Sue Katz: Consenting Adult

Rear-Ended by an Entitled Driver – Again

I was just a few blocks from my home last night, stopped at a red light, when I was rear-ended. (I'm okay so far.) It had happened to me once before, a dozen years ago, with dire consequences: wretched whiplash problems that keep me in the permanent care of a chiropractor. Then it was a privileged young man driving his father’s huge Volvo station wagon. He told me: “I didn’t notice you.” I drive a Toyota Corolla, not a miniature toy. I spent many months in physical therapy trying to reclaim some measure of health and many, many years in litigation trying to reclaim justice.

The 24-year-old women who hit me last night jumped out of her car immediately. First, she looked closely at the bumper of her own car. Then she glanced at the bumper of mine. Then she climbed back into her own driver’s seat and seemed to be waiting for me to get on with my drive. I put on my hazard lights and slowly drove over next to the curb. She understood that she was to do the same.

I got out of my car and in a minute or so she got out of hers, puzzled as to my problem. “Human beings first, property second,” I said to her, ire in my voice. Still she was clueless. “You rear-ended me,” I stated the obvious.

“But I didn’t have any damage to my car so I didn’t think anything of it.”

“Why did you hit me?”

“I guess I may not have pressed my brakes as hard as I thought.”

“Give me your paperwork, please,” I said.

“What paperwork?”

I took a photo of her license plate, which seemed to scare her. I asked and received her driver’s license and she only had a photo of her insurance on her phone, and I photographed that. I asked for her email address as well. At this point she realized that there could be consequences, a concept with which she seemed to have only the slightest familiarity.

“I never rear-ended anyone before,” she said, as if that settled the matter. I did not respond that in 55 years of driving, I have never rear-ended anyone – or hit another car at all, although I have been hit numerous times.

Only as I was returning to my car did she finally say, “Oh, I’m sorry.” It took her 10 or 15 minutes for that insincere coin to drop.

Later, talking to my friend Barry, I still could not understand her behavior. “It could have been her parents’ car,” he suggested, “and all she was thinking about was getting in trouble at home.”

There are a lot of issues here –about her training as a driver, about her abysmal lack of concern for me, about her ignorance of procedure after an accident. Perhaps there is a singular explanation: It seems her sense of entitlement places her at the shielded center of the universe.

Women of Hollywood: Cut it out!

The women of Hollywood are all about Times Up! and Me Too! and let’s have 50% of all crews be women and all that. Welcome to my world (one we feminists have inhabited since the late '60s).

However, as long they are wearing shoes that cripple them and dresses that don’t fit into limousines and need men to help them up a god-damned half flight of stairs to the awards stage, then something just doesn’t ring true. We know they are walking advertisements for diamond dealers and couture designers and plastic surgeons. But if you’re going to talk about justice, even if you’re only talking about equality and parity (modest goals), then wear stuff that allows you to get from A to B on your own.

I remember when the women’s movement was at its height, there were many stars who turned up in pant suits and jump suits and were actually able to ambulate. Even if the garb is silly and over-the-top like Streisand’s outfit at left, at least she can walk on her own. Cut the crap with all this foot binding and body squeezing and humongous skirts. Otherwise, we don’t believe for a second that you will walk your talk.

When a homeless person asks you for money...

I recently read an article about giving “directly and unconditionally to homeless people” in the UK – something I did when I was living in England and something I do now. For those who aren’t clear about how to respond to folks asking you for money on the streets, here is my take on the matter – including how to decide to whom to give.

Why are people homeless? Here are some theoretical examples:

Lindsay’s husband drained their joint bank accounts before leaving her and their infant twins. She could not pay the rent, so she and the children have become homeless, basically living in her unreliable car.

Timmy’s father threw him out of the house and disowned him when he found out that Timmy is gay. Without any resources, Timmy lives on the streets in a tent he shares with several other lads in a similar situation.

Maryellen only had catastrophic health insurance when she developed early onset Parkinson’s disease and her medical costs drained every cent of her savings after she could no longer work as a waitress. After crashing at one friend’s apartment after another, she has exhausted her list.

At 79, Aliya received a diagnosis of bipolar disorder but as English is her second language, she has been unable to navigate the complexities of Medicare. Without prescription coverage, she is unable to get her meds. Sometimes she gets taken into a hospital for a few days but doesn’t get ongoing care and lands back on the streets.

How I give money

When I got to London to live, at the start of the 1990s, I was blown away by the number of homeless people on the street. My work was in King’s Cross, at that time the center of drugs, homelessness, and petty crime. Every day, from the minute I got out of the subway car, I was being asked for money by people who needed it. I had to figure out how to manage the situation, how to balance my limited ability to give vs the huge need.

My friends were divided between those who said they did not give to individuals, but rather to non-profits serving homeless people, and those who did offer people money on the assumption that organized help was not reaching them.

My feeling is that people who are standing around in the cold (or heat) begging you for money are not on a lark and they are not stupid. They have run into the endless roadblocks to government or charity assistance and may simply not qualify. Homeless shelters are notorious for theft and assault and are often only open certain hours of the day. Services have been cut back and are difficult to access.

I made the decision in London – and apply it here now that I’m living in the States – to decide on a certain amount of money per day that I could part with. I was working a steady job in London and so I put aside £5 per day to give away. I got a ton of £1 coins and each morning would load 5 of them into my coat pocket.

I also decided to prioritize women and people of color, on the assumption that other givers might well overlook them. When my £5 was gone I would just smile, say hello, and say sorry to others who asked.

Here in the States, I am less frequently walking around, but people ask me for money while I’m in my car, stopped at red lights. I keep a bunch of dollar bills in my car to give to those who ask. I do not see very many other drivers doing the same, and almost never someone in a luxury vehicle.

My final word: Don’t be judgmental. Don’t be rude. Don’t make assumptions. If you’ve got a lot more than someone else who is asking the world for a dollar, just give it to them. Once given, it’s their money and not your concern about whether they’re going to buy a drink or milk for their kid. Naturally we want to make revolutionary changes in this country so that the majority of people are not impoverished while a few are unspeakably wealthy, so that people’s basic needs are met by the State when necessary, so that there is affordable housing. But until we succeed in achieving that, reach into your pocket if you are able.

Invisible Nation

I learned a great deal about homelessness, particularly among women and children, from this brilliant book by the author Richard Schweid. If your library does not have it, insist they order it right away – and they will. As one of the most captivating, skilled non-fiction writers in America, Schweid opened my eyes to the unseen impacts – especially on children – of this scourge of homelessness.

https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520292673/invisible-nation

Jake Katz: May, 1927 - November 2018

My Uncle Jake (Jacob) Katz has died. He is the last family elder of my parents’ generation. My dad, Saul, was always so proud of his "kid brother," who was born in 1927, exactly 10 years after my dad. My uncle was able, with support from the GI Bill and his older brothers, to go to college where he studied engineering and invented one of the first devices to improve the industrial environment by cleaning the emissions from the smoke stacks of the steel mills. (I think I have that right.)

Before he was born, the family looked quite different. My grandfather, a deaf immigrant cobbler,  was married to his first wife and together they had three sons named Harry, Ken, and Saul. When my dad, Saul, was a toddler, his mother bore twins, who quickly succumbed to the influenza pandemic. His mother died right after them. My widowed grandfather needed a second wife and so within a couple of years he married a newly arrived immigrant from the Ukraine, who embraced the older sons in varying degrees and gave birth to Jake.

Jake was a star in high school (Photo: high school newspaper about Jake) before he served in the Navy, got his degree, and began traveling for his work on electrostatic precipitators during the early 50s. While in New York, he met his future wife, Estelle, at a dance and brought her home. They were an outstandingly handsome couple. I remember the moment this show-stopping beauty showed me her diamond engagement ring and I asked breathlessly, “Is it real?”

A wonderful neighbor named Bess down the street made me the first new dress I ever remember owning (I always wore hand-me-downs), so that I could be a fancy flower girl at their wedding. It had a velvet ribbon that tied around my waist – quite the luxurious touch, I felt. The wedding was all the way in NYC, which explained the exotic accents we heard from Estelle and her family.

Jake was one of the few members of my family, along with my father Saul, who wasn’t outright homophobic towards me when I came out. He was a philosophical guy, generally reluctant to talk about anything resembling politics. He wrote a book about smart investing after his early retirement and encouraged me to follow his suggestions when he gifted me his volume.

He was the reigning prince of puns and I’m not sure anyone else will be able to scale those heights. Jake was one of the few relatives who always stayed in touch with me, and whenever I’ve been in Pittsburgh, I’ve never missed lunch with him in Squirrel Hill. In between those infrequent trips, we’ve talked on the phone, at least a couple of times a year, and always with mutual affection. (Photo: From left Jake, Saul, Ken)

It is sobering to lose the WWII generation. It is sobering to now be amongst the elders of my family. It is sad to have lost Uncle Jake.

Remembering Doreen Gordon who has died at 93

My friend Doreen Gordon is dead at 93. I met her when she signed up for my senior fitness classes at the Brookline Senior Center and she rapidly became the keystone to our community. Not only did she find ways to connect otherwise isolated seniors with each other, she inspired the personality of Lillian, the protagonist in my short story in the collection Lillian’s Last Affair. Well, in one sense. The old-woman-talking-like-a-sailor sense. More about that below. (From left: Doreen, Yolanda, me)

Doreen came from quite a posh South African background, lived a cultured life in New York with her late husband and two incredible daughters Jenny and Amy, and then moved to Boston to be close to one daughter and granddaughter after she recovered from being hit by a damned bus. Doreen was such a petite and put-together woman that between herself and the bus, it was not a fair fight.

To build connection among my students, Doreen began hosting high teas in her fabulous apartment, taking us group by group. Her closest friend from the class, Yolanda, often attended all the groups. We’d have finger sandwiches with salmon and the most luxurious selection of pastries known to human taste buds. I was often tempted to steal the leftovers – friendship be damned – but in fact she often made me up a care package with my favorites: the mini-scones and the crispy almond cookies. (Tea Party: Doreen third from right, laughing)

She used her baking skills to bring joy to every occasion we could find to celebrate, refusing to take money for the ingredients. She picked out the movies for us to see on senior discount matinee day. She told me privately when I was being too hard on someone in the class, or too soft. Doreen and I had what amounted to a secret consultation phone relationship behind the scene of our group. We talked about everyone and everything. She hooked me up with her daughter Jenny when I went to New Orleans for the first time, and Jenny pointed me to all the right places. Doreen invited me a few times to join her to watch the Boston Marathon on the sidewalk in front of her daughter Amy’s house, which is on the route. Amy would have oranges to peel so that we could hold sections in the flat of our hands for the runners to grab. It was on the way home from one such afternoon that my train was stopped at Kenmore Square and we all had to get off and run upstairs. The Marathon bombs had just gone off at the next stop. (Marathon day: Doreen and Amy in center)

But I digress. How did she inspire the character of Lillian? One day in the run-up to the 2008 election, we went to Trader Joe’s together (something we did a number of times). As we crossed the main intersection of Brookline at Beacon and Harvard, there was a man holding a huge sign, a large poster of Barak Obama with a Hitler mustache. Doreen walked right up to him, looked up to his face a good foot or so above her, and hissed, “Fuck You!”

I’m sure this man had already put up with plenty of abuse in that spot in the middle of a Jewish neighborhood, but he never anticipated such a curse from this tiny lovely white-haired woman. Later she told me that she had spent her whole life being prim and proper, but at this point she no longer felt the need to restrain herself. And with that sentence, the character of Lillian was born in my imagination, a woman who perfected swearing late in life.

Life is full of losses as we age, and this is a biggie. I’m only sorry that Doreen, with her love of humans and music and art and travel and good food, had to spend her final period under the regime of tRump. Many in the community which she built among my students pre-deceased her, but next Saturday I will be able to connect with dear Yolanda, with Doreen’s precious family, and with those of us who are lucky to still be around to mourn her.

Only Two Micro-Aggressions and One Irritation over a Whole Dance Weekend!

 

I think I’m going to start keeping a count of the micro-aggressions I receive at various dance events. Summer Hummer is my “home” event: it is local, it is run by my own dear teachers, and I know many of the other dancers and teachers, so they’re used to me. As the only 70+ out-dyke leader, this event is as “safe” and fantabulous as any I attend all year.

Here’s the count.

1^st Micro-aggression: At my very first workshop this weekend, one woman follower who rotated to me (we change partners every minute or so) flashed me a big, condescending smile and said, “It’s just adorable that you’re trying to lead.” I didn’t respond – didn’t give my usual answer that I’ve been leading partner dance since the late 80s. After we did the exercise, in which she realized that I was an experienced leader, she got completely uncomfortable and the smile was gone. I suspect she was furious that she felt ridiculous in her own eyes.

I would estimate that this same thing, more or less, has happened to me 150+ times in West Coast Swing, but somehow it still drives me mad.

2^nd Micro-aggression: We are lined up in the room off the ballroom waiting for our competition to begin. The followers are in one line; we leaders are in another. There are four more followers than leaders – generally the case. Some stranger man standing behind me pushes me sideways, saying, “Get over there and follow. The numbers aren’t equal.” I brush his hand off me (restraining myself from breaking it) and say, “Why don’t you follow, if it concerns you?” He can’t even comprehend what I am saying, and replies, “I just think you’ll have a better chance that way in the competition.” I’m starting to boil. “How long have you been leading partner dance?” I ask him. He refuses to answer. Just then we are led out on the competition dance floor where I am expected to do my best. Which I don’t.

What can allies do while I’m dealing with these things alone? Ask me to dance. So many dance friends purport to care about me but never ask me to dance. It’s all about the opportunities to dance, no?

Irritation: I have written about this before. Some male leaders experiment on me. They ask me to lead them. These guys do not ask male leaders. Are they repressed homophobes with secret desires to submit on the dance floor? Are they unwilling to publicly expose this desire by dancing with another guy? With me, it’s safe. I’m a woman. Inevitably for me it is like leading a truck with flat tires. They don’t know which hand to give me; they don’t know which foot to step out with; they don’t follow. Sometimes they’ve never followed before. They waste my time. They think I’m there to serve them. Afterwards, they’re just as pleased with themselves as can be: “Hey, I didn’t do half bad!” This happens most nights at least once or twice or thrice when I’m in a venue with strangers.

I shouldn’t have to add this disclaimer, but I will: There are many men who enjoy following and who also follow other leaders – and they are great to dance with. Some of my fave followers are men – because their aim is to improve their following and to enjoy the dance. They’re not acting out a subtext on my dime.

I shouldn’t have to add this disclaimer either, but I will: Summer Hummer was a major blast!

Now I have to ice my knee, soak my feet, and catch up on sleep after dancing until about 3:00am Friday and Saturday nights. I have another dance weekend coming up on Friday, this time in DC and focusing on queer dancers!!!

The Experience of Feeling Normal at Dance

 My dance friends are now used to having a lefty fat old dyke leader in their midst.

There are weekend-long dance retreats with workshops and competitions and social dancing somewhere in the country every weekend. On Saturday, I went to an evening of West Coast Swing (WCS) hosted by a teacher I respect and admire named Angel Figueroa (photo on left). The last time I competed was when I won 2^nd place in the Newcomer division on New Year’s, moving me up to the swollen Novice division – where many dancers get stuck for ages.

When I made the finals on Saturday, my friends all cheered and I was matched with a lovely friend named Brooke. We have studied together with our splendid teachers Bill and Yuna (photo left below) on Tuesday nights for a couple of years. Although we didn’t place – and hadn’t expected to – we had a grand time.

Because it was a local event, I knew many of the attendees. They are used to having a lefty fat old dyke leader in their midst. They no longer make me feel like a freak. Angel, the head judge and host, is a professional who has always encouraged me. Afterwards, two different judges – both pros I work with – gave me private feedback on where I should improve. I was honored to receive it.

When I am with strangers, I have to put up with endless micro-aggressions, from followers and others. People cannot get their heads around the idea that I lead exclusively. They think it is (choose one of the following): cute, creepy, adorable, impressive, brave, odd, repulsive, unusual – the whole gamut. I know this because they tell me so. They think they have the right to question me about why I don’t follow. Because they might have cross-role danced at a lesson or two, some folks lecture me about how I’ll never be a decent dancer until I learn to follow as well. One man in the crowd on Saturday gave me a condescending nod and a thumbs-up. If he was closer, perhaps he would have patted me on my head. Men often feel qualified to judge me because they believe that having a penis automatically makes them an authority on leading, even if they’ve been dancing all of three months. They do not point their thumbs at other men. Once I objected to a professional teacher telling us leaders in an expensive class to “Man up!” and to “Stop with the limp noodle.” Another student in that class gave me a dirty look over my objection and hissed: "Chill! Relax!" He has never walked in my shoes.

Here’s a secret I may be the only one to know. Many male leaders long to follow. They ask me to lead them and I always wonder why I don’t see most of them asking another (ie, a male) leader. Is there a fear of being in the arms of another man?

As my evening passes without aggro, I remember that I’m at an event that just a few years ago would not have allowed me to compete as a leader. On Saturday I felt normal, one of the crowd, just another dancer. Thank you to all my WCS friends who made that happen – especially Brooke, Yuna, Marcus (smiling in center of photo on left), and Angel.

From Pioneer to Elder – Squeezing it all into one speech

Last year I was in my exquisite local Robbins Library where a staff member had put up historical information about Pride. I found that person, whose name is Rob, and introduced myself. I told him that I lived in Arlington and that I had been in on the ground floor of the women’s and gay liberation movements. Perhaps our library should consult its own members about the history they made and participated in. Moreover, perhaps the library should stock my books.

Rob agreed. So this year I wrapped up Robbins Library’s Pride month events with a presentation on June 28 called From Pioneer to Elder. The problem was located in the subtitle: “One Arlington Woman's Journey from the Birth of Boston's Gay Liberation to LGBTQ Elder Activism Today.” How could I possibly fit in the birth of the movement, the present concerns of us aging pioneers, and my writing all in about 75 minutes?

Accompanying the public speaking of most writers is a desire to read from their work and to sell books. Combined with the demands of a double-sided topic, I found myself raveling and unraveling the complex threads for two weeks in an attempt to construct a presentation that met the plethora of promises in that subtitle. I did it by cutting out almost entirely the history of the establishment of Boston’s women’s liberation movement – which had prepared us for all things gender and sexuality related – and which was by far the most earthshaking revelation of my life.

Since it was a Pride event, I stuck to the founding of gay liberation – actually mostly lesbian liberation about which I can speak with authority – and jumped to the particular needs and issues of LGBTQ elders. I read relevant paragraphs from both Lillian’s Last Affair and Lillian in Love and sold a lot of books. I even snuck in a couple of my funnier 100-word stories.

But to begin, I had to thank the rainbow assortment of attendees. Rob had told me that these events usually drew between 6 and 15 people. That seemed miniscule to me so I did my own publicity and the folks I know really responded – 49 of them arrived! Here are the broad categories of what was a very mixed crowd – from ages 21 to 82, from life-long activists to people for whom this was their first political talk:

• Good friends, a few of whom have heard me speak and talk repeatedly, turned up nonetheless, one driving from across the State.
• A half-dozen dancers from my West Coast Swing community – which is mostly young and straight and white – came as well. The WCS scene is doggedly apolitical. There are no consequences, for example, for the dickhead who turns up in tRump t-shirts – people seem to dance with him quite contentedly. And I’m sure he’s not alone in his right-wing stance – although he is the most demonstrative. The dancers who came to my event, though, are the sweetest and most generous on the scene.
• Several members of the queer country and ballroom dance community arrived, some of whom I’ve known since the early 90s.
• People from my chiropractor’s office, Chirocare, were there, which was a treat. They are the folks who keep me dancing.
• Lots of other lesbian and gay elder activists cheered me on, even though a number of them have heard me speak and read before. They get my jokes and react with good-natured empathy to my take on aging.
• Several other pioneers represented, including Mark Heumann, from the group of Radical Faeries that joined with my Stick-it-in-the-Wall Collective in 1970 to put out one of the very first gay publications – Lavender Vision; and Marsha Gerstein, a self-defense student of mine back in the 60s. Both of them are active today in the LGBTQ elder community, running the Rainbow Lifelong Learning Institute.
• And there were a number strangers who came because they support events at Robbins Library. Funny enough, I randomly sat next to one of them on the subway two days later on the way back from the downtown demonstration against tRump’s immigration policy.

Because it was such a talk-heavy event, I decided to do a PowerPoint showing my changing hairstyles (not changed very much) and fashion (not changed very much) over the decades. I’ve included some of those images here. And I learned something after about 25 years away from PowerPoint: PowerPoint today is a gazillion times easier than it was when it first came out.

It was exhilarating to have a break from the news, from the growing fascism, from the cesspool that our country has become. It was only part of one evening, but I felt surrounded by “fellow travelers” and that was a balm. I had warned the audience at the very beginning that I do “a shitload of swearing,” and now that Pride Month is over and soon our democracy will be as well, I can only mourn and organize.

Parsimonious Corporations at Pride

The last couple of years I have hung out the windows of the Pride trolley provided for LGBTQ elders, waving at all those lining the streets of the Pride route. But this year my heroic friend, Bren, schlepped two luxurious beach chairs and we set ourselves up in front of the Arlington Street Church with a gang of friends, a bag of bagels and cream cheese, and two plums, and watched the March go by. Yes, yes, I know it is now called a Parade, but indulge me and my memories of hard-fought, dangerous streets.

In the early years – and I was marching from the start – these were protest marches, in-your-face declarations of “out”ness that had never been seen. The contingents were political, mostly based on identity politics or group projects, but all the marchers were brave queers, with perhaps an ally here and there.

Now the bulk of groups seem to be contingents of employees of big and little corporations and of houses of worship. I know this has been going on for long time, but at least in past years we got a bit of branded swag out of their presence – whether it was chapstick or packets of sunscreen or post-its or funny hats or socks or something, for gawd’s sake. Now the swag has dried up. Should there not be a requirement that if you’re advertising at my March, I get something sweet in exchange?

Watching this capitalist cavalcade tossing out, at the most, cheap Mardi Gras beads, (but the majority only passed out steaming heaps of nothing), moved me to exercise my vocal chords from the comfort of my beach chair.

• When Staples went by, I screamed: Throw me a ream of paper!
• When Comcast rolled by, I screamed: Send me lower bills!
• When some Jewish group carrying Israeli flags went by, I yelled: Give me some justice for Palestinians!
• When a church group went by, I cried: Toss me a piece of heaven!
• When Citizen’s Bank came by, I hollered: Donate $1,000!
• When Delta went by, I screamed: Give me more leg room!

But when TJX passed me, I yelled: Thanks for the lovely shopping bag!

Amsterdam & Utrecht Travelogue – May 2018

May 19

The taxi driver at the Amsterdam Centraal Station tries to rip me off. That’ll be €20, he says. What? says I. No way. Oh, says he, I meant to say €10. Turn on the machine, I suggest. Too late, he says.

The delightful flat where we’re staying is up two narrow steep flights of steps and luckily my friend Sue has already arrived and comes to help me wrestle my modest suitcase up. The problem is that the width of the first flight is cut in half by the rails of a Stairmaster. And it is also missing a bannister. Bannisters are essential to anyone who does not bounce up stairs with athletic buoyancy and tightrope walker balance.

Our corner flat is above an intersection of two canals, so the views are splendid – from the windows and from the balcony which is big enough to sit on. The life on neighboring houseboats is endlessly engaging. The sunsets last for hours, until about 10:00pm.

Walking down the street, we meet two gay men who are in front of their house with a dog and two of the longest-haired cats I’ve ever seen – apparently called Maine cats. We get to talking with Sean and Clarence and it turns out they own a restaurant just a few blocks away called Small World Catering. We promise to visit it soon.

May 20

First thing in the morning I do a wash and discover that there are two soaps for the machine, one for dark clothes and one for whites.

We set out for a stroll around the hip Jordaan neighborhood, where it is Open Studios weekend. The studios are marked with bright flags and in the process we meet some really interesting artists, all ready to chat and show their art. One woman is in a low-rent municipal studio, but she has to pass an assessment every five years in order to hold on to it.

Amsterdam’s city council decided last year that 40% of new homes must adhere to social housing rules, meaning the rent is capped at €710 ($825) a month. Another 40% must target middle income households with rents of around €850 ($988) per month. The rest is private housing with no limits. Private rent for a one bedroom can easily top €1,500 ($1,743). However, I did meet people who had rent-controlled apartments that were privately owned. To put that in context, the average Amsterdam salary is €48,005 ($55,700) and the two biggest industries are IT and tourism.

In the early evening we head to our new friends’ Small World restaurant where we delight in tongue-thrilling bacon & avocado sandwiches slathered in a secret mayo sauce. We drink an apple/lime/ginger treat and then pig out on a lemon tart, the rousing tartness of which makes our hair stand up. It is all so delicious and they are so friendly and kind (slipping Sue a huge brownie as a gift and me a lemon muffin) that we know it will be our go-to spot. Next time you’re in Amsterdam, you must lunch there and tell the guys “the two Sues” sent you.

May 21

On the trams in Amsterdam, the seats assigned for people with mobility issues are upholstered in a completely different color and pattern, with icons of those who are welcome to plop down. Brilliant! Young healthy people rarely sit in any of the designated seats the way that one sees in the States constantly.

I know about the trams because after a profoundly arduous walk to the Centraal Station, we finally buy our 4-day travel cards that allow us unlimited access. With those in hand, we go to the back of Centraal Station where there is a free ferry east to Buiksloterdijk. The most memorable part of this rather uninteresting ride (about 20 minutes each way), is wiggling my way right up to the front rail for the best view, only to have the water slosh in up to my ankles. I only brought one pair of shoes to Amsterdam, but because of the sun and heat, no harm, no foul.

May 22

We use this rainy day to check out the anthropological Tropen Museum, an exquisite building built around a monumental hall circled by three floors of galleries. The permanent collection centers on slavery and its aftermath. The Dutch have, of course, a rather nasty colonial history – and I believe this museum is an attempt to understand and communicate about it.

The two exhibitions on display during our visit are fascinating. “Fashion Cities Africa” is crowded with dramatically posed manikins wearing cutting edge contemporary clothing from a range of African cities – including Casablanca, Lagos, and Nairobi. There are video clips and giant posters of designers explaining their vision and the latest fashion trends. The new influx of donated clothing from the West starting in the 1960s figured heavily in some of the most creative confections – pieces that were sliced and diced and combined with African fabrics to create looks that are utterly modern and challenging. Hip-hop meets French couture meets political pride all ends up on the runways. Absent from the commentary is any recognition of the gay influence on fashion in general and African fashion in particular.

The other exhibition, Body Art, looks at the myriad ways in which people alter and decorate their bodies, reflecting both their culture and their individualism. One riveting short film shows older women from Myanmar with blue tattoos all over their faces, done when they were about 9 years old. The point was to protect minority girls and women from assault by making them unattractive to their enemies. But as time passed and the political situation changed, they were left disfigured and alone.

Another short film features a Holocaust survivor and his grandson. We see that they have matching tattoos, for the young man has had his grandfather’s tattooed number inked on his own arm. The elderly man is grateful for what he sees as his grandson’s gesture of honor. He also feels it is a way to sustain the memory of the Nazi genocide. Another display looks at the damage corsets did to women’s bodies – from breaking their ribs to fracturing their spine to damaging their internal organs to the point of stopping their periods.

A lovely restaurant in the Tropen Museum serves up an elegant potato soup for me and an Indonesian peanut soup for my friend, warming us up for the rainy trip back to where we are staying.

We only ate soup because this evening we meet two close friends of my very dear friend Vicki – Madi and Donald – and dine sitting outside on the terrace of a restaurant they both like. The conversation never flags and Donald is as charming and engaged as Madi is witty and interesting. Donald says that since it is against the law to be racist or sexist towards someone on the street, he is convinced that Amsterdam people would intervene. Madi is a bit skeptical. Later, when I mention my involvement with LGBTQ elder rights, Donald says he has heard of a number of initiatives by aging gays and lesbians organizing group housing situations in Amsterdam for themselves. I want to come back and do a whole piece about that one of these days. It is a lovely evening and Sue and I stroll back to where we are staying after a stop at the grocery for whole milk yogurt and pretzels

May 23

We take a day trip to Utrecht, 25 minutes away on the comfortable, roomy Dutch trains. We are immediately enchanted with the town, which has been recommended to me by my friend Michael who used to live there. With a population of about 350,000, it’s the 4^th largest Dutch city. The city center is ancient: there’s even evidence dating from the Stone Age. With surviving churches built in the 1200s, Utrecht is considered the religious heart of the Netherlands.

We are briefly detoured by a stop at the Keek (pronounced “cake”) café for grilled cheese sandwiches on dark delicious homemade bread and a special sharp cheese made in the Netherlands. We wash it down with their lovely homemade lemonade and head to our primary destination, the Utrecht Centraal Museum.

We start our exploration of the museum with a major exhibition of the work of Jan Taminiau (born 1975), the most prominent Austrian fashion designer. He is very outspoken on his sense of aesthetics, and talks explicitly about his design process from inspiration to creation. His dresses are over-the-top, intricate, complex, and gorgeous. The museum employees are proud of him and we are told more than once that he designed for the Netherland’s Queen Máxima, Lady Gaga, and Beyoncé.

We also visit the exhibition The World of Utrecht, which gives us a genre and historical overview – lots of amazing furniture, paintings, and architectural models of the Dom Tower and the Rietveld Schroder House (where we are headed next), as well as the popular and mesmerizing doll’s house.

Our main goal, though, is to tour the Rietveld Schroder House, now a UNESCO World Heritage site. When we find out it is actually located across town (but administered by the Museum), they call us a cab and we race to get there in time for our 4:00 tour. This remarkable house was designed by the famous Utrecht architect Gerrit Rietveld in full collaboration with the owner, Truus Schroder. (They eventually moved in together after his wife died.) Schroder designed the extraordinary, adaptable, multi-use interior, and Rietveld built it all and designed the exterior, based on the ideals of the De Stijl design movement. It’s a masterpiece.

The interior and its contents move and transform. A chair is a table. The walls slide open. The windows can be disappeared to such a degree that it is hard to distinguish between outside and inside. It is magical and practical at once. There are echoes of the work of Mondrian, another member of the De Stijl art movement and group, with squares of primary colors, and vertical/horizontal design in both the interior and exterior.

I was interested to see the first English lesbian novel (and the first I ever read) The Well of Loneliness (1928) on Schroder’s bookcase. Our tour guide explains that Schroder considered herself a feminist – and perhaps more to the point, her daughter was a lesbian.

There is so much more to do around town but we have no time to explore, other than checking out some other buildings in the neighborhood that Rietveld built. I am determined to return one day and stay for several days in Utrecht.

May 24, 2018

We spend our final day at Amsterdam's Waterlooplein market, first established in the former Jewish Quarter in 1885, when it was closed each Sabbath. The main thing we are after is the famous French fries which one dips in mayonnaise that a vendor has been producing in her little trailer for many decades. She shows each new customer the tattered front cover of a newspaper which awarded her Best Chips some time ago. I’ve eaten her potatoes on virtually every visit to Amsterdam.

The stalls have the usual mass-produced flea market fare, tons of t-shirts, piles of wallets, and a bit of jewelry. I have no intention of buying anything until I see a sweatshirt that was begs me to take it home. The shopkeeper wants €35. Not for nothing did I live in the Middle East for 14 years. What about €20, I ask. He is disgusted, says I should go away, that’s less than he paid for it wholesale. I feign departure. He throws up his hands. Okay, for you €30. I want to be friends, I say, let’s settle in the middle on €25. He’s perfectly happy, I’m perfectly happy, and it has been an honorable negotiation.

We take our final stroll around the center of Amsterdam, passing City Hall, the Dutch National Opera and Ballet, and cross over the River Amstel. We’re heading for Small World, our new friends’ restaurant, where we not only eat another bacon/avocado sandwich, but also stock up on nibbles for our trips home – Sue to London by train and me to Boston.

A few Amsterdam curiosities for dessert:

Like Vienna, the toilets are built with a plateau under your butt and a hole for water in the front of the bowl. Your poop falls in a pile, apparently convenient for checking the state of your health, while the paper somehow falls in that hole. When you are ready to flush, you can pick a button for pee (half-flush) or poop (full-flush) and send it all twirling down.

The toilet paper comes in rectangles, not squares, so you tear off many fewer units.

After my first visit to Amsterdam in the 1980s, I have never rented a bike. The transportation culture is totally different than in the States. The small roads and the major parts of the wide sidewalks of the bigger roads give absolute priority to the bicycles. The bikes themselves are the type I love – no cross bar, no complicated gears, and the handle bars are upwards, allowing you to sit straight. I did not see a single racing bike. During rush hour, there is a skilled tight flow of hundreds of bikes. Tourists too often mess up that flow. At other times, people ride in twos and threes chatting. No one wears a helmet, because no one is racing and because it is the bikes that rock the roads. People are able to move big loads or give a lift to their children or friends. A sliver of the sidewalk remains for pedestrians, who also need to navigate the immense lines of parked bikes. The cars fit in where they can, but do not have right of way. This trip, for the first time, I saw SUVs and Mercedes and other large cars on the streets of Amsterdam. They looked out of place.

Gay people seem to walk around hand-in-hand without the slightest sliver of concern.

Across from the Small World restaurant is a “coffeeshop” – i.e., a place to buy weed. It has the charming name of “Relax” and the woman who works there is very friendly. From her we got a recommendation for a nearby Thai restaurant that we thoroughly enjoyed. Twice. And whenever I poked my head in she’d ask, “Lost or hungry?” My answer was often: “Both.”