Amanda Blog and Kiss

Summer is drawing to a close.  You blink, and suddenly it’s the end of August already, and your shoulders are tan and your hair is lighter and you are always in a constant state of wetness from swimming, or from showering after the gym, or from the Dutch summer which means the heavens are always opening up when you are on your bike not even close to home.

I think I have had the most nostalgic summer since summers weren’t yet a thing to be nostalgic about.

I tried slacklining in the park.  I went stand-up paddling along the Amstel river.  I went to the beach.  I joined the pool and have been going swimming.  I’ve been hitting the gym all the time.  I’ve stocked up on books from the library and have been reading and reading and reading.  I watched a favorite old movie from childhood with a friend.  One time I stayed up all night writing with the windows thrown open to the cool night air and the moths fluttering around my head, for once not because I had insomnia but because I was too excited and didn’t want to sleep.  On a particularly hot and sweltering weekend (the hottest since 1994), I went swimming with a friend in a pool at a bar, then went cycling to the Amstel river where we went swimming off of a wooden dock.  After swimming we had a picnic in our wet bathing suits, there on the banks of the river until the sunshine started to wane.

There has been a lot of activity this summer- mostly on my bike and in the water, and surprisingly (and happily) very little alcohol.  Every night I have gone to bed feeling like my body was spent, like I had run around playing all day with friends.

Just like summers when I was a kid.

I’ve eaten my weight in watermelon, and probably more ice cream than was good for me.

Just like summers when I was a kid.

There has been a lot of griping this summer about how bad the weather has been, and indeed it has been a very wet summer.  But the breaks of sunshine and warmth in between have been glorious, really something to swell the heart and keep me thankful that I live in such a beautiful (and water-based) city.

Since living in Northern Europe for so long, one of the few things that I really missed was the warm summer rain in New Jersey.  It’s a rain that falls heavy and tepid, something that makes you want to run out and splash in puddles and lay in the grass while it beats down on you.  Summer rain in Northern Europe is very seldom that warm, but this summer it was.  This summer on more than one occasion I was drawn into the street during a torrential downpour so that I could just stand there and feel drenched, or I was caught on my bike and got soaked through to the skin and didn’t care in the least because it was summer rain, an altogether different thing.

Just like summers when I was a kid.

Nostalgia.  It really got me this summer.

(Photos from Suuz’ iPhone, except the last one of my feet.)

After way too many near-attempts at throwing my phone out of the window, into a canal, or against a wall, I decided the best thing to do was to simply delete everything on it.  I no longer have any apps, I deleted facebook from the phone, and I signed out of everything except email.

It’s a phone again.  Just a phone.

The touchscreen still angers me beyond belief, but I am no longer contemplating phone murder, and my nights are much more enjoyable.

I’m seeing people, and doing things, and reading more.

You wouldn’t think that these have anything to do with eachother- having a smartphone and being social/having a life/imbibing culture, but they are directly correlated, at least in my life.

And besides, look at my summer reading list, back at the library this Saturday:

"Light" Summer Reading

I’ve only read one and a half so far.

Do you think I can manage 7 and a half books in 3 days?  How about when one is in Dutch (‘Ik, Jan Cremer’) and another is 1,474 pages (‘A Suitable Boy’)?

WHO HAS TIME FOR SMART PHONES IN THE SUMMER?!?!

After writing to me about how ridiculous it was that Gwenyth Paltrow was trying to convince her to buy $550 cashmere leggings via the medium of her blog Goop, my cousin ended her email with “I’ve been a blog stalker lately.  You should write everyday. ”

So this is for her:

Tina, I will write more, I promise.

I’ve neglected my blog somewhat lately, and I considered just shutting it all down, closing up the blog shop, and forgetting about the whole thing.  Mostly because blogs feel like something of a dinosaur these days.

But then I realized that, since the days of my geocities blog WAY BACK WHEN (R.I.P.), it’s not that blogs are a dinosaur.  It’s that they’ve evolved.  They’re a lizard now, if that makes sense in the metaphor that I am trying to make here.

And I’m not evolving with them, I guess.   Because I’m not trying to make money with my blog, and not trying to find any sort of niche here.  I’m not claiming to be an expert on anything, and it seems that’s all that everyone else is doing: blogging for money or fame (ha!) or self-professed expertise, and not just blogging for the sake of the words.

No one blogs for the words anymore!

I guess on this blog, I am the niche.  That is what this blog is about, it’s about me.  ME!

I AM THE NICHE!

Take that you slimey lizard blogs.

Oh hey, speaking of words!

The Amsterdam Writers Group is meeting tomorrow (Tuesday 7 August).

This fiction blog is amazing.  She should focus on a longer work, seriously.  I’d be first in line to buy it.

aaaaaand

I asked for a quote today for a neon sign that I can hang in my room.  Similar to this one.  Except mine would say ” float on” after my all-time favorite pick-me-up song by Modest Mouse.

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Words Elsewhere:

Hotel V:  A Nudist Troll Tries to Book at Hotel V (Ha!)

Hotel V: What to do in Amsterdam in August (So much!  It is going to be a great month.)