uniquement, sur les points, s'il vous plaît. les points.

Since around mid-November, I've been thinking I really should get a haircut. I'm in France where everyone says you get can a good haircut pretty much anywhere and there are coiffeurs on nearly every street corner. It's like Walgreen's in AZ. About four months later (six months after my last haircut), I decided ok, now this is just ridiculous. So, I found the courage inside me to investigate coiffures based on a logic I use in the U.S.: find somewhere that isn't the most expensive, but not the cheapest either. Though the concept of SuperCuts doesn't really exist here, I still didn't want a hack job.

I found one, went inside, and asked for an estimate -- it sounded reasonable, so I asked for an appointment. In fact, the woman says, you don't need one. Are you ready now? Uh, sure. Ok. I knew what I wanted, I knew how to say what I wanted -- but even when you tell them exactly what you want and you're speaking in the same language, you're not always gonna get what you ask for. Needless to say, I was nervous.

The women in this particular coiffure looked like the kind of women that are going to eat you. They had the typically french aloofness, but their own hair looked like they spent way too much time experimenting with various colors and cuts on each other. Not to mention the fact that they all looked like they hated their jobs. Be brave, Lindsay. Be brave.

So, the first woman spends about 45 minutes highlighting my hair very diligently, and the whole time says nothing to me. I wanted to break the tension so badly, but I was debating between the getting eaten thing and the me not speaking French thing as well as the fact that I'm not sure I would even have much in common with this woman. Sitting there, as I was thinking about how I'd describe her, a scene in the The Lion King came to me, a part which used to have me in a fit of giggles as a child: when Pumba has just been chased by Nala in the jungle and screams to Timon: "She's gonna EAT ME!" I chuckled to myself and the lady asks something which I didn't hear -- I think she was asking me if I was doing ok, it may not even had anything to do with my little outburst. I didn't know what to say, so I said nothing, laughed again more awkwardly this time and went back to staring out the window.

At this point, I'm thinking "alright this isn't so bad." Minus the fact that there were three ladies working the store, and about seven customers which meant getting juggled between everyone, it was ok. I was optimistic. After getting my hair washed by someone other than the colorist, the scariest woman of them all dried my head and took me around the corner for a cut. When she asked what I wanted, I said, "just the ends, and the same style as it is now. The less you can cut, the better." Yes, yes ok.

The whole thing was over about 4 minutes later -- she cut my entire head of hair in less than 2 minutes -- no exaggerating, I'm for real. No checking to see if it was even, she just flung pieces of hair into my lap and down my neck. She hacked off a good two inches and used a razor to make it thinner. Which is rather counter-productive for me and my fine hair. The then blow-dried it while having a conversation with someone in the other room, until it was a big birds nest-y type mess. She finishes and says "heu, c'est jolie, non?" I'm like, "...did you not hear a word I said woman?!"

what happened to my hair?!

I scrambled with my wallet, whipped my hair into a ponytail, and was getting ready to pay and when she asked if I would come back to them for my next haircut, and I said, "...no" with the intention of letting her know that I wasn't really satisfied with my experience. And then she said, "no? you won't come back?" And then, blast it! The nice person that I am came bursting out of me and I blurted, "maybe. euhh... maybe." Merci, au revoir and I ran home and messed with it until I decided that I guess after six months, maybe I actually needed a pretty good hack job.

The color is nice actually, natural and subtle, there are just way too many layers. Beh. And well, there you have it. I think next time I'll go back to my lady in Pacific Beach -- that is, in another six months.

Zut.


p.s.

oh, there it is. whew.

xoxo

blurg. (blog)

So, I was thinking to myself, "Man, I should really do a blog. I've done some cool stuff lately and could write about some cool shiz." So I downloaded the photos from my camera and sat down to write it. But then I changed my mind and decided to compile a list of things that have crossed my mind as of late.


1. I mentioned before about being extremely nosy and this includes eavesdropping on people's text messages whenever possible, the intention being to see what text-speak is like in french. "k tu fais? pas bcp. c cool. ct aprm? mdr. atte ^^" (translation: what are you doing? Not a lot. That's cool. This afternoon? Haha. See you later :) ). The best place to do it is the metro which is kind of funny as it's obviously underground... Or when I'm standing behind someone texting on the escalator down to the metro. I think text-speak, while annoying in English (but funny when spoken...), is more interesting and exotic in another language. The new private students I have send me "textos", often in French, and it usually takes me a few minutes to decode what it is they're trying to tell me. Which I kind of dig. And while we're on this subject, I introduced one of my classes to common text speak in English (e.g., omg, brb, btw, lol, even wtf) and one of the older men burst out, "I know the LOL! Lots of laughs!" He was so excited, I almost didn't want to correct him.

2. A couple weeks ago, I had to take a bus across the city to Blagnac, past where the airport is to meet a potential student. During the very crowded ride, I was standing next to perhaps the douchiest looking french teenager I've ever seen. If I had to give you all some kind of idea of what he looked like, he had a sort of Cristiano Ronaldo look about him and I mean this in an obviously negative way -- Cristiano Ronaldo looks like the kind of guy you look at and want to punch. Real hard. This dood had hair sopping with product, the huge cubic zirconia earrings, TIGHT white pants and was listing to his ipod, standing far too close for my comfort. I furtively took out one of my earbuds to see what he was listening to -- it was CRAIG DAVID'S "Seven Days" and I couldn't hold back the lullz when I realized this. He was like the epitome of a french guido. Oh man, such a douche. I needed to share.

3. I have discovered some fun parts of being a foreigner and non-native speaker to the language, one of which I will share... It is knowingly making grammatical mistakes and then blaming it on being an anglophone, like I don't know any better. For example, in French, most of the time you can feminize words that need to agree with it's subject, like "paresseux" turns into "paresseuse." Merde alors, je suis tellement paresseuse. Certain words, however, have no feminine agreement, like professor or engineer or architect -- "un professeur" should become une professeuse, but it doesn't. And I have a problem with that. Why is a professor only a masculine profession?! Although I am not technically an English professor as it were, I am according to the French language. And I do what I want. I tell people, "oui, je donne les cours en anglais. Je suis professeuse d'anglais." And just as they're about to correct me (cause they always do), I cut them off and continue babbling and therefore consider myself having got away with the grammar faux pas. And I have absolute faith that this will catch on eventually (ha.... ha. ha).

4. What is up with French people and their coats? It's almost 65 degrees outside, sunny and beautiful. You don't need those boots, ridiculous scarf and oversized wooly coat. A sweater will suffice. Especially on the metro. You smelly, sweaty people.

5. So, I'm doing more private lessons after advertising myself on leboncoin (which is basically like the french Craig's List). But I'm quickly finding that while it's great to get tax-free cash in hand at the end of the lesson, people are extremely unreliable. Maybe I should modify that statement. French people are the most unreliable. Unless I'm literally standing in front of the person I'm meeting with, there is always the chance that they'll cancel on me and this past week has been a disaster. I got about six responses from people wanting private lessons, all of whom I was able to arrange meetings with downtown where we shared a cafe and discussed what they wanted. I liked everyone I met (no weirdos) and I was glad to finally be able to make some extra money. Until, Monday morning AND evening lesson, cancelled (even after I walked thirty minutes to meet her). Tuesday afternoon, rescheduled. Thursday evening, can't make it anymore. I was ready with my lessons plans, ready to be busy and make money... AUGH. How frustrating.

 just watchin' the moon rise over town.

Aie. La france, je t'aime, même quand je te déteste. I'm going to Paris this weekend which I'm super stoked for. We'll have to see how another adventure with the SNCF goes. Please be good to me; I want to like you, I really do.

xoxo

saint valentin

I occasionally like to occupy my time reading other people's (read: people I've never met) blogs because, for one, I'm nosy but also because I'm boring and I enjoy reading about the normalcy and everyday lives of total strangers. It's crazy to me how people are willing to put so much of themselves on the internet for other strangers like me to read. So hey, don't mind if I do.

I came across this blog, which is basically a guy who writes messages, made-up dialogue, poems (things which he calls word doodles that remind me a lot of William Carlos Williams), and things of the sort to his future wife, a woman he has yet to meet. His writing is almost painfully dorky and simultaneously the sort of cute that I kind of hate and kind of adore. I didn't know guys like this actually exist in the world... A new type of hopeless romantic but with the added fun of anonymity through the internet. Say what you will about it, but it's guaranteed to make any girl go "awwwwwwwwwwwwww" at least once. And hey, given the spirit of this silly "holiday," what girl doesn't want that?

Read it ladiez, swoon, and thank me later.

xox

on peut faire la bise ?

Ok. Everyone who reads this knows that I dig most things french; saying it again would be redundant. But there is one fairly crucial and well-known aspect about the french that I never quite grasped and I'd frankly be ok with never doing again.

I'm taking about faire les bises, which is the exchange of a certain number of kisses on the cheek when greeting someone (in Toulouse, it's one kiss per cheek -- different regions, different customs). It's extremely common -- if you walk around anywhere in the centre ville, you'll inevitably see people doing it; women and women, women and men, men and men. It's all good, there's nothing weird about it. It's just 1,2 hey-o. Vous savez?

Mais, moi? J'suis completement nul.

My worst experience with les bises happened in Aix during a dinner with my host family. As most of you are aware, I had a less than ideal home stay experience... In a nutshell, they were really cold and uninterested in getting to know me at all. So, naturally, I had this mindset to always keep them at an arm's length because I didn't really feel all that welcome. One night, I met Pierre's (the eldest of the sons) girlfriend. I came down from my room, walked into the kitchen, and this girl I had never seen before introduced herself and started coming towards me. I don't think it occurred to me she was going for les bises, so I just stuck out my right hand for a shake, out of habit. She ignored it and kept coming and I sort of panicked and backed away until I realized what she was doing. My host family never did les bises with me -- why would this complete stranger who I now associate with them do it? Anyways, there was a full second of total awkwardness where we just bobbed our heads back and forth and played the faire les bises shuffle until it was over. I was mortified and I'm pretty sure everyone else was embarrassed for me as well. Just thinking about it makes me cringe. Oh god.

Carla Bruni didn't even do la bise with Obama! For shame!

Occasionally, my students do it to me and it always catches me off guard, especially when I'm sitting down and they just start coming at me. I always panic too, because for the tiniest second, I have an "omgwtfisgoingon" moment. I don't really consider the typically anglo greeting of hugging one another all that better, to be honest they're both kind of invasive in terms of personal space. But I'm an awkward person in general, and exponentially more awkward around people I've just met. I'm pretty sure that the same thing happens in the states, when you're not really sure if you're at a level with someone where you can hug them? But they think you are, and they start to go for it, but then sense your hesitation... This happens, right? I recently had a student try to faire les bises, saw the look on my face and then stopped outright. I apologized and told her it was something I just never got used to in france and she said from then on, she would ask before she did it. Embarrassing, right?

Perhaps I wouldn't have this issue if the rules were more clear for me, but since I don't really have any really good french friends, and everyone is more or less an acquaintance, I haven't quite figured out the rules of la bise. 

I guess that's it for now... OH! One more quick thing, I officially broke my record for longest time between doing laundry. A full MONTH! YES! Don't worry, I washed my skivvies and socks and things in the sink in between, but I think that this new record makes me either incredibly awesome, frugal, or disgusting... Depending on how you look at it. Personally, I'll take awesome.


Heehee. 
xoxo