Category: Journal

So, four months after his not-guilty verdict, Michael is summoned for jury duty.

I was really tired, but I went out with my brother, who came to visit me here in Amsterdam. We had burgers at the Marriot – I would’ve taken him to the Hard Rock Café, if only for the nachos they have there, but they had a 45 minute waiting list. Fuck that noise. – and afterwards we hung around the Leidseplein, checking out the street performers. Naked Trapese Guy was there, doing his trapese act in nothing more than a thong. My brother was equally impressed and disgusted. The guy really does some amazing things, too bad he’s really old, not very good looking and…naked!

We went to Boom Chicago’s new show “Bite the Bullet,” which showed some risqué improve jokes about the dangerous world we live in today. My favourite was the song the Intellectual was singing to the bickering Palestinian and Jew at the busstop, entitled “If You Believe in Jehova or Allah You’re a Fucking Retard.” Improv comedy relies a lot on audience participation…well, at least it does with them, and sadly the audience was a little shy (and the meek shall inherit the earth!), which was a shame.

Afterwards we marvelled at the art of Ball Guy, before walking home. There we watched Ocean’s Eleven. I was so damned tired when I finally crashed.

Two days before I was going to India I wanted to go to Kung Fu. I couldn’t find my car keys. I searched everywhere, since I knew I had used them on the Friday previous, also to go to Kung Fu. I looked everywhere. The last place I hadn’t looked was at work, though I was fairly certain I hadn’t taken them there. So today, I finally get a chance to search at work, and nothing. I’m going to have one more look around my apartment this weekend before asking the Honda dealer to come and pick up my car. You see, I have a spare key, just not the thinger I use for my car alarm, and without that the car won’t start. :(

About once a year I get ill and usually it’s not so bad that I don’t have the heart to go to work. Today, it’s the fourth day that I’m ill, and it’s the third day I’m not going to work because of it. I feel incredibly guilty even though I know that I shouldn’t, for fear of contaminating my colleagues with my cold.

My brother is ill, too. And my mother has just gotten over her cold. Aparently it’s going around and I’m not the only one. I keep wondering what a flu epidemic like this one would cost the country of the Netherlands in lost revenue.

I came back from my trip to India yesterday, and I have a lot of thoughts that I would like to type out. India has assaulted my senses and my sensibilities so much that these thoughts shoot in and out of my mind and I can never focus on one thing completely without being dragged off down a different thought, and even that is much like India. While you’re in traffic (the worst traffic I’ve ever been in, by the way) you zoom by some of the most amazing buildings I’ve ever witnessed, and some of the most heart-wrenching scenes of poverty you can imagine. But before you can focus on any of that, you’re already trying to make sure you don’t hit the scooter with three people on it riding in front of you, or making sure the bus full of people – with people on the roof, and hanging off the side – isn’t about to run you off the road. A land of incredible opportunity, as well as incredible limitations. And get this; all the while I was meeting my girlfriend’s parents, getting to know her family (and extended family, and friends, and servants, and friends…oh boy), so I really didn’t even have time to focus on that properly. But luckily, Moulsari’s father is very knowledgable about India, history as well as the different cultures that live and thrive within its borders, and is always willing to talk about it. So I feel I got a crash-course, and it’s slowly sinking in.

I want to thank Mr. and Mrs. Jain, and all their brothers and sisters, Palash, Praachi, Mayank, Gautam, Pooja and Saleem, for making me feel very welcome in a country so far away from – and a family so different than – my own. More as I collect my thoughts.