went to lunch today with the lady i almost worked for, wish i worked for. we had the kind of conversation i always want to have: candid and meaningful, and realistically optimistic. if i write a movie about my life, i would make it so that i didn’t stay up until 4 in the morning the night before, getting near no sleep, and bumble through the conversation.
i asked her, is life just regularly being pushed down by tough situations, and you either get back up and be better at it next time, or get broken?
‘i don’t think you’re breakable’
she doesn’t think i’m breakable.
most of you already know that i got chucked out of the place i live with a day’s notice, followed by a string the length of the great wall of other horrible things that happened with the last three day. i have little interest in recounting them right now, maybe at a later date, when they will seem quaint and amusing. either way, 19 sounds too young to be a grownup, and i’ve always kind of treated myself as a grownup, and now i just wish i weren’t.
but i think this is one doodle that can’t be undid.
once they have your consent, you’re stuck in grownup land forever.
i’m going to find a really quiet church and sit, and maybe sleep, for a long time.
It’s been almost a month in Paris, but I’ve just begun falling in love with the city. I walked home tonight on empty Parisian streets, quiet, and old, and just beautiful. I’d been so afraid of something when I’d first gotten here; afraid to speak French, annoyed by the French google that now automatically popped up on my browser, afraid to venture outside without my ipod cozily plugged in.
So I got home tonight from a new friend’s birthday fete, and I realized that I adore her, and the other people I met tonight, and that I adore Paris. And so my Itunes went to shuffle and Carla Bruni’s La Noyee played like some sort of theme and I think this is home.
Hannah and I are getting haircuts soon. I’m going to chop off my hair, maybe color it, and maybe be a new person.
These are revelations I thought I was having simply because of the wine, and then I realized I’d only had a glass and a half, and maybe this is just me.
I’m not going to be afraid to be embarrassed. I’m going to do things qui me fait rigoler. Et c’est comme ca.
dark humor is wonderful, it allows you to complain without seeming like a whiny idiot.
so screw being a grown up, i say. i’d rather be a baby. i miss my mommy. i miss my best friends. i bought a huge stack of postcards today and i plan on writing a lot a lot. i miss chipotle, which i told carl about, and then couldn’t quite explain why i missed it since i’ve never been into mexican food, and i’m not that into chipotle. i think it’s about my last memory associated with the place: easy conversation, laughs, wonderful old friend so comfortable, like a worn in leather couch (and i swear they put something in the rice that hooks you. cocaine?!).
it’s weird, i can’t quite bring myself to write about paris, although i’ve seen gorgeous things and met cool people. all i want to do is talk about how coming here has made me see the connection between me and my mama. i mean, it’s never been like this for me. maybe because she’s never been quite this much out of reach. this connection that i think everyone else knows better than i do. for the first time, i feel like a baby snatched from the womb, all cold and shivering and covered in blood and placenta and poop and all i want is a hug from my mama.
for a while, this blog is going to be about my inability to cope, and neediness, and an analysis on the salt content of tears and their stain making qualities. if that’s your cup of tea, this is the place for you my friend.
So I’m a terribly bad maman and disregarded the blog at a very crucial moment. For some reason, I just couldn’t muster up the strength to write, maybe because there was too much to sort out, or maybe because I have this horrible head cold. Either way, I’m sorry. And I can’t wait to get better.
I still don’t quite know what to write about everything so far. I really just need to let things settle. The children are adorable, Jeanne is going to be a heartbreaker, I can already tell. Gaspard is so thinky, that sometimes I think we’re really alike, until I pull on his diaper before bed. Although I’ve often considered the convenience of such an arrangement….
I live in this small hallway on the top floor of the building with maybe 5 or 6 other rooms. I know for sure there at least one live creature up there because I hear jingling keys and see a sliver of light when I sneak off to the bathroom, but I haven’t mustered up the courage to say hi. All in due time, I say. Unless they move. Hmmm.
I’m sitting at my desk, at my job, most likely for the last time and what I feel is not what I expected. I’m leaving to go to Champaign tomorrow morning, with Bleeker in tow, to meet his surrogate mommy. We’ve been spending a lot more time together than usual; I’ve been using him as an escape from packing. We learned Crazy People by the Wreckers, and we’re going to play it loud in union station tomorrow (after my mother and I part ways).
I got this new dress, and it cinches so tight at the waist, and this new old watch, and it doesn’t run, but it’s so rusty and perfect.
This is going to be a short post, because I have a lot more to do. But you know what? Three days with some of my favorite people ain’t shabby. I’m going to relax and let it be wonderful.
Maybe the next time I write I’ll be in France. Hopefully not, because, for some reason, that’s a really sad thought.
My departure date is in less than two weeks and I’m surprisingly un-panicked. I’ve still got a nice long list of things I need to do before takeoff and the plan is to knock them out of the park by this Friday so I can spend next week in lalaland with my friends, daydreaming about how nice it will be.
It does worry me that Parisian women seem to live in Navies and Blacks, whereas my color palate ranges from Baby Blue to Neon. This is okay, I’ve told myself. I will be a flamingo in a land of swans! I will POP!
I will probably let evolution take its course.
I also need a camera for next year. I wonder if I could get away with bulk-buying disposables; I like the grainy look of the pictures better anyway.
PS why do I insist on making bird analogies when I can’t stand them? And then give myself the ickies when I google image search flamingos? Silly.
PPS apparently Men Love Bitches
I went to my physician to get my tetanus shot yesterday because I’m a little bit of a hypochondriac and a couple months ago I stepped on a nail, barefoot, in my basement, and was pretty convinced I would die. I, obviously, don’t want to put myself through that kind of emotional turmoil again (I parceled out most of my plastic jewelry collection in a 60% joking email). And because vaccines are BRILLIANT.
Anyhow, so, you know how there are days when you just feel freer than usual? And you don’t feel the need to be constrained by the rigid, misogynistic statutes of society? And you’re also feeling a little bit lazy? And you just don’t happen to wear any underwear? Usually this is fine. I think feminism is pretty cool, and that undergarments are 50% of the time unnecessary. It’s unfortunate, though, when you don’t have the foresight to see that your annual physical that day would involve various maneuvers of the knee that make it almost impossible to not overexpose yourself in the day dress you so brilliantly chose to wear. Score. Anyway, it was awkward, and my stern, mustachio’d doctor was all disapproving glances for the rest of my appointment. Obviously, I made an impression.
So when I came in for my shot a mere 3 weeks later, I was expecting to get the icy, frigid bi(u?)tch treatment. There was no sign of recognition, ZILCH. He was a notch above politely conversational. He chuckled at my jokes. He thinks it’s cool that I am nannying while going to school next year. He wishes me luck. WTF???
What I’m saying is the medical profession is getting way impersonal. Remember in the olden days, when the village doctor made house calls, and knew exactly where on your body that gross poodle shaped mole is cause he just so happened to have helped birth you, and would bleed you by hand when you damn well needed it, without that latex glove bullshit? I blame this on the computers.
I’ve been reading through an old copy of Sylvia Plath’s Ariel that I found at the library rummage sale. At the risk of being That Girl who imposes all of her emotional volatility and issues with men on one poor little poem, I’m going to say that I really like Daddy.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.
How could you not like Plath? Everything she writes is so unabashedly raw. And I think it’s pretty cool that our fathers left us at the same age – although not cool in the same way that Summer on the OC saying, “Is that the show with the know-it-all hipsters who talk about how fascinating regular people are? Ugh” about This American Life, is cool. I think it all goes back to the Old Testament, where we’re taught to love, indiscriminately, the one who punishes us, abuses us, and occasionally kills off all of our friends. I think most of us have this common pychic tic, of loving our abusers, just manifested in varying degrees of craziness.
So I think it goes without saying, now that I’ve officially submitted my absentee ballot for the upcoming election, that I’ll be casting my vote for that silver fox who goes by the name McCain. Because Obama just does not look like he has any idea how to administer a good old fashioned Catholic school spanking while maintaining a boozy air of mystery that keeps a girl pining for his love. And McCain has that benevolent, chubby, uncley look I’ve always liked in Mao. Rah rah rah!
Lots of things scare me. Like pigeons with their beady red eyes, and flying, and really pretty girls and really pretty boys, and fluorescent lights. These are healthy fears; they help govern my life. Like I will probably never get bitten while feeding some dirty bird, and being afraid of flying makes the process of travelling less mundane, more like an adventure.
But I have this crippling fear of separation. When I had my first boyfriend in high school, we would talk on the phone every night, until we ran out of things to say, and then we would sit in silence, sometimes for hours. I would almost always fall asleep this way, incapable of saying goodbye. When it came time to break up with him, it took me months to say the words. It sounds silly and cute now, but I feel like I’m fighting to not be that weak little girl all the time. It’s still a little triumph for me to be the first person to get off the phone, although it always comes with a little discomfort and some guilt. I pretend not to get a little weepy at the end of a week when I finish dogsitting. And this summer, I don’t know what happened, but it’s like I spent the first part of it being so okay with everything, laughing and making jokes out of my problems, that I’ve spent the past few weeks crumbling under their weight. When I left the girls last weekend, it felt a little bit like the world was ending. It feels like that every time I drive away from people I really like. Maybe underneath always being slightly cynical, I’m really this incredibly romantic child, feeling like the whole world is hanging on the ledge of some cliff, and I have the power to save it – like the things I do make a real big difference. Maybe it’s because there’s just been a lot of leaving in my life, like being left by my mother, and then having to leave the country I grew up in, and all of my friends, and my family. And then leaving the little foundation I built here to go to boarding school, and then to college. Now I’m leaving for Paris and I’m completely unprepared. Funny how we’re all made up of all these contradictions, like there’s this almost uncontrollable urge within me to move, to change scenery, yet I’m also so completely paralyzed by the fear of leaving people I love, cus it feels like I’ve slowly and lovingly built this basis of support, just to chuck it out the window as it begins to feel the least bit sturdy.
And practical things scare me. Like looking for a new laptop, or emailing course listings to my advisor, or packing, or exchanging money. I know I’m completely capable of doing these things, but am really afraid of having to deparalyze myself, and eventually leaving, and becoming someone I don’t recognize. Being afraid comes easy, because my bed is so comfortable, and Nerds always lets me cry on him. But I think I’m going to try to grow up a little.
