Backlog

Life has been long and narrow recently, like a midnight trip to the bathroom down the dark corridor outside my childhood bedroom. Or like the way I feel in New York city at midtown. Yegh.

I've been in the shit. Up to my knees in PhD applications and self doubt. Throw some anxiety in there comme un digestif. I probably should been seeing a shrink or gulping down pills for that, but really, who has time? When ever I start to get panicky I sort of just tell my subconscious its full of crap, and that it better knock off the shenanigans. OR ELSE.

Honestly, if I had a hunky man to rub my feet and other things at night, I probably would dispense with all fantasies of board certified whosies, chemical leg-up-ers, and the militant approach to my neurosis. So I like to do it when I'm stressed--I no longer feel guilty about this. A bit manly, yes, but I'm confident that one day, I will find a loving partner who approaches life's little obstacles with a raging boner, or who can at least is can pull the team together when I need to be indulged.

That said...the whole process of trying to prove myself to a group of strangers is almost complete, and I'm looking forward to the new year. To the freedom to take long weekend vacations to Belgium, Italy, Germany, and the Czech Republic. To museums, and parks, and historical landmarks. To cafes and VIN and the search for romance. Hopefully with someone tall. With light eyes, scruff, a sturdy build, and good hair. No one who smells French.

Wow. To think of it...its kind of amazing how much 2006 and 2007 sucked. Granted, 2007 was better than 2006, but only because instead of two really nasty things going down, I only had one big setback. I could be pessimistic and go the whole "bad things come in threes" route with regards to my prognostications for 08, but I think that would just be ungrateful of me. I freaking live in Europe. I'm livin the dream! The dream, btw, could only get better if it involved being in love, and ergo...some coitus....aaaaaaaannnnnnnnnddddddd acceptance to every PhD program to which I've applied, aaaannnnnnnnnddd....some more coitus. But I desist.

Before I hit the sack and grab less than enough sleep before facing a day of class and 8 hours with three children under the age of 9, I'd like to record some things about Paris that some day I'll want to remember:



1. I'm standing on Rue Notre Dame des Champs...a tiny one way street that plays hide and seek with the Jardins Luxembourg behind the periphery of the corner of Rue Vavin, the cobbled pedestrian way that connects road to park on the perpendicular. Its a winter day in Paris, which means it's cold, and the sky is threatening like an aging Femme Fatale who pours a drink only to find the bottle's empty. Perhaps this explains the lurking feeling one gets in Paris that something is always hanging over one's head, some business left undone, but on the rapidly unraveling fringes of the mind....as if one was standing in front of his wife and swearing all fidelity while his zipper was down. Its terrible. And funny like that. This is a day where I as well have the feeling I've been caught with my hand in the jam jar. What jar, prosecuted by whom, and the the gravity of the offense, I can't tell you. I only know I'm being deposed. From the French I've learned that there are really only two possible solutions to such a sentiment. Actually there are three, but tragicomic sex just depresses me, and unlike the French, I don't think depression is an elevated state of consciousness. Today then, I could turn to wine, or to treasure hunting. Treasure hunting is why all French women are stunning in the way of things that are old and sentimental and built by hand. Needlepoint. The tin turn crank sifter in my mother's kitchen drawer. French women have eyes that NOTICE things. I want that femininity, so today my nose is pressed against the glass of an elevator sized antique shop and I'm craving the reinforcement THAT antique Sapphire ring, shaped like an ellipse and edged with diamonds, laid out on blue velvet, tucked behind a gold cigarette box in an unlit display in a shadowed window of an anonymous building would bring if only someone who found me like I found it would slip it on my fourth finger.

"WHERE" I call to the lonely part of myself,

"WHERE ARE THEY?" The men I mean, the soul mates, the life partners, the best friends. The ones who will really want to give you their lives and who will not know whether you want a simple band or something really materialistic, definitely because you don't know yourself. The ones who are smart, and funny, and pluck the grey hairs out of your head on Sunday mornings, and drink with you before watching documentaries because they are too serious to take them in sober, and who know how to kiss you, and aren't too afraid to really do so, even though in all probability any person who'd ever dare to hope he or she could ever be enough for anyone else is deluded, if brave.

"Dead" he says.

I turn.

Old Man. Red Cap. Curved back. Cane.
Walking past. Up the hill.

"They're all dead."


2. In America we call it the funny bone. In France, its referred to as "le petit juif," because its small, and hurts you.

3. Here, pillows are square. This is so odd, and so perfect.

4. Before going to sleep, Samuel takes a python sized stuffed snake from his toy box, and inscribes it, in increasing concentric circles, within the borders of his pillow so that as he dreams, his head will rest well nested within the coils of a childhood whim.

5. I speak the language of an empire. This is strange.

6. For Thanksgiving, I went to the home of a friend of a friend. A woman. Romanian born. Late 50's perhaps early 60's. Eyes crowding her nose to get the view from the bridge. Art Historian. Married to Charly, 70's, American. She loves this holiday because it is a holiday of immigrants, of which she is one, a time to open her arms to the world and thank it for having her, for giving her a place, and to honor those who move, those who trespass, those who lance themselves into being. She has no children. Every year the meal features the students rotating through coursework in their University careers, and whichever friends happen to be passing through town. In between her two front teeth there is a salient gap. The interloping space has such a sense of humor, such an insolence and fecundity, that I want to take this woman in my arms and hold her tight for all the mothers in the world that she, by some odd oversight of fate, will never be.

This is the same woman who, when I was described the blood curdling moans of a cat in heat, said: "My dear, those are not the screams of the devil, but of a WOMAN."

this once...

josh and i were at my grandparents cottage just before it was sold away, and we decided to go fishing on the lake at dusk. we had gone into town that morning and paid something absurd like $50 for 3 day licenses--we were catching dinner damn it--and so when the sun set we were prepared. we loaded the canoe with poles and bait and pushed off from the dock, careful to avoid the swimming rock submerged just below the water's surface and straight off the homemade pier. to be honest, i wasn't really convinced we would catch any great shakes. i had been fishing in that lake since childhood without accruing a single memory of my line going taught, of reeling in my prize to show off to all my cousins--to prove that in fact there was a reason I was the oldest grandchild....clearly because I was superior at all things, including fishing. josh however was optimism all the way. except it was optimism without a smile. it was serious optimism. he was a serious outdoors man. i have this one TERRIFIC picture where he's leaning over the side of the canoe scrutinizing the placid body of water for even a single bubble--for any trace of aquatic life. I don't remember seeing a one bubble. evening progressed and the sky began to ink into the lake's horizon. then suddenly there were bats. this freaked me out big time but excited josh who saw it as a sign of feeding time. if the bats were swooping to the water's surface for a buffet of larvae and insects, the fish would be rising to the same occasion. josh was right, he did catch something--by accident. after a bit of casting, he reeled in his line to realize he had a guppy who'd swallowed the hook. the little guy fit neatly in josh's palm, hiss gills working almost as frantically as josh was to release the hook. problem was, the hook was well on its way to the fishes gut. josh worked and worked the hook delicately, stopping every few seconds or so to submerge the baby bass to give him breathing time. this went on for a minute or so, until blood began to issue forth from the gills. i had been growing slowly distraught over the deteriorating condition of the baby fish, but blood was too much. i launched into sobs at the tragedy of a life plucked so haphazardly, and wrung my hands over the maliciousness of fate. and then there was josh, in a canoe on a man made lake with a hysterical woman, trying to save a fingerling who would probably just be eaten by the big guys anyway. eventually the finned creature was freed, and as Josh put him overboard, I put the flashlight on the water. together the two of us watched the bass as he exerted every once of strength left to descend slowly, slowly, out of the penetrating strength of the light, and into the black sludgy depths, probably to die of blood loss or severe wounds. i asked josh to drop me at the dock. i don't know what made me feel worse: the fish, or the pathetic downfall of our best sportsmen intentions.
this story came back to me tonight out of nowhere, and it made me truly happy at first--the absurdity of the situation. but now, after writing through it, i wish that Josh had caught something in Pennsylvania--that would have given him a nice memory in place of the one i hope he still has.

countdown

this is the official countdown to something big

i woke up today with an omen in my heart

that's a feeling you only get once in a while in your life

its like the feeling of lying on the beach by Lake Michigan on one of those summer nights when the air is warm enough to permit night swimming and the sand is only illuminated by the glow of the city lights and drifting out across the water are the sounds of a foreign accordion like instrument emanating from a midnight festival of a Greek orthodox community

i freaking love america

and rock and roll

maybe this omen is just libido

but who gives a fuck

if it makes you feel really alive

Adele and the Evil Pajama Blood Monster Part II

it is de night-time

so in my bedroom is very very dark

this is de time da pajama blood monster is starting just to get awake

de monster is very scary

et like aussi beaucoup to hide

de monster know que thing who hides is more make me scare

...

before i say i like when la maison est quiet

...

mais...

...where is it de monster maintenant?

...now I no like no more dis quiet...

I want que mamman et papa font a BIG fete

so to make de monster scare

mais non non non!

da noise it will not make to scare de monser

de monster it is trop intelligent

de music just make easier for de monster to attaque

when no else they can hear!!!

SO!

I want que I have ear like a loup

I want I can hear where de monster is moving

MAIS

only i can hear de sound of mes poummons qui respirent!

taisez vous poummons! de monster will hear...

de monster have des ears hyper bon

it have a nose hyper bon aussi

after first time de monster appear

i wonder how it find me

et puis je me suis rendu compte que:

if i no take a bath de monster can smell

it can smell my gouter de panini chocolat

it can smell aussi mes cheveaux quand elles sont salles

for dis I take the bath so no more it can smell me at night

mais!

de monster has one thing not so good

is eyes sont terribles!

de monster it can no see anything

...presque...

this is why de monster live in de dark

it know it is weak in de eyes

but also that the enfants

also is not fort at night

night time is when nous sommes laisses seuls

then we ne font pas attention

car we revons of nice things

like de horses and and des pinceaux et Mary Poppins

j'ai peur que quand je reve, de monster va get me

et also

des enfants can not see in place where is dark

for these things night is best time for monster to attack

mamman sait que de monster hide in places where is dark

mais elle pense que ces lieus sont sous mon lit peut-etre

ou

dans les coins de ma chambre

so for dis she give me de light for de night-time

mamma she think that with ma petite lumiere I can make scare de monster

ou au mois, when I sees it I can very loud to scream when i am see it long griffes

and ses yeux aveugles et rouges

and smell is bad mouth smell

and bad skin smell like basement smell
and hear is ailes qui flappe flappe flappe

et ses tongue qui sslup sslup sslup

mais mamman not know de monster is more smart dan dis

de monster is very very very

trop intelligent

plus inelligent meme que

le cervau de the most smartest ever

de monster is smater meme qu'une personne

because..

...when de monster hide...

it not hide sous mon lit

ou dans les coins dark de ma chambre

..

.

de monstre cache DANS des trucs

comme la babysitteur

et je ne sais pas yet what autre...

...it attend jusqu'au moment when

i feel tired

mes yeaux get very chiente

they say

ADELE is time for pijama

then the monster

when it hear my eye say this

it climb

into

a

someone

else

body

and fly around the room

to find me

first de monster it sniff sniff sniff

with da nose

(MAIS JE ME CACHE BIEN GRACE A THE BATH!)

mais this make da monster more angry

it no can sniff me

so now de monster open is ears

AH!

they sound so big

like quand ouverent les voiles on le bateau de papa

et les voiles

i mean

les ears

they hear my poummons qui respirent!

now de monster is comming closer

and closer

what I do

what I do?

what I do?!!

my poummons just to breathe louder

et auusi maitenant

j'ai la coeur qui batte!!!

ALORS JE HOLD MY BREATH

...

....

.....

......

.......

........

.........

(de monster is still here

mais

he

no more can hear me

but now

because it is trop intelligent...

it open sa bouche

and out come is tongue...

i know car je sent l'odeur de sa bouche

qui smell very bad like when grown-up do poop)

(now I feel the monsetr tongue lick mon duvet

et le mur

he is trying to find me in de dark

sans ses ears

et sans son nez)

ma(GO AWAY BAD MONSTER)

(et now...i feel de monster is lick my toes)

(I am found! I try hold my breath more an more an more mais I no can)

de monster now lick my leg

now is fly over to ma tete

now de monster aborde to take back the covers with ses griffes

I CLOSE MES YEUX

I FEEL DE MONSTER LICK MY JOUE!

I OPEN MES YEUX TO SCREAM

mais c'est just marguerite a ma cote

elle look like this:

je suis si happy to see Marguerite!

because sometime it is only her que je love

she warm

and she fuzzy

also her tongue on my face

i like it very much

meme si she lick her feet with it

and meme si it no so soft

mmmmmm MARGUERITE JE T'AIME



J'aime how she always go with me around de house

si I go upstairs

she go upstairs

si I go out to play

she go out to play

si I go to the toilette

she come there too!

J'aime how Marguerite she purr

she purr si I pick up her

she purr si I rub her tummy

she purr si I give her to eat des pates with Parmasean cheese!

Mais les best...

J'aime Marguerite how si je make un dessin, she watch mais no say "like this!"

J'aime que when je pleure car Samuel he is mean with me, I can hold her and feel more good

J'aime how Marguerite she sleep with me when we take nap on couch

and how she sleep at night with me in mon lit

J'aime how Marguerite, pour elle je suis unique au monde

This night I am very happy que Marguerite est with me

car she have des eyes very good

et des griffes aussi comme le pajama blood monster

que she can use to protect me

je sais bien qu'elle will fight pour moi

car je suis la tienne

and many time I have see how she fight for ce qui is hers

comme la maison

la maison est aussi la tienne

et when Sasha the chien vient me rendre visite

Marguerite she make sound like a snake and show her griffes

because she no want what is belong to her is take away

Je t'aime Marguerite

most of time you ne parle rien

mais tu sais aussi se battre

et for this,

I the most love you

I pick up Marguerite

I give her BUG HUG AND GROSES BISES

car I want never that she go

Her head next to ma tete

her corps tres serres contre mon corps

ce n'est pas facile a faire

because Marguerite she big

and her I love so much I want to hold the whole of her

mais je 'embrasse n'importe!

je l'embrasse comme je n'embrasse personne!

ET PUIS TOUT UN COUP:

"RRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOWWWWW!"

I let go Marguerite

She have scratch me

I bleed

I know no quoi faire

so I cry

no car it hurt

ou car le sang va ruinner mon duvet

mais car for elle I was unique au monde

et elle m'a fait mal

Now je sais

que the Pajama Blood Monster

hide de temps en temps

meme in des personnes qu'on aime le mieux

et qu'aimer someone n'est pas un moyen to leur protect

car le monstre

le monstre peux venir no matter what

et bien sur le monstre n'aime pas quand je le tien

So for this also now I pleure

car meme si je continue a aimer Marguerite

I no more I will l'embrasse

car after ce soir

j'ai peur que Le Pajama Blood Monster me fera mal encore

Je pleure car deja I miss to hug Marguerite

Deja I miss her to sleep on mon lit

Je pleure for these things all

Louder et more loud I cry

so Mamman et Papa me entendront

je pleure

je pleure

my pillow now is wet on both the side

je pleure

je pleure

je pleure

now ma gorge, it start hurt

mais je pleure

je pleure

je pleure

je pleure qu'ils viennent...

...

..

.

mais no one they come to m'embrasse

donc j'arrete de pleurer

car je suis seul

car Marguerite est partie

car Mamman et Papa ne me hear

car je suis trop triste to cry

je te hais, Pajama Blood Monster

The Adventures of Adele and the Evil Pajama Blood Monster, Chapter 1

Once there is a girl
Her's name is Me!
Adele!
Here is my house

There's me and Maguerite

Marguerite no can't talk

So I like her

Mais when she me griffes

Then she talk

like this

with her griffes

"No hold me comme ca!"

ou

"Je suis mechante!"

I no like her when she talk and hurt me

I also like personne to see me with my booboo

Aussi here is Manu and Mommy

and Lea

and Samuel

I have aussi a school
mais I don't remember to draw it
i also have des amis
mais i don't remember to draw them

my house have a telephone
mais i don't know what it is the number

My house is very quiet

because Marguerite no talk

Manu he just laugh

Sam "na- na-na-na-na"

Lea "coin coin coin coin"

and Mommy "puuuuuuuuuuuur"

comme Marguerite

mais elle ne me griffes jamais

Mais la babysitteur!

She to much is talking!

sometime is nice

sometime when she is excitee

she draw very good dessin

that i like

she say:

"Look Adele I draw a dragon for you"

It is very big

ou she say

"Adele I write you a postcard"

mais sometime

her dessin make me feel not good

because her paper is full

and my paper is have nothing on it

et comme ca la maison s'est disparu!

poof!

Et comme ca i get very nerveuse

et comme ca I sent petite

comme une princesse

et je deteste les princess

i want to make a good dessin

I want to garde ma quiet maison

sometime,

when the babysitteur is trop excitee

she talking too much

samedi soir i was very tired

because i am watching Garfield 2

et la maison was very quiet

and so I did not feel comme une princesse

i am like une loup WOOOOOOO! samedi soir

mais les loups ne parlent pas!

Les loups no use some words

BUT LA BABYSITTEUR

she know to speak wolf

mais she just say

"Bed time"

too much she saying this!

the she say

"Adele, si tu veux you can put on your own pijamas"

she go too fast!

"Adele I give you ONE MINUTE to put on les pijamas"

I say "I not do if you give one minute."

(If la babysitteur no will be a loup avec moi and she use words, then I GRIFFE the babysitteur!)

Mais this make her mad

when i see her face, i am a loup, but she is now changing

her fingers devienent des griffes

her hair now has horns

she breath fire

she has big wings and tail!

She say

"Adele, I am adult. You don't make the regles. I do.

I count to 30. If pijama not on I will put them on you."

"30, 29, 28,27,26,25,24,23,22,21,20...."

I now am no wolf

"10,9,8,7,6..."

I am UNE PRINCESS

ET CA C'EST DEGULASSE!

"3,2...2.5.....1!"

mais I get on mes pijamas

Quand la babysitteur head come into my room

I am surprise because she no has horns

or a big tail and wing

or des griffes

et she not breath fire

I am nice to la babysitteur

because I am scare

she was babysitteur

but also evil pijama blood monster

and i was Adele la loup

but also Adele la princesse

I no like these things they are tricky

Ces trucs, they are two thing

mais some thing is hidden

and can make a surprise

et ce suprise make me feel

like my paper have nothing on it

ca me make very nerveuse

moi j'aime bien la babysitteur

mais chaque day i get out of school

i must be careful to see

how excitee she is

and if today she is really Cetleen

or evil pijama blood monster

or both

Redirect

When one finds out, as one is always likely to do, that someone you loved has found someone new--not a someone to distract, not a fling, but a someone who you know must be truly wonderful if they were to be with the loved person--there is really nothing to do but try as calmly as possible to enumerate all of the wonders of the world one can possibly summon to mind in an attempt to stave off heartbreak.

LIST:
1. Carafe
2. "Ces Arbres Sont Dangereux." 'These trees are dangerous' signs nailed to some true beauties in Les Jardins Luxembourg
3. Piles of sawdust where the trees once stood the following day
4. Old woman stooped at 90 degrees walking her long haired dachshund
5. Brass menorahs at the marche des puces
6. The cache behind a grate along Avenue de L'Observatoire where a homeless person has husbanded away a pillow, a blanket, and a book.
7. The taxi driver obeying his prayers on the corner of Rue de la Sante and Blvd Arago...now I know where Mecca is
8. The string orchestra in the Chatelet Metra station
9. The delivery man whistling 'fields of gold' as dawn is breaking over the Pantheon on Rue Sufflot
10. A child's handmade, orange leather shoes
11. Adele's hair after a bath
12. The street musician's on Vavin--tuba, trumpet, and accordion
13. a black top hat with a red feather
14. the birds in the bush that you thought were leaves until the leaves suddenly flew away
15. the skyline of Chicago at night
16. I'm trying
17. I'm trying
18. I'm trying
19. I'm trying
20. I'm trying
21. cobblestones
22. I'm trying
23. I'm trying
24. I'm trying
25. I'm moving ahead
26. Ahead
27. I'm trying
28. I'm trying
29. The Tunisian man in the bike shop
30. warm autumn days
31. I'm trying
32. I'm trying
33. I'm trying
34. I'm trying
35. I'm trying
36. I'm trying
37. plans

I am trying to let this city fill me with beautiful things in the place where you used to be. It's not quite enough. You thought you weren't, but you could have been had you decided to. So far, in terms of empty vs. full, I feel about as one would on a diet of rice cakes. Perhaps this explains why I'm growing thinner. Sometimes, I really hate you.

LATE NIGHT CHOW NEEDED

1:24 am in Paris France
will be hitting the sack in any moment
i WILL skip brushing my teeth
because I'm tired
and sometimes defiance of 'the man' makes me feel like an adult
also I will sleep with my contacts in because it makes me feel baaaaaaaaad
and I like it
probably I feel baaaaaaaad
because when I was a teenager my mother kept me safe from sleepovers with friends who probably just wanted to get me wasted and fondle me, by saying that I couldn't spend the night because " You don't have your contact lens solution."
But this is a mere anecdote
I'm feeling like a mutant because I've been awake for the last three hours coloring,
and because I came to this country so I could be stuck with myself...and so I could prevent myself from falling in love with anyone...and now I AM stuck with myself and bored (because even if we're FABULOUS at all times...a lot of the time between doing fabulous things...we're boring as shit) and developing odd feelings for some man who lives on another continent I've kissed once and only known for a spattering of moths....I should have learned by 24 that my Plan A's always suck. I'm a Plan B kind of girl.......In every possible sense of the term........
I'm the girl who always has to pay the damned change fee when I suddenly realize Plan A is a mission abort. Rephrase: I'm the girl who has to ask her MOM to pay the damned change fee when I pull a spaz move...which is almost always. I should change my fucking name to Caitlin CHANGE FEE Marshall.

Back to mutant hood.

The reason I'm writing at all now is because when I feel like a mutant, it's great to go to an all night diner like the Chicago has--like Melrose or Nookies-- where it's fun to drink milkshakes, plan on not brushing your teeth when you get home, and watch other mutants congregating! In a diner...I can take charge of my emotional reality and morph from being a dejected weirdo, to a proud card-carrying one.
There are probably no all night diners in Paris as there are no diners here...and although the French invented ennui (so you'd think they'd have a proliferation of all night joints), I kind of get the feeling that in regards to both my feeling like a mutant, and the necessary task of working more than a 30 hour workweek that would be necessitated by any empathetic nod to mutant-hood....the french would simply reply: "Qui, je te comprends bien mon ami...mais de faire n'importe quoi au milieu de la nuit....ca c'est fortment moche."
Mark my words....the first thing I'm doing when I return to the states (barring any situation where there's a man,any man, waiting to have sex with me), is to stay up all night going through drive-throughs and carouse at 24 hour juke joints. If I were a dude, just the idea of such cockamamie-biggie fry-cherry pie shenanigans would be enough to give me a burger boner right now....
Fuck it. This need can't wait. Right off tomorrow morning I start a new mission called "find out how the French scratch their midnight-mutant itch." I'm feeling confident that such sentiments or self-alienation are universal, and that Parisians will have some PHENOMENAL, and probably hot solution to the problem....I'll keep y'all posted...

Surprise surprise

Some things you should know about France that will clearly delineate the mentality driving this country:

1. Barbers do not exist in Paris. I learned this today from a highly respected authority and must say I'm bowled over. To explain, if you're a dude and you want a haircut, you've got to put up with a chick place. And if you've got a beard, you're fucked, cause the chick places won't trim it up, or shave it into any fun shapes for you. So tant pis for those of the orthodox persuasion, or who fancy the facial hair stylings of A.J. from the Backstreet Boys. I think this is a serious problem. Some boy/girl things should be separate, like bathrooms, and bathhouses, and not so much houses of worship in my opinion...but definitely hairdressing establishments. Also gyms...I freakin hate it when people are working out in an attempt to hook it up with other sweaty patrons. Gross. Lift your damned dumbbells and leave me the fuck alone. Ok so barbers... Barbers are a necessary intermediary in the development of the classic dad-son relationship. In my home town, generations of Hinghamite men are down with Pete the barber. Pete is the person responsible for giving me one of the footholds of emotional security I've had for the last 24 years: no matter what...my Dad's haircut will stay the same. Maybe there will be less hair to cut, but 'the Pete' will be for as long as there is anything fuzzy on my pop's noggin meriting a trim. Where else can Playboys and Maxims been displayed sans souci in Paris? The ball game watched at full blare? Where can you go to get a haircut where the damned hair cutter shuts the fuck up and simply cuts hair instead of gabbing away at you, or asking inane questions whose answer she is only marginally interested in?? How can man-club culture exist sans barbers? Simply, it can't. When I asked about gender separation with regards to hair styling today, my professor responded that in France, there are no barbers because the French aren't segregationist....and all I could think about was how if my brother could have been there, he would have said something totally politically incorrect (and also hilarious) like: "The French don't have barbers because they're wimpy, which explains why all the guys here are girlie-men."
2. In Paris, if you want to buy stamps, you go to the post office. If you want to mail a letter, you go to the post office. Awesome....but if you want to BUY an envelope for said letter....you are shit out of luck. POST OFFICES DON'T SELL ENVELOPES IN FRANCE. WHAT IS THAT? Honestly, if you want an envelope to send a letter anywhere aside from abroad (post offices DO sell envelopes with pre-paid postage to foreign countries...that said...they also have one stamp whose only purpose is to put on plain envelopes being sent abroad...let me know if you sense some systematical redundancy here....) you have to go to a paper goods store. Wow. My teacher also let this one fly today to. I might add that it's not just Americans who find this practice odd...it totally baffles the natives as well.
3. Lastly...if you need passport or green card photos taken in Paris...be prepared to either produce them out of thin air...or go on a wild goose chase until you find the ONE kodak store in the entire city that can offer you this service. Apparently, independent photo processing boutiques have been replaced by a chain electronics/book/dvd/movie store (think radio shack, apple store, and borders all in one). Yet when forming this monopoly, the executives at FNAC decided that no one really needed to have identity photos taken, so the service could be dispensed with.....Add to this dilemma the fact that mostly every Parisian you meet will INSIST that FNAC can develop passport pictures, while every employee at said establishment will vehemently deny the fact. I don't such mind the stubbornness itself as the fact the aforementioned trait makes it difficult for a stranger to offer more than one "helpful" solution. Not the most efficient nation, to be sure. But let it be known, that as far as I'm concerned, there is nothing more glorious than a society where procrastination and perseveration are not so much thorns in the side of "progress", but pathways toward the good life. Vive la France.

Symmetry

It makes sense

that ginger grows underground

that it is brown with eyes and many bulbous noses and thumbs and big toes,

but no fingers

that at any point in time it is uprooted,

displayed at a green grocer's,

where it is scratched and sniffed, palmed over,

snapped

this probably hurts

wrapped up in a small brown bag

the crispness of which foreshadows the zest the rhizome will bring to a meal or dressing

to be brought home

peeled by the tender mastery of a spoon and the opposable digit--trying in each half-moon journey to the knuckle of the index finger to re assimilate with his four peers who, thanks to the cruel hand of evolution, shun his exotic looks and foreign function.

much like the root itself, a thumb owes its very shape to what has come to be over an accumulated number of eons...whatever an eon may be: 10000 REM cycles, or generations of drosophilia melanogaster in your opinion--

then scraped

till its flesh separates

fibrous elements discarded

the marrow sampled by the union of finger tip and tongue

then swept into a dish of something larger

itself composed of the best parts--freely given, torn out of, ripped or cut away from-- of many many other different bodies, sources, bulbs, and buds

the only remaining trace of prior incarnations of the root

well voiced

by the mute testament to being

perceived by the tongue,

the lingus

the lingus bears the burden of testament

some might add that a ledger of a journey could be found moreover in the bowel

but I am no scientist

and I would add

that shit

carries the herb's narrative around once to the earth

which we all know is the end, but also once again the beginning

this on one hand obscures the sequence of events

what is the cause? the effect?

what the catalyst? the result?

yet notice that such circularity gives life an evenness, a well distributed weight--so that we can feel its presence--a perfection

of symmetry

I am pleased to be a composite of what has come before. I am tickled to know that discerning the traces of my past will be a nearly impossible task to undertake forensically; years from now anthropologists will fail to read lingering muscle fragments of my petrified heart so as to publish on how it was broken and mended and broken and mended again. I prefer the science of fiction to document that which I have consumed, that which I have known.
I like to trace the bridge of my nose
to know that it has been molded like my father's and his mother but with the delicacy of my own mother's
I like to feel the obtuse breadth of my hips--it is nice that some-part of me is slow
and the cheeky 'pop' of my rump
which come from my paternal grandmother and grandfather respectively
I won't chart for you the antecedents to my facility for tears or even my penchant to ENTRENCH in a person or thing
it would be trite to give simplified coordinates for such stuff, just for the sake of poetics
when it fact such a task is like trying to sort out where the seas begin and end
can a cartographer chart such lines?
This does not necessarily hold true for lovers
which is why perhaps so many people write on the subject
once an inamorato has been dislodged from your heart, there persists a vision of dual temporality--the ability to critique what you once were, and what remains
what remains being an acknowledgement of what part of the other lingers, and what part of the other has dissipated
like taking measurements on the half life of radioactive elements

trumping such moments of lucidity of course
is the comic inability to transcribe what else you might be around or apart from this nuclear enclave of your heart

yet no mind
the lingus bears the burden of testament
to the perfection of symmetry :

I was cooking a soup
preparing for nightly ritual of 'taking in'
when I started thinking about the two men I've really loved

One taught me how to be mean
I mean really vicious
which, he also taught me,
is necessary for when you must battle
life takes teeth and claws
and sometimes and with some people
"things must be destroyed before they can begin again"...

...Star Wars also taught me that...along with the entire western cannon of mythology...and Joseph fucking Campbell...

but one taught me first, and for myself

One taught me how to be vain about my linguistic and intellectual capabilities
which I appreciate
because after all
hubris
is what separates gods from men

From another I learned to make salad dressings
really good salad dressings
with lime and ginger and peanut butter

and how also to open an avocado

to LIKE avocado

and Indian food

and the outdoors

as well as the idea of living someplace without the ocean

in favor of mountains

and that I could want to becoming something other than what I came into the world as

this other also trained me to find Orion in the sky

and instructed that beech trees will always grow in stands...

from the other I learned to yield...

Sometimes

just knowing all these things

and knowing these men exist

makes me so happy I think space will swallow me whole

I imagine that as symmetry circumscribes itself
it approaches infinite density
as if complete happiness were a black hole
and death were simply the completion of the arc

so that--after I lifetime of cycling through love--

once truly content

no trace of life can escape

despite one's best efforts to the contrary

and as one comes closer and closer to the 360th degree of the arc

one must fight harder to evade happiness

and continue to live...

these thoughts

are probably why seeing old people alone

makes my heart crumple in my throat

because I sense that they are very happy about living

but also very tired (perhaps) from a lifetime of good things

perhaps so tired

that they no longer wag their tongues and map their stories

I fret

I fret

I cry

about who is working to transcribe these lives?

Who?

...I know

that like concentric ripples in a pool pf water

emanating from what appears at least to be an infinite source

symmetry is perpetual/

simultaneously ending and beginning

but nothing in between

which is why it has no narrative

and why I should not try to counterfeit it with inadequate words...

but I am still young

and I have not yet found man to teach me to surrender

The Adventures of Adele and the Evil Pajama Blood Monster, An Introduction

PART 1: Introduction


Bonjour

Je m'appelle Adele and I have 6 years old
Everyone tells me that I have "de jolies yeux bleus" blag blah blech
I don't like to take a bath and peanut butter
I like les horses
I like to wear a jupe
BUT ONLY if I can with my new shoes

here is me:

I like to dessiner...make pictures...beaucoup

Sometime my Mom give me trouble

Sometime my Dad, and Samuel

And also my bebesitter Caitlin

And Lea too MORE dan Cetleen

Cetleen sometime get very excitee mais I want just to draw

I learn dis song from Cetleen which I like parce que everyone

everyone and Lea like it

"I tole da Witch Doctor you didn love me too...true!

I tole da Witch Doctor you didn love me nice

An than da Witch Doctor she is gave me some advice

She said ah

Oo -ee- oo-ah-ah

Ting-tang-walla-walla-bing-bang

Oo-ee-oo-ah-ah

Ting-tang-walla-bing-bang"

I like parce que toute la famille pay attention to me

Today I didn feel good

I feel tired and sad because Samedi soir

Cetleen was not nice to me

I'm not want to talk with her why

so instead I tell a story and draw for you

Is called:

Adele Hates the Evil Pajama Blood Monster

A List

LISTS:

1. I gorge on them. 3, 4, 5 pages of a ruled legal pad tattooed with 'THINGS TO DO.' This of course creates a ridiculous situation as the attempt to devise a more 'complete' and 'more perfect' list makes every bulleted do-over a farce of organization, while in comic desperation I look to past lists for guidance of a more intuitive and hence 'purer' form, only to discover that contrary to my original perceptions, these primary scrawls are naught but functional purges of my entirely facocked psyche: emotional bowel movements so to speak, soul poop.


2. I degenerate into them. If I'm keeping tabs on my thought process, I guess such a statement would mean that I'm repressively scatological. Cheers to the fact that it's usually only a matter of minutes before one of my stress-free, coherent ideas devolves into a machine gun spray of shitty bullet points. See above....and below......

....Mais c'est ne pas ca....encore

LISTS:

1. With lists I'm trying all at once to get some-place in a simple and LOGICAL set of numbered steps; ultimately I get nowhere at all.

• Detour: In French when asking for hotel accommodation, or for 'a seat at the table', we say: "Est-ce qu'il y a une place? Is there a place for me? I'm looking for a bit of rest, a sanctuary, and in effect, acceptance by some greater good." Une place--a noun representing in the abstract sense some state of metaphysical unification, while the concrete sense of location simultaneously spawns in me a persistent, lurking intuition that such a place could actually be found. Ergo listmaking....


• ...in lieu of other, more carnal approaches to transcendence, which I would add are my more natural proclivity re: a means to an end. In considering the choice between the Apollonian or Dionysian course of action, it is unclear if I have selected the former* as either I). a warped yet conscientious choice springing from the dictates of subconsciously entrenched hegemonic institutions equating celibacy with goodness, tranquility, mental clarity and GENIUS--did you know Newton was a virgin??....or II). simply because my stymied love life precludes any course of more libidinous action...
  
• * One can only hope that the cultural institutions of France--read: vino and social foreplay--shall lead to a post 'probing' the logic of such an alignment in a truly material, and provocatively narrative manner....


• DISCLAIMER. I have, prior to this posting:

A. consumed 3/4 of a bottle of phenomenal and cheap-as-dirt red wine

B. watched John Travolta and his gyrating pelvis in Grease while explicating the linguistic and sexual norms of America to a French 13 year old whose just begun to menstruate--I'm living in a Judy Blume novel--and

C. Christ I sound like a whore!

LISTS: (an example)

1. FOR TOMORROW 13/10/07

• alarm-9 am...(fuck)
• make chix sandwiches. Get a f*ing baguette chez le f*ing boulanger (bread shop). Then go to the f*ing 'supermarket' where the only thing I need for this endeavor that is actually stocked is mustard. Then go to the charcuterie (meat shop) for the chicken for said sandys. It's amazing how when pressed for time, I no longer perceive quaintness, artistry, and culinary integrity but FRENCH INEFFICIENCY. I've finally seen the day where the idea of a wholesale club gets my engine revving, and where I yearn for the ability to buy in bulk without earning the mark of Cain...
• Remember to do Lea's hair for wedding
• See Versailles--palace, gardens, Marie-Antoinette's hamlet
• Investigate the magical, mysterious, hypothetical museum pass: good for a year to all cultural institutions plus no waiting in line. This is imperative for tomorrow unless I want to wait the 2 hours needed to buy a ticket to get into the damned palace. On second thought there's no way this pass is for real. We're in France. Such a pass would require a clear hierarchy of institutional infrastructure, and as far as I can tell, the French have less managment ability than I.
• Do something productive.....

.....Encore une fois de plus....

LISTS:

Eventually, slowly, and only in certain places, my mind quiets: on a bench in the Jardins Luxembourg, in one of the blue seats of Chicago's redline as we pass over Graceland cemetery....

It's these moments where I make lists I like. These are the lists that make me feel good about the way things are, at the same time as I feel audaciously incomplete. These lists make me feel bright red alive; they are the happy heartpangs that come from knowing that nothing will ever be enough, but that looking for enough will be forever. These are the lists I don't have much to say about and can't really qualify. These are the lists of things I don't ever want to forget.

For now:

1. Carafes. At the school cafeteria of the Sorbonne--found blocks from my classroom and tucked away among side streets littered with scooters and bicycles--I can get a meal for 2,60 Euros. That's around $4.50 U.S. I wait in line and take my tray. I stack it with a beet salad, a baguette, a sampling of cheeses, an entree of fresh fish with lentils, and an orange for dessert. I pay with coins. I take a plastic cup. The cafeteria is well illuminated thanks to large rectangular windows perforating the anonymity of such a meeting place. Nonchalant sunshine of a fall afternoon streams in. Long dining tables are arranged intimately; I must nudge through a narrow corridor of bodies to arrive at my place. When I take a seat, my back presses up against that of a boy sitting at a table parallel with mine. At a table seating 20 in a room filled with 30 tables, each body is in warm contact with a neighbor; no one is crowded. I wonder if such 'goodwill' is merely a symptom of the autonomic acceptance of intimacy mandated by a country where real estate (both literal and metaphorical) is a nonexistent luxury, and then I notice the carafes. Each table has just one. Tall, pear shaped with a cubed base and round lip. Translucent. The sun beams are not chagrined to illuminate the gummy prints that pattern the glass and testify to generations of diners who have eaten this day. I know in a second that each carafe is meant to be shared by an entire table--the carafe to pour three glasses of water then filled again by the hand that emptied it at a spout at the back end of the hall. Nonetheless I look around for the other that's supposed to be for my part of the table. I eye a group of academics to my right; they are bemused by my incomprehension. They don't know that in the US there are advertisements for Airborne featuring an anthropomorphic purple and green germ whose ubiquity is meant to remind us that 'other people make us sick,' or even that at college orientation the RA first lectures new students never to share a drink with another for fear of Roofies. I don't take stock in these admonishments, but I do remark on the noticeable delay of time it takes me to form the words, " la carafe, s'il vous plait." I know at times I've trusted others too much, or assumed a stranger had the best intentions when in fact they did not. A carafe does not mean everyone is altruistic, or good, or even kind for that matter. It is not an invitation to a naive worldview. Instead, it is a mission statement, a firm insistence on our responsibility to community. In France, a carafe means we're all in this together.