On pressure and old structures, felt and visited

I have been remarkably remiss in my blogging lately, for which I apologize. The reason for my nonblogginess is not that very little happened to write about, but that more than enough happened to write about, and I felt pressured by myself to give you people as chronological a recounting as possible. Since this is hardly a real possibility for me, I write better about the things that just happened as they are still fresh in my mind, I got stuck.
So I decided to start of the new, non chronological blogging with a random rant, after which I will try to writ things in the order whit which they occur in my somewhat convoluted brain. That way, I ensure a reasonable blogging thickness, with a good chance of a rant every now and then, and some actual views into my strange but energizing life.

On whiz ze zchow…

A few weekends ago I, for the first real time in my life, had the choice to do the Bridget Jones thing and go away with Boyfriend for a weekend mini-break. More specifically, a weekend mini-break to London. Since I like London very much, and I like Boyfriend even more so, this was not a chance I would let pass, obviously. Given the fact he was also volunteering to pay for things there, providing I would just pay to actually get there, I was not going to complain about the situation anytime soon.
As it turns out, a friend of him lived in London, so we had a place to crash, and this for the small price of taking them out for a good dinner.

So plans were made, and guestrooms were appropriated. What was also done was the booking of tickets to two shows currently playing in London. I like musicals and musical theatre, Boyfriend was also not completely unwilling to give things a shot, and so we booked places for Avenue Q, already seen by me but wordofmouthed so hard I could hardly decline going again, and Spamalot, the Monthy Pythin musical. I myself am not really a fan of the Pythe, but hey, sometimes one has to do what one’s significant other wants to do, and I didn’t really mind going to see it anyways.

After a short and reasonably uneventful flight into the capital of Britain, I took a train to Tower Gateway, the stop close to the tower of London and in general my first stop going into this town. I like the tower, both it’s history and the way it looks, and to my mind no visit to London is complete without taking at least a swift peek at it when alighting there. No need to go in as Boyfriend was waiting for me around the subway station there and we had some ways to go still to get to the house of the aforementioned friend.

For those of you who have been to my house, I live roughly 45 minutes away by bus from the center of Amsterdam, which in Holland means you most likely live in a completely different town. In fact, I live two towns over from our Capital. In London, however, it means you are not even hardly out of town Center, which is funny, as almost anywhere in the real centre of London is less than half an hours walk from everywhere else in the centre of London. But anyway, having made the track to Putney, we found their house, took over the guestroom, met some new people, and went out to dinner, a good dinner, at a local Italian.

The Saturday was when it all happened, two shows booked, some shopping to be done, Boyfriend hadn’t been to London before so some sightseeing and subwaytravelling was also needed when possible, and of course some pictures needed to be taken.

The first show, Spamalot, was an experience. Not least because the show itself is quite good. Well, because it isn’t, really. As musicals go it is ok, and everybody goes into it with an enourmous effort, but really it is a rehash of Python jokes that we have all seen before, and at that it is not very well done. A shame, perhaps, but hey, something almost unavoidable. Still, it is a very enjoyable show.
Or at least it would have been. Had we had tickets anywhere near the stage. As it was, we had tickets closer to my house here in Holland. Which I could, incidentally, see, we were that high up.

Now let this not be seen as criticism aimed at the loveliness that is Boyfriend. The show was an “unknown”, as in there was no way of knowing it was going to be good or not, and as such forking out for the most expensive tickets might well have been (and would have been) a waist of money. Furthermore, he is from a country with a rather egalitarian view of things, which leads to the fact that apparently no seats in theatres there are really crap, only less desirable.
Well, these seats were… well, crap. Or they would have been crap, had any species of animal been able to survive the altitude to perform such actions. I myself was getting shorter of breath by the time we had climbed three or four floors up, and I had the distinct urge to shout “Ricola” when we were sort of halfway there. It was a good thing our theatre provided sherpas were willing to carry some of the books just purchased.

Anyways, after finally having crossed the snowline and slicing away the frozen remains of the guests perished there before us, we found that we were seated at an acoustically great spot. The sound was excellent where we were, if the stage was only the size of a postage stamp. On the other hand, a cleavage filled postage stamp, so perhaps I shouldn’t complain as much.
The show itself turned out to be, as said, ok. The seatprice was well worth it, and the fun to be had about the basic seatplace was worth it twice over.

A swift dinner and some more walking around later we took our seats for Avenue Q, a much better musical in my humble opinion, and the places, this time booked by me, were a good deal better accordingly. Boyfriend, as expected, had a great time, and I had a great time with him, so all was well.

The next day was regretfully already the return day, and after a good night spent at my place the weekend was sadly over. Not much exciting was done, to be honest, but it was a wildly enjoyable weekend I hope to do over sometime soon, if with different musicals, and perhaps from an hotel or suchlike actually a bit closer to the centre. But hey, beggars can't be choosers and all that.

Well, this as a quick “yes I am back to blogging-blog” Will try to keep updates coming again at a regular basis. Apologies this one was not all that interesting and a bit journallike. Will also strife to do better next time.

Grtz,
Kevin.

And then, suddenly, it hits you…

There should be a word for the moment the realisation hits you that the situation is not all ok, not all spiffy and shiny. Obviously, calling it an “oh-shit-moment” does it’s job admirably, but I say a real, dictionary approved word is needed here. And I am pretty sure I am not the only one, so I say: come on and use the power of the internet, use it and come up with my word.

In another note, I just realised this is the second time I am asking all of you to come up with a word for me. Granted, last time it was a word that would chill the blood of an offending party to the point of involuntary suicide, but still.

Anyways, last Thursday the lovely Bienie and myself took our little butts into the cinema to watch the new animated picture “Happy Feet”, about a tap-dancing penguin. We’d both seen the previews, and I had found some tap dancing excerpts of our movie-choice. So we worked our way past the posters of the tapping P’guin, discussed the options of tapping within an animated environment, had a short conversation with the studenty girls behind us about the tapping options of your average penguin, and turned towards the screen to see a tapping penguin.
And we watched a penguin. And he tapped.

Then, roughly two scenes into the movie, two distinct and very separate realisations hit me.

The first, not at all unusual, was the fact that I needed to pee. And pee I needed. Not just a little nudge from the bladder upwards that he was in fact approaching fullness and would appreciate being empties anytime most convenient, no. No this was a full on bladder-kidney civil attack. For a second I truly felt like the next thing I was going to hear was a small “pop” and see my insides dribble softly out of the hole in my side. This did not, however, happen. I am quite happy about this, and so I imagine were the people who worked at the cinema. I have never worked in any cleaning capacity myself, but I imagine if I ever would, the thought “God I am happy there is no kidney debris to clean up here” would cross my mind more than occasionally.

The second realisation, somewhat less urgent but all the more persuasive for it’s subtle delivery, was “Kevin… you well and truly despise Tap… Why are you the FUCK here?!?”.
Now I never like shouting to myself, and would have severely disciplined me, but in this particular case, I had to agree with the vehemence of my feelings.

Because I really do hate tap. Don’t get me wrong, as a discipline and training it is remarkably difficult to master, it has subtleties well beyond my abilities to express and all the validity as an artform.
I just really do not like watching it at all. Really. Not one bit. If given the chance to ride a unicycle through a room filled with the spiderinfested corpses of clowns during a full moon on the anniversary of the day 20 circi (plural of circuses) burned down on an Indian burial ground while mad incantations were screamed across the ashes by the deeply burned clown who just managed to save himself with his spritzing carnation or watching a bit of tap, I would be willing to desecrate some clowny corpses in less time than it took you to read this sentence.
So I dislike tap. This sentiment was delivered by me on numerous occasions, I think only my diatribe on the inherent manipulations of small children had more airtime than Tap. But somehow this little fact had completely slipped my mind while planning to go to this movie, buying tickets for this movie, seeing the posters for this movie, and whatnot.

I turned to Zaandam-haling bombshell next to me and said this, and she answered with a weary “I know”…

So why not leave, you ask me? Was it the incessant sugary sweetness of the movie glue-ing you to your seat? Well, partly. Was it because you never walk out of a movie, having even sat through the cinematographically challenged disease-toting disaster that were AI and Intolerable Cruelty? Yes, this is also right. Actually, this is the only reason I kept my place in the theatre. Kevin be damned if he lets a fluffball on softshoe drive him out of his natural habitat.

Next thing, The bean turns to me, and whispers. What she whispers is surprisingly close to what I described above. “I need to pee, but if I stand up now I won’t want to go back again… so I am staying”
And we did. We were there to see roughly fifteen million hearts be made out of bubbles, fishcorpses, penguinphlegm, snow, stones, clouds, the sappy minds of thirteen 6 year olds. Seriously, if it is even remotely possible to make a heart out of something, this movie does it.

But in all fairness, the movie wasn’t the worst I’ve seen last year. Not the best, certainly, but also not the worst. If you have small kids and a full frontal lobotomie, by all means, go see it and be entertained. Just do not tap on the way there.

Stripes at half open,
Kevin.