Happiness today is the ease with which the nun gives me his phone number. Paul is an old friend, or really an old friend of my ex, and we haven’t spoken in eight years.

I had emailed him late last year, missing our kitchen table conversations over coffee and cigarettes. His enormous house, a former school, functioning as his private art studio / gallery. He had replied right away, saying “my phone number is still the same”.

Walking with Annelie is coffee indoors today. We’ve told each other we need to go on more walks. She asks if we should dress warmly for the cold, wet park, or if we should just grab a table inside. Normally at this hour, Coffee Company is packed to the brim with digital nomads, so “dress for cold, hope for warmth” I say. Miraculously, there are two tables from which we can choose.

Brushing my teeth on Friday morning, I think about the weekend ahead, secretly complaining that my social engagements will keep me from getting the rest I need. Then I remember Easter Monday. The true marker of my mid-thirties is the excitement I feel at the prospect of a bed, and nothing but it.

I hold a baby this week, one of my favorite ones. His face has two states that exist simultaneously: the one of utter shock and surprise only newborns can have, and the one that reminds you that babies know everything about the world and forget it as soon as they start to speak. He laughs when I bop his nose, although I quickly learn that the force with which I bop Anja’s adult nose shan’t be applied here.

The weather is great, infection rates are down, and the Dutch government loosened Covid restrictions. Masks are no longer required in public indoor spaces. I’m at Basquiat waiting to catch up with a friend, and an Irish woman strikes up a conversation.

“I like to sit here late in the afternoon to watch the sun set between the buildings. I can’t take much sun, I have Irish skin, you know.”

My friend Paul is a very wise man. Last week, as he drove O. and me home after a morning of catching up at the house / workshop / gallery / former school building in which he dwells, he said:

“I would love to have another life, just so I could spend it cursing at everything, and everyone.”

The negative character of this man is self-evident. He’s as much a misanthrope as he is an engaging full of life and stories. It makes hanging out with him a free afternoon at a comedy club. His lifestyle is perfectly suited for his disposition. I’m positive his house contains more rooms than even he can count. There is a room for his art, another one for the art his students produce, various studios, six bathrooms, and three separate kitchens. He lives alone where he is boss.