riding on the thalys, backwards, from paris, where laura and I have spent new year’s midnight, wet, soggy, poked by short Italians and their spike-pointed umbrellas, on the quai d’orsay , the Eiffel on one side, glittering a sort of Barbie blue sparkle and looking, in the half-storm, not unlike a large electrical tower with a few four star restaurants inside, the concorde on the other and its “magnificent” light show, which resembled, well, the intro to Dance Fever(couples tonight from Minneapolis, Phoenix, Chicago, and Louisville KY!!!), si charmante, bottle rockets and little kids on the quai with this year’s European thang, tiny scooters, which kids incessantly and with their parents’ permission drive in shopping centers, restaurants, on airplanes, the sky lit up with disposable camera flashes and sparklers, 100000 or so on the Champs d’Elysees, each with a very good bottle of champagne. It’s fairly dreamy to spend New Year’s here, tacked on to a work week, feeling quite husband-y(you have to send my wife down if you make me go back to Paris!), and the wife(sic) gets to walk around Paris for three days while I’m slaving away in some ex-urb(look up exurbia, it’s a great word), and all my colleagues are making jokes(I hope you didn’t give your wife the credit card!), and trendy psuedo-Japanese restaurants where, two weeks before, I see Naomi Campbell, whom I don’t know or recognize, who is seen rushing into a restroom followed by three or four tourists, who returns some minutes later with her hair over her eyes, walking so quickly one can hear her boots on the wood floor, who, to everyone’s amazement, trips in the smack-middle of the restaurant and storms to her table.

Laura and I make a resolution not to be cynical, which lasts until we turn on CNN.

Many of you have noticed I haven’t been particularly communicative this(last) year. Let me summarize:

All is well.The first half of the year went by dreamily; I didn’t start working until March, and had wonderful trips to Berlin and Poland, not to mention a wonderful stay from my parents(who approve of Amsterdam!!!)I began work in March for a start-up called Tridion, who provide web-based content management software.It’s a good company, if you like working for someone else.(I’ll take a job with high pay and low hours, please).

July saw me back in the States, where Laura and I spent a week in Los Angeles and a week in San Francisco(Laura stayed to have a solo tour—more on that lay-ter).It was a great and strange time; inevitably I think about what I like about Amsterdam(and by extension, Western Europe), what I don’t like, where I’ll be next year, ten years, and so forth. It’s fair to say that my feelings about the US are somewhat ambivalent, but of course, one has to shed the grass is greener thing; it’s not like Europe is utopia.

In fact, most Dutch people ask why one would leave the US—the grand spaces are completely intoxicating to them, and they are so profoundly drugged by it that they forget about less important things like health care, the death penalty, and SUVs.When I came back, I was on my own for about two months, as Laura was staying in SF and later doing a tour of her solo work, which took her to LA, Arizona, Texas, and, in November, New York.

I was put on a project in lovely Groningen(Groan-again, if you’re ina bad mood), a quaint city of 150,000 in the North of Holland(by Monk’s Eye Island!!!), where I ate buffet breakfasts.Until I began working, writing was going great.I had finished approximately half of the novel(the other half has been written in rough draft form) when I began working, and since then, well, sluggish would be an appropriate word.Why? The rigors of work, a new job, new technologies, general confusion, living in a little tiny place, worrying about fundage.In any case, I haven’t written much in the way of email because I haven’t been particularly pleased.Like most people I know, we think, struggle, ponder the best way of living for ourselves, what we want, how do we do it, what we will sacrifice to make it happen, and where can it happen the best.I had hoped that working in Europe would allow me to balance work and life, work and writing, and to some extent it has; I’ve been able to get quite a bit done, where in SF it was more or less impossible to write while working at the Big Beast in the Sky.

In Amsterdam, I’ve finished chapters four and five(4 to go!), but as I’ve gotten closer to finishing the book, as my writing has improved, the characters deepened, etc, it has been less satisfying not to write all the time.In sum, the last six months have tested me; I become clearer about what I want, but one needs to work in order to have time to write(sugar daddy!@!!!), and so I work, and I write less, and on long days when I don’t write, it feels like too great a sacrifice--so frustrating to not be achieving what I really want, when I need only 4 or 5 months to complete the book.

Ultimately, I suspect, this will boil over, something drastic will happen---I’ll move to the States for a bit, quit my job, I don’t know—take up fencing?For the time being, I am focusing on developing a practice, writing every day despite my exhaustion, overworked, undernourished self, and seeing what I can come up with.There has been great news on another front—I’ve finished a chapbook of poetry, entitled Leaving Poland B, work which was inspired by/generated from my stay with my sister in Poland.Twelve new poems and revisions of two old ones, and I’m really excited about them.I’ll let them speak for my experience in Poland; suffice to say that Poland is an intense, sometimes frightening place, especially for a Jew.I’m sending the poems to a few select readers this week, and semi-final versions will be available on my web site(sites.netscape.net/rdglick/default.html).

As many of you know, she has been rollicking around, playing concerts and generally wreaking havoc everywhere.This month, she begins a five-month stint working with a choreographer(Dylan Newcomb) in a feature length dance work.Her clarinet playing continues to amaze me, and she’s getting a lot of work here in the Netherlands.It’s brilliant to watch her enter the Dutch system and slowly become part of the local music community.As for myself,

I’m in a writing group, and although there isn’t much an expat writing scene(most work for Radio Netherlands), the Dutch are very hip on the international writing scene; there’s no shortage of reading.In December, Laura and I moved to a new flat.I think we didn’t realize how much we had sacrificed all year by living in our previous flat, in one room without real cooking facilities, where Laura couldn’t type late at night because I needed to sleep, where I couldn’t watch snooker without getting in the way of clarinet practice.Now we have four rooms, and I spent most of the first day doing nothing but walking from one room to the next simply because it was so novel to have a door that wasn’t a front door.

We are in a real neighborhood now, and, to be honest, a neighborhood such as I am used to—an immigrant neighborhood(Turks and Moroccans), far from the nearest McDonalds, not too far from the center of town, and much less transient.Also it’s between two great parks(Vondelpark and Rembrandtpark—yes, they name parks after artists), and on Christmas Eve, it actually snowed all day.>A typical Jewish Christmas, without Chinese food.>We had a nice Christmas in our new place and went to a movie(Dancer in the Dark).And the new year comes.For me, I feel this will be a year where things fit in place.The novel will be finished(and it will be readable!), I’ll be more settled here in A’dam.Of course, being settled and acclimatized has nothing to do with actually living in Amsterdam.I must say I love it here, but I’m finding that loving a city sometimes runs at odds with that which you need to do---and for me, that’s writing.Almost everything else is secondary to that. I hope to write more this year—I do miss everyone terribly, and I will be in more personal contact soon.>I’m taking a week off(it amazed me so much to speak with Dutch people and their 25 vacation days who almost yearly take a week off and simply stay at home.>For Americanos, this is unheard of.And now I’m doing it, simply to take runs, write some emails, finish the t’s and I’s of Chapter 5, jot down some notes on a second book, order the bookmarks on my browser, scrub the kitchen grout, and sleep. I’m going to be starting Turkish lessons this year, and I hope my Dutch improves muchly.As much stress as the last half year has been, I feel good, and I’ve got a bit of a sparkle going.

Breathe, take a bath, read a good book(not a trash book, a good book), brew mint tea with fresh leaves.

Make it a brilliant year, love well.

epigraph from a mid-day showing of Ghostbusters Two, lounging around the Hotel Albion, 3 o’clock or so, where we learned and laughed about “la riviere du slime”.Later we tried to go to the Pompidou, but couldn’t convince ourselves, in our no-sleep, no-protein haze—to be high-art lovers---went to see Tiger and Dragon instead, stepped on poop on la rue des Ursulines, ate greasy Nutella crepes, laughed.

love Laura