3

ate when hungry, slept when tired.

october 4

saw glimmer of hope

lesson learned: rainbows sometimes have problems too.

october 5-10

ate when hungry, slept when tired.

october 11-12

spent time with my mistress. i know that sometimes i don't visit as often as i should, and sometimes i flirt with others, but i really really do love her above all others.

lesson learned: beware of turkish women bearing gifts.

second lesson learned: €9 gets you a pretty decent gold wedding band nowadays.

that was not a comprehensive list my any means. i did some work in that time, put some kilometres under the wheels of my bicycles, and spent some good quality time with friends both in person and via email. on balance, i'd rate that month as an 8.5/10.

don't you love it when great people do great things?

2008-09-12T07:57:00.001+02:00

http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos/2008/sep08/missouri08/index.php?id=/photos/2008/sep08/missouri08/missouri084/JD_08TOMstg4_barry

what the...

2008-09-06T22:29:00.002+02:00

"joe, lookit this! check this dude out! what the hell is he doing? joe! lookit! lookit!"

let me get that for you

2008-09-06T22:13:00.003+02:00

"i mean seriously, how is it that you are always getting oats in your beard and slop on your cheek? have you never heard of table manners? were you raised in a barn?"

"um, yeah, i was, but i can't help myself you know? it's these oats, they're so yummy i just can't get enough. i just want to eat and eat and eat until my stomach feels like it's going to explode... and then i forget that i have to eat it all over again three or four hours later. *urp* 'scuse me."

"ugh. nice. burp in my face why don't you? i don't know why i put up with this."

"well then don't. don't make me the cause of your unhappiness. there's another field over there, and it even has clover. go for it. do it. good luck, and let me know how it works out for you. but mind your step, there's some pretty huge meadow muffins over by the gate. i baked 'em myself, in fact"

"don't be gross. hmph. bullocks."

"hmph. heffers."

to everything (turn, turn, turn) there is a season...

2008-09-04T03:13:00.002+02:00

the leaves are falling on the street beneath my window, making a soft
sound almost like a gentle shower. it's here, autumn. the kids are at
school and it's almost too chilly to keep the windows open at night.
long pants and jacket weather again, the birkenstinks to be put out with
tomorrow's garbage.

i've always loved this season the best. spring is supposedly the season
of rebirth, but to me the fall is when things start to happen. my annual
calendar starts on september 01. september is when we had to start a new
school year, when the swimming schedule started again, and september is
historically the month when i started a new job. we moved back to canada
from europe in september 1977, and i did so again when i came back from
detroit in 1998. i joined the internet start-up in september 2002, and i
joined the government in september 2004. i left the government in
september 2006. my birthday is in september. i guess this is an
important month for me.

so how do i commemorate this september, my first september alone in a
long time, my first september in my new european life? the opportunities
are endless, but i think i'll start with this coffee

vragen en antworden

2008-08-22T17:12:00.001+02:00

so my brilliant dutch language teacher played a little game with me last week in order to help me practice my speaking skills. i think she was also trying to get me to open up and not be so private and guarded and secretive... ahem. yes.

the game was kind of like "truth or dare", but without the "dare" part... so, just for fun and due to an utter lack of creativity today, i thought i'd post her 10 questions and give you my answers. in english, of course... actually, the "true" part is suspect as well because my answers here might be a bit different than those i gave her... often when i speak dutch i give the answer that is the easiest to say - my truth is bounded by my vocabulary... uh, that was kind of profound, actually...

q. what do you still want to accomplish in your work?
i want to become a senior business executive and then take over the operations of an ngo or charitable organization. i laid out this secret plan more than 10 years, and i have two steps left to go... i think...

q. what/who is your favourite artist/writer/photographer/etc, and why?
artist: yves klein
writer: alfred lord tennyson. why? read the lady of shalott. if you can read that without weeping, i don't want to meet you
photog: alive, trent parke; dead, yousuf karsh
poet: b bennett thompson and dutchmegently
musician: raffi

q. are you for or against the death penalty?
depends on who it applies to: if me, then no. actually, dead-set against it in order to ensure that not even a single innocent person is executed... plus i'm not sure that we can really be entrusted to make decisions about whether or not someone should live or die... we make enough of those decisions on a daily basis and we're often not very competent...

q. what is the nicest thing to photograph?
pretty girls, of course. but mostly kids, because kids are kids, nothing more and nothing less. real. genuine...

q. what is your dream?
see first question. add a family (with a smoking-hot wife) and you're pretty much there. and maybe a nice haircut for once...

q. what was your favourite vacation/trip, and why?
still having it... ask me again in a couple of years...

q. what is the tastiest thing you have eaten, and who cooked it?
cinghiale, in florence, on a terrace overlooking the open-air display of michelangelo's statues. it was grilled with a huge slab of goat cheese which melted into a soup while i was eating. best meal ever...

q. if you were an animal, which would you be and why?
ignoring the obvious, because hippopotami are boring, i would say an elephant because they are big, smart, romantic, gentle, capable of violence, and that huge trunk...

q. what is the hardest to photograph?
children... 1/4000th of a second is sometimes just not fast enough...

q. who do you love the most in the whole world?
lol. no way dude. not touching that one...

first attempts at creative writing in a foreign language...

2008-08-21T22:30:00.003+02:00

for many, many years now i have been guilty of writing really bad poems. so bad, in fact, that i've not been able to call them poems and instead coined the term "pome". they are a great vehicle for dealing with otherwise difficult writings, like birthday cards, love letters, and funereal speeches. to wit:

roses are red
violets are purple
i like my pancakes
with maple syruple

there are probably some rules that govern potery, but they're all implicit and since no one has asked what my secret is, i've never bothered to write them down. suffice it to say that an absence of originality, rhyme, or meter, along with a bit of humour is all that it takes.

my real passion became haiku, but not in the traditional 5-7-5 metering because that's too easy. the japanese use 5-7-5 in their haiku, but given the complexities of their language it is necessary to switch to a 6-4-6 or 3-5-3 to gain the same elegant simplicity in english. i write a lot of haiku, mostly for my own enjoyment, but sometimes send them out as instant messages or sms'es to friend and, occasionally, people i dislike.

anyway, i commented to my friend b that i wanted to try writing pomes in dutch, so he challenged me to express myself using that greatest of all poetic stylings, the limerick. in fact, he offered to compose a haiku in italian if i was able to complete my dutch limerick before 11:00EDT... leggerlo e piangere

er was eens een man uit amsterdam
hij speelde al de dag met zijn fonogram
hij zong en hij zong
tot zijn vrouw afgekapt zijn tong
en gooide hij uit van het raam

i choose... eyebrows. buona fortuna!

olympic sports, redux

2008-08-20T00:54:00.004+02:00

sadly, in the same way that "zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance" had little to do with motorcycle maintenance, this post has little to do with olympic sports... but no one would read it if it said "teen angst"...

today i had cause to pause and reflect on the nature of life, the universe, and everything in it, and more specifically on the value of koans. as a refresher for those of us who've been away from our temples for a few months, koans are zen buddhist tools used to assist a student in attaining knowledge that cannot be achieved by rational thought (and therefore only by intuition). koans take the form of questions, statements, or stories that often make no apparent sense, the most famous of which is of course (paraphrased) "what is the sound of one hand clapping?" (the answer, obviously, is "grapefruit")

just for fun and out of morbid curiosity i asked myself

"self, what is the sound of two hearts breaking?
"is it the moan of pillow-muffled sobbing?
"is it the sniffling of loosened snot?
"is it the hollow echo of words flung in anger?
"the restless pacing of an unsolvable problem?
"the choking back of unexpressed sadness?
"the footsteps walking away down the hall?
"the zipping sound of a closing suitcase?
"the tinkering of keys left on the counter?
"the dusty creeping of once-warm sunlight poking accusingly into darkened corners?
"the sound of a door slamming as love figures out the latch and lets itself out?

"or is it the sound of nothing where once there was something?"

i probably thought about this with too much logic, and not enough intuition, or maybe i've been away from the temple too long, because i don't have the answer. i'm just saying...

olympic "sports"

2008-08-12T06:53:00.004+02:00

for the most part i get the olympics, i really do. as a former athlete i understand competitive drive and predatory instinct (which has matured into a "grazing" instinct), and i can understand the appeal of having a single, sci-fi-comic-con type of event to celebrate athletics and competition. and really, do you even need a reason to get a bunch of young boys together in a closed stadium, strip them down, rub them in olive oil and make them run and jump and wrestle? indeed...

and there are some sports that make perfect sense: running, for instance. the need for two people to challenge each other by running from here to there is primal and probably as old as humanity itself

frank: "grog, last one to tree is a triceratops"
grog: "no fair! i've got a wife over my shoulder!"

and diving, i understand diving. i'm generally not a fan of "sports" that are judged on aesthetic value, but diving has a lot of redeeming qualities (notwithstanding the fact that divers seem to be a bit pudgier than other athletes). cycling? steeplechase? canoeing? judo? tennis? wrestling? all of these sports make sense to me.

but there are a lot of sports that i do not get. i don't understand why they are considered sports, why people want to compete in them, and why they should be inflicted upon us, the faithful olympic viewing public.

full disclosure: i am not a member of the olympic viewing public. i only watched the men's cycling road race because i actually knew someone competing (*brilliant* result, btw, for canada), and i watch some swimming because i used to swim, and i watch women's beach volleyball because of... uh, the drama and feats of athleticism...)

and i will not be convinced by the argument that something is a sport just because it requires physical effort; sometimes i break into a sweat re-tying my shoelaces, or get out-of-breath while lugging groceries up to my apartment, but i'm not arguing that *those* should be olympic activities...

so, in no particular order:

table tennis? really? this is a sport? a wee plastic ball that weighs as much as a hummingbird egg, a paddle from max mosley's dungeon, and a tiny little net on a folding table from somebody's basement?
bmx. i rode a bmx, and it is cool, but a competitive sport? pierced and tatt'ed ne'er-do-wells who can't afford belts to hold their pants up, who train by riding urban streets in search of grandmothers to purse-snatch... yeah, okay, so bmx can stay.
trampoline. lol. seriously.
synchronized swimming. this is a sport so ridiculous i can't even comment on it. it angers me. and i even *competed* it it myself! (long story, not worth the time)
badminton. like table tennis, but using wicker carpet beaters; i don't mind if consenting adults play badminton in the bedroom, but not the olympics...

so i propose that every olympic sport should go through a sanity check before it can be approved. the check might be something like this: put two guys together in a bar, each with a beer in their hand, and then get them to challenge each other using the sport in question. if they do not laugh, cry, blush, or get trampled by their fellow patrons, then the sport passes:

"dude, i bet i can lift more beer kegs over my head than you". weightlifting, check.
"hey hombre, you can't walk nearly as fast as i can." walking, fail.
"yo, bro, i bet i can throw this pointy spear/cannon ball/frisbee farther than you". javelin/shotput/discus, check/check/check.
"do you think i could cross this bar in just a hop, skip, and a jump? why are you hitting me?". triple jump, fail.
"grog, last one to tree is a triceratops". running, check.
"frank, i bet i can lift my legs out of the water higher than you can, while dancing to music. oh, and you have to put your hair in a bun and wear this noseclip". *biff* *boom* *kapow!*, the barroom brawl ensues.

i know there's more in here, but beach volleyball has started, and brazil is playing next...

a funny thing happened on the way to luxembourg...

2008-07-30T10:22:00.004+02:00

i decided to research the route from haarlem to luxembourg city, last week, in advance of my weekend trip. i wouldn't normally undertake this level of preparation and i find it anathema to my preferred footloose-and-fancy-free-yeah-everybody-cut-everybody-cut style of travel, but given that this was a short vacation i figured i should try to maximise the value.

in the end, i think i was slightly disappointed. having found a number of intermediary destinations along the route, my travels became Boring and Predictable, like i was a tour bus or something. there was no excitement, or surprise, or mysterious unmarked laneways that turned to dirt roads and then to cowpaths with brambles scratching the side of a car that you know you're soon going to have to reverse back up the cowpath because there's no place to turn-around... in order of preference, i like trips where a) you have a wallet full of cash, no luggage, a fun motorcycle or car, and no predefined destinations except for the stores where you will have to buy fresh underwear every (other) day; or b) there is an ultimate destination in mind, but it is far enough away that you can get yourself thoroughly good and lost on the way. i don't like tour-bus rides, i don't like cruise ships, and i don't like being told where i have to be.

still, i *did* manage to drive almost into a barn full of cows on the way back while actively ignoring clive, my gps, in an attempt to throw him into a temper tantrum. and i *did* get to spend 10km following a tractor towing a liquid manure spreader. which was kind of leaking. so the trip wasn't a total waste...

and then there was potentially the best saturday afternoon of my life.

clervaux is a village of 1,810 people nestled in a valley in northern luxembourg - a country of only 480,222 germans, french, dutch and luxembourgeoisie. the country is rather small, about 1/4000th the size of canada, but also about 500 times larger than the vatican, so i guess it's all relative. anyway, clervaux should be on every photographer's must-see-before-i-die list. clervaux is pretty, no doubt, and my picture does not do it justice, but it's not the aesthetic quality of the village that makes it a photographer's dream. no, it is this.

i had never even heard of the "family of man" before, but it was fantastic. here is what you need to know:

location: 15th century castle, pictured above (the large black box to the bottom-right of the castle was the back of the exhibition stage. for the lumberjack competition that was taking place the same day. ???)
collection: 503 photographs
collector: edward steichen (long-time friend of and collaborator with alfred stieglitz)
timeframe: 1951-1955
submissions: 2,000,000 photographs from the best photographers of the age
restoration expert: anne cartier-bresson
name-drop: magnum, black star, life, national geographic, vogue, brassai, capra, cartier-bresson, miller, nilsson...

and for icing on the biggest piece of the best cake i've ever had? the travelling worldpress photo 2008 competition that i'd missed in amsterdam was being shown in the same castle.

yeah, it was a pretty good afternoon.

stick a fork in me, i'm done

2008-07-29T17:13:00.002+02:00

so i've joined a gym in haarlem, and have spent the better part of the past four weeks reminding my body that it is supposed to serve my wishes, and not the other way around. gradually it's been responding and i'm quite pleased with the results. the increased activity in the gym has translated into more activity outdoors as well, and i've been spending some quality saddle time with guido, my beloved bicycle. not to be confused with the buffalo, my *other* bicycle with whom i have a much more troubled relationship...

and i think that the increased exercise is generally a good thing all around, except for one small problem. summer has finally arrived (again) in the netherlands, and it is hot. very hot. and humid. which means that i am now showering two or three times a day, which is Not Environmentally Friendly. but it *is* cheap, thanks to the fact that most of my showers are at the gym.

in fact, i went to the gym at lunch today. i worked pretty hard, mostly because i have a lot of work to do. so now i find myself in the office, in a shirt (sleeves down) and tie (done up to the top), with my suit-jacket slung over my chair, and i am perspiring profusely. such profuse perspiration as to cause droplets of water to bead on my forehead, drop down between the eye-brows (which i seem to have trimmed a bit too closely last weekend), under the bridge of my glasses and down to the tip of my nose where the profuse perspiration precariously pauses on the precipice of my facial protrusion before plummeting wetly onto my laptop. splat. gross. my head looks like a sweaty cantaloupe, my shirt is sticking to my back, and the collar of my shirt is slightly damper and darker than the rest of my shirt. i'm probably red in the face as well.

sigh. i really hope that i am worth it...

p.s. i love luxembourg.

look at that s-car go!

2008-07-21T09:58:00.002+02:00

while editing some recent photos, i realized that there are a lot of ways that i can use this picture of a snail as an analogue of my life:

... because i like to move slowly and steadily
or
... because i leave a trail of slime on everything that i touch
or
... because when you cross the highway of life, sometimes you get run over
or
... because i am yummy when i have been shelled and lightly roasted or fried with butter and garlic
but
but i guess that what seems most accurate right now is to say that the snail photo feels kind of personal to me is
... because at the end of the day i am also self-contained, self-supporting, and i have everything that i need to be happy right here in my, uh, shell... and all that i can see clearly is what is right in front of me, and immediately behind me, and the rest of my past and my future is slightly out of focus...

humble apologies...

2008-07-06T10:07:00.001+02:00

... but things have been, erm, busy and challenging for the past three
weeks. we are attempting to restore order. please do not adjust your
monitor.

turnabout is fair play

2008-06-11T12:41:00.003+02:00

i realized something yesterday, as i was leaving the grocery store down the street from my home: for as long as i can remember i have had a certain, special kind of relationship with women. sadly, i use the term "women" to denote that group of females who are decidedly older than i am. i have had no such luck with "girls", i.e. females of my own age... but allow me to elaborate:

ever since i was a young boy, perhaps around 8 or 9, i have noticed that women of a certain age find me appealing. not pinch-my-cheek-like-i-am-your-grandson cute, and definitely not "you should come home and meet my daughter" attractive, but appealing in a different way. in a way that makes these women want to take care of me. when i was at school my female teachers always had an obvious soft spot for me and i had a much easier ride than many of my fellow students even though i was not a model of good behaviour. when i was working at the pools the adult (female) lifeguards would often make me lunches, or take my shifts so that i could study, or do my laundry. during the many hospital stays that defined my adolescence i was always given preferential treatment by the nurses and they would spend their breaks sitting beside my hospital bed to keep me company. in my working life i have been helped by women who seem to take an overtly personal interest in my success. i often had better relationships with the mothers of my girlfriends than i have had with my girlfriends themselves.

i have of course tried to determine exactly which of my characteristics inspires such behaviour in women. it's certainly not the result of any physical attributes, because the behaviour has been displayed through both my athletic (80kg, 4% body fat) and, er, not so athletic (120kg, beluga% body fat) phases. and it's not fashion or style, because i have been both sensationally unfashionable (mohawk and eyeliner) and oddly fashionable (no, really, i was once) with no apparent difference. it's not likely to be the result of my stunning intellect either, because i
can be very, very dumb...

i have two theories that would explain why older women are attracted to me. in the first case, i suspect that the appeal is rooted in the good manners imparted upon me by my parents; i am usually polite, considerate, and sensitive, and older women seem to be attracted to those characteristics... and the care that they offer in return seems almost, well, maternal. and that brings me to my second theory, which is a little discomforting, because sometimes i wonder if the reason that women want to take care of me is not because i am decent, or well-mannered, but rather because they think i am helpless. incapable of caring for myself. i see myself as someone who travels through life confidently, exuding an air of supreme self-confidence, but sometimes i have to wonder if other people, especially these older women, see me as a deer caught in the headlights and that's why they feel the need to take care of me... no, not comforting at all...

but irrespective of the motivations, there is definitely an appeal, and that is something that i exploit to my full advantage.

as long as there is a woman to appeal to there is no problem that i cannot solve, no administrative barrier that i cannot breach, no penalty that i cannot avoid. to wit: i was unaware that i needed to register with the aliens police within three days of arriving in the netherlands until someone from human resources at work pointed it out. after i'd been in-country for 10 days. when i called to make my appointment i was cautioned that i would be in for some trouble. didn't bother me very much: when i arrived at the immigration office i saw that i was next in line to be serviced by a male clerk, so i went to the bathroom, missed my appointment, and had to wait for the next clerk who was conveniently a middle-aged woman. 10 minutes later i left the immigration office with my temporary residence permit, the clerk's business card and instructions to contact her at the mobile number she'd scribbled on the back of the card if i got into any trouble. yes, quite. when i tried to open a bank account after arriving in the netherlands the branch manager i applied to informed me that a bank account cannot be opened without showing a burgerservicenummer, the equivalent of a sin or ssn. i was only moderately disappointed by this news, but drove to another bank, waited for a female customer representative to be available, and then flirted my way into receiving a bank account on the condition that i provided them my bsn within 5 or 6 weeks...

manipulative? perhaps. unfair? probably. harmless? almost certainly. innocent? absolutely. i feel no guilt at having a higher-than-average success rate with these women; the way i see it, i am simply fortunate that they choose to help me more than they help other people. as long as my intentions are not malevolent i think there's nothing wrong with exploiting my peculiar advantage.

and so we come to yesterday's shopping trip. as i was exiting the store i was approached by a young girl of 14 or 15. she was shy, self-conscious, and a little awkward. she was not necessarily attractive, but appealing in a vulnerable sort of way. she was collecting funds for some charity or school event or something, and earnestly described the Value of her objective. i found myself standing on the street corner trying to remember which way was home. somewhat perplexed i saw a young girl with a slightly self-satisfied grin on her face. as i unpacked the groceries at home i smiled at the realization that my wallet was €20 lighter. yes, turnabout is fair play.

on luck, good and bad

2008-06-05T14:16:00.006+02:00

in toronto i had a apartment on the 26th floor of a building that had a fantastic view of the city. in fact, it looked like this:

on my floor there lived a silver-grey cat named nicky. nicky was allowed to roam the hall during the day, but being a scaredy-cat he would flee every time someone opened a door or exited the elevators. being a bit of a cat person myself, i gradually won over the affections of this little feline, and he got into the habit of joining me for late afternoon visits. we were quite close, and one year i even received a christmas card from him. i always felt lucky that i had such a privileged relationship with such a discriminating animal.

when i was at university i used to play a lot of euchre. during those years it became obvious that "clubs" were my lucky suit, and i often won games because of those clubs. so i was lucky with clubs.

but not with seagulls.

for instance: seagulls, it seems, really dislike heinz-harald. every morning when i head off to work i find further evidence of that fact. one bugger even managed to nail the driver's door handle. i've become a regular at the gas station up the road; the bleaching effect of ammoniac-laden seagull secretions on heinz-harald's black paint would have me looking like i was driving a cow to work if i did not clean the messes immediately. but this is only one in a series of seagull-tainted events, and i suspect that the seagulls are really after me, only taking it out on heinz-harald because he is more accessible.

i once had a jeep with furry black seat covers that needed to be replaced after a seagull - who might have recently dined at the dumpster behind taco bell, judging from appearances - unloaded its cargo on the jeep's interior. another time a motorcycle that i had left parked in an open lot needed a new instrument cluster after it was attacked by the seagull cavalry. most astonishingly, a seagull with a solid understanding of aerodynamics and vector physics once crapped on the outstretched hand of my passenger while we were driving down a city street.

upon further reflection i see a pattern emerging: heinz-harald is black, the jeep was black, the motorcycle was black, and my passenger was, erm, dark-skinned. could seagulls be racist?

because my apartment was on the 26th floor, i never had cause to worry about flies, or mosquitoes, or any other type of flying pestilence, and in the summer months i always left the balcony door open. one afternoon i came home after a particularly lousy day at work, and when i entered the apartment i immediately felt that something was wrong. i could not identify what it was, but something was amiss. i walked in to the living room and discovered the problem: there were bird droppings everywhere. absolutely everywhere. but mostly on the soft, absorbent surfaces: the area rug, the sofa, the curtains(?!?), the table cloth. and on my hifi equipment. i turned in a slow circle, disbelieving what my eyes were seeing.

the incredible volume of guano suggested that my apartment had been invaded by multiple seagulls. it was inconceivable that a single flying rat could have made such a mess. physically impossible, of that i am convinced. knowing that the longer i waited the worse the cleaning would be, i grabbed some paper towels and cleanser and started scrubbing. some things i was able to clean, but some things needed to be gotten rid of. after 45 minutes i had accomplished most of the work, and - still in my suit - i went into the bedroom to change.

four things happened, more or less simultaneously

: i discovered that the seagulls had been confused over whether to turn my bed into a garden or into a nest, and to cover both options they'd spread fertilizer and feathers over the entire surface;
: i realized for the first time that i had made a simple but dangerous assumption that the seagulls had left my apartment after doing their duty;
: a rogue seagull with silver-grey fur exploded from under the bed and tore out of the apartment through the door i'd forgotten to close; and
: i almost had one more mess to clean.

yes, clubs might be lucky for me, but seagulls most definitely are not.

what lightning looks like from my window

2008-06-01T01:50:00.000+02:00

who i am (apparently)

2008-06-01T01:29:00.002+02:00

karma 1 : 1 guile and deceit

2008-05-30T15:08:00.002+02:00

in the previous post i wrote about a nifty new feature that i discovered on my car. yesterday afternoon, as i was getting ready to leave work, i mentioned the nifty feature to a colleague and proceeded to describe just how cool it was. it's possible that i might have hinted at the fact that i must be cool as well, having a car that possessed such a nifty feature.

as a refresher, the nifty feature is this: as long as i have the key fob somewhere on my person, say in a pocket or my laptop bag or a sock or the waistband of my boxers, then heinz-harald recognizes me and unlocks automatically when i open the door. he also locks himself when i leave, if i wave my finger at him in a suggestive way, and will even start up when i push the red button. all this without needing the keys! and the best part is that the doors cannot be locked from the outside if the keys are inside, no matter how suggestively i wave my finger.

so anyway, i walked down to the parking garage, keylessly opened the trunk of my car, tossed my laptop bag in and closed the trunk again. kha-chunk. oops. that was a kha-chinking sound eerily reminiscent of the sound that heinz-harald makes when he locks himself. i tried to open the trunk again. locked. i tried the driver's door, and then the passenger's door. locked and locked. i checked my pockets but found only my building pass and my cellphone. then i remembered reading somewhere that the trunk has a different kind of proximity sensor than does the cabin, and it's not capable of determining whether the key fob is inside or outside of the car. yes, quite.

i used my cellphone to call the help centre, and asked them to send someone to let me back into my car. i was mildly alarmed to discover that heinz-harald is a new breed of automobile that is apparently quite difficult to get into. security features and all, you see. i was told that if the service technician could not gain entry then my car would have to be towed to the dealership for a couple of days where a white-suited german engineer would presumably coax and cajole heinz-harald into unlocking himself. the customer service representative told me not to worry, because if my car did have to go to the dealership then they would furnish me with a replacement car to use in the interim. as generous an offer as this was, it did me no good since my apartment keys were also locked in the trunk. in that case, replied the representative, i should just stay at a nearby hotel and they would reimburse me for all of my accommodations and dry-cleaning charges. i asked if he thought the hotel would let me pay with an iou, since my wallet was, well, locked in the trunk of my highly-secure car.

(incidentally, what kind of company offers you a replacement vehicle and a free hotel room when you are dumb enough to lock your keys in the car? what kind of message are we sending people about the matter of personal responsibility? if i ran the world people who did stupid things would be punished for them, not rewarded. if i ran the world i would have made myself push my car to the dealership... and that's just one of the many good reasons why i'm glad i don't run the world)

eventually i returned to my office, where i shamefacedly admitted to my colleagues that the cool and nifty feature of which i'd recently been bragging had now caused me to lock my keys in the trunk. yes, thank you, i am familiar with karma. we are very well-acquainted. fortunately they were kind and only briefly succumbed to tears of laughter. the colleague with whom i'd had the conversation that started this whole sordid affair suggested a way for me to solve the problem. the secret, he said, was to recognize that cars are not very bright. quite dumb, in fact, nifty features notwithstanding. so what i needed to do, he confided, was to make my car think that i had the keys in my pocket, even though they were really in the trunk. if i was confident, and added the element of surprise, he was sure that i could confuse the car into opening for me. but i had to Believe. it suddenly became clear to me why it was that i liked this particular colleague so much.

i strode back across the parking lot to the area where heinz-harald was parked and securely locked, and veered my course to take me a little off to the side of his left bumper. i changed to a casual saunter, my hands in my pockets, casually whistling and looking for all the world as though i was just out for a casual walk and not at all about to break into a car. as i approached heinz-harald i confidently cupped my hand in my pocket, as though i was cradling the absentee key fob. like a flash i reached out and grabbed the trunk handle, and i believed...

i took the keys hurriedly from my bag, vowing never again to put my laptop in the trunk. as soon as i sat down i called the help centre to cancel my service request.

some people will suggest that karma was the reason i got locked out of my car. i bragged about my nifty feature, and then that same nifty feature locked me out. maybe it was karma that caused my problem, but it was good olde-fashioned guile and deceit that solved it. how's that for a life lesson?

how cool is this?

2008-05-27T15:32:00.001+02:00

yesterday afternoon i was walking back to my car, in the rain, with my arms full of groceries, and i reached down to open the door when i realized that the keys were in my pocket. yet, when i touched the handle the lock sprung up and the door opened. whaaa?

after unloading the groceries i sat in the parking lot for twenty minutes trying to decipher heinz-harald's (dutch) instruction manual before realizing that i had ordered the "convenient access package". and the "convenient access package" is very cool. especially for a gear-head like myself. the car maker has embedded an rfid chip in the key fob, and if someone touches the door handle when the key fob is within 1m of the car it unlocks. there's also a small ridged area on top of the door handle which, when you rest your finger on it for more than two seconds, tells the car that you are leaving and it locks the doors. pretty snazzy.

so i left the keys in my pocket and pushed the starter button just to see what would happen. sure enough, heinz-harald started up. i marvelled at this technology the whole way home narrowly missing two bicyclists, a rabbit (they are *everywhere*), and a traffic island. after unloading the car i dutifully placed my finger on the ridged area of the door handle and... nothing happened. i tried again. still nothing. stoopid german automobiles. here i have a brand new car and it's already broken and now i have to put the groceries down in the wet street and pull my keys out of my hey. where are my keys? nope, not there. nor there. and they're not in my computer bag... i walked around to the driver's side, opened the door and peered in. sure enough, the keys had fallen out of my pocket and were sitting on the floor. so the locking mechanism won't work if it senses that the rfid chip is still in the car. that's even cooler! i put the keys back into my pocket, closed the door, placed my finger on the ridge and zhup! the door locked.

feeling on top of the world (yes, sadly it doesn't take much these days) i walked home.

this morning i climber in the car, still gleeful over this unexpected technological treasure, and started the car up. i was just about to pull out when i saw the white slip of paper on the windshield. in my excitement it seems that i forgot to put my parking permit on the dashboard yesterday afternoon. crap. €51. crap.

still, totally worth it.

a nation full of oscars, part ii

2008-05-26T10:43:00.001+02:00

i am not, on principle, in favour of taking time at work just to post in
my blog. but after last night's post i just had to share this... so i'm
at work, and it's raining a little bit. and it rained a little bit
yesterday too, although saturday was gorgeous. and everyone is complaining.

"oh, i could not get into my garden at all this weekend because of the rain"
"we wanted to go to the park but we could not because of the rain"
"my son's birthday party was a failure because of the rain"
"we had to put our dog down because of the rain"

it's ridiculous, of course, but the best one is this: one woman was
forced to go to iceland this weekend for an awards ceremony. the whole
trip was paid for; she did not have to pay for so much as a coffee. the
weather was beautiful and sunny, the icelanders were friendly, the food
was great, the conference was enjoyable, and it was a wonderful trip. i
know all of this because that's the story that i heard this early this
morning when we walked in together. i can overhear the conversation that
she and her colleagues are having now, and i hear that

iceland is terribly expensive ("yes, yes, we've heard. terrible")
she had to get up at 04:30 to catch the flight out ("oh no, that's very
early. couldn't the company schedule a more convenient flight?")
she did not get home until 23:30 last night ("poor thing, you must be so
tired today")
it was cold ("yes, almost as cold as it was here this weekend")
the conference sessions were tedious ("they always are, dear")
on the whole she would rather have stayed at home ("wouldn't we all,
wouldn't we all? but not this weekend, because it was much worse here")

lol. seriously...

a nation full of oscars

2008-05-26T09:47:00.001+02:00

our belovedly odd prime minister, jan peter balkenende, is under fire right now over some comments that he made last week and the whole situation really tickles my funnybone.

the government's audit office released a scathing report on the inefficiencies and inadequacies of balkenende's administration. this was a report received with a great deal of popular support as dutchies all over the country nodded their heads wisely and mumbled about the terrible shape of the country. on wednesday afternoon balkenende was challenged to defend his administration to which he replied that the dutch really shouldn't complain so much and that even with the problems it was still a great place to live and the envy of many neighbouring europeans.

in essence, balkenende called the dutch people a nation of grouches.

all over the country nodding heads snapped to attention. mumbling voices were momentarily silenced as jaws hung agape. and then there was a swelling uproar borne of righteous indignation as dutchies viciously rounded on their pm, egged on by the headlines of the media. let me tell you, there is no indignation like the indignation of a dutchie who has been rightfully wronged. i say "rightfully", because balkenende was bang on the money: the dutch are cranky.

to wit: in the past 7 weeks i have been asked many, many times how long i am planning to stay in the netherlands. when i respond that i expect to be here for a long time the shocked response has universally been: "why?". and when i say that the response is "why?", what i mean to say is that the response is a double-take, followed by rapid blinking and flapping jaw, an expression of disbelief, occasionally a swoon, and then a "why?". the dutch cannot seem to comprehend why someone would want to stay in the netherlands when anywhere, *anywhere*, would be better. i must admit that for the first couple of weeks these responses caused me considerable alarm, and i anxiously watched for signs that my new countrymen were fleeing the country en masse. i soon realized however, that this was merely part of the dutch love for complaining and a cultural tradition that follows only the singing of bad folks songs and public urination in terms of public favour. and although the dutch will complain about anything. and everything, it is actually an endearing trait because it is very much self-deprecating: they (we) complain about their families, the government, the weather, the environment, the taxes, the traffic, and anything else that is dutch. the roaring lion symbol of holland is not representing strength, ferocity, or nobility, but rather a self-portrait of the dutch responding to a lamb-like tourist who has complimented them on having such a wonderful country.

and the best part is that they don't even mean it! they love their country, they are proud of what they have accomplished, and secretly harbour a feeling of superiority over many of their neighbours. (yes, france, we're looking at you). they are not grumpy, they are in fact embarrassed. their long calvinist history means that they are not supposed to feel good, or proud, or anything else positive: life is supposed to be about Modesty and Repentance and Atonement, so the dutch are just feeling guilty about the fact that they have things so good.

and that's what makes them so cute: they aren't really complaining, they are just conflicted. they certainly aren't jack-asses, but they definitely are eeyore's...

the joy is wearing off, a bit

2008-05-24T12:09:00.002+02:00

so last night i went for a drive to the sea, just to check out the sunset and to put a couple of miles on the new car (which is very, very nice, by the way). i left after dinner, maybe about 19:30, and came back into haarlem at about 21:30.

i think i have mentioned previously that haarlem is the nicest city in the netherlands, and certainly i'm not the only person who thinks so. in fact, when i came back into haarlem it was *jumping*. people were everywhere; on foot, on bike, and somewhat distressingly to me, in cars. i was already a little nervous about the parking situation before i left because i don't want my brand new car to get a scratch so early in its life,

there's a theory which says that the longer your new vehicle lasts without a scratch, the worse that first one is going to be. accordingly, a group of guys who i used to ride with would immediately tip over the brand new motorcycle of any member just to Get It Over With

and having all of these tourists around made me even more apprehensive. but i needn't have worried.

after driving around for almost an hour i finally realized that there were, in fact, no parking spots available in the city of haarlem. rather, there were no parking spots for permit-holder like myself. that is to say "free" parking spots.

as the hour was approaching 23:00 i finally turned and headed for the train station which has the cheapest (read: paid) garage parking in haarlem, and which is conveniently located only four blocks away. with some dread i entered the garage, just *knowing* that some klootzak was going to bang into my car during the night.

i also think i've mentioned that i'm a bit of a car guy. you can imagine my elation when i saw row, after row, after row of gt3's parked on the ground floor. it seems that the porsche gt3 club was having a track day at zandvoort this weekend, and they were all staying in haarlem. but the best part was that there was *one* open slot between two of them. figuring that there could be very fewer owners more careful of their cars than gt3 owners, i nipped into the spot and very, very carefully extracted myself from my car.

interestingly, heinz-harald did not look out-of-place. i'm not suggesting that he is anywhere near the calibre of those gt3's, but he did kind of suit the sporting atmosphere...

anyway, i spent 30 minutes wandering around the garage before wiping the drool off my chin and braving the hordes of people who were, by then, leaving haarlem and heading to the train station. i briefly toyed with the idea of trying once more to find street parking, but decided than heinz-harald would probably enjoy spending the night with such illustrious company and left him be. i briefly toyed with the idea of sleeping in heinz-harald so that i could enjoy such illustrious company, but decided that i was just being silly and walked home. to my bed. with no illustrious company.

and there were lots of parking spots. empty ones, i mean. stupid tourists.

yeah, i don't know what i was thinking

2008-05-23T08:03:00.002+02:00

you may have noticed that my string of continuous postings was ended yesterday. here's what happened:

i've been reading a really good book lately, and wednesday night it kept me up until well after 02:00. that's a bit of a problem because, with the alarm going off at 05:00, it meant that i only managed a few hours of sleep. it was made worse by the fact that i was involved in a fairly important workshop yesterday with a potential client that we have been unable to crack for years. so,

i woke up early and bleary.
i got stuck in a file on the way to den haag.
i was told by the canadian embassy that i needed to go back to canada for a specific form that the dutch government wants from me
i spent 45 minutes travelling 600metres from the canadian embassy to the client office
i got rear-ended (it's okay, the pregnant rhinoceros is unharmed)
i got lost in a parking garage
i struggled through a very difficult workshop
i averaged 38km/hr on the way home thanks to, yup, another file.

i stopped for gas at the half-way mark and then bought a can of red bull(tm). apparently i thought that i needed the caffeine. apparently i thought that the 7 or 8 cups of coffee i'd already consumed were insufficient. apparently i thought it was a good idea to hyper-energize just before confining myself to a small car in a large file for an hour or more. apparently i am an idiot.

sothedrivehomewascharacterizedbyincessantfoot
tappingandadjustingofthemirrorsandopeningand
closingofwindowsandtryingtofindtherighttechno
musicontheradiostupidradionothingisonrightnow
whywouldtheynotplaygoodmusicattheexactmoment
thatweareallstuckinatrafficjamaretheysadistsdo
theygetoffontorturingtheirlistenersasifsittinginthese
frickintrafficfileswasn'tbadenoughooohmyheartfeelsa
littlejumpymaybeishouldslowdownalittle

bit. needless to say i did not sleep particularly well last night. actually, i did sleep well, but it was only for the last 15 minutes before the alarm went off.

and it's not like today is going to be a slow day. i have to exchange the rhino for heinz-harald, i have to pick up another piece of furniture, i've got a television and a washing machine being delivered (finally!)(i mean, as in "finally i can do some laundry!" it's been six long weeks!)(i mean, i *have* used a laundrette in that time... it's not like my clothes have been unwashed for the better part of two months)(but what i really meant to say is that i am happy that i am finally getting a washing machine. the television is a luxury, and i never really miss it when i have the cold, pale blue light of my internet to keep me entertained. ahhh, internet. i would marry you if i could...), and i need to (finally) get my permanent parking permit.

and it's my experience that these days are self-propagating. i *can't* wait to see what else i have planned for myself.

sigh.

mmmmm. yummy.

2008-05-21T09:30:00.003+02:00

dutch people smell good. not "good" like some people who use colognes or perfumes to mask an underlying odour (yes, i'm looking at you, france), but "good" in a clean, fresh, slightly understated way. men and women alike take care to be complimenting, not offensive, to the noses of their colleagues. and the smells are simple - no strong fragrances from soaps or detergents or fabric softeners or deodorants, but just cleanliness with a yummy whiff of eau de toillette.

as someone who is very much scent-oriented, i appreciate that. so thanks, people.

quantity vs. quality

2008-05-21T09:27:00.000+02:00

warning: this is a very unsatisfactory posting. the more that i wrote, the more i cared about what i was saying, but the harder it was for me to articulate. the differences i'm trying to explain seem to be deeply important to me, but i'm not sure that i explained them well enough. i didn't even finish the posting. no matter, i need to make sure that i get something online today, so this will have to do. i can always revise it later...

i was talking to my parents yesterday and discussing some of the differences between life in europe and life in north america; i opined that one of the greatest areas of difference is consumerism and then thought that maybe i should explore my idea in greater detail, here, with you. i am no economist by any stretch of the imagination so i'll comment only on the social aspect of consumerism, that is to say the pursuit of happiness through the purchase and consumption of material possessions that, strictly speaking, are not required for subsistence.

i will also state that nothing i write here-after should be considered as anti-north american. sweeping generalizations (such as those that i am about to make) are always dangerously unfair. i have lived in canada and in the united states and lots of other places and i know that nothing is black and white, so i will try to be value-neutral. hm. i guess that i think it's perfectly okay to say that things are different between europe and north america, but not that one is better than the other. of course *i* think that one is better than the other, and that's acceptable as long as i keep my opinion to myself. and no points for guessing where my sympathies lay.

the simple (and wildly incorrect) view held by people on both sides of the pond is that north america is consumer-driven to a point of almost singular obsession (and therefore Bad) while europe is not (and therefore Better than them). but that's an elitist view (and believe me, *i* know elitism) and just not true. europeans are definitely as much consumers as north americans. there *is* a difference, but you have to look hard to find it. and i think that i have.

to dispense with numbers first, i cannot use statistics to prove my point. as previously mentioned i am not an economist, nor am i a statistician. nor would i want to be, incidentally. i would rather curl up with a good book of anecdotes than with the cold, hard, pointy edges of numbers. especially "7", which is particularly pointy. "8" is ok, but mostly useless since it's just a "0" wearing a corset. "0", of course, has no value at all. "1" is worthless, because if something is worthwhile it's also necessary to have more than 1. "3" is simply an "8" that hasn't reached maturity. "6" and "9" are malformed "8"'s, which again is nothing more than a vainglorious "0". no, the only real numbers are "2", "4", "5" and "7", and they are all uncomfortably pointy. but especially "7". uh, where was i? oh, right...

sure north americans spend more as consumers: they have more to spend. 77% more in fact*, but this is a reflection of their lower taxes and cheaper cost of subsistence products (like food, energy, clothing and shelter). consumerism in the social sense has to consider not only how much is spent, but also at the motivation for spending. and *that* is where the difference lies.

first, to prove that europeans are every bit as focused on consumption as their north american friends (i will take it for granted there's no need to prove that north americans are consumers), you only need look at the prevalance of the greatest consumer brands in the world, and the fact that they are gleefully consumed by europeans as much as north americans: gucci, fendi, estee lauder, harrods, marks & spencers, schweppes, cadbury's, cartier, chanel, and on and on. luxury shopping in europe has a long and proud history, and it's worth noting that even now the terms "fashion" and "style" are associated with europe. it's hard to believe that the accoutrements that support "fashion" and "style" could be considered subsistence necessities. i am arguing that you cannot be stylish without being a consumer, and europeans *are* more stylish than north americans.

so the difference, as i see it, is this: the north american consumer focus seems to be on the "having", while the european consumer focus is on the "being". to put it another way, americans assess the value of a product based on the "quantity" of what they have purchased, whether measured in dollars or volume or horsepower, while europeans look at the "quality" of what they have purchased, with less concern for the quantified value.

north americans buy suvs because of the size; europeans buy mercedes and bmw and audi because of the quality (or at least the perceived quality). of course north americans buy mercedes and bmw and audi as well, but because of the "quantity" of money it takes to buy those brands. europeans consume to increase the quality of their lives. north americans consume to have More.

the link to personal happiness in european consumerism is more inwardly-focused than that of north america. europeans consume so that the quality of their lives are better, so that they feel better, happier, and healthier. north americans consume so that the quantity in their lives is better. and bigger. europeans will buy what makes them happy; north americans buy what they think their neighbours want, but more. or newer. it's not that europeans don't think about impressing the neighbours, because they definitely want people to notice their nice suit, for example, but they choose their purchases to reflect who they believe they are: they *know* that they are stylish, so they buy stylish clothes. the equation is different in north america: they buy stylish clothes so that people will *think* that they are stylish. in europe you will not be judged poorly for having a non-current car, but you *will* be judged for not washing it or maintaining it. in north america you can have the dirtiest mega-bucks suv on the block and you will still command respect and envy, but god help you if you drive a car that has been replaced by a newer model.

a european may never aspire to own a home larger than 1500 sqft, but they will ensure that the home is furnished with comfortable and attractive (to them at least) furniture, art, lighting, and appliances. north americans aspire to own massive houses that they can only furnish with bare lightbulbs, blank-walled rooms that have no furniture, and bargain-basement appliances. the properties around european homes are covered with plants and flowers and bushes. north american properties are vast pastures of grass punctuated only by fences and the occasional tree or flower bed. or the polo boy statue peeing into a fountain.

*http://www.stat.gouv.qc.ca/donstat/econm_finnc/conjn_econm/compr_inter/pdf/revenus-ang.pdf

how do you take a picture in the netherlands?

2008-05-20T19:14:00.000+02:00

no, this isn't a joke. there's no punchline that goes

"quickly, before the dikes break", or
"dunno, but it better be a gouda one", or
"orange ya glad i didn't say banana?"

no, i'm referring instead to the problem of trying to take photos that haven't been taken before. every photo in the netherlands, and probably in most european countries, is like a cliché waiting to happen. windmills? done to death. canals? been there. cheese? red lights? crooked buildings? yawn. it's all been done before.

normally creativity and originality isn't a problem for me, as a photographer at least. usually the creativity is provided by the dancer or the actor or the model being photographed. or when i'm doing social photography the infinite expressions of my fellow earthlings ensure some measure of uniqueness in the photos. and weddings are the easiest of all, chaos theory at work with every moment being as unique and improbable as the previous and the following ones.

my problem is this: i don't know any dancers, or actors, or models here in the netherlands. and my interest in social photography is constrained by the fact that even though i am dutch i'm on the short side here, at only 1.86m. let's see *you* try to take a discreet photo of someone almost seven feet tall. and besides, they're likely to be picking their nose or peeing against a tree or a car or a dog.

so i'm limited to macro photography, which i am not equipped to do with my current gear nor do i have the (yawn) interest, or i do landscape photography.

and it's the landscape photography that is killing me. we have landscapes here in the netherlands, even dramatic ones sometimes if inconceivably vast distance of flatness can be dramatic, with the sea quietly hiding over there, just behind that tree, waiting to pounce. but it's already been photographed. i'm trying to think up ways that i can bring a unique perspective, something that is obviously me, something above and beyond all those shots where i've left the lens cap on.

so, the current ideas in no particular order:

shoot upside down
reverse all the photos so that left is right and right is left
use a soft-focus lens as an analogue for the sights seen by pot-addled tourists (but soft-focus pictures make me feel a bit nauseous)
engage in drive-by shootings using the camera while bicycling
mount a small camera in my beard, a forest-cam, so to speak
adopt a theme, like "open", or "blue", or "grunt", and only make photos that suit the theme (i tried using "regret" as a theme on koninginnedag, but everyone was just too happy)(and i wasn't around in the morning when the hang-overs kicked in)

so there i am. now i'm on my way out to shoot something. i'll let you know how it turns out.

story #2, in which the author discovers the dangers of men's water polo

2008-05-19T11:35:00.000+02:00

the summer swim season on the west island of montreal was at least as competitive as the official winter season, and better. better because we were outdoors, better because we were often swimming against the people who were on our own swim teams in the winter, but mostly better because of the crowds. each swimming pool was engaged in long-standing and fierce rivalries with neighbouring pools and all of the families would come out to cheer on their respective clubs. those summer evenings were electric.

but it wasn't just about the swimming. we also had inter-pool diving competitions, synchronized swimming, and best of all, there was water polo. water polo is very much a european sport, and the west island was very much a european community. they took their water polo as seriously as the brits or the italians or the brazilians take their football (european). and i have played a lot of really rough sports but will never be convinced that there is a sport more ruthless than water polo.

every night, as the teams took to the water, the referees would come by and check everyone's fingernails to make sure that they weren't too long. not wanting to give up any slim advantage, we kept our fingernails short and sharpened our toenails instead. sometimes i would cut myself in bed while i was sleeping because my own toe nails were so finely honed. and no water polo player ever dove in without having at least three bathing suits on; if you were lucky, only one suit would get ripped off in a game, but when it comes to possibly public displays of genitalia it pays to be overly cautious.

there were three leagues that were in play during the season. the first was the under-16's, and our club dominated that league. my friends and i were all 15, and we were some of the fastest swimmers in quebec so we had a pretty big advantage (twenty years later we still hold a record for the fastest sprint relay). the second league was for the under-18's. bigger, faster, rougher, and we still came out on top. but the premier league was the men's open grouping. that's where the big dogs played. the rivalries in that league were deeply personal, and the police became regular attendees in order to quell the violence. it really was that bad.

i was always (far too) proud of the fact that i was the only kid who was allowed to play with the men's team. i'd love to say that it was because of my stellar water polo-ing abilities, but it was mostly because i was really tall for my age, i was pretty quick in the water, and i had a really nifty little behind-the-back shot that scored almost every time i used it. but mostly the reason was because of terrence. terrence was my nemesis. terrence was three years older than i was, and terrence played for the (hiss boo) pointe clair community swimming pool. and we hated the (hiss boo) pointe claire community swimming pool. and they hated us. and i hated terrence. in the winter swim season terrence was the one guy who would regularly beat me, and i hated him for that. those few times that i managed to beat him were causes for great celebration, not just for me, but for all of my friends as well. yes, we hated terrence and we hated (hiss boo) pointe claire. the reason that terrence was, uh, the reason terrence was the reason that i was allowed to play in the men's league is this: every water polo game began with each team holding on to the wall in their end of the pool. the referee would blow his whistle and drop the ball into the water. whichever team got there first had the prized first posession. and terrence was fast, and he was always sent to chase the ball, and i was played just to make sure that he didn't always get it.

as an aside, the objective for the greyhound (which is what each team's lead-off swimmer was called) was to get to the ball and tip it back to a team mate. i had a little trick whereby on my last stroke before reaching the ball i would chip it over the head of the opposing swimmer, twist past him, and then continue on to the goal unimpeded. it didn't work against terrence though.

one night we were scheduled to play an away game, against (hiss boo) pointe claire. my dad was working late so my friend's mom dropped us off at the pool with the arrangement that my father would pick us up afterwards. as we strode - nay strutted - through the parking lot, on our way to play with the *men's* league (which logically meant that we must be men ourselves), we passed some of the guys from our team standing around a car. one of them offered us a beer. how could we say no? we were being allowed to play on the men's team *and* they offered us beer?!? miller lite, no less. we were the bomb! we were awesome! we were standing in a parking lot with our manly friends about to play in the men's water polo league and we were drinking beer. how cool was that?

so the first problem was that we did not know how to drink beer. treating it like soda pop, i quickly tossed the can back and took a big slug. the beer rebelled against this sudden violence and spurted out my nose, and my mouth, and onto my shirt. oops. that didn't look too cool. do you think they could tell that this was my first beer? seriously, dude, don't toss the beer back like aha. too late. so the guys laughed at us, standing there in our beer puddles, teasing us for our rookie mistakes, but letting us know that we were still in the club by offering us each a replacement can.

eventually we made our way onto the pool deck where we watched the under-18's finishing their game (i wasn't playing with the kiddies that night; i was saving myself for the men's game). on that pool deck, in the warm air of a mid-summer's evening i began to notice a slightly musty odor. coming from me. coming from my shirt, more precisely, where i had spilt the beer. it smelled pretty strong actually, and i wasn't feeling terribly- holy crap my dad just pulled into the parking lot if he smells this beer on me he's going to kill me i gotta do something.

so the second problem was that we smelled of stale beer. actually, the second problem was that my *dad* was going to notice that we smelled of stale beer. no, really, the second problem was that my *dad* was going to figure out that we had been *drinking* beer because we *smelled* like the back alley of a brewery. i grabbed my friend and we bolted for the bathroom. panicking slightly i locked myself in a toilet stall before realizing that my dad probably wasn't going to come looking for me. i came back out of the stall and began looking for something anything that would cover the smell of the stale beer oh hello there little mister bar of ivory soap.

a little bar of ivory soap was sitting on the window sill, and it was illuminated by a shaft of light from heaven, or from the pool deck, and it showed me the way out of my dilemma. i ripped off my shirt, tossed it in the sink, grabbed the slimy, scummy, grungy, crepuscular little bar of soap and started scrubbing. within seconds the damage had been repaired and my friend washed his shirt as well.

the third problem, as we quickly discovered, was that we were now wearing really wet, slightly foamy shirts. hey, we were at a swimming pool. we could explain that away easily enough... but dude, your breath smells a little gross. hey, my breath smells a little gross too!

the fourth problem was that we had beer breath. and i was pretty sure that if we could smell it on each other, my dad would be able to smell it on us. well, the ivory worked on the shirts so... i broke what remained of the crusty little bar of soap in half, and my friend and i executed the plan. and it was gross. it was really, really quite a bad idea.

the fifth problem? well, as we now know, soap burns skin, badly. within seconds my tongue was blistered. a few seconds more and raw skin was hanging off the insides of my cheeks. my mouth was expanding with bubbles. the soap erupted from my mouth like a grade school science project on volcanoes and i ducked my head under a tap. my friend was crying and scraping his tongue with a paper towel. i rinsed and rinsed and rinsed. there was a little bit of blood, and whole bunch of discomfort, but gradually it settled down. dude, are you okay? seriously, your breath smells better. stop crying and let's go.

as anticlimactic as it sounds, our problems were over. we made it out onto the pool deck, and we managed to evade (or at least we seemed to evade) any suspicions from my father, and all was well in the end. we won the game, only one player got arrested by the cops for fighting, and we had only some minor intestinal problems in the following week to remind us of our follies. but that lesson shall not soon be forgotten. many times as a child i had my mouth washed out with soap to correct a minor fondness for profanity, but it took only one self-inflicted mouth-washing to make me realize that you should never, ever drink miller lite.

that night terrence beat me to the ball-drop for the first quarter. he beat me to the ball-drop that started the second quarter as well. but the third quarter was going to be different. i got a jump on the start and i swam faster than i had ever swum before. as i approached the ball i lifted my head and saw that i would beat terrence by half-a-stroke, but this wasn't just about water polo any more, this was about pride. this was about being a man. i timed that last stroke perfectly. as my arm came around for that last stroke terrence lifted his head only to see the ball bounce gently off my shoulder as my fist closed the arc and came straight down onto this face. his nose exploded. the pool exploded. guys were fighting everywhere. my swim coach, who was also on the water polo team, slipped in front of me to fight terrence, and he clobbered him. and i know this all because as soon as i hit terrence i pulled myself onto the pool deck and watched the violence unfold. what do you mean, mister referee? who, me?

on the value of looking outside

2008-05-18T22:52:00.003+02:00

don't change, i love you just the way you are

2008-05-18T12:28:00.001+02:00

i find myself in a bit of a pickle.

my job requires me to help governments and public organizations to Do Better. happily, i like to do this as well. i try to protect our tax dollars by making sure that we get the best public services for the least amount of money. we are talking about efficiency with a human face. social conservatism, if you like.

in north america i found that governments generally understood efficiency from the perspective of saving money; the challenge was trying to keep them focused on the idea that public services were important too. here in the netherlands things are a little different. the governments are very much focused on delivering high-quality public services, but seemingly not at all on the efficiency with which they are delivered.

since my arrival i have become intimately familiar with the workings of dutch governments, and i can attest to the fact that they are woefully inefficient. it's taken weeks for me to negotiate an immigration process that *no one* understands. i spent my first nights here terrified that the aliens politie (yup, that's what the immigration police are called) were going to stave in my door in the middle of the night and hand-cuff me and take me to schiphol and toss me on a plane back to canada because i had missed some important steps that only they knew about. i even stopped sleeping in the nude for a couple of nights. everytime i tried to do something i was told that there was another step that i had to execute first, which invariably necessitated going to a different ministry or a different level of government in a different city. forget hybrid cars - we could reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the netherlands just by simplifying our immigration process so that people don't have to drive all over the place. i'm not sure about this, but i suspect that 39% of the people who are stuck in our traffic jams are people racing back and forth between immigration offices trying to collect all the stamps they need for a residency permit.

yes, it is confusing and frustrating and inefficient and i look forward to having the chance to fix things. but therein lies my problem. see, i kind of *like* the way things work here. it's an adventure. it certainly isn't boring. it's human, and it's social, and although nobody can help me take care of what i'm supposed to take care of, they are not helping me in an extremely friendly manner.

it's not like things are utterly impossible. i have learned to cope. i have even codified some rules:

play the odds: every time i have a question about what i am supposed to do i always ask a minimum of 8 people and then average out the answers, because each person tells me something different and no matter how convincingly they speak they don't have a clue;
make your own rules: because no one knows for certain what the rules or processes are supposed to be they cannot argue with you when you assert your version;
poker is a life-skill: when someone starts to question what you are doing, bluff; be strong, confident, wear a suit, and never let them see you sweat;
turn-about is fair play: the dutch are stubborn, and sometimes will refuse to accept what you've just told them; out-stubborn them. sure, you may end up standing at a service desk for uncomfortably long periods of time while weathering the wilting stares of the people behind you, but this is where you reap the benefit of having developed huge bladder capacity whilst sitting in traffic jams.

so what to do? how do i balance the effective and responsible management of tax dollars without losing this quirky service delivery that makes the netherlands so special? i don't want to sacrifice the human touch just for the sake of ruthless efficiency like we have done in canada. canadian government services are so devoid of the human element that they are almost in-human. and come to think of it, they're not even all that efficient!

no, little ones, this is not going to be an easy one to solve. there's a lot hanging in the balance. i will have to devote the whole of my considerable weight, brain-power, and my full attention on figuring out how to-

hey look, a butterfly! come here, butterfly...

on youtube

2008-05-17T10:42:00.001+02:00

there is a blog that i have been following for about 5 years now. at least i thought it was five years, but a quick scan of the blog shows an archive that only goes back to 2006. am i confused? i really don't think so... ah, there we go. yup, it's been about 5 years. anyway. i've been following it for a while. i found it quite by accident when i googled a term that my brother had used; when i asked how he was feeling that day, he replied that he felt "crunky". something about that work tickled my fancy and i started to use it regularly to describe a particularly confused feeling that you sometimes get when you haven't slept enough and drunk too much coffee and possibly stepped in a puddle on your way to work.

after a couple of years i decided to google the word since i'd never heard anyone else use it, and i ended up stumbling across the blog of torgodevil, an american blogger who lives in korea as an english teacher. out of curiosity i spent some time browsing through his postings and found them to be very, very funny. this one is my favourite. puerile? perhaps, but funny nonetheless.

here's the one that sparked this post: http://blog.torgodevil.com/archives/851. i mean. come one, they *beg* to be ridiculed.

enjoy.

watch out for that-

2008-05-16T09:58:00.002+02:00

hole.

Mind your step … in Arnhem 09/05/2008 00:00

Three couples have fallen into a big hole in the pavement of a riverfront promenade in Arnhem.

9 May 2008

ARNHEM - De Telegraaf newspaper has a picture of passers-by looking at a big hole in the pavement on a riverfront promenade in the town of Arnhem.

On Tuesday night, A Dutch couple had the fright of their lives when they went straight through the pavement and made a two-meter fall.

The couple remained unharmed, but, according to De Telegraaf, this was the third time a couple fell through the pavement in just a few years time.

okay then. so i live in a country with holes that have a fondness for dutch treats. and it's not the first time either. it might be just me, but potholes seem to have a fondness for cropping up in places where i am living. i lived in toronto where it is said that there are only two seasons: winter, and road repair. when i lived in detroit the traffic reports would often broadcast news of potholes that had swallowed up cars... and these were american cars! not little european people-folders (so-named because of the requirement for occupants to "fold" themselves into one). and at university i once hit a pothole that destroyed all four corners of my car's suspension, necessitating $1.400CDN in repairs.

but back to arnhem. i wonder if the fact that we live on what was very recently a sea bed can account for these menacing potholes. but probably not, because arnhem was not reclaimed from the sea. and they are certainly not a new occurrence in arnhem, because even reports from ww2 describe the atrocious lack of consistency in the landscape, with british jeeps constantly breaking down due to the holes.

and what can this do to the typical ernemers psyche? every walk of the dog must be accompanied by some strange ritual of reviewing one's last will and testament, kissing the wife and kids good-bye, and making sure the life insurance is paid up. no need to poop-and-scoop, the holes will take care of it. but maybe this is common-place for them. people have been living in arnhem for 7.000 years, so they might have developed some coping mechanisms. or it could be the typical dutch pragmatism at work:

"alright honey, i'm going to walk the dog. if i don't come back please remember to take the garbage out."

a nobel prize-winning physicist came from arnhem. i wonder if he was prompted to study physics out of wonderment at the omnipresent potholes? i bet he contributed to the theory of black holes... audrey hepburn studied in arnhem, and maybe her famous character, holly golightly, was named for the soft-stepped way she learned to walk in arnhem (as in, step softly so you don't go through a pothole).

and m.c. escher lived in arnhem for most of his childhood. enough said.

yeah, that's why i did it

2008-05-16T07:58:00.002+02:00

we've been having some remarkable weather here in the netherlands, but
it has finally come to an end. after more than two weeks of warm
(25-29C), sunny, dry summer days it has rained, is raining, will be
raining. and you know what? it is perfect. not just because the plants
really needed the rain, or because the fields needed the moisture, but
because i think it was the rain that led to this morning's Moment.

in the past six weeks i've had a couple of Moments, those occasions when
you drive through a particularly quaint dutch village and reality throws
its drink in your face and says

"hey, stop for a second. look around you. you are *here*. *now*"

during those moments it sinks in that i have done what i wanted to do,
and i am here, now, and i am happy.

this morning's Moment was a little different. i drove into a'dam along
the canal instead of on the autoroute (friday morning traffic is lighter
than usual). there was a slight rain falling, but it was the soft,
romantic rain of large warm raindrops that plop heavily on the
windscreen with a sigh of relief as if to say

"hey, mind if i rest here for a second? you're looking really good this
morning"

it was the kind of rain you really don't mind too much. i turned the
radio off, cracked the windows open just enough to let some rain inside,
and slowed down. i intended to reduce only my physical speed, but i
think i also triggered a metaphysical slowing and suddenly i was awash
in the smell of green grass leaves trees dirt on the roadside farmer's
field manure that gently acrid smell of diesel and warm rain on my face
and the whistling hissing sounds of tires on wet pavement and green
farmhouses under green trees besides green fields running along
green-fringed roadways. and my breath caught in my throat for a second,
and i thought maybe about having a little weep because it was all so
beautiful... and i was here. now. i was living the life that for so many
years had been just a wish, a day-dream, a traveller's fancy.

yeah, reality gave it to me straight from the firehose this morning. and
i am here, now, and i am happy.

ford owes me one

2008-05-15T17:12:00.004+02:00

i've always had a fondness for cars, probably because my father worked for general motors, as did i for a while, and gm was the company that took us around europe when i was a child. gm was the prime sponsor of the little town where we moved in ontario, and gm was the town that built my later home, detroit. my mom says that even my first word was car. i certainly talk about cars enough.

and that brings me to today's topic: cars. more specifically, to the fact that next week i say good-bye to my current car and hello to the next one (whom i have named heinz-harald in honour of his german ancestry)(for similar reasons the mini was named 'ullrich', although jan did not uphold the whole honour thing).

for the past 6 weeks i have been driving henrietta. i think it is self-evident that henrietta is the name given to an automobile that resembles the offspring of a toyota corolla and a pregnant rhinoceros. the toyota corolla heritage makes sense, since henrietta is *based* on a corolla, but i'm not sure where the pregnant rhinoceros piece came from. i do not expect that toyota set out to make her look like a pregnant rhinoceros. or maybe they did...

designer 1: "those dutchies, they'll drive anything. here, look, i'll take this corolla - nice job on that, by the way - and make it look like a pregnant rhinoceros and i bet they'll still buy it."
designer 2: "hey! what are you doing to my desi- holy cow! that *does* look like a pregnant rhinoceros. neat."

so henrietta looks a little rhinocerine. it's not her fault, and she makes up for it in many other ways. she's terribly practical, for example, with seats that fold flat and a capacious trunk that could fit, oh, i don't know, maybe a sofa. with a mattress. and a table. along with pots, pans, flatware, silverware, a drying rack. and towels and a set of bedsheets. and two lamps. it's true! she took all of those things in one trip. and the trunk even closed!

one benefit to her size is that it makes me look small in comparison. even my melon has loads of melon-room.

"look, fraukje, there's a giant-meloned pygmy *inside* that rhinoceros!"

or so i imagine people commenting anyway.

along with her obvious roominess she is pretty well-featured with all kinds of buttons and knobs and switches, at least one of which makes really rude noises if you flick it the wrong way, and those are always valuable features on a car. the radio is kind of lame, but i think that's more a reflection of the dearth of good radio stations in amsterdam.

she also drives pretty nicely, with only the occasional wallowing in corners that you would expect from a soccer-mom-vehicle. but even with all of these pluses that i've been tallying up, her best feature is her heart. yes, her heart. she has been given a typically-european diesel heart, one that makes just enough horsepower to keep you from getting run over on the highway, but which has enough torque to make you feel like you've been kicked in the back by a rhinoceros every time you accelerate from a rolling start. yes, she has a very good heart.

and she must be fit, because when i switch into hypermiling mode she can do 100km on only 3.4L of diesel. that is not a figure to be sneezed at. the prius requires a full litre more to travel the same distance and is considerably less friendly to the environment in the process.

as with every love story, however, there must be a tragic ending. and there is. and it is this: henrietta does nothing, i repeat, nothing, for my ego. she might make me look svelte and lithesome, but she does not make me look cool. and that is a cardinal sin for a car, in my humble opinion.

so henrietta must be resigned to life in the company car fleet, and i will replace her with something more befitting my absence of coolness. a car that has so much cool it will make me look cool, if big-meloned, beside it. a car that has a similar diesel-pumping heart, only more so. a car that speaks a teutonic language so stirring that it sounds like mozart riffing up and down the scales. and i shall call him "ullrich". no, i mean "heinz-harald". yes, i shall call him "heinz-harald", and we will be glorious together.

story #1, in which the author learns the importance of speaking out

2008-05-14T15:00:00.006+02:00

(with apologies to a few friends who have already read or heard this story)(i don't care. even if it *is* the twelfth time once more isn't going to kill you)

(this story is mostly true. where it isn't true it's because i forget or mis-remember the facts, but for all intents and purposes this is how it all went down)

(the legibility of this story is somewhat hampered by the writing style the author insists on adopting, but he (me) writes the way he (i) speaks: casually, intimately, and sometimes with a case of verbal ibs)(also, even though he (i) has the large hands befitting a dutch farmer, his (my) fingers are ridiculously short and cannot reach the [SHIFT] key required for capitalization)(and he (i) is lazy)

in 1986 i was a 15 year old boy living in montreal. for a couple of years my falls, winters, and springs centred around the swimming pool, school, and then the swimming pool again. and summer was no different. actually, it was a lot different. see, in the summer i never had to leave the pool - everyday from 10:45am until 8:15pm i was an official adoptee of the baie d'urfe community swim club. i didn't always get to swim, because sometimes it was kiddies-only, sometimes it was adult swim, and sometimes it was synchro swimming, but those times were the coolest ones because us regulars got to hang out in the pool office with the lifeguards.

and some of those lifeguards were Female.

that second summer in montreal the season started with a barbeque bash where all the members got together for Fun and - more important to my short-term future - to meet the new lifeguard staff. i vaguely remember the dancing and the eating and the socializing, but what i *really* remember were the lifeguards. or rather one lifeguard. she was beautiful. she was perfect. she had freckles and reddish-brown hair and a husky voice and a smile... oh, her smile.

during the evening there was a social event to help facilitate the introductions of the new staff. i cannot now remember the details, but it had something to do with trivia questions or some other contest, the winners of which each received a cream pie that they could smear into the face of their favourite lifeguard. although i cannot remember the contest, i can remember wanting to win. really badly. the game went on and more and more lifeguards got pied but no one pied her, she of the dazzling smile, and she sat quietly and a little uncomfortably while all of her colleagues received the creamy gestures of affection from their fans. my heart broke for her, i felt her pain, i wanted to help her, to make her see that she really was the best, to give her that pie in the face. with my heart pounding and the curiously effervescent feeling you get in your chest when you are really excited i gave the right answer or did the right thing or whatever was required to win a pie, and with huge relief and joy and not a little nervousness did i approach her and gently smush the pie in her face. i think i even apologized for getting some in her hair.

from that early moment, and for long afterwards, she captured my heart, soul, voice, and even my appetite (yeah, apparently the only time, i know). she occupied many of my waking thoughts, and all of my sleeping ones. i spent hours in the pool trying to catch her eye with my swimming prowess, or my fearlessness on the diving board, or with my dedication and compassion towards the kiddie swimmers. regrettably sheila, as she (the female lifeguard) was known, was also the object of the affections of many of my friends, most of whom were notably less average than was i.

sheila was 19(!). sheila was probably not the prettiest lifeguard working that summer, not the tallest nor the blondest nor the slimmest nor the coolest, but she was sweet... really, really sweet. she also had that smile, that smile that rivalled the sun for blindingness when reflected off the water, and all the boys and men talked for hours about the times they got to bask in that light.

i was able to develop a friendship with sheila over the summer, during those stolen moments when i was allowed to sit in the lifeguards' office, and we got to spend a lot of time together. none of it alone, regrettably. we were always with other people at the pool, or at other pool-related events like swim meets and water-polo tournaments. honestly, it didn't matter at all how few or how many people were around, because i was far too painfully awkwardly self-consciously romantically mutedly shy to ever have said anything to her anyway. instead, i silently showered her with my affections through the brownies that i baked, the errands that i ran, the jokes that i made and the compliments that i paid her. i guess i hoped that she would see the gentle sweet devoted man-boy that i was, and would realize suddenly that she never needed to be with anyone else again. sad, that.

so sheila dated a couple of guys and i sat by dumbly, not saying a word, not daring to open myself to that world of embarassment that would have resulted from her laughter when she found out that i had a crush on her... me, a 15 year-old boy... and then august came, and my parents informed me that we were moving to ontario. talk about crush; i was crushed. again, for the 5th? 8th? 15th? time i was being made to say good-bye to all of my friends (to sheila) to my swim team to my school (to sheila) to everyone. again. sigh. new friends, new moments of embarrassment, new social norms to learn by unwittingly breaking them. and i was pretty sure that the fates would not conspire to have sheila move to the same town at the same time.

that last week of summer, which is always bittersweet, was especially poignant for me. with the end of summer came the end of my happy (2 year) life in montreal, the end of my (short) friendships with some (really) great people. it was also the end of my time with sheila (the female lifeguard)(she of the dazzling smile). overcome by a tidal wave of post-pubescent hormonal imbalance i decided that i would tell sheila how i felt, that if i didn't i would be consummed by a giant ball of purple fire rising from the centre of my chest, that would rise and would tell everyone how lame i really was. and i would tell her that night, at the end-of-season barbeque bash at the swimming pool.

i spent the whole evening shyly standing around her, waiting for the opportunity to tell her how much i- holy crap! erik beat me to it! son-of-a-bitch! he knew what i was going to do and he did it anyway?!? oh man oh man oh man i was *so* not happy. i was decidedly unhappy. erik was one of my best friends, and he just knifed me in the back, twisted the knife, pulled it out and stuck it back in. i was fuming. i skulked behind some bushes, watching to see what he was doing and trying to hear what he was saying. it was with some measure of glee that i noted them parting without so much as a handshake or hug. erik walked past me with an unhappy and not-so-proud-of-himself expression on his face, so i decided not to thump him until afterwards. let him suffer in silence now. he deserves some reward for doing what i could not.

so i stood, and sheila chatted with everyone else. the evening was coming to a close. i was torn by indecision. i mean how does someone voluntarily walk up to someone else and say

"here. here is my heart. i give it you to. you can have it. please take care of it. but if you want to throw it to the ground and stomp on it before handing me back a dirty mangled lump of, um, yes, just like that. thanks, but no. you keep it. i won't be needing it any more..."

and that was it. i knew i could do it. i was leaving in two days anyway, so what did i have to lose? i could handle 48 hours of scorn and derision and mocking and teasing from my friends, if it came to that, because i was leaving...

i gulped, wiped my hands, and tapped sheila on the shoulder. the smile she gave me when she turned around did *not* help. i contemplated running, fainting, wetting myself or (bizarrely) saying "boo", but obviously i did none of those things because seconds later we were sitting at a picnic table in the shadows, where we had some privacy even though i knew everyone was looking at us. and i tried to tell her, i really did, but it didn't come out right. it didn't come out at all. somehow while trying to convince her that she was great i really liked her i wasn't really shy she was such a special person and i had to tell her oh i'm leaving for ontario i think you're swell, somehow the message got mixed up and she just gave a nervous laugh and left. no handshake, no hug.

i was heart-broken. i was embarrassed. i was ashamed. i was kind of amused and not at all surprised. i was horribly terribly sad. but i wasn't done. no, the extents to which i am willing to embarrass myself truly know no bounds. (it's one of my better qualities, i think)

i went home and wrote a letter. i wrote a great letter. i wrote a letter soaked through with all of the passion and emotion and frustration that i was feeling, a letter that said everything i should have told her when we were at the picnic table. i told her she was great. i told her how much i liked her spirit, her compassion, her caring nature. i wrote about her dazzling smile (but didn't include the drawing i'd made). i told her i'd had a crush on her since the first day i'd seen her. i told her i still had a crush on her, and i told her how awfully sorry i was that i'd never been able to tell her, face-to-face, just how great she really was. assuming that she thought my opinion mattered, of course. and if she didn't think so, well then i was sorry for taking up her (sweetly) precious time because i never meant to make her uncomfortable (i'd rather stick my hand in a blender!) and maybe i should have just kept it all to myself because really she wasn't going to benefit from the letter and it was just selfish (so selfish) of me to impose on her just so that i could have some form of emotional release...

without rereading the letter out of fear that i would never send it, i folded it into one of those neat self-contained triangle shapes that look like origami. the next day i swallowed my (post-)adolescent pride and asked my dad if he would take me for a drive to drop something off at a friend's house. in one of those moments that a child never forgets and is eternally grateful for, my dad must have sensed that something was up but didn't ask any questions. he just grabbed his keys and we set off. i came home trembling with fear and nervousness and pride, and continued packing. we were leaving montreal in two days. i slept a little better than i had the whole week, but i was still in the throes of puppy-love. it was all Too Big for me.

the next morning the moving van arrived and our belongings began to disappear. just before lunch my dad came into the house with an envelope and said that he'd seen someone run up the driveway and drop it in our mailbox. curiousscarednervousexcited i took the letter to the cabana behind the house, waited to hear if anyone was around, and opened the envelope. inside was a letter (folded into one of those neat self-contained triangles that look like origami), and it started "dear rick"...

i could transcribe the letter for you here, because i still have it. i could probably recite it for you word-for-word, because i've read it so many times. but here's what you need to know:

at the opening barbeque of the season, sheila had been nervously meeting people, not sure whether or not anyone was going to like her, not sure whether she would make any friends, not sure what she had been thinking to take a job at this pool when all her friends were at another. and her fears were realized when every one of her colleagues was getting pied in the face and she sat conspicuously unpied on her chair, watching the crowd. she should not have come here. and then she saw one guy who stuck out. he was a bit young maybe, but he was kind of cute. he wasn't the prettiest, not the tallest (but almost) nor the blondest (but almost), but he had a really great smile. and then he won a pie. and he walked up to her and as her heart started to flutter he gently placed the pie in her face. he even apologized for getting her hair dirty.

that whole summer she tried to make time for him, to spend time laughing with him because he was really kind of funny even when he didn't mean to be, but he was swimming a lot, or diving on the diving board, sometimes trying to soak her with his can-openers. and she was nervous about what the other lifeguards would think if she was seen with someone so young, and besides she wasn't supposed to get involved with the members. even if it was someone who was such a great swimmer, and obviously in great shape. even if it was someone who gave her that feeling that you get sometimes when your friend jumps off the see-saw when you are on the top, or when you're driving really fast and suddenly go over a dip in the road. even if it was someone who had such a great smile that you wanted them to stop smiling just so you could have the pleasure of watching them break into another one.

at the last barbeque of the season she tried to find him, to talk to him, and maybe even to see if he would meet her after school some time, or on a weekend, and just hang out, but she couldn't get to him. every once in a while she would see him and then he would disappear, almost like he was deliberately avoiding her. but then there was the tap on her shoulder and there he was, and omg he wanted to talk to her. she nervously walked over to a picnic table with him and he told her what... what did he say? did he say that he liked her? no way! but he's leaving?!? this week he's leaving??? he's leaving.

she was so upset that she couldn't say anything and went into the lifeguards' office and cried and she should have said something to him but she didn't and now he's leaving and she wasted a whole summer and he's leaving. this week he is leaving. her friend drove her home and was really sweet about helping her to feel better but she still cried a lot, and when she went to bed she cried a bit more and woke up in the morning not feeling very happy. her mom brought in the mail after lunch, and there was a letter for her. the letter was folded into one of those neat self-contained triangles that look like origami, and it started "dear sheila"...

what i am doing on my day off

2008-05-12T11:25:00.003+02:00

the title should more appropriately read: what i am *not* doing on my day off. and that, specifically, is writing. i've been pretty diligent in my scribblings and i think that today is a nice day to rest, especially given that it is a public holiday (tweede pinksterdag).

so, while i'm enjoying my day off you can have fun perusing the list of things that i need to purchase for the apartment:

living room

sofa

lamps
plants
entertainment centre
bookshelves
bear-skin rug (imitation bear-skin, of course)(or maybe imitation cow)(or maybe just a rug that imitates nothing but a pile of woven fibres)
picture frames (empty, of course. i *am* a photographer after all, so i might as well enjoy my own creativity)

kitchen

rubbish bin

hallway

rug (see above for thoughts and considerations)
picture frames (see above for additional details)
shoe rack (note: estimate 6 pairs total for me, not sure of how many for cunky. better plan for 91 pairs)
mattress (for the bottom of the staircase)

utility room

washer
dryer
drying rack
sunshine girl posters

bathroom

ceiling light
to be determined (it'll be easier to see what's already there when the lamp is taken care of)

upstairs landing

plants

loft/office/bedroom

desk
bookshelves
picture frames
set of drawers
mirrored ceiling (for watching guests sleep while i sit in the living room at 05:30 with my coffee and newspaper)

master bedroom

bed
mattresses
drawers
ceiling light
neutral paint (the current peach colour makes me feel curiously pretty)
spare key (for the balcony door)

walk-in closet

ceiling light

master bathroom

towels
bubble bath (not for me, thank you very much)
candles (see comment above)
plants
rubbish bin

introduction to story time, or, if it isn't "42" maybe this is the answer

2008-05-11T21:00:00.000+02:00

i have a *lot* of stories. it's a good thing too, because i talk a *lot* and the stories help to ensure that if i am not quiet at least i am interesting. i have always been a talker, as long as i can remember. i recently re-read the biographies of richard feynman and albert einstein (part of a misguided attempt to look intelligent while sitting at sidewalk cafes) and learned that they both were more than three years of age before they started talking. not me. no way. i think that instead of crying when the doctor spanked my new-born butt i started telling him about my recent experiences and how happy i was to be there and couldn't he please pass me that blanket because i was a little chilly.

there are loads of explanations for why people talk a lot. loneliness, lack of self-awareness, lack of self-comfort, nervousness, drugs... personally i don't feel lonely, i'm *very*aware of how much i talk, i'm pretty comfortable with myself and can happily keep myself company (without talking, i mean), i am *not* a nervous person, and i don't do drugs (i gave up alcohol for the most part when i realized that at my age drinking just makes me want to sleep)(even in public)(which can be *very* embarrassing)(or at least i'm told that i *should* feel embarrassed)(which i don't).

no, i talk because i have this incredible need for people to Understand. let's explore this a little further, shall we? we can start by dividing subject matter into two categories (as i often do): there is Me, and then there is Everything Else.

start with the easier subject. whenever i am talking about Everything Else it's of prime importance to me that i impart to my audience Knowledge, and not just Data. in my humble opinion the transmutation of Data into Knowledge happens when you add Context. and that's what i do, i add Context. and Context is description, and seems to require an awful lot of words. i think the trade-off is worthwhile though. think of the question

"how is the weather in haarlem?"

the easy response would be to say that

"it is nice"

"it is sunny"

"it is warm"

"it is nice and sunny and warm"

but while these answers are factually correct, they convey so little about the actual weather that they are devoid of meaning. so my response is more like

"wow, the weather here is amazing, thanks for asking. it's been 25-29C with sunshine for the past week and it's expected to continue this way for most of next week. the temperatures aren't uncomfortable though, because we seem to have continuous winds in the netherlands which make for nice cooling breezes."

can you see the difference? in the first set of responses the audience is given a factoid about the weather, but they really don't *know*anything about what it is like here. the last response, however, gives a much richer and detailed explanation so that the audience *knows* what it's like to live in the netherlands and is able to feel jealous because the weather in toronto sucks in comparison. so my compulsion to talk a lot about Everything Else is associated with my desire to impart Knowledge. this all assumes, of course, that the questioner actually intended to ask after the weather and was not simply being polite... later i'll write a posting on Being Polite, or, Don't Ask Questions To Which You Do Not Want To Know The Answer.

for the tougher and broader subject, Me, the answer can be seen in that very simple mathematical equation for Life (with apologies to the scientific community for misappropriating symbols and initials but this is a Very Important topic, as i'm sure you can appreciate):

hQ = ic + u

breathtaking in its simplicity and clarity, isn't it? the profundity of this equation (or is it fecundity? no matter) is self-evident, and clearly explains why i talk so much. for those of you who are not conversant with abstract symbologistics or quantum linguistics, i'll simplify it a bit. expounding and expanding upon the beautiful simplicty of the formula, of which even einstein would be proud if only he had thought of it, we see that

ic = lol + Pi
u = iq + ADD

where lol and Pi are constant variables, of course iq comes from cat + IT, and ADD is the sum of Toe + arsridder.

just in case i *really* need to spell it out for those of you who studied economics, or political science, or french literature, i am always looking for that highest quality of life which comes from both understanding and celebrating life. in order to understand life i need to ask intelligent questions and to accept the differences of other people. i can celebrate life by having personal interactions with others and Having Fun with them. in order for all of this to be facilitated there needs to be a common understanding, and intimacy of connection, and *that's* why i talk so much. i seek deep and meaningful relationships and that requires deep and meaninful understanding of each other. i need people to understand who i am, what i am about, why i do the things i do (although that's usually so that they can tell me and help to ensure that i don't do it again).

let me try to put it another way. someone - who shall remain nameless - famously said to me once when i was 13 and standing in front of a mirror preening myself,

"you are never going to win a beauty contest, so you would better spend your time trying to be funny or smart."

i mean really, what kind of mother says that to a child? anyway, i cannot be pretty, or funny or smart for that matter, but i *can* be understood. *that*s why i talk so much.

index of abbreviations and their origins
hQ = high Quality (of life), as in the best thing ever
ic = [action] incredible celebration (of life), sometimes improperly referred to as "rsvp"
u = [action] understanding (of life)
lol = [emotion] humour, believed to derive from "laugh out loud"; a variable, lol usually take the form of a joke, a banana peel or an impossibly small staircase
Pi = [event] personal interaction, origin: average social circle of 3.14 friends; a variable, Pi usually is a bff, an MSN event or the result of a big-bra
iq = [action] the ability to ask intelligent questions
ADD = [action] ability to relate; origin: mid-90's english, believed to mean "Accept Differences, Dummy"
cat = [emotion] curiosity, as in what killed the
IT = [emotion] InTerest
Toe = [emotion, action] TOlErance
arsridder = [emotion, action] empathy, believed to mean "Ability to Really See Reasons I Don't Differ Extremely (fRom you)"
bff = [entity] a close friend
MSN = [event] meeting someone new, a new friend
big-bra = [event] an old friend who hasn't been seen for a while, believed to mean "Bumping Into Gone-But-Remembered Acquaintances"

a tale of two dutchies, or, "were you expectorating something else?"

2008-05-11T08:10:00.005+02:00

in some respects the dutch are like the japanese. i know it sounds strange to compare the tallest nation in the world (we average 6'2") with one of the shortest (average of 5'5"), but what i mean by this is that, like the japanese, the dutch have two very different - almost contradictory - aspects to their personality. actually, many nations might be like this, but i haven't really met them all yet so let's stick with the dutch and japanese...

everyone knows of how the japanese can be simultaneously prim and proper and formal as well as wild and depraved. in most public aspects the japanese are supremely polite, respectful, and almost painfully restrained. in their private lives we see drifting, anime, dungeons, and "hello kitty" oh, the "hello kitty". i almost can't even say it, it's so hideous. decidedly un-restrained.

similarly, in public the dutch are highly civilized, polite, respectful and restrained. sometimes i feel like i have been transported back to elizabethan england, with perriwigs and canes and carriages and "how art thou upon this finest of fine morns, squire?". this civility is what leads the dutch to claim the english as their closest brethren in europe. but this civility is also only superficial. discard your notions about the soft stance on soft drugs or prostitution, i'm not referring to those because they are the result of the tolerance we developed when we ruled the world and had loads of international trade pass through our harbours. no, i'm talking about something else altogether. beneath the surface the dutch have some pretty bizarre tendencies, like their fondness for bawdy jokes and the excretion of noxious gases from various bodily orifices. but these are minor points, and i can in fact enjoy them myself upon occasion. what i cannot enjoy is their predilection for the emission of bodily fluids. i believe that i have already referred to their habit of peeing in public (a habit so common that the village of amsterdam had to criminalize it. drugs and prostitution apparently were less deleterious to society than spontaneous urination), so let's skip that one. there are two things that really bother me, a lot. well, public urination bothers me too but we agreed to skip it for now.

first, it's the spit. loogies. horks (the only thing amusing about horking is that the dutch pronounce it "ghorks", with a gutteral "g". it's *very* amusing actually. maybe not so much for the people who live in (g)horkum, but saying it is amusing, not doing it. or someone else doing it, more specifically). lung candy. pavement pearls. oysters. whatever you call them, they are gross. and they are everywhere. remember how you were warned about walking in paris because of all the doggie-dodos? (it's not like that anymore, btw) well, walking in the netherlands incurs the same risk of stepping on semi-liquid land mines. every morning i have to dodge oral excretions on my walk into the office. i'm struck by the incongruity of people in suits leaving such a bread-crumb trail. and on the "expressway" you will find suit-clad business executives in large mercedes' and gucci sunglasses happily spraying the windshields of following cars with the output of their salivary activities. occasionally you'll see such a car with a large streak running back along the side windows attesting to the strength of the crosswinds. maybe that explains the prevelance of car washes too... anyway, the spitting is just gross.

and secondly, and somewhat related although not so fluid, is the nose-pick. i would never have imagined there could be a nation so obsessed with the cleanliness of their nostrils. and they are not embarassed to do their house-keeping in public either, oh no, they'll happily dig away while stopped at traffic lights, walking down the street, shopping for groceries, or sitting at a sidewalk cafe. my colleagues even do it in the office. not discreetly in the bathroom, but at their desks. i know that i spent some time with my finger joyfully wedged up my own nose, but i was 5! okay, maybe 12, but still. my mom made it pretty clear to me that such behaviour was unacceptable in public. in the netherlands moms seem to do no such thing except set a bad example. i guess it's fortunate that nose-pick is so much smaller than the spit-bombs, because i don't have to live with the ever-present sight of boogers. but it does make me uncomfortable when i sit on a public bench, and even though my office chair is not properly adjusted for me there's *no way* i'm reaching underneath it to change the height. and i wash my hands a lot. "hello, nice to meet you. i'm sorry but i can't shake your hand until i know whether you are right- or left-handed." i mean seriously, should a person have to worry about these things?

i think that the dutch parliament should take a lesson from singapore and criminalize these types of activities. a good cough-up must be worth at least twenty public spankings with a cane, and nose-pickers should be forced to walk around for a month with a sign around their neck saying "i pick my nose. in public".

just a thought.

no awe, just shock

2008-05-10T11:02:00.002+02:00

i must have been about ten years old, and my baby brother would have been about two. i was doing my brotherly duties and keeping him entertained with a rip-roaring game of hide-and-seek. after i counted to ten or thirty or whatever it was i roamed the house looking for him. the search was greatly aided by the fact that he was laying in the front hall with his blanky over his head.

yes, he was suffering the if-i-can't-see-you-you-can't-see-me delusion.

as ridiculous as it may seem, it's a very common syndrome. in fact, it might be genetic because i think i suffer from a form of it myself.

ever since i hit puberty, say around 18 years of age, i've had a beard of sorts. sometimes it's a full beard, usually just a goatee. i tried a moustache once, but it made me look like a 70's porn star. for a few weeks i felt gloriously stylish with a d'artagnan, but my ex-wife said i looked creepy. and evil. still, when i shaved entirely (the first time she'd ever seen me without facial hair) she thought it was worse. i'm pretty clean-cut with the facial hair, except for a few times when i tried for the zz top look (too itchy, and food kept getting stuck in there. one evening i spent an hour trying to find out where the cat had vomitted only to discover that the smell was, quite literally, right under my nose where some milk and butter had been left in my beard and gone rancid), and i keep it neatly trimmed.

i've noticed that the dutch are not, generally, wearers of facial hair except for that ridiculous ring-around-the-head beard that has no moustache. i believe it's affectionately known as "the jock-strap". i think my uncle has one. but what i have not seen here is the goatee. so, yesterday at work i innocently commented to a colleague on my observation that the goatee is conspicuously absent, and that i was feeling a bit self-conscious. although he's only been in the netherlands for 10 years, he had the inside scoop. the "shock" referenced in the title? here's where it comes from: the dutch have a really, truly, disgusting word for the goatee. i can't even repeat it. it makes me blush. for 12 hours i've been fighting the urge to shave mine. i've hidden my clippers in the oven. (mental note: remove the clippers before making dinner tonight).

so what have i learned from this? well,
1. the dutch are really, really crude;
2. it's not the double-breasted fat suits that everyone is laughing at when i walk by; and
3. i am disconcertingly attached to my goatee.

later i will spend more time dwelling on the first two points, but for now let's focus on my self-facial-hirsutophilia. no, wait a second, that's not right. anyway, let's explore my need to wear a beard. you will soon see the allusion to the if-i-can't-see-you-you-can't-see-me delusion.

the simple explanation for my prolonged facial hairiness is that i have a really, really big head. it's almost breathtaking. the profile photo, where i am contemplatively stroking my beard? i'm really supporting my gargantuan melon to keep it from lolling about my shoulders. but it's not just the immensity of my brainbasket that is impressive, it's the shape. round-like. almost ovoid. like a dinosaur egg. in the summer i can't tell if it's blackflies attacking me or tiny pebbles caught in orbit. the goatee, in my humble opinion, adds a vertical line that lengthens my face into something approaching normalcy. when i don't have a beard little children wonder why the moon is out in the middle of the day. it's okay, it's funny because it's true.

but to stop at that explanation would be doing science a disservice. there's got to be a deeper reason. and there is. see, i was born with a harelip and a cleft palate. although i had a brilliant plastic surgeon, i still have the tell-tale scar and curved lip, and i'm pretty self-conscious about it. the goatee then, is the most socially-acceptable way of hiding the defects. think of it this way: by putting a little forest in front of the scar, it cannot see you so therefore you cannot see it. sounds reasonable? hm. no, now that you mention it...

and now, of course, i learn that the goatee is not even socially acceptable over here. in fact, it's downright unacceptable! the dutch really know how to spoil a party. but what to do? i suppose that i could have more surgery, but honestly the harelip is something i'm very attached to. psychologically speaking, i mean. it was the harelip that contributed to my shyness, it has been my refusal to be limited by that shyness that's made me as moderately successful as i am. well, that and my staggering intellect and irresistible charm. but mostly the shyness thing. i think that to give it away would feel like giving away a really big piece of who i am. so i think i'll keep it, thank you very much. it's like a built-in ego-checker. i mean, seriously, if i was smart and charming *and* pretty, wow. i'd have a huge ego. i'd have to buy my hats from zepplin nt.

but i really need to try something else. i'm not ready to share my harelip with the world, but i clearly cannot keep the goatee either. maybe my brother had the right idea after all; if whacko-jacko's kids can wear blankets in public... hell, one if them is even *named* blanket!

email me and i'll tell you how disgusting the dutch are.*

*this offer is restricted to persons 18 years of age or older due to reasons of extreme profanity.

shock and awe

2008-05-09T06:49:00.002+02:00

this morning i was sitting in the bathroom, preening myself before work, when it suddenly struck me that i was in the midst of a "routine".

now, how strange is that? here i have gone and torn myself away from everything that i knew and was comfortable with, and only weeks later i find myself in a routine!

so as i am often wont to do, i thought about that. five weeks ago i was getting off a plane in a new (slightly foreign, but most just weird) country with most of what i owned squeezed into a couple of suitcases. three weeks ago i was living in a hotel in the quaint resort town of zandvoort. two weeks ago i was wrestling with the administrative nightmares of trying to rent an apartment in the netherlands. i week ago i was dealing with electrical service, cable companies, internet providers, and (shudder) the gemeentehuis over parking permits. and now i am living in a "routine".

as far as i can tell, this morning wasn't the start of my routine either - it's been in development for weeks! first there was work, which quickly became a routine of waking up at 05:00, eating breakfast, tossing back my first coffee of the day, putting on a suit and then driving into the office. at 16:00 the routine was repeated in reverse. the routine changed slightly last week when i moved to haarlem and started to wake up a half-hour later. hardly worth writing home about. which in some ways i'm actually doing right now...

in zandvoort a second routine developed: after the wake/caffeinate/dress/drive/work/drive/undress cycle, but before the /sleep part, i started going for walks or bicycle rides along the north sea. slight variations, perhaps, but fundamentally still a routine. except maybe slightly innaccurate now that i re-read it. the walk or bicycle came after the /drive, but before the /undress. i'm sure you would have heard about it otherwise.

dateline: zandvoort, nl.
"darwin's missing link may have been spotted along the beaches of the quaint resort town of zandvoort this week. bemused naturists report sightings of a large, hirsute creature roaming the sea-front on, and this is where it gets weird folks, a dutch bicycle. anthropologists are hurrying to the scene, although at least one witness reports that it may have simply been a tourist in a camel-hair suit..."

now that i am in haarlem i've changed it again, since i've added a /walk/groceries/undress/redress/cook/bike sub-routine.

but my point is becoming obfuscated with all of these ///s. what i really mean to comment on is the disappointment of becoming "comfortable". at least part of the motivation for coming back to europe was to escape the drudgery of day-to-day living. having had such an adventuresome childhood i find myself with a bad case of itchy feet - which has nothing to do with the prolonged hairline - and i'm always looking for the next place to go to. every vacation is a case of "i could live here", or "i could live there", or the worst, the "call my boss i'm not leaving here" (which really happened. in budapest, about 8 years ago. if my boss had answered his phone i would be eating goulash right now). so i'm sure you can understand my disappointment at having achieved a state of comfort so soon after my arrival in the netherlands.

it's not entirely unexpected. i've generally been pretty good at adapting to change, having had lots of experience. the secret is confidence. although i have a rather painful shyness, it's more than compensated for by a truly remarkable ego. no, really, it's pretty big. as a result my internal monologues run something like this:

self: "great. you've done it again. you've put us somewhere new and now i have to meet all kinds of new people. forget it. i'm not doing it anymore."
self: "ahh, come on, don't be a party pooper. you're an awesome guy. you have an obligation to introduce yourself to these people and to brighten their lives."
self: "but i don't wannnaaa."
self: "it's your civic duty. let's go. it'll be legen- wait for it -dary."

so my goal for the next few weeks is going to be the Obliteration of Routine. i haven't given a lot of thought to the matter yet, and those thoughts i've had haven't been very good. i can only imagine what would happen, for example, if i tried riding my bike backwards, or pretended to speak only swahili, or tried to barter for groceries with pairs of used socks, or engaged in drive-by bodypainting. i know that from 06:00 to 16:00 every day i'm kind of stuck, since the routine that occurs then is the same one that gives me the financial freedom to do Other Things, and i'm loathe to mess with it. poverty would definitely be a routine-breaker, but would probably lead to other routines that are much less entertaining... or if not less-entertaining, at least less-hygienic. i'll keep you posted on my progress, but in the meantime keep your eyes on this...

wilt u een koffie?

2008-05-08T08:10:00.003+02:00

before i left canada a good friend warned me that i should start building my coffee tolerance because the dutch were notorious for the volume of coffee they consumed every day. i smiled quietly to myself at this poor chap because he clearly was unaware of the longstanding love affair that i've had with that nubian mistress, coffee. even to say the word is delicious. coffee. it starts out a little harsh, cof, like the scalding you get from premature ingestion, and finishes off so smoothly, fee, like the lingering after-taste of a freshly roasted sumatran. by which i mean a sumatran coffee bean, not a sumatran inhabitant, which might have a nice after-taste but would necessitate a really unpleasant struggle and some other distatesteful actions. note: i do not endorse the roasting of sumatrans whatsoever. only their coffee beans.

my first day in the office, an orientation session on tuesday 01 april, went something like this:

08:25 coffee
08:30 introductions and agenda
08:45 coffee
09:00 overview of the company
09:30 coffee
09:45 introduction to the president, and coffee
10:15 coffee
10:30 washroom break with coffee
10:45 working inside the company, with coffee
12:00 lunch, with coffee

and it went on and on and on. i finally went to sleep three nights later marveling at the hardy constitutions these dutchmen must have. but, i reminded myself, i *am* dutch so surely i can make this work.

as a quick aside, i know for a fact that the dutch do *not* enjoy drinking coffee. the evidence: they do not sip their coffee in languorous repose as do the italians or french but rather toss the coffee back in one gulp and immediately move on to the next activity. there's also the fact that they constantly complain about how the coffee tastes like pig swill right before going off to get another round.

in the office i was amazed to see that every time one of my colleagues got up to a) go to the printer or b) stretch or c) take a pee break or d) attend a meeting or e) oh, it doesn't matter why they got up. when they did, any one of them, they immediately asked if anyone wanted a coffee and on their way back from whatever caused them to get up in the first place they brought a tray of coffee with them. in my first week i was averaging 9 cups a day, and i know that because i kept stacking up the dead soldiers under my desk.

but i wasn't hired for my good looks or my charm, and after a week of very little sleep i quickly figured out how to survive - i would be the one to get the coffees, and would conveniently forget to bring one for myself. another example of the sheer brilliance that can only come from a desperate mind. for the next week i carefully monitored my co-workers and whenever anyone of them would stir as if to rise boom! there i was, on my feet asking if anyone wanted a coffee. it worked perfectly, and i managed to get my coffee intake back down to a manageable 3 or 4 cups a day with none after noon (caffeine really likes me, and stays in my bloodstream for hours so i have to make sure that i stop drinking a good 8 hours before i plan to go to bed)(and yes, i do go to bed at 21:00 every night. *you* try waking up at 05:30 every day and see how late you can stay up).

sadly, as with most brilliant ideas that come from a desperate mind, there were unintended consquences. namely the fact that i couldn't do any work because i had to keep watching my colleagues. i think they were also starting to wonder what i was doing that was so important that i had to leave my desk every 20 minutes, and did i have small problem that could be corrected with adult diapers. no man can stand by while his continence is being challenged, so i resigned myself to doing my job and drinking enough coffee to kill a rat.

i currently compensate by drinking two or three litres of water every day to keep my kidneys functioning, which of course has the side-effect of making me go to the bathroom every 20 minutes. reminder: i still have to translate into dutch the question "where do you keep the adult incontinence products?"...

how did i get here? or, an unexpected chain of events that leads to Much Happiness

2008-05-07T21:23:00.007+02:00

i was writing to a friend last night and trying to explain how i ended up coming back here. not here, as in haarlem, because i've covered that and i never really came *back* to haarlem because as far as i know i was never here previously, but back here as in the netherlands.

so, for the record:

i had the wonderful experience of travelling around europe for a number of years as a child. how my parents accomplished that with two young and rather, uh, active boys is beyond me, but frankly at the time i didn't care much either. i think i was having Too Much Fun. anyway, both of my parents are dutch, and i have always had some feeling of kinship with the netherlands specifically and europe generally. i travelled to europe quite a few times while living in canada, and every time i got off the plane i felt like i'd come home, irrespective of the country in which that particular airport was located. even when i landed at the militarily-imposing airport in berlin with security guards who carried carbines and who walked werewolves disguised as german shepherds, even then i still felt like i had come home. even more surprising was when i landed in italy for the first time and discovered that my genetic material clearly included some olive oil and red wine (which might also explain the uninterrupted hairline that runs from my eyebrows down to my ankles). i was not a tourist, i was *italian*. but i digress.

the real strength of of my european roots didn't get driven home until i moved to work in the united states. i was constantly aware of the fact that to my new colleagues i was a foreigner. not because i was canadian, eh, but because i came from europe. the cultural differences were cast into sharp relief, and i was happy to come back to canada. the damage had been done, however, and in the following years i felt as though i was becoming increasingly distant from my countrymen (i am, after all, first and foremost a canadian). canada and i were growing apart. many of the typically canadian characteristics really started to grate on me, and i was compelled to do something. i looked into a trial separation, but that kind of thing is really hard to do with a country. and let's face it, the only people who benefit are the lawyers. no, it had to be a clean break. i've always believed in clean breaks and i'm pretty good at it, even if i have to say so myself. none of this picking-away-at-the-bandage for me, no sir, just grip it and rip it.

as a quick aside, more than anything else it was the utterly ignorant apathy that canadians have adopted that drove me crazy. canadians are rapidly becoming the stereotypical americans that they loved to smugly and self-righteously parody in the 1980's and 1990's.

so early last summer crunky and i decided that we'd had enough of all this talk about moving to europe, and we set 30 september as the date by which we would either decide to move to europe or forget about it and recommit ourselves to life in canada. and so the Heavy Thinking began.

one evening in late july i had occasion to talk to my youngest brother about his experiences in europe. he had just returned from a year of teaching in poland, and i sensed a real wistfulness in his voice. i think he would have loved to stay in europe. on that drive home, sitting in the car by myself looking at the best that southern ontario has to offer - north york, scarborough, pickering, ajax, whitby - i wondered to myself if there could be a less attractive place on earth, and why i had chosen to live there.

when i got home i told crunky that i didn't need to wait until 30 september, that i'd made my decision. she said that she had as well, and in another of the strange but fortunate events that dot my life it turned out that we had reached the same decision. we would go. before i went to bed i posted my resume onto a number of european websites, and crossing both fingers and toes i fell asleep.

the next morning i was awoken to the alarm of my blackberry, and as i shut it off i peered into the screen to see what emails had come in during the night. what's this? people are interested in me already? i can have a phone call tomorrow? sweet.

suffice it to say that things worked themselves out from then on. there were lots of iffy moments along the way, those gut-wrenching periods when you wonder if you really should have told everyone that you were going because now maybe you're not and boy are you going to look stupid in front of your friends and will you have to give the going-away presents back and by the way boss can we forget that whole resignation letter thingy because i might not be needing it right at this minute hold the phone i'm going wheeeeeeeeee.

and then i got off the plane and here i was. i mean here i am. ta-da.

aren't you jealous?

working in europe

2008-05-06T12:53:00.004+02:00

i currently have the same employer here in the netherlands as i had in canada, although that is as much coincidence as anything else. i tossed my resume up on some job sites last year, and the european office of my employer was the first to bite. i couldn't use internal connections do look for a transfer, because "we don't do that anymore". cutbacks and all, you understand.

i was initially being interviewed for opportunities in belgium, but was thankfully given the chance to cover most of europe if i was willing to be based in amsterdam. that was not a tough decision, i tell you. what? you want me, a former dutchie, to go and live in the world's biggest village, with all of the cafes and canals and red light districts? instead of living in brussels where people think excitement comes from ironing your shirts without using starch? uh, i'll get back to you...

anyway, it turned out to be the same company, an international information technology consultancy. we're like the starbucks of information technology. we're on every corner. and only slightly more expensive. it's a great company to work for though, it really is, and i'm delighted to be here for the third time. yeah, i've quit twice and been hired thrice. i must really like it to keep coming back. when the local company president welcomed me to amsterdam he shook my hand three times, once for each time that i enjoyed. amusingly he does the same thing every time i see him. he is very personable.

but the working culture here is so different from north america as to make it seem like it's a different country. which it is. different in good ways, all of them. well, most of them.

for starters, the environment here is far more professional. in communications they are still old-world, with telephony or face-to-face meetings being the preference. this adds a personal element that i have only now begun to realize is missing in north america. email is used to confirm the results of meetings and conversations, and instant messaging is still relatively uncommon. the dress code is very much business *formal*, with suit jackets being mandatory and ties being optional only on fridays. i like this too, because it subtly changes the dynamic to one that is more respectful. and to paraphrase an old punchline, if i look important, i feel important. maybe i'm just conventional or traditional, but i think that this environment suits me. while i'm still on the subject of suits, i have noted that *everyone* wears single-breasted suits. i seem to have been overly-successful in preparing for this past winter's hibernation, and all of my "fat" suits are double-breasted. people pretend not to notice, but i'm pretty sure they're all staring at me behind my back. damned hypercritical dutchies.

there are some drawbacks to working here, of course. blackberries are almost non-existent, for example. when i found that out, well, let me just say that i don't care what the manufacturer says, shirts are not wrinkle-resistant if you huddle in fetal position long enough. actually, it might say as much in the fine print; i'll have to check. office humour is much more subtle and much more gentle here, so i occasionally miss the completely whacked-out zaniness of some previous jobs that i've had. the entertainment potential of rare-earth magnets is not to be underestimated, and that's all i'll say about that.

i think that people work harder here as well. not necessarily longer, but definitely harder. they seem to take their jobs more seriously, and there's a commensurate expectation that others will do the same. i'm sure that i can live up to it.

fortunately for me english is a perfectly workable language here. the last time i spoke real dutch i was in the first grade, and i'm quite certain that i still speak like a 5 year-old boy. my job, in a nutshell, is to help governments and other public sector organizations to Do Better. i consider it to be entirely self-serving, because i'm really trying to make sure that they spend my tax dollars effectively. but whatever the reason, that's what i do. to do that kind of work with the government in the netherlands, however, i have to be fluent in dutch. which, as i may have mentioned, i am not. if we include all of those words that i'm not allowed to say in public but which i remember from being a five year-old boy with a penchant for colouring the air, i probably have a vocabulary approaching 1000 words. now because you can't just string words together meaninglessly, or at least you shouldn't if you are wearing a nice suit, effectively it means that i can order a coffee, pay for my lunch, and answer my phone. and cuss out rude, arrogant and dangerous drivers from other countries. valuable life skills, all of them, but not so useful in the government setting.

so my client list right now is restricted to those organizations that represent the european union, because they have all agreed to standardise on english, which is mind-bogglingly bizarre given that the uk is the country least willing to Play Nice with the others. sadly that is not the most bizarre thing about the eu. we will save *that* topic for another post.

how do i like working in the netherlands? i get to look important, have civil conversations with my colleagues in english, and i have the same vacation allotment as i would have after working 55 years in north america. what's not to like?

driving in the netherlands, in which the author learns the value of patience

2008-05-05T12:06:00.004+02:00

"I have driven on every continent for an extended amount of time in each place, spedning (sic) the most time in Australia and UK/Europe, and i can say without a shadow of a doubt no matter how crazy the Italians are with their speeds and hanbrake (sic) turns, the dutch with their deffo (?) need to outlow (perhaps outlaw?) the car and stick with bikes"

"I agree that Americans, on average, are bad drivers, but the Dutch on German autobahns have got to be the most dangerous."

the dutch are not bad drivers. despite what other people say, dutch drivers are neither rude nor arrogant nor dangerous. they are pragmatic (in driving as in everything else) and skilled, though you need to understand the dutch to understand their driving. in this matter they are not much different from the italians, who i maintain are the most enjoyable people to drive with in the world.

see, it's like this: rules of the road exist for a reason. they exist to ensure the safe and orderly transit of goods and persons. road rules ensure that cars (and bicycles and trucks and motorcycles) share limited road space with the lowest possible injury to life. we all accept that. no argument.

let's look at lane markings for an example. ostensibly the white (or yellow) line in the middle of the road indicates which side of road a driver is supposed to be on (nb: for most of us it's the right side). this white (or yellow) line ensures that when you are driving in your car another vehicle approaching from the opposite direction can safely pass by. so that's the purpose of the white (or yellow) line.

now let's be pragmatic (read: dutch, or "capricious" in the case of italians) for a moment. if there's no oncoming traffic, why worry about which side of the road you're on? doesn't it make more sense to take full advantage of all the tarmac that your tax dollars have paid for? why worry about a problem that doesn't yet exist? when taking a sharp corner at high speed does it make sense to deprive yourself of the joys of clipping the apex just because some civil servant has decided that a white (or yellow) line should serve as an impenetrable barrier? it's lunacy. are we men, or are we mice? should we blindly follow a rule that has no immediate applicability?

to look at it from another perspective, think of the highway traffic act as a prophylactic. it prevents injury. well, so do prophylactic condoms (in some round-about way), but we don't go about wearing condoms all the time do we? no, we only wear them when we need them. and so should it be with road rules. the dutch enjoy driving, and pay exactly as much attention as is required for any given moment.

and i don't understand how people could develop a bad impression of dutch drivers anyway. we barely ever move in this country. it's not just that the traffic congestion is bad, because i've driven in locations where the congestion is worse (think of toronto at 14:00 on the friday afternoon of a long week-end in the summer. it makes rush hour in los angeles look like a school parking lot in july. by which i mean empty. desolate, except for the poor fat kid kicking the soccer ball against the school wall because no one will play with him). the problem here is that the traffic is *everywhere*. if you go to the most remote part of the country at any time during the day you'd better watch out for frustrated dutchmen creeping down laneways, studiously ignoring the white (or yellow) lane markings. it's that bad.

i live 15km outside of amsterdam. if i leave for work at 06:00 it takes me 11 minutes to get to my office inside amsterdam. if i leave at 07:00, it takes 35 minutes. if i leave at 8:00 it takes over an hour. if i leave at 9:00, i don't. i go back to bed and try again the next day.

from my childhood days in the netherlands i remember a whole host of those words that little boys aren't supposed to know but gleefully sing at the top of their lungs while sitting on the fence in the neighbour's yard when they think their parents are out shopping but aren't really and instead are readying the facecloth with sunlight(tm) soap for the dreaded mouth-washing-out. hypothetically speaking. words like stront (shit), klootzak (scrotum, or nutsack), godverdomme (goddamn) and the vaguely arthurian aarsridder (ass knight). to my mind, coming back to the netherlands as an adult, the worst word in the entire (very colourful) dutch language is actually file. i weep like a child with a full diaper and a broken tonka(tm) truck when i hear that word on the radio mentioned in conjunction with the a4 "expressway".

i drove to zwolle to visit my aunt a couple of weeks ago. i set out at 08:00 and it took me an hour to get there. i left at noon to come home and it took me just over three hours. but i didn't see any rude, arrogant or dangerous drivers.

so there. aarsridders.

where am i?

2008-05-04T16:16:00.011+02:00

picture an existential universe, where everyplace has a yellow dot that says "you are here". that's where i am. more specifically, though, i am here. right now it is only i who live here, in this apartment that is, because crunky has yet to join me. we hope she will be enroute shortly, after which you will have to replace the '"i"'s with "we"'s.

why haarlem? it was a funny thing. haarlem was nowhere on the list of candidates when i started looking for a home, but was suggested when a couple of guys at work were arguing over where i should be. when i heard "haarlem" it immediately tickled my funny bone that i could tell people i lived in haarlem. a white guy like me.

innocent bystander: "where do you live?"
me: "why, i live in haarlem."
ib: "oh my, but isn't harlem dangerous for a white guy like you?"
me: "not that harlem, silly goose."

chuckle

i live in a very beautiful, very old building on the edge of a canal. from the living floor i look out 10ft high windows onto the kanaal (you can see my building in the photo) to the left, and the grand old kerk of haarlem on the right. if i turn right from the huge front door it takes me about 300 metres to reach the grote markt, where every tuesday and saturday we have farmers' markets. if i turn left when i exit the building i am 400m from the train station and on my way to amsterdam, or den haag, or any one of countless other destinations.

the farmers' markets are weird and wonderful spectacles. the entire centrum of the city is filled with vendors who are aligned by rubriek. down one alley you will find the cheese sellers, another has the butchers. turn a corner and you'll be in the fish section; walk a bit further and you'll be surrounded by baked goods. the flowers and plants area smells particularly nice, as does the fruits and vegetables plaza. if you're truly adventurous you will soon find the "tube sock grotto", "leather goods lane", and my favourite, the "underwear cul-de-sac".

it's not all limburger and roses though. what is tremendously important to note, and is of eye-watering importance to immigrants and travellers alike, is that the market is only enjoyable in the morning. if you wait too long, especially on a warm day, the redolence of the air is, well, redolent with bad smells. the cheese sellers' area smells like sweat socks and the sock grotto smells like cheese. the butchers' section smells like death, strolling through the flowers and plants area is like plunging your face into a fresh cow patty, the smell of the leathergoods reminds you that leather really does come from animals not noted for hygiene, and the fish, oh, don't even get me started on the fish. oddly, the underwear cul-de-sac smells like popcorn. for a few hours on saturday afternoons the city has the fragrance of a particularly flatulent cow. a cow that has gorged on brussel sprouts and asparagus. mouldy asparagus.

fortunately the winds soon dissipate the smog out over the hardy fitness-fanatics trekking through the dunes by the sea. have i mentioned the winds? but before i digress...

the apartment is spread across two floors. on the living floor, the third floor in the building (or fourth for those of you living in north america), we have a utility/laundry room, a large bathroom, and the kitchen. the living/dining area takes up the rest of the space and is of a prodigious size. i suspect that my income for the next few months will go to furnishing this place.

Upstairs we have the - actually, i should pause here. most people are aware that stairs in the netherlands are contrived to keep population growth in check by weeding out those dutchies who cannot balance on their toes, but it really is ridiculous. i get cramps in my legs trying to climb these things. a step ladder would be easier. i don't understand how the tallest people in the world can have the smallest stairs. i've never really looked, but it is distinctly possible that the dutch have really small feet. and no toes. which might explain why they bike everywhere - they cannot stay upright on their impossibly small feet. i will investigate further... anyway, i'm sure that i am days away from a catastrophic tumble down, or even up my stairs.

so, upstairs (if we make it)(mental note: get guests to sign waivers regarding the staircase)(or insist on proof of health insurance) there is a very nice and large loft that overlooks the living room. this is where i will put guests so that i can watch them wake up in the morning as i sit on the sofa with my coffee and newspaper at 05:30. beside the loft is a *really* large bathroom with a whirlpool tub and a standalone shower. from there we are into the master bedroom and its balcony. the balcony looks west out to the sand dunes and bloemendal/overveen (the beverley hills of the netherlands. no kidding. seriously. and they call it that for good reason). the bedroom also features a really large walk-in closet. it's almost big enough to call it a bedroom for clothes. in fact, in traditional dutch homes this might be where they put the kid most likely to fall down (or up) the stairs.

so that's it, the virtual tour of my new home. my frank and biased opinion: it's frickin' amazing. how i got so lucky as to get a beautiful apartment in the best city in the netherlands is beyond me.

rolling with the buffalo

2008-05-03T22:13:00.010+02:00

wanting to be perceived as an echte kaaskop (genuine cheesehead, as the belgians refer to us) as quickly as possible i have procured for my recreational use a bicycle. i have bicycles which will soon be enroute from toronto, but what i needed was a traditional dutch bicycle.

after browsing the internet for a few days (there's nothing wrong with being an informed consumer) i settled on an opafiets. my gender bias prevented me from getting a bike with a step-through frame, though many men ride them here (and they all seem to have moustaches and well-manicured hands. i'm just sayin'...). anyway, i settled on the -appropriately named - buffalo from fietsmaster.nl. manly, eh? and with the dubbelstang crossbars. oooh yeah.

of course no self-respecting dutchie would ride without a nifty set of saddlebags, so i've added those as well. i read somewhere that there are 750,000 bicycles in amsterdam, and over a million are stolen every year, so i invested in a couple of good locks to protect the buffalo.

the biking itself is a bit of an experience. inside the city, where i live, the bike is perfect. smooth, stable, a little bit pretty, and highly functional. i feel good riding it, and i probably look quite good too. it's not such a rosy story outside of the city though...

to wit: today i decided to ride from haarlem to amsterdam, a total of some 75km round-trip. one thing that is distinctive about dutch bicycles is that they force you to sit straight up, like a ram-rod-spined british soldier. in the city, at 15kph and with no wind to speak of there is no real problem with this. out on the bike paths in the middle of farmers' fields, however, the lack of aerodynamic efficiency is somewhat vexing. the difficulty is compounded by the fact that i am larger than the average dutchie. not taller, mind you, not at all but, well, larger. befitting my farming heritage i have a very large frame, and sitting straight up in the wind in the middle of farmers' fields i function much as does a wind-break. as i struggled to punch a hole in the wind i noticed that birds and other small animals were getting caught in the vortex i left behind me. overtaking cyclists were pausing behind me to enjoy the slipstream. one spandex-clad fellow cyclist even commented on the fact that he hardly had to pedal while following me. you are welcome, by the way, in case you couldn't hear me over the roaring wind.

the net of all this tilting-at-windmills was that i arrived in amsterdam very red-faced and huffing for breath. this was made more notable by the fact that none of the other cyclists in the city looked even remotely winded. at one stop light i saw a passenger looking at me with obvious concern, so i turned right and pedalled off before she could roll down the window and ask if i needed help. after a cool-down lap of the city i stopped for coffee and water to prepare for the ride home. as i sat on the sidewalk enjoying the evening sunshine i contemplated the fact that at least the ride home would be easier, what with the tailwind and everything.

what i had not counted on was the fact that the wind in the netherlands blows from all directions. simultaneously. no matter which direction you face, you have a headwind. it must make sailing terribly difficult, though it explains why i have seen so many sailboats on improbably small bodies of water - if you're not going to get anywhere anyway, who cares how big the lake is? they still have the benefit of being on the water and having the wind in their hair, and all without the trouble of tacking and jibbing and all that other complicated stuff. but i digress.

so the ride back to haarlem was Not Much Fun, although it was marginally easier than the ride out. and i had the pleasure of seeing another spandex-wonder racing down the bike path on his $x.000,00 carbon fibre road machine with a grinning young girl of 11 or 12 years leisurely cycling along behind him on her barbie-bike, basket and all, matching him stroke for stroke. it almost made everything worthwhile, and all was right with the world until i made the last turn for home. somewhere i'd gone wrong, and i ended up in front of the *only* hill in the country. and it was unpaved.

i've always had a bit of a problem with turning around or retracing my steps and cannot stomach the idea of travelling a longer distance than is necessary for a trip, so i sighed, took a couple of deep breaths, stood up on my pedals and began the almighty cranking needed to get the 45lb buffalo up the hill. i say began, because that was as much as i could accomplish. see, handlebars on dutch bikes are set really far back so that you don't have to reach from your on-no-i-couldn't-bear-to-bend-over-and-pick-that-up riding position. on the first of my almighty pedal strokes i caught my knee on the handlebar and came to an abrupt stop.

rolling out from my under my bicycle i paused only to brush the gravel from my pants and move my kneecap from my hip back to its rightful place before jumping to my feet. i furtively looked around and, seeing no one, collapsed back into the grass in a state of serious discomfort. within minutes i was able to get back on my feet and limp the buffalo to the top of the hill. at least it was downhill from there, and much to my relief i was able to coast all the way back into town.

yes, the buffalo and i, we have much bonding left to do...

koninginnedag

2008-05-03T09:50:00.002+02:00

wednesday was koninginnedag in the netherlands, the queen's birthday. it's the biggest celebration of the year for the dutch and they go all out to show their love for the monarch. i thought it only appropriate that since this was my first koninginnedag (well, the first in 30 years) i should go into amsterdam and celebrate as a true dutchie. amsterdam (aka the largest village in the world) almost doubles in size for the party, and if everyone else was going, well...

key words: "crowds", "orange", "beer", "garbage", "electronica", "yard sale" and "urine"

after cleaning and polishing my camera gear i caught the lunch-time train into centraal station. not bad. 15 minutes and 3,80euros for a round-trip ticket. the train was standing-room only and at the one stop it makes (sloterdijk) the prospective passengers on the platform could only look upon us with envy as there was no room for them to board. at least i think it was envy. they may just have been squinting to see through the steamy windows to figure out what exactly was going on in the train that caused the windows to steam up, and maybe they would rather wait for the next train, thank you very much, because it might be less mysteriously steamy.

we disembarked in amsterdam and it took almost 20 minutes to exit the station. the train station is not so large that it warrants a 20-minute departure, but that was my second indicator that it would be a busy day (the first being, of course, the standing-room-only train car). for 1200 seconds, give or take a few, i was gently transported along the scenic route through the station by the crowd of people who were my best friends for the day. occasionally i would see an opening in the crowd that i could pass through, but instead stood gaping at the wonderment of it all and missed my opportunities. of course i eventually made my way out onto the street and broke free of the swarm to catch my breath. the sight was remarkable; the entire dam area was a sea of orange streaming through the streets and alleyways into the city. having composed myself i eagerly plunged back into the mass.

the second revelation: orange. the adopted colour of the dutch in recognition of william of orange (a german) and the house of orange who helped the dutch escape spanish rule during the 80 years' war (wikipedia is somewhat vague on this, but to accomplish this feat i suspect that it must have been a pretty big house)(or maybe it wasn't and that's why it took 80 years). william of orange was also known as "william the silent", but the dutch chose to ignore this fact because being silent is not nearly so much fun as being orange, which clearly is very much fun.

i had a fixed target in mind for the day, which was to head for the rembrandtplein where my favourite new radio station was playing host to a number of the best dj's in the world. an hour later i was slightly dismayed to find out that i was not, in fact, going to the rembrandplein but instead to the museumplein. it was also nice, and for a moment i was glad to have cause to pause. the heady fumes of beer which permeated the crowd had temporarily disoriented me and while i recovered i took stock of my unexpected destination.

my third and fourth revelations: in addition to "crowds" and "orange" i saw "garbage", and "beer", and lots of it. to be truthful i did not see very much beer. what i saw was the remnants of beer, mostly in the form of various beer containers - cartons, cans, cups, kegs, and the glass shards of what i assume were bottles. my knees weakened slightly at the thought of what the evening would bring if so much beer had already been consumed at lunch. i lived in detroit for some time and so do not scare easily, but i was clearly in foreign territory here.

there were some bands playing on the museumplein, but it was not my scene so i gathered up my resolve and steadied my knees for the trek out to the rembrandtplein. i briefly considered calling my aunt and leaving my last will and testament on her answering machine, but quickly dismissed that thought as being overly-alarmist. and i remembered that she did not have an answering machine.

my fifth revelation: "electronica". there was dance music everywhere. dance music must be the folk music of the dutch. the whump whump whump of bass was everywhere, and if amsterdam wasn't dancing then it was being carpet-bombed.

anyway, the journey turned out to be much easier than i had feared and i quickly made my way towards the slamfm.nl tent, following the sublime sounds of whump whump whump bass that might have jarred the cobblestones loose from the street. at least i think that's the reason so many of us were stumbling. within a few minutes i was at the concertgebouw. strangely, it was not the rembrandtplein. i was closer, but not yet at my destination. i turned and made my way back upstream like a migrating turbot eager to spawn and somehow acquired a purple cowboy hat bespeckled with glitter and various sizes and shapes of promotional stickers that clung tenaciously to my clothes. ducking into an alley i paused for the international traveller's sign of the cross -spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch. i was still in one piece.

did i mention the yard sales? revelation six: yard sales. the dutch have equated the queen's birthday with celebration, and celebration equals "orange" + "beer" + "garbage" + "electronica" + "yard sale". koninginnedag is the one day of the year where any dutchie can sell anything without paying taxes or answering unpleasant questions about whether they have a license for all of those drugs and beer, or why they think someone would be interested in buying those used paper plates, broken skateboards, dirty underwear or fine china. actually, the fine china makes sense. very little else did.

from the alley i could see the rembrandtplein, and now with even more determination i set off. within seconds i had finally reached my destination to find... folk music. dutch folk music, in fact. dutch folk music which in no way resembled the electronica that i had previously concluded must be the folk music of the dutch. there are many types of folk music, of course, and some people are avid listeners of american folk, or polish polkas, or germano-austrian folk, but not so many people are familiar with dutch folk music. probably because it's not very good. quite terrible in fact. but its sheer and utter absence of musical value did not bother the (primarily young and otherwise rather hip-looking) congregation who devotedly sang along with the "artists" on stage. i can now categorically and sadly refute the statement that you can make up for a lack of talent with a surfeit of enthusiasm. it's just not so.

recalibrating my assessment of my new countrymen i stood to the side and watched the party. my lack of orangeness seemed to offend my fellow partiers and i was quickly offered - nay forced to accept - an orange wig (which fit somewhat uncomfortably atop the purple cowboy hat), an orange pitchfork (a pitchfork?!?) and an orange boa. feeling now much more conspicuous i shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot as the celebration continued. a crowd of young women approached me and asked me a question. regrettably i could not hear them and mutely stared back. more regrettable was that the question appears to have been "say something, anything, if you do not want us to paint your face orange!", and i puckered perceptibly as the women reached into their bags and brought forth jars of paint. i think i even gather up some underwear in my clenching. minutes later it was all over and i had become really, truly dutch. they had in fact been gentle and the only discomfort was the faint whiff of zinc that drifted up through my nostrils.

emerging from my stunned silence i was quite pleased to hear that the music had changed, and that the dance party was beginning in earnest. i resolved to join in. delicately removing my wedgie i entered the fray.

when i eventually popped out of the day's second steaming pit of humanity i was shocked to discover that it was dark. quite dark. spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch - holy cow, it was after midnight! i started out for the train station to make my way home pausing only to make use of a set of urinals that had conveniently been placed in the middle of a street. quite literally in the middle of the street, without doors for privacy. of course the doors would have looked silly given that there were no walls for them to enclose. having been without dignity for hours already (the cowboy hat was still on my head, but the wig was now more appropriately underneath it) i unzipped and stood in front of a urinal.

revelation seven: urine. as it turned out my use of the urinal was simply due to prudish tendencies and my countrymen clearly felt no such constraints. with dismay i realized that the streets were not wet from a bizarre rainstorm that had fallen only on the cobblestones, but were instead saturated with the run-off from the trees, buildings, cars, bicycles and dogs that people were using for toilets. the sight of an attractive young woman covered in orange paint dropping trouser and squatting in the corner of a building was less amusing than i would have thought, and the squelching of my shoes became increasingly distasteful to me. my nose wrinkled at the thought that the unpleasant smell of stale beer was actually the unpleasant smell of stale, pre-digested beer.

off i set again, but this time i was distracted by the sounds of disco wafting over the buildings and i wandered into the middle of an impromptu pride parade occurring along the prinsengracht canal. i paused only to wonder at how there could be simultaneously too much leather (in terms of the number of outfits) and too little leather (in terms of the individual outfits themselves). i turned on my (squelching) heel and headed towards the oudekerk which was my waypoint to centraal station. walking past het walletjes, the red light district, i was greatly entertained by the sight of the working women entirely clad in orange body paint. actually it was the sight of their abashed customers emerging from the windowed rooms with streaks of orange on their faces and hands that really amused me.

the crowds at centraal station had diminished by the time i reached it, and the ride home was far more luxurious than had been the ride into amsterdam, though certainly no less steamy and now ripe with the smell of beersweat.

after a quick shower i fell into (the conveniently unmade) bed and decided not to wake up until noon the next day. my 24 hours of koninginnedag ended with one final unplanned event, however. knowing that i was very dehydrated i had tossed back a couple of glasses of water before falling asleep, and i left a full glass on the windowsill beside me in case i awoke during the night. rather a bad decision, since the glass turned out to be the reason i awoke during the night when a strong gust of wind moved the blinds with sufficient force to upturn the glass (which, as may have been mentioned before, was full) onto my face. waking with my eyes, nose, mouth, and ears full of water and a smarting bump on my forehead where the glass had landed i contemplated the sanity of my decision to move to the netherlands before sighing and dropping my head back on the soggy pillow to sleep off the headache. tomorrow would be another day...