home and happy and grateful about it

merry christmas. so say we all.

an actual place. a sad, ridiculous, actual place...

where you can take classes in dealing with
- stress
- anxiety
- rejection
- anger
- jealousy
- craps

Yep, I've had about enough. Put me on the next plane to anywhere.

another cool thing hanging on the wall in the Reich-Sharpe house

I'm in Vegas visiting the in-laws. Vegas is silly. I hate it and I also like it. Sam won $100 playing blackjack. I spent most of the day in the pool so we're fine.

Things I like about Vegas:
- it's colorful
- ample amounts of public restrooms and your guaranteed proximity to one no matter where you are.
- no exposed wiring or electrical cords anywhere AND YET there are plenty of places to plug in your laptop.
- the fact that ten thousand years from now, our descendants will examine the ruins of this town and wonder why we built all this shit in the desert.

Berkeley

Just found this poem taped inside the door of my niece's bedroom closet. It's called Wild Geese by Mary Oliver. My niece Ella is three so I doubt she taped it up there herself. From the look of it, I bet it's been there for years.

Today I...
- ate a lot of chocolate covered pomegranate seeds
- slid down a giant cement slide a bunch of times
- walked through a rose garden
- lost at gin rummy
- won a few games of Egyptian rat screw
- put Ella to bed after reading "Ella Takes the Cake" twice

"Let the soft animal of your body love what it loves" is a great line. Sometimes great lines make me jealous because I wish I wrote them myself, but I don't feel that way about this. I'm just happy it exists. I'm happy it exists in part because my soft animal loves chocolate covered pomegranate seeds and was looking for validation.

Not enough cats.

never used headshot

Taken on my old street in Williamsburg. I was too broke that summer to print these up so I never did. I was 26? 27? Now I'm eighty.

Today is Thanksgiving. We're doing turkey and all that tomorrow. The Carrolls use holidays as travel days.

The book I'm reading is good.

from my sister to my cat on his birthday. why? because it's great.

In case this is illegible, it says "Dear Hammers, I hope that you are having a nice birthday, though I doubt that you are cognisant of the passage of time. I will see you later this month (not that you know what a "month" is) and you will probably cry at me and try to get me to leave the apartment. Then you will sleep with me at night because you think I am Dre. Since you can't read I'll end with this: One day Elaine will adopt a dog - and you will be seriously. pissed. off. Love, Sue"

True. He'll be furious.

Feet!

Feeeeeet!!!!

too many people

Happy Halloween. Sam and I went as Walter and Jesse from Breaking Bad. Not Top Chef. Although Walter and Jesse do cook some good shit.

All weekend long, I was listening to Paul McCartney's 1971 album "Ram". I like all the songs, especially the first track which I'm pretty sure is about how there are seven billion people alive today.

This is me on the set of the upcoming feature 'Alien vs. Yogi' where I play an oracle name Gweena and my one line is "Namaste, Mayor Kragstun"

Or maybe it's from something else. I honestly have no idea.

Many Too Small Boxes and Grandma

Last Wednesday my grandma had a heart attack so the Carroll's rallied in New York this weekend.

I learned 6 things.

1. How to say many important phrases in Czech such as "That is a pile of shit", "Shut your mouth", and "I'm gonna hit you so hard, your dog won't recognize you".

2. That Steve Jobs was a fascist, at least according to my dad. I took this picture about 30 seconds after he said that. Notice the pride in his shit-eating grin. Upon learning that Steve Jobs never gave money to charity, my dad sat back and said, "Actually that makes me respect him more."




3. As it turns out, it was not my mom who climbed over a fence to see The Beatles at Shea, but her friend. Thank you Sue for bringing this to my attention. My mom said Paul was her favorite and Ringo was her second, "not because he was talented, but because he was funny." Mom is the only non-fascist my dad has ever met.




4. The price of a cab between Woodside and Williamsburg varies between 13 and 40 bucks depending on how much of an asshole the driver is.


5. My uncle Al flew 25 missions over Germany in 1944. Then he came back to New York and built subways. Now he is a watermelon model. He finally found his calling.




















6. If you want to cheer up an old lady in the hospital, try showing her Maru videos.



6 1/2. Actually, if you want to cheer up anyone, try showing them Maru videos.

The Feynman Series

Beauty, Honor, and Curiosity. All of them great.

Staying in West Hollywood

Today I shot a video. It was fun. Now I'm back at the hotel. The book I'm reading is good.

All variations of my name on Twitter are unavailable and I just don't know what to do about it!!!1!! No really what should I do? #actualquestion

For the next 9 days I'll be driving around Los Angeles in a red 2012 Buick Enclave listening to Neil Young and T Rex. Yes we can be best friends.

Not enough cats on this blog.

nope, still not enough cats on this blog.

not enough cats on this blog.

I am a child and this is my dream house

If all goes according to plan, I will have a summer house like this somewhere on the west coast by 2017. Come visit any weekend you want. You will make fun of me for living in a tree house, and I will say something like "Well it's about the pursuit of happiness, not the pursuit of financially sound real estate investments." You will say, "But you have no money left!" I will say "This is also true." Then you'll make up an excuse as to why you have to drive back to LA a day early and I will spend the rest of the evening killing mosquitos.

Jim and Tina

-They're both from Woodside, Queens.

-My dad is the youngest of 8 and my mom is the oldest of 3.

-My dad used to ride in the space between the subway cars on the 7 train.

-My mom always wins at Scrabble. My dad always loses at poker.

-My mom broke into Shea Stadium to see the Beatles. I think all she had to do was climb over the fence. You would have done the same.

-They used to spend Sundays walking the entire length of Manhattan. Now they spend weekends baking pies and "text mailing" me pictures of the finished product. I will never correct them on this.

This picture is from May '06 when I graduated college. My sister will correct all inaccuracies in this post and in every other thing I ever do for as long as we both are alive.

SNACK!

Almost as good as this.

Every so often I pick a new favorite VMK episode.

Today it's this one.

The night before we shot this I stayed up late cutting green construction paper into dollar bills and sandwiching them between actual dollar bills to look like wads of cash.

love from the bottom to the top

Earlier I was sad so I ate pie which did help somewhat.

Then I watched this video again and again (as I often do) because the Talking Heads are my lucky rocket ship underpants of adulthood. They don't always work, but they mostly always work, at least somewhat.

This is a picture of Besser, Poehler, Roberts, and Walsh that I took in a parallel universe.

Hello. Stuff and things. I've lived in New York for 9 years and I still can't keep plants alive.

clamming for gold

This is me, Sam, and Miklos pulling clams out of the sand in Islesford. It was cold out. It was great fun.

We brought them back to the house, soaked them, then cooked them, then ate them with homemade pasta. It was one of the most delicious meals in recent memory.

What I learned -

- dig when the tide is low
- sometimes clams squirt water when you pull them out of the sand. lots of silly pee jokes can be made.
- keep track of your digging tools, otherwise you will lose them
- you're gonna fuck up your manicure. be okay with this.
- soak them in fresh water with a little corn starch

Clare took this. She also did most of the cooking. Thank you Clare.

update

Ooof. I take it back. The part about being annoyed by the storm and the part about never dying because the view tonight killed me.

Kurzweil and the Hurricane

Hurricane Irene came and went. Bought shit I don't need and food I won't eat for a hurricanes that wasn't that bad. Makes me wonder what news networks are actually trying to do - make me scared, make me informed, or make me spend money. What's worse is that I almost didn't fall for it. Some day soon I will learn my lesson and stop fearing silly things like hurricanes and get back to fearing normal things like social interaction.

My flight to LA was canceled "Until further notice" but, you see, I don't know what that means.

In other news, I have an ongoing theory that I'm never going to die and this is further proof of that.

I don't know. 13?

14?

Is that even me?

Braces. Bangs. Zero friends. Two-tone hair. Taffy, the dog, probably in the yard. Mom took this. I do not remember why.

The puff paint t-shirt is doing a great job hiding the adolescent chub.

I just found this picture.

For years it was between the pages of an old notebook. Now it's on this blog.

I tried to make my bangs look good that day. 4th grade was a rough one.

Etcetera.

current location - Islesford, Maine

When I was 3, an earthquake rattled my first childhood house in Ridgewood, New Jersey, but apparently I slept through it because I was one of those babies who adored being asleep, even when the earth was shaking.

Today an earthquake rattled my second childhood house in Richmond, Virginia, and again I missed it because I was asleep. But in my defense, I was asleep on a plane. Which was in the air.

My dad was at work when the earthquake hit. I asked him what happened and he offered this. "We all ran out of the building and hung out for 15 minutes, looked at each other, and went back to work."

I imagine if someone ran up to my dad screaming, "Aaah!! The world is blowing up! The sky is melting! We're all gonna die!!", that he'd sort of shrug and say, "Tough stuff, kid." And then he'd go have a cigar on the deck.

My current favorite article of clothing is my rainbow brite t-shirt.

44 degrees 15'44" N / 68 degrees 14'07" W is a common sticker to see on this island.

Blogged for Abra. No that's not true, blogged for me.

Boob man. Classic.

What do I like about this? All of it.

My dad's punctuation. How fat Sue's cat is. How much Sue likes Charlotte's Web. How much my dad hates cats. How all of these unlikely people in this world of ours just sit around on Facebook.

Yesterday my mom called it "Text Mailing". She is so close.

I borrowed my roommates car so I could donated 8 bags of clothes to the Goodwill on N. 7th, and on my way back, like a dumbass, I parked in a No Standing zone. The car got 3 parking tickets and was towed to the Brooklyn Navy Yard where a woman named Francine Bonafede did her best to make me feel like a dumbass, but the problem was I already felt like a dumbass, so... it just felt redundant.

Donny Hathaway kills it

Better than the original? I think yes.

His life was pretty fascinating.

So I think the distinction is this...

This blog will be for personal stuff, and my tumblr will be for career-y stuff. However I'm going to break that rule right now by posting something career-y, a link to an interview I did on the Daily Br!nk, because I emailed it to my mom earlier today and she responded with this...

Elaine, I think I realize why you like comedy so much. You have a mom with no sense of humor who was raised in an overly strict Catholic environment. Thank God for comedy because if we didn't laugh in this world so full of wars and hatred, we'd all go crazy. I don't mean to send such a heavy message, but we need laughter and comedy as a means to cope with negativity. I admire Aunt Vicki because she has a great sense of humor. How I wish I had her personality. She can joke about her job testing urine and other bodily fluids, a job which I would hate but which she does with humor and dedication. Whatever we do in life, it's much better if we do it with humor. In your case, you're devoting your whole career to it. I hope you continue to grow with VMK and can start up other creative projects in the future. Love, Mom

The truth is, my mom is unintentionally hilarious.

Why is Peter MacNicol holding so much Spam?

Do you remember the beginning of Sophie's Choice? Peter MacNicol is carrying several cases of Spam on his shoulder. Why is this? Do they ever explain it? I tried searching for a screen shot but google doesn't understand what I mean by peter macnicol spam, and I'm not gonna try very hard here because really this is irrelevant. My point is - the spam thing ruined the whole movie for me.

I found a sublet for my apartment. Problem solved. Onto new problems, whatever they may be. In a few weeks I'll be back in Brooklyn. Apparently I migrate from season to season like the landless illiterate nomads I descended from. In the words of All Of Them, "Weeeeee!"

But seriously, if you know about the spam thing, please comment.

Ella liked my sarong so I gave her one that she can keep "forever and ever and ever".

My niece is adorable, right?

I learned how to swim under water. This is a big deal for me. I had a smattering of swimming-related mishaps in my life. Not enough to keep me away from water, but enough to make me think I would never be a strong swimmer. This is no longer the case. You are currently reading the blog of a woman who can...
- do flips in the pool - forwards, backwards, sideways, every way
- dive to the bottom of the deep end to retrieve fallen Lego men
- do handstands and stay there for up to 2 seconds
- swim under water, eyes open, like a goddamn mermaid

On Saturday night, Bob, Perian, Adam, Sam and I played the most exciting game of Marco Polo anyone has ever played. It was late and dark, except for the pool which was illuminated. We had to whisper so we wouldn't wake up everyone at the Casa Cody hotel. Afterwards we went to the hot tub and talked and found ourselves singing. Adam and I gave a fully committed performance of The Confrontation between Jean Valjean and Javier from "Les Mis". Between the 2 of us, we knew 75% of the words.

Grantland

I'm excited for this!

Tree of Life

If you are a person who likes looking at things that are beautiful, you should see "Tree of Life". If you don't like looking at things that are beautiful, there is something wrong with you and you should get that fixed because looking at beautiful things creates harmonious brainwave patterns.

It's a big movie and it asks a lot of you. It took a lot more patience and attention than I'm used to giving. Somewhere into watching it, I started wanting to check my email which is a red flag of "I've had enough". At times it felt like the movie was going to give me information and then it wouldn't. It shows you a family - a mother, father, and three brothers - and starts by asking the question "Why did this have to happen?" when one of them dies. It lulls you into thinking there's a full on story line happening when there isn't. Instead it will take you through moments of creation - installments of music and images and bits of childhood memory - all unfolding without explanation or catharsis or apology. It reminds me of 2001: A Space Odyssey. It also reminds me of "Ashes and Snow" which is this art exhibit with a website that's worth exploring, particularly if you like to look at beautiful pictures while Laurence Fishburne whispers to you.

Tree of Life starts with a quote from the Book of Job which is one of the most fucked up thing in the Bible. The angry jealous Yahweh of the Old Testament made a stupid deal with the devil that he couldn't get Job to curse God because Job was such a good person. So God destroyed Job's life and eventually Job asked God "Why are you doing this to me?" and God said "I'm doing this because I feel like it and who the fuck are you anyway" and that was that.

On a side note, I started a twitter account but I can't remember the password and also lost interest.

Correction

My sister reminded me that the trip to Palm Springs happened in 1991, not 1990. Thanks for keeping me on my toes, Sue.

Palm Springs

I'm in Palm Springs with my in-laws. At 6:30 in the morning, I will be woken up by my niece, Ella, jumping on my stomach. It's 11:30pm and Sam and I just swam in the pool, then got in the hot tub, then jumped back to the pool. Very fun stuff. The drive here was fine. Traffic, but I didn't mind. We listened to Paul Simon, Simon and Garfunkel, and Martin Sexton on the way. I drove. Lloyd the Car did a great job.

I first came to Palm Springs in 1990. If I ever see my life flash before my eyes, I hope that the first morning in Palm Springs makes the cut - Mom and Dad standing on either side of the door. They tell me to keep my eyes closed. They're smiling, this must be good. Doors open to reveal California - blue, bright, warm, fragrant, magical, easily the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I felt like Dorothy when she first sees Munchkin Land. Here's what I knew about California. 1. It was far away from Virginia, and 2. it's where "Full House" came from. Full House was more than a TV show, it was my religion. The next time I went to California, I was in 4th grade, tagging along on a business trip with my dad. Then I didn't come back until 2008. Then briefly in 2009. And then in the beginning of 2010, I moved out here for pilot season. Then in the fall of 2010 I moved here for real (Drivers license and voting = real).

Now, in the middle of 2011, I'm back in Palm Springs. It's actually very funny to me - my life, the choices I've made, my entire career, all somehow based on my freakish childhood obsession with Full House. I've come full circle just by walking in place. I'm excited to see Ella's face in the morning.

Things to love about this:

-everything about the first minute, especially the awkwardness
-the moment between 2:51-2:57
-how i think i want to play tina weymouth in some sort of UCB sketch
-how if you want to pretend that david byrne's arm is paralyzed and then comes to life once he dances, you can
-everything!!! it's like it can't make me not happy!!!!!

I did an interview with The Daily Brink and they just sent me the pictures so I'm gonna take this opportunity to discuss Stevie the Cat

This is me and Stevie.



Stevie is a great cat. She is a girl cat with a boy name. That was an accident. We foolishly thought she was a male when we first met her because she was really friendly and outgoing and we know nothing about cat anatomy and everything about cat stereotypes. My family made the same mistake with our childhood cat who we adopted in 1988. We were told she was a male and my nerdy sister, 7 at the time, named her Einstein. By the time the vet told us he was a she, it was too late. Einstein was already Einstein. Stevie will always be Stevie. Sorry cats. On the bright side, neither Einstein or Stevie seemed to have too much of a complex about it. When Dave and I first started petting her, she rubbed her head into our hands in the same back 'n forth Stevie Wonder style. That's how she got her name.

Stevie was *sort of* born December 8th 2010. It's the anniversary of John Lennon's death, which is already a big deal in my house, but now it'll also be remembered as Stevie's Birthday (Observed). It's the day she adopted us. Yeah, she adopted us. This cat had been wandering around our yard for a couple days. Dave, Andy and I all noticed her. She was skinny and nervous, but cute and brave. No collar, no micro-chip (at least not that we felt), and our neighbors didn't know anything about her. My roommates and I had no intention of getting a pet. I already have a cat (the distinguished Mr. Hammers best known for his role as "Comet" in Very Mary-Kate). But this desperate little cat was too cute. She was hungry and skinny, but obviously sweet and smart and would make a great pet for someone. So we came up with a plan:

The plan:
1. See if the cat would come into our apartment on her own free will. She did.
2. Run to the pet store on Hillhurst, grab wet and dry food, litter, a litter box.
3. Take her to a vet asap.
4. Let her spend the holidays with us, then in the new year investigate no-kill animal shelters

However after about 2 days of living with Stevie we all fell deeply in love with her. We took her to the vet and everything checked out. Turns out she had been fixed which means she probably either had an owner who then got rid of her or moved away or she escaped... guess we'll never know.

Stevie's interests:

1. chasing crumbled up pieces of paper and getting so into it that she runs into walls.
2. killing and eating bugs
3. sitting on people, preferably with her butt in your face.
4. sitting on window sills
5. parading around the house with dirty socks in her mouth
6. string of any sort! Twine! iPod headphones! You name it, she'll kill it!
7. kneading (eyes closed or partially closed, never opened)
8. sleep marathons
9. impersonating Stevie Wonder

My favorite Stevie fact is how she meows like a slot machine. When she wants food, her meow comes out in this low-to-high pitch tone, kind of like an old-timey cash register. I swear to God. Come over at 7 in the morning and listen for yourself.

I love this animal so much it embarrasses me.

Hey this is a picture of what my face looked like last week when the fabulous Dan C. came over to take pictures of me in my kitchen.


My street


My front yard. My neighbor's plant.

Amsterdam

I spent 13 days in Amsterdam with Sam and Jessica. None of us had ever been. We flew overnight and didn’t sleep. The plan for day one was simple - take a cab from the airport to the apartment we rented then sleep off the jet lag. But as soon as we got there, our exhaustion transformed into delirious, stupid, silly joy. We decided in lieu of sleep that we would walk around until we could not stay awake. And that is essentially what we did every day for 13 days.

First let's talk about biking. Biking in Amsterdam is, at first glance, insane. No one wears helmets, they’re all on their phones, going 80 million miles an hour, with the groceries, dogs, and babies bouncing around in the basket. I would have been fine renting one of those yellow bikes they give to tourists, but Haley and Matt wouldn’t have it. This is Haley and Matt.

Haley and Matt are the best. They’re Americans, they’re our friends, they’re hilarious improvisers who perform with Boom Chicago. They’re passionate Amsterdam enthusiasts and expert tour guides. They didn’t want us to go to some stupid Rent-a-Bike place. They had us rent bikes that made us look (and eventually feel) like natives.



I’m not particularly athletic or coordinated, so I wasn’t thrilled about the whole bike situation to begin with, and then considering how tired and disoriented I felt, I was pretty sure I was going to fall into a canal and die. Matt’s advice was “Just keep up.” So I got on my bike and did my best. It was scary at first, then it became less scary, then it became fun. And then, somehow, it became the most amazing thing ever.

My bike was old, black, and nondescript. The bell didn’t work. The metal plate around the petal kept coming loose. I don’t know, it was a piece of shit. My bike reminded me of my car Lloyd - my junky, adorable, Craigslist-found, 2002 Hyundai Accent- a car that I love and despise in equal measure. That’s not true, I actually love my car a great deal, but not because it’s a great car. I love it because it’s mine, and because I understand it. Lloyd and I have an agreement. But we didn’t always. I had to learn.

Here’s what I learned about biking in Amsterdam.

1. Go fast. Well not too fast, but definitely keep up with traffic. If you don't, you will fall into a canal and die.
2. Do not ride parallel to the Tram tracks. Your wheels will get caught in the grooves and you'll get hit by the Tram and die.
3. If it looks like you’re going to run into someone, stand your ground. When you're indecisive, you will collide and both die.
4. When you slow down, you will wobble. If you wobble, you will fall. If you fall, you will most like fall into a canal because there are lots of canals.
5. People appreciate it when you use turn signals.
6. Even if your bell doesn’t work, saying “Ring, Ring!” will get the idea across.

Someone told me that Amsterdam has more bikes than people. I don’t know if that’s true but it certainly felt that way. Many of the bikes are pimped out and interesting, painted all sorts of crazy colors. Something I noticed right away is that bikes aren’t gender specific. You’ll see men on girl bikes and women on boy bikes and no one judges you or wonders if you’re gay or even notices, really. I saw a business man on a bright green bike with flowers and no one seemed to mind, least of all him. I love that. Also, people are very attached to their bikes. I certainly became attached to mine. In fact, the saddest part of my vacation was the moment it occurred to me that I’d have to bring it back and get on a plane and never see it again. At best, your bike is your own personal work of art. At the very least, your bike is your slightly embarrassing pet. By day three, my bike was my horse. I should have named it.

There are other ways to get around besides biking. They even have cars! Teeny tiny miniature adorable cars! I took a picture of the biggest one I could find.


We hung out with great people - Haley and Matt and Jessica and Jim and the other Jessica and Julie and Ben and Sima and Jason and the other Ben and Stefan and the blonde girl from Germany and Jacques and Noah. I’m sure I’m forgetting people. Sorry people. We also spoke to tons of strangers. One favorite was Peter Porters. We met him at the airport. We noticed him because he was wearing a ridiculous suit. We complimented him on it and asked where he got it and he said he made it in Thailand and we loved him instantly. He recommended things for us to do and see while we were in Amsterdam and warned us not to go to Brussels because “Brussels is booring.”

We went to a concert. We saw a band named Chapel Club play at this venue called Paradiso. This is Haley, Jessica and I at the concert.

I was trying to look serious but it just looks like I dropped my ice cream cone.

The apartment we rented was on Keizersgracht, which in my opinion, is the finest of the grachts. It looks big in these picture, but it wasn't.



I took me a very long time to get a handle on the layout of Amsterdam. In the center of everything is Dam Square. In the middle of Dam Square are, randomly, roller coasters! I rode all of them! That's me on the left.

When I was up in the air, overlooking the city, I was finally able to get a sense of it. There are four main grachts and the street names change depending on which side of the canal you’re on. Why? Nobody knows! It doesn’t make a lot of sense, and stopping to ask for direction usually got us nowhere. We were lost most of the time.

Ben and Sima live on a houseboat. They fired up the grill and fed us the most amazing dinner. No room for a grill because you live on a houseboat? No problem. Grill on the sidewalk! Everyone does! Ben and Sima are Californians who have been living in Amsterdam for 3 years. Their houseboat is gorgeous and comfortable and yes it has running water and electricity and a stove and a TV and everything.
This is their cat Noonish who runs the place.

I asked Sima what she missed most about America and she said Trader Joe’s. Ben and Sima win the prize for coolest life ever.

Around day 5 or so, a bunch of us went to an amusement park called Efteling.

Efteling is about an hour and a half outside Amsterdam (in which direction I do not know.) It's absolutely incredible. It’s like Disneyland on acid. There are super intense scary crazy roller coasters as well as an animated talking tree that smiles and tells stories. There’s a genie who rides on a magic carpet from one palace to another. There’s a peaceful boat ride around a glorious pond with a smug black swan that we named Natalie Portman. The best ride was this one where you go into a scary haunted house, then you’re led into a dark room, then into another dark weird room and then you’re suddenly strapped to a bench. Then loud music blasts and all of a sudden the ride begins and the walls turn in one direction and you turn in another and your brain explodes. There’s another roller coaster where the two sides, Blue and Red, race each other. Red won every time. Stupid red. Efteling is home to many unintentionally racist rides. For the full effect, ride them with a bunch of cynical comedians.

We spent only one evening exploring the Red Light District. Even as I’m writing this, I’m like, really? Is that true? Our friend Noah is a Canadian who has been living in Amsterdam for a while. He gave us the tour of the Red Light District on the one night of the entire trip that it decided to be cold and rainy. The Red Light District was crowded with lots of Euro bros and was exactly as I pictured it, only smaller. Yep, there are women on display in the windows, and no, absolutely no pictures. A couple things surprised me. The first thing was that the women were paying very close attention to their phones. Literally every single one of them. It looked as if all of them just got smart phones and just discovered Angry Birds. The second surprising thing was the wide range of ages, races, and body types. I don’t know why this surprised me but it did. I mean, they’re people, right? I guess I’m naive. I think there’s the expectation that Amsterdam is this crazy, bohemian sex and drug party city, and yeah, it can be that if you want. But the Red Light District is small and contained. It really doesn’t spill over, so if you want to avoid it, you can. When you ask natives what they think about about all of it, they mostly shrug and say it attracts tourists “So, you know, it’s good and bad.” Makes sense.

Anyway, here's a bunch of old people on a boat! Click on it to make it bigger.


The architecture in Amsterdam is stunning. Many of the buildings still have the same facades they had when they were built in the 17th century. Matt and Haley live in an apartment that was built in the 1649. This is a blurry view from their back porch.


Dutch people are crazy about using lifts and pulley systems. Instead of hauling furniture up narrow 400-year-old stairs, they use basic physics.


Dutch people are smart. I guess they have to be if they decided to build a city on land that should technically be under water. Also the staircases are intense. If you’re a staircase in Amsterdam, and you’re not narrow, steep, and twisty, you’re doing it wrong.


We did a canal tour. It was fun and relaxing. They give you your own paddle boat and send you on your way for a few hours. We paddled around, making up songs, losing track of time. We shared a pint of Ben and Jerry’s cookie dough ice cream and didn’t even care.


Dutch people are tall. Haley told me that statistically, they’re the tallest people in the world which is ironic because their ceilings are hilariously low. At a normal height of 5’5, I towered over nobody. Oh and Dutch women are extremely good looking. They all blond and barefoot and cool, sitting around on boats, watching each other roll cigarettes. In Amsterdam, people “chase the sun” as a gorgeous lady in a cafe put it. They sit outside of whatever cafe is the sunniest. And everyone is nice! Even to tourists. We would say Dank u wel (Dahnk oo vel), and alstublieft (alst ooo bleeft) and they would chuckle at how hard we tried. I sheepishly asked a gorgeous model-looking Dutch lady behind the counter at a clothing shop how everyone spoke such perfect English and she said, “MTV.” Marry me, beautiful Dutch lady.





Can we talk about the food? Okay. It’s all amazing and fresh and simple. The Dutch eat this thing called bitterballen. It’s delicious. They’re small and round, with a breaded shell and creamy meat-lava inside. Yum! Our first night in Amsterdam we stumbled into a restaurant called Red which was just down the street from us on Keisersgracht and Neiu Spiegelstraat. I ate the most delicious steak and lobster. The Indonesian food is also incredible. Our fanciest meal out was at a place called Long Pura. We got the tasting menu and split a bottle of wine and ate the most amazing meal. I also got a kick ass risotto from this place called Spelt which I recommend. Oh, and you must try the pancakes.

We went to Pancakes! Amsterdam (the exclamation point is theirs, not mine) and had such an amazing meal that we went back the next day and the next. Don’t shy away from eating the savory pancakes. The first day I had one with caramelized ginger. Then I went back and had one with chicken and Indian spices and chives. Then I had one with ham and swiss. I don’t know why the food is so good. I think it has a lot to do with how happy the cows are and how fresh and clean the tap water is. The dairy products in Amsterdam are enough of a reason for me to go back. We discovered a frozen yogurt shop called “Frozz” that had the thickest, softest, creamiest frozen yogurt I have ever tasted. I have no idea how many times I went to Frozz. Maybe 10? It’s very possible that I ate Frozz every day.

Here I am, shamelessly dancing.


We were told that people in Amsterdam do not tip, but as Americans, it was hard not to. Apparently you can just leave whatever change is in your pockets. A waiter will never put a check on your table without you asking for it. Because they get a salary, waiters do not feel the need to bring you your food with any sort of urgency, so be prepared for meals to take a long time. Also making you a cappucino will take a long time. The barista is not in a rush even if there’s a long line. And putting bananas on your Frozz will take the beautiful lady behind the counter a long time no matter how badly you want it (the Frozz). No one is in a rush. Ever. Except when they’re on their bikes.



Other things. We went to the tulip market which was amazing. I bought lots of postcards and chocolates. Everyone kept telling us that we brought the nice weather with us. You’re welcome everyone. We arrived apparently just as the tulips were blooming. We spent an entire glorious day in Vondelpark. Lindsay gave us a picnic kit to take with us. Picnics are unbeatable. We were joined by friends and sat on blankets, eating cheese and bread and drinking wine and eating more cheese and bread and then ice cream. I brought sunscreen and a book because I’m a 49-year-old mother of three.


We went to the Van Gogh museum which was wonderful. It was crowded but that’s because we foolishly waited to do the museum thing toward the end of our stay. The city was slowly getting more and more crowded as people came to town for Queensday. So yeah, there was a line to get into the Van Gogh museum, but it was well worth it. If you go, do it with the audio tour. You’ll appreciate it so much more. They do a great job of giving you a sense of who Vincent Van Gogh really was. Not just a genius painter, but also as a flawed, troubled, fucked up, love sick guy. He didn’t pick up a paint brush until he was 26. And you can definitely see a distinction between his earlier work and his later work. You see him improve in certain ways and deteriorate in others. I left with a new found appreciation for him and a theory that he was secretly in love with Paul Gauguin, the other less fucked up impressionist guy. My theory is based on zero hours of extensive research.



We went to the Anne Frank House. It was amazing. I thought I knew everything there was to know about Anne Frank because I did a project on her in 3rd grade, then read her diary in 5th grade, then my high school did the play in 10th grade and I designed the set which made me an expert. Turns out, I didn’t know the half of it. It changed the experience of Amsterdam for me. It’s so well preserved and so sobering. There’s a picture of Otto Frank taken in the Annex in 1960. He’s looking down at the floor. It hit me how recent it all was. You see Anne’s actual diary and it’s all very moving and beautiful. There’s also a really cool room devoted to her sister Margot who had a diary which was lost.



The last day of our vacation was Queensday. Oh man. Queensday is the coolest. It’s an annual celebration where the city triples in size and goes nuts. It’s called Queensday because it celebrates the Queens birthday. I’m sad to report that I do not know which queen they’re referring to. Jim explained it to me and I don’t remember. I could look it up but I won’t. It’s not about the Queen, it’s just about having fun and wearing orange.

Why orange? I don’t know! Everybody just wears orange from head to toe. And you dress your dogs and cats and babies and boats up in orange too! Also the city becomes one big flea market where you can find the most ridiculous stuff. Matt and Haley bought a stuffed Winnie the Poo toy and a fishing rod. Then they attached the Winnie the Poo to the end of the fishing rod and walked around with a sign that says “Make a Wish on the Poo! One Euro! Wishes guaranteed to come true!”. Queensday was just so wonderful. This is my beautiful husband.

I paid 50 cents to have my picture taken with a dopey dog.

I paid 10 cents to take a picture of a couple on stilts as they walked through town.

Sam paid one Euro for this massage, and I paid 10 cents to take a picture of it.

These are teenagers putting on a live action slot machine show.

This kid was killing it on the drums.


There were a million boats in the city. And a million people on those boats. And people blew bubbles out of windows and jumped into canals and made boats capsize and gave high fives to strangers. It was some of the most fun I have ever had. I want to go back next year.

The next day we returned our bikes. It wasn’t as sad as I thought. I was ready to go back home. I got on our plane and flew back to JFK and then to LAX and finally caught up on sleep. And now that I’m awake, I’m really glad I went.

For more pictures of all this, go to my flickr set.

Dank u wel.