The Airportline: Observations

Everyone changed their clocks except for me, or that is how it felt when I biked along the canal to the office thinking that it was unusually quiet. Normally the roads are filled with biking people trying to avoid hitting trucks, tourists, trams, tourists, walking people, cars, tourists, and all the other things that constantly is thrown at you while you try and reach the office in a reasonable time. Not today, today life seemed quiet and I thought that it was a very pleasant way to start the week. Then an appointment called and asked where I was and I immediately realized that I was in a different time zone. Jet-lag without flying. When I flew the 45 minutes flight between Las Vegas and Phoenix (an airport with no clocks!) and missed my connecting flight to Charlotte I had a similar feeling. That time I got drunk on white White that I bought in a gas station, this time I biked a bit faster and played catch up with time during the whole day.

I fell asleep four times today while reading. One time I accidentally painted on my white t-shirt with a blue ink pen. It was one of those Mondays where the energy level was just not charged enough after a hard weekend. I needed to get my bike fixed but my Portuguese bike guy with giant holes in his ears, chronically black fingers and a charming and unusual sincere love for bikes was not there. I biked around and did errands, the wind was going crazy and an equally crazy van guy almost ran me over in the intersection between Kinkerstraat and Bilderdijkstraat. I flipped him the finger and yelled in a poor attempt at making a gangster rapper interpretation in my stop light red American Apparel wind breaker. The van quickly drove off, if it was because he was fearing me I will never know. Then I put on Lil Wayne and kept riding low. As low as one can ride on a rusty lady bike with bags on the sides.

Today spring came. From where you ask? I don't know, it just came, I guess it had nothing better to do. I've said this four times already, that spring came, that is. So don't believe me if I'm wrong, again. But anyways, it's coming, now. And I'm going, out, soon. Have you looked at yourself in the spring sun? I have the same skin colour as milk, in the sun. Without sun I'm just pail. This is the case for most people, I tell myself and my skin. I don't know if that makes it more ok. Maybe it's just factual.

The cars outside my window are driving a little bit faster today. Maybe cause they see better now that it's not raining, or maybe it's spring. I bike faster in spring, become more effective, go from place A to place B, in time X. X is a good time cause you decide what it is. It's your own control button. So you go out, with spring and control in your mind, and then you get slapped by the Amsterdam wind. It doesn't care that it's spring for the fourth time, it's still there, blowing you in the face. Laughing at you and your control.

From my notepad:

And there are Spanish people in the bike lane, and I can’t ring my bell at them, cause the ‘I love my bike’ bell my friend bought me in September has still not been installed by me. So I yell: ‘hey!’ with a strict Dutch sounding voice, the Spaniards open the sea of road for me with jumpy movements. It must have been how Jesus felt when he walked on the ocean floor, I think when the paved, Spaniard-less, road opens up in front of me. In a triumphant fashion I bike past them, and keep on travelling, like I was a very important and busy person with no time to spare on uncoordinated groups of Spanish tourists. And a few blocks later my tire goes flat. And I am forced up on the sidewalk, with all the other bikeless people. It’s about as pleasant as riding the bus in San Francisco through the Tenderloin. My life is not adjusted for the side walk, I think, as a Dutch man rings his bell at me when I try and cross the street.