The last first day of school

I wore a green skirt with blue dots and white sneakers.
It was hot and bright out. Like a dessert.
A teacher referred to hot tub time machine, the movie, as having a good second act.
As I was biking home I thought about doing groceries, but I didn't.
Instead I went to Epistrophy and had a panini and an aranciata and chatted with people working.
At night we watched a movie and ordered tacos.

Reality Television

While watching an episode of project runway's latest season, I started wondering why the formula for these sort of shows is so successful. When I was in Amsterdam I spoke to one of my good friends about success and failure and its role in history and how recently success is measured in economical terms.
In these shows success and failure is all we are trained to pay attention to. Winning and losing is the most important part of the episode. Who wins the challenge and who goes home. We start rooting for certain people and start disliking other ones, which is after all what we, humans, have loved to do since the beginning of time. The ironic thing of these shows, American Idol, Project Runway, Top Chef, ect, is that the person who wins the entire competition usually disappears from television, our memory, the general public's eye, as quickly as they rose to fame. So while this show is built on success and failure, the result of this success, the general success itself is less important that what got them there in the first place. The process. What we watch is the rise to success, the road to fame, rather than where they end up, or where they want to end up. Our fascination is with the competition, the tension between the contestants and the challenge itself. Do we ever see the winners of Idols as actual 'Idols'? Or the winners of Project Runway as legit fashion designers comparable to Marc Jacobs and Betsey Johnson? The answer, I think, is no. Perhaps the irony of these shows is that it is exactly the public nature of the process that makes us value the end result less. The mystery of how Madonna and Marc Jacobs rose to fame is part of what makes them who they are. Although it is the road to fame we view as entertaining, like watching gladiators in the arena, it might also be the dirty part we would rather not know once our idols have become precisely that. Untouchable.

Buying etiquette

The last days in Amsterdam I contemplated a couple of rules I will, from now on, abide by when buying clothes. I will not by clothes for which I will need to buy other clothes. Once, for instance, I bought a dress which could only be worn with a brown belt. And not just any brown belt, a specific color and shape. Naturally this brown belt was never found. I will buy things I will like for a while. Things that don't fall apart. Things that fit. No turqoise. No things I will only wear on special occasions. Those usually never come. No things that could be used as Halloween costumes. No dresses that would look good on a child. No boots with laces as decoration and a functioning zipper on the side.

The Parade 2010

Being uncomfortable with a microphone.
Selling out.
Rain boots.
Beers. Many.
The secret disco at 5 AM in the movie theatre.
And a guy with a drill taking the chairs out to make more room.
Counting money in a little room and not being able to do math.
Still wearing flight attending uniforms.
Teaching Americans strange words like 'gekkenhuis,' 'mafkees,' 'strenge tante' and hearing them use them in strange contexts.
The night when we watched the zweefmolen after the last round, full of smoke.

Last night

The first night of the parade show 'The New Yorkers.'
Stewardess lipstick on my fingernail.
Doorzakken with Americans.
The guy next to us with a bright red face in a western shirt, smoking a cherry flavored water pipe.
Spin the bottle with invisible people.
A conversation about where Mogli of Jungle Book would be now. We pictured him in a sad office.
Raps about caterpillars.
A guy who had been reborn in a cloister somewhere in France. He said he loved meeting new people. It was why he liked traveling so much.
Walking the dog in the park as the sun was rising.

Last night

De nagel. A place on a dark corner with trophies all over. Apparently you could take them if you wanted, but the bartender from Limburg, people called him Sabri, turned out to be very attached to a certain trophy, third place position, which was precisely the trophy one of our friends had set his eyes on. There were also cartoons with sexual undertones, no rather, with overt sexual content spread across the walls. In the corner there was a shrine with candles. It seemed to be honoring nudists.
After that we went to Pollux, a bar near the water, with a Moby Dick movie poster next to various family photos and a taxidermy dear head. The couches were covered in flower motif textiles and there was a big jukebox with classics. We listed to Danny de Munk over and over again until even our American friend knew the words. The bar tender fed us pretzel sticks.
The boyfriend of a friend was playing some sort of game with his friends where he but his foot in their crotch, and they put their feet in his. We didn't quite understand the humor of it, or if it was intended as a joke at all. The girlfriend told us to ignore. We did. We went on singing along with Danny de Munk.
When this place closed, we went to a place called San Fransisco, which was dark and smelly and had a doorbell. There were tourists and men with beards. Then Sabri, or king of the night as someone called him, who had come with us and at this time had started smelling unbearably, brought us back to de Nagel. He went in and out of the bathroom, each time his eyes a little wider than before. It explained the smell. We had more beers and sat around a table with a candle. The cigarettes had all gone and a discussion ensued about what store would still be open at 5 am. In the meantime we ate wasabi peanuts. This discussion lasted about half an hour until the bartender so called 'sacrificed' himself by ordering drugs from a drugdealer and asking him to bring some cigarettes. People started to kiss him in order to show their gratitude which seemed like an excellent time to leave.
I drank multiple glasses when I got home but it didn't help much. I woke up with a vague taste of wasabi, beer and pretzels in the back of my mouth.

Things I miss about New York

Tacos. Porpusas at the flea market.
The flea market in general.
Cabs late at night.
Drinks in hotel lobbies.
l'Asso pizza.
The beach.
"coach coach chanel"
People crowding sidewalks.
Skateboards. Sort of.
Epistrophy and the coffee martini.