FJ!!'s Neglected Personal Blog

I am taking recommendations for Nintendo Gamecube games for a gaggle of nieces and nephews between the ages of 0 and 10. They have Super Mario Kart Doubledash party game thingie that they all enjoyed and they could play together. I need more of those. They are for grandpa's house, where there's a memory card so they can save in between games, and I think I'll buy a fourth controller.

Are the Big Industry checks every month worth telling your daughter that her equal rights should be up for any majority to vote on? State, federal... hey, it's all about having the right people decide if she's good enough, right?

So I am dropped off at a Steakhouse for a table for one, and after a modest medium-rare teriyaki steak, when dessert time comes around, I ask my cute young blond waiter what is good. He points to two things on the menu and then says he'll let me think about it. When he comes back I tell him that my usual response to a conundrum like this is to order both, and he laughs. I settle for one of the two, and when he brings it I make an impressed face because it is pretty darn big. He decides to make a joke: "Well, if you still want the other after you finish this one, I'll pay for them both."

Ha.

I look up at him and grin because I can hear in my head the sound of all the people who have seen me eat howling in laughter in unison at this poor man.

 "You'd lose," and I thank him for bringing this one. I eat (chocolate mousse cake with chunks of white-chocolate cheesecake on a chocolate crumb crust with chocolate shavings, served on a plate drizzled with caramel and chocolate syrup. He comes back as I am scraping my plate and says "Well, I wanted to ask you how it was but I guess that is not necessary..." It seems to be starting to sink in that he may not know who he is dealing with. "Uh, still want the other one?."
-- "Do you have a minute, or are you busy?" I ask.
He has a minute. This is one of those semi-formal steakhouses where the waiters know what they are doing and are never really busy.
-- "Four years ago I was at a four-star restaurant in Perpignan for the prix-fixe gourmand menu. After the fourth course comes dessert, which is in two course. Ffirst the creme brulee, then after that comes the dessert cart. The maitre explains all the pies and then turns to me to ask me which one. And you what my answer was? 'Toutes.' And when I was about to stop her because I was joking about something so extravagant, I realize that she has nodded and is taking me completly seriously. She calls another waiter and they start cutting and I end up with a plate as big as this covered in slivers of pie."

My cute blond waiter is laughing. I decide to finish the story properly, but let me first admit here in my journal that, while part of me was so not serious, another part wasn't joking that much when I 'jokingly' answered "All of them'" when I was asked which pie, I just made it look like that to not seem too over-the-top greedy to the rest of my table. No matter what the rational brain said, the greedy back of my mind always wanted for this to happen and was waiting to spring this answer at the chance. And I let it.

-- "I finished the plate." I pause a beat, I know how to tell this story. "I then finished my boyfriends sorbet." His eyes widen. " I don't eat like that anymore. But you would have paid for my desserts tonight." He nods, suitably amused.
"So... do you want the other piece?"
-- "Oh no. I really don't eat like that anymore. ...  But I would have finished it."

Two notes here: at this point pinkfish is surprised to see me admit to this story in writing. That is because while I was eating, I made the table swear to never, ever, ever tell about the event to anyone should my mother ever find out, an oath I have since broken many times, but never in writing. She'd have killed me at such awful manners as eating the whole dessert cart. Well, she's dead. I don't repeat this story much anymore because I also don't like to constantly hear this story as if it is the only thing I have ever done, but it is new to many of you.

Second, and here comes the strange part, I have had corroboration from pinkfish, who was at that table, that I am not nuts when I remember the plate being covered totally in slivers of pie. Yet the photographic evidence of it only shows five or six big pieces. This makes me wonder every time I think about it. Obviously our collective memory is wrong, but still...

Ok, grudgingly, third note, which should put this in the realm of a locked entry: the chocolate tarte was so concentrated it worked as an aphrodisiac; in the Salvador Dali museum we visited afterwards. That piece, together probably will all the warm and sensual colors and designs in the museum, put me in a state of mind where I kept assaulting pinkfish when I thought the crowds wouldn't notice.

Oh yeah, my background.

My father worked for a big Dutch chemical conglomerate all his life, working up through the ranks. Somewhere in the mid sixties he was sent as an expatriate (expat) to Argentina, to  represent the company in a joint venture with a local industrialist in setting up a factory for some man-made yarn like polyester or nylon or some such. So with his pregnant wife and two small children in tow off he went to a house in the suburbs of Buenos Aires. My sister was born soon after they arrived, and I came 3 years later in 1970. Three years after I was born it was time to set up or run the next factory, this time in sunny breezy Medellin, Colombia. So there we were, mom, dad, four very blond kids whose native tongue was now Spanish and whose every fight could be stopped by mom just telling us that fighting was ok, but we had to do it in Dutch, and since my parents never swore or fought, we had no fighting words and all we could do was glare and call each other poop or something in Dutch. I didn't even know the word shit until 1980.

My eldest sister went to a Catholic girls school complete with the over-the-knee checkered pleated skirt and white blouse every day. The rest of us, when we reached school age, took big yellow schoolbusses to the Columbus School, a school basically staffed by expat US teachers, based on immersion English inside the classroom after Kindergarden. So at age 6 I started speaking English to my teachers. I hung out mostly with the other US kids, who all seemed to have 6 million siblings, fathers in white shirts who were 'missionaries' of some kind, and brough the disgusting combination of peanut butter and jelly on one sandwich to school, but also delighted me by sharing their marshmellow rice krispy squares. Since accent is influenced mainly by your peers (I am sure there's a Zwicky paper I could reference here) they were my primary influence, and more than once did I have to explain to teachers I was not American. I also, of course, had a perfect native Paisa accent when I spoke Castellano, and I also got astonished looks from other kids that the gringo no tenia accento. (Duh. Incidentally, I took until a decade later before I realized gringo was supposed to be perjorative,if even mildly. There was so much other crap thrown at me, gringo barely registered.)

More than one of my teachers was also pregnant with her fortieth child, and from Utah, I believe. They all taught us American songs like This Land Is Your Land and I Found A Joy Down In My Heart. I learned to read with Tom, Dick, And Jane, and a sparse page layout with New Century Schoolbook font fills me with the same pangs of nostalgia as it does to many of you reading this. When I got older I no longer needed to attend religion classes and I spent many an hour in the library with my US friends (yup, they didn't attend those religion classes either, but not because they were from an atheist family like me) and they introduced me to Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys. I still consider them some of my best childhood friends, even if the friendship was one-sided and we haven't kept in touch, even om TV, since Pamela Sue martin went on to do Dynasty.

This all stopped when I was nine and my father wanted to go back. His eldest was perilously close to graduating High School and he'd rather we all get European university educations -- I bet they were much cheaper than having to ship us off to Miami. This was in 1979 and all hell only really broke loose in Colombia a year after we had left, but looking back moving was a really good idea for many reasons. At the time I was pissed at being taken out of a garden with orchids and hummingbirds and every day sunshine to this dreary place I only knew from wet rainy grey summers. I saw the first snow in my life somewhere in December 1979.

The results are as following: I haven't been immersed in Spanish for over 25 years so. I can barely understand it at its proper speed, and definately not in the local accents. I may be able to read it, but I have the vocabulary of a nine year old. My Dutch, however, did extremely well in subsequent years to the point I was considered pretty damn masterful in the language, a perfect speller of all tenses and verbs, and knew the rules so well I broke them constantly for the precise effect, whether spoken or written. This has now severly declined and I sound generic and akward when switching back for quite some days. My English was reinforced for years by watching tons of US shows on Dutch television, and reading a lot (including Usenetin college). My sister closest to my age had already fought the battle at our High School not to have to switch to British pronunciation, and I reaped the benefits by being allowed to progress in the accent I had, so I passed those classes in flying colors -- duh, it was one of my native tongues. I have been in the US since 1995 now, and I speak US English almost exclusively.

I sound "Definitely American But Not From Here". I won't take the word from people who know my background when they tell me they can detect traces of a Dutch or, in one case, even a Spanish accent, and certainly not now anymore, because usually they have an undertone of being patronizing. The reaction from unbiased strangers about what they think my background is tells me enough. My biggest pitfall is that my vocabulary for physical objects and constructs is limited and not as ready at hand as say my vocabulary to discuss social, economic, and software issues -- I did not grow up using Erector sets in English or beaing a gearhead on my own car. My spoken language will start taking on local characteristics somewhat more readily than other people's, although I have luckily evaded the scourge of the Boston accent. I do suspect that two weeks in TX will be all it takes to start having me twang.

What I do sound like is very generic faggy. I did so in Dutch too, and I bet I would in Spanish. My TX twang will sound like an aged Southern Belle's.

So, arrive in Paris, have sis-in-law meet me at CDG and drive us to a small town near Versailles, spend day with her and four kids, have bro come home in evening, stay night, take Thalys train to Brussels (1.5 hrs or so), change trains to small town in Belgium, spend afternoon and evening with sis, three kids, and husband who worked late, get driven to Maastricht, take train, arrive in Amsterdam at 1.35 AM or so, walk to empty weekend appartment of other sis, sleep at two, lie awake, wake up at ten, try to go to gym, find both gyms gone, come home to find sis, husband, and two daughters, go to IKEA with them just to hang out while bro-in-law has an interview around there, come home, take cab to see old fraternity friend, with her husband, and 9 month old daughter, back home now at midnight or so.

Geeez, why am I exhausted?

But I am in Amserdam. I should go out.

(Ok, about the gyms, I am sure there was one on a third floor on the Korte Leidsedwarsstraat, it was big and did a reasonable 3-day card. Couldn't find it, might be a victim of a stadsvernieuwing (city renovation) job, a rampant ongoing scheme in the Netherlands. Allright, will try Mandate on one of the canals close to Leidsestraat, damn old equipment and damn cruisy since it is a gay gym, but I can get my stuff done. Gone too. I walk home in frustration. My sister then tells me I should have tried Sqaush City since it is very close to the appartment. Hmm. Maybe tomorrow, but I am not motivated anymore. Damn.

I've been gone way too long.)

One of the great disservices of our time is that, while all familial dysfunctionalities like controlling behavior, emotional abuse, physical abuse, substance abuse, incest, domestic violence and all those more things, have now been brought to the surface and discussed to the point that half of my friends list can spot a controlling husband two miles away, there are very so few answers to the question "what to do" besides "leave hir."

Yeah, they can bottom out and get off any drugs and alcohol, we know how to do an intervention and stick people in AA. But what's the answer to people who don't know how to stop being jealous, controlling, absuive? Even for the motivated ones, the options are few. We know how to help the victims, protect, shield, build up, find self-esteem.

"Get therapy" really is about as helpful as saying "get better" to someone with appendicitis. And it will not save the relationship in the meantime.

Because what do you think is harder: becoming less controlling, less abusive, more positive, more trusting, less jealous -- or finding someone else to accomodate you? Take it from this mildly selfish bastard: there are damn many doormats out there.

For my weekend event, see here. I have to say that I found my night in a tent cozy and worth repeating, if only the air matress did not leak: I didn't like sleeping on the hard ground. If only the need to spray myself down with DEET-based bugspray didn't leave me feeling low-level sick.

My father has much amused himself over the years with lamenting that he has raised 'Hilton children', as he calls us, brats so spoiled they won't go out camping and sleep in tents or backpack or live out of tiny cramped campers. We, after having heard this forty times, never fail to inform him it was his own bloody fault, by always taking us to motels and hotels and timeshared bungalows and what not. My mother wouldn't have been caught dead on de camping, sweltering in France, surrounded by the caravans of other Dutch people who would come to the same spot year after year, taking over the coasts to the point restaurants would put out signs saying "De koffie is klaar!" Egh, too burgerlijk for her, she wanted a nice house(let) with a kitchen and proximity to a beach.

Of course, it is that instinct for comfort that made me tell Dino to put that leftover bottle of champagne into the cooler and freeze the carton of OJ so that it would be suitably ice-cold on Sunday morning to mix with the champagne. If the man wants me to go camping with him, he'd better prove there's some style involved. And dammit if the whole-wheat muffins under the smoked salmon with capers actually taste better when toasted on a grill-fire on one side than when they pop out of a toaster.

I don't drink -- I just pawned the mimosas to others.

I came home and pinkfish had chicken schnitzel, green beans, a salad, and salsa, all packed in his backpack with plates and cutlery and lemon soda. We had dinner in the park. It was nice.

I think it is befitting for me to mention today that I forget everyone's birthday. I am notorious for that. Now that LJ doesn't alert people automaticaly, I will probably forget yours too.

I suggest you take it personally. That approach must have worked wonders for my family, since they persisted in taking it for so long.

(They seem to be getting over it, though.)

-- Baardje afgeschoren. Jeezus Christus, wat een bolle Andre-Hazes kop in de spiegel, crisis. Net zoals bij de rest van mijn familie hangt mijn huid slap onder mijn kin, en zonder baard dus nu duidelijk zichtbaar. Mijn wangen lijken boller nu dat gezichsthaar mijn gezicht niet langer doet lijken. Crisis. Snel weer aangroeien.

( 4WD yuppie, Iraq, Men's Health )