I have left out I. – I. was a punk girl I met in eindhoven. She was a very independent person, a Scorpio, and used to walk around in a leather jacket with the Russian word for freedom, svoboda, painted over its back. I used to have these great philosophical conversations with her. She actually followed me around everywhere but I was too stupid to notice she was in love with me. I remember two moments of significance. The first was the blockade of Shell in Amsterdam at the end of the eighties. I was still in school and would have an exam that day so I asked the principle if I could redo that test later on. He said no and I would get a zero if I went to that protest. I didn’t care and went anyway. I. was there too and we were together most of the day. The blockade went pretty nasty. There was lots of military police and somehow I ended up sitting in the front row of the street sit down. It was obvious they were going to charge soon and I was alert. When the charge started I was somehow able to avoid any beatings. Chaos in the street. A lot of hardcore autonomes had shown up with bivaks and catapults and baseball bats. It was like a war but it was exciting. The cops were actually pretty scared of this shadow army. I saw some cops stop charging and run away when they ran into one of these anarchist baseball squats. Of course soon the teargas was used. Both me and I. got hit by a fair amount of it and that stuff sucks pretty hard. However, crying together caused by teargas with a girl you are in love with in a warlike setting was somehow seriously romantic. Highlight of the day was when the ropes came out. We tied ropes to a police bus and hung on it with 20 guys trying to pull it over. It was great fun. Eventually the bus escaped.

One thing about this event struck me as typical. The cops actually had 2 buses full of cops dressed as autonoms. They copied everything even the Mohawks and slogans on the jackets. I think the idea was actually to let these guys incite a riot. Events like these are great opportunities for police to get more budget when things run out of hand. However these riots were already there, which is why I think these punk cops simply were not used and waiting in a van instead. They were seriously embarrassed by being discovered and drove away at light speed afterwards.

The second event I remember about I. is that I made a date with her. I was still living with my parents. I was thinking I should finally tell her how much I was in love with her. That thought made me so nervous I had to sit down on the ground twice during my bicycle ride to eindhoven on the way to this date. Finally I actually bicycled into a ditch with water! I couldn’t believe I was so nervous and excited about this. I. And me sat in front of altstad and played a game of chess. I told her I was in love with her. She looked at me with this funny, ironic sort of look and said she was in love with me before too but now it was over. That kinda sucked! Later on she told me she was thinking about taking me for a screw on this occasion but instead we just played a few games of chess and parted.

I think at that time I was more political than I. was. I remember some talks we had in de bunker. She told me that the squatters there were just as conservative as the people outside. I was seriously shocked she felt that way because at that time I seriously believed in anarchism and all that. But of course she was right. I. Was a big neubauten fan and got me into more alternative forms of music instead of just punk rock. She lived next door to me in the school after the other guys left but she was hardly there. I remember I one time peeked in her diary and found what she wrote about me. She wrote that she had never met someone with such an all-devouring, destructive oversight and vision as me. That touched me, that she would feel that way. In hindsight I think it was my idealism that sort of blocked a possible relation with her. Be it as it may, she was one of the persons I really loved at that time.

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