What have I been doing with myself?

Friday night G. (my cousin) and I stayed at his friend M.'s, I in the spare bedroom and he on the carpeted floor. He insists that he prefers it. Around 5:30AM, after watching Napoleon Dynamite again, this time with Y. (transexual) and M. and R. (both boys who used to work upstairs from the 7th Heaven Coffee Shop at the Blue Boy club, both now defunct) I stumbled up to bed. Y. helped get the room ready for me and pulled a wig out for me to try on while I waited. Long, fuzzy, chocolate isn't me, although she swore it brought out my eyes.

The next morning, G. took me to his apartment. It's temporarily full of boxes and bags of stuff, wood, tools, etc. His windows have faded blue sheets attached to nails for curtains, the middle one with brown stains. The bathroom is a tiled closet with a toilet. The kitchen looks over muddy rooftops and out onto a balcony housing 3 bicycles at various angles and stacks of 2x4's. In contrast, his landlords' (A. and E.) place is straight out of any home decorating/remodeling magazine: airy, bright, colorful, clean, new. It's like coming up out of the dungeon when entering their 2 story apartment. A. is a carpenter who has slowly bought out the other tenants in this building. He's fully redone his place, but hasn't quite made it down to the rest of the building, yet.

While G. was out for the day, I went by the Albert Heijn (grocery store) and bought orange cleaner, bathroom cleaner, rubber gloves, and sponges. He's been so preoccupied with more important things that maintaining his living space hasn't been high on the list. Saturday I cleaned the kitchen.

That night, G. and I went to the Chocolata, as usual so that he could help close. Ap. was there with his dogs. Ru. wasn't there, but she'd left her dog tied to the stair column while she went to a birthday party a block away. R. came in and walked Ru.'s dog for her and told us the last bits he needed to do before leaving for Canada on Sunday. M. came in imploring us to go to the before mentioned birthday party. G. and I had been over there already and most everyone was drunk at 10PM, so we didn't stick around. Y., who came and sat outside with M. and N. commanded me to sit next to her, which I did.

By the end of the night, G. and I were both exhausted. I had cleaned all day on only 4 hours of sleep and he just runs himself ragged. He stayed at M.'s again and I stayed at his place.

Sunday morning I went to buy breakfast and more cleaning supplies but grocery stores are closed on Sundays, apparently. You can buy human contact but not cereal on Sunday in Amsterdam. I made do with what I'd bought the day before and cleaned the bathroom.

We took G.'s bicycle to Chocolata this time. The Dutch live on their bicycles. As my cousin put it, "They're born on bicycles, go to school on bicycles, have sex on bicycles, have babies on bicycles, move apartments on bicycles, take the whole family out on one bicycle... They don't stop riding until they're dead." Every street in the city has a dedicated bicycle lane, that's usually it's own separate path. Anyway, there's a way of riding sideways on the back basket-holder that looks simple enough, but actually requires the passenger to run, hop, and sit while the bicycle is moving, because otherwise the driver wouldn't be able to get going. It was yet another great way to see the city at night, if the least comfortable and most precarious.

Sunday night, A. and E. graciously let me stay in their spare room so that G. could sleep at home. The makeshift bed (two chair cushions on the floor with sheets and a comforter) was cozy, if a bit short, but the mosquitoes would not leave me be. I have over 30 bites at the moment, more than I've had since living in Cottage Grove, probably. They're nearly silent, invisible, and thirsty.

Monday I slept nearly all day. My body was heavy and achy, I was exhausted and had a slight fever, too. So I slept until about 6:00PM. Then I had tea and read 1984, again. I had completely forgotten all the torture parts.

And today, feeling so much better, I went to the Stedelijk Museum. Eh. It was okay, but E. loaned me her museum card, so I'm glad I didn't pay for it. I also went to the NEMO, the only Renzo Piano building I've been to so far, or that I remember as his, anyway. Although, I did walk by the Building Workshop in Paris, by accident. The stadium roof has a stream that cascades down the steps. I was videotaping a couple of kids playing in it, when the little boy stops and pees downhill into the water and then continues running downstream, his older sister close behind. That so made me think of John. :)

I stopped by the ARCAM building because it was right there. There happened to be an exhibit about architects traveling to see buildings. That was mildly appropriate, except that the often obsessive documentation of their visits put me off. I'm not that interested in buildings alone.

Soon I'll head to the Chocolata to hang out and drink tea. There's a nice pattern to the days here, but I'm getting restless. I've been here a week: I need to start working on something or for someone or I need to go elsewhere. Hmmm...I could pick an independent study topic and research it this next week. Maybe I'll do that.