nous sommes tous hors de NORMAL

I tried to write on the bus home a bit using a pen and paper but its just not happening. My hand no longer can use a pen in any letter/note writing way. It takes ALL my effort to write. Its crazy. I grew up writing, I used to write a lot, I wrote at LEAST 100 letters to my friend Jody in college. and now I cannot write one single sentence.

I have decided I like French bananas.
It’s raining in France for a change.
I wrote another poem about the stuff that’s fills my mind but its not coming out of my mind in any way that anyone could understand
I also realize that we are supposed to understand poems but abstractly I would think
No one really literalizes a poem
But even abstractly my poem has issues

I need to save money
My rent is too high
I don’t think cooking at home saves more money than eating out
The food here is very expensive
The food I trust to go in my stomach.
Sure I could by a cow tongue for 1 Euro and eat for a week
But raise your hand if you eat tongue?
Now look around....clearly you can see that no one is:
a. There
b. Raising their hands
c. You are completely alone
d. You are getting sleepy
e. really really sleepy
f. All your dairy products are passed the expiration date

Please immediately go and throw them out. Its disgusting that you keep these products even a SECOND past their date.

Really it is!!!

I have no power over my life. I cannot even control my future. It sucks. I can’t answer any questions related to my future. I don’t know anything. Where I will move to next? If I will ever have a family? If I think I need to be married? If I will ever buy a stove? When I will pee next? If I will run out of wine tonight? If there will be a dairy cow in my apartment when I get home?

I feel like I deserve to have good stuff happen to me. I feel worthy of getting good stuff. But of course you are asking what is my definition of "good stuff". Yes, well take for example the family in little miss sunshine....remember how little "stuff" they actually had...I mean like material things. They lived basically like American lower middle class (not even middle class or upper middle cause I think that’s too generous) they had 2 old beat up cars, they ate KFC, they dressed modestly, their house was small and easily built in the 70's with little to no renovations. I mean whatever; well the point is what I liked so much about the movie was the family dynamic. They really worked together, they had major individual differences but in the end that didn’t even matter, with some effort they took each others dreams/fantasies/wishes seriously (ex. the fathers 15-whatever step program, Olives beautification system) I mean you saw clearly how the family both hated but still supported these dreams....no matter how ridiculous.

I never had that growing up. I don’t remember a situation like that. Its true I loved my childhood for sure but I didn’t have the closeness that I see in the family in LMS, and just too prove im not living in some Hollywood fantasy, for sure I have SEEN this dynamic when I lived at my friend Jody's house, in high school at my friend Susan’s in Atlanta where I spent several weeks at a time, even with my friend Kerri and her crazy but still somewhat jointed family. There are connections and fusions and frustrations that people take seriously. Just the other day I spoke to my mom who said I wouldn’t last in Paris. That I should wait to see if I'm there more than a year. She is convinced I wont last here. And its true maybe I never grew up having the dream of "moving to Paris" but its where I am now and I'd honestly rather she tell me she doesn’t like that I moved here instead of buttering over how she really feels. Sometimes my parents come out and say something that kinda tells me their opinion but mostly I'm left wondering where it came from. There’s little openness and honesty.

On a separate note I remain too sensitive still to my French speaking. I think im doing ok then I mis hear or say one single word of French to a French speaker who is not my teacher and BOOM I feel like a complete failure. too hard on myself and too sensitive.

Posted in: on Tuesday, April 29, 2008 at at 11:06 AM 1 comments

I'm in this "in between" phase in pretty much all aspects of life right now. i cannot cry it seems with any substantial and meaningful tears that really release the negativity from my body. in so many ways, i feel like i JUST moved to Paris. i feel like I'm somewhere between vacation and life, snow and sun, happiness and sadness.

its the middle of it all

Par example - I want to buy a loaf of bread dammit! YES baguettes are nice but its like committing murder if you even consider spreading peanut butter on them. And going to the register with a loaf of bread in your basket means you are NOT INTEGRATING into the Parisian life. In fact, I think that's actually written on your receipt!!

total: 34.50 euros
Vous n'avez pas integrated a Paris!


So where do I stand? well thats a good question, thanks for asking. I'd like to think this is like part 42 of the transition to another country but its not really written in the guidebook that way. and currently i have some thoughts which, while they may seem negative, i cannot control them. Like I REFUSE to go to these expat meet ups. Yeah yeah, so theres like 12 million American expats in Paris, so what! I simply don't want to meet them now. I just don't. i cant explain it. I also don't want to find a frenchie to practice my French with but that has a reasonable explanation that I'm just not ready.

in some ways, my social tendencies which, I believe, were quite high in NYC, have near completely disappeared here in France. but i feel them on the rise. isn't it weird how we can actually FEEL "feelings" rising up inside of us before they surface. i swear as soon as i get my shit together, i WILL venture out into this town of expats and mingle.

but all this reflective thinking really add's up and my friend Eve sort of has this process on how she lives which i appreciate. I like the idea of "letting stuff go". I think the main issue is that shit happens all the time. we cannot control it so why should it bother us. I think it took a long time for me, but I have finally learned not to sweat anything that hard. Its just life and it happens.

And strangely while I steer clear of any religious thought, lately I have thought a lot about where I came from and how I got here and where the hell I'm going after. I am certain I will vanish. I don't get nor believe in reincarnation. (my grandmother was a big believer, but so far she never came back to me as a bird. She loved birds so much that i swore she would reincarnate to one. She could even do almost every bird call whistle exactly.) So I just started thinking, well more "extra long-term", and thinking that I really don't have that much time here on earth or whatever, so WHY NOT just have fun. I mean in 20 years, if I'm not a doctor or famous musician, does it really matter? I would rather die knowing I took a piece of each day and made it my best.

Theres other stuff like doing the thing I fear most. Putting myself out there, opening my mind to enjoying people and new things....its all relevant. It takes work (effort) though. everything is work. EVERYTHING.

so its 9pm in Paris now. I am relaxed which is quite cool as lately all I really feel is fatigue. Real honest-to-goodness fatigue. Nothing I can say I have ever felt before. But I suppose when you have a real job, this kind of feeling can be quite normal.

but should it be?
what is more important to people of the world?
i want to know.

im too tired to even continue this.
i will leave with one incomplete thought...
there is absolutely no reason our colons should misbehave the way they do.



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Posted in: on Thursday, April 10, 2008 at at 11:38 AM 0 comments