Sinead O'Connor - Silent Night

Vanessa Carlton - Happy Xmas (War Is Over)

Ella Fitzgerald - Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Amy Grant - O Come All Ye Faithful

Jewel & Trans-Siberian Orchestra - Hark the Herald Angels Sing

Vanessa Carlton - Do You Hear What I Hear

Ray Charles & Betty Carter - Baby It's Cold Outside

John Lennon

1940-1980

I'm sick and tired of hearing things
From uptight, short sighted
Narrow minded hypocrites
All I want is the truth
Just give me some truth

I've had enough of reading things
By neurotic, psychotic
Pigheaded politicians
All I want is the truth
Just give me some truth

No short haired, yellow bellied
Son of Tricky Dicky's
Gonna Mother Hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocket full of hope
Money for dope, money for rope

No short haired, yellow bellied
Son of Tricky Dicky's
Gonna Mother Hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocket full of coke
Money for dope, money for rope

I'm sick to death of seeing things
From tight lipped, condescending
Mama's little chauvinists
All I want is the truth
Just give me some truth

I've had enough of watching scenes
With schizophrenic, egocentric
Paranoiac primadonnas
All I want is the truth
Just give me some truth

No short haired, yellow bellied
Son of Tricky Dicky's
Gonna Mother Hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocket full of soap
It's money for dope, money for rope

I'm sick to death of hearing things
From uptight, short sighted
Narrow minded hypocrites
All I want is the truth
Just give me some truth

I've had enough of reading things
By neurotic, psychotic
Pigheaded politicians
All I want is the truth now
Just give me some truth now

Pearl Harbor

“Yesterday, December 7, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

“The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American island of Oahu, the Japanese ambassador to the United States and his colleagues delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. While this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack.

“It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time, the Japanese government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

“The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.

“Yesterday, the Japanese government also launched an attack against Malaya. Last night, Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong. Last night, Japanese forces attacked Guam. Last night, Japanese forces attacked the Philippine islands. Last night, the Japanese attacked Wake Island. And this morning, the Japanese attacked Midway Island. Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation.

“As commander in chief of the army and navy, I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense. But always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.

“I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.

“Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger. With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God.

“I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.”

--President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 12/8/1941

Pearl Harbor National Memorial

Thanksgiving 2019

This year's Thanksgiving was on November 28. My birthday was a week earlier, which is as far away from Thanksgiving as it ever gets. Sometimes they are both on the same day and we kill two birds with one hand. Or one bush. However the saying goes. Sometimes, like this year, we concentrate on one day and I mostly nap on the other.

My roommates are Canadian. Their Thanksgiving is in October. Nothing about that makes any sense, so we celebrate in November like human beings. At least, when we are all in the same country. Last year I had Thanksgiving dinner at Flaherty's, an Irish pub in Barcelona. It was a pretty good night. They even gave me free chocolate cake because it was my birthday. But I was surrounded by strangers.

When in Hong Kong, we do as the Hongkongers do and go out to some fancy restaurant. A few years ago, we went to Agua Roma, an Italian/Japanese restaurant known more for the city views outside their giant windows than the food. Before that, it was Otto e Mezzo, now called 8 1/2 Otto e Mezzo Bombana, an Italian restaurant with a celebrity Italian chef, and supposedly the only 3 star Michelin Italian restaurant outside of Italy. The food was good, but far from the best Italian food I have ever eaten. I have always thought the best restaurants are the little holes in walls that the Michelin people will never know about.

Sometimes we are all in the same place at the same time, but not in a Thanksgiving mood. In November 2017, I had just gotten out of the hospital, was still adjusting to no sense of smell, and ended a relationship. A party was not on my to do list.

We were all in Hong Kong this Thanksgiving, and in relatively decent health. Technically, I am recovering from a hemorrhagic stroke, but this recovery has been a walk on a cake compared to recovering from the craniotomy. I think the biggest difference, other than brain surgery versus no surgery, is how much of a surprise the craniotomy was. That came out of nowhere. The stroke was a surprise, but always a possibility lurking in the corner. I am also far more confident this time around. The first time you get knocked down, you wonder if you can really get back up again. By the second time, you have done it before, so you know you can sing the songs that remind you of the good times.

I may not be ready to run a marathon just yet, but I can eat dinner with my friends. Rather than go out to an overpriced restaurant filled to the rafters with Chinese people who want to experience an “authentic” Thanksgiving meal of pasta and cereus soup, we decided to make something at home. Past Thanksgivings we hosted had a pretty small guest list. It spiraled out of control this year, for some reason. In a place like Hong Kong, if you invite 10 people, 5 will probably show up. Everyone is busy with work, out of town, or has other plans. Thursdays are not generally free for most. This year, we invited 36 people and 38 showed up. Fortunately, we were prepared.

We don't live in the largest apartment. It is big enough for us, and has a spare bedroom for guests or to store living room furniture. With the sofa and coffee table in the spare bedroom, that really opened up the living room/dining room area. With another table or two, we could have even crammed in more people.

The few times we hosted Thanksgiving, we cooked everything at home. Since we anticipated more guests this year, we ordered out. Almost every restaurant in Hong Kong will deliver, and the few that do not are associated with companies that deliver food for them. Having a restaurant cook your meal and eating it at home is a simple transaction. Unfortunately, we did not particularly care for anyone's Thanksgiving menu.

Plenty of restaurants in Hong Kong cater to Americans and other expats on Thanksgiving. Most of their special menus have something wrong. They are either small, like Main St Deli, or have too much Chinese or European influence, like Posto Pubblico. Our solution was to pick and choose from several different restaurants. Since they all delivered to us, all we had to do was place the orders and pay for everything. The number of separate deliveries never made any difference.

Fini's delivered apple stuffing. Frank's sent us cranberry sauce, honey glazed Brussels sprouts, macaroni and cheese, and buttermilk biscuits. From Limewood, cornbread and pecan pie with a bourbon whipped cream. Corn on the cob, potatoes, green beans, and all the fruit we used to make fruit salad came from the Yau Ma Tei fruit market. There was plenty of other food, but those were the most popular dishes.

When I was a child, Thanksgiving was a feast that would kill you if you ate it every day. No one ever looked at the table and asked about gluten. These days, we have friends who are allergic to this and cannot eat that. One of them would literally die if he ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. To avoid any fatalities in our home, we ordered extra dessert from the Cakery, a bakery that specializes in sugar free, gluten free and vegan desserts. Personally, I think vegan pie is a crime against humanity. Not because pumpkin pie is traditionally made with slabs of beef, but because pie crust without butter is like pasta without olive oil. We ordered a vegan pumpkin pie with tofu whipped cream. I'm not one to mock anyone's dietary restrictions, especially since I have my own, but nothing about vegan pumpkin pie with tofu whipped cream sounds right to me. The good news is that the Cakery makes pies that will never harm anyone. The even better news is that I could not taste a crumb of it.

This was the best Thanksgiving in a long time. Barcelona was a wonderful experience, and the people at Flaherty's could not have been nicer, but Thanksgiving is all about family to me. There's no place like home for the holidays. I think I heard that in a song somewhere. Best of all, when you host dinner in your apartment, you don't have to go anywhere afterward.

Gee, the traffic is terrific.

Car Shopping

Hong Kong, as anyone who has ever set foot off the boat knows, is a giant shopping mall. There are performing arts here and a museum there, but pound for pound, this city has more shopping malls than any place I have ever been. I can walk ten minutes from my apartment and be at a famous night market, a famous street market, a famous produce market, a 1 million square foot shopping mall with over 100 shops, a 15 story mall, a mall with 450 shops and at least 70 restaurants and/or food stalls, and a dozen smaller shopping centers.

In addition to clothes, shoes, electronics, jewelry, toys and umbrellas, people in Hong Kong can buy cars. Why anyone needs a car in Hong Kong is beyond me. The MTR is efficient, reliable and goes everywhere, buses go wherever the MTR does not, and failing everything else, taxis are abundant and dirt cheap. But I have borrowed cars from time to time, so I suppose knowing people who have them is not such a bad thing.

Cars made in China are not generally considered the best in the world. That might be why most of the dealerships sell imports. Most of the cars I see driving around are Japanese – Toyota, Honda, Mazda, Mitsubishi, or German – Audi, BMW, Volkswagen. The British cars tend to be on the more expensive side – Jaguar, Land Rover, Bentley. Luxury cars in general are popular here. I have seen more than a few Italian and French sports cars. Why, I will never know. I understand wanting to go fast, but none of the other cars in Hong Kong will ever allow you to speed from one red light to the next. Imagine how frustrating it would be to drive a Maserati in bumper to bumper traffic. Oddly enough, outside of Ford, I never see any American cars.

One of my friends with a car wanted to buy a new one. The previous one is over ten years old. It still runs perfectly well. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it. In Chinese culture, if you drive an older car, you must be poor. The last thing Chinese people want is for anyone to think they are poor, even if they are. Especially if they are. Keeping up appearances is very important around here. Maybe that is why Mercedes is the second most popular car. You might have to make payments for the next twenty years, but at least complete strangers will think you have money.

The most popular car, according to sales figures, is Toyota. That has less to do with appearance and more with the fact that Toyota makes reliable and affordable cars that will last long after everyone pretends it is time for a new one. My friend likes Toyota, and could never afford a Porsche, so we made an appointment.

I don't know if you have to make an appointment to buy a new car in Hong Kong or if you can simply walk in, but you definitely need an appointment to test drive something. Space is limited and the dealers we went to had enough space for a few cars in the showroom. The cars you actually test drive are parked somewhere away from the dealership. In Hong Kong, Toyota sells at least a dozen different passenger cars, while the showroom only had the top five. Had we gone without an appointment, not only would we not have been able to test drive a Corolla, we would not have even seen one.

Amy wanted a Corolla because it was HK$100,000 cheaper than a Camry. The 20-year-old salesman we dealt with wanted to push the Camry. Amy was adamant about the Corolla. She saw almost no difference between the two cars, other than the price and a few bells and whistles. The salesman really wanted her to buy a Camry. We could understand that. The Camry had a higher price tag, so the salesman would get a higher commission. But we made an appointment to drive a Corolla, so he could not say there was nothing available on the lot. He did talk about the Camry the entire time we looked at the Corolla, though.

I got a weasel vibe from this guy right away. This was a name dealership with nothing but new cars, yet he acted like a used car salesman. It probably did not help that we are both women. This may be 2019, but there are still entirely too many men who think women are decorative. If you are a woman on Earth, you get used to men talking down to you. It gets worse when those men are younger. The salesman was probably more than 20 years old, but he was too young to be selling something as expensive as a car. A major red flag was when he did not want us to look at the engine. Neither of us are auto mechanics. I wanted to take a look anyway. What I don't know about car engines could fill a stadium, but I can tell the difference between an Alfa Romeo and a Yugo.

The biggest road block, other than the salesman's terrible customer service, was that he arranged for the only Corolla on the lot to have a manual transmission. He assured us that all the Camrys were automatic. We knew what he was up to right away. Especially since 90% of new passenger cars sold in Hong Kong are automatics. He rightly assumed that Amy would not be able to drive the stick shift. Why he thought she would just buy a different car because she could not test drive the one she wanted is anyone's guess. Cars are not socks. You don't just get whatever is available if they don't have what you want. The salesman was shocked and dismayed when I said that not only could I drive the car, but I am licensed to do so.

I told Amy everything she wanted to know while I drove the Corolla. The salesman tried to interrupt me at least once every half second, but I never let him. In Chinese culture, a Chinese woman is always supposed to listen to a Chinese man over another woman. But Amy was born after 1800 and we were definitely on the same side.

Traditionally, you sit down with the salesman after a test drive and talk turkey. Even if you don't want to buy the car, it is considered polite to listen to the sales pitch and go through the motions. The salesman tries to talk you into buying a car today and you say you will think about it; both parties knowing that it will never happen. This particular salesman annoyed both of us enough that we did not bother. As soon as the test drive was over, we told him that we were not interested and walked away. There was nothing wrong with the car. Had Amy wanted to buy one, they would have magically found an automatic. But there was no way in hell she was going to buy so much as a key chain from this guy.

A few days later, the salesman called Amy and asked if she had changed her mind. He also tried to sell the Camry yet again. He was such a terrible salesman that she did something you are never supposed to do in Chinese culture. She just came out and told him that she would never buy anything from him under any circumstances because of the way he treated her. He called her again a week later and she told him she was going to call his manager, which she never did, unfortunately, and that she would call the police if he ever called again. He never called after that. Her grandfather would say that the younger generation is out of control. I say everyone should be more blunt around here. The customer should never have to put up with bullshit just because of tradition.

Toyota was out. There are other Toyota dealerships around here, and Amy wanted either a Toyota or a Honda. So Honda was next. I suggested getting a Mini Cooper since they are easy to park, but she wanted to go Japanese.

The Honda salesman was the polar opposite of the Toyota salesman. He was older than us, genuinely polite, not at all condescending, willing to answer questions and, best of all, he had the car Amy booked. The only new Honda for sale that was not an SUV/van or sports car was the Jazz. They have the Civic, but it is a “high performance” version. To me, the Honda Civic is a basic sedan. In Hong Kong, it is more expensive.

When we went to the dealership, not only did they have a Jazz available, as we reserved, but it was an automatic transmission and the salesman never tried to sell Amy anything else. She did not want an SUV or van, which was 65% of what they sold, and even though sports cars make for higher commissions, this salesman seemed to understand that most people do not buy a car that costs three times as much as their first choice.

Amy could drive the Jazz. I also took it around for a spin. It is not the most powerful car in the world, but it handled well on turns and was easy to park. Something I have noticed over the years is how much smaller the windows are getting in cars. When I was a child, there were large windows in every direction. They are getting smaller every year with more safety features. To compensate, newer cars have digital displays on the dashboard. If you cannot see out the back window in reverse, you simply look at the display. I don't like that at all. I want to face the direction I'm driving. Going backward while looking forward seems counterintuitive to me. I should probably get used to it because those windows are only going to get smaller. Pretty soon, there will be nothing but safety walls in every direction and display screens instead of windows.

The Jazz has larger rear windows. It has the dashboard display just like everyone else, but I could actually look out the window while I was backing up. I liked that. Amy did not care. She will adapt to the display right away.

Another thing I noticed was space. Cars in China, whether made in Japan or Europe, always had sparse leg and headroom. I have driven more than a few cars where I had to move the seat back as far as it could go. I am not exactly a basketball player. I can't see Kareem renting an older car in China. With the newer cars, I actually had to move the seat forward. Even the backseat in the Jazz had enough legroom.

Best of all, the Honda Jazz sticker price was HK$20,000 less than the Toyota Corolla.

Now I just need to find an excuse to borrow it.

Halloween 2019

I went to a Halloween party Saturday night. Halloween was actually on Thursday, but Saturday is a much better day for a party. Especially if you want people to show up.

This was my first real Halloween since 2015. I was in Barcelona last year. I had a nice Thanksgiving dinner in Barcelona, but there was no Halloween to be found. I'm sure there was something somewhere, but I never knew about it. Halloween 2017 was a month after the car accident, so no parties for me. I was in Tel Aviv in 2016. They know how to party in Tel Aviv, but it never felt anything like Halloween. They have their own holiday, Purim, which is a lot like Halloween with religious overtones, but that is usually in February/March. The last time I was in Hong Kong and fully functional on Halloween was 2015. I think that was the year I dressed up as Wendy. Lily was Colonel Sanders and Kevin was Ronald McDonald. No one got it. Everyone recognized Ronald, but they were confused by a female colonel and it probably did not help that there is no Wendy's in Hong Kong.

Past parties in Hong Kong were always what I would consider a Halloween party. Everyone dressed in costume, mostly zombies and pirates, or superheroes in later years, and there was a fair amount of alcohol. There is no trick or treating in Hong Kong, but candy is plentiful. This year was different. Almost no one wore a costume, and those who did put no effort into it. One person had a Guy Fawkes mask, even though no one I talked to knew who Guy Fawkes was or why his mask is used during government protests. I don't think they teach British history in Hong Kong schools as much as they used to. They probably think China is more important to Chinese people. Crazy.

Like most of the guests, I wore regular clothes. Just the idea of putting something together and getting dressed up to go somewhere that would be too hot when crowded with people was not appealing to me. October in Hong Kong is practically summer. I also drank much less than at previous parties, in the sense that I drank no alcohol at all. I have never been a fall down drunk, but I have been known to enjoy a drink or two, situationally. No one else got drunk, that I know of. It was all very sophisticated, or at least as sophisticated as a Halloween party on a Saturday night is going to get. I don't know what happened to us. I think somewhere along the line, maybe when all of our backs were turned, we got older. Next year we might be in formal gowns and sipping champagne.

Blog Is a Crazy Word Anyway

Personal blogs died a long time ago. I used to read a few. One by one, they all disappeared. Some made an announcement that they were done. Most simply stopped. Now, it seems like most blogs are businesses. I'm sure Facebook had a lot to do with it. It is easier, you get more comments and, most importantly, you can collect more “friends”. I could go on and on about the Facebook definition of friendship versus mine, but that is not the point of this post.

I don't like Facebook. I never have. It always felt too intrusive to me. Most of my early concerns have since proven to be more accurate than paranoid. But beyond all that, I simply don't like the way Facebook breaks everything down to the lowest common denominator. In a blog, or at least the blogs I used to read, people could get into whatever they wanted to talk about in depth. On Facebook, it is a picture of something no one cares about and a sentence or two. More often than not, a Facebook post is simply some cartoon someone copied from someone else's post. Most of the typing happens in comments and most of the comments are horrible. I never met a sociopath on a blog. It looks like Facebook is littered with them.

Facebook is also highly censored and its rules are enforced arbitrarily. You can say anything you want on a blog, and I have seen pictures that would get a Facebook user banned for life. Even I have posted things that would cross the line on Facebook. And I am the most vanilla person I know.

The point of this particular blog, as far as I know, has always been to document my life in Hong Kong. As hard as it is to believe now, there was a time when I did not live here. Once upon more than a few years ago, Hong Kong was new and exotic to me. Now, it is simply where I live. No place is exotic when you live there long enough. The top news story right now is the big extradition protest. I have posted nothing about it. Protests are so common in Hong Kong, they are pretty easy to ignore, even when news outlets in other parts of the world make it sound like the entire city is on fire. If my health were better, I probably would have gone out into the middle of the action once or twice just to see what all the fuss was about, just like I did during the umbrella movement a few years ago.

Every once in a while, I read a long forgotten post that I wrote years ago. I like the fact that I wrote down something while it was still fresh in my mind, and I realize I should do that more often. The more my brain fails me, the more important it is to record memories. If I were smart, I would write down a little something every day, if only to keep track. But I don't. This blog would be so much better if I updated it every day, or at least once or twice a week. There would be a lot more to look back on. But I have never had that much free time. That might be one reason Facebook is so popular. How long does it take to upload an image and type “lol”? But then, what is the use of reading that post a few years later?

Then there are health issues. I want to document everything while it happens, but I know how tedious it is to read about someone else's medical problems. If I do not want to read something somewhere else, I certainly do not want to read it here. Unless that person is a doctor or nurse. They can often talk about their problems and give useful information at the same time. The rest of us know what we are told. I can go on all day about how to perform a craniotomy, but only from my experience. There are probably a dozen other ways to do it, and some might be better. Medical professionals also have better inside information about staying in hospitals.

I have no intention of shutting this blog down. For now. But I have no strong desire to keep going. I think posts will be infrequent and not necessarily about any particular subject or theme. I was posting some of the dreams I wrote down after the craniotomy, but I don't really see the point of doing that anymore. They are old news.

I might get interested again some day. There could always be a burst of activity out of the blue, followed by another slow period. Or I could have a lot I want to say for a longer time. Who knows. Anything can happen, which is why I am not closing up shop entirely. But I think I will be taking longer lunch breaks.

lol

What I Did On My Summer Vacation 2.0

The five people who read this blog might have noticed that I was away for a while. There is a pretty good reason for that.

Today's story requires a brief recap of previous events. I have talked about this to death, but it is a necessary preface. Car accident, subdural hematoma, back to work, real job, growing taller, blah, blah. All was going well.

In June, almost two years after the accident, I had a stroke. Specifically, a hemorrhagic stroke caused by a subarachnoid hemorrhage, which is bleeding into the gooey bits between the brain and skull. Essentially, arteries rupture, which cause bleeding, which causes pressure, which hurts like a son of a bitch.

In my case, it started out as a dull headache that I was perfectly willing to ignore. I get headaches all the time, so I got used to paying little attention to them. Most can be ignore with simple distractions. Some require drugs. This one went from 0 to 100 in a few seconds. Ignoring it was not an option. The good news is that I immediately knew the stabbing in my brain was a direct result of all my previous brain troubles.

One of the worst aspects of a hemorrhagic stroke, aside from having the stroke itself, is that it is almost always misdiagnosed. When they happen spontaneously, people go to the hospital and doctors mostly assume it is something else. The main symptom is a headache, which could be almost anything. Ischemic strokes have different symptoms, and since ER doctors see them far more than hemorrhagic strokes, their natural inclination is to only think about a stroke when faced with ischemic symptoms. The delay in treatment is what gives hemorrhagic strokes a high mortality rate. I had no idea I was having a stroke at the time, but I knew the explosion in my brain was directly connected to having my skull cut open, and the doctors could easily access my medical records. Instead of wasting time trying to figure out what it was, they went straight to work treating it.

I can't speak for anyone else, but one thing I know for sure is that after having a craniotomy, I never want to have another one for as long as I live. I would never go so far as to say I would rather die than have more brain surgery, but I would go to extreme lengths to prevent anyone from cutting open my skull again. The funny thing is, when my arteries were exploding and it felt like Roman senators had confused my brain with Julius Caesar, I would have happily let anyone with a medical degree slice me open.

Fortunately, the treatment was less severe. They gave me drugs to lower my blood pressure, drugs to prevent that part of my brain from dying, drugs to keep me from freaking out, drugs to keep my lunch in my stomach and, my personal favorite, drugs to knock me out as much as possible while still keeping me conscious. Apparently, losing consciousness greatly reduces the survival rate.

Fully loaded, they strapped on the ECG to check my heart. It has something to do with too much adrenaline pumping through the system. I never had a heart attack, but the tests showed a cardiac arrhythmia and ST elevations. This is another reason hemorrhagic strokes are often misdiagnosed. On paper, the ST elevations look just like a heart attack and doctors often waste time concentrating on the wrong organ.

The CT scan showed the doctors what they already suspected. Generally speaking, when your brain is bleeding, you have a few treatment options. Most surgeons go straight to cutting people open. They say that is the best long term solution, especially with aneurysms. But I never had an aneurysm. This is where doctors having the ability to access my medical records really came in handy. Most subarachnoid hemorrhages are caused by aneurysms. As such, most doctors would assume that is the cause. Had I been in the United States, they probably would have cut my skull open only to discover a surprising lack of aneurysms. Since the Chinese doctors knew my history, they knew it was a result of past trauma. People like to complain about lack of patient privacy in China, but I think it is terribly convenient that a doctor in one hospital can find patient information from another hospital's computer. The system can be abused, and a celebrity's medical records can get leaked to the tabloids, but it also saves lives.

With cutting me open completely unnecessary, they went with interventional radiology. That might sound like something that causes cancer, but even a simple x-ray is more radioactive than what they did to me. They jammed a catheter in my thigh and used a digital subtraction angiography to make their way up my femoral artery. Once in place, they used a balloon to cut off the artery's blood supply in a procedure called embolization.

I find it more than a little impressive that they can move a wire from your leg into your brain without causing any additional damage. The alarming part is that it is all done while you are wide awake. A subdural hematoma is deadlier than a stroke, and the treatment is more destructive, but for me, the stroke treatment was worse. I was not fully conscious until days after the hematoma. I only had to deal with the aftermath. I was fully conscious before, during and after the stroke. The hematoma was not painful at all, until everything was healing. I felt the stroke every step of the way. I was asleep when they put all the wires and tubes inside my body after the craniotomy. I was wide awake when they plugged me in after the stroke. That might be one of the reasons they gave me benzodiazepines.

When I woke up after the craniotomy, there were compression stockings on my legs to prevent deep vein thrombosis. I had no idea what they were and what had happened to my legs. This time, I watched them wrap up my legs and knew why they were doing it, which is far less alarming. Unfortunately, I was also wide awake when they inserted the Foley catheter. That was unpleasant.

The day after they embolized the hemorrhage, they moved on from CT to MRI. As it was explained to me, the CT scan is more useful immediately after a stroke while the MRI is much better after 24 hours. Overall, I prefer the MRI. It is a more comfortable scan and the pictures look a lot better to my untrained eye. I'm certainly not a doctor, but I have seen a lot of pictures of my brain at this point.

I was in the hospital for a week after the craniotomy, mostly because they wanted to make sure I could survive. Most people who die do so just before or soon after the surgery. Since they never cut me open for the embolization, they let me go home after a few days. The odds of dying dropped dramatically with each passing hour.

After the craniotomy, they gave me a long list of possible long term side effects. One of the effects that I mostly ignored was the possibility of having a stroke. That was something to worry about in the future, like Alzheimer's. I mostly worried about having a seizure, which never happened. Now, I have a shorter list, but I don't much care for any of the options. I could easily develop an aneurysm in the next six months, or at least have more artery troubles. There is a pretty good chance I will have another stroke, and I am at risk for hydrocephalus, which just sounds horrifying.

The long term side effects are pretty much the same as after the craniotomy; fatigue, anxiety, mood disturbances, PTSD, various cognitive impairments. And, of course, headaches. I don't know if my personality is changing, but I definitely know about fatigue. I get exhausted just eating lunch. The fatigue is worse than anything else.

It took a year after the craniotomy to get my first real job. Not because of the scar on my head. That is easy enough to cover. I could not work for a year because I got tired too easily. Now, I am faced with the same situation. I can barely walk to the kitchen, but I know that will pass. It takes some hard work to go from napping all day to performing at my highest level, but I know from experience that it can be done. Two years ago, I was told that my career was over. All the experts are telling me the same thing all over again. I proved them wrong once. I don't see any reason not to prove them wrong again. Hopefully in less than a year.

The first thing people outside of the hospital always ask me is if I am paralyzed on one side of my body. That would definitely end my career, but that is a different type of stroke. An ischemic stroke is basically when a blood clot cuts off the blood supply and kills a small part of your brain. That can easily lead to paralysis and/or speech impairment, depending on the location. I had a hemorrhagic stroke, which is too much blood and does not generally leave a dead zone in your brain. I have the full use of all my limbs and can speak properly, or at least as properly as I did before. The only thing wrong with my brain is als5fhga7sk.

Not enough blood versus too much.
NB, someone else's brain.
Hopefully, two other people.

Oktobookfest, Episode 1

The following dream may contain words in languages other than English. Reader xenophobia is discouraged.

~~~

I was walking through the mall, looking for signs that anyone might be hiring. Times were tough and most retail stores were letting people go, but I needed a job. Bills don't care what some stock market somewhere does. They demand to be paid. The mall was the one place where I could take a walk, see a help wanted sign and get a pretzel all at the same time.

The German themed bookstore was hiring, but just as I was about to walk in and ask for an application, I realized that I was dressed for the harsh winter outdoors. My parka, toque and Sorels were not the look I needed to land a job.

When I went home to change, I picked out a little black Jean Patou dress. It was casual enough to not look too formal for a bookstore and I knew it made me look better than all the slackers in t-shirts and jeans who would be applying for the same position. Whether the store manager was a man or a woman, that dress would help me stand out. Albeit for different reasons.

Back at the bookstore, I asked for an application. There were three people behind the counter. One was obviously a cashier. Her opinion was irrelevant. The man and woman standing a few paces back and away from the general public were clearly in management, but I couldn't tell who was the manager and who was the assistant manager. Maybe one of them was a district manager, but they looked like they did more work than that. Though clearly not as much as the cashier.

Before I could fill out the application, both the man and woman asked me to step outside for an interview. This was a small bookstore. The tiny backroom was big enough to hold a few cleaning supplies and boxes of stripped books, but nothing close to a break room. The interview took place at a table near the mall's food court.

Marlene introduced herself as the store manager. Josef was the assistant manager. What really struck me about the interview was their complete honesty.

“We want to hire you because you look right for the part,” Marlene told me. “You'll look good in the uniform.”

Oktobookfest was famous for two reasons. According to the corporate line, customers went for the discount prices on every single book they sold. Nothing went for the cover price. According to almost everyone else, the store was known for how its employees dressed. Every man wore lederhosen and white shirts. No hats, unfortunately. Every woman wore a short dirndl. One of the first things I noticed the first time I set foot in one of their stores was that none of the women seemed to be wearing bras. I wondered if that was a coincidence, until Marlene told me how to wear the uniform.

What I wore under the skirt was my own business, but bras were verboten. The only thing women were supposed to wear above the waist were a low cut white peasant blouse and a dark brown bodice that acted as a shelf bra. While the bodice as bra should have been my biggest complaint, it was the apron over the skirt that annoyed me the most. This was not a food service job, and I thought the white apron might be a bad idea while working around dusty books. In hindsight, I should have worried more about working with nothing more than a peasant blouse to cover my admirable breasts. Most of the male customers would turn out to be either middle aged men who were always on the lookout for a midlife crisis or socially awkward nerds who came to the bookstore for our large selection of science fiction and large breasted Verkäuferin.

Despite having shopped there from time to time, I never realized that Oktobookfest was the Hooters of bookstores until my first day on the job. At least at Hooters, you could flirt with customers for better tips. Flirt with customers at a bookstore and they will talk all day about that great novel they intend to write at some indeterminate point in the future.

I also realized on the first day that this would be the worst job I ever had. At least until the next one.

Liberation Day

Liberation Day is the newest national holiday in the Netherlands and one of the few that have nothing to do with religion, with New Year's Day and King's Day. Rather than celebrate their Fourth of July or Cinco de Mayo, they celebrate their more recent liberation from German occupation in World War II. May 4th is Remembrance Day, when people reflect on the sacrifices their countrymen made to free their people. May 5th is the day to party.

A popular event on Remembrance Day is to talk with survivors of the war. Watching how the people of the Netherlands treat their elderly is a beautiful thing. It is not simply respect for their elders. We have that in China. What I see in Amsterdam is a population that genuinely cares about what the oldest generation has to teach them. I could not help but imagine how much better off the United States would be if we followed this example, and how that is never going to happen. At least in my lifetime.

A lot of people also visit cemeteries. Someone told me that surviving members of military units go to the graves of their former brothers in arms. That sounds like a great tradition to me. Since World War II ended 74 years ago, there are still a few people around who remember it all in vivid detail. All too soon, we will only have what they told us.

At 20:00 on Remembrance Day, the entire country falls silent for two minutes of commemoration. It is a remarkable thing to witness. The people of Holland are not especially noisy. They can never compare to Chinese or Americans. But Amsterdam is a crowded city. It is never painfully loud, but I have never heard it as dead silent as those two minutes. As an American, I fully expected some smartass to make some smartass remark while everyone else was quiet. Americans are nothing if not attention whores. The people of Amsterdam were nothing but respectful of what those two minutes represent.

Liberation Day is less somber and a lot louder. Since the holiday is in spring, it looks a lot like Easter and King's Day, without all the eggs and orange. People go to free concerts and parades. There is a children's festival in Vondelpark. I have been to too few places where children are treated with the compassion and respect they need, and given the education they deserve. Israel and the Netherlands immediately come to mind. Nowhere else does.

Something Amsterdam did that I have never seen anywhere in the world is what they called open houses. It had nothing to do with real estate. On Remembrance Day and Liberation Day, people who live in houses where Jewish families lived or were hidden during the war open their homes to the public for short commemorations. Someone in each house, either a survivor, their descendant and/or the current occupant tells everyone the story of whoever lived in that house. Rather than a history of the entire war, it is a capsule history of a single family or a single person, and what they went through to survive, or in too many cases, not survive.

Each house was its own little temporary museum, but the procedure was mostly the same. The host read the names of everyone who was being remembered in that house, which is a very Jewish thing. If your name is read out loud, you are not forgotten. The best thing Steven Spielberg ever did as a filmmaker was have a lot of the actual names of the Schindler Jews read out loud. They were survivors, but it is the same principle.

Then someone tells the story of whoever lived in the house and, this is an important part, why they want to tell the story. None of this is a dry museum exhibit. These are all personal stories, mostly told by the people who lived them, or their children. Afterward was a short question and answer session that I wanted to last a lot longer. But no one had all day because we all went to multiple houses.

The first time I went to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, I heard a little old lady tell her story. She sat in a chair and talked about her life. It was heartbreaking, even though she was overwhelmingly optimistic. The open houses had too few people of her generation, but they augmented the first person accounts with photographs of everyone in happier times. People read poems and sang songs. Most surprising, several people read from diaries. Most of us probably only think of Anne Frank when you talk about diaries of people trying to escape the war, but there were countless diaries written in as many quiet rooms. Anne Frank was one of the more naturally talented writers, but all of those stories need to be told.

The emphasis is on personal history, but the entire event is educational for the community as a whole. Before this all started, thousands of people were living in houses that were owned by Jewish families before they were kidnapped and taken away to death camps. Many of the current residents had no idea about the history of their homes. When you buy a house, they tell you when it was built and the last time it was remodeled, but no one ever gets a full history of the past occupants. For most of us, World War II is an abstract event in the past. The open houses bring it all closer to home.

The open houses are mostly for the people who live in the neighborhoods, but outsiders like me were more than welcome. Several people happily switched from Nederlands to English when they realized I was a foreigner. In my experience, the people of Amsterdam, unlike a lot of other places, have absolutely no objection to using a foreign language. Most of them speak better English than most Americans.

Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants

Spring is a great time for Amsterdam, and Holland in general. Just the word Holland makes me think of flowers, and spring is the time to see them. Keukenhof is one of the largest flower gardens in the world, 79 acres with over 7 million flowers, and only open from late March to the middle of May. I knew this trip would be my best chance to go. Keukenhof is in Lisse, South Holland. Amsterdam is in North Holland. Fortunately, all of Holland is pretty small – less than 20% of the Netherlands. I took a bus from Europaplein, which is right next to Beatrixpark. The bus goes straight from the station to the garden in about an hour. Going from Schiphol is supposed to be faster, which makes sense. The train from Centraal to Schiphol takes about 15 minutes. Schiphol is roughly halfway between Centraal and Lisse. So instead of an hour bus ride, I could have taken a 45 minute train/bus. Maybe next time. Unfortunately, I missed the flower parade, which everyone says is impressive. That was on the Saturday before I arrived in Amsterdam. The end of April might be the best time to avoid crowds, but the beginning of April is probably more eventful.

Since Keukenhof is only open for two months, and more people go than ever before so they can put pictures online, I assumed it would be ridiculously crowded. It was not. I was far from the only other person there, but I saw more flowers than people staring at their phones. I was later told that I picked the best time to go. Weekends are always more crowded, and I went on a Tuesday. I went as early as I could and still get in because I am a morning person. By the time I left the garden, more and more people started flooding in.

I could have stayed longer and maybe waited until sunset to watch the flowers glow, but it was getting too crowded and I had other plans. Lisse just happens to be an excellent place to ride a bicycle. There are at least a dozen places downtown to rent a bike. The fields and canals are an easy ride away. Since Holland is flat and there are bike lanes all over the place, everywhere was an easy ride. Even downtown. Lisse is a tiny town that looks more like the residential suburbs of Amsterdam than the more famous and crowded Grachtengordel. What really struck me was how easy it was to ride around in the middle of the city.

I don't own a bicycle. I want to. I love to ride and it is great exercise. But the parts of Hong Kong with all the people are a very dangerous place to ride a bike. I don't live out in the middle of nowhere. I am surrounded by a few million people on a peninsula the size of JFK Airport. There are some nice spots in the country parks and around Lantau Island, but getting there from my apartment with a bicycle is nothing but trouble. It is almost always oppressively humid in Hong Kong and you can get stuck in a sudden downpour at any time. By contrast, Lisse was safe, clean and charming. April is never hot in Holland and the only rain we have had on this trip so far has been a few light morning or afternoon sprinkles here and there.

Just a few minutes outside of downtown Lisse was pastoral countryside, which is a little impressive when you know how densely packed Holland is. I was never far from a house or farm, but there was plenty of open road and a ridiculously long canal. I looked it up later on. It is about 15 miles long. I would imagine it is always a beautiful ride. I would love to see it covered in snow or even the greens of summer, but all the colors of spring flowers blooming is what I will always remember.

The houses along the canal reminded me of Normandy, north of Caen and Bayeux; quaint little cottages near the water with tiny gardens in the front yard and a small road to get you into town. Neither place is especially popular or on any lists of the great cities of the world, but I felt just as comfortable riding around Lisse as I did driving around Normandy. Though I have always lived in large cities, I could picture myself settling down in either of these beautiful village areas.

It was such a simple day, but about as close to perfect as you can get. I spent almost no money, made no reservations and followed no schedule. I walked around a garden and rode a bicycle in the countryside. And it could not have been a better day. I could almost imagine the smell of all those flowers.

Day of Orange

For whatever reason, I have been going to Amsterdam during holidays. The reason I go is to work. That it is always a holiday is simply a coincidence. I was there during Christmas because it was a Christmas show. I was there during Valentine's Day, but I did not go for Valentine's Day. In fact, I spent most of the day at the airport and was only in Amsterdam for the last few hours of the fake holiday. Easter is a major holiday in the Netherlands, but that had nothing to do with my trip. I did not even know it was Koningsdag until after I got here. I will only be here on Liberation Day because I extended my trip to have some free time in the country. My next trip will be during Fourth of July, but that holiday means absolutely nothing in Amsterdam.

Koningsdag is King's Day, Willem-Alexander's birthday. It used to be called Queen's Day, until Beatrix abdicated and her son took over. It is a national holiday that the people take more seriously than I would expect in a country where the king has no real power. Then again, a lot of Brits, and even Americans, care more about the British royal family than I understand.

When I first heard about the holiday, I assumed it was always King's Day when there was a king and Queen's Day when there was a queen. But the current king is the first one to have a King's Day. The holiday started with Beatrix's grandmother, Wilhelmina. Willem-Alexander is the first king since his grandmother's grandfather and will be the last for the foreseeable future since he only has daughters. The Netherlands knew nothing but queens in the 20th century. Maybe that is why it is such an enlightened country.

Since the holiday celebrates someone's birthday, the exact date changes every generation. The first Queen's Days were in summer and spring. Beatrix was born in January, but kept her mother's birthday since April is a better time for flowers and parades. Coincidentally, Willem-Alexander's birthday is almost the same as his grandmother's. His oldest daughter was born in December, so we will have to wait and see what happens when she becomes queen. Not that it matters, but his youngest daughter was also born in April.

Markets are a big thing on King's Day since anyone can sell anything without permits and anyone can buy without having to pay taxes. There are always markets around the city, but on King's Day, people sell their used crap in parks, on the streets and in front of their houses. For one day, Amsterdam is a giant yard sale.

The main activity on King's Day is to wear orange, since the royal family is the House of Orange. There are free concerts, parties and the streets downtown are closed to cars, which is a strange sight. But what stood out more than anything else was how much orange everyone was wearing. Almost every single person wore an orange shirt. Most had orange pants/skirts and many wore orange hats or wigs. More than a few people even dyed their hair orange. There were orange drinks, orange food, orange balloons, orange flags and plenty of orange confetti for someone to clean up later. It went far beyond all the green on St Patrick's Day.

The entire city became one giant block party for the day. What really impressed me was how adult the party was. In my country, any party this big is going to have a lot of drunk and/or stoned people ruining it for everyone else as much as they can. There will probably be some looting and fires thrown in for good measure. In Amsterdam, it was all respectful. This was a day to celebrate their country, and the royal family. I cannot guarantee that everyone was on their best behavior, but I never saw anyone acting like an idiot. It was more like Fourth of July than St Patrick's Day. Even though there was orange alcohol, most of the people seemed more happy and proud than sloppy and drunk. I saw no orange vomit that day. If you are ever anywhere near Amsterdam on Koningsdag, I recommend it wholeheartedly.

I don't post pictures of people without their permission,
so I found a public domain shot on Google.
This is pretty much what it was like.

Easter In Amsterdam

Easter in the Netherlands is pretty much the same as the United States. They have painted eggs, chocolate eggs, Easter egg hunts and Easter baskets, all courtesy of a giant egg-laying rabbit, Passhass. The biggest difference I noticed was how official everything is. Easter in the United States is not a public holiday, mostly because it always falls on a Sunday, when banks and government buildings are closed anyway. In the Netherlands, both Easter Sunday and Monday are national holidays.

I was warned that the big tourist sights would be too crowded during Easter. I have already been to most of them. This trip is about exploring new things. There was a special performance of Bach's St Matthew Passion at the Concertgebouw, but both shows were sold out before I knew about it.

I spent the day at the Rijksmuseum. That is nothing new, but the current exhibit is. Since 2019 is the “Year of Rembrandt”, the Rijksmuseum has a special exhibition of every Rembrandt piece in their collection, which is supposed to be the largest in the world. They usually only have a fraction of his work on display. Since Rembrandt is my favorite artist, this was a wonderful surprise. I have seen the museum's limited exhibits on previous visits, and the etchings at the Rembrandthuis, but this was more than 400 of his best paintings, drawings and prints.

When the exhibition is over, the museum will restore The Night Watch, but keep it on display at the same time. The plan is to surround the work area with a large glass cage so the public can watch the restoration in progress. I'm glad they are restoring the painting, but I am even happier that I got to see it without a glass cage. I don't know how long it will take to restore, but I am more than willing to come back when everything is done.

Rijksmuseum from Museumplein

Militia Company of District II under the Command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq
pre-restoration

Behind Bars of Soap

The following dream is intended for mature audiences and may contain situations that some might find uncomfortable. Reader discretion is advised.

~~~

I got a small part in a prison movie. My first day on set was the big shower scene. Every movie about women in prison has a shower scene. That's the law. Group showers are probably the least ridiculous option for gratuitous nudity. In prison movies, you have actresses and models, so naturally the studios want them to be as naked as possible. In a real prison, I doubt the women all look their best all the time. They also might not have as much access to the best makeup artists, hairstylists and the most flattering lighting.

High school movies used to always have a locker room scene. Since most of the actors were in their 20s and 30s, they could get as naked as the producers and studios wanted. They don't do that as much anymore. High school actors are still in their 20s and 30s, but the public is not as comfortable watching high school characters get naked. Prison inmates are still allowed since most of the characters should be over 18.

Before we started shooting the big shower scene, all of the actresses were in a large dressing room with a team of makeup artists to make sure we were all as hairless as possible. About a dozen young women were standing around completely naked while older women in smocks shaved, plucked and tweezed everybody. Prison inmates, after all, are nothing if not young, in shape, and immaculately groomed at all times. One of the inmates asked why we all had to be so smooth and the lead makeup artist told us that the director wanted it that way. For some reason, we all showed up to work thinking this was going to be a serious drama. It became mostly obvious that the director wanted to make another women in prison movie.

We all walked onto the shower set wearing robes. This was a union production, so everyone followed union rules. No matter how naked any performer is in front of the camera, they are always covered between takes. That always struck me as funny. In Re-Animator, Barbara Crampton lies naked on an autopsy table while a severed head goes down on her. Obviously, the sex was simulated, and no actor's heads were actually removed from their bodies, but the scene required full frontal nudity while one actor fondled her breasts and another actor put his head between her legs. And yet, in between takes, Barbara Crampton was most likely fully covered for modesty.

The director told every actress to take off the robes before he looked each one of us up and down through his viewfinder. Sitting in a swivel chair, he had one girl turn around and bend over. He dollied himself in for a closeup and practically shoved the viewfinder up her butt. One of the actresses complained that this was all very unprofessional. The director immediately fired her and she rushed off the set, crying. Someone on the crew reminded him that she was the star of the movie. He looked at all of the naked actresses standing in front of him, without the viewfinder, and pointed to another girl, declaring her the new lead.

Eventually, we started to shoot the scene. The director had the camera move in close to each actress, mostly around waist and chest level. There was minimal dialogue in the scene, to be shot later. Today, the director was only interested in T&A coverage. The camera lingered on one girl's breasts for so long while she was lathering up that she started to cry. The director told her not to worry about washing the rest of her body. She should just concentrate on her breasts. That was when she stormed off the set.

When the new star of the movie complained about how the scene was being shot, the director fired her. Rather than cry and storm off, she said a few colorful things about the director and left in anger. He then randomly picked a new star, quite possibly based not on her talent as a thespian, but on the shape of her ass.

The director got wide shots of everyone soaping up and closeups of hands caressing wet, young bodies. Without any dialogue, it felt like we were shooting a soap commercial for HBO. The director put more emphasis on the star, as it should be, but none of them were very comfortable with the extra attention. Each lead actress left the set, one at a time. Some gave up the role voluntarily. Some were fired in anger by the director. Eventually, I was the only one left.

The director told me to soap up my crotch while the camera came in for a closeup. It all seemed pretty seedy to me, but it also dawned on me that I was now the star of this movie, if only by default. I told myself that even though the shower scene was nothing more than softcore porn, the rest of the movie could have some substance. After all, this was only one scene. It could easily be the least remembered scene once award season was over.

The director soon decided that the scene needed to change. No one could disagree with him since what was supposed to be a group shower scene full of inmates was now only one character. Several people behind the camera suggested calling it a day and coming back after hiring more actresses. The director had other ideas. He wanted one of the prison guards to come into the shower and have his way with the inmate, which in this case was me. I never agreed to any scenes like that, but that was when I had a minor role. As the star of the movie, I was going to have to be more open to playing a more difficult part.

None of the actors who played the prison guards were on set that day because we were only scheduled to film the group shower scene. Since no one else was there, the director decided that he would play the guard himself. He had some acting experience, and he was one of the producers, so all of the people who thought it might be a bad idea remained silent. The director took off all of his clothes right there in front of his crew and walked into frame. Someone from makeup wanted to prep him for the shot, but he held his dick and announced that he had everything he needed.

The director immediately had the camera move in to him and he took a lingering closeup of his dick. He ran back and forth from the monitor to check the shot to his mark in front of the camera. It was a simple enough shot. He just stood there with the camera a foot away from his crotch. But he had to check it after each take. He wanted his dick to look just right. I could see that the rest of the crew was more than a little disturbed by his behavior.

When the director was finally ready to move on, he ordered a closeup of his hand grabbing my breast. The director of photography suggested that maybe we should shoot something other than just closeups. That was when the director angrily fired the DP. Someone on the crew asked who was going to work the camera and the director announced that he would do it himself. A director working the camera is not unheard of, but it is rare. A director working the camera while also acting in the scene would be pretty much impossible.

The crew was growing more and more restless and the director gradually fired almost everyone. Soon it was just me, the director and the boom operator. Without any dialogue, the boom operator was the least useful person on set. They could foley in the sound of the shower later. The director decided that he needed another prison guard in the scene. Since there were no other actors available at no notice, and there was no one else on set, he had the boom operator get naked.

In the new shot, I was sandwiched between two naked men, neither of whom were good actors. The director had turned out to be nothing like any of us expected, but at least he knew how to shoot the scene he wanted. His actions were unprofessional, but his attitude was all business. When he was pressed up against the front of my body, I felt that he was more concerned with getting the shot than anything else. The boom operator was a different story. When he pressed up against the back of my body, I only felt his dick getting hard.

When the director checked the monitor, he noticed the boom operator's erection. The director was angry and wanted to fire the boom operator, but there was no one to take his place. He explained that they could get away with limited shots of a flaccid penis, but a hard cock would keep his movie out of any legitimate theater. Despite his unconventional working methods, the director was genuinely interested in making a movie that people might actually see some day.

For the next take, he blocked the shot with my body between the camera and boom operator. I was still between two naked men, but the camera mostly saw the director and me. The boom operator's cock was still throbbing against my butt like there was no tomorrow, but that was hidden from the camera. The director's dick was in full view against my leg, but it was too small and too limp to threaten anyone.

The director wanted a shot of me bending forward with one of the men taking me from behind and the other in front of me getting a simulated blowjob, but he was unsure how to shoot it. If the boom operator was in front of me, it would be difficult to hide his raging erection. Pretending to eat a tootsie roll is a lot easier than pretending to eat a toblerone. To block the shot, the director had the boom operator wait off camera while he stood behind me, holding my hips and making thrusting moves. When he checked the monitor, it looked convincing enough. The director then stood in front of me while I held my fist to my mouth, as if his tiny penis was in it. Either option worked for him.

Blocking the boom operator was both easier and harder. The director could look through the camera, saving time, but neither position worked. When the boom operator stood in front of me, none of us could figure out any way to hide his erection. Hiding it with my hair would only work if it were smaller. Actually holding it would be far too graphic, and probably break more than a few union rules. When the director had the boom operator stand behind me, that only made it harder. If the boom operator stood too far behind me, not only would his erection be in full view, but it would be obvious that it was not touching me. If the boom operator stood too close, his erection would have to rub against me in ways they never warn you about in drama school.

The director made a decision. I would have to bite the bullet and deal with the boom operator's erection, one way or another. The director left it up to me, since the shot worked either way. I could either give the boom operator an unsimulated blowjob on camera while the director pretended to do me from behind or I could give the director a simulated blowjob while the boom operator actually penetrated me from behind. The director, thinking he was being helpful, pointed out that we had plenty of soap on set if I need any artificial lubricants.

Neither option worked for me. In fact, I was now the star of this movie. If the director fired me, he would have to make himself the star, or the boom operator. Since this was a movie about women in prison, that would look absurd. I decided that the shower scene should go back to a simple shower scene as intended, with no male cast, albeit no longer a group shower scene. I could tell that the director really wanted to fire me, but he knew that he could not. He tried to convince me to do the scene with only one prison guard, played by himself, but I held onto my new power. It was my way or a delay for recasting, which would put the production over budget.

That was when a studio executive walked on the set. He was confused, alarmed and more than angry. He screamed at the director even more than the director had screamed at all of the cast and crew he fired. The studio executive told me to put my robe back on and wait in the dressing room. For some reason, all of the fired actresses were there, waiting in their robes. Pretty soon, a fired production assistant came into the dressing room and had us all go out onto the set. The entire crew was back and there was a new director.

The mood was noticeably different and we could all tell that this was a serious movie again. We were still doing the naked shower scene, but it was not nearly as gratuitous, and the new director was not trying to make softcore porn. He took medium shots and kept us mostly with our backs to the camera for most of the wide shots.

Suddenly, the new director cut the take and everyone was a little nervous about what might happen next. He grabbed one of our bars of soap and asked the prop department why we all had brand new soap. He explained that they do not hand out fresh soap to every single prison inmate every single day and he started breaking the bars into smaller pieces. The new director's attention to detail impressed all of us and we knew that this movie was going to be a lot better from now on. My very brief tenure as star of the movie was over, but I was relieved. A small part in a theatrical release is better than the lead in a midnight cable TV production.

Several months later, we were all in Paris for the premiere of the movie. When it was over, the cast went up on stage and the audience started booing and throwing bars of soap at us. One person in the audience stood up to publicly praise the film and everyone else wrapped their soap in towels and beat the hell out of that guy, Full Metal Jacket style. The theater manager told us to sneak out the back exit. When the audience realized that we were trying to escape, they started chasing us.

Outside, we were in black and white and at a train station. We were running away from the mob, except there were more than four of us and we were wearing towels. The old director appeared from around a corner and motioned for us to follow him to safety. All of the other actresses ignored him and continued running away. I was the only one to go with the old director. Safe from the angry mob, I was in an abandoned warehouse. The old director took me to the only well lit corner of the warehouse, where I immediately noticed a shower room set, lights and a camera. The boom operator was there, naked and as hard as ever. The director told me we were finally going to get the shot right. Instead of a having a choice, he wanted to shoot both versions. My only option, the old director told me, was whether I wanted the boom operator in front of me first or behind me first. The old director wanted to shoot the blowjob first to get it out of the way because he was convinced the boom operator would ejaculate on camera, and coming inside me would be less messy than coming on my face.

I looked around the dark warehouse, but there was no new director. There were no studio executives. There was not even a hint of the angry mob outside. We were alone.

The director called action.

The Low Countries

I am going back to Amsterdam next week for a month. This will be my third trip to the city for work. Up until now, I have flown in, fulfilled my contractual obligations, and flown out. This trip will be a little different. I am going to stay longer than necessary and see more than the neighborhood around Vondelpark. Not that there is anything wrong with Vondelpark. It is a wonderful place for a leisurely stroll or a quick run, and I love the surrounding neighborhood. But if I have the opportunity to spend some extra time in a country with an excellent transportation system, and I don't even have to pay for a hotel, I'm taking it. Christmas would have been a great time to explore, but I had too much going on at home. Easter will have to do.

There is still much of Amsterdam to see, but my goal is to leave the city. I will have limited time on future trips, so this is my big chance to see other parts of Holland, or even the rest of the Netherlands. It is a tiny country, but when you just go to Amsterdam and then leave, you never get to see much of anything.

When most people go to Amsterdam, they stick around the Centrum borough. That is like going to New York and staying in Manhattan the entire time. Some will say that is all you need, but in both cities, there is so much more. Since my apartment is near Vondelpark, I am automatically in an outer borough. I am essentially in Brooklyn. They have all the big tourist sights, but we have the best parks.

There are plenty of things to see and do around the country, but sometimes it is a matter of timing. Leiden has a big fair in October that I can look into later this year. There is a carnival in Maastricht, but only for a weekend in November. I might never see that. There are all kinds of music festivals throughout the summer, but I'm coming back home in May. Maybe next time. Spring is a big time for flowers, so I'm sure I will find something flower related. Holland has a few tulips lying around.

If I had several years, I would take it slow and explore the country province by province. But I have absolutely no idea how long I will be working in Amsterdam. When I worked in Tel Aviv, I assumed I could make it last at least ten years. Circumstances beyond my control cut it down to one. Ten years is still not enough time to really get to know a place like Israel, but it is enough time to go to pretty much every district. Tel Aviv and Jerusalem are both wonderful in their own ways, but no country is only two cities. It would be a shame if I only saw Amsterdam during whatever amount of time I have left.

My current goals are to see some of the bigger cities – Rotterdam, the Hague, Delft – but also get out of town. I would love to go down to Kinderdijk and check out the windmills. There are surprisingly few in Amsterdam. Ideally, I would go when the river is frozen enough to skate.

I have always wanted to go to Alkmaar during the cheese festival, but everyone tells me it is nothing like it used to be. What was once a great festival is now a show for the tourists, apparently. Either way, not far from Alkmaar is Edam, the capital of cheese and the old style villages of Zaanstreek-Waterland.

Across the sea from Amsterdam is Noordoostpolder, which is supposed to be the best place in the world to ride a bicycle. I will be the judge of that.

Just south of Amsterdam, I can see some ancient ruins in Utrecht, which is relatively close to Hoge Veluwe National Park and even closer to Gouda, the second capital of cheese.

Maastricht is about as far south as you can get, and also supposed to be a good looking city. From there, it should be easy to pop into Belgium and/or Germany as long as I'm in the neighborhood.

Most people don't think about islands and the Netherlands together, but the entire northern tip of the country is capped by an archipelago. The West Frisian Islands are supposed to be culturally unique, which often happens on islands.

How long will it take to see all of these places? I probably never will. Experience has shown that even if I make a list of places to go, something will come up that takes me somewhere else. Whether the detours are better than the route remains to be seen.

I Go Swimming

The following dream may contain agoraphobic, aquaphobic and/or chromophobic situations that some might find disturbing. Reader discretion is advised.

~~~

I am in a small steel bathtub in a white tile room. Seven nurses in white uniforms sit and kneel around me, each washing a different body part. I notice a white door leading out of the bathroom and jump out of the bath. On the other side of the door is a large blue swimming pool surrounded by wet gray concrete and tall green and brown palm trees. The vibrant colors outside of the bathroom almost blind me, but I can see just enough to dive into the pool, where I sit on the bottom. Everything around me is blue, but at least the water dulls the colors.

From under the water, I can see eleven nurses in white uniforms standing around the swimming pool. They cannot swim, so none of them dare come after me. But they can breathe, so they have a clear advantage. I can hold my breath for a minute, maybe two. They can easily stand there all day. Or at least until their shift ends.

I look around the swimming pool for a vent, but they are all too small. Just before I am forced to the surface for air, I see a small white door on the floor of the blue pool. I know that I should stay away from white, especially when there are so many bright colors around, but that door is my only escape. Opening it is easy, but I can barely squeeze through. My head fits, and I can move and twist my shoulders in a dozen directions, but for the first time in my life, my breasts are simply too big. Fortunately, they are mostly fat and lobules. Unlike a boy I knew in high school, I realize that they are not rigid domes and can be moved and manipulated. One thing I do not know is if I can make it through in time. And even if I can, I do not know what might be on the other side. If it is more water, I will surely drown.

The only alternative to the door is coming to the surface and the nurses in white uniforms. I am slowly expelling air out of my mouth. Pretty soon, there will be none left and I will be forced to inhale the water. That is not the best option, so I force my way through the small white door.

I spill out onto a sandy beach with more than enough air to fill my lungs all the day long. I am soaking wet, but firmly planted on dry land. The beach sand sticks to every nook and cranny in my skin, but at least I am free from the nurses in white uniforms. Even if they could swim, none of them could fit through the small swimming pool door. Most of them have hips that far outweigh their breasts, and which are not nearly as malleable. Some of them are wider in the middle than up top.

Feeling safe and free, I take a walk along the sandy beach. I close my eyes to the wind and enjoy the goosebumps, especially after being cooped up with the nurses in white uniforms for so long. I am naked from top to tail, but the sand sticking to my wet skin forms a thin barrier against the wind. The sandy beach is completely deserted. What I am wearing matters not.

I turn around a corner of the sandy beach to see fifteen nurses in white uniforms waiting for me with soap and sponges. They have brought in reinforcements. Maybe I can outrun them, but maybe not. My only way out is the ocean. If they were too afraid of a swimming pool, they would never take to the sea. I wade into the waves as the nurses in white uniforms run frantically toward me. As expected, none of them go beyond getting their white shoes wet.

I swim out as far as I can, but I have my limits. The ocean is endless, and I could never reach the other side. Floating on my back, I see the nurses in white uniforms on the sandy beach getting into a wooden boat. I know I cannot outswim a wooden boat, but I can dive. Fortunately, they do not have a submarine.

I dive under the surface and wait. I can see the wooden boat floating above me. They must know where I am, but they cannot reach me without going into the water. Once again, they have the advantage of free flowing nitrogen and oxygen.

There is a brightly colored coral reef nearby, so I swim toward it. Maybe the shapes and colors of the coral will camouflage me from the wooden boat. As I swim to the reef, I can see the wooden boat above me. They know where I am going, but they do not know how to stop me.

At the brightly colored coral reef, I look for a place to hide. There are plenty of tiny caves and alcoves for fish, but nothing big enough for me. Swimming along, my foot gets caught in the reef. I cannot pull it out and I have no tools or heavy objects on me to break free. My strongest tools are my knees, but as flexible as I am, they cannot reach my foot. The more I pull on my foot, the more the brightly colored coral tears into my flesh. But even if I could tear all the skin and muscle away, I would still be stuck to the bone.

I grab a yellow fish with black stripes as it swims past. My intention is to use the yellow fish with black stripes as a hammer and break my shackles, but the yellow fish with black stripes stares at me with a sad look in his eyes. He knows that he will die if I slam him against the brightly colored coral. I do not want to kill him, but if I cannot break free, I will die. That is the law of the sea.

A moray eel jumps out from a tiny cave and startles me just enough to let go of the yellow fish with black stripes, who swims away faster than any wooden boat. The eel solved my moral dilemma, but pretty much doomed me. Using the eel as a hammer sounds like justice, but he is far too slippery to catch. With nothing to break the brightly colored coral and all but no air left in my lungs, I fight to hold my breath. I can feel the veins in my face flooding and throbbing. I pull at my foot as hard as I can, but all that does is cut me up even more. My bright red blood in the water might attract sharks, but they cannot make much of a difference at this point.

I am fighting to hold my breath with every inch of strength I have, but every centimeter of my body forces me to inhale. The metric system is simply too strong for imperial measurements. When I take in a deep breath of sea water, everything goes black.

Ms Roboto

The following dream may contain medical procedures that some readers might find uncomfortable. Reader discretion is advised.

~~~

I woke up strapped to a dentist's chair. The first thing I noticed was that I could not move my legs, arms or head as they were too tightly secured. I could blink me eyes, perhaps. I assumed that I was blinking them, but I could not be certain. I could open my mouth, but no sound came out, scream as I might.

The second thing I noticed was the white sheet draped over my body, from the bottom of my chin to the tops of my ankles. It was not even a comfortable sheet. My initial impression was that it may have been purchased from Target for $1.99.

The room was too dark to tell how big or small it might be. I could barely see a few feet in front of me. I did not notice the person behind me until I heard the piercing shrill of the drill. It was louder and deeper than a dentist's drill. And it went nowhere near my teeth, as far as I could tell.

When I felt the drill pierce my scalp, I wanted to scream out. The most I could do was open my mouth. The sound would have to wait until later. When I felt the drill bore into my skull, I tightened every muscle in my body and fought against the restraints with every ounce of power I had. But it was not enough. Whatever held me down was stronger than I could ever hope to be.

I could feel the drill tear into my brain, which was both terrifying and a little suspicious. I knew not nearly enough about the human brain, but I knew that it could not feel pain. You could literally cut out pieces of someone's brain while they were fully conscious and they would feel nothing, after the part about cutting through everything that protects the brain. That's where it really hurts.

I could see nothing happening on top of my head, since there were no reflective surfaces anywhere nearby, but I could feel wires getting pushed into me. After the wires, it felt like I was being prodded with excessively long needles. Metal clamps held everything in place.

“Just one more adjustment,” a voice said from somewhere behind me.

“What's happening?” I asked the shadows.

“Good,” the voice replied. “You can talk.”

“Who are you?” I tried to move my head to look at the voice, but it would have been easier to move an active volcano.

“My name is Dr Shrinker,” the voice answered.

“Dr Shrinker?” I asked. “He's a madman with an evil mind.”

“Dr Shrinker,” he repeated.

“Dr Shrinker,” I said. “He's as crazy as you'll ever find.”

“You are too young to know that show,” Dr Shrinker told me.

“Nonsense,” I replied. “I've seen The Wizard of Oz a thousand times and that came out before my parents were born.”

“How do you feel about The Twilight Zone?” Dr Shrinker asked me.

“One of my favorite TV shows ever,” I answered.

“Good,” Dr Shrinker replied. “Submitted for your approval, you are about to take a trip to docility and acquiescence, whose boundaries are that of my imagination.”

“I don't approve,” I said.

“That is just a catch phrase,” Dr Shrinker told me. “Submitted for your approval. You do not have a choice.”

“But he only said it in three episodes,” I told him.

“Is that true?” Dr Shrinker asked.

“You tell me,” I answered. “You're the one in my brain.”

“First, we have to test the connection.” He walked around the dentist's chair and stood in front of me.

“You don't look like Dr Shrinker,” I said.

“I am Dr Wei now,” he replied.

“Wei?” I repeated before laughing. “喂, 幹嘛?”

“Wiggle your toes,” he instructed while looking at the remote control in his hand. When I wiggled my toes, he smiled. “Excellent.”

Dr Wei unstrapped one of my legs and told me to raise and lower it, which I did. We repeated the process with the other leg, then each arm. Though I was fully aware of following his commands, I felt that I had no control over my actions. Once my limbs were free from their shackles, I wanted to grab the remote control out of his hand and run out of the room, but my body would not let me.

It was only after he removed the Target sheet that I noticed I was not wearing any clothes.

“Why am I naked?” I asked Dr Wei.

“I just performed major surgery,” he answered. “Have you ever had brain surgery with clothes on?”

“Not that I know of,” I answered.

“I have clothes for you.” He used the remote control to make me stand up from the dentist's chair and walk toward a table on the opposite side of the room. “Put those on.”

I picked up the gray UCLA sweatshirt and put it on without a bra. Next was the plaid skirt without panties and, still standing, I put on the sneakers without socks.

“Do you have an issue with underwear?” I asked Dr Wei.

“Now I think we are ready to go outside,” he did not answer.

“Am I supposed to be a student or something?” I asked. “This is a terrible look.”

When we walked out of the Hollywood United Methodist Church on Franklin and Highland, the bright daylight hurt my eyes.

“How long was I in there?” I asked Dr Wei.

“Surgery takes time,” he answered.

We walked down Franklin Avenue. It was mere minutes before I noticed the Magic Castle.

“Let me guess, you want to saw me in half,” I said.

“I had not considered going here,” Dr Wei replied. “But that is not a bad idea.”

Inside the Magic Castle, a magician was performing. We slipped quietly into the audience. When the magician asked for volunteers, Dr Wei volunteered me. Rather than saw me in half, the magician wanted me to levitate. The trick was simple enough, and since Dr Wei controlled my actions, absolutely nothing was required of me.

When the magician asked me to lie down on a small table, Dr Wei had me lie down. When the magician removed the table and I appeared to float, I thought less about how the effect was achieved and more about the fact that I was not wearing any underwear. While my body was levitating, thanks to the real table that the audience could not see, the back of my skirt fell freely. The audience was to my left, but anyone standing at my feet would see more than a magic show.

“I was hoping they would put you in a water tank,” Dr Wei said as we walked away from the Magic Castle.

“Someone from the audience can't do that,” I told him. “You have to know how the trick is done.”

We walked down one of the small streets that headed south. At a nondescript apartment building, Dr Wei had us walk through the front door.

“How did you open that?” I asked him.

“Magic,” he answered.

“It must not have been locked,” I said.

Once in the building, we walked into an apartment.

“Who lives here?” I asked.

“I have no idea,” he answered. “This is a random sampling.”

In the bedroom, Dr Wei had me rummage through the dressers and drawers.

“That will do,” he said as he had me pick up a bottle of nail polish remover.

“I'm not wearing nail polish,” I said.

“It is not for you,” he replied.

Dr Wei had me pour the bottle on the bed. Once it was empty, we went into the kitchen. Tearing through the cupboards, he had me pick up a bag of flour and box of matches. Back in the bedroom, I poured the flour around the edges of the bed.

“That is perfect,” he said.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Manipulating your movement is a basic process,” he answered. “I want to see if I can make you do something you find morally objectionable.”

When I took a match out of the box, I knew exactly what he wanted me to do.

“This is crazy,” I said.

“Good,” he replied. “The experiment would be tainted if you were a pyromaniac.”

I lit the match and dropped it onto the bed. When the fumes from the nail polish remover caught on fire, we both took a few steps back. When the flour started to explode, we left the bedroom.

“You didn't have to do that,” I told Dr Wei.

“But now we know,” he replied.

When we turned onto Hollywood Boulevard, I was relieved that it was still daytime. With the sun out, I looked like a student with no fashion sense. At night on Hollywood Boulevard, people might get the wrong idea.

When a double decker sightseeing bus drove toward us, Dr Wei had me lift the sweatshirt up to my neck.

“What are you doing?” I asked him.

“Giving them something better to look at than liquor stores and souvenir shops.” He put my sweatshirt back down and we continued walking.

While I did not look forward to dozens of pictures on Facebook of me flashing a tour bus, he had a point. Hollywood Boulevard was not the most photogenic street in the world.

“Why do tourists even come here?” Dr Wei asked.

“The same reason they go to Times Square,” I answered. “It's not what they've always imagined it would be, but they don't know that.”

Like Times Square, today's Hollywood Boulevard was more tourist shopping than what I remembered from a visit years ago. Larger companies probably made more money from this version, but any charm that might have seeped through the old surface was long gone.

At Grauman's Chinese Theatre, Dr Wei started looking at the stars on the sidewalk. In front of the Dolby Theatre, he had some instructions for me.

“I am telling you what I will have you do because I do not want any undue reaction,” he said. “There is no need to draw attention to yourself.”

“I just flashed a tour bus,” I pointed out.

“This will be different,” he replied. “You are going to urinate on one of these Hollywood stars.”

“You're crazy,” I said.

“This is a good test,” he told me. “I can have you move your extremities, but can I manipulated your internal organs?”

Dr Wei had me stop and I looked down to see Julie Andrews' star.

“Not her,” I protested. “She's a national treasure.”

“Very well.” He looked at the sidewalk. “How about this one? I think he would like it.”

Dr Wei had me stand over Bill Cosby's star and squat down. I looked around, but only a few of the tourists walking the streets even noticed my existence. Until Dr Wei pressed a button on his remote control and I started to rain down on the serial rapist's tarnished name. Faster than a click, every cell phone on the block was pointed at me. If I thought flashing my tits at a tour bus would end up on Facebook, these videos would be everywhere.

Dr Wei smiled as he watched the crowd watching me. “Very good. Is your heart beating faster?”

“Not at all,” I answered. There was nothing I could do to stop his experiment. I could not even cover my face.

“Because I can control that as well,” he told me. “You are neither nervous nor afraid because I am keeping you calm.”

“I can tell all of these people what you're doing,” I threatened him.

“And who would believe you?” he asked me.

“They can see you have the remote control,” I pointed out.

“It resembles their own cell phones,” he replied. “What I am doing, from their point of view, is not different from what they are doing. No one is suspicious of someone who is doing the same thing.”

When there was nothing left inside me to cause further embarrassment, Dr Wei had me stand up and bow to the crowd. Mostly confused, some of them applauded. All of them went back to sightseeing as soon as they realized the show was over.

“But you make a valid point,” Dr Wei said. “I should have plugged in your mouth as well. Controlling your movements is not enough.”

When we turned onto Highland Avenue, I immediately recognized the church where all of this began.

“Back to the laboratory,” Dr Wei said.