Now, about that grungy backpack you use, too.

So, college graduate (or precocious high school graduate?) you're going to celebrate your first year of post-academic freedom by heading off to Europe, . See the old world, visit historical spots, get to know other cultures, find some Amsterdam lodging...

... yeah, I bring that up because I know. I know (we all know) that you're going to drink, smoke things you can't smoke here, and otherwise do stuff that you'll post to Facebook and then complain about people seeing.

Well, go ahead. The rest of us adults, the ones who already have legitimate jobs, will be waiting to Google you and then bump your starting salary down $5,000 after we see those pics (we'll do that out of jealousy.) But do us all a favor, okay? Quit staying in those grungy hostels, will you?

What, after all, is the appeal of sleeping on a cot in a room full of 65 other people, all of whom you secretly suspect of trying to slip you something or steal your backpack, or both? Especially when you consider the alternative: A short-term apartment in Amsterdam.

You can find just that -- a short term apartment -- through Short Stay Amsterdam, a website that matches up travelers like you with apartments for a brief stay. You could get an apartment in Amsterdam for about 250 Euros a night -- but not just any apartment. An apartment that sleeps up to six, right in the heart of Amsterdam, and which looks like this:
That is what you get for your 250-Euros-per night. It has a kingsize bed in one room. It's got a private shower and bath, and has a flatscreen TV and DVD in it. It's close to breweries, shops, cafes, restaurants, and the Rijksmuseum.

All for 250-Euros a night. You and five friends will pay only 40 Euros each per night.

Sure beats a hostel, doesn't it? You bet it does.

So go. Get your wild oats out of you. Take pictures -- blur your face before posting them, dummy -- and have some fun. But do it in style.

Genius should be rewarded by ice cream. (3 Good Things 10)

Saturday's Good Things just kept on coming, carrying me into Sunday like a surfer riding the crest of a wave off into the sunset. Or sunrise. I guess sunrise is more hopeful... okay. Sunrise it is. My 3 Good Things from yesterday:

1. I finally watched the movie Primer, which I'd DVRd weeks ago but had never gotten around to actually watching until yesterday. If I'd known it was so great, I'd have watched it immediately. How great was it? It was the kind of greatness that inspires me, later, while giving the Babies! a bath, to have a frank and honest discussion with Sweetie about time travel and how it would work. (Isn't Sweetie lucky?)

2. I realized how smart my Babies! are by watching Mr F figure things out. The thing he was figuring out? How to slip through a fence and jump into a river. We were on a fenced-in overlook taking a break from our "Long Walk." Mr F was dying to just get himself into the water, and he methodically, as I watched, tested each gap between the fence by putting his head up to it, over and over, until he reached the one that would let him slip his head through. (Luckily, I saw it coming and was ready to grab him back. Genius should be rewarded, but not with a 10-foot-fall into a river.)

3. The humidity broke! So now it's not "85 degrees and humid," but just "85 degrees." I can live with that.

Avoid people wearing turtlenecks. (Sunday's Poem, 23)

“Do You Have Any Advice For Those of Us Just Starting Out?"

by Ron Koertge

Give up sitting dutifully at your desk. Leave
your house or apartment. Go out into the world.

It's all right to carry a notebook but a cheap
one is best, with pages the color of weak tea
and on the front a kitten or a space ship.

Avoid any enclosed space where more than
three people are wearing turtlenecks. Beware
any snow-covered chalet with deer tracks
across the muffled tennis courts.

Not surprisingly, libraries are a good place to write.
And the perfect place in a library is near an aisle
where a child a year or two old is playing as his
mother browses the ranks of the dead.

Often he will pull books from the bottom shelf.
The title, the author's name, the brooding photo
on the flap mean nothing. Red book on black, gray
book on brown, he builds a tower. And the higher
it gets, the wider he grins.

You who asked for advice, listen: When the tower
falls, be like that child. Laugh so loud everybody
in the world frowns and says, "Shhhh."

Then start again.

________________________________________________

I found this poem on a site started by the former Poet Laureate of the United States, Billy Collins. The site is called "Poetry 180," and it's supposed to give a poem a day to high school students.

I liked this one because of the advice: Write in a notebook with a kitten on the cover, in a library where a child plays with books... the message I get from that is reading, and writing, and poetry, are supposed to be fun, enjoyable, not work. Some writers don't get that. Some readers don't get that-- that books and reading and writing should be approached like a child approaches everything in the world.