IAmsterdam

“Do you guys also want to smoke some?”

Yesterday night I saw someone build a makeshift water pipe out of an apple and a water bottle. It’s not even that hard, you just have to kill the apple, drill a hole in it with a pencil, connect the water bottle to it and suck it vacuum, and then burn a hole in the bottom of the water bottle. Hey presto.

You knew I was gonna find myself in this situation sooner or later, didn’t you? Well I did. And I also knew I would say no, which I did. It was the best decision, especially considering I had to travel back home and there was a lot of stupid circumstances with night bus tickets and atms. (Short story: at two am I had made the airport, was very pissed and incredibly annoyed by the way too Dutch people sitting next to me being annoying about how they were gonna organise their car with the suitcases. Dutch people can’t have any reasonable conversations, can they? I couldn’t care less about who’s gonna sit with who and where your stupid suitcases are going to go.)

They were American, the guy was from LA and his girlfriend from Long Island, they had met in Italy and the guy had a wound on his knee from, “oh, yeah, I crashed into a scooter in Sicily”. They were the kind of people everyone would want to be and they thought midnight was the best moment to eat ramen. The problem: the guy had what S the Swedish major described as “the most enthousiastic face ever”, brown hair, brown eyes, and a ton of bracelets covering about half his right arm. As he sat there smoking he reminded me of the Russian so much it hurt.

But they were fun people though. S got more and more annoying the longer the drugs was around, which I’d pretty much expected. Mn the Norwegian major and me were the boring people, but the Indian roommate who came into the kitchen to cook something later on certainly liked us better at that moment. (When S told her it was weed, she said “oh, riiight”, and tapped her on her knee, before disappearing to her room again. I thought that was kind of sweet.)

They were very pro the Eurovision act with the sax player, and I keep forgetting which country that was. They also liked Serbia with Ovo Je Balkan (abbreviated by the five of us to BalkanBalkan!). And everyone liked Greece. The Belgian people on our tv were pretty stoked Belgium was on the second place for so long, and everyone was surprised when Germany eventually won. The song was better in the recorded version, I think, but I still liked it live as well.

Later at the bus stop I told two kids, thirteen maybe, that the bus to Amsterdam Central had just left. They looked way too young to be outside at that time of night. I advised an older man not to travel via the airport if he had to be in Amsterdam Zuid-Oost. A skinhead made contact with me and turned out to be from Vijfhuizen, be kind of okay in conversation and have friendly eyes. Which is pretty much the only marker you can go by to try to determine if someone is nice or not. He told me the night bus was 3,50 (which I barely had), and the bus from Schiphol home was 3,50 again. That later turned out not to be true, which was not his fault, he didn’t have a public transport chipcard like me. Night busses fromt the GVB don’t support them, night busses from Connexxion do. Public transport in Holland is a terrible mess.

“Are you Belgian?”
“Limburgian.”
“Ah, I heard that.” (Um, if I were Belgian I would talk completely differently, friendly skinhead guy.) “So are you here temporarily?”
“Oh, no, I live here.”
“Oh, you just live here. That’s cool.”

The kind of conversation you have when someone has an accent and you know they can’t be placed somewhere around where you’re from. How did I get here though? How on Earth did I make it to a crappy couch on a Saturday night with two friends and two new friends I will never see again, chatting in English, Dutch and Swedish, rating tacky television. “This is awesome. Does everyone in Europe like know what this is?”

The Russian-remembrance is gone as soon as the guy stops blowing smoke into the air and when I come home, there are Finnish and German songs in my Spotify inbox and Finnish on my Facebook wall from a boy who is more sweet and more mature.

On the bus there is chatting and all these different races right next to each other. I might sometimes claim I don’t notice that anymore, but I do. Where I’m from it’s rather unusual to be on a bus and be one of four white people (unless there are between four and six people on the bus). It’s amazing though.

“Are you guys sure you don’t want to smoke something?”

Amsterdam is great.

Lesbian polar bear

“My lights are off, I’m in bed with A and B and almost sleeping. Kram!”
“Who are A and B?” They have real names, I just don’t care for trying to find an English equivalent.
“A is a lesbian polar bear who thinks she’s a cat, and once she sat too close to the stove so she has no face anymore. B calls himself Carrot, and is a ferret. They’re very sweet and I bought them at IKEA.”
“In other words, the three of you are a little weird but also probably kind of cute.” Hey, someone’s gotta take the bold move. I’m up for it. Always am.
“Do you doubt that? :P”
“Well, I’ve never actually met A or B. :P”
“You’ve met A, she’s my second personality. :) And she’s on Facebook as my friend. :)”
“Aww, she’s missing an eye!”
“Well, the eyes are still there, but her face looks like the moon.”
“Good thing someone’s taking good care of her. :)”
“I wish people would take care of me that well.”
“I wouldn’t mind to stick two plasters on your eye, no probs. :P”
“<3″
“Now I am going to brush my teeth. And switch off all technology and sleep, I think.”
“Yeaaaah! And all plugs unplugged? Sleep tight! :)”

I just met a guy who says his second personality is a lesbian polar bear who thinks she’s a cat. Never mind the polar bear/cat part, he says his second personality is a lesbian. How fucking awesome is that.

This post could be used to go into the concept of ‘male lesbian’, but I don’t think this is what he actually meant. He’s the kind of goofy guy who still has stuffed animals and makes up different personas for himself. Nothing more than that. It did, however, bring a huge grin to my face, which was even widened when the “<3″ popped up on my screen.

Can we stop fussing over why I’m falling for a boy again? Can we stop worrying over the general trouble I have with boys? Can we stop complaining to ourselves he’s gonna be 22 in August? Can we also stop saying goodnight three to four times every night? Because I think it’s clear: we don’t like to stop talking to one another.

“I’m reading and I shouldn’t be reading because of the exams and I have to work tomorrow, plus it also kind of makes me want to write my own book now.” One of the many pros of being in the language department. You meet people, boys, who recommend Russian books, English books, Irish books, Norwegian books. And who write things themselves. In M the Meds major’s words: “such an interesting people you know”. Although that was actually a response to me finding out the Russian was going to a Sex and the City party dressed as Miranda. Which, by the way, is also awesome.

Consider me crushing.

Monsoon season

we’ve already established I ran like crazy
we’ve already established I lied to myself
I can’t promise that’ll never happen again
but I dreamt of your kisses tonight

I’m only telling you this because I think
you are one of those few boys who’d understand:
I’m not so sure what to do with all your
guy things and muscles and hair stuff

I spent two years of my life focussing on girls
and then that thing happened you know
so I let boys go because of the facing
I wasn’t ready to face all of this yet

you were right with the red hot chili peppers
I don’t ever wanna feel like I did that day
you know I don’t know what to do with your
smoking and drugs and alcohol either

I know under the bridge is about drugs
sometimes I feel like my only friend
is the city I live in, the city of angels
the words mean differently to you of course

the smoking drugs drinking I don’t care
the guy things made me tremble yes
but the guy things made me melt
just promise to hold me and don’t let go

I’ll trace your muscle like a landscape
I’ll treat your shoulder like a shoulder
I’ll face your stubble like a rainstorm
I’ll let your hands be bigger

if I have to

I dreamt of your kisses tonight and
it’s been months since those dreams
weren’t disguised nightmares so just
help cast it away from the daylight

I’ll face your stubble
like a rainstorm
if I have to
and I’ll make it monsoon season

—-

One of the last remnants of the Russian. I haven’t seen him since I can’t remember when, months ago, and since this post is scheduled for May 27th, assuming he is still taking Linguistics, I will see him again on Wednesday. I don’t know how that will work out. I’m not really nervous now, but I probably will be nervous then. Getting over someone and knowing how to behave around them are two completely seperate concepts.

Happiness on msn.

Me: “There’s something very scary on tv and I have to keep watching because I wanna know how it ends!”
J3: “Oh no! What is it? Eurovision?”
Me: “Something with Paris and caves and the antichrist.” (The movie Catacombs.)
J3: “Hold on, I will watch with you in a few.”

J3: “I wish I had something to eat.”
Me: “Why do you never have anything to eat?”
J3: “I keep forgetting to do groceries. And when I do, I eat too much.”
Me: “Sounds familiar.”
J3: “I could bake bread, but I would have to pause the movie.”
Me: “I need psychological support with this movie.”
J3: “Thought so. I’ll check my fridge instead.”

J3: “His name is not Henry! His name is Henri!” (Girl in movie is American and changes a French name.)
Me: “My thoughts exactly.”
J3: “(I should really learn IPA.)”
Me: “(You should learn how to type IPA, too.)”
J3: “(True.)”

Me: “See how scary this is.”
J3: “Not really. Little locker!” (Girl in movie finds locker to do with the subway.)
Me: “Métro!”
J3: “Jézus!” (Mimicing girl in movie.)
Me: “Aaaaah.” (Girl in movie finds heap of mice.)
J3: “Hihihi.”
Me: “… Are you laughing at me?”
J3: “I was laughing at Victoria. Metro!”
Me: “Ouais!”

J3: “She does have nice shoes. A Saab in that commercial!” (Saab is a Swedish car.)
Me: “I hate that commercial.”
J3: “Yup.”
Me: “I was gonna explain how ‘Women lose interest quickly’ was really insulting, but glad I don’t have to.”
J3: “Oh, but I’m a feminist as well.”

J3 is a boy. This is the first boy to utter these words to me. Ever. Even though he only typed them. I was raised by two people trying to find a way out of the environment where ‘feminist’ was a word that left a bad taste in your mouth. I know how hard that is. And they did a great job, but I still have that environment as the backbone of my experiences. On my mother’s side, I have five uncles who are alpha men. I have four aunts who are women in the most traditional sense of the word. I have two relatively modern uncles, one awesome bisexual aunt, one German aunt who is the best mother I have ever seen. And I love them, but none of the men in my family would ever say they are feminists. None of the boys I know have thought about these issues enough to know what it would mean if they would say it.

Me: “Did you eat anything yet?”
J3: “Nah. I’ll eat something, I’ll never burn it off!”
(Sex commercial at this time of night. This is a recurring thing every night on every commercial channel. I usually flee to public broadcasting or turn off my tv altogether.)
J3: “Right. Time for public broadcasting.”

Carrie Rudzinski – Dear Stranger

This poem is pure love.

I keep seeing you in the faces of boys who look nothing like you
When I’m riding subways
But it’s been worth it every time for the eighth of a second roller coaster ride
My heart gets to go on

We’re not in love yet
But I’m polling for the fact that it could should might
Has to happen

I don’t want the best
I just need what can pull me out of the worst

He and I were the kind of bad dreams worth having.