mon copain(g)

Coucou, nerds.

So, I guess I have a man in my life. This fact, while awesome and spectacular and gooey-emotional-feeling words, seemed to have slipped my mind as something worthy of sharing. It seems boring and cliché to say that I was reluctant to present him via picasa albums and skype sessions to my life back home (i.e, all of you) because I wasn't sure how long it would last. Truthfully, I had met other French messieurs since being here, but all of them were kinda weird or losers-in-the-end and consequently fizzled out.

But this dood is pretty different -- I have to say, besides being stoked to have met someone so cool and easy-going, I'm shocked by how well we get one another. I don't necessarily mean that we literally understand each other, because trust me, the amount of dumb shit I've said in French has increased exponentially since the last time you and I discussed this subject (though my speaking and understanding is undeniably the best it's ever been). It's that, despite being from two pretty different worlds, we understand the other's way of being. My sister made an extremely enlightening point when, in asking me about him, her first question was, "so, is he down with burping?"

Yeah, I'm a gross person, whatever. In my special house of particularly loud belchers, I grew up thinking that there was nothing wrong with letting out the occasional burp with the appropriate people. And to be honest, I don't understand this hang-up -- of course there's always a time and a place, but I'll always remember the time I was eating lunch with two good (French) friends and I let out a small, appreciative burp. Their stunned, revolted reactions sum up exactly how the majority of French people handle the issue. So, the first time I finally let go and just burped in front of the copaing, his eyes lit up and he immediately high-fived me, feeling relieved that I wasn't one of "those" people.

He's a winner. Blogging suddenly feels really invasive now that I've shared something so concrete as a real living person in my life and followed up by posting a picture... Too much blogging, feeling really nerdy, stopping here.

See you around the interwebs.

xx

t'es qu'un con.

I hate grocery stores. With the exception of Trader Joe's, I loathe going. It seems I never choose the right time to go -- either I'll go in the morning when I'm not working and it's full of senile old cronies who like to elbow to the front of the line while muttering about young people and their loud music (seriously), or on an afternoon when there are not enough cashiers and everyone in the area has decided now would be the perfect time to stand in line for 25 minutes like an asshole.

Before coming to France, I considered having to wait more than 15 minutes at the grocery store check out to be about 14 more minutes than necessary. But now it seems that a 15 minute wait is more or less average.

This morning, due to a lack of work this week, I decided to wake up slowly, putter around the apartment for an hour or two before heading to the local supermarket which is one metro stop away. Though the metro service was stopped, I decided a 20 minute walk wouldn't be so bad (but I didn't count on it still being stopped when I finished because a 20 minute walk with lots of groceries is kinda unpleasant).

During my ritual standing around in the supermarket check-out this time, I was stood behind a middle aged guy who, I couldn't help but notice, was only buying cheap wine and beer. I looked down at my giant bag of chocolate pastries and thought, well... To each his own, amirite? He stood with his arms crossed, looking around, tapping his foot -- all signs pointing to: I need to buy this booze, people. I gots places to be, more important places than you!

As we stood waiting, he continued to sway on his heels, look at his watch and sigh a little too heavily. But, when it came to his turn... Well, how the tables do turn. After scanning all of his booze, the cashier glared up at him and asked for his supermarket card. The man, smiling now, puts his hand in his back pocket and pulls out a piece of gum wrapped in silver foil. He unfolds the gum carefully, taking his sweeeeeeeet motherfucking time, all the while smiling at this cashier who is glaring at him like:

He folds the gum into his mouth, crumples the gum wrapper and slides it into his pocket, now enjoying this moment a little too much. I look at the cashier and I can see her giving this guy a serious grimace. The man, meanwhile, digs into his pockets and brings out a keychain stacked with cards and keys out the wazoo, looking carefully for the blue and red Carrefour card, then handing it slowly over to the woman who swoops it out of his hand, scans it, and almost chucks it back at him.

"10.90 is your total, sir."

He looks at her, and pauses before digging back into his pocket for.... Wait for it... His checkbook and passport. At which point I'm like, oh boy. And he starts carefully making his check out while me and the other people in line are like:

Who writes checks at supermarkets anymore, you turd! I can see the guy behind me, both arms pushed against the carousel looking down and shaking his head. Oh boy, oh boy, shit's gettin' tense here.

When the grumpy cashier finishes putting the check in and out of the machine half a dozen times, I realize the man has done nothing during this time -- including bag his stuff (because in France, you bag your own shit, asshole!). He hikes up his pants, looks at me a little smugly, and then carefully smooths out his reusable bag to fill it up, forcing the cashier lady to wait to start to check out my items so as not to mix them up. At long last, he's finished and the woman says to him, "thank you, sir. goodbye." And the turd picks up his bag, says nothing and walks away.

In France, when you leave a store after having purchased something, you say "merci, au revoir." Always. No exceptions, because people will think you're asshole if you don't. Which is exactly what I suspect happened consequently.

But there's icing to this story! As I was walking out of the grocery store, I saw the turd again as I was about to go into the metro (which, as I was about to find out, was still not running) and he was coming out. He wasn't paying attention because there was a large group of people massing around the bus stop so he bumped into me pretty hard -- and me, instead of having a normal, reasonable reaction, which would have been to say, "hey, watch it!" I instead said, "ah, excusez-moi monsieur! Pardon!" Regretting it pretty much immediately.

I'll let you guess what he said to that.

Assholes.

postcard from 1952

feignasse

Bonjour à tout et à toutes!

I'm sorry, I've been such a lazy butthead. I'm getting back into this blogging thing, I promise maybe. Truth be told, I got kinda busy for a moment there, which is no excuse so I'm gonna stop right here and just assume full responsibility. And to win all of you back over, here's a picture of me looking like a doofus.

 

as per the usual.

Well, now that we're square again, lemme update you on things. I'm currently making a decision about which university I'll be attending in September of this year which, while it's exciting, it unsettles me a little bit for all of the obvious reasons. Both are in the UK and I recently had the opportunity to visit each -- I enjoyed both of the campuses and really appreciated the typically English-ness of it all. I think the decision will ultimately come down to which one I have to pay less for.... But we'll get to that after I've got my fees assessment back (which also unsettles me).

Bref. Otherwise, things have been chugging along as per the usual in France. Surely I've gone soft with all of these days off in May (we have four) so I'm thinking that a Master's will surely kick my butt into real person work mode (this is probably the most unsettling part of everything).

To end, I'll share with you probably my favorite French idiom ever which has no English equivalent... When you've got on a button-down shirt or a cardigan and you fixed a button to a hole that doesn't match on the right level, in French they say "to attach Monday to Tuesday" ("attacher lundi avec mardi").

example: "You must have been in a hurry this morning -- you've attached Monday to Tuesday!"

English is so boring sometimes.