04 March 2002 - 5:14 p.m.

In the basement of the Stedelijk, istening to Dutch students make fun of the film of a naked guy flopping around in the same frame. In the Sex Museum up the street, listening to French teenagers getting extremely grossed out by fetish pictures. Also the Torture Museum (dingy, dilapidated and claustrophobic - better just to buy a book of illustrations) and the Kattenkabinet (a house-museum themed around cats - from the staircase runner to a beautiful table-mirror of a white cat gazing at a thin green lizard - to the cat doorstop just outside the garden door - to the two screens of cat-themed bookplates (quite a few featuring nude women - which is not to say that I disapprove of the combination, just that I hadn't imagined it to be popular enough to be a bookplate theme for at least a half-dozen collectors). The Van Gogh and Gauguin exhibition at the Van Gogh. Brahms tonight at the Concertgebouw. Riding the tram. Shots of jenever (including a very nice raspberry distillation). A beer at the Lux and more beer at the Hoppe. (Meant to dancing at the Melkweg but didn't get there until it closed. The tour book lied.)

Running out of minutes. Time to post and run. Yes, I *am* feeling much better. :-)