Just had to share this image of the blooming Wisteria in my garden today - perfection - on this special Leap Year day. Last year they didn’t bloom. It wasn’t a bad year per se, but I’m hoping this early bloom portends good fortune in ‘08.

This week I’ve been planning my upcoming trip to Amsterdam. For those of you who didn’t know, I lived there for four years and haven’t been back in almost six. In many ways Amsterdam is my second home. And the memories have just been rushing in…

I moved to Amsterdam in late 1998 on a Super Tuesday knowing pretty much no one, with the exception of a couple of friends I had cultivated from the Internet (one of whom was nice enough to let me crash sight-unseen, on his couch for two weeks until I found a place).

My first apartment was in the then-edgy (now trendy) ethnically diverse neighborhood of De Pijp. It had “ladder stairs” and an archaic rope contraption for unlocking the front door below (in lieu of a buzzer). The shower was basically the entire bathroom (with a drain on the floor) and the shelf in the toilet grusomely “displayed” one’s excrement. The water was gas-heated and I lived essentially above a hash bar. Because I knew no one, I became a regular at the clubs and bars, mostly what my friends Mieke and Aras dubbed “The Kinderdiscos.” These were the spots where one was guaranteed to find stunningly attractive, fresh-faced, rosy cheeked blond, barely legal Dutch treats.

While in that apartment, I dated one such a cutie for several months (and, he was legal, folks, that’s a fact). He was a few years my junior, but his mother wholeheartedly approved, telling him that it was good for him and that he’d learn a thing or two from an older woman. During that time I was working as a journalist and a part time graduate student at The University of Amsterdam. There, I met a lot of amazing new friends, from other parts of Holland, as well as from Lebanon, Spain, Italy and Germany…

I had to leave that first apartment but found (at least location-wise), an even better one in the Jordaan. The neighborhood’s American equivalent would be the West Hollywood Hills in LA or the West Village in New York. Only problem was my landlord was a sleazy drug-addicted slum lord essentially renting out his ground level storefront and calling it an apartment. The day I signed the contract he puffed from a joint. He offered me some, I declined and then he offered to give me a back massage! Beyond that, he didn’t really bother me until the end of my stay there. At that point, as luck would have it, I had a gorgeous hulking, 6′5″ Dutch boyfriend named Peter.

The landlord used to flip open and shut the mail slot in the middle of the night to try and harass me. One day when the gas in the house went off, I called him to help. He rushed downstairs three sheets to the wind with cocaine on his nostrils much to the horror of Peter and I. He wanted us to come upstairs and “party” with him and his girl friend and asked, oddly enough, if my boyfriend worked out. It was creepy to say the least. And I had mice in that apartment, to boot. Yet my stray cat who had always pushed his way in somehow refused to enter when the rodent epidemic hit.

I finally got out of that place and into my last home, a gorgeous two-story canal residence in another part of the Jordaan. At this point I was having an amazing mystical relationship with my yoga instructor. It was what you’d call stellar and tripped out. We seemed to be the opposite but the same and mused that we might well be twin souls. Granted it didn’t work out, but we’re still friends and have a very strong remote connection. I spent many a day spiritually drunk in the attic of that last dwelling. Sometimes I would crawl into the old frame of the attic window and sit there cross-legged hypnotized by the moon.

After that breakup, I spent hours a day knitting a “heartbreak poncho.” But it, like the relationship, was ill-fated. I was wearing it one late night riding my “grandma” bicycle with its basket and skirt-accommodating seat, along the canals. I was returning from a night at the bars and was quite buzzed when the back of the poncho flew into my bike wheel and got stuck and mangled in there. Drunk on the ground in front of my bike/poncho hybrid at 4 in the morning, I called for help from my friend Bart, who promptly showed up. But neither of us could pull it out. We ended up having to carry it back to my house. And that was one of the signs that my Amsterdam ride was over. I moved back to L.A. in 2002.

Image: “Fountain of Youth” by Lucas Cranach

“Time Out” is an appropriate title for this week-late blog, in more ways than one. I have been thinking a lot about the notion of time and physiology lately. I just finished an article about the business of anti-aging remedies, so I’ve been steeped in this subject. And I’ve been doing a little of my own research into so-called natural (i.e. found in nature) Fountains of Youth–from Kombucha (the magical manchurian tea) to the latest Acai berry juice craze. Personally, I drink both of the aforementioned beverages, and occasionally take some Super Food. I’m a believer in balance rather than a single panacea.

Beyond dietary supplements, my latest theory may ruin many of your appetites. I apologize, in advance, for grossing you out. But, recently, chatting over coffee with Magdalena, an acquaintance in the neighborhood we got on the topic of the ayurvedic tradition amongst Yogis of drinking their own urine.

It illicited some winces and laughs, naturally, and spurred other equally wince-worthy lines of conversation. Magdalena said that a friend of hers soaks her menstrual pads in water and feeds her plants with the fluid, and they grow like wild. This doesn’t surprise me. I just read in the New York Times that a company is enabling women to freeze the stem cells in their menstrual blood so they can use them later for cures and so forth.

What’s more astounding (and perhaps even disgusting) to me is that we, in our disconnected-from-Nature Post Human worlds are more comfortable with consuming Yellow # 5 and other chemical ingredients than imagining utilizing ingredients found in our own bodies. I realize how ghoulish that might sound coming from a consumerist urbanite, but sit with it for a second.

Maybe, just maybe, the so-called Fountain of Youth is within us. If people are injecting themselves with animal embryos to stay young, why is it so strange to think that perhaps (for example) something like the egg we women release each month during ovulation, could be an indispensible ingredient in our fight to remain young and cultivate energy? The egg is Life itself. There must be something to it.

I am not necessarily suggesting women consume their own eggs (ladies and gentlemen, please don’t try this at home) or that Ocean Spray start bottling a drink made from them. I am just wondering why scientists aren’t studying these natural “built-in” cures we all possess, instead of pushing synthetic remedies on us. Or have we become grossed out by our own secretions, physiologies, proteins, etc. to such a degree that we are only willing to consider synthetic, potentially toxic (in the long term) solutions?

Another example of an under-studied part of the human physiology is the pineal gland, a.k.a. the Englightenment Gland or Third Eye. What we consumers know about it is that it produces Melatonin which helps us sleep. So, what do we do? We go to the store and buy brand name Melatonin in a bottle.

I just wish there was more scientific research done into our own internal physiology. Of course every Kundalini Yoga enthusiast hopes to learn, through the exercises and breathing, how to activate the pineal gland. Yet many mainstream scientists seem bored or at least incredulous about deep investigative analysis into it.

The pineal gland is light-activated and in tandum with the hypothalmus (the ‘hands’ of our biological clock), regulates various biorythms–like the Circadian rhythm. This seems like fairly important stuff, yet oddly enough it ends up being the sole domain of yoga fanatics tripped out on Eastern religion, or patrons of Head shops obsessed with psychedelics. Again, why is this so?

There is a school of philosophical thought that believes that we have the answers to every question in our Universal Brains. Some have called this reservoir The Akashic Records, others have called it the Collective Unconscious. And I personally see parallels between it and our invention and widespread usage of the Internet. The web is our perfect human-made version of the Universal Brain. Hell, Wikipedia, Google and IMDB are practically cerebral appendages for most of us at this point.

So if everything is there for the taking, questions for the answering, then why is it not possible that on a physiological level, all the serums, antidotes, cures, nutrients, etc. we need as humans can be found in our very own bodies (our living, breathing, walking medicine bags)?

Adding some off-color levity to the discussion, this is the part where the male chauvinist pig heckler in the proverbial audience yells out something about sperm being good for a woman’s skin. Then we all have a good low-brow laugh at the joke. Headline in The Onion: Could the multi-billion dollar anti-aging industry be missing the real money shot? However, we’re running out of time. While we laugh and postpone research into this currently crackpot (potentially a goldmine) area, our biological clocks are ticking and the alarm’s about to go off.

Ok, I had nothing particularly against Sen. Barack Obama before I read an ABC blog today. I am still supporting Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, but was sort of dreaming of the fantasy ticket, with Obama as VP, rounding things out and reuniting the party. Granted I don’t like being preached or sold to. I’m more fond of concrete solutions and substance…call me boring and old-fashioned. And, sure as a pop culture writer, I’m a hater of hype. So, he did not, suffice to say, resonate with me as he has with some other of my hip, young urban cohorts.

Regardless, I thought, Obama himself is alright; it’s his nutty, pushy, disturbed, Kool-Aid drinking supporters that I have issues with. They do a disservice to their candidate when they pursue matters to ruin in their angry, fierce, stopping-at-nothing-short-of-pounding-you-over-the-head tactics. In short, I thought, it makes Obama look bad that his supporters lack the quiet, secure dignity to live and let vote.

Personally, when I encounter other Democratic voters, I am not immediately vocal about who I support and why (unless they’re people I feel particularly close to…blogs notwithstanding, these discussions are kind of personal). And frankly, I prefer for us not to get all worked up into an emotional debate…better to keep things a little cool, we are, after all still all Democrats. And personal, it gets my blood pressure pumping and is just more stress than it’s worth. I preempt conversations with, “No matter who you’re supporting…and we all feel passionate about our candidates.” It is not my desire or personal mandate to convince someone else of my position…until they lay into me with brute force, believing that this will convince me to alter my support for Clinton, in favor of Obama.

It reminds me, quite frankly of some of the crazy vegans I’ve met here in LA and New York, who agressively come at you, somehow believing that the in-your-face tactic is bound to convince. But instead of softening me, it hardens me, leaving me thinking, wow, I want to stay as far away from that cause as humanly possible. They may have some good points, but when they make them spewing vitriol and treating me like “the enemy,” well, I stop listening. I think most people do. This reaks of irrational zealotry rather than quiet, dignified passion. And if leading by example, as the i Ching says (Happy Chinese New Year, by the way) is the best way to convince, many of Sen. Obama’s supporters–as well-meaning as I’m sure they are–are doing a piss poor job.

I’m a firm believer in Soft Power. We used to have it here in the U.S. We didn’t need to beat folks over the head with our democracy. They watched us living, allegedly happier and freer lives, and sought to follow us. Anyway, whoever you support, remember, you’re never going to forcefully manipulate someone into supporting your candidate as well. Wear the candidate’s pin on your lapel and be proud but chill out! The only thing you can do is be content with your candidate, express respect for him or her, and respect others’ opinions (unless provoked) and let them find their way… Whether they do or not is not up to you. This whole angry proselityzing thing smacks of Christian missionaries…and that leaves a sour taste in my mouth, regardless of how strong or weak their ‘god’ is.

Anyway, after reading the ABC blog on this very topic I was even more put off to find that it was not just Obama’s supporters jumping on the cult bandwagon, but the politician himself (who I thought was above these kind of self-deifing, self-aggrandizing tactics). I am truly turned off to read this excerpt from Men’s Vogue:

“When Morgan Freeman comes over to greet Obama, the senator begins bowing down both hands in worship. ‘This guy was president before I was,’ says Obama, referring to Freeman’s turn in Deep Impact and, clearly, getting a little ahead of his own bio. Next, a nod to Bruce Almighty: ‘This guy was God before I was.’”

John Lennon once said, “We’re more popular than Jesus now,” referring to The Beatles’ notoriety. He got a lot of shit for it. Then again, he was just a witty rock star and people were taking his flip boastful words way too seriously. We should, on the other hand, take Obama’s words seriously because he’s not a rock star; he’s a politician. Or is he perhaps a little bit of both?

In a total WTF moment (or mercury retrograde vortex) the blog I posted yesterday “The Rat Race” regarding predictions for the Chinese New Year of the Rat and the Clinton/Obama race is gone…just gone…It’s still listed in the Google cache but appears nowhere on my blog. I doubt it will be recovered but if for some reason it is, you can bet I’ll repost. In the meantime, Happy Voting and Happy New Year (Thursday).