Chill Winston! It's me, Charlie knows it's me, so what's the problem?

J&M rolled through for an extended weekend which was AWESOME. Was so nice to have (some of) the fam finally see this place. What was not awesome was the weather, which consisted of every type of precipitation know to man, including those little round hail balls that look like foam packaging stuffing. Except they hurt when they hit you. Anyway, Noah's Ark 2008 was a bit of a downer, but we did survive...mostly on chocolate eggs since this country feels about Easter the way that I feel about cheesy techno (loooove it). Thankfully, not in any "We Love Jesus" sort of way, just in the eggs/chickens/chocolate kind of way. Not a lot of bunnies though -- I think that's an Americano adaptation.

Fun new activities included the zoo (and a crappy Plane-arium), a brewery under a windmill and a cute Belgian beer bar. Despite my beer-hating tendencies, the brewery beer was sick-tasty and uber alcoholic...had a very Brooklyn Brewery feel to it (read: sparse with shared tables and lots of 30-something drunk people. jam!).

The bro also brought out some long-missed DVDs, including a pair of key Guy Ritchie flicks. Sigh. Is he ever going to do another one? I don't care if they are all similar, I like them. And since it was/is still raining/snowing, I definitely did not feel like a waste of space watching them both in a row (though to be fair, if it was sunny and in the 20s I probably still would have had a futondoublefeature). This place shuts down like suburban DC when there is slush -- a colleague worked from home today because there was FORTY ONE KILOMETERS of traffic. I mean, that's almost half the width of the country...

Carnies....Smell like cabbage. Small hands.

I get a lot of questions about Amsterdam that are pretty similar to all the questions that I have about Las Vegas. They are all along the lines of "Is it really as crazy there as I think it is?"

Usually, my answer to this is no (but I hear in Vegas the answer is "yes"). The Dutch are just like everybody else -- some people smoke pot, some people take hallucinogens, some people visit prostitutes and some people have never tried hash, shrooms or women. Like the U.S., The Netherlands has a Christian Right (who is just as scary -- see the recent news on an anti-Muslim film) as well as nuclear families and regular old folks who just aren't into these things. For example, one of my coworkers noted that he's never tried marijuana. True, that's kinda like telling me he's never had a drink given the laws here, but I usually have a similarly visceral reaction when someone from the U.S. tells me they've never tried the sweet sweet sensi. So while yes, approximately 30% of Amsterdammers have tried Marijuana, approximately 35% of New Yorkers have (booyah delivery service).

Now, recently there was a TV movie screening on NATIONAL PUBLIC TELEVISION that has made me think twice about my "The Dutch are Normal" response as outlined above. Deep Throat (no, not a documentary about Watergate, but the 1972 porno) was shown on late night TV on February 23. AND they must have shown it again at some point, b/c I forget when I saw it, but I was out of town on Feb 23, so it means there was definitely a rerun screening.

So, I'm no porn connoisseur (jokes about homemade porn, by the way, are not funny and I do not recall that incident Senator). But this movie was friggin' hilarious. I was flicking through the channels and came across it while the main character is giving an inverted blow job (not sure if that is correct terminology...use your imagination), but all you can see is her face all over this dude's cock. Indeed, this dude was hung and indeed, she was going to town like a kid at a carnival. A carnival you ask? Well that's what it sounded like...

In my narrow experience with the genre, I always thought there was cheesy romantic music or grunting and semi-fake orgasmic screaming. But this movie played Ferris wheel music. Think dancing midgets, house of mirrors, etc. I couldn't get over it. Big hairy cock? yeah yeah yeah, what's the big deal. Big hairy cock set to state fair music? now you've got my attention. Of all the porn films to choose to play on TV...

(doo doo doo to too too doo doo do to too, etc.)

You mean I'm black?! Does dad know?

This entertained me almost as much as www.overheardinnewyork.com. Yes, I am slightly uncomfortable being an upper-middle class white girl who, with the exception of wearing shorts, probably fulfills most white stereotypes (I like Kayne West...so do you). There is now a special name for the cross-generation mix of slightly-concerned, over-educated (usually) white people: We're called "Cultural Creatives" and are now almost as high on brand target lists as soccer moms (I'm sure ATD could tell us more but she's too busy making ecologically conscious shampoo bottles to read this). I'm building millions of campaigns to get us to buy fair trade coffee, green tea, smart wool socks, energy saver washing machines and dishes with tiny bubbles and imperfections, proof that they were crafted by the honest, simple, hardworking, indigenous people of....wherever.

Are the 3.2 people out there reading this blog too young to get the title movie reference? Ahh, the joys of exposure from liberal ex-hippie parents. We'll also have to sit down and watch Repo Man together, even though I'm not sure if "quality" and "Emilio Estevez" in the same sentence is an oxymoron...

English, motherfucker, do you speak it?

Everyday I get questions that I wish I knew the answer to (like how do trains go uphill?). As the bullshit artists that we all are (okay, maybe not all of us, but at least achtentachtig percenten of us) we like to, what I will diplomatically call, "intuitionalize" a reason or cause of something even if we have no.fucking.clue why something is the way it is. Three cheers for liberal arts degrees.

So, all you educated souls, what exactly is a douchebag?

I think we all know what the slang term means (please visit whitehouse.gov for further clarification -- can't hyperlink that one or the random man monitoring phone calls and emails will hunt me down for the threat to national security that I am. But perhaps I'm worrying about the wrong government... Fun Dutch fact: The Netherlands is the most wire-tapped country in the world), but that's not where I'm going.

A Dutch guy asked me this somewhat recently, "What is this douchebag?" seeking the actual definition of the term, not the slang (how this got to be slang, by the way, is beyond me and sadly, Wikipedia doesn't have all the answers...yet...any cunning linguists out there who research this further, please update the "douche" entry when you get a chance). I felt a bit like a mom explaining the birds and the bees while this blue-eyed student stared at me expectantly. Using my extensive knowledge of French, I explained that douche in French means to wash and women used to use a, uh, turkey baster of types to uh, clean themselves. So uh, therefore douching is uh, a woman cleaning herself. Pass the tequila.

Of course in that explanation, there is no bag mentioned -- turns out the turkey baster is attached to a baggie of water/vinegar/bleach/poisonous cleaning supplies/etc. Coming from left field here, but has anyone out there every actually seen a douche bag? (seeing Karl Rove on the street doesn't count.) How many generations ago were these things a birth control of choice? I know they went out of vogue because they used antiseptics which can cause "an imbalance of the natural bacteria in the vagina, also resulting in an increased likelihood of infection" but that doesn't tell me what percentage of the population was down with this system.

I'm super tempted to take this strain of conversation into a general birth control discussion, but I'm sure I've grossed out enough people for today (including myself), so the sponge vs. rhythm method battle will have to wait. My work here is done.

Fifty-three dollars...would you pay someone that much money every week to kill you?!?

Just back from biz in NYC, where I spent 4 days trying to bond with thecitythatatemysoul. I was unsuccessful. But did come to the conclusion that my soul can be bought. Maybe for the price of one jelly donut (someone get this reference, please).

I also blew a bunch of cash. Yeah, I was visiting and blah blah blah. But I think I have an addiction to yellow cabs (especially since now there is Diana and Sade giving me some of the softest news stories I've ever heard and they take debit and credit -- not Diana and Sade, the taxis). I could definitely feed 25 Somali children for 835 years for the amount I dropped on rides. And expensive coffee. And microwave popcorn. And sushi. And a prostitute. And a mani/pedi. And organic sorbet. Next time I'm there I'll have to play the "Can I walk out of [insert apartment at which I'm crashing -- Governor, you're next unless you are on the GBR, in which case maybe Johnny will let me have the closet and give me Halo lessons]'s place and not spend any money all day. Period."

Sadly, I'll think that game is a little too aggressive, so maybe I'll just cut the whores out of my budget. No whores and no taxis. Definitely no whores in taxis, b/c that's just asking for a VD.

Well, have you ever made love high?

Y'know, I go for years and years of my life without being told I look like someone famous (and no, Princess Fergie doesn't count) and then in the space of a couple of months get some strange comparisons dropped on me.

At my bro's engagement fiesta this past weekend, I was chatting with one of my dad's friend's who I had never met before. She's all dolled up in a teal velour (okay, maybe it was crushed velvet, I'll give her the benefit of the doubt) blazer and accosts me as if we've known each other for years when in fact I don't know her name. After telling me that she really digs Amsterdam because "I like the hash bars. Do you go to the hash bars? I really like the hash bars" she then drops "Has anyone ever told you that you look like Diane Keaton?"

WTF? I mean are we talking Diane Keaton who now does wrinkle commercials or Diane Keaton in Annie Hall or Diane Keaton in [insert recent movie title] when she is a divorcee? Not sure any of these options are ideal.

hmmmmmmmmmm (part 2)

I'm here to learn, everybody, not to make out with you. Go on with the chlorophyll!

Some of you have already heard this story. But in my typical style of loving to tell the same stories over and over and over and over and over again, suck it up and read on.

So I got all jazzed up about this potential trans-Atlantic lover coming over for a business trip. I've heard from a number of my friends who have slept and/or hooked up with married men (yes, there are more than one of you and no, being separated does count as being divorced) that an aged man is like fine wine. Well, this guy was like old cheese. Or old feet. Or old feet covered in old cheese.

Okay, that's a bit unfair -- he didn't smell or chew with his mouth open or anything. To (attempt) to be objective, he was a nice guy, not bad looking, intelligent (though a bad conversationalist), etc. I mean, a girl could do worse...

...until it got to the kiss...

This guy could win the "Worst Kisser in the World" contest by a landslide. And I don't mean the "try to do it really badly on purpose" contest or "get your friends to give you five dollars to make out with your other friend" contest. I mean just straight.up.FOUT (fout = wrong in Dutch. I have to learn it, so you do too). Since my first peck at age 10, it ain't never been this bad.

Imagine trying to press an elevator button with your tounge over and over and over and over and (putting etc. here wouldn't cut it...) over and to infinity and beyond! and over again. Now imagine someone pressing that elevator button in your mouth, where there isn't one. It was just....sad. I tried to slow it down, tilt the head, guide him in the right direction, but no! Where is the elevator?!? Keep pressing that button!

(I can see a woman divorcing a man over this -- but why the hell did she wait until after they had two kids? oooooh harsh)

Anyway, he didn't get past second base. He tried to kiss me again on Valentine's day and for the first time in my life I said "I'm not really in the mood" (okay, maybe not the first time, but close). I've never been so turned off in my life. I mean, guys do things that don't "work" but they usually find the plumbing before you know if they can handle the tools.

So, instead of "Obama or Hillary" or "Great Taste or Less Filling" the poll of the week is "Do you tell a man he is not a horribly rancid kisser if a) you never want to see him again and b) he's over 40?" I've heard "hell no, what's the point" but also that I'd "being doing him a favor."

Kick him when he's down or change his life forever? You be the judge.