incidents and accidents, hints and allegations

2003-08-13T14:56:00.000-07:00

New Address.

You can now find me sipping red wine late at night here.

That's http://romaryka.lunanina.com .

May St Isidore, Patron of the Internet, guide your steps to my door (and help you update your bookmarks).

Ciao, babies.

2003-08-12T16:02:00.000-07:00

Movin' On Up.

I have been recruited for the Lunanina team and will be changing addresses shortly. Keep an eye out, for bookmarking purposes.

I might have a new wannabe-steamy episode of the Lovelife of a Geek saga tomorrow. For the moment, it's 1 a.m. and I'm home alone with a glass of cheap white wine. And blogging.

'Nuff said. G'night.

2003-08-10T16:05:00.000-07:00

The P Game, Part II:

Miss America:: Vanessa machin-là, who was later disqualified because she posed for Playboy
Cherubs:: seraphim
Shark Week:: Dolphin Strong!
Sunflowers:: Van Gogh
Sorority:: liberté - égalité
Grilled chicken: Dinner
100:: books
Tickle monster:: Elmo (??)
Veronica:: Elvis Costello
Slurpee:: Icee

Stay tuned for future installments of the under-layer of the inside of my brain.

2003-08-10T15:54:00.000-07:00

One More Reason Americans Hate the French:

It's not just the whole Jerry Lewis thing; their sense of humor truly is appalling.

2003-08-10T15:36:00.000-07:00

Scene from The Smoking Dog:

- A woman wearing a patchwork dress made of squares of fake-patchwork fabric.
- Four 40ish women dressed like four different kinds of hos.
- Three people having an involved discussion in sign language.
- The guy who is what happens when Hugh Grant meets the Society for Creative Anachronism.
- Two guys carrying large blue plastic milk crates filled with house plants, along with a floury baguette and a cat.
- A 50ish couple wearing matching lizard-patterned Hawaiian shirts.
- Scandinavians.
- My friends, all wearing vests like me.

2003-08-08T08:50:00.000-07:00

Just Another Chat With Mom ...

PPABC123: how have you been?
Romaryka: working like a maniac
PPABC123: a good maniac?
Romaryka: no, an annoyed all-you-british-people-who-drive-abroad-without-a-spare-tire-are-STUPIDSTUPIDSTUPID-and-should-be-forbidden-to-breed exhausted maniac.
PPABC123: ah. that kind.

2003-08-08T01:19:00.000-07:00

Playing Patricia's Game.

So I'm randomly reading blogs, and come across Patricia's "unconscious mutterings" game. For want of anything of my own to post this morning, I'll go ahead and thank the very gracious miss Pea for her input and play.

The rules are, there are no rules. (And I quote.) But the procedure is, you read Pea's words and then enter the first words that come to your mind afterwards. So here goes.

Hook:: crook
Greg:: aplenty
Sixty:: four
Breakfast:: dinner
Dollar:: cents
Unpredictable:: weather
O:: Story
Bathing suit:: horrors
Inconsiderate:: bastard
Marx:: Lennon

2003-08-07T14:07:00.000-07:00

Fireworks.

The smell of cordite in the air,
the hottest day of the whole year,
salt like Moses on the tongue ...

Heat lightning splits this two-rivered valley
and celebration rips like gunshots through the sky
I don't know what they're celebrating
or why

Insomniac I wait for an a cappella group
to sing my heart to sleep
I'm not surprised when they don't come
but it still hurts too much to hope.

2003-08-07T00:08:00.000-07:00

Transfigurations.

Lately I've been having a fling with a ghost. It's very hush-hush. We move around each other like boxers, delicately testing the field between, raising our curled fists to see how the other will react.

I can hear his voice.

Sometimes we dance, slowly, moving into each other's shapes. We are opposites. Where he is hard I am pliant. Where I am sharp he is blunt. He is a shard of ice and when I touch him I am trapped, frozen to the place I touched recklessly, while he laughs. He is Thabor; I am Gethsemani. I am a filament of fire with a core he can't touch, and he reaches in and burns his hands and turns cold, trying to smother the flame, my voice.

And still sometimes he caresses me, his heavy hands gone comforting, smoothing my rough edges back until I am the shape he wants.

We go at it night after night and only sometimes does he let me sleep.

He is my Angel, the one who tests my faith, my strength. I beg him for blessings and he remains silent. In the morning he is gone, leaving only confusing brightness in my bed. Perhaps he goes out through the window, open to the sun and sky and memories.

He will never bless me unless I let go.

I remember everything. And can't let go.

2003-08-06T12:03:00.000-07:00

Romy's Favorite People (First Edition)

There are a few people on the planet who make life worth smiling about even when it (in my friend Mark's words) blows goats. Even mountain goats. So today's feature post will be about one of those people.

Val and I met in the summer of 1982, at Arrowbear Music Camp. Val played the saxophone and was terrifically charming, sensitive and funny. He still does and still is. I played the piano and violin and was terrifically geeky and rude, to cover the geekiness. (I still do and, I'm ashamed to admit, still am.) Somehow, even with huge gaps in time and geography between us, even with all the stupidities my life has had to offer and all the reasons I've given him to the contrary, Val has stayed friends with me over the years.

There was a time, back in the 1980s, when I called out to Val needing a friend. He didn't question my need; he answered, held my hand through a long dark time, let me just be sad, let me be the me I was then. There was another time, in college and a bit afterward, when all I wanted from my past was distance. Some people intruded and made themselves thorough nuisances, insinuating I should feel guilty for wanting my space, or that I didn't really know what I was doing or what was best for me.

Val backed off. He didn't insist. This doesn't make him a saint; it wasn't all about me, I know. He was busy with his life as I was with mine. We kept in touch vaguely, through mutual friends. We each got married; we didn't go to each other's weddings. We each went to graduate school; we didn't talk about coursework or professors or feeling like an impostor or not being sure that what we had chosen to do, the callings we had chosen to follow, would actually bring light and vitality into someone else's universe.

Looking back, I think those were maybe one-sided issues, on my part. Val has always been at the forefront of bringing life to others, even when his own vitality was threatened or compromised. I mean, even back in junior high, he was the one doing the robot-dance in public (okay, yeah, at dances) and laughing along with the so-called "cool guys" when they looked at him funny. He taught me, back then before I knew I was being taught something, that there's nothing so cool as not being afraid to laugh at yourself. He had a calling to music and education a long time ago, and he has dedicated his life to answering that call, to "getting there," reaching the place where he can give music like a gift and receive lessons from his students. Val has never had a hang-up about letting the students be his teacher (at least, not perceptibly). He knows love, like music, is not so much a two-way street as a whirlpool, and every turn around the loops makes it wheel larger and return more and envelope more people in its wake.

Val got his master's degree in conducting about two years ago now. In the meantime he struggled with serious health issues, and came out alive and joyful. In fact, if I had to choose one word for Val, it would be "joyful." Okay, not to sound too much like the Steve Martin Christmas Wish comedy thing (or the Spanish Inquisition), but that one word would be two words, and they would be "joyful," and "inspiring."

At the tail end of the dark time back in the 1980s, I watched Val, aged 20 or so, climb onto the cement platform at the base of Arrowbear's flagpole and launch the shout that would become a rallying cry for generations of campers:

I am (campers repeat: I am!)
a special (a special!)
and important (and important!)
person (person!)
And I (and I!)
deserve (deeeeee-serve!)
the very (the very!)
BEST (BEST!!)

The whole camp resounded with first Val's voice, then the voices of the hundred-and-some campers bellowing out after his example. I don't know if he shouts much in class (I doubt it), but I have no doubt he inspires the same kind of appreciation, the same kind of anti-teenage-angst energy, the same dedication, as he did that first morning at the flagpole.

Somewhere in the back of my heart, a place I travel more and more frequently as I try to understand faith and love and artistry, things that seemed to come so easily and so early to my friend, Val remains a 13-year-old guy, too knowledgeable perhaps for his age, too smart to be cool and too cool to be a nerd, the one who sat on a rock in the sun one summer afternoon and taught me the song "Barges," and when I said I was afraid to be myself said, simply, "Why?"

Val is a special and important person, and he deserves the very best.

2003-08-05T00:13:00.000-07:00

Tuesday morning.

Good: the pink t-shirt my sister left.
Bad: an annoyed email from the X.

Good: waking up to the Red Hot Chili Peppers ("Can't Stop").
Bad: that being followed by Moby.
Even worse: anything by Moby.

Good: butterfly-shaped Post-It notes.
Bad: butterfly-shaped Post-It notes rendered useless by the 45° furnace* my apartment turns into during the afternoon and which has melted all their cute how-do-they-do-it stickiness.

Good: Maker of Saints by Thulani Davis.
Bad: A Bend in the Road by Nicholas Sparks.

Good: the cute computers guy at work did not leave Friday's party with the gorgeous Dutch girl.
Even better: the gorgeous Dutch girl left the party with some gorgeous South African man, and they are now apparently an item.

2003-08-04T14:22:00.000-07:00

Gashlycrumb Trainees.

One of the delightful things about being somewhat literate when working in roadside assistance is that you can spend hours making up rhymes about the horrid clients who speckly your day.

A is for Andrews whose engine lost oil.
B is for Brocknell fuming in his hotel.
C is for Cruickshanks whose fan belt has snapped.
D is for Davies who drove over a trap.
E is for Endell who needs three new tires.
F is for Flintwich whose whole car caught fire.
G is for George who will sue off our pants.
H is the Harrisons whose car stayed in France.

I could go on, but will wait for more material tomorrow.

2003-08-03T00:09:00.000-07:00

Friday Night Fever.

Nicolas was having a party, and everyone was invited, but you had to sign up. Thursday at 17h when I left work, there was still nobody signed up, so I took the piece of paper and handed it around to a couple of the party-fiends in the office. And signed myself up, even though Fridays I really do enjoy the three-hour marathon of detective television on France 2. But sometimes you have to make an effort and get out of your house.

Friday Emma asked Hervé, the very cute computers guy, if he was coming to the party. Hervé said he possibly had something to do but if it didn't pan out he would come. Mind you, Emma got involved because she knows I fancy the cute computers guy. While she was asking him another colleague started going all fake-giggly and blinking really hard and squawking about how FUN the party would be (and this person hadn't even signed up! hizzo) and how she would SO look forward to seeing Hervé there ... etc., etc. I've noticed that said colleague pretty much swoons over anything with a Y chromosome, so I wasn't feeling all that threatened.

But Friday at the party, Hervé the cute computers guy stayed for a very long time in the kitchen with Millan, the 5'10" blond blue-eyed Dutch girl. I had just distinguished myself with unfortunately typical maladroit behavior by (a) getting carried away in a gesture of vehement expression and dumping Emma's glass of wine all over her legs and (b) merely walking into the kitchen with one elbow weirdly cocked (who walks like that???) and knocking a wine bottle, fortunately empty, off the counter to shatter noisily all over friend Ayoh's feet. I stayed in the kitchen in shame for a while, then had to leave, feeling overmatched by the gorgeous Dutch girl. I mean, of all times to go awkwardly spilling things and breaking things in someone else's house, it had to be in the company of a supermodel lookalike.

I left the party alone. I think I might just be a better person for it. But oh. The taste of being 5'1", pudgy, and maladroit is bitter, very bitter indeed.

2003-08-02T23:49:00.000-07:00

A Tip For the Exes Among My Scant Readership.

This tip is twofold:

a. When your divorce comes through, get a copy of the paperwork. It will be useful in your life.

b. When your former spouse asks you for a copy of the paperwork, do not post the divorce decree to the internet. This is precisely the kind of task that inspired God to give us regular mail, or fax machines.

Any questions?

2003-07-29T14:13:00.000-07:00

Sibling Revelry.

(I think I stole the title from Greg but he knows I love him so I hope he'll consider it homage and not just cheap internet laziness.)

I had Monday off work, and my sister and her friend were here in town for an all-too-brief visit. We planned to walk all through Lyon and visit important monuments like the big wedding-cake basilica up on the hill and the Roman ruins next to it, have a light lunch in an upscale Lyonnais restaurant, and climb the 473 stairs of Fourvière's observatory tower to get the view all over Lyon.

We ended up doing each other's hair and makeup while sitting on my living-room floor and dressing in swishy skirts and girly sandals not at all suitable for heavy-duty walking and sight-seeing, buying new shiny black purses at the flea market along the quai, and eating deep-fried mille-feuilles stuffed with ratatouille and covered with cheese.

Later that afternoon I had a shrink appointment, and when I emerged with swollen eyes and a tiny, tiny head the girls propped me up with lip gloss and prescription sunglasses, and steered me not on a 25-minute hill-climb to the basilica but on a 2-minute walk to the bus that took us to the Cuban bar by my apartment, where we had happy-hour mojitos and stole the plastic bar-logo muddle that came in the glass.

And I have decided there is officially nothing like lip gloss, fried cheese, rum and mint leaves muddled together with sugar to lift your spirits, except of course when aforementioned ingredients are combined with the company of Girls Who Get It (TM) and rally around when your head is tiny.

You know?

2003-07-29T13:58:00.000-07:00

My Sister's Metaphor:

Me: The thing is, you can really only tell a guy something once. I mean, for it to be effectively heard. Because after that, you're just that obnoxious nagging girl who never shuts up about the thing.

She: But what 'guy' are we talking about here? Because some of them just never ever get it.

Me: Well, we're mostly talking about my X.

She: Okay. But see, the thing is, he never got it, so he's not the example guy. (She stares at me levelly.) You know fruit salad? You know, at the end of the bowl of fruit salad, how you always have that one grape left? And you're sitting there chasing that grape around the salad bowl with a fork trying to get it on the fork. That's what it was like trying to get X to understand something. That's why he doesn't get to be the example guy.

Me: You never do get the grape on the fork, do you.

She: Not with your bare hands.

2003-07-24T09:11:00.000-07:00

Dating Gilbert Grape.

Well. A couple days ago I announced I'd dumped Johnny Depp.

I think I'll repeat that, just because it feels so cool to say: I dumped Johnny Depp.

Ok, granted, "Johnny Depp" in this case is actually a Franco-Algerian thirty-something who didn't finish high school and has been out of work for over a year. But still. I dumped him.

A number of you - or perhaps it was just Cheeks a number of times - have asked what ever happened between me and Johnny Depp. I've hesitated to answer the question, because it's personal and I got a little uppity about the intrusiveness. Then I remembered I publish my diary online and decided I had nothing to be uppity about. So I'm back off my high horse now; here goes.

Dear Johnny,

I'm dumping you. I know I've told you this already, and you don't seem to get it. So I decided to write this letter, to make the crystal clarity that much more transparent.

It's not because you refuse to get a job, though I'll grant you, that has been an issue. It's hard to take your polysyllabic words about permanence and Romance and wanting to found a life together seriously when you spend precisely 3 hours a day at the unemployment office deciding not to look into those seasonal or temporary positions you consider "beneath" you.

It's not because you're uneducated - though again, an issue. I mean, not to brag, but I do have a doctorate. Remember the scene in Monty Python's Search for the Holy Grail when the frustrated King locks his son in the tower and gives instructions to the door guards, and they have to repeat the instructions back, and keep screwing them up? Well, to be quite frank, sometimes conversations with you are a bit like that. And I like singing.

It's not because of the religious differences. Though I have to admit, I was taken aback when I came home from work and found you in my living room with a circle of 15 or so people performing Tuvan chant. You really had me going there; for a second I thought I was in Tuva! Then I realized I was in Hell. Because your "Buddhic" meetings always last until at least midnight. (Which is, as it happens, the main reason I won't make a date with you on the nights you have these activities, Johnny. I have come to value my sleep. Just so you understand.) You were a perfect gentleman about it, ushering the nasal-humming white kids out through my front door and down the spiral staircase, across the street and up your own stairs before I even had to threaten to call the cops. Still, somebody walked off with my old mobile phone. I take consolation in the fact that the damn thing hasn't worked for at least a year.

It's not because of the astonishing absence of respect. Really, I like repeating "Don't just stop by after midnight." And even supposing that got under my skin from time to time, what woman wouldn't be overjoyed to have to answer the doorbell at 1 a.m., in her summer pyjamas, and decline to meet a couple of your closest friends? Especially when she has to get up for work at 5:30 the following morning. Whatever, call me quirky.

And I want to be sure you know, I'm not dumping you because of an ugly little personal secret I've learned. It's not because one of your exes had AIDS. It's not because most of your close friends have spent at least one week in jail at some point in their adult lives. It's not even because you saw me trying to take my life a year ago and did nothing.

Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, you are a deeply sensual man and you've been a good rebound guy for me. But I have to look out for my own interests here. So I leave you with two words, the lack of which in your life should sum up the central reason behind my dumping decision:

Dental. Hygiene.

Ta,
Romy

2003-07-22T04:59:00.000-07:00

A Whole New Screen on Life.

Hello! Remember me? I'm back. Thanks for waiting.

In the past few weeks:

- I broke up with Johnny Depp, who still doesn't seem to get it.

- I had bronchitis (I've tried breaking up with my own lungs, but they don't seem to get it either).

- My monitor died and I've had to get a new one. Le moniteur est mort - Vive le Moniteur!

- I've been working full time and drinking wine maybe twice a week at most. **Nota Bene: this is a big departure. I LIKE wine.

- My sister has come for a visit (too short).

- I've been asked by at least 4 separate people on completely unrelated occasions if I have ever tried eating frog's legs. (And you thought all those stereotypes about the French were just a bunch of hooey.)

- I've been reading like a bloody maniac, roughly a novel a day.

- I have become an expert, in my down-time at work, since I have no internet access, at playing Shanghai Dynasty. Damn, I love those little tiles.

- I have been listening to the new Tori Amos album, which is mediocre, and Madonna's Immaculate Collection, which is fabulous.

- Last Friday, I went on a sort-of-date with a thoroughly nice, normal, definitely-not-Depp French guy, whom unfortunately I just don't find remotely attractive. He might become a good friend. I hope he will. **Bonuses in his favor: He speaks fluent Italian, has a steady job, and behaves like a gentleman. And his name is Jean-Luc.

- I've been missing the USA. Specifically, California. Specifically, Southern California. More specifically still, the Long Beach area where my family lives. As the job-search for next year begins, I find myself more and more drawn to home territory.

Okay, I am off to a follow-up if-those-antibiotics-worked-why-am-I-still-COUGHINGDAMNIT doctor's appointment. Thanks for your patience.

A bientôt.

2003-06-30T14:11:00.000-07:00

More time off ...

it's technologically forced this time, as my computer keeps crashing (roughly every 4,5 minutes) when I am online.

I'll try to fix this and update yall usefully soon.

Ta for now ...

2003-06-19T14:12:00.000-07:00

A Few of My Favorite Things.

- Metallica's cover of "Whiskey in the Jar"

- The fact that if you buy a Smart car, your roadside assistance in France will be provided by a company called SmartAss.

- The group t.A.T.u.

- My own tattoos.

- The fact that if you break down in Andorra, your roadside assistance will be provided by Jésus Dépanne - Jesus Saves!

- The following band name: Bowling for Soup.

- Having a Ph.D. And the puffy hat to go with it.

2003-06-16T11:20:00.000-07:00

Today, I

- got called a "stupid fucker fat ass" by a client on the telephone who was unhappy with my supervisor's decisions about her vehicle.
- ate a salad for lunch and felt rather virtuous. (The side order of French fries detract somewhat from my virtue.)
- made a date for tomorrow with a guy who is moving back to the States and reuniting with his wife after this summer.
- realized I no longer think of my life as something temporary.
- received an enveloppe in the mail with a blessed Saint Padre Pio medal and several prayer cards in it, and resolved to pray the rosary daily
- read the following:

Jesus ordered his disciples back to Galilee where it all began. They were not to forget the power of his call, how they followed him on dusty roads, getting hungry and thirsty along the way. They were not to forget nights spent in caves or the houses of friends. They were not to forget his teaching, much of which they did not understand. They were not to forget his miracles which he called signs. They were not to forget the final journey to Jerusalem where he died. Those memories must be jealously guarded, for now that he is risen, everything takes on a new meaning, a meaning that makes sense of every person's journey, in any nation, till the end of time.
- St. Aurélien

- started making a list of the people I have to thank for their help along the way to getting my Ph.D. And realized, humbled, how grateful I am to how many people, how many people have been generous and gone unbelievably out of their way to help me, how many people have supported me even when I likely seemed the worst possible candidate for graduate studentship.
- bought a bottle of whiskey, and am still sipping slowly from my shotglass.
- resolved to take a few days in July, to go stay at a monastery in Provence and reconnect with my faith, which I know is waiting for me around the corner once I climb out of this enervated funk and succeed in focusing on faith again.
- smiled at someone for no reason. And got smiled back at.
- remember that every moment is momentous. By nature. And that we must live them.

2003-06-14T23:31:00.000-07:00

Grumpy.

- I hate my job. It's giving me stress dreams. And they don't pay me enough to come home with me and sleep in my head and make demands on my subconscious. Period.

- J. Depp is seriously on my nerves. I don't know if it's the job stress or general jetlagged fatigue, but if I rewrote the Police song today it would be entitled "Every Little Thing He Does (Is Stupid And Pisses Me Off)." Also, his reasoning abilities appear to have been acquired on some other planet.

- It's hot here, not a bad thing in itself, but it is SO hot here that I'm having trouble sleeping (and no, that's not the fault of my stupid job or boyfriend). Vicious circle. Further, I just know that this heat will last until roughly the middle of next week, then we'll have a series of horrifying thunderstorms and weather from, like, November for the rest of the so-called summer.

- I have to go direct choir at Mass and I am not in an appropriate prayer-space. Then I have to run directly to work and stay cooped up dealing with shitty Brits until 9 p.m.

Talk to the hand.

2003-06-09T08:21:00.000-07:00

Extra Pomp, Hold The Circumstance.

I'm back in Lyon after a whirlwind Commencement trip to Boston, and I thought I would fill yall in on some of the highlights.

When I made arrangements to get to Boston, I had a plane ticket with a special air/train connection, which is really just an agreement betweern American Airlines and the SNCF to get people from, say, Lyon to Paris before they continue their journey. The price was right, the timing would get me to Boston just perfectly 75 minutes before my family's scheduled arrival from L.A., and I believe the actual phrase "God's in His Heav'n, all's right with the world" crossed my mind. However. Because we live in an imperfect world, the day I was slated to travel on said air/train ticket the SNCF and the air-traffic controllers went on strike. My train was cancelled. My flight was cancelled. I ended up booted to a train that left Lyon at 7 a.m. instead of 10 (and I was lucky to get on a train at all), then waited in lovely scenic Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris for about a day and a half, then got booted again to a flight to Chicago, and then a different and much later flight from Chicago to Boston. I got there, but I don't think I've ever spent so long crossing the Atlantic. The whole process took 25,5 hours of travelling and sitting in airports. I got off my last plane feeling smelly, tired, swollen and unwashed. I grabbed my luggage and headed out to the curb to catch the shuttle-bus to the T (Boston's métro system) stop that would reunite me with my family, who were, I assumed, by this time comfortably ensconced in the bed and breakfast my mom had reserved for us all. As the shuttle-bus pulled up, and I hefted my biggest bag forward to step up into it, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned in stupid unrecognition to see ... my brother! My whole family! Who had just stepped off the shuttle-bus from the airport, coming as a surprise to meet my flight, and caught me by accident as I was getting ready to take the shuttle to the airport. As we stood there hugging and exclaiming, the shuttle-bus took off. Then we all gave each other an embarrassed little glance and said, well, maybe we should concentrate on getting on the next one of those. The next one came by in just a few short minutes and we headed to Beacon Hill. That was Tuesday.

Wednesday was spent running errands - picking up my cap and gown, getting coffee at old haunts, picking up the tickets for Thursday's Commencement exercises - and then enjoying a small reception in my department for the degree recipients. The department chairwoman, introducing the Ph.D. recipients, said, "Of course I want to congratulate you all, but mostly I want to bid you welcome. When you started your degrees, we on the faculty knew that you were our future colleagues. Now the day has come, no longer future, and so I want to give a very warm welcome to you, our new colleagues." I looked around and was relieved to see I was not the only one choked up by the enormity of that pronouncement. Each of us introduced ourselves and said a few words about our dissertations, and then we raised glasses in a toast and the gathering turned so informal I'm surprised nobody's shirt came off to sudden Afro-Cuban music piped in from a TA's office (or something).

Thursday we, my family and I, rose around 6. There was a faint rosy glow to the grey dawn, but it didn't pan out as a welcoming sunrise: in fact, it rained as we made our way into Harvard Square. I zipped up my crimson doctoral robe and fastened the black velvet hat against my hair, and the act of stepping into these vestments made the whole process feel more real somehow, less abstract and meaningless. Clothes make the experience matter. And these are striking clothes - everyone we passed turned to watch me in my regalia. Many of them said "Congratulations," including a drunk homeless guy outside CVS on Charles Street (the same, by the way, who we saw the following morning, yelling at his girlfriend? wife? companion? as she told him to hurry up: "What I'm askin' for is some help to WAHK heah, yuh fucking miserable hohah." God, I love Boston) and a couple of teenage girls on the T. We got to Harvard, went briefly to the Commencement breakfast with the Deans, and met up with the X and his family (my former mother- and brother-in-law), who were, perhaps unsurprisingly, much friendlier than was the X. X and I joined the procession as grad students - pardon me, former grad students - lined up in regalia all around us (black for the Master's Degree, Crimson for the Ph.D.), and we proceeded to Harvard Yard, where we sat for a couple hours during speeches and songs. The songs were familiar, because I'd sung them myself the one year I participated in Commencement Choir; the speeches were typical.

Then we moved into Sanders Theatre for the individual degree-awarding ceremony, where all graduate students from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences receive their diplomas and have done for the past 200 years. I can honestly say that I applauded conscientiously for each and every one of my colleagues who received a degree from Harvard in 2003. My own degree being in Romance Languages, which happens to lurk near the end of the alphabet, I certainly had the time to applaud. (My hands and wrists are still sore.) Then the organiser called those of us in Religion and Romance Languages to stand up and make our way to the staircase that would lead us onto the stage. We gave each other spontaneous cheek-kisses, à l'européenne, and some bear hugs, and there was whooping as everybody's favorite grad student Nathan made his way across the stage. One by one the candidates crossed, and suddenly it was my turn. I stepped up calmly, did not trip on my gown, shook the Dean's hand, said thank you to the other Dean, smiled into the camera, did la bise with the departmental representative (again, the chairwoman) on stage, and turned around briefly, holding my red envelope aloft. Something told me to. And I saw my brother behind a powerful camera flash, taking this picture: me on stage, diploma in hand, turning with a radiant smile, grinning directly at him and doing a little victory wave.

And then it was over. We meant to go to the Commencement luncheon but ended up at the Border Café (better food, more of it, cheaper, and no deans anywhere). And about an hour after that we all agreed to go back to the B&B and sleep. When I woke up, late Thursday afternoon, were it not for the bright-red gown with its black velvet stripes and royal-blue Ph.D. scrolls on the lapels (not to mention the puffy black velvet hat), I might have thought it was all a dream.

Friday the sun came out, and we headed into Harvard Square again en famille, to turn in my regalia (thanks, Dad, for my puffy hat) and meet the X for coffee before heading back out to Boston for a day of fun and tourism. Naturally once we were in Harvard Square we had to take a few last-minute photos - this time, with a gorgeous sunny-day-in-Boston backdrop - with regalia as a main feature. Then I took gown and hood back to the Coop and we sat down for orange juice at Au Bon Pain. I didn't want to turn the regalia in. They nearly had to pry my fingers off the rustly I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-Taffeta polyester-blend fabric. I felt like the whole experience might dissolve once I let go of the robe.

And I realized something this past weekend. Despite the bitterness about Harvard bureaucracy and hypocrisy and culture of entitlement. Despite how wrenching and painful and isolating and just plain hard it was to get through this degree, intact, or mostly. Part of me does want this academic life. I realized also, along with the elation of Thursday's ceremonies and the whole week's events, along with the amazing freedom of having earned this comes the equally amazing responsability of putting it to good use. The Chaplain of the Day on Thursday, who opened the Commencement morning exercises with a prayer, said, "The time is limited, and the task is great. God does not require us to complete the task today. But neither does he permit us to stop striving to complete it." So ... here's the big news ... I'm going on the job market as of September 2003. Which may mean I move back to the States. Likely, in fact. I don't know when or how that will take place. The task is great. The idea is greater, and very overwhelming. But voilà.

Striving.

2003-06-02T10:41:00.000-07:00

I'm Too Sexy For My Coffee.

I left the office today, travel-mug in hand, just as the rain started.

The weather had turned slightly chill with the downpour, so I took refuge in my still-slightly-tepid coffee.

In fact, I took a huge swig.

Then I felt it.

Like a saturated stalk of hay against the inside of my mouth.

Some ... thing that had come out with my coffee, through the little hole in the cup lid.

And, because I am a well-bred lady and always well behaved in public,

I spit.

Right there, on the street, in Villeurbanne, in front of passing cars and pedestrians and in full view of the cute guy who got off the elevator at the same time I did (and who gave a quick look in the direction of the spitting sound as I gagged and regurgitated in public and then hurried off to catch the tramway).

Lesson #1: Do not leave perfectly good coffee sitting most of the afternoon in an only-98%-protected mug.
Lesson #2: No matter how much protein insectoid matter may contain, drowned moths are simply not to my taste.
Lesson #3: The truest test of a cute guy's emotional maturity and personal integrity is how he reacts when you spit coffee-flavored insects out in the street in front of him.

At least I missed his shoes.

2003-05-31T05:21:00.000-07:00

Radio Silence ...

Dear Reader,

Hey. Sorry about the long delay between updates. Things on this end have been a bit hectic - I've gone to full-time at my work, added extra rehearsals for the June feast days (Ascension, Pentecost, Holy Trinity, Fête-Dieu; Confirmations, First Communions, Professions of Faith and all) with my choir, and have actually been concentrating on sleeping nights. Which is not to say sleeping alone. I'm sure you understand. In the meantime, my AOL account has, for bureaucratic reasons (bastards actually want me to pay them for internet access), been suspended, which contributed to the recent cramp in my blogging style. And I'm afraid the delay doesn't stop here.

On Tuesday, provided the airlines and SNCF (French national railway company) do not go on strike at a time inconvenient for my personal life, I will board a train to Paris and then a plane to Boston. Thursday, June 5 is The Big Day: Commencement, the day I get to put on a crimson (read: fuschia) taffeta (read: polyester) robe and distinguished mortar-board (read: ridiculous puffy pink velvet slab of cardboard on my head) and officially receive my Ph.D. I'll be back to my own computer and regularly scheduled work-and-church program around June 9th. And I will update you more regularly then.

While you wait, enjoy your lives. Go outside. (I have been lately, and it's kind of amazing what fresh air can do for the spirit.) Eat salmon teriyaki. Wear leather. Look up when you walk around. Listen to something you never would have given a second thought to before. Make a salad with something sweet, something crunchy, something unexpected (like a fennel bulb). Breathe deeply. Go swimming.

And pray I don't trip on the edge of my fuschia polyester robe and fall right over the edge of the stage in Sanders Theatre next Thursday (oy).

Love,
Romy.

2003-05-15T02:16:00.000-07:00

Reject.

I just got a rejection email for a poem I submitted to a journal some weeks ago. Normally these things are sort of a bummer, especially via email (I did send a self-addressed stamped enveloppe with European postage ...), but this one was classy. The editor "truly enjoyed" reading my poem, and the reason he "couldn't" use it in the journal came "down to questions of space and synergy."

My inner Keanu is all, like, "Whoa."

2003-05-15T01:28:00.000-07:00

Something Beautiful.

I am not a huge fan of haiku. I think this is because I am a big believer in polysyllabism and like my poetry to have long flowing lines instead of short chopped-up ones.

Also, my ambivalence toward the genre could have something to do with the "cat haiku" thing that got endlessly forwarded around the internet a couple years ago. I finally had to ask everyone on my mailing list not to send it to me anymore, not because I had anything particular against cats or haiku, but because I just didn't have any more room on my hard drive for all the copies I kept receiving. (In response, my brother wrote me a haiku about cat haiku, bless his furry little heart.)

But this morning I was doing a random lyrics search and came across a Buddhism page, with the following poem at the bottom:

Midnight. No waves,
no wind, the empty boat
is flooded with moonlight.

~Dogen

And it just expressed everything perfectly. Damn it. Now I'm going to have to learn Japanese so I can truly appreciate haiku ...

2003-05-12T01:31:00.000-07:00

iOlé!

*Today, one scant week after Cinco de Mayo, is my father's birthday. He turns 64, which makes me automatically want to burst into song. Except he's not losing his hair, has never seen the Isle of Wight, and has no grandchildren (and no one in his life named Vera or Chuck, though my brother does have a good friend named Dave). Anyway. Be nice. Send him a note.

*I did a Kazaa search for this song I heard in Spain a couple years ago, by a group whose name escapes me except for the fact that they were (and, unless national frontiers or the ETA have changed things, most likely still are) Spanish. Cool pop song, minor key, groovy rhythms, and a chorus that makes you want to jump up on the tabletops and bellydance. The song is called "Nina" with the tilda thing over the middle "n" (for some reason, my keyboard rebels against this particular diacritic). The group is Los something. So I ended up downloading a song called "Ni Nina" (same deal with the tilda) by a group called the Los Toros Band, and it's basically a polka with a Spanish flair. Cool, and it definitely makes you want to dance, but not exactly what I had in mind. So this is your chance to help me. Anybody know the song I'm looking for?

*My choir sang beautifully yesterday. I think the key is to divide up the basses so the two (ahem, how to say "oldest" politely) most venerable of them aren't right next to each other. Their voices don't blend at all, and they start elbowing each other to get the other to sing more quietly, and then after the piece they get into arguments. Quite amusing except at the moment of the consecration, when I think even the holiest of saints would rather concentrate on the transsubstantiate miracle taking place at the altar than on these two grandfatherly basses trading insults off to one side. So I separated them and it worked, well, if not miracles, at least something wondrous.

More later? I'm off to fight with the electric company and the unemployment office. Woo-hooooooo! Sounds like a Monday to me.

**Update.
- Unemployment Office - check. Battle won. Here's to the next three-and-a-half months of paperwork and bureaucracy.
- Electric Company - check. I still owe them money, but at least they're turning the service back on so I can take a shower at something above refrigerator temperature.

Next: Romy throws the gauntlet at her bank. Batter up!

2003-05-10T14:58:00.000-07:00

One Thing More.

So, I get back from Ireland and the UK, and in my mailbox are the following slips of paper, with, as you can imagine, varying degrees of welcomeness:

- a thing from the electric company (not the TV show, hélas, that would have been way cooler) saying they're cutting my service off*

*because they haven't, in the past two years, managed to catch me at home to do an actual reading of the electricity counter. Therefore when they read it, in March, they realized there were two years of someone-with-actual-appliances-lives-here (the previous tenant had a HotPot and occasionally read by lamplight) usage to catch up on ... and they slapped me with a €500 electric bill, payable in 6 days or less, just before my departure for the conference last week. Super! I love the utlities companies! (Yeah, whatever, bite me.)

- a thing from my bank, saying I owe them lots of money**

**See previous post about credit-card fraud and how much it sucks, when you don't have any money anyway, to be liable for someone else's designer-men's-shoes purchases on a different continent.

- a thing from the post office, saying I had a package to pick up.

The last notice was far and away the best, and even if said package contained a letter-bomb, it would have been much more welcome than the previous two slips. Today, I went to the post office and picked up the package, and much to my surprise it contained a beautiful volume of essays by a professor I knew a few years back, who organized a fabulous conference on Zola. The conference took place in Glasgow and was my first real professional experience in academia. And it was a blast. People loved my paper. I loved people's papers. Plus, it was Scotland, figurez-vous, and well, there were museum sidetrips and an expedition to Loch Lomond and Georgian architecture with Art-Deco Mackintosh highlights, not to mention the fabulous glaswegian accent and kilts. (Somewhere there's a photo of me standing next to a kilted bagpipe player, looking all red and flushed as I wonder frantically if it's really true about the underneath-your-clothes kilt thing. But that's another story, for another post.)

So I'm walking back home from the post office, turning this book over and over and thinking fond thoughts about the professor, and having fond memories about the conference, and suddenly I notice a lump left in the bottom of the shipping carton, and pull it out, and it's a pile of photocopies with a note on top, and the note says, "Dear Madam, enclosed please find your complimentary copy of L'écriture du féminin chez Zola et dans la fiction naturaliste (Writing the Feminine in Zola and Naturalist Fiction), as well as ten off-prints of your contribution." And I start thinking, hang on, I know I've had some drunken revelries in the past few years, but ... my contribution? Turns out my conference paper became an article in the final section of the book. I sort of wish I'd known about it as it was happening - that particular article underwent a fair amount of revision when I stuck it into my dissertation - but overall, it made for an excellent surprise. Definitely the best mail I've received in a long time. I'm considering sending out pieces of my dissertation just randomly, then moving to another continent and seeing what turns up, five years from now. Who knows? Maybe the surprises aren't over yet.

Very big grin happening here. If I had anything celebratory to drink, I would raise a glass to Professor Gural-Migdal, and to Zola. As it is, I'll stick with my bottled mineral water and do some more situps. G'night, moon!

2003-05-10T14:10:00.000-07:00

Errata.

See down there, in the entry from just after the conference, where I said I had to stop my friend from snoring?

My apologies. My friend doesn't snore. He has since corrected me brusquely on the subject. Rather, what he does could be called a "rhoncus," or "[breathing] with a rough, hoarse, nasal voice in sleep." (From the dictionary.com site definition list.)

Alternately, one could say my friend draws in, exhales, expires, fans, gasps, gulps, inhales, insufflates, pants, puffs, respires, scents, sighs, sniffs, wheezes, breathes heavily, makes z's, saws gourds, saws logs, saws wood, sleeps, snarks, snorts, snuffles, buzzes, coughs, gasps, hisses, murmurs, rasps, sibilates, whispers, or whistles, depending on your favorite synonym.

On the minus side, this correction means my friends actually read my blog.
On the plus side, this correction means my friends actually read my blog. Not to mention, we all get vocabulary lessons out of the deal.

Bonus!

2003-05-10T10:47:00.000-07:00

Ana Mabsout.

For two weeks you've been more than a face in a window, though we still communicate this way. I watch for your candle in its ecru saucer after dark, the window glass changing its reflection as you lean forward: Hello. There is no shame between us; there is no reason for it. I tried to tell you how novel it is, being at ease with myself at one with you, and you pulled back in surprise and said "mais tu es magnifique," and my scars and flab and years of damage dissolved. How novel, to feel so right and unworried. I get a frisson thinking about the night before I left for Ireland, when you lay by my side and taught me words in Arabic - caress, you said, shaping my throat for the syllables, and desire. A shared word, with added particles to manifest its various meanings. I am jealous of the word, I practice it to myself and don't want to write it down, don't want to put it in these transliterated English blocks that fix it to a shape. And then the phrase, the things that link us, that made us laugh when I tried to pronounce it, because in my Occidental voice it sounded like "Jacques Chirac." We agreed we didn't want him in the bed, and that made us laugh even more, the president's head a glossy magazine cut-out floating off to one side in my Ally-McBeal-esque imagination. We reached an agreement - you mock my accent, I tickle you. I win either way, my fingertips sparkling across your skin. The palm of your hand on my ribcage, the pulse in your neck against my cheek. I keep thinking I should confess this, but it doesn't feel like sin.

But the very best was last night, just before you took the train for Paris. You had to leave at 6 a.m. and by 3 we hadn't finished finding things to talk about, or dancing to the CD I wanted you to hear. I taught you what a triad is, and how to hear in major or minor. A friend of yours called your mobile at 1:30, and we sat on the purple couch and compared words and giggled, and you talked about wanting to live on the Swiss border for work, and we compared horizons and chatted harmlessly about the past. I thought about frontier and inland lives and being a desert or an ocean with all identities, not "this" or "that" but "many," and the street noise subsided as it probably always does while we are asleep 5 flights above it, only this time we were awake to hear the silence arrive. We thought about making coffee, looked at the clock and decided on water instead, and I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore and the shoulder of your t-shirt was soft pale-blue and you decided to stay when there was so little left of the night it almost didn't matter, the darkness outside was indigo-grey instead of black, Friday was Saturday, the CD ended and we lay down together on the couch downstairs, and as you stroked my arm I felt caress without the energy of desire and the warm simplicity of language opened up before me as I slid into sleep. I said "Bonne nuit," and you said, "bonne nuit, mon petit coeur,", and I think I may have cooed. And you held me and I held you, and when you left, blurry with sleep and adrenaline, afraid to miss your train, and I too tired even to make coffee, I think the most beautiful words I have ever heard in my life were "I'll see you when I get back": a promise, and a given.

2003-05-05T15:02:00.000-07:00

El Cinco de Mayo

Hey everybody, today is not Mexican Independence Day, but it should be, and even though I tend to be on the side of the French these days, I thought I'd pass on some of the joy involved in this fiesta. And, if you'll bear with me a few moments here, I think you'll find it is indeed a joyous occasion.

If you've been following this blog recently, you know the taxi-driver date didn't turn out as I'd hoped it would. Which is to say, Cheeks (since you keep requesting details), that the date was one or more of the following: (a) not remotely fun, not even the least little bit, and not any kind of appealing; (b) a chance for the cab driver to get laid whether or not his "date" actually wanted to as well, or/and (c) nothing I ever want to repeat or would wish on anyone I know. There was a time in my life when I would have assigned this date a violent label and relived every single moment like a nightmare where you can't move your legs to escape. Frankly, nowadays, I just don't have the energy for that kind of emotional investment. And I think I've decided the taxi driver is not worth it. Loser bastard. Voila.

On to the joyous stuff. Johnny Depp dates (three of them! in one week!) have been wonderful, wonderful, and wonderful. I'm feeling a little shy about the details. Let's just say, he's tender and insightful, generous, wise, and very, very sensual. The word "tantric" comes to mind. More later, maybe, if I start feeling less discreet (otherwise, ask me sometime when I'm drunk ... it's the key to many a vault, I tell you. Oy).

I'm writing tonight from England, where I'm staying with my friend Red as I recover from the conference this past weekend. My paper went well, though once I started speaking I panicked and felt completely disorganized. I do congratulate myself on this first post-Ph.D. conference and article. And the discussion session that followed my presentation was lively and exciting, and I think I answered everything coherently, so that's a plus.

Tomorrow morning I head back to France and have immediately to deal with my evil bank, because apparently someone got hold of my credit card number and I can't withdraw money. The bank wouldn't let me stop the proposed charges over the phone, so I have to go in in person and deal with the nasty French man who this afternoon on the telephone basically accused me of lying to him about what I'd been spending money on. He didn't seem to "get it" (or care) when I said I wasn't in Shanghai on 17 April to rack up charges in designer men's shoes shops. Whatever. Men, I tell you.

Must. Stop. Friend. Snoring. Update once I'm back in France. G'night from High Wycombe.

2003-05-01T00:32:00.000-07:00

MayDay and A Bouquet of Muguet.

On the first of May, offer a bouquet of flowers. Specifically, the small white flowers with sort of dangling bashful heads called the muguet (lilies of the valley? or of the field?). It's tradition, in France, or at least that's what the radio announcer said this morning.

Another, specifically Lyonnais, tradition for the first of May is the shutdown of all public functions, including transportation. I've tried over and over to imagine the mentality behind the transportation deal. It's the fête du travail! Hey, guys, we haven't been on strike in at least 13 days - better stop work or the paying public might get suspicious.

All of which is to say, I will try to update my blog about the Johnny Depp dates (yes, that's a plural) this evening, once I walk home from the neighboring city where I work until 7 p.m. today. I may be grumpy about the walk, but I'll have my headphones and a nice Diet Coke to keep me going.

@ + !

2003-04-29T12:46:00.000-07:00

A Brief Survey.

Anyone else tired of the "Google bought Blogger and we've got explanations!" update - a term I use quite loosely - that pops up on BlogSpot's homepage when you log in?

2003-04-29T07:21:00.000-07:00

The "Elementary, my dear Watson-and-Crick Award" for Evolution-Defying Stupidity.*

This week, it goes to the guy who called my work, roadside-assistance policy in hand taken, presumably, from the glove-box of the Peugeot 206 he was driving through the Ardennes region of France.

"Hello, ..., this is RoseMary, how can I help?"
"Err ... hi. I'm having some trouble with my car."
"Can I have the registration number please?"
"I don't know it."
"Are you still with the car?"
"Yeah."
"Can you look at the registration and tell me what the number is?"
"Oh." (A pause.) "Hang on."

The sound of feet trodding around squelchy, I'm-a-mountainous-road-and-have-just-been-rained-on gravel gets fainter, then louder.

"Ok." (I type in the number.) "So, can you help me?"
"Well, I'll need some information first."
"What kind of information? It's cold where I am. And wet."
"I just need to enter things into our system so we can open a dossier and help you out."

He reads off his insurance policy number, the name of the insurer, and tells me the make and model of the car. Its color. Its registration year. His location. Usually, when people call and have, say, a flat tire, they tend to sound impatient when I need to ask things like their return date to the UK and which ferry port they'll be leaving from. You know, I get that. It's like going to the general practitioner for a sprained ankle and being told you need to undress for a gynecological exam. It's frustrating, and you feel like you're wasting your time. I guess I've learned - possibly from living in France - to be more philosophical about these administrative things.

Such was not the case with Mr. Peugeot-in-the-Ardennes-I've-got-a-problem-fix-it-NOW man.

Stranger, he didn't sound annoyed. More like, anxious. Nervous. I get that, too. I wouldn't want to be stranded on a squelchy road in the mountains. So I find out, to the nearest oak tree, where exactly he's broken down, and tell him I will contact a breakdown service for him and call him back with the ETA on the UK mobile number he's given me (after a moment's hesitation).

The first task is to check the validation on his insurance policy. The whole breakdown service thing is pretty much a lie, because I'm not technically allowed to call anyone until we know if the driver even has European coverage. (I know, this is fascinating, but bear with me.) And he has read off a special policy number, one where I have to call the UK insurer to make sure the car has breakdown coverage on the continent etc.

Now, you'll have noticed (maybe) I didn't say, up there in the first paragraph, that the guy called about "his Peugeot 206." This is because in fact, when I got through to the UK insurance company, they informed me that the car was reported stolen in Ireland the week before. The car, and everything inside it: groceries, handbag with credit cards, cash, and (yep) UK mobile phone.

The moral of this story is ... well, don't steal cars. But if you steal someone's car, don't then try to use their insurance policy to get yourself towed down the mountains in France - because, it turns out, the car will go back to the ferry port, and you will go down the mountain in the company of the French police.

*By the bye, the title of this post has little to do with Sherlock Holmes, or even deoxyribonucleic acid. But since it was the double helix's 50th birthday last week, and my last name used to be Crick, and I like complicated multiple puns, I thought it was worth a try.

2003-04-27T22:29:00.000-07:00

More quotables from the weekend:

"Neil Armstrong is like a loft - pathetic and full of pumpkins."
(from the Random Surreal Generator)

----------

"I don't understand her," [Victor] said. "Yesterday she was quite normal, today it's all gone to her head."
"Bitches!" said Gaspode, sympathetically.
"Oh, I wouldn't go that far," said Victor. "She's just aloof."
"Loofs!" said Gaspode.
(from Moving Pictures by Terry Pratchett.)

----------

"Hello, [...]*, this is RoseMary, how can I help?"
"I'm having some trouble and I want someone to talk me through it. I hope you can help me."
"What's the trouble?"
"I'm afraid."
"Are you still with your car?"
"My car? I want to make love with a woman, and I'm afraid."
"I'm sure that's normal. Just ... you do understand you've called the Roadside Assistance Hotline?"
"Ah merde."
(Dial tone)

*For reasons having to do with my contract, I can't tell you what happens inside the brackets. Company security, you understand. Or maybe I just want to make you wonder ...

2003-04-27T22:08:00.000-07:00

Naked Lunch.

Emma: I made a lazy-person's hummus. You open a can of chick peas, dump them into a bowl, and add olive oil and lemon.
Me: So, basically, chick peas.
Emma: Yes, but with olive oil and lemon. (A pause.) You know, to take away a bit of the stodgy chick-pea-ness.
Me: (snickering)
Emma: What?
Me: Chick penis.
Emma: Oh. I can't take you anywhere, can I?
Me: Nope.

2003-04-26T01:10:00.000-07:00

Nicknames.

Based on Greg's recent blog-entry, I decided to make a post of the same ilk, instead of taking up his comment bandwidth with my nickname list.

Things I have been called that more or less resemble my name:

- Rosebud*
*Dad only. Usually in a sing-song voice when he starts leaving messages on my answering machine. The interval tends to be a minor fourth, descending, for example Bb to F, like a European ambulance siren. Though if he's feeling (a) maudlin or (b) annoyed he'll start with "Hello, Rosebud," and the intonation stays fairly flat.

- Romy
- Rome
- Ro
- Ensign Ro
- Rom*
*Scott and Greg (no, not you) only. The "o" is long as in "Rome," but the spelling came from a "language" we invented in 9th-grade English which consisted mainly in restricting the letters we could use. The "e" was compltly forbiddn. Rgo, Scott had to call th othr two of us Rom and Grg. (Many other letters were also strictly forbidden but it really is hardest without the "e.") This also led to the pronunciation of Greg's name as "Grg," phonetically based on our alphabetic limitations.

- Rome-if-you-want-to*
*Julia only, and only since around the middle of 1991 when the B52s song crashed across the airwaves.

- Marie-Rose*
*Kareen only.

- MariaRosa*
*Serena and students from my Italian class of Spring 2000. Also, pretty much anyone in Italy.

- Rose*
*Bernadette. Not exclusively, but mostly.

- Romykins*
*ONLY IF YOU ARE MY MOTHER. And I am 4. Do you meet these conditions? Yeah, that's what I thought.
- Rosamaria
- Rosalinda's eyes (based on a song from Billy Joel's 52nd Street album).
- Romaryka*
*Kevin; again, usually speaking to my answering machine and wreaking the syllables into strange shapes with pitches that make your ears wonder who gave the ADHD kid that drumset.

- Rosmarino (the herb in Italian)
- Rosmarin (the herb in French with a slightly medieval pronunciation insistence)
- Romarin, Romarine (the herb in French, "e" added for femininity's sake)
- Rosemarie*
*My ex-husband, singing the title song from the musical. "Oh ROOOOse-mariEEEEEE, I love you; I'm always THIIIIIIIIIIN-king of you."

Things I have been called that resemble my name less:

- Rice-a-Romy*
*In elementary school. There was a jingle that went along with it, and in the commercials it ended with "the San Francisco treat!"

- Anne-Marie*
*By a sweet elderly man in my choir, who occasionally forgets that I am a flower and not an Old Testament prophetess or the mother of the Virgin Mary.

- Ensign Ho
- Yramesor (you can figure it out, I know you can ...)
- Ymor (idem.)
- Roma Tomato
- Rossmoor*
*The neighborhood I grew up in.

- RM*
*ATH only.

Things that resemble my name not the least little bit:

Bear, Boohead, Harvard, Flunch, Little Leather Girl, Rabbit-Ears, A Merry Tress Caprice, Tresses, Your Mom, Pants.*
*These require too much explanation. And since this post is already long enough to have surpassed Cheeks's span of attention, I will spare the details.

2003-04-25T16:59:00.000-07:00

Don't Ask.

Taxi-driver date: bad. Et voilà. Can't get into it now.
Seeing Johnny Depp tomorrow.
I hope.
Oy.

2003-04-23T02:17:00.000-07:00

Thank Greg for This Link.

Captain Mary Vane approves.

2003-04-23T02:03:00.000-07:00

Quizillusionment.

See that picture of Guinan, down there, somewhere beneath this entry? And the whole Star Trek quiz thing? I did that. Before I started working, I had a long day when I was bored and depressed, and I thought, what the hell, I'll take some quizzes. I mean, everybody's doing it ... maybe there are some fun ones out there. Well, as you know, there are some fun ones out there, and some lame ones out there, and some cool ones out there too. In fact, the world of the internet quiz is pretty well populated, perhaps too much so.

Which is proveable by the fact that anyone, and I do mean anyone, including yours truly, can go sign up as a quiz-maker at Quizilla and subsequently turn his or her talent and imagination - or stunning lack thereof - to creating random multiple-choice time-wasters with varying degrees of appropriateness, accuracy and insight. So I went foraging around through the archives, and discovered there was not yet, or not that I found, the quiz I wanted, which would tell me what character from Star Trek: The Next Generation I am.

Because it changes from day to day. Sometimes I'm the Captain, and I take my Earl Grey tea hot and brusque; I sit back in my big chair and ponder dilemmas and make executive decisions and have so much confidence in my reasoning that I would be astonished if anyone disagreed.

Sometimes I'm the Counselor, and I reach out in emotional vulnerability to help the people around me, whose turbulent thoughts and feelings overwhelm my consciousness. I don't always know how to protect my own feelings from the work of helping other people deal with theirs.

Sometimes I'm Data, and when it comes to human relations I just don't get it. Give me a math problem or a bunch of telephone numbers to memorize and I'm your man, but tell me a joke or give me a kiss and I'm confused beyond even my copious powers of explanation.

Sometimes I'm Guinan. I know things you don't know and I can't tell you why or how I know them. My own history is fascinating but largely irrelevant, or so I would have you believe, in the face of the problem we face together. I listen, but I also hear, even the things you don't know how to say or don't realize you're saying when you talk to me. I don't mean to lurk, but I tend to wait for you in sort of dark corners because that's where you get the best view of the universe we're speeding through. And I have cool hats.

So, you see, I made this quiz. I was enchanted by the process of making it, and had great fun takng the practice run. And then I had the sad moment of realization that must happen to every first-time quiz-maker: the answers aren't a mystery. I know what my choices will point me to, when I click on the bubble on the right. I know who I will be that day. And part of the delight of the whole thing went right out the shuttle bay.

I made a second quiz, which you can find if you take the first one and then click on the "see romaryka's other quizzes" link beneath your answer. But the magic had gone right out of it. The second quiz feels flat and pointless. Pithy witticisms didn't roll off my cyber-tongue the way they did when I was planning out the first one. I don't particularly like the answers, or even the questions, and I had trouble seeing beyond the flat surface of the question to some greater meaning behind the quiz's idea.

One bonus: in making the Star Trek quiz, I came across the many moods of Wesley Crusher page, which just about restored my faith in humanity's capacity for not falling prey to the allure of stupid TV characters. And yes, I did just type that.

2003-04-22T15:36:00.000-07:00

Two Things I Want.

2. This.

1. A cookie.

2003-04-22T14:57:00.000-07:00

woo-HOOOOOO I Have One!

Ahem.
A Japanese mirror-site for my blog, with a porn link down there at the bottom, in strange characters.
Understand, I'm not encouraging you to go there. You can get all the same results here, with even less hassle (no strange characters unless I warn you about them ahead of time! Honest!). But after hearing that greg had one, I got jealous.
This is why none of the boys would play with me in 2nd grade ...

2003-04-21T14:14:00.000-07:00

Reasons it's good to watch Indiana Jones: The Temple of Doom when you're feeling overwhelmed and panicky.

1. Cool mining-car chase-scene with scenery based on roller coasters.

2. Bountiful shots of Harrison Ford's sweaty, muscular, whip-streaked back (would be better without the wounds, but hey, we take what they give us).

3. Vengeance is sweet when delivered by hungry crocodiles.

4. Things spontaneously burst into flame when Indiana talks to them.

5. When all that water shoots out of the mine and forces Harrison and friends into precarious positions on a rocky cliffside, Indiana gets drenched (natch) and his hastily-donned-for-decency khaki explorer's shirt sculpts that beautiful dorsal structure.

6. Kids doing martial arts.

7. Suspension bridges.

8. Bad computer graphics to up the morale ("Hey, look at those stick figures suction-cupped to the cliffside!").

9. Voodoo and turban-clad guys with glowing red eyes. Plus, chanting. And pits of flame. Gosh, is this a depiction of Evil?

10. Indiana Jones: topless, exerting, and rippled.

I may seem obsessed. It's probably stress.
And oh, yeah, I may just be a bit horny. Oh. I don't think I've ever uttered that particular sentence before.

I think it's Harrison Ford month on French TV ... is it his birthday or something? Last night Random Hearts was on France 2, and M6 is showing the entire series, one movie a week played recurringly at various times. Also Patriot Games was on last week, and I seem to remember another early 1990s film coming up on one of the stations in the next few days ... If only he could be topless and sweating in all of them, I would be a happier woman today.

2003-04-21T08:55:00.000-07:00

The Panic Button.

Today:

(1) I slept in - and slept well - for the first time since about the middle of Lent.

(2) I stared writing my article for the conference in Ireland (I know, I'm a procrastinating slob. But hey, at least I'm writing). So far the article is 2-1/2 pages long and none of it is good. Do I care? I'm going to Ireland!

(3) Saw Hot Guy across the street, climbed up to the high window to chat. Ended up chatting for about 35 minutes. We're going to get together for a drink on Saturday.

(4) Phoned some people I met through the new job and am seeing them tonight after Mass for a beer.

(5) Answered the mobile, even though the screen said "Identity Unavilable," and it was the taxi-driver I was supposed to go out with about 2 weeks ago. The grammar of that last sentence probably gave this away already, but I - well, I didn't go out with him that time. I chickened out. The sad truth of the matter is that I have become quite a hermit and realized I'm afraid of going out with anyone new. God, how do you start the whole stupid process over again? I'm sure there was a time in my life when dating seemed like something at least relatively normal and not scary, but for the moment it's a whole different universe full of slippery slopes. I need advice here, people. How do you do this dating thing? He's going to pick me up directly from work, so I'll do a little mascara touch-up before leaving the office, I guess. But I mean, I'm sitting here thinking, what if we have our little drink and then he brings me home and wants a kiss good-night? Do I kiss him? What if he wants more than that? Or - oh God - what if he doesn't? There must be a non-geek inside me somewhere who isn't worried about this question (and ergo not mentally hearing "Shaboopie"), but if so, she's keeping her distance and probably laughing her ass off at me. Good grief.

Anyway.

(6) Despite breaking all my Lenten resolutions I have apprently lost weight, as the NafNaf khaki hip-huggers I bought last year at some flea market or another, and which didn't stay zipped up, now stay zipped up and are even in fact a bit loose. There's hope for hips, even mine.

(7) Greg sent me this link, which pretty much made my day. Thanks, man. And thanks, Hani88 in Diaryland.

Now, if we could all work on calming Romy down about these upcoming dates ...

Oy.

2003-04-14T14:28:00.000-07:00

And because no night of pointlessness and depression is complete without a random sinister web-event ...

You are cutting

What Self-Mutilation Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

2003-04-14T11:40:00.000-07:00

As long as we're feeling Quizzillacal ...

You are Guinan.
You are cool, and you know it. You inspire
confidence by your calm manner - or is it the
feeling we get that you know everything about
everything already? You appear out of the
shadows and don't mind remaining an observer
for as long as it takes you to get all the
necessary information to step forward and take
action. Unfortunately, sometimes you wait just
a little too long and then Bad Things Happen.
The uni-name thing puts you in the same
category as Madonna, Cher, Flea and Sting.
Extra points for the cat-scratch stance with Q.
The only subtraction from your coolness is
that, being a guest character and a busy
comedienne, you remain something of an enigma
and so the only "episode" that really
focuses on you in any way is takes place after
the series ends.

What ST:TNG Character Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

2003-04-14T11:36:00.000-07:00

Radio Silence.

Hey all. It's Holy Week, and I've just started a new job, and I'm exhausted. (I don't even remember getting hausted, but there you have it.) So I won't be posting for a while. Maybe not until after Easter. Thanks for understanding ... and à bientôt. And, in case there's nothing new to read for a few days, have a very happy, saintly, and renewing Holy Week. Que Dieu vous bénisse tous et toutes.

2003-04-12T02:13:00.000-07:00

And Another Thing ...

You are Deep Space Nine. You goth, you.

What Star Trek are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Have fun!

2003-04-09T10:51:00.000-07:00

The Barrow Downs.

My Tolkien-esque name is Lonely Barrow-wight. And even though I'm as tired of these naming quizzes as all yall, I liked this one, so I thought I'd pass on the site. Et voilà.

2003-04-09T10:25:00.000-07:00

Subjects (suite)

I start writing letters I know I’ll neither finish nor throw away. I can’t bear the things the letters want to say. My hands twitch to shape words with her writing instruments, disposable fountain pens with blunted nibs from where she scratched absently at papers while staring at something else. I see her sitting in the white plastic chair by the window, sketching abstract trapezoidal forms and three-dimensional triangles and eyes of Horus, every now and again starting guiltily as she realizes she’s lost concentration again. I close my eyes tight and turn toward the window and she’s almost tangible, if I walk forward I will stumble over her foot and she’ll yelp, surprised and teasing, before remembering to sulk. A bottle of designer water, blue plastic with the label torn off. I don’t remember if it was Evian or Vittel and it strikes me that this is the kind of detail I should know by heart. Like the things she narrated at the end of the day, when she came in from walking and walking, and wouldn’t tell me where she’d gone, hair pulled back in gasps that used to be a braid, a scarf carelessly hanging from one coat pocket. Camera strap dangling from the other side pocket, or from the top of her purse. I knew she wouldn’t have any money left, she’d have bought coffee after coffee and given all her change to homeless men on the passerelles with whom she’d have had long conversations. Tears from the stinging wind, even in March, rebuilt by cold that defeated mere tourists. Her oldest shoes.

Dear Gabriel, I write, I miss you, and it isn’t right. It isn't enough. I try just, Gabriel. I try, Dear Gab. She hated it when I called her Gab, so I try just, miss you. Then I realize the problem isn’t the name but the language, the whole of the thing, and it’s too big to fix in a letter. This is the thing about me that used to drive her mad.

“You just can’t get angry at a language,” she says, exasperated.

“It’s not ‘a’ language I’m angry with, Gab, it’s language itself. What a tyrant. It’s like it knows.”

“Knows what? It’s a concept, not a dictator.”

“It’s an entity. And it knows we can’t get along without it. Like a bloody drug.”

“Plenty of people get along without drugs.” I look at her. “What? It’s true.”

I lower my eyes, raise my eyebrows. I’m giving her my disbelieving non-stare, the suspicious Gallic-shrugging glance of avoidance that says more than an encyclopedia on the subjects dividing us. I consider biting my tongue with just the tip sticking out between my lips and decide that would be pushing it. She sighs.

“We couldn’t have one conversation without it turning around on me, could we? I told you, I only take them before I run. They’re prescription. That means the doctor trusts me with them. Right? Anyway, you can’t get angry at language. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Si tu le dis, c’est que tu dois le savoir,” I respond, because I can’t think of anything pithy enough in English. If you say so.

“That sounds like you still don’t trust me, is the thing. I thought we worked through all that.”

“Some things take longer, Gabriel.”

“Whatever.” A long pause. “Anyway. Don’t give up, figure out a way to deal with it.”

“Which – words, or you starving yourself to death?”

She looks at me from under her lashes, a trick she’s had since those teenage years when every boy was a delight and every night a threat. Since before her father died, since she learned the rarity and staggering allure of violet eyes behind glasses. I’ve seen the look work on plump boys and girls, lean young men and women, watched Gabriel shrug off the ensuing gifts and concessions like a maple shrugging off its October leaves. Now she’s weighing whether or not to respond to my challenge, the most direct I’ve levelled at her in years. She considers, then decides not to match gauntlet with spear.

“Language.”

Somewhere, somehow, I’m relieved. Ashamed to be relieved. Relieved. “Deal with language.”

“Why not? You’re already bilingual. Learn a new one. What the hell, invent one or something. Words aren’t everything. Look at the Kalahari.”

“You want me to start clicking at you?”

“I think you know what I mean,” she says, drawing herself up like an indignant princess in a romance novel.

Dear Gabriel, I never know quite what you mean. If I did, would it matter? I do not write. The sheets on the blank notepad flip cinematically as the March gust from outside whips its way through the double glazing.

Stacey says, “Thank you for coming. I was afraid you wouldn’t.”

“Why wouldn’t I come?” She has smudges under her eyes like denim and her skin is pallid. Out of reflex I ask, “Have you lost weight?” and watch her roll and light a cigarette.

She blows the first mouthful of smoke over one shoulder and shakes her head. “Yeah. I’m gonna give up frites when I’m sad.”

We smile, a wry gesture that fades. She hands me an envelope and sucks on her cigarette for a moment, crosses her legs and exhales again. “This is for you. I hope you like it. I hope you won’t open it right away.”

My eyebrows arch in spite of themselves and she laughs, a harsh snare-drum of sound.

“Sorry,” I say.

“Don’t be. Family resemblance, is all.”

We sit cross-legged and silent for a moment, on the carpeting, leaning our backs against the leather couch. “How do you afford this place?” I blurt out, and blush.

“I work nights,” she says. Curtly. Pac-Man dies in my mind and I’m searching furiously for a new subject when she starts talking again.

“My parents were killed in 9-11,” Stacey tells me. “They were both investment bankers in New York. I was an only child. I own this place. Inheritance. Voilà, quoi.”

“God,” I breathe. “I’m sorry. And I know how incredibly lame that must sound. But I am really, profoundly sorry.”

“Me too,” Stacey says, and there are tears in her eyes and she reaches over to hug me and I know she needs it and I jump up, wanting to run, wanting to spot a fire in her Lyonnais kitchen, anything, anything to get away. I ask for the toilet. And suddenly I feel sick, as if to justify my cowardice, or prove it.

“God,” I say again, and swallow as the room spins. I blink, press my fingers to my temples, think of a white hill Gabriel and I used to climb up then roll down. It must have been green in the summer, I am thinking, but we called it the white hill. I don’t remember why.

The nausea passes. “Do you have anything to drink?” I say abruptly to Stacey, and she nods, more curious than hurt, and pushes herself to her feet.

“Whiskey? Red wine? Or shall we do the expat thing and have a late-afternoon Pastis?” We agree on Pastis and Stacey finds the appropriate glasses. It occurs to me that this 30-year-old vieille fille has a drinks cupboard that rivals the one my grandparents tended religiously in the 1950s. She has more glassware than they ever dreamed of, barring specials on receptions at Windsor Castle. The shapes, convex and concave and cylindrical and belled, reflect her face as she leans in to grab two Pastis tumblers by the rims. Her fingers are long and slender, her grip firm.

“You tended bar?” I ask.

She doesn’t turn around. “Six years. Part time. In Boston, San Francisco, and Oxford. Then I tried my hand at decorating and then I came here. No work, too depressing. Too many memories. Water?”

I nod. She can’t see me. “No,” I say.

“Ice cubes?”

“Two.”

“Got it.”

“Where did you meet Gabriel?”

Does her back stiffen? What story did they invent for their families? Or – I correct myself, knowing more now about Stacey – for Gabriel’s family, for me?

“Church,” she says. I know automatically this is not a lie, nor a facile response. I even know, somehow, what it costs Stacey to utter the words.

My dearest Gabriel, how could I be blind to so many things?

Gabriel. Heart. Can you tell me what I can do to make things not quite so ... hopeless ... for you? Guide me, a little? Can you intercede, let me feel what you were seeking?

Dear Gabriel, please forgive me.

Paper flapping like brittle bat’s wings, I turn out the light and let Stacey fall nearer.

2003-04-08T22:40:00.000-07:00

Whelmed, Gruntled, and Trepid.

The Journal Generator will help you express yourself during those in-between days when you're plain out of highs and lows (and anything remotely interesting to say). As Greg would say, please enjoy responsibly.

2003-04-08T09:23:00.000-07:00

April Showers ...

You know that old saying, "it never rains but it pours"? And that other one, "it's raining men"? I was trying to come up with a double-header of a pun but just managed the title of this entry and figured I'd trust yall to, you know, get it.

So. Friday evening Jean-ny Depp and I make tentative plans for a weekend from now, and I'm as jazzed as Roxie Hart. Saturday, no incidents (no accidents, either, which is a relief).

Sunday morning. I'm on my way to Mass, carefully balancing my overstuffed polyphony-notebook, missal, photocopied Holy Week schedules, and various virtues. You know how it is.

And I'm running a bit late, so I'm kind of hurrying through the cobblestone streets of Vieux Lyon on my way to the church. About halfway there, I dart out in front of a taxi and nearly lose my tenuous grip on all my piles of paper. (In case you know me personally, by the way, you should be familiar with the balancing act ... and its occasionally disastrous consequences.) I turn and wave an abashed "thanks for not killing me" to the taxi driver. And keep hurrying on. After another half-block, I feel like someone is following me, and turn around, and it's the taxi. And the driver leans out the window, says "where are you headed," and offers me a ride. Ok, I know this is the point where most good Catholic girls (or just, you know, your generic smart woman of the modern age) turn and shake their heads tolerantly as they put distance between themselves and the unknown male voice. But well, whatever. Lent is almost over, and I am tired of being a good Catholic girl. Or I figured I had some graces coming my way since I was en route to Mass. Or something. So I got in.

Somehow we ended up exchanging phone numbers, me figuring he wouldn't call anyway because, whatever, who calls the people they pick up en route to Mass? It's not exactly well-known as a pick-up hot spot. But he called, and we're going to the movies tomorrow.

Go ahead, tell me I'm making a weird decision. I started a new job on Monday, I'm writing again, I have two dates in two weeks, and I'm going to Mass right now. Somehow things feel better than they have in a good long time.

2003-04-05T09:19:00.000-08:00

Move Over, Gilbert Grape.

Johnny-Depp-esque Hot Guy just leaned out his window, as usual around this time of day. He didn't have a cigarette, and because I'm starting to feel like (a) the Pictionary definition of sludge (I am in this computer chair closer to always than I care to admit) and (b) a stalker, I didn't look over right away. Then I did, because well, hey, it's Hot Guy. And um. He gestured for me to open my window.

Ok, the 12-year-old dork in my brain is screaming "OMIGODomigodomigod! He like totally wants to talk to me! What do I do??"

Fortunately, I haven't been 12 in a very long time (yeah, okay, shut up, I know I'm old) and so I casually swept the pictures and Diet Coke bottles (and telephone) out of the way and opened the window and leaned out. Casually with a trembling hand and wondering frantically if I have time to do a teeth-check for anything really noticeable, like basil or pepper or half a banana peel, because you just never know.

I should perhaps mention that this particular window hasn't been opened since last July, when the Sapeurs-Pompiers (your basic French Paramedics) broke in through it to see if I was alive. It has since been through a series of neglected stages, involving brown duct tape and computer paper while I waited for the window-repair guy to find time to fix it, a monstrous stack of dissertation research books, and finally, aforementioned pictures, Diet Coke bottles and telephone. (And while I'm still sort of on the subject, in case you're ever planning your own unsuccessful demise, you might want to leave the window open just a teensy little bit, because on the off chance that you're still alive to have it fixed after the paramedics break it to make a brave though anticlimactic rescue, you're going to have to shell out a damn arm and leg for that new glass pane. Word to the wise.)

We introduced ourselves, said how silly it was to live within shouting distance and not know each other's names. And he said he'd passed by one time around the beginning of January, left a note saying "Happy New Year." Of course, I was in California, having my thesis printed and bound (and gorging myself on Taco Bell, but I might just have left that part out). And then he invited me over. Next weekend he won't be around. The weekend after that, though, I just may have a date.

Now my inner sk8r boi is all, "Whoa."
(Never mind, that was my inner Keanu. I try not to listen to him; he's very rarely articulate.)

The sk8r boi is going, "Dude." The 12-year-old geeky girl is kicking the ground and blushing. But the worldly lady in me (I knew she had to be there somewhere) is nudging me with her elbow and suggesting that "passed by" is a very low-key way of saying "I climbed 5 flights of stairs to leave you a note." And even though it's a bit crowded in my head with all these inner people, I think I might keep this one around for a while. At least for another couple weeks.

2003-04-04T14:26:00.000-08:00

Developing Plans.

I start a new job on Monday.
Holy Week is literally right around the corner.
I'm tired almost all the time.
I have an article to write by the end of the month so I can read it aloud at a conference at the beginning of next month, and I actually bought the non-exchangeable non-refundable ticket today so I'm going to the conference, so I have to write the article.
Naturally because life is complicated and very very long this week has pretty much consisted of an homage to things that suck. Here are some good points:
- several phone conversations with a Benedictine monk-priest I've never met in person but who shares concern for a troubled teenager we both know
- good ambiance at Thursday's choir rehearsal, even if there were only 8 people there (of the 20-some choristers)
- reconciliation
- listening to Diana Krall singing "Love is Where You Are" and the entire Vienna Teng album.
- getting inspired to write something non-academic (posted separately)
- I love my mom.

2003-04-04T14:25:00.000-08:00

Subjects.

Stacey is sitting, kneeling, on the carpeting in her apartment's living room, one of those photo-storage boxes open in front of her. She looks distant.

“Did you know she only took pictures of people if there were funny wall-paper patterns behind them?” she says. I shake my head. “She said people are terrible subjects by nature. She said it took wall-paper to make a good picture.”

“Wall-paper.”

“Well. Background. You know.”

“Mmm.”

We look at a few pictures: diagonals of Coke Classic bottles against a jaundiced beige background and Stacey and her mom, Sherlock Holmes heads in striated patterns of red, orange and black, the word “METRO” in sea-green cascading in 3D across fake-marble tile and Stacey’s dad, tree trunks repeated and superimposed like an optical illusion.

“I never knew wall-paper could be so … varied,” I say.

“Patterns were her passion,” she says.

The light blinks on the answering machine back at my apartment, and when I hit the “play” button Etienne says a brisk “hey” and tells, no, orders, me to call him because he’s sick of leaving messages. He uses the imperfect subjunctive. I hit the “stop” button and Etienne disappears. The phone rings right then and I jump then laugh at myself, embarrassed for being startled and then embarrassed for laughing at myself alone in my apartment. The machine picks up and it’s my mom and she says “hello …? Are you there …? Pick up …” and I don’t because my head hurts and because suddenly I’m overwhelmingly tired and because I don’t feel like it.

I go to the couch because it feels more justifiable than the bed because it’s the middle of the day. I lie down and twist the clear plastic handle on the blinds and
the light filters through in trickles, not light and not dark just shadowy dimness like an a-minor chord or the dark-green undersides of leaves. I close my eyes but that makes the world tilt like the deck of a boat that has already surrendered to sinking and so I open them again and stare at nothing, the blank walls I realize I should dust; there are spider-webs hanging at the horizon of wall-paint and ceiling-paint. I realize the thing between the wall and the ceiling is a baseboard, and I also realize I don’t know what to call a baseboard when it’s up just underneath the ceiling, and I also realize my lips are moving and it takes a great effort to stop them and I close my eyes again and let the tilt of the world carry me under.

At 14h30 Mark and his wife are at the door and they’re very kind about my having slept through our lunch date. Coralie takes my hand with both of hers and looks at me limpidly and says, “we’re both so sorry for your loss.” Her eyes are very sincere, wide and gentle, like the eyes of a cow, and I laugh and manage after a strange look passes between them to turn it into a strangled cough.

“Thanks,” I tell Coralie. “You’re very kind. Really. Would you two like something to drink?”

I open the refrigerator on a selection of cheap white things – generic milk, generic Martini, generic chilled wine in a litre-box with a plastic snap-lid. The milk has expired. I push it to the back of the drinks shelf and rearrange things. “Or I probably have some Bourbon around here somewhere. Or I could make coffee.” As long as you don’t take milk in it.

Mark smiles, shrugs. “A Martini sounds good.” Coralie nods.

I pour the drinks and dig around at the backs of the fridge shelves until I find the Tupperware of spicy olives I bought last week at the marché. I scrape mold off the top layer and dump the olives into a bowl. We go sit on the couch in the dim front room. I turn the handle on the blinds and the afternoon cracks through in neatly defined rows.

“I don’t really have much to offer you guys,” I say, feeling lame. “My clémentines went bad. And I finished the crackers last night. But here are some not-too-moldy olives.” I don’t tell them, I’ve eaten nothing but cold cereal for two weeks and vomited most of it back up, so even the bit about the crackers is a lie. I’m living on a diet of multi-vitamin pills that fizz when you drop them into water, and canned pineapple.

“We didn’t come so you would feed us,” Mark says heartily. Coralie leans forward, one hand holding her drink stable on her kneecap. I notice her nails are perfectly shaped and manicured, that new French thing with white just at the tips and the rest of the nail coated in some pastel color. Hers are pale blue, a February sky at dawn before the clouds come to turn it white. I’m tired.

“We wanted to see how you’re doing,” Coralie says, “I mean, really doing. You’ve been such a soldier.” She touches my shoulder. I only realize I’ve flinched when she pulls her hand back slowly.

“Sorry. I’m tired,” I say lamely.

“You have,” Coralie says emphatically, “absolutely nothing to apologize for.”

“Good Lord, no!” Mark adds, and as I look at them I’m pretty sure they’re both on the verge of tears, and if I keep sitting here with them and their sympathy that takes up the space of two other people I will crack down the center. I picture my skin splitting like a suit with badly-sewn seams, only instead of the muscles and cartilage and tendons and blood inside all being exposed the suit peels back over an empty shape like one of those Magritte paintings of a man-shaped nothing. I get up and go back to the kitchen and open cupboards, looking for chips, biscuits, mustard, goat cheese, anything. I find an old sleeve of Cracottes and some chutney, and arrange the stale Cracottes on a paper plate with the chutney in the middle. Presentation, you learn when you’re forced to turn cocktail relics into a meal, is everything.

“Why don’t you come stay with at the house for a few days?” Mark asks. “Get out of the city, change your ideas a little.”

I smile without answering. Coralie leans forward again but keeps her hands pressed together in her lap. “We’d so love to have you. The twins can double up in the baby’s room and you can have their room. It’s even clean, or mostly. And you know the boys would love to see you.”

“Look, you’re very kind,” I tell them.

“Don’t refuse right away,” Coralie pleads. “Think about it. There’s so little we can do to help.”

“I’ll think about it,” I say. We all stand up. There is nothing left in the olive bowl but pits and oily thumbprints. Even the stale Cracottes are gone. It is time for Mark and Coralie to go. He has work still this afternoon and she has to pick up the twins at school. As they step out onto the sidewalk I hold the door in one hand and embrace each of them in turn. I’m thinking how lucky I am to have such friends and how I’m really not a soldier but a shit inside because I can’t wait to close the door and close the blinds again and pour another generic Martini and not have to talk to them anymore, preferably not ever, certainly not today.

2003-03-31T22:51:00.000-08:00

The Rungs are Greased.

The past few months have felt like a long game of Chutes and Ladders. Remember this one? You roll the dice, if you're lucky enough you climb a ladder to a higher level that puts you closer to winning, go forward a few steps, and - hoplà, you're on the long slide backwards to some place before where you started. Sometimes you're that much closer to the big finish, and sometimes you just have to dust off your butt where you landed and wait your turn to roll the dice again.

Last night: major chute. This morning: no ladders in sight.

I don't have the energy to keep climbing and falling. It's too hard. The touchstone who used to talk me down from the precipice doesn't want the responsability, and I'm not not up to starting over with someone new. I should have sat down on the ledge and waited for morning. It didn't turn out that way (I guess it rarely does). From this vantage point the climb looks formidable, last night's drop sickeningly familiar. Everything aches and my heart is numb. And I blew a light bulb and am out of Band-Aids.

Sorry. I have nothing worthwhile to say today. Go read something else.

2003-03-29T14:04:00.000-08:00

Advice For the Young at Heart.

Not exactly a guest post à la Cheeks et al. Recently oneactor asked me what life-advice I would give to his four-year-old granddaughter, knowing I could choose only one thing. I passed the question along to a bunch of people I know, and here are some of the responses ...

Advice to a Four-Year-Old Girl:

*take your time - you can never really do something over again, and you can never ever really take anything back.

*Whenever possible, play nice with others.

*"Never lose sight of what you love most and never doubt your ability to make the choices that are right for you."

*Trust people. The costs of occasional betrayal are not nearly as high as the costs of walling out the world.

*que tu sois honnête. (Pour plus d'information voir de Navarre, Marguerite: l'Heptaméron.)

*I think that when it comes to life advice, you can't beat "actions speak louder than words."

*je lui dirais que tout en respectant les autres, il faut d'abord qu'elle se respecte elle-même et qu'elle pense à ses propres intérêts.

*je lui dirais tout simplement, sans tergiverser : Aime le bon Dieu de tout ton coeur, en toutes tes petites et grandes actions et pensées : c'est en faisant Sa volonté que tu connaitras le vrai bonheur, celui qui ne passe pas. et même à 4 ans, une petite fille peut le comprendre !

*I would tell any 4-year old child, "You have only one life to live. Live it well. Do for others, and do for you. Reach for the stars."

*Don't be afraid to love, and be lavish in giving your love to others!!

*hard to say. and then, maybe not hard at all, and it's only my senses that are a little numb ...
anyhow, the first thing that came to my mind - however banal - was: love. all the different dimensions of it. can you get an abstract thing like that across to a four year-old? i'm sure there are ways. they may not be verbal, though.

Thanks to everyone who responded.

2003-03-29T00:45:00.000-08:00

Saints I'm Glad I Wasn't Named After.

Gladys. "Wife of Saint Gondlée, she led him a hard life through her many infidelities. After his death, she converted and lived the rest of her days as a hermit." A shining example to follow. Can't live with him, can't kill him and leave him by the side of the road ... sleep around, he'll die eventually and then you can head off to that grotto you've always dreamed of.

Gleb. Actually kind of a cool story, involving a Russian royal dispute of Lear-esque proportions and three brothers claiming sovereignty over the kingdom. Armies gathered in defense of each brother, but Gleb called his off, saying he couldn't raise arms against his brothers. One of his brothers kills him, it's all very noble, and blahblahblah. Hello, his name was Gleb.

Pecta Parasceva. Another cool story, marred by some unfortunate words, uttered by the saint herself. The pious and lovely Pecta was buried in an unmarked place near Katikravia, and centuries later "an old sinner" was likewise buried near her resting place. Pecta appeared in a vision to a local Bulgarian monk and admonished him: "Take that stinky corpse away from me. I am light and sun, and I cannot bear to have near me darkness and stench." Good old-fashioned Christian charity, folks.

Genitus. Just think about it. Catholic school kids at the end of the day: "Mary, Mother of God, pray for us. Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us. Saint Genitus ..." [snicker, snicker] "Saint Genitus ..." [And the prayers dissolve into howls of laughter as the nun claps her hands sharply but to no avail.]

Cher. A doctor in Alexandria, tortured and martyred for his faith along with his wife and three daughters. Can you picture the scene?
- Roman Soldier: You will pledge allegiance to Caesar and renounce the teachings of Jesus Christ!
- Cher: But I am a Christian!
- Roman Soldier: And what's all this about rhinoplasty? Renounce, vermin, or you'll go down just like Jesse James!
- Cher: Listen, Sonny, that surgery was necessary for respiratory reasons!
- Roman Soldier: Abandon this false prophet and declare allegiance to Caesar!
- Cher: I won't renounce - I'm a Christian - I believe ... !
- Roman Soldier: Get ready for the rack. I got you, babe.

Verylde. "Sister of Saint Gudule. Niece of Saint Gertrude of Nivelles. After making a private vow of virginity, she was forced into marriage with a wealthy nobleman. Her husband insisted that she was married to him, and her sexual fidelity was owed to him, not God. Physically abused for her refusal to submit to him, and for her late night visits to churches." Secrets and lies, no sex, no videotape. Plus, bad names seem to have run in the family.

Teath. About the saddest statement in the whole saint catalogue: "No details of her life have survived." There's even confusion over the spelling of her name (Teath vs. Tetha).

Zdislava Berka. Patron of unhappy marriages and people ridiculed for their piety. If it weren't for the difficult consonant combination in her name, she'd be ideal. Everyone's name should have a Z in it somewhere. Plus, just think of the Scrabble potential. That is, you know, if Saints were allowed in Scrabble.

Winnoc of Wormhoult. (Patron saint of whooping cough.) The answer's in the question.

And, last but definitely not least, ...

Bugga. (Also known as Gaudurge, Vaubourg, or Walpurga, though I'm not sure those are better.) "Patronage: against coughs, against famine, against plague, against storms, Antwerp, boatmen, coughs, dog bites, harvests, hydrophobia, mad dogs, mariners, plague, rabies, sailors, storms, watermen." So, she's the patron saint both against coughs and of coughs? against plague and of plague? Bugga likes to keep things even, apparently, not give unfair advantages to any one side. The day her relics were transferred to Eichstatt, 1 May, is Walpurgisnacht, and happens to coincide with a pagan festival, so she's become associated with witchcraft. Poor Bugga. I mean, first the name thing, and then the pagans ...

2003-03-26T15:13:00.000-08:00

At First Sight.

I want to tell you a little bit about this man I know, Jean-Pierre, who lives in Lyon.

He's not my neighbor. He's not hot. I saw him in glasses the other day and he reminded me of the librarian from my elementary school who dyed her hair with something lavender. Plus, I think he stole the glasses. I don't know where he comes from. I don't know if Jean-Pierre is his real name.

Most of the time when I see him, he is standing on the steps of my church. You have to close your eyes and imagine the scene. The women wear long pleated navy-blue skirts, simple blouses in floral or plain fabrics, solid-color cardigans; they tie diaphanous scarves around their necks or have their husbands clasp pearl necklaces before leaving for church on Sundays. The men: understated charcoal-grey sports coats with slacks, or else dark olive-green corduroys and tweed jackets. These are the respectable people, the clean people, the people who live well and wisely. They teach their children to kneel when crossing before the tabernacle, to fold their small knuckly hands as they stick out their pink tongues for the Host. Their tradition reaches back at least as far as Charlemagne, possibly as far as Irenaeus. Many of them have names with honorifics - one of my friends is married to a descendant of de la Rochefoucauld. Some of them have names with multiple honorifics (I met a seminarian of Lyonnais origin a couple summers ago, whose family name was Saint-François de Déodat de Freddeville. His first name has since fallen outside my memory traps). Most of them have known each other's families for decades, and when they meet on the church steps their lexicon intricately mixes current events, ecclesiastical or otherwise, and inside information dating back several generations. On Sundays, they kiss each other warmly on each cheek, much as their parents and grandparents must have done, and exchange updates. Births. Deaths. Marriages. They gleam with post-Mass purity, cleanliness, wholesome family values, the graces of the good fortune into which they have been born and birthing since Lyon was the primary See of Gaul.

Jean-Pierre holds himself slightly apart from the well-dressed bourgeois Lyonnais crowd. He mingles occasionally, but as he passes through the turnstiles of shoulders and elbows something clicks in people's minds and they edge nervously away. Is it his coat? (Calf-length, battered grey wool; with holes under the arms and along parts of the hem.) Or his teeth? (He doesn't have any.) His odor? I've never noticed one. It might be the litre-bottle of cheap beer he carries with him. Or his tendency to break into raucous song - in gutter-wise Arabic. (I'll let you imagine how well that goes over with the cautious mamans et papas of a traditional Catholic community in immigrant-phobic France.) Or his propensity for responding to dialogues you weren't aware were taking place. He nods his head eagerly, emphatically, and repeats your (or his own) statement: "C'est ça, oui, oui, exact; la vie est dure, c'est ça, mhmmm-hmmm." Much of the time he ends up getting rather pushed to one side because clean people fear him. And because he pushes back.

In fact I think it's his eyes. They unsettle people. Jean-Pierre has unsettling eyes. They are deep brown, gentle, when he's sober and calm. But always adrift, like scrap metal trapped in an ice floe. His heart full of confusing debris, mirrored in his gaze. Distant.

Sometimes when he's happy he sings. Jean-Pierre has a beautiful voice, rusted by hand-rolled cigarettes and drink but otherwise mellifluous and rich in timbre.

One day I saw him dancing. He was literally blooming with delight because he had new shoes. (Old shoes, but in good condition and new to him.) One of the pastors in one of the parishes that pad the 2e Arrondissement took pity on Jean-Pierre's feet in their glued-together vinyl loafers, more cracks and fissures than shoe, and searched through the donation bag until he found a pair of shoes for Jean-Pierre. A pair that fit, with laces (not buckles), well-tended cordovan (not black). They were perfect shoes. It was a perfect day. I sat down on the stoop next to Jean-Pierre's spot that day and listened to him sing. For that afternoon, he was better than Gene Kelly.

I don't know, precisely, what happened that derailed Jean-Pierre's life; he has spoken of an accident, back in 1990 or so, for which he appears to blame an evil spirit he calls "Mamie." (This is a confusing name for an evil spirit, as it also happens to be a term of endearment for Grandma.) If I tell Jean-Pierre I will keep him in my prayers he scoffs and waves a hand dismissively. He doesn't love God, he says, but in one of his coat pockets he carries a laminated image of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus (Thérèse de Lisieux) and from time to time he talks to Theresa, the Little Flower. He can quote her: "Aimer, c'est tout donner, et même donner soi-même," he says proudly. Love means giving everything, even oneself.

Last July I spent a few days in the hospital, and missed seeing Jean-Pierre for our weekly trip to the convenience store to buy him fruit-flavored yoghurts and a plastic spoon. When I saw him next he seemed miffed. He was thin, and talking loudly alone on a street corner, and his eyes didn't focus on me right away when I called his name. I apologized for my absence, explained I had been ill. "Fatiguée," I told him, not wanting to go into too many details. His eyes filled with tears. "It's terrible, being alone," he said, and it would have been a non-sequitur from anyone else, but from him it made perfect sense.

2003-03-24T01:10:00.000-08:00

I Want You to Know ...

Thank you for always knowing when to come and interrupt my reading and comfort me in the night.
I hope I have always told you how beautiful you are, and that you believe it, and know I mean it from the deepest place in my heart.
I promise to keep telling you. Always.
I promise never to leave you for long. Even when I have to go to the hospital for a while. I will come back. And in the meantime I will make sure you are surrounded by people who love you almost as much as I do.
I will dance around with you - gently - to the theme from ER.
The past eleven years of my life would have been much emptier without you.
Thank you for always perfectly being just exactly who you are.
I love that you trust me enough to sleep with your hands in my hand; to play in front of me without being embarrassed about feeling playful; to recognize my footsteps on the stone stairs and talk to me from the other side of the door when I come home; to love the people I love.
Sometimes there is a scary noise in the kitchen, when the dishes finally settle into the drying rack or the water heater burps : I will protect you.
I can't imagine my world without you.
Every day I pray for peace, and I give thanks for my family; for the many blessings God has poured into my small life despite my innumerable flaws (and my apparent determination to not deserve anything good); for the abbés who direct my soul; for the friends who stick around despite years and distance and, well, my stupidity and stubbornness; and for you. You are more constant than most of the rest of it, and more consistently loving.
Thank you for knowing just where and when to kiss me, and how to make the various hurts stop for a while.
Thank you for loving me through the changes and the many moves.
I love knowing that for you, wherever I am is home; because for me, wherever you are is home.
I wish I could make this world better enough that you could trust it, and never have to worry about war or pestilence or famine (the fourth horseman I can't do anything about except promise I will stay by your side for as long as God permits us to be together).
You remind me daily of what is beautiful and why, and how to see it, and how to look.
I hope I have given you the things necessary to make your life worthwhile, and not done too many things wrong.
I promise you will never ever ever lose your place in my heart.

2003-03-22T03:17:00.000-08:00

Things I've Learned From Playing Online Scrabble.

The letter H is like a talisman, efficient and rewarding when well placed.

The letter V is H's evil twin.

A little gentle competition promotes better relationships with family and friends.*

Several 2-letter words exist that appear surprising upon first glance but come in handy when you're stuck for a play: SH, KA, WU, QI, and JO are just a few preliminary examples.

People in Thailand play Scrabble.

When you open your personal net-Scrabble site in the morning, and find that every single one of your opponents has played sometime after the last time you checked, so you have about 11 games to play, that's a good day.

At the end of the game, somebody always gets stuck with the leftover Is. There are usually at least 3 of them. Getting rid of them requires measures just shy of an exorcism.

Scrabble is a useful morale tool in the hospital because it takes up a good part of the afternoon between the time you realize nobody is coming to visit you and 6 p.m., when Stargate comes on.

Online Scrabble with your mom, accompanied by a nice cuppa and some cookies, is sometimes better than a date who takes you out to a gourmet restaurant.

Real-life Scrabble: pressure, time limits, increasingly annoyed opponents, ergo shitty word compromises in the interests of time. Online Scrabble: play in your PJs, no time limits, better vocabulary.

Two words: QAT. SUQ.

*Unless said family and friends smack you with 3 triple-word-score zingers that use all 7 letters and get the 50-point bonus in the space of a game. That dims things a touch.

2003-03-21T15:45:00.000-08:00

Equinox.

21 March 2003.

Fête de Saint Benoît (France), Bienheureuse Clémence (France); Saint Euda (UK).

I slept in today! I actually heard my alarm go off somewhere around 6h30 and told it to piss off. It, being an alarm clock (and of a notably unreceptive temperament when it comes to heeding my urinary-relocation requests), continued to chirp and screech. So I got out of my bed (that is, I groaned my way up off the mattress stuffed into the bed-space provided by my very cool bedframe, which would be ever so much cooler as beds go if the box-spring that came with the frame fit through the trapdoor in my downstairs ceiling so I could get it into the mezzanine which is now my bedroom), stomped across the (cold) floor in (cold) bare feet, and stooped before the alarm (it's positioned at the angle of the place where the roof slants down into the supporting wall of my mezzanine, so even I can't stand upright in front of it). I considered resetting it for half an hour, maybe even 45 minutes, later, and then before I knew what it was doing my hand reached out and snapped it off altogether.

I went back to sleep for an hour and ten minutes. When I got up, I didn't have time to run. I barely had time to warm up coffee. But I felt smug and rested.

Felix Verna, world. I'm going to climb my ladder and go to mattress now.

2003-03-19T00:51:00.000-08:00

Philic Revision.

This morning I turned on the radio (instead of immediately rushing to the cache of downloaded funky songs on my computer that make me want to move my ass in the mornings), histoire de having some outside news, given that the world is becoming increasingly newsworthy.

Well, I missed the news part, but the song playing swept me right back to high school and the time my choir performed a Phil Collins medley at a concert. The medley strung together excerpts from "Against All Odds," "Sussudio," "Invisible Touch," "In The Air Tonight," and "Billy Don't Lose My Number." It was pretty catchy, and I'm sure I'd have a fonder memory of the whole thing if we hadn't also been choreographed into bizarre swirling formations - involving stairs and a scaffolding and an eventual conga line around the back of the auditorium - that made it literally impossible to sing while moving, or to take the thing seriously. The really redeeming feature had nothing to do with the medley or the choreography, but came from my best friend back then, Kim, who altered certain crucial lyrics. Her salacious replacements changed the whole character of choir, and I thought I'd share the highlights with you ...

*"Take a look at me no-o-ow, there's nothing but empty PANTS ..."
*"Now there's this girl that's been on my BED, all the time, whoa-oh, Sussudio ... She HAS A STUPID na-a-me, but I think she'll BANG ME just the same, whoa-oh, Sussudio ..."

If Kim thought of something for "In The Air Tonight" I've forgotten it. I don't think she did, though; the song is just creepy enough to escape alteration.

For "Billy Don't Lose My Number" it wasn't so much the words as the way we would sing them, "making it dramatic" as our choir-director-slash-melodrama-choreographer-coach instructed on a regular basis. "BILLY!" (the syllables rapped out sharply like staccato notes on a bugle) "Billy, DON'T lose my number!" (teenaged faces twisted into expressions of anxious empathy) "'Cos you're not ANYWHERE that I can FIND YOU!" (make the audience think this is a Fate Worse Than Death) ... I hope you get a sufficiently haunting picture.

Finally, and the trigger for all this Collinsism today, I bring you to the one phrase that gets resuscitated every time the song comes on the radio. "She seems to have that INVISIBLE TOUCH, yeah, she reaches in, and grabs right hold of your DICK!"

So, despite the time I took too much cold medicine and fell asleep in the alto section, or the time we collided on the scaffolding erected [heh ... erected] as part of the concert's "scenery" and ended up with bumps on our foreheads that lasted at least a week ... even despite the All-District Patriotic Song-Fest for which we had to wear those horrible red blouses and white skirts (polyester. Even the 4th-graders snickered at us ...), I'd like to thank Kim for making choir a memorable and tolerable experience.

2003-03-18T12:25:00.000-08:00

So, this guy walks into a bar.

He's had a long day. He's tired. He sits down on the barstool, nods his head a little to the guy playing some sweet blues at the dinky piano, and orders himself a cold one. The glass is frosted. The foam is perfect. He sits back contented, slides a fiver across the bar (enough for the beer and a generous tip), and prepares to take a sip of the beer.

Just as he's reaching for the glass, a small monkey, cackling maniacally, swings down from an overhead rafter, pees into his beer, and swings, chattering, away again.

The guy, the tired guy, is dumbfounded. "Anybody else see that?" he asks, but nobody answers. He looks around. Life at the bar seems to be continuing as usual, the same raucous discussions, the same plinkety piano keys just out-of-tune enough to make the hair rise on the back of your neck. Nobody appears to have seen the monkey swing by for a quick pee. "I can't drink this!" he sighs, "that monkey just pissed in it. Disgusting." He resigns himself to calling the bartender over, sending the first beer back and ordering another.

The glass is frosty. The foam is still snapping and settling as he takes his wallet out to pay for the second drink. He pulls out a few singles and pays the bartender, who gives him a somewhat frosty look and wanders off. The tired guy sits back, looks carefully around him, on the alert for sneaky monkeys, and reaches for his beer.

From overhead comes a shrill chattering sound, kind of like crazed laughter, and the monkey drops down out of the rafters. He lifts a leg over the guy's beer glass, pisses geometrically into the already-amber liquid, and scuttles away.

"What, nobody saw that? The same monkey? What the hell kind of bar is this, anyway?" the guy says, realizing he's yelling, and angry. Bar noise - conversations, bad music, various squabbles, pool games - covers the crescendo in his voice. "Bartender!" he calls. "What's the deal with the fucking monkey?" The bartender looks at him like he's crazy and intimates he had better drink or order, or get off the proverbial pot. The guy grumbles, but shoves the second beer back across the counter, fucking undrinkable disgusting unhygienic lousy-ass hole in the wall shit house bar, and demands a new one. He flings a couple singles on the counter and stares the bartender down until the new beer, in its fucking stupid frosty glass is set down before him.

He grabs the beer, swings it toward his mouth in a smooth, quick arc, intending to guzzle as much of it as possible and thus stave off any simian-bladder attacks. As his arm is halfway between the bar and his mouth, though, he hears the cackling, and then the monkey sweeps quickly through, releasing a stream of perfectly aimed pee right into the beer glass. The guy swears, throws the beer to the floor, and looks all around him, spraying spittle as he shouts questions.

"Bartender! Bartender!" The bartender won't look at him. Other patrons are too involved in their own daily dramas to care about his - they must think - psychotic visions. I mean, who ever heard of a monkey intentionally pissing in one guy's beer in a random urban bar? "This isn't fucking serious! Did nobody see what just happened here?" He swivels around on his barstool and catches the piano player's eye.

The piano player nods, in time with the music.

"Man, this is the weirdest place I've ever been to," the guy says. "Do you know that monkey that keeps popping up out of nowhere to piss in my beer?"

And the piano player shrugs and says, in a mellow way, "No, but if you whistle a few bars I can fake it ..."

2003-03-18T11:41:00.000-08:00

Ruby Tuesday

Today. I went running around 11 a.m., forcing myself to feel motivated. This self-forcing was perhaps in error, as I had just consumed a rather large bowl of coffee (complete with fly ... see previous post) and my meds. I ran for about 20 minutes, then turned around to come home. I felt nauseous. And a guy walked past me along the quais, eating a sandwich.

He. Was. Putting. Bread. And. Salami. Into. His. Mouth.

Instantly my stomach lurched up into my throat and I just barely made it to the concrete railing (that keeps pedestrians on the quai walkway and not, for example, falling into the Saône) before losing an entire bowl of fly-flavored-medication-flavored coffee. Absolutely disgusting. This is my problem with running. When I run a lot, I throw up. A lot. Sometimes in public. Believe me, it's worse than public crying jags, if only because of the watch-out-I'm-gonna-hurl noise that issues from my abdomen-throat connecting region just prior to the aforementioned hurling.

The plus side is that afterward I always feel like I could run a marathon (Anna - a training tip??) or climb a mountain or something. So I ran home, took a shower, and made rice for lunch.

Also today: I got the job I applied and was interviewed for last week. It's a summer thing. Could be extended beyond the end of September. Thanks to everyone who prayed, wished me good interviewing, or just sympathized with the whole unemployment situation.

2003-03-18T01:35:00.000-08:00

A fly just landed in my coffee.

For me, this is roughly the equivalent of that monkey in the joke who keeps swinging through the bar, cackling maniacally, and peeing in the tired guy's beer.

I am a fiend for caffeine. I have a headache this morning and I'm out of regular coffee, aside from the stuff warming up (read: burning) in the bottom of the coffee pot from yesterday, and so my first coffee of the day consists in two packets of Nescafé with just enough warm milk and boiling water to make the mixture taste a little less like Nescafé. Do you know how hard it is to mix Nescafé with milk, just right, so that it tastes like something resembling - however vaguely - coffee? It was a matitudinal feat, especially given the iron bar slamming against the insides of my skull.

My friends, I have no patience for these little flies, the little fruit ones that start appearing around my plants (and, yes, fruit) this time of year and go away finally in, like, October. They're plump and swift and you can never quite clap your hands fast enough to kill them.

I tried to warn him. I said, get out of my coffee. I said, you won't like it in there: it's hot and despite my best efforts still tastes kind of like Nescafass. I said, don't make me fish you out with a spoon. But did he listen? No he did not.

I fished him out with a spoon, flushed him down the toilet, and have since returned to my regular caffeine-consumption program.

2003-03-17T11:37:00.000-08:00

To Be Continued ...

Questions for Romy 21-40 (submitted by oneactor):

21. A genie gives you three abilities … what do you choose?
**Teleportation (it would make visiting my family a hell of a lot cheaper), healing (like, you're damaged, and I put my hand on you, and you heal), and super better-than-Cat-Woman martial arts moves.

22. The genie gives you these options. Which one do you pick?
a. The ability to fly.
b. The ability to be invisible at will
c. The ability to be able to dance like nobody’s business.
**Invisibility, all the way. I've always wanted to sneak into a cloistered monastery and observe the monks. I wonder if they get snippy when they're hungry. I sort of hope so.

23. Would you rather be a teacher or a doctor?
**A doctor. Surgeon. I can handle the blood, and my hands don't shake.

24. What is the greatest thing that mankind has discovered?
**Aside from the wheel, fire, and sliced bread? I'd have to go with penicillin. Nice going, guys.

25. Do you think there’s intelligent life elsewhere in the universe?
**Of course.

26. Do you have any loyalties that you will not break, no matter what?
**Absolutely.

27. What’s the longest you ever put off confessing something?
**17 years.

28. What was it? (Discretion is allowed – no need to be too specific.)
**I told a big fat lie and slandered someone else. To cover it, I told more and more lies, until eventually it felt like the original lie was true.

29. What do you do now that you NEVER thought you’d be doing 10 years ago?
**Do you mean, that I "never thought" I'd be doing, like I actually thought about it and said, naaaahh, I won't ever do that? In that case, I "never thought" I'd be reading comic books or wanting to improve my Latin. If you mean I genuinely had not even one itsy bitsy little thought about the thing I do now, it would probably be going to Mass 6 times a week, reading the Roman Breviary to improve my Latin, and considering giving up my worldly life to live in closer communion with God.

30. What do you do now that you KNEW you’d be doing 10 years ago?
**Menstruating. Sorry, is that too gross? I pretty much knew I'd still be writing poetry, thinking too hard about my life, playing piano.

31. Is there anything that you are 100% sure of?
**Yes.

32. What do you believe in that you doubt, even just a little?
**The doctrine, professed in 1854 by Pope Pius IX, of the Immaculate Conception of Mary (it's this retroactive kind of doctrine that means Mary was spared the stain of original sin from the moment she was conceived in her mother's [St. Anne's, in case you're curious] womb). No other human gets spared. I guess it makes sense when you consider that no other virgin gave birth. But still, I have a little trouble with it. Maybe I'm thinking too hard.

33. If you could create something from nothing, what would it be?
**For the moment, money. Ask me again once I have a job and my response will be less pedestrian. More dreamy and idealistic. You know.

34. Can you coin a new word that helps define the process by which you deal with life?
**Can you combine faith, music, escapism and panic to make a word? "Bemusanicism"? (I don't like it much.)

35. What’s the best advice you ever got?
**"Move Your Ass!" From the irascible old man behind the wheel of his gas-guzzling Buick who just about ran over me as I was riding my bike in the middle of the street.

36. What’s the best advice you’d give to my 4-year-old granddaughter?
**I was going to go all Kurt Vonnegutty on you and just say, "Sunscreen." But I decided to give my own advice, which is, Be true to your soul, be kind to others, and don't be afraid to say you're sorry. (And don't forget to floss. You'll thank me.)

37. Do you know anyone who is knowledgeable, but not very wise?
**Yes.

38. If you were to live forever, what age would you want to be, forever?
**I don't want to decide right now; I don't think I've lived long enough to fix one age in idealized resin. Look me up around 2010?

39. Would you have rather been Eleanor Roosevelt or Marilyn Monroe?
**Neither. I'd have liked to be the journalist who interviewed them both.

40. Wish you were 18 again, or glad it can’t happen?
**Oh, way beyond glad it can't happen ...

2003-03-16T06:02:00.000-08:00

An Offer I Couldn't Refuse ...

"On Sunday, Anna gets her acting together with help from Danny Bonaduce. First, check out this recap of episode two ...
Season 2 Sneak Preview."

From the Anna Nicole Show website. And to think, I had other plans ...

2003-03-15T23:42:00.000-08:00

Asked and Answered.

The first 20 questions for Romy [submitted by oneactor]:

1. If you could have written just one song, what would it be?
**Actually, I've written several, but I assume you mean songs that other people might at some point hear or have heard. So ... "I Can See Clearly Now."

2. Why France?
**I don't speak Ukrainian?

3. Can you whistle?
**Yes. By 2, my father had taught me the entire opening sequence of Mozart's 40th symphony (da-da-DA, da-da-DA, da-da-DA-DA, ...) and I whistled it everywhere we went.

4. What are YOUR four basic food groups?
**Heh, an astute question. Pasta, homemade tomato sauce with many spices (mostly basil and cayenne pepper), coffee, and cheese. (God, written out like that it looks gross.) I also like fish and chicken, and grapefruit, and endives, and plain white yoghurt ...

5. Have you ever acted in a play?
**Yes. Up the Down Staircase in junior high; Company, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and West Side Story in high school (though actually for WSS I wasn't "in" the play per se, but rather playing in the orchestra for it. You can decide if that counts). More recently, excerpts from Jean Anouilh's Antigone (in Avignon, summer, 1995).

6. If you could meet anyone who has died, who would it be?
**Jesus.

7. If you could meet any living person, who would it be?
**Elvis!

8. If you had to choose between knowledge and love, which would you choose?
**Love.

9. Is the Truth more important than Reality?
**Is there a difference?

10. If your Johnny-Depp-esque neighbor came over for dinner one evening, what would you cook?
**A chicken, stuffed with garlic and dried apricots. Also, probably rice. A salad. Fromage blanc and red fruit for dessert.

11. If you weren’t in a hurry, would you prefer taking a train or a plane?
**Definitely a train.

12. Wine, beer, or something mixed? (I know you’ve sworn off for Lent, so this is theoretical.)
**Wine.

13. If you could be any theatrical character (movie or play) for one day, who would it be?
**Jessica Rabbit.

14. Would you go with aliens, if they landed outside your apartment, and gave you the option?
**Hell yeah!

15. What book have you re-read the most?
**Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Duncton Wood by William Horwood, and Little Dorrit also by Charles Dickens (the well-known Dutch author) (just kidding) come in tied at first. After that, it's all Brontës and Zolas. Oh. And Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. I read that novel 12 times the summer after fifth grade.

16. What movie have you seen the most?
**Easy: The Rocky Horror Picture Show (probably 9 or 10 times at midnight showings in various locations around California). Aside from that, euh ... Back to the Future (4 times in the theatre), Labyrinth (4 times in the theatre); Xanadu (roughly 15 times the first summer my family had cable TV; my sister and I knew the damn thing by heart.

17. Ever had sex outside?
**Yes.

18. Ever done something that it strikes you that you should have regretted, but you don’t?
**Yes.

19. What really annoys you the most?
**Being interrupted. It makes me feel invisible, and if you've ever felt that way in a conversation with somebody, you know it hurts. Plus, it's just plain rude.

20. Which would you rather have, intelligence or imagination?
**If you mean learning or imagination, I'd definitely have to choose imagination. But with intelligence, I don't see there is much of a difference. Truly imaginative people are intelligent by nature, in ways that traditional learning doesn't take into account. If I absolutely have to choose, though, I'd still say imagination. Life is richer that way.

Next?

2003-03-15T05:55:00.000-08:00

100 Things About Me.

Just Kidding. I'm not going to do it. Not because I'm lazy or uninspired, but because I think you can learn more about me, in case the subject honestly interests you, by reading this blog every so often than by skimming a list that grows more and more annoying for us both and forces me to start including details about parts of my anatomy I'd rather you weren't familiar with. I don't think I would have a problem coming up with 100 things. (Probably, knowing me, I'd have trouble limiting my list to 100. And then someone would leave me a comment reminding me that even Wordsworth gave the advice "Simplify, simplify, simplify!" Meaning, "Shorten, shorten, shorten!")

Does it really say something meaningful about my personality that I prefer toe-socks to regular? Or that when I go through periods of intense stress (for example, 7 years of marriage), I get scabs on my head? That my musical tastes range from Christian rock (D.C. Talk, Avalon, Caedmon's Call, Jars of Clay) to musical theatre (My Fair Lady is a perennial favorite, along with just about anything by Sondheim) to 11th-century Gregorian chant? Maybe. Whatever. If you have 100 questions about me, go ahead and ask. I'll probably answer. I'm that kind of girl.

Currently listening to: Ani diFranco, "32 Flavors" (live) - it's in my "funky songs" folder of downloaded music.
Currently reading: Somebody Else: Rimbaud in Africa. Who knew his biography was so fascinating? Une Saison en Enfer by Rimbaud.
Dinking: Diet Coke (breakfast of champions).
Eating: Nope.
Cat on my lap? Yes.
Purring? No. Sleeping.
CDs borrowed from friends for self-improvement: L'année liturgique, vol. I by the monks of the Abbaye de Ligugé; Noël by the nuns of the Abbaye Notre-Dame de l'Annonciation in Le Barroux.
Favorite person this week: The woman in charge of evaluating me for my career thing.
Bizarre bolidy sensation: Shaky. Also, there is a hair down the back of my sweatshirt (slothshirt?), right in the place I can't reach no matter how acrobatic I make my arms be.
Craving: A hot dog. Go figure.
Current favorite polyphonic works: Tantum ergo by Déodat de Séverac; Dextera Domini by César Franck; Sicut Cervus by Palestrina.
Current favorite rock songs: "Waterloo" the French version by Abba (I like the irony); "Not That Kind" by Anastacia; "Venez Vers Moi" by Axelle Red; "Learn to Crawl" by Black Lab; "Live Out Loud" by Stephen Curtis Chapman.
Plans for tonight: Develop photos in my bathroom. Clean the litterbox. Cook some potatoes. Not necessarily in that order, chronologically or according to priority.

2003-03-14T12:14:00.000-08:00

Ol' Yellow Eyes.

So. I went to see Star Trek: Nemesis this afternoon, and actually sat in the dark making notes so that I could write up a decent blog entry on the subject. The only problem is, well, this was a very *dark* Trek movie, literally speaking, and sometimes my comments got written on top of each other. But, decrypting as much as possible, here goes.

On the Plus Side.

+ Gadgets!
+ When good guys in Star Trek shoot, they hit their target.
+ a Janeway appearance.
+ The line (spoken by Worf): "Irving Berlin."
+ Data.
+ Shinzon's evil smile.
+ No Q!
+ Nice use of Biblical, Shakespearian, and 1940s pop-culture quotations, not to mention subtle references to series jokes and recurrent themes.
+ Cool Romulan ships.
+ Patrick Stewart looks better and better. So does, surprisingly, Jonathan Frakes. And Gates McFadden can staple those legs onto the sides of her hips all she wants. She still rocks in uniform.
+ Deanna.
+ Bad guys are poetic. Also, they have very sensual lips.
+ Super-Data! (floating, or rather catapulting, through space toward Shinzon's ship on his noble way to save Picard).
+ When the Enterprise's windshield shattered in, I actually exclaimed "Cool!" aloud in the theatre. (This, btw, in a most American accent. It produced roughly the effect of cheering for the Dolphins while sitting in the Raiders section.)
+ Never thought I'd root for Riker. But I did. Don't know if it's character development or personal progress, but I think it counts as a plus.

On the Minus Side.

- Strange alien facial makeup reminds one of a bad version of The Crow.
- A Fistful of Datas, or: Exactly how many positronic offspring did Dr. Soong have? The guy was a cyber(netics)-whore.
- Romulan moral lessons.
- The following phrase came into my mind during the first meeting of Picard and Shinzon: "Darth Picard?" I quote.
- Data used, yet again, as a pawn.
- Overabundant use of Biblical, Shakespearian, and 1940s pop-culture allusions.
- Has no one ever told Jonathan Frakes he walks sideways?
- Not a single Picard Manoeuvre in the entire 2 hours 20 minutes of the film.
- Deanna. Was that a mental-rape scene? Have the script-writers not seen the series?
- Data's moral lessons. Did the ST:TNG people take script-writing lessons from George Lucas?
- I actually slept through the part where the movie's plot was explained.
- Was that a 9-Volt battery in the phasers?
- Picard's moral lessons.
- Dude the Obscure, or: The mere fact that Shinzon was played by a punk (born in 1977) who calls himself Thomas Hardy.

Ok, that's it for now; this blog entry happily interrupted to report a Johnny-Depp-esque neighbor sighting! And I am proud to report that I am not picking anything.

2003-03-13T15:24:00.000-08:00

A Few Other Things.

I just got inspired by Kerry and thought I would follow suit in making my own lists.

Things I Wish I Had Right Now

- the most recent novels by James Lee Burke, Michael Connelly, Laurie R. King and Anne Perry
- a job with (a) normal hours and (b) a decent salary instead of (a) no hours and (b) no salary
- better basses in my choir. and more tenors.
- my mom here to comfort me
- that friend I've known since forever, and who knows everything about me and loves me anyway, on the phone from her apartment around the corner, making plans for dinner and videos this weekend
- more than 45 euro-centimes in my bank account
- better and more generous faith
- no panic in the pit of my stomach.

Things I'm Glad I Don't Have Right Now

- worse basses
- a migraine
- a job with lots of hours and a shit salary
- all the important people in my life angry with me
- Moby Dick to read by tomorrow
- dysentery
- two pounds of tofu in the pit of my stomach
- more sopranos.

Things I'm Glad I Have Right Now

- faith
- an apartment
- good tea
- good sopranos in my choir. good tenors. very good altos. and ... motivated basses
- that friend i've known since forever and who knows everything about me and loves me anyway, even after 10 years of long-distance
- meds
- my cat
- clean undies (ok, I stole it from Kerry's list, but it's true
- a few friends close by. a few friends farther away.

2003-03-13T14:49:00.000-08:00

I need a microwave ...

... because until at least Saturday morning, I won't have time to update this blog. Hence the coffee stays cold for the moment.

Also, I really miss having a microwave. Though I've become quite an expert on reheating Chinese food in a saucepan. As long as you don't care that mu shu chicken tastes suspiciously like spring rolls (and vice versa), no problem.

Bed now. Evaluation Part II tomorrow morning. Star Trek tomorrow afternoon, then children's choir (the bigger, or at least older, children). Then I have the choice between evening activities: either I can go hear my friend Anne-Sophie sing jazz in the piano-bar section of the ENS-Sciences Spring Gala, or I can join forces with a bunch of ladies from church and go clean a house for a family whose big move is next weekend. Jazz vs. rubber gloves; Ms. Holliday and Mr. Clean. You know, I am actually torn.

A propos of none of the above, there is a soft-porn flick on TV right now. Just thought I'd share that piece of info with you.

2003-03-11T23:57:00.000-08:00

A Cheeky Post.

My coffee is cold.

2003-03-11T15:21:00.000-08:00

My Blanket and Me.

Just some stats for the moment; I'm tired and I already wrote a long post today.

Listening to: You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown soundtrack.
Drinking: Nothing.
Eating: Nothing.
Craving: Reese's Peanut-Butter Cups.
Wearing: Pyjamas (black running pants and a bright orange Gap sweatshirt I bought on the clearance rack in the men's section for 49ff).
Did I answer the phone today when it rang? Yes I did. (Pat on the back for big brave me.)
Reading: Somebody Else: Arthur Rimbaud in Africa, 1880 - 1891 by Charles Nicholl; First Comes Love by Scott Hahn.
Plans for this week: library tomorrow for medieval Gregorian manuscripts; going with Marie-Agnès to see Star Trek: Némésis on Thursday morning! (There's probably something clever I should formulate wryly about the time-delay in getting this movie to France, like "boy, they didn't beam this one over," but that's not funny even to me. Gimme a break, I'm worn out.)
In my next life I want to be Catherine Zeta-Jones. One, she's sexy with a capital triple-X and has a cool jazz voice, and two, she has a Z in her name.
Overriding feeling this moment: sick at heart, that doom-in-the-knees feeling. No immediate reason.

I'm going to immerse myself in someone else's Season in Hell and try to forget the past hour.

2003-03-11T00:49:00.000-08:00

I Don't Know and I Don't Care.

I went for my evaluation yesterday morning, the first session in a six-week career-reorientation process thing I signed up for through the employment agency. I learned some intriguing things about the whole process, and left the office feeling slightly bewildered, like Riding Hood at that decisive place on the wooded path where she has to decide between one side of the fork and the other. Either way all she can see is woods, and she has to choose between paths of unknowns. Basically the first session consisted in an interview with an employment psychologist, followed by a bunch of tests.

Here are some things I learned:

1. The blithe statement, which I am wont to repeat, "I just finished my Ph.D. and have no idea what I want to do," is only partly accurate, because in fact, when presented with a list of possible careers that includes the options plumber, accountant, door-to-door salesperson, and jewelry-repair expert, I know immediately I don't want to do that.

2. When asked for my two most important lifetime objectives, I can come up with a decent response: live truly and help other people.

3. "Novelist" is not an immediately professionalizable goal. "Conductor" is.

4. So are Secretary, Parks Maintenance Personnel, and Baker. As for Sales Manager in a Department Store, see #1 above.

5. I am not too old to choose a career, change one, or start all over again, contrary to popular (my own) belief. I saw a man in that office who had to be 60. I wanted to kiss him. (Wonder if he's single? Hmmm ....)

My two favorite tests involved spontaneous replying to questions about my work objectives and personality traits. Apparently these tests are part of a greater psychological profiling kit used throughout France and the Francophone world to determine personality types among (a) the pathologically criminal, (b) schizophrenics, and (c) the unemployed. I find it reassuring modern psychology has made such progress in the field of profile analysis that we're all lumped in together for these exercises. Anyway. The first of these presents fifteen lists of twelve career options, and you have to number them from 1 to 12 in order of preference. 1 is for something you'd really love to do; 12 is for the thing that makes you go "BOOOOOOO!!!!" And you rank them according not to your ability in any particular field but to pure reaction and desire (I like this, or BOOOOOOOO!!). This test provokes some unexpected responses. Laboratory biologist, nanny, or photographer? Horticulturist, pharmaceutical researcher, or woodworker? High-school chemistry teacher, priest, surgeon or poet? Do you know, it turns out I would rather be an orchestra conductor than a woodworker? Astonishing.

The other test made my eyes spin: on one poorly photocopied sheet of white A4 paper you see about 60 small boxes. Two adjectives in each box, numbered 1 and 2 respectively. And you have to choose between the adjectives to describe your personality traits as closely as possible. They aren't necessarily binary opposites, either; that would be too easy, and possibly too objective (chubby vs. slender, for example, or anxious vs. calm). Some of the choices that have stuck with me, 60 boxes later, are "affable (1) or decisive (2)"; "tenacious (1) or loyal (2)"; "sincere (1) or tenacious (2)"; "calm (1) or faithful (2)"; "outgoing (1) or innovative (2)"; and "decisive (1) or outgoing (2)." I will have my results on Friday morning and will report back faithfully (or calmly? I don't remember; maybe I'll do it decisively) at that point.

My least favorite test was 16 pages of multiple-choice questions, about a third of which began "Do you tend to be ..." or "Do most people see you as ..." and presented three relatively unattractive answers to choose from. (I'm afraid I checked to see if I could uniformly answer (b), hoping it would provide a handy "some of the time" or "unsure" option. It didn't. Damn test-writing bastards are at least as clever as I.) See, I am a sort of ... well, you could say divided, or uncertain, or wishy-washy, but I think we'll go with "balanced" and carry out the zodiacal metaphor in honor of my status as a Libra ... personality. Middle-of-the-road. I like to see all sides of a question. I like having multiple points of view. I sometimes have trouble making up my mind (true, unsure, or false). I'm a B kind of person. And I take things literally. If the question asks, "Do you always wash your hands before eating?" I will think long and hard because "always" is a big scary absolute word and there might just have been one time when I forgot or there wasn't any soap, and does it count as washing if all you do is get your hands wet? And what about those hand-sanitizer things they sell at Walmart, the ones you can just rub into your skin without using any soap or water at all? Is that washing? And in the end, given those possibilities and the growing margin for error in my response, I choose "I don't know" because neither "Yes" nor "No" is accurate enough. Then I look at the answer and feel like a disgusting slattern with inadequate personal hygiene, because not only do I not always wash my hands before eating, but also I don't even pay attention to the relative cleanliness or filth of my hands to begin with. And if I don't wash them before eating, what about when I go to the bathroom? (This is the point where I start to panic. Who writes these tests? This is personal. What's next - "Do you always change your underwear in the morning?" "Do you always clean your toenails over the toilet?" Whatever you answer, you're screwed - either you've got OCD worse than Jack Nicholson in As Good as it Gets, or you're gross.)

So, I overanalyze each question and end up throwing up my arms in despair and choosing a completely inaccurate, inexact response because I am worried that the psychologist will read the answers while holding the test inside an autoclave once she realizes how unkempt and unbalanced an individual she has agreed to work with.

But the worst questions aren't the absolute always/never ones. They are the questions about what other people think of me. These questions, my friends, are designed to send you weeping into your turtle's shell of insecurity. "Do most people see you as responsible?" Gosh. I don't know. This is the kind of question I deliberately don't ask people, because I'm afraid of their response: that slight blinking moment of hesitancy as they think back over the relevant facts (took her 10 years to finish her Ph.D., failed marriage, really silly on red wine, doesn't often return phone calls, gets sick a lot, unemployed, still owes me 15 cents from an ice-cream cone back in 6th grade ...) before they nod slowly. Yeah, sure. I think you're responsible. Voice quavering, I move on to the next question. Do most people see me as loyal? (Look, I am really sorry I haven't written in 4 years ... I've been ... busy ... sick ... quickly moving on ...) Am I someone people turn to for support? (Wait ... how long ago did your firstborn child suffocate underneath the family dog? And you didn't tell me? ... And after that your husband left you, became a Tantric guru and started a harem in Thiruvananthapuram? ... Why didn't you call? ... oh ...)

The testing experience rapidly deteriorates into a self-retrospective in which I suddenly remember all the letters I have put on my nightstand and let gather dust, the friends I've lost touch with, the person I promised I would call in half an hour and haven't gotten back to yet (I hope Joelle's not still waiting by the phone ... that was in 1987), the tapes I've borrowed that broke from so much use in my Walkman, the drama rehearsal I missed in high school, the many hours per day I enjoy in front of my television or computer screen instead of outside in the light and air and society, the time I did Ariane's laundry and dyed all her T-shirts blue ... and I sit there, desperately clutching for a B answer that will redeem me at least partially.

Until finally the trick of the thing dawns on me. It's the piece they leave out of the testing instructions, the Kobayashi Maru of the personality analysis. The ability to pare away extraneous opinions from your self-evaluation and settle for ignorance and apathy.

I hope that explains the title of this blog entry.

2003-03-10T09:55:00.000-08:00

Same Schütz, Different Day.
On Music and Permanents.

Lately I've been listening to less and less polyphonic music. (Rock doesn't count.) When I feel in a classical mood, I sing something or rehearse what I'm working on with my choir. If I'm not in a rehearsal mood, I reach for the growing stack of Gregorian CDs and rifle through them until my fingertips alight on the season, holiday, or major feast day of choice. This is a strange and new phenomenon in my life, because I grew up on classical music of the multiphonous variety. Mostly Mozart (and yes, just typing that phrase can make you understand why it was chosen as the title of an international music festival; it really is catchy). At the age of 2, I whistled fluently but spoke rarely; my favorite means of communication was the opening sequence of the 40th Symphony. My parents' first child - a cat - was named Wolfgang Amadeus Peters. Just to give you an idea.

In the car, as the VW's antique radio whined through the frequencies, my family hummed, sang, whistled, gave gasps of exasperation, or fretted (five people; five modes of vocal expression) along with Dvorak's New World Symphony or a Brandenburg Concerto. Beethoven and Haydn were also house standards. And despite my mother's incresingly depressed pleas, her gradual withdrawing into the virtually soundproofed back rooms of the house, and her eventual leave-taking altogether, my father - like a discordant junkie - just couldn't keep himself from the occasional Bàrtok or Shostakovic. More than once he had to rescue the heavy vinyl albums from the "Garage Sale" pile, into which they'd just happened to find their way - again. A certain natural animosity between my mother and those records built up over the years, and when the Bàrtok collection of Hungarian folksongs - a warbling, rasping, jumbled, grooved and grating collection of sounds produced by voices so foreign the living room pratically smelled of their cooking as the turntable ate centimeter by centimeter of the record - cracked, she hung a banner in the entryway and proclaimed "The Red Army Liberates Budapest Again!" to celebrate.

I will never get classical music out of my life, just as surely as I will never get the chestnut color out of my hair. No matter how much auburn, violet, cinnabar, or blackberry coloring I add, at the root I'm a brunette. (And a straight-haired one, despite chimstry's best efforts to curl me.) And deeper than the root, deeper than the follicle shape, all the way down to the twisting ladder of genetic patterns that describes everything about me, I am a musician.

Gregorian music is to classical what DNA is to henna. It predates the grandiose Baroque masterpieces most of us can hum along with in Victoria's Secret. The simplicity of voices in unison has an effect both soothing and invigorating. And when The Four Seasons on some dentist's hold music makes you wish you'd been a gondolier in Venice just so you could have kidnapped Vivaldi, beaten him to a pulpy mush and dumped the convent-school-choir director's lifeless body into the Gran Canale, the purity of expression in a monachistic Te deum laudamus eases the frown lines around your brow and unknots your scapulae, and you can breathe deeply again.

Sometime in the late 1980s, Enigma made Gregorian chant cool with their first album, MCMXC A.D. Soon after Enigma's début, into the popular consciousness came the monks of Santo Domingo de Silos, with their own mass-marketed (and international prize-winning) Gregorian CDs. As hip as these two entities have become, though, they aren't necessarily the best resources for understanding or even appreciating Gregorian music. For one thing, you can appreciate the monks chanting on Enigma's songs, but you also have to deal with a demonic-sounding dude apostrophizing the Marquis de Sade. (And don't forget the trance music.) And Silos - though I admire their musical vocation and their dedication to sowing worldwide knowledge of and love for the fineness and rarity of Gregorian chants - has a certain nasal quality to the singing that detracts from the greater beauty of the texts and their settings. Plus, and I say this in full appreciation of the immense amount of work these singing monks must do in order to record, produce, and distribute their own CDs, the whole process goes a bit against the idea of the monastery as a privileged, sacred, and not-for-earthly-profit kind of place.

One of these days I will write a brief history of Gregorian chant and post it here, and when that day comes you can bear with me and leave the kinds of pithy comments you tend to about my eclectic tastes in music and off-kilter world view. Until then, go to the Solesmes web site and see the abbey where Gregorian music was resurrected from its early-modern state of abandon and chaos and refined into an art and a systematic approach to song, praise and liturgy. While you're there, visit the bookstore and educate yourself (that way, if I ever do get around to that brief history of time as seen through the Gregorian lens, you can laugh at my mistakes instead of just mocking me).

It's a shame that neither the Abbaye Sainte-Madeleine in Le Barroux (Provence, France) nor the Abbaye Notre-Dame de Fontgombault in Fontgombault (Indre, France) have websites with links to their own disks. Both of these (traditional, Benedictine) monasteries participate in regular seminars presented by the Schola Saint-Grégoire, a unique institute devoted to promoting and teaching accurate and spiritual performance of Gregorian chant. Both Le Barroux and Fontgombault offer luminous, tender interpretations of Gregorian that open up vast spaces inside your soul as you listen. My words can't do justice to the rhythm or the melody or the interpretive Latin line of the poetry. Even a hymn as common as "Ubi Caritas" or a daily supplication like the simple-tone Kyrie XVI is a stunning, enlightening experience when you hear it sung by one of these communities.

Perhaps that's the difference. I own probably 600 CDs, on one side or the other of the Atlantic, among them several score of classical greats, the canonical Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, and Handel passing in review like a great Romantic-era parade, and although each album has some unique quality to it (there is a reason I buy these things, after all; I'm not mindlessly compulsive), what they all lack is the feeling of tradition and community that go hand-in-hand (or voice-in-throat) with almost any recording of a Gregorian choir. It probably has something to do with worship - it's hard to immerse your soul as completely in the "Eroica," for example, as in the breathtaking Easter-vigil "Exsultet" - but it's not solely worship, it's the wholeness of the thing. "Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est" is not just some random hymn, because God is in the verses. (Literally. "Where [there are] charity and love, God is there.") Singing it alone is one thing. It's a deeply beautiful and moving piece of music. Singing it as a community - whether that means belting the verses out from the very deepest recesses of your lungs from the back row of the congregation, or gently coaxing each liquescent neume into place as one of the schola - means to some extent living the hymn, breathing the text and its setting, and exhaling the phrases as the singer next to you inhales, sharing the living pulse of the sacred as you sing. And while communities change (people come and go, arguments erupt, voices age or tire, choir directors move on - sometimes to the bottom of the Gran Canale), the poetic cartography of Gregorian does not. Its lyricism and its mystique come, precisely and paradoxically, from the curious blend of being both a living liturgical function and an invariable statement of faith and meaning through the centuries. The very word "community" (com, as, + unis, one) means an alliance, a covenant, a fellowship.

Modern music will, I hope, continue to make discoveries and innovations and advances toward new and powerful expressions of beauty. Rock will keep right on rockin'. I'm sure that somewhere in her heart even my mother is glad that someone thought to record the peasant songs of pre-1956 backwoods Hungary, before they were subjected to a crushing rule that ripped their own tongue from their throats. Thank Bàrtok for folksongs.

But thank God for Gregorian.

2003-03-09T22:27:00.000-08:00

The Truth is Out Crossing the Road ...

"FOX MULDER :

You saw it cross the road with your own eyes! How many
more chickens have to cross before you believe it?"

Proof that every now and then, even the doofiest forwards provide a good morning giggle. And on a Monday, too.
Off to be evaluated. You know, career-wise.
And remind me to get fuses. I had to plug the TV in over the bathroom sink last night because two of my fuses blew! Ugh.

Bonne journée ...

2003-03-09T11:51:00.000-08:00

Something I Like in Cyber Code ...

... the phrase "return true."

Today:
Compliments: many! Including "you should wear makeup more often; you look radiant" and "I'm so glad to see that in the past 2 weeks you've started taking better care of yourself." (I gave a big fat John Cage, Esq. smile and gushed "Merci!")
Snide remarks: 1.
Bitter thoughts about the X: 1.
Chickens consumed: 1.
Number of times someone has drummed a Scottish tattoo on my neighbor's door: 4.
In the past hour: 2.
In the hour before that: 2.
Do Scottish drummers live with my neighbor?: no.
Polyphonic works sung successfully at the morning Mass: "Mon Dieu, Preste Moy l'Aureille" by Goudimel.
Priests who sang with us: 4.
Priests who usually sing with us: 1.
Where the other ones came from: Wiegratzbad, Germany.
Eating: Chicken and rice (dinner, lunch, tomorrow's breakfast of champions).
Drinking: Schweppes' Citron Vert.
Hair color: burgundy.
Happy shoe reunion du jour: mid-calf-high black leather boots, snatched up last year at an outdoor marché for 20ff.
Links added to my site today: "CeSoirTV.com" - so you can see what I might be seeing tonight on the boob tube.

And in France, there genuinely are boobs on the tube. G'night! ;)

2003-03-09T07:31:00.000-08:00

Put Your Best Foot in Your Mouth.

Sometimes people step into your day who make everything better (see previous post). Sometimes people step in and you wonder who pissed in their Cheerios.

This morning I got up early, baked bread, cooked a chicken, washed the dishes, answered the important email, wrote a blog post, took a shower, make fresh coffee, practiced the gregorian music for this morning's Mass, and headed out the door by 9h20 to make sure I was at the church on time (Eliza Doolittle's father would have been proud). I even put on mascara. I conducted the choir in both gregorian and polyphony, defused an ick between two basses, consulted with a group of parents who want to start a bilingual secondary school, and left the church smiling. Everyone said I looked radiant (I gotta wear grey more often - or maybe it's the mascara). In any case I felt good inside myself. My friend Matthieu - who I haven't seen since he left for Paris in November - is in town this weekend and was coming for lunch, and I was in a fantastic mood. On the church steps, I stayed chatting with another friend, Cécile, and as we were standing there a woman I know slightly walked briskly toward us, smiling with a glint in her eye. She approached and gave me the traditional French bise - one kiss on each cheek - and said: "Tu vas pas bien? T'as pas bonne mine." Which is like saying, wow, you look like you just had to swallow vomit; you're sure nothing's the matter with you?

After which she smiled brightly, said "I have to rush, I'm always late for Mass," turned, and disappeared through the carved wooden doors into the church.

"Thanks," I called vaguely after her receding form. Really. Thanks a million - no, let's make it a billion. I think everyone should be told that on a day when they're feeling good and pretty and healthy and confident. You know, just so they don't get too complacent.

2003-03-08T23:16:00.000-08:00

Cheering-up is ...

... when the fourteen-year-old boy who came to you for English and math tutoring last year, whose parents always gently mock your American clothes and shoes and accent, whose older brother applauded when the Columbia exploded, who along with his big sister spent the night once because the same brother was home and behaving threateningly, and who you suspect really just likes you for your cache of peanut butter, looks at you appraisingly after Mass on a really bad day, when you've spent most of the afternoon underneath your comforter crying, and says, "have you lost weight?"

Louis, if you were twenty - hell, ten - years older, I would marry you.

2003-03-08T01:00:00.000-08:00

Cool Music find of the Week

Her piano playing is fine, a platinum tapestry gleaming in the indigo light of that nighttime hour when the moon still hangs above the horizon but the stars have gone quiet and the dawn hesitates to open its window. Her lyrics skip around the edge of obscure without getting lost in self-referentiality. She is a strong poet, with the doubled talent of graceful music that rises up to fill the words and shape them into something more. The more you listen, the more you find yourself thinking this is the kind of girl you want around on a cold night when you're feeling lonely. You could share your down comforter with her and eat buttery popcorn, drink steaming mugs of hot cocoa made from scratch and watch Peter Pan. And she has a strong voice - not perhaps remarkable for the vocal calisthenics other artists incorporate into their songs, but pretty and straightforward and with a gentle vibrato just in the right spots.

Plus, she has a cool name: Vienna Teng.

My favorite songs so far - "Lullabye for a Stormy Night," "Say Uncle," "Gravity."

And many thanks to Julia for the recommendation.

2003-03-08T00:18:00.000-08:00

Lesson in Humility #29.

So. I'm sitting at my computer desk, trying to wring a clever blog entry out of the ends of my hair, and something catches my eye. Just a slight hint of movement, off to the right? A change in the play of shadows and light against my window as it catches the late-afternoon sunlight? So I turn my head. Well, there he is, wouldn't you know it, my handsome French Johnny-Depp-esque neighbor, and as usual he waves hello. Well, almost as usual. He stops sort of abruptly in mid-gesture then starts again. But there's something distant in his eyes. And it's not just because we're separated by 15 meters of fifth-floor-above-the-ground air. Something has altered. The fabric of our affable-salutation relationship is rent.

And then I realize: I am picking my nose. Waving at him with one hand, and gently feeling the inside of a nostril with the other. There's just no way out of this one. I could, I suppose, try to pull off a Seinfeld thing and pretend I was just scratching. But another flicker of light and a dull thud from across the street and he is gone.

2003-03-07T00:13:00.000-08:00

Dreams are my reality.

Where is Joseph when you need him?

I dreamed last night that my husband (now X) and I were meant to drive from Northern California to somewhere in Western Oregon, and he had mapped out a trip to Scandinavia as an extension of the drive. (Don't ask for cartographical specifics; geography is not the strongest subject in my subconscious. All I can say is, it made total sense, map-wise.) He was bound and determined to make this trip, and to make it in an old heap of a Peugeot Boxer - click on "kleur," then the green scribble under "combi/mini" to get a better picture of the heap in question - and also determined to make it directly from the place in Oregon where we both had to be. I didn't want to drive to Scandinavia, on the grounds that, well, it's cold there, not to mention that the drive was going to be long. X, however, had made up his mind. And so voilà. Essentially, I had to go along with him. We got as far as the California/Oregon border (which happened to be located somewhere near northern Belgium) and X said he had to make a stop. It turned out the stop was already planned: he had to pick up his girlfriend and, besides, we had run out of gas. From then on, we were going by train.

Probably at some point in your life you've made the decision to travel by car instead of by train or plane. The car has certain advantages. First, you travel with whomever you want (on principle). Second, generally, you stop when you want. Third, you pack as much or as little as you want because you know you don't need to limit yourself: you can bring your desktop computer in a car. And the computer chair.

I should have seen this coming. The prearranged stop, the switch to rail travel, the hizzo he'd invited to tag along with us ... and the fact that, once I'd hastily packed a bunch of wool sweaters and long underwear into a bulging unwieldly suitcase and was lugging it through the snow toward the train platform, X and the hizzo decided to take the car. I started running after them - but you try running through the snow while dragging a heavy, ugly suitcase behind you. In Cali-Scandinavia. Which, at the end of the dream, oddly resembled Western Massachusetts.

Maybe I'll write a song: "Hizzo and the X," to the tune of "Benny and the Jets."
Maybe not. I'm still bitter.

Listening to: "Cell Block Tango" from Chicago.

"He had it comin',
He had it comin',
He only had himself to blame;
If you'da been there,
If you'da seen that,
I betcha you woulda done the same!"

Drinking: coffee.
Annoying bodily sensation: I've been on the verge of a sneeze for about 20 minutes.

2003-03-06T14:49:00.000-08:00

Razzle-Dazzle 'Em.

I went to the cinema this afternoon with my friend and former student Anne-Sophie; we saw Chicago. I was surprised at how impressively the film was done - I mean, I didn't know exactly what to expect, but Richard Gere has featured in some real stinkers (and Primal Fear was simply creepy). And who knew Catherine Zeta-Jones could sing? (And act?) And why has whoever cast Queen Latifah as Mama not been awarded the Mensa genius prize of the year? And when is the last time a Broadway musical was faithfully adapted as a Hollywood blockbuster? The "Cell Block Tango" is possibly the best song in the whole soundtrack. "Pop ... Six ... Squish ... Uh-uh ... Cicero ... Lipschitz ..." And the choreography rocks.

It was awesome. Afterwards, AnSo and I sat in a little café and chatted about jazz, gossip in the department where I used to teach, plans for next year (she's going to New Orleans; I'm going ... to Figure It Out eventually), preparing for big exams, what it means to be a teacher, what it means to be a musician, coffee, computers, and how singing can save your life.

Then I had choir rehearsal, and to my great relief there was no yelling, no loudly grumbled discontent, no petty complaints about the tempo, and (mercifully, too) no objects thrown. Hey, it's hard to ask for anything more. Oh, yeah, and we also got through 2 weeks' worth of Gregorian stuff (the propers for 2 Sundays' Masses) and 3 (count 'em!) polyphonic works. Mon Dieu, Preste Moy L'Aureille by Claude Goudimel, Tantum Ergo by Déodat de Séverac, and Sicut Cervus by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. (I know, you didn't need all that biographical detail, but Palestrina's name is *so* cool.)

Now I'm home, listening to the first CD my computer has generously allowed me to burn in something over 2 weeks ... at 2x speed. :( Not super, in fact horridly slow, and I don't understand the problem since I have defragmented the drive and dumped about 15 gigs of stuff from my hard drive to make more room so the buffer won't continue "underrunning" (and by the way, what does that verb even *mean*?) ... but at least it was successfully burned. And it's a damn cool mix, if I do say so myself. My damn cool self. Especially since my 6-month hunt for a particular song finally came to fruition and I was able to transform Hypnotic Clambake's fabulous "Gondola to Heaven" into a .wav file. If you aren't familiar with the song, well, I'd love to give you a link and point you to the place you can download it. I don't know how to download Real Audio files because my computer doesn't want to acknowledge that possibility's existence in nature. But if you enter the website, then click on the "Sounds" link on the left, you'll be able at least to hear the song. And if you happen to live in West Virginia, you can attend the band's upcoming show.

All in all, a happy day. My computer is defragmented, my pop-culture has been polished up, my opinion of Richard Gere has risen at least one notch, my voice is tired but in a very contented way, and my CD is burned. Also I'm baking bread that I made myself this afternoon. A full day. No sign yet of the Johnny Depp neighbor, but all things can happen in the fulness of time.

Reading: A Month in the Country by J.M. Carr, First Comes Love by Scott Hahn.
Listening to: the best mix CD of the century (or at least the week). And to think it contains no Tori Amos anywhere!
Drinking: water with Efferalgan in (a fizzy aspirin thing that tastes sort of like chalky bitter-lemon. Surprisingly, it's not bad).
Smelling: baking bread.
Unfortunate initials in translation: "soundtrack" in French is "bande originale du film," which gets reduced to "B.O."
Unfortunate Saint name: last Sunday was Quinquagesima (50 days before Easter); the English dioceses of the world celebrated Saint Chad. It makes me wonder if there's also a Saint Bobby, Saint Leif, Saint Chet ... you know, the martyrology of shiny guys from 1975.
Currently craving: pepperoni pizza, spicy curly fries, flourless chocolate cake with raspberry coulis, a croque-monsieur (grilled ham-and-cheese sandwich), chicken burrito with lots of salsa and cilantro ...
Pet Peeve this moment: whatever quirk keeps making my scanner ask what program I want to use to open the Photo Print option.

Bonne nuit.

2003-03-05T12:26:00.000-08:00

Remember thou art but ash, and to ash shall ye return.

0700 - In the dark church, benediction of the ashes, imposition of the ashes (the cross on the forehead), Mass.
0745 - Lauds.
0800 - Hot water (no coffee; it's a fast day) with the priests.
0830 - Discuss choral projects with the head priest while counting Sunday's offering.
0832 - I see my first €500 bill. I think it's a first for the priests too; several others come in and admire the pretty magenta ink. Shame about the ugly bridge designed on the back.
0900 - Secretarial work for the priests.
1030 - A walk to the bank, the unemployment office, and an optician to pick up a priest's new glasses (he dropped his old ones in the snow last weekend).
1130 - Walk back home, thinking about the lunch I will not have.
1200 - Drink about a gallon of water.
1230 - Pick up a mystery novel in hopes it will distract me from my hunger.
1530 - Having finished both mystery novel and a nap I decide to fix the CD-burning problem on my computer.
1545 - I drink about a gallon of water.
1805 - Cursing at the computer and running lopsidedly in my clogs (I love them but the heels are thick, plastic, and wobbly somehow, and have nearly killed me on more than one occasion) I head back to church for the evening Mass. Dreading seeing my choir and hoping they will just be there to sing.
1810 - I wonder if the choir is as hungry as I am.
1812 - I wonder if, if they don't like the tempo at which I conduct "Tantum ergo," they will just start gnawing on me.
1815 - The church is full, the choir-nook is empty.
1816 - I go downstairs to the crypt and drink about a gallon of water. Meanwhile, several basses and one alto have arrived.
1830 - Mass begins.
1845 - The rest of the choir arrives.
1910 - We launch into "Tantum ergo" with the strength of 16 voices and 3 shared partitions. One alto makes hand-gestures for me to speed up.
1912 - The also says very loudly (mind you, this is during the Mass), "It's crap when it's that slow." With a heart full of Christian charity and dedication I shoot her down and blow the smoke off the barrel of my gun. Then the Ally McBeal moment recedes and I give her a wide, fake smile. And return to my bottle of water.
1945 - Ite, missa est; I chat with some non-choir friends and head back home.
2030 - I log on and discover my Favorites folder has been mysteriously erased.

I leave you with this fascinating rundown of my day (an anticlimactic way to celebrate Kevynn Malone day, for sure) as I am off to indulge in the appetizing succulence of ... about a gallon of water.

One day down - Vivement demain!

[Small postscript : I am having trouble, yet again, getting Blogger to post my entries, so this all appears a bit dated. Especially now that we're Thursday, otherwise known as Day After-Kevynn-Malone-Day, and several of the comments, and all of the schedule details, are completely false. Whatever, I'm sure you'll deal with it. I just hope Blogger will. I don't usually experience this much frustration with technology, but I am beginning to feel like a female cyber-Job. Feh.]

2003-03-04T01:34:00.000-08:00

On Faith.

Comments on a recent post, and the post itself, have focused on faith and belief, and sparked my desire to talk about them. What they are, what they aren't, how they're different, how they matter, what they mean, at least in my own small context and corner of the web.

Faith vs. belief, that's a hard one. They're easy to confuse. If you ask someone "do you believe in God?" and he answers "Yes," you pretty much take it for granted that he has faith. If you pose the question "do you have faith?" and the person says "yes," you tend to think he believes in God. This is perhaps simplistic but in my experience it's true. And it seems the church(es? don't know much about other denominations really; it's certainly the case for the Holy Roman Catholic Church) almost promote the confusion ... We recite the "credo" - literally, "I believe" - but the acts of faith are appendices in the missal. It's kind of like the faith part is taken for granted, but we need to remind ourselves what we believe, all the subclauses and subparagraphs and details we overlook or underestimate.

But faith is greater than those things, vaster, and more difficult. You can't put a finger on it and define it. Sometimes it feels absurd. I know people who believe in God but are so angry with him that they pretend they don't believe in him, when in fact what they mean is they have no faith in him, he's let them down in something big and they're afraid to put their trust back in him now. And other people who say they don't believe in God but who have profound faith.

For me, the belief part is simple: I know what I believe, and I know it is True (and you know I don't use capital letters lightly). I work hard at faith. Sometimes all I have to offer is doubt, which really boils down to fear, which in its turn is really just my selfish heart closing in on itself. Faith re-opens me, soothes me, calms me, brings me back to love - even when I don't know how on earth I will survive this situation or what will happen next, even when I feel like there is nothing in me worth loving or keeping alive.

A few years ago, I saw a film about ten or so fifty-ish women on a bus that broke down in the middle of Canadian nowhere. (I've just spent 15 minutes searching for information on this film but, as it turns out, "ten or so fifty-ish women on a bus that breaks down in the middle of Canada" gets unastonishingly poor results on Google. So, if you know the film, please remind me of its title? It's a very good film.) One of the women is a nun, and another is pretty much an atheist. At some point, the nun and the atheist have a conversation about how to encourage oneself on the long walk to the nearest town. The nun says, "I would pray; I would ask God to help me and give me the strength to make this journey." The atheist says, "And what if God doesn't answer?" The nun says, "Well, what would you suggest?" To which the atheist responds, "I would say, 'Feet, don't fail me now'." And the nun looks at her for a beat and says, "You pray to your feet?"

Voilà, in a nutshell, the concrete difference between belief and faith. I believe in my feet. I know they are there and I know what they do and how they do it. Simple. Do I talk to them? ... Well, ok, sometimes, when I'm fed up with trying to get a shoe on or off or if I'm particularly bored ... never mind. Do I pray to them? No.

I started this entry all inspired to write about faith and in fact the whole feet thing (not to mention searching for that damn movie) has distracted me sufficiently that inspiration has fled, for the moment anyway.

But here's a pet peeve, just to ensure you get your morning's dose of my bitchiness (and again, a big fat-bellied cement-mixer barrel full of gratitude for that, X). Discreet vs. Discrete. Homonyms. One is careful with your confidences, and one is two separate things. Look them up if you're not sure which is which. Thanks.

2003-03-03T15:44:00.000-08:00

A couple last-minute Weirdnesses before Bedtime.
(in no particular order)

5. Shakira has a song entitled "Poem to a Horse" and it's actually decent.

4. The search "Horse" on Kazaa-lite produces 99.9999956% porn images, and no actual music by the underground 1990s group Horse (they covered "Wichita Skyline" and it was brilliant, I tell you, brilliant, and if you happen to be in possession of a mix-tape from me that dates from 1992 or 1993 you've heard it and can add a comment to that effect.)

3. My cute neighbor just turned out his light. I think he's gay. Tonight we waved, mouthed things like "salut" and smiled widely. Then a second topless guy (did I mention the topless bit? sorry, I must have been busy drooling) appeared, smoking, in the window frame.

2. I am having tea and cream scones tomorrow afternoon with former student Lili (the one I had to cancel with today because of gastrointestinal issues). There's a little tea-shop in Lyon called Simple Simon and they actually specialize in English pastries. And in case you don't know what those are, well, you just have to come to Lyon (or, you know, go to England) because I'll be too busy indulging myself for the last time before Lent to describe them to you.

1. I learned something important today: don't put off until tomorrow (or five months from now, just hypothetically speaking) the apologies and loving dialogues you want to have today, no matter what the price to your pride or embarrassment. It really costs so little to say "hey, I'm sorry, I was wrong and by the way, have I told you how much I admire you?" and it makes all the difference. I learned this - again - with my godmother, who gave me some excellent and very kind advice about dealing with the current choir disaster I have on my hands. She also told me there is so sin in being tired, and no need to ask forgiveness for fatigue (which is how the French conceive depression, when the word "dépression" scares them). This is hard-earned knowledge that I very much appreciate.

Another smidgeon of wisdom: every world is a small world.

Also, my ex thinks I am a bitch. I don't know if I agree or disagree or if I even care. Because I have to have the last word I will go ahead and say that I would rather be a bitch with principles than an agreeable slut. And there you have it.

Sur ce, I am going to try to sleep. Good night, moon.
À demain,
me.

2003-03-03T13:52:00.000-08:00

Feeling Cursèd.

Ok. For starters, my whole career-evaluation thing wasn't today but is scheduled to start next Monday. Whether the date-issue is my mistake or that of the friendly woman in the (un)employment office remains to be seen. In any case, if nothing else, this false appointment got me out of bed and out of the house by 8:30 a.m. today, and that's pretty drastic on those non-penitential days when I don't force myself to the early Mass at 7.

B. I have another comment problem. I hope it's transitory. When I try to read the comments you lovely people have left on my site, here is the message I get:

"Warning: Supplied argument is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in /www/hosts/enetation.co.uk/www/comments.php on line 25

Warning: Cannot add header information - headers already sent by (output started at /www/hosts/enetation.co.uk/www/comments.php:25) in /www/hosts/enetation.co.uk/www/comments.php on line 50"

That's a lot of warnings for a comment or two. But what the hell, I've had a glass of wine and am feeling charitable, so I'm not going to rant and rave and change comment servers again. I like the blue colors on Enetation.

Nothing much else going on. Still unemployed. Still depressed. Plus I seem to have contracted the stomach flu or food poisoning, and have spent today not exactly as comfortably as I expected to. Oy. But hey, it could always be worse. I could have a horrible brain tumor. I sang at a funeral this afternoon for a priest who had a horrible brain tumor. I hope that when I finally die (and by the way, can I have a literal - not proverbial - bucket to kick please?), I will have lived well enough to be as loved and appreciated and respected as this man was. Keep an eye out, in say 50 years, for Saint Jean-Michel Duport.

Kasey Chambers has some good slow songs. I've been listening to her music ever since boz recommended her (that was roughly 16 hours ago now, but you get the general idea). The faster stuff I don't care much for, but the ballads are awesome. Good call, Boz; thanks.

Today's roundup:
Time Spent Online (TSO for future reference): 123 minutes.
Time spent at funerals: 165 minutes.
Time spent in churches, cathedrals, or adjacent chapels: 175 minutes.
Time spent with priests: roughly 240 minutes.
Advice about how to encourage chorists: good.
Advice about how to conduct: fair to middling.
Time spent walking along the quais of the Saône: 35 minutes.
Food consumed: scrambled eggs with hot-dog pieces stirred in, endive-and-walnut salad.
Drinking: red wine.
Coffee consumed: about 2 liters (ugh).
Listening to: the night news on France 2; also, French pop music (Axelle Red, Mylène Farmer).
Reading: One, Two, Buckle My Shoe by Agatha Christie; A Month in the Country by J.M. Carr, Vergers by Rainer Maria Rilke.
Political stances taken: One. I forwarded an anti-war petition via email. I don't think the question is as simple as pro- or anti-, but given the options, I am most definitely anti-. Et voilà, quoi.

'Till the next post ...

2003-03-02T23:36:00.000-08:00

Heigh-ho, heigh-ho ...

Well, I'm not exactly off to work this morning, but I have an appointment for the first part of a six-week evaluation thing during which apparently my capabilities will be assessed and my job-possibilities clarified. Also I have to drop a CV by Kelly Services and also I have to go buy another damn printer cartridge because my computer still refuses to believe there's ink left in the current one. Naturally, this particular foible started happening just after the one-year warantee's expiration. Isn't there a clause about that in Murphy's law? This afternoon holds a funeral for a locally beloved priest (nobody I knew) and I promised I would go help out with the choral bits. Later I'm having dinner with my friend Liliane, who has kindly promised to take time out from her 30-hours-per-day study schedule to eat with her depressed former English teacher. Have I ever mentioned how much I love my students?

I watched Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil last night. Dubbed into French. Translated into French, the title was turned into "Le Droit de Tuer" (the right to kill). Quite a powerful movie, and I have to say they did a good job with the dubbing. Kevin Spacey actually sounded like Kevin Spacey, only speaking perfect French (now that would be a dream come true!). Samuel L. Jackson sounded like a French Samuel L. Jackson, gruffly excoriating the South's innate injustices. The only voice I question is that of Sandra Bullock, who sounded less like an adult female law-clerk fighting against racism in the deep south than a pink-clad nine-year-old from Sailor Moon. But then, it's been a while since I've heard Sandra Bullock's actual voice; maybe she's been sucking up helium or something.

Okay, off to catch the Métro, à plus tard!

2003-03-02T15:38:00.000-08:00

Before the Quarantine

With Mardi Gras only days away, it seems an appropriate time to make some resolutions for the upcoming Lenten season. (NOTE: This blog-entry is not merely space-filler because I have nothing real to say. It shall also serve as a self-motivator and reminder to actually stick to these resolutions ... unlike my New Year's resolutions, which all flew out the window by January 4th.)

The traditional Lent period - a literal quarantine, forty days before Easter - is a time of fasting, abstinence, and spiritual preparation. It is a time of austere grace and self-denial, a time of penitence and solemnity, pushing through travails and keeping hope, with a goal in mind greater than the immediate gratification of the pleasures of this world.

A. To that end, this year I am giving up the following:
1) alcohol
2) chocolate

A.1.a. This year will not echo those half-hearted abstinences of years past, when I gave up whiskey but invested in tequila, for example, or gave up chocolate but stuffed my purse with caramels. Not that substitutions are forbidden, but the point you see is physical deprivation, not mere replacement with some other treat.
A.1.b. White chocolate is still chocolate.
A.1.c. (NOTE: I do not promise to be in a good mood during Lent.)

B. I have also decided to add a couple things this year.
1) I will go to the gym 4 times per week.
2) I will volunteer my services in a homeless shelter or on a hotline.
3) I will be conscientious about corresponding with people, reading important mail, dealing with finances, and making phone calls.

B.1.a. The week shall henceforth be defined as consisting of the seven days between Monday and Sunday, regardless of dates. Liturgical activities, and the gym's closing at 3 p.m. on Sunday afternoons, effectively preclude that day's workout possibilities. Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday evenings are choral evenings: the workout must commence before 2:30 and finish by 3:30 p.m. (including shower and re-vesting) in order for choral obligations to be adequately met. These time strictures shall serve as guidelines as long as I have no job to offer any other guidelines.
B.1.b. About volunteering: this activity shall occur not just during Lent, you understand, but that will be the starting point.
B.1.c. I will endeavor to remember that it is always better to pick up the phone and deal with things than to pace around the apartment pulling my hair out as I listen to increasingly tense voices on my answering machine. Aforementioned "things" include the electric bill, rent, overdue library books, lunch dates I skipped out on, friends from church who scare me, and my family.

Basically, what all of this comes down to is I have two days left to finish 4 bottles of wine and a fifth of Kentucky bourbon. So, euh, party on Tuesday at my place. Who's with me?

I am also seriously considering moving back to the States, but that's a subject for another post when I have more energy. Until then, I remain your humble and most devoted servant, etc., etc. ...

2003-03-01T04:52:00.000-08:00

It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.

I haven't been putting out my Internet-wide feelers to see if there have been many posts on this subject, so please forgive me if you've read it already a dozen times. I just got the news on Thursday afternoon. Mr. Rogers died.

I'd like to take a moment and remember his effects on my little life ... and I should start by saying that I always felt a kind of deeper kinship with Mr. Rogers, because his first name was Fred. I come from a family of Freds. Had I been born a boy, I would have been named Fred. Being a girl, I narrowly escaped Frederica (which name I honestly like quite a bit) because my mother laid down the law. I've always felt I identified with Freds. You'll have to talk to my brother about this; he is a Fred.

When I was very young, I was allowed to watch Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. (Not, by the bye, The Electric Company: my parents considered it too racy. Parents, I love you, but you were weird when I was a kid.) Everyone I know - well, almost everyone - has fond memories of Cookie Monster, Oscar the Grouch, Kermit the Frog, Big Bird, and of course Snuffleupagus, who finally became "real" to other characters besides Big Bird sometime in the 1990s. Even the French think back fondly on Ernest et Barthes, et bien sûr Elmo. But I wonder if I didn't learn more perhaps from Mr. Rogers, even if the memories stayed fundamental and haven't always popped immediately into mind the way some of those 1970s brightly-colored sketches do.

The monsters and animals and (oh yeah) humans who lived on Sesame Street taught me to identify letters, to count to twelve in groovy disco-time, to say "I am crying" in Spanish, to put my trash in the trash can, to see all colors and creeds as part of one harmonious local population, and to keep Christmas with me, all through the year. Sesame Street has a very ideological side to it that, as an adult, I appreciate for the lessons it imparts and the habits and nascent beliefs it formed in me, lo those many years ago.

Mr. Rogers taught me simpler things, kind and basic things, practical things. Like, don't wear your outdoor shoes indoors because they will scuff and soil the burnished hardwood floors. It took me until graduate school, when I lived in a place where hardwood floors were standard, to understand the wisdom of the shoe-change. Do you know, I still do it now, even in my ratty studio with the stained blue carpeting. Yep. I take off my outdoor shoes and put on my house shoes. Also, cardigans are more comfortable for receiving visitors or loafing around the home than are suit-jackets or overcoats.

Mr. Rogers also taught me that the people who work in as industrial photographers or tire-changers have fascinating jobs that require close attention to detail and merit the occasional excursion (out of the house-shoes, back into the overcoat, out the door) into corners of the world we normally pass by and take for granted as part of the daily urban scenery of our modern lives. The Magic Mirror would morph into a video screen, and suddenly I wasn't watching Fred Rogers in his home, but watching a short documentary on How People Make Sneakers, or How People Make Crayons, or How People Make Paper. Mr. Rogers asked simple but interesting questions and the People making things (Wagons, Pastries, whatever) answered them, and after 5 minutes or so I'd seen the whole creation process. It taught me to be curious about objects that participate in my regular landscape, and to appreciate the work of those who spent the time and energy to put them there.

Mr. Rogers taught me to sing no matter how well-developed my voice might be. It might tend to go flat every time the melody rises above F. It might have a strange ridgy quality or nasal overtones. Et alors? Singing feels good. It's a way of expressing love and pride and hope, a way of communicating synaesthetically - beyond mere words. Plus, no matter what anyone else thinks of my voice, well, it's *my* voice. Mr. Rogers taught me to believe in that. The French have an expression: Il était bien chez lui. Literally, it means "He was comfortable in his home," but it can also mean "comfortable with himself." And Mr. Rogers was comfortable with himself. His TV home was an extension of himself, and he made us feel comfortable there too. He was comfortable with his voice. Here's a song from his show:

"I can put on a hat, or put on a coat,
Or wear a pair of glasses or sail in a boat.
I can change all my names
And find a place to hide.
I can do almost anything, but
I'm still myself inside.

I can go far away, or dream anything,
Or wear a scary costume or act like a king.
I can change all my names
And find a place to hide.
I can do almost anything, but
I'm still myself,
I'm still myself,
I'm still myself inside."

More than anything perhaps, Mr. Rogers smiled at me. In his smile lived a daily, indefatigable compassion and warmth. He was no Oscar, grumpy but loveable. He didn't have a sarcastic sidekick (like Bert, for instance) who loved but mocked him and always had the last word. Neither was he wide-eyed with childhood belief like Big Bird. Mr. Rogers was an adult, and though he didn't talk down to us children, he didn't pretend we were all the same either. He was nice, and he set an adult example. He was dedicated to his show, with the visits from the Handyman and the Postman, the show-and-tell time ("Beat on a drum you made at home" for example), and the train to the Neighborhood of Make-Believe - that imaginary forest-land where puppets lived in trees and castles. Mr. Rogers smiled and gave children a message of patience and steadiness, a message of self-confidence and self-respect and love. One of the songs from his show that has stayed with me all these years is "You are Special." What simplistic pap this would be, if it didn't come from Fred Rogers! "You are my friend, you are special; special, my friend, you're special to me. You are the only one like you; like you, my friend, I like you." Repetitive and insipid? Sure, when you're a disillusioned 33-year-old cynic with a Ph.D. But to a child, reassuring and valorizing and beautiful. A little spark that makes you feel that much better that afternoon.

I'd like to end this post with some of Mr. Rogers' own words, to give him the same kind of hommage he gave to the children and ex-children who watched him, more or less faithfully, through the years. I hope he knows how many lives he touched, and how profoundly. Mr. Rogers, it's you we liked.

"It's you I like,
It's not the things you wear,
It's not the way you do your hair--
But it's you I like
The way you are right now,
The way down deep inside you--
Not the things that hide you,
Not your toys--
They're just beside you.

But it's you I like--
Every part of you,
Your skin, your eyes, your feelings
Whether old or new.
I hope that you'll remember
Even when you're feeling blue
That it's you I like,
It's you yourself,
It's you, it's you I like."

Robert Kirby wrote an excellent article about Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, the show and the message.

2003-02-28T00:01:00.000-08:00

You'll Never Guess What Happened Last Night at the Choir Rehearsal
(to be sung to the tune of "The Baseball Game" from You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown)

There is no choir
Like the best choir
Which is our choir right here!
We will show you
We're the best choir
Come to our concert at the end of this year!
And in no time
We'll be big time
We'll rival the Cathedral choir!
We'll raise enough to finance its restoration
And the Grand Organ is ours!

Dear Blog Reader,

You'll never guess what happened last night at the choir rehearsal.
It's hard to believe what happened last night at the choir rehearsal.
I led polyphony, Marie led Gregorian, and all of the choir was the same as always, but
somehow or other disaster struck at the choir rehearsal.

The church was too cold, René had a problem with his cataract implants.
Armelle the alto locked her keys in her car and had to wait out on the church steps.
Marcel kept singing after Marie stopped him and Anne complained she had to leave, she's tired,
I don't think it's good for parish morale if the conductor kills the choir.

Pascale helped out, running in 45 minutes late.
The accompanist had a tantrum and threw the organ keys in my face.
The men sang the Introït, it sounded like shoït, oh well;
we still had Ash Wednesday's antiphons to get through by 10 ...

Christiane left, which meant there were only 2 sopranos.
"Domine non secundum" fizzled out into a debate about the length of rehearsals.
Bravely I vowed we would sing it for God and I lifted my baton to begin
again ...

Dear Blog Reader, I'm told where you live is really quite far.
Could you please send directions on how I can get where you are?

Your friend,
Romaryka.

2003-02-27T13:48:00.000-08:00

The Boy Next Door.

Well, he's not exactly next door, as that would require his living on a rooftop semi-high above the ground. But he is across the street and slightly to the left, and he looks like Johnny Depp (see previous post).

I don't know how old he is. I don't know if he's single. I don't know if he's straight. I don't know what he does with his life. I don't know what his apartment is like. I don't know his name.

But he opens his window to look down over the street every evening around 6. He inhales and exhales so elegantly, you'd think it was practiced. His cigarette smoke wafts out across the rooftops (instead of, probably, in across the dinner casserole).

We make eye contact. He lifts a hand in salute; I do the same. We smile. Am I blushing? I think I am. I look quickly downward, away from him, afraid suddenly that if I mouth "salut" or "ça va?" I will do something inane like burp or vomit. Like Kyle in the South Park movie, just vomit right there in front of him.

It is winter here in Lyon, still brisk though not as stunningly cold as it was about 2 weeks ago. You can walk outside, even early in the mornings, without seeing your breath. But it's chill enough to merit keeping the windows closed. So for now, my neighbor, the French Johnny Depp, and I have to rely on sign language and shy smiles for communication. But I tell you what. Come spring, I am opening this window. I might even say "salut" out loud.

Because I am just that daring.

2003-02-27T07:57:00.000-08:00

Toujours devant

... is the name of my new favorite song. It means "Always forward" (no, not like that, you pervert; I'm a nice girl) and has this cool pulsing bass thrum throughout its catchy could-be-80s harmonization. It's not a love song, not a tragic the-world-sucks song, it's one of those other categories, the "days like this I feel like I can change the world" songs that mke you want to roll the ragtop sunroof back and drum your hands on the steering wheel as you speed down PCH toward the edge of the world. It takes my breath away and makes me nostalgic without making me sad: a feat. As I listen I can almost feel the salt-tinged wind playing through my hair and making it unruly, teasing it free from the elastic bands or plastic clips holding it back from my face.

Random low this week: sitting at my computer with a mug of coffee in one hand and typing with the other, wearing my flannel leopard-print pyjamas, seeing movement out of the corner of my eye and turning my head in time to catch my very cute across-the-street neighbor (he's 30-ish, sexy in a Johnny Depp way, and always smiles and waves when our eyes meet from this 5th-floor vantage-point). I don't much mind my very cute (and did I mention the Johnny Depp factor.) neighbor's seeing me in my pyjamas, I flatter myself that the flannel-leopard ones are endearing with an overtone of raciness. And I dig my neighbor. Exchanging these wordless salutations with him always makes me smile. Last year, we held up hand-printed signs that said "Joyeux Noël" and "Bonne Année" during the holidays, bridging the gap our narrow cobblestone street creates with seasonal greetings. The downside of this week's incident? It was 3:30 in the afternoon.

Today's high: spending the afternoon with the 13-year-old daughter of church friends, teaching her "Chopsticks" on the piano, and singing duets for about 4 hours.

*Reading: P.D. James. Don't know the title. It's a cleverly written, artfully crafted, very proper British mystery novel. I may have read it before. [Exciting Update: the title is An Unsuitable Job For a Woman. And hey, whaddyaknow, I haven't read it before. Score!]
*Listening to: a mix I made for my friend Adam. It seems to involve a lot of Diana Krall. I'm on a Diana Krall kick these days. (In case Greg or my sister happens to read this entry - hey, you have something to look forward to.)
*Drinking: cold coffee. EUAWWGGGHHHHH.
*Eating: nothing. Considering chocolate. I am quite frequently considering chocolate.
*Itch?: right eyebrow. Can't explain.
*Current pet peeve: my computer has suddenly developed all kinds of bizarre ticks, like crashing when I try to burn a CD (but only after I've started the burning process, so the CD is henceforth useless); refusing to play CDs at normal speed (everything is slowed down and annoyingly distorted); and blocking the ink in my printer's black *and* color cartridges (it looks like I still have a high ink level, but in fact no ink actually comes out for the text or images I try to print).
*Annoying administrative things I have to do this week: go back to the Préfecture to pick up my carte de séjour (work permit and visa); go back to the employment office to show them the carte de séjour and prove I'm legal to find work; find work.
*Tonight my choir is rehearsing: the Gregorian proper for Quincagésime Sunday (last Sunday before Lent); "Domine non Secundum" by César Franck, "Tantum Ergo" by J.S. Bach, "Adoramus te" by Palestrina, "Mon Dieu Preste Moy L'Aureille" by Claude Goudimel.

2003-02-26T14:36:00.000-08:00

Another Incident, Another Accident.

I may have figured the comments thing out ... Testing, testing ...

2003-02-26T05:17:00.000-08:00

On the Other Hand ...

I went to confession yesterday, and had one of those experiences that proves that, as Cheeks kindly reminded me during a recent low spot, it is all worth it.

A brief explanation for the non-Catholic or a reminder for the non-practicing ... Confession is the sacrament of Penitence. It consists of a dialogic ritual during which the penitent kneels (traditionally - though more modern parishes have these sort of salon-like rooms where both penitent and confessor are seated, face to face) in the enclosure of the confessional, and admits all his sins, asking the priest - and through the priest's agency Jesus - for forgiveness. The priest listens, occasionally asking questions, and then offers a suggestion or two for the earthly reparation of the sins (like, if you lied to your mom about who you went out with last night, the priest might tell you to tell your mom the truth). The confessor then gives the penitence, which can be anything from a recital of twelve entire rosaries in a row to a daily reading from the Bible or more frequent attendance at Mass and communion. Finally he pronounces the absolution formula, in which he calls on the mercy of God to cleanse the penitent's soul of these confessed sins and finishes with "et ego te absolvo" ("I absolve you" in Latin or whatever modern language the confession takes place in, depending on parish usage). The sacrament typically ends with the priest saying "vade in pace, et ora pro me cum ego autem oro pro te (go in peace, and pray for me, as I pray for you)."

The "point," if it can be thus simplistically expressed, of Confession is to wash your soul clean of the sins that have stained it since the previous Confession. It's kind of like doing laundry of the soul. Absolution is exactly that - an absolute pardon. It separates and removes the sins from your soul (sorry for the laundry metaphors, but I'm a visual girl) and leaves you, literally, stainless. You are then of a proper disposition to receive Communion, to take the blood and body of Christ into your own body without fear of polluting the Host by your anger/lies/iniquities/faults.

Well. All of that is very appealing, as you can likely imagine. Especially if, like me, you happen to be sort of complicated and also happen to have lived long enough to have done a lot of stupid things that go against Catholic teachings and cause great sorrow and pain to Jesus, your parents, your friends, etc. And if you're educated and have spent a lot of time in the world analyzing and deconstructing and generally displaying your skepticism and critical abilities, the thought that a simple turn of phrase can literally cleanse you can seem a bit facile. It can seem like one of those things invented by humans for humans, to put balm on the conscience and give a little pat on the back, buck you up when you need to feel better about yourself, whatever.

Not every confession is fully satisfying or lives up to the cathartic expectations we have. Sometimes you leave the confessional (what Peter Gabriel refers to as "the warm velvet box") feeling like you've just taken horrible advantage of someone else's innocence and grace and generosity. And sometimes you realize 19 seconds after rising from your kneeling position that you've neglected to talk about That Thing that has been haunting your dreams, and it can make you wonder if you should duck right back in and say "Hey. Me again. Listen, I forgot to mention ..." Those are frustrating confessions - valid, and sacramental, but frustrating, in the relative (i.e. human) scheme of things.

Yesterday I rose from the prie-dieu and walked out into the Jesuit chapel and sat down in the row next to the statue of Mary, and I felt I'd lost 25 pounds. Every single molecule of badness I had committed or felt or even thought about was gone. It was a moment of beauty and grace, a moment of wholeness. One of those rare fleet moments when doubt recedes and the bitter dimness of daily life is pierced by a greater brightness.

It is all worth it, for moments like that.

2003-02-26T03:07:00.000-08:00

For the Faint of Heart.

imagine you're a girl just trying to finally come clean
knowing full well they prefer you dirty and smiling ...

Thanks, Ani diFranco, for always having the right words to say about rage. And sorry for the contrast or quoting out of context, because this morning I am an angry girl.

So, here I am, me and my rage, face to face at last. We're having a little trouble looking each other in the eye. I think that's because my eyes are smouldering and red-rimmed and hers are blank and vapid. I have changed faces with my rage. Now I'm the one who looks angry.

The outlines of this face - this hated, twisted, intimate face - have gone hard with waiting. The jaw clenches. I have headaches every night. Did you know I still sleep with an acrylic mouthguard to keep from grinding my teeth all the way to bone? Even so I wake up hearing the sound of the acrylic, clicking as my jaw moves tirelessly against it, trying to reach a rhythm of destruction that will make it all make sense.

I am angry. Because I am finally becoming the person I've struggled to be - morally, spiritually, the truest and finest version of myself I know how to aim for - and the people I love from my former life don't want to accept that this is who I am. I am angry, with myself, that it's taken me 33 years to shatter the chrysalis of overprotected affluence and falseness and start actually aiming for more joy and giving, and angry that I still don't have the natural reflex of generosity instead of skepticism and suspicion. I am angry that I was raised and taught to place in highest importance the relative nature of truth and goodness, and that this teaching was further enforced by teachers and professors and my own moral blindness. I am angry that at one point I thought it was beautiful and highly poignant to believe in "better" or "worse" as a viable ethical statement, and that I was encouraged, and encouraged myself, to continue this statement and not question what it might mean to understand the unconditional good or bad behind the relativisms.

I am angry at the people who have broadcasted their mistaken opinions and been flat-out wrong, yet haven't had the courage to admit that or to accept the responsability for their misdirected words. I am angry that I spend so much time trying to forgive and let my soul grow larger than resentment when the people who have hurt me the most don't have the balls to apologize. I am angry that my immediate reaction to a setback is still a devastating collapse into despair. I am angry that in the interim between a suicide attempt and my actual entry into the hospital, both my godmother and the priest who has been my touchstone for 2-1/2 years got so fed up with this despair that instead of trying to offer reassurance or support they saw fit to yell at me and reproach me with all the major and minor failings of my character as they have witnessed them over time. I am angry that they didn't come to see me in the hospital. I am angry that they never apologized or even acknowledged their impatience and their own anger as possible contributors to the worse depression that kept me hospitalized for 2 months.

I am angry at people who manipulate the truth because they are afraid of what they might see if they stopped twisting their stories around. I am angry that I was asked to lie about being in a relationship and then about being engaged, asked to lie about his military service, asked to lie about his job, because he was too afraid of what his "friends" might think to admit if they knew the truth. I am angry that in the long run he turned to his friends for advice about our situation and listened when they said a divorce was the only viable option for our relationship. I am angry that I tried so fucking hard to be what he wanted me to be and when I started being true to me he couldn't handle it. I am angry that he rejoices for friends when they get engaged or married or pregnant and doesn't seem to see the hypocrisy in his stance. I am angry that when the choice came down to a degree in science versus a wife, I lost.

I am angry that I have treated my body as a pincushion, a brothel, a way-station, an ashtray, a shell of a thing without importance, without any meaning more profound than its scarred and abused surface. I am angry that people who have professed to love and/or respect me accepted this treatment and took advantage of it. I am angry that I was needy enough to accept disdain, coldness and halfhearted changeable dedication - the kind that makes someone drop your hand when you're walking together in public because he's too afraid of having people he knows see you together - as substitutes for love and respect. I am angry that I can't forget old episodes, sources of shame and anger, and angry that the other person or persons who participated in them get annoyed or defensive that I am still angry and hurt.

I am angry that I wasted so much time unfocused and lost, and depending on someone else who, it turns out, was even more unfocused and lost but so much more stubborn than I that his undirection looked like intelligence and careful planning. I am angry that seven years spent in what in my mind was a lifetime partnership ended up leading to nothing but a sort of haphazard "friendship." I am angry at 30-year-old men who want to be 20 forever. I am angry that it is apparently okay to fuck me but not to commit to developing a life together. I am angry that an act of love between two married people could turn out in the long run just to have been sex for the hell of it because he wouldn't want anything permanent to come out of such an arrangement. I am angry that as soon as I started wanting something more permanent than promises or a stupid Ph.D. he backed out.

I am angry at the myriad excuses made for blind carelessness or thoughtlessness or mulishness or immaturity, and angry that I accepted them because I didn't know what else to do or because I felt sorry for him having to defend himself alone against other people's opinions. I am angry that he sent the divorce papers first by email, then - on the very day of our anniversary - in a box which also contained a bag of Hershey's Kisses. I am angry that there exists someone in the world who wouldn't see how hurtful and insulting that combination is. I am angry that I put my trust in someone who chipped away at my self-confidence, corner by corner, until the only thing left was this ridiculous France-shaped escape in the center. I am angry that it took moving to France and finding my faith to understand just how empty my life was in America with him. I am angry that I miss that life.

I am angry that I have no home. I am angry that after seven years of marriage I am alone, with no children (a fact for which I don't know if I should be grateful or not but which makes me weep nonetheless), that I am paying rent, that my ex won't leave even a frivolous damn comment on my blog but will make an international phone call from his cell-phone when he reads that things aren't going well. And I am angry because I never realized how hard it would be to be true and alone, instead of false and together, and I'm angry that it's not hard for him, and furious with myself for being petty enough to want it to be.

I wish I had a punching bag. That's all.

2003-02-26T01:52:00.000-08:00

No Comment.

I would like to go on record with a neologoism and thank Haloscam for its timely and reliable service over the several months I've been writing this blog.

Timely, because commenting seems to come back into functionality right at the moment when I criticize the service openly.
Reliable, because there are now 3 things one can count on in life: death, taxes, and the Haloscam server going offline every 6 minutes (or just as you open your blog to check comments, whichever comes first).

I have very little executive-decision-making power in my life these days. Probably this post won't make a whit of difference to the nice and obviously hardworking folks over at Haloscam, who seem to take longer lunches than the French (like, for two or three days at a time) and have just about as strong a work ethic. But I don't care. This is the information age and if you propose a web-based feedback service you had damn well better make sure you're competent to handle the traffic and the volume of feedback and signups. Preferably before going online with your service. Blogs have standards too. Free doesn't have to mean shit quality.

(I should talk about rage. It will have to be in a following post. For the moment it's being channelled at incompetence.)

If you've tried to leave me a comment in the past couple days, thank you for your effort. If you haven't, but wanted to, thank you for your intentions. If you haven't because you're a lazy bastard, with no motivation to make yourself say anything, I am out of sympathy for you and wish you would grow up and deal with it. I think you know who you are.

(Have I mentioned the rage yet? Oh.)

I've just changed comment servers - I hope Enetation works more than 5% of the time. Thanks for reading. Please let me know you did ...