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.