mon 15 dec 2008 00:00:00 — witte de withstraat
practicing english
thursday i was writing to paula fox that the ferocity of life is in its cruelty, as when life goes on. even after paula's daughter, my friend amanda, died. paula is probably my age.
a man rang the bell to deliver three big packages, one of which was a suitcase all taped up. he didn't know which flat they belonged to. i didn't immediately recognize the recipient name, because it's the real name of "micky" who is staying upstairs with george. but then i saw that it came from sofia, and i told the guy "ik ken die mevrouw precies, die woont boven op de eerste verdieping." since nobody wa home there, we left the packages in our front corridor until the evening when she came to get them, and jk and i helped carry them up.
that evening i went to mulligan's, mainly cuz i wanted to buy a "celebratory" pint for jk. but i also got to see a lot of my other friends, kh and pani and dvr and marina and phil and micky and dh and marion and mr baker o.a. francie conway (an old friend of jk and phil) was playing there. i'm not a big fan of francie's music, but that's okay he probably doesn't think much of mine. nice guy anyway. as mulligan's was closing we stood out in the cold rain for a few minutes trying to decide how to get home. in the end we walked to the parking garage under waterlooplein and got into dvr's car. we had a shortage of space so i lay down in the back where one normally puts luggage. that was more comfortable than one might expect. then he drove us all home, that was very kind of him.
on friday i started writing again about my theories of urban design. i stayed home friday night.
i was awakened early saturday by a phone call from my beloved, who has a lot of work and difficulty finishing it all. she had taken the night off and gone to a concert, just got home by the time it was 07.00ish here.
then i worked some more on my urban design writing. i worked on that pretty much all day.
saturday evening i went to dinner at micheline and michel, with hg and helena. we saw the new special tango shoes hg and helena had bought in den haag from the man who imports them from argentina. we ate some really good stuff, then micheline performed one of her new songs for us, and i got to play her piano for a while, and then i listened to some stories about mathematicians. then i noticed i was late, rushed on the 14 to the tara to see artery.
tara isn't the ideal venue to see a band, because of how the stage is oriented. not much space for people to stand, but there was a huge crowd present. it was as if all the people had been waiting for an artery performance. women dancing on benches etc. tara has made their pool room into a smoking room.
my highlight was when ella rolled a sjekkie from me and sat for a few minutes practicing her english on me, explaining her entire five year academic plan. she said she's already getting besieged with job offers in mechanical engineering, and we agreed that it's a result of her appearance in "booboo agogo". tee hee.