Since I was five years old, New Year's has always signified a sort of detente. In elementary school, I never wrote a daily journal entry on New Year's. At that point, the concept of homework at all was daunting, never mind homework during vacation. In middle school, I had no spelling tests or reading quizzes. In high school and college, I read. For over fifteen years, I never wrote down the date on New Year's Day. I waited until a week or so later, in Social Studies class or English, when I would inevitably write 1999 instead of 2000 or 2006 instead of 2007. I'm sure if you go back and look at my writing assignments for around January 7th of each year, you would find a series of bemused scribbles and numbers.
Today, New Year's Day, I wrote down the date for the first time. January 1, 2011. I didn't hesitate or scribble or scratch. A 2, a 0, two 1's, curiously altered by a little hook on the top of each, a result of adapting to French handwriting. I don't know why I had no trouble with it. Maybe because the concept of New Year's is much more apparent on the day than a week later. Maybe because eleven is so much more symmetrical than ten. Maybe because I just notice time passing more now than I did last year or six years ago.
One afternoon this past week, while enjoying a quiet, unassuming ten days at my home in Massachusetts, I sat at the kitchen table and watched my mother gently lift dried flowers from a little hand-operated flower press. She used a spatula, the same one my father uses to flip pancakes, to peel the fragile stems from the page. Every once in a while, a stem would slip through a hole in the spatula and sort of dangle there, half stuck to the page, half suspended; a tenuous balance. Sometimes the stems would break. Sometimes they wouldn't. As my mother carefully and deliberately glued each petal to a page in her notebook, a sort of 2D flower arranging, I noticed the purple sticky note on the flower press. June 2010. When my family was still living in Sweden. In June, in Sweden, my mother tightened the screws on the flower press and in December, in America, she released them.
Last New Year's, I woke up in Stockholm in 2010. And now it is 2011 and I am in France. Time and place do a funny little dance.
Sometimes I think that, one day in June, I will stop in the middle of one of the many things I do at Williams and pluck a sticky note off my back that says January, 2011. And it will give me pause and I will remember the person I was today and the person I am today and the person I will be then and whatever other confusing grammatical combination I can come up with. With which I can come up.
And then I'll keep on doing what I'm doing.
Happy New Year, everyone. May you all have joy and laughter and surprise and the pleasure of continuing to do what it is that you're doing.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Friday, December 17, 2010
Benches
I spend a lot of time on benches. Sitting on benches, reading on benches, people watching on benches, twiddling my thumbs on benches. I'm good at benches. And the reason I'm good at benches is simple, persistent, and unavoidable. I'm always early. Always. I'm early in spite of myself. Last night, I deliberately left my apartment late, so that I would arrive at a dinner party about 5 minutes late. It's fashionable, right? I missed a tram on purpose, took the less direct bus route, and walked really really slowly. Not only did I get there at 7:58, it turned out the dinner was actually at 8:30 and not 8. Benches.
Today is a horrible day for travel. A strike and a snowstorm have been scheduled to ruin everything. Which is why I woke up at 5:15am, hopped in the taxi at 6am, arrived at the airport at 6:25am (in a light, warmish sort of drizzle), checked in for my flight at 6:35am, and began waiting at 6:42am. My flight is at 10:30am. Benches. Well, more accurately, a rickety table in one of those weirdly corporate airport "cafés" that smell kind of like polyester and slightly stale croissants. They have Wifi here (pronounced "weefee" à la français"), which is probably cheating. There's something much less impressive about waiting for three hours when you're plugged into the infamous time-suck of the web.
Remember when you were little, buckled in on long car rides to your grandparents or Florida or wherever families take 8 year olds? Remember all the stuff you'd bring? Books and notebooks and pens and pencils and, as the early 90s gave way to the (over)stimulation of the present day, gameboys and mini DVD players and those TV screens in cars. You needed to be prepared for everything and anything. The preparation approached a mathematical equation: the length of the car trip divided by the attention span of the child equals the amount of different things you needed to stuff into those little pouches on the back of the seats of the minivan. Having a sister helped sometimes. Card games are easier to play with two people, unless solitaire is your thing. It isn't mine.
But something happened a couple years ago. The need for stimulation dissipated. The number of things I shoved in my backpack or purse decreased to such a point where the backpack became unnecessary. Because all I bring is a book. Sometimes a journal. And, most of the time, I don't even pull it out. Plane rides and train rides and car rides have become an enforced period of nothingness. A time when I don't actually have to DO anything. I can just sit. And I welcome that. It's the perfect excuse. Sometimes I wonder if maybe my entrenched penchant for earliness is some sort of subconscious mechanism at work. Maybe I'm forcing myself to just sit. Do to nothing. To read nothing. To think nothing. Meditation by bench.
I have a solid 24 hours of travel ahead of me before I arrive at one of my favorite places in the world to be with some of my favorite people in the world. In 24 hours, I will be home. In the meantime, I will be nothing. And it's gonna be awesome.
Today is a horrible day for travel. A strike and a snowstorm have been scheduled to ruin everything. Which is why I woke up at 5:15am, hopped in the taxi at 6am, arrived at the airport at 6:25am (in a light, warmish sort of drizzle), checked in for my flight at 6:35am, and began waiting at 6:42am. My flight is at 10:30am. Benches. Well, more accurately, a rickety table in one of those weirdly corporate airport "cafés" that smell kind of like polyester and slightly stale croissants. They have Wifi here (pronounced "weefee" à la français"), which is probably cheating. There's something much less impressive about waiting for three hours when you're plugged into the infamous time-suck of the web.
Remember when you were little, buckled in on long car rides to your grandparents or Florida or wherever families take 8 year olds? Remember all the stuff you'd bring? Books and notebooks and pens and pencils and, as the early 90s gave way to the (over)stimulation of the present day, gameboys and mini DVD players and those TV screens in cars. You needed to be prepared for everything and anything. The preparation approached a mathematical equation: the length of the car trip divided by the attention span of the child equals the amount of different things you needed to stuff into those little pouches on the back of the seats of the minivan. Having a sister helped sometimes. Card games are easier to play with two people, unless solitaire is your thing. It isn't mine.
But something happened a couple years ago. The need for stimulation dissipated. The number of things I shoved in my backpack or purse decreased to such a point where the backpack became unnecessary. Because all I bring is a book. Sometimes a journal. And, most of the time, I don't even pull it out. Plane rides and train rides and car rides have become an enforced period of nothingness. A time when I don't actually have to DO anything. I can just sit. And I welcome that. It's the perfect excuse. Sometimes I wonder if maybe my entrenched penchant for earliness is some sort of subconscious mechanism at work. Maybe I'm forcing myself to just sit. Do to nothing. To read nothing. To think nothing. Meditation by bench.
I have a solid 24 hours of travel ahead of me before I arrive at one of my favorite places in the world to be with some of my favorite people in the world. In 24 hours, I will be home. In the meantime, I will be nothing. And it's gonna be awesome.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Creature of Habit
Habit is a funny, sneaky little creature. He often catches me by surprise. For a while there, I was in the habit of writing on this blog at least once a week. It was just something I did. Often on Wednesdays. And now, it's been well over a month since I've written. Habit is fickle and he has been otherwise preoccupied. School-work for the most part. An unexpected amount of it. Also with choir on Monday nights, a play that I'm assistant-directing on Fridays and Wednesdays, the runs that I take on Monday mornings or Sunday afternoons, and the more than occasional episode of some brainless TV show online. But habit has kept me happy. I appreciate the structure he brings to my life. And his fickleness keeps me on my toes. Everyone in a while, I have to intervene. So this is me intervening. It's time to write again. But habit requires a little coaxing. We need to ease back into things. So I'm going to kick things off with a list. Lists are a habit of mine, as well.
Here are a list of things from the past month.
Things the repairman found in my blocked train this morning:
-1 necklace. Not mine.
-1 cap of a contact lens fluid bottle. Mine.
-At least 7 bobby pins. Mostly mine.
-Lots and lots of hair. Definitely mine.
Things I like sharing with complete strangers:
-A quick snort of laughter at the man across the street who walks into the plate glass. Maybe it's a bit cruel, but that kind of thing is almost always funny.
-Rain-soaked, "I forgot my umbrella", mutual discomfort groans.
-The first snowfall in Bordeaux.
Things on the walls in my room right now:
-A drawing of what I think it probably me (one yellow head, three green-ish limbs, no torso to speak of) and my house (which appears to have an orangey-green moss growing out of the bottom of it) as drawn by the granddaughter of Lizzie's host mom in Strasbourg.
-Several notes/postcards from my friends and family.
-A leaf.
-A scrap piece of paper on which I copied a sentence from an email my mother sent me: "The main thing is to make the main thing the main thing."
-A large cluster of pictures of all the people in my life who make me happy (thank you Evan).
-2 large sheets of paper with the entire history (both thematic, historical, and literary) of the Bible scrawled in barely legible short-hand. Preparation for the 2-hour exam that I learned, on the day, that I wasn't actually supposed to take.
-The semester calendar for Université Michel de Montaigne Bordeaux 3. Last day of classes: 17 décembre.
Things I find hard to believe:
-That my semester is over in three days.
-That it's even colder in the Berkshires than it is here. It's cold here.
-That I'm going to be in the US in four days.
-The utter clarity of the stars in the winter sky.
Things written on the other lists scattered about my room:
-The train schedule from Grand Central to Wassaic. I almost miss how complicated it is to get home from JFK. Almost.
-Classes for Spring Semester.
-The names of the cast of the play I'm assistant directing. Written on napkin complete with grease stains from a pizzeria in which I sang the entirety of the American National Anthem because they wanted to hear it.
Sometimes it feels like my life is made up of lists. And in writing this, I've realized that this is true in more ways than one. Yes, no matter where I live, there are inevitably scrap pieces of paper or post-it notes scattered about with bus schedules, gym hours, shopping lists, to-do lists, things to remember lists, etc. But there are also the less obvious lists. The faces of my friends. The words of my family. My own words. I am kind of list myself. Maybe it's a little reductionist or a little boring, but I like it. Because I like lists. They never stay the same. You cross things off, you add things, you add things just so that you can cross things off. I've added quite a bit to my list this semester. I think I've probably added more than I realize. And I like that, too.
Here are a list of things from the past month.
Things the repairman found in my blocked train this morning:
-1 necklace. Not mine.
-1 cap of a contact lens fluid bottle. Mine.
-At least 7 bobby pins. Mostly mine.
-Lots and lots of hair. Definitely mine.
Things I like sharing with complete strangers:
-A quick snort of laughter at the man across the street who walks into the plate glass. Maybe it's a bit cruel, but that kind of thing is almost always funny.
-Rain-soaked, "I forgot my umbrella", mutual discomfort groans.
-The first snowfall in Bordeaux.
Things on the walls in my room right now:
-A drawing of what I think it probably me (one yellow head, three green-ish limbs, no torso to speak of) and my house (which appears to have an orangey-green moss growing out of the bottom of it) as drawn by the granddaughter of Lizzie's host mom in Strasbourg.
-Several notes/postcards from my friends and family.
-A leaf.
-A scrap piece of paper on which I copied a sentence from an email my mother sent me: "The main thing is to make the main thing the main thing."
-A large cluster of pictures of all the people in my life who make me happy (thank you Evan).
-2 large sheets of paper with the entire history (both thematic, historical, and literary) of the Bible scrawled in barely legible short-hand. Preparation for the 2-hour exam that I learned, on the day, that I wasn't actually supposed to take.
-The semester calendar for Université Michel de Montaigne Bordeaux 3. Last day of classes: 17 décembre.
Things I find hard to believe:
-That my semester is over in three days.
-That it's even colder in the Berkshires than it is here. It's cold here.
-That I'm going to be in the US in four days.
-The utter clarity of the stars in the winter sky.
Things written on the other lists scattered about my room:
-The train schedule from Grand Central to Wassaic. I almost miss how complicated it is to get home from JFK. Almost.
-Classes for Spring Semester.
-The names of the cast of the play I'm assistant directing. Written on napkin complete with grease stains from a pizzeria in which I sang the entirety of the American National Anthem because they wanted to hear it.
Sometimes it feels like my life is made up of lists. And in writing this, I've realized that this is true in more ways than one. Yes, no matter where I live, there are inevitably scrap pieces of paper or post-it notes scattered about with bus schedules, gym hours, shopping lists, to-do lists, things to remember lists, etc. But there are also the less obvious lists. The faces of my friends. The words of my family. My own words. I am kind of list myself. Maybe it's a little reductionist or a little boring, but I like it. Because I like lists. They never stay the same. You cross things off, you add things, you add things just so that you can cross things off. I've added quite a bit to my list this semester. I think I've probably added more than I realize. And I like that, too.
Friday, October 29, 2010
En route
I'm taking this opportunity, in a dingy little internet cafe in Perpignan, France - a strange little village most definitely NOT originally on my itinery to Barcelona - to publicly thank loud Americans who complain about everything for making me feel so much less annoyed about French strikes cancelling my connecting train, screwing up my travel plans and postponing my arrival in Spain by three hours, if only to spite said loud Americans who complain about everything.
Thank you. By trying to tune you out, I've gotten to pay a lot more attention to the hauntingly beautiful French countryside and, in trying to escape you, I've learned that the closer you are to Spain, the better the bananas are, even at tiny little hole-in-the-wall bodegas. So it turns out it's actually not that bad.
Thankfully (and a bit self-righteously) yours,
Holly
Thank you. By trying to tune you out, I've gotten to pay a lot more attention to the hauntingly beautiful French countryside and, in trying to escape you, I've learned that the closer you are to Spain, the better the bananas are, even at tiny little hole-in-the-wall bodegas. So it turns out it's actually not that bad.
Thankfully (and a bit self-righteously) yours,
Holly
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Indulgence
My father travels a lot on business. As a result, my house (and my closet) has accumulated its fair share of international trinkets: wooden clogs from Holland, soccer jerseys from Poland, maracas from Peru (I think it was Peru), and a whole lot of chocolate. Of my favorite such gifts are two globe shaped candle holders from some country that I now forget. They are small, about the size of a grapefruit, slightly translucent, and hand-painted in some mysterious - assuredly brilliant and simple - way such that the flickering of a candle flame causes the painted scenes to dance across the glass surface. The tiny buildings take on an extra dimension, a sort of hazy after-glow that makes it seem like you could reach out and touch the thumb-nail sized roofs. Windows glow in what seems to be the light of cozy fireplaces and stars shimmer in the blue-black night sky. They are at once comforting and fascinating. And they have nothing to do with what I'm about to talk about. I do promise to return to the candle holders. Just indulge me for the next paragraph and a half.
Today, whilst waiting to enter my scenography (look it up) class, I was scanning a bulletin board filled with posters and event listings and bemoaning my general lack of culture. I have attended one play since coming to Bordeaux and I would love to have those three hours of my life back. (It was Really Bad). I entered the classroom feeling uninteresting and uninterested. Three hours later, I walked out and noticed a new poster. "Les Bonnes" de Jean Genet. Opening tonight, playing for the next couple of days. Now here was an idea I could get behind. I impulsively reserved a ticket for tonight and spent the rest of the day reminiscing about the production of The Maids I was in last spring and anticipating a night of pretty incredible French theater. After letting the cast and crew of last year's The Maids know where I was headed, I jotted down directions and hopped on my bike. It's a pretty perfect night for a bike ride. Crisp, but not to cold, and the moon, waxing full, provides quite the nightlight. And then I got lost. Like really lost. Like call Kate with one hand while braking with the other while looking at the useless directions with the other while not having enough hands lost. The soft light of the moon became the harsh lights of high-beams and florescent gas-station signs. The wind-swept blush in my cheeks became a sweaty, stressed-out flush. As I circled around parts of Bordeaux I'd never before seen, I watched the time. 8:17. 8:24. 8:31. Missed it.
Ultimately, and dejectedly, I made my way back to charted territory (after asking for directions from a lovely man who made me feel slightly less stupid and made sure the lights on my bike were functioning). I was angry at myself. Angry for forgetting my map, for not writing better directions, for not leaving enough time, for blowing my own moment of spontaneity. Yes, so I'll go tomorrow instead, but by tomorrow it won't be spur of the moment! It's like leftovers. Who wants to see left-over Jean Genet! For those well acquainted with me, you know how good I am at finding all the reasons why I should be unhappy in a given moment, especially if something has gone wrong. I was in mid-self-chastisement when I looked up and noticed l'Eglise Saint-Pierre and the Cathédrale Saint-André, softly lit and looming into the night sky, and exuding that same soft, tactile after-glow as the tiny paintings on the candle-holders on our mantel. I slowed down, looked closer, and experienced a little bit of an inward struggle. Self-indulgent bad mood versus really pretty churches that remind me of home on a lovely fall evening. "Fine", I said, aloud and begrudgingly, "I'll stop now". And so I did. I stopped berating myself for getting lost. I stopped worrying about the potential consequences if the strikes in France continue. I stopped feeling bad for not finishing a book I'd planned to finish this weekend. And, in a symbolic gesture, I stopped holding on to the handlebars. Almost fell off. Held back on.
Baby steps.
At the risk of sounding obvious, indulging in flickering candles, shimmering sky-lines, and a autumnal breeze is much more interesting and a lot more fun than indulging in self-pity and self-critique. There is a time and a place for constructive criticism and it is not all the time nor is it in every place. I need to give me a little break. Thus is my resolution to myself:
Pretty things are pretty and I'm gonna look at 'em. Especially when they make me change my mind.
Today, whilst waiting to enter my scenography (look it up) class, I was scanning a bulletin board filled with posters and event listings and bemoaning my general lack of culture. I have attended one play since coming to Bordeaux and I would love to have those three hours of my life back. (It was Really Bad). I entered the classroom feeling uninteresting and uninterested. Three hours later, I walked out and noticed a new poster. "Les Bonnes" de Jean Genet. Opening tonight, playing for the next couple of days. Now here was an idea I could get behind. I impulsively reserved a ticket for tonight and spent the rest of the day reminiscing about the production of The Maids I was in last spring and anticipating a night of pretty incredible French theater. After letting the cast and crew of last year's The Maids know where I was headed, I jotted down directions and hopped on my bike. It's a pretty perfect night for a bike ride. Crisp, but not to cold, and the moon, waxing full, provides quite the nightlight. And then I got lost. Like really lost. Like call Kate with one hand while braking with the other while looking at the useless directions with the other while not having enough hands lost. The soft light of the moon became the harsh lights of high-beams and florescent gas-station signs. The wind-swept blush in my cheeks became a sweaty, stressed-out flush. As I circled around parts of Bordeaux I'd never before seen, I watched the time. 8:17. 8:24. 8:31. Missed it.
Ultimately, and dejectedly, I made my way back to charted territory (after asking for directions from a lovely man who made me feel slightly less stupid and made sure the lights on my bike were functioning). I was angry at myself. Angry for forgetting my map, for not writing better directions, for not leaving enough time, for blowing my own moment of spontaneity. Yes, so I'll go tomorrow instead, but by tomorrow it won't be spur of the moment! It's like leftovers. Who wants to see left-over Jean Genet! For those well acquainted with me, you know how good I am at finding all the reasons why I should be unhappy in a given moment, especially if something has gone wrong. I was in mid-self-chastisement when I looked up and noticed l'Eglise Saint-Pierre and the Cathédrale Saint-André, softly lit and looming into the night sky, and exuding that same soft, tactile after-glow as the tiny paintings on the candle-holders on our mantel. I slowed down, looked closer, and experienced a little bit of an inward struggle. Self-indulgent bad mood versus really pretty churches that remind me of home on a lovely fall evening. "Fine", I said, aloud and begrudgingly, "I'll stop now". And so I did. I stopped berating myself for getting lost. I stopped worrying about the potential consequences if the strikes in France continue. I stopped feeling bad for not finishing a book I'd planned to finish this weekend. And, in a symbolic gesture, I stopped holding on to the handlebars. Almost fell off. Held back on.
Baby steps.
At the risk of sounding obvious, indulging in flickering candles, shimmering sky-lines, and a autumnal breeze is much more interesting and a lot more fun than indulging in self-pity and self-critique. There is a time and a place for constructive criticism and it is not all the time nor is it in every place. I need to give me a little break. Thus is my resolution to myself:
Pretty things are pretty and I'm gonna look at 'em. Especially when they make me change my mind.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Chocolate and Arachnophobia
This past weekend, I treated myself to an all-day wine tour. I'm in Bordeaux and thus, this was necessary. The weather was perfect; sunny and crisp, tasting of ripe leaves and earth. The tour was small and personal. I found myself cruising through the Bordeaux vineyards with a couple from Australia, a couple from Florida, and a couple from Colby College - one of whom is on the same study abroad program in Paris as a girl I know at Williams - because the world of private, New England colleges isn't small enough already. Over the course of eight hours, we tasted over twenty different bottles of wine in three different tastings, watched short films about wine making with laughably melodramatic voice-overs, ate Sauvignon Franc grapes right off the wine, and listened to an embarrassingly American woman from California talk about "her" grapes as the silent, sturdy Frenchman behind her swiftly and dexterously proved that they were much more his. In between tastings and visits, we stopped in the bucolic and postcard-ready town of St. Emillion for lunch. The couples dispersed and I ambled leisurely along cobbled paths, reminiscent of both San Francisco and Piza, searching for the perfect spot to indulge in a private, three-course meal. I ended up in a surprisingly sprawling cave of a restaurant, with sloping, irregular walls and dim lighting. It was, suitably enough, exactly like a wine cellar. Over the next hour and a half, I never once had to reach into my bag for my book, the just-in-case-I-can't-handle-the-alone-thing backup. I just didn't need it. I was perfectly happy to sit and enjoy myself by myself.
I have felt similar rushes of gratitude in solitude over the past couple of days. Riding my bike home from the university in the setting sun, running along the quays with the wind whipping at my back, cooking dinner to the sounds of Miles Davies streaming from my computer. Recently, I have caught myself indulging in the occasional piece (well, bar) of dark chocolate after dinner. Not only am I getting this whole being alone thing down, I'm also turning into an adult! (My reason being that only adults eat dark chocolate). Needless to say, I've been feeling pretty smug, secure, and grown-up lately. That was, until I walked into my room the other night and found this
His name is Woolf Spider and he is terrifying. He also has nothing to do with my happy little adult dream world. In fact, he makes me want to renounce everything having to do with adulthood and independence. After a panicked few minutes, during which I'd exhausted all of the options involving me not having to do anything - make my mom/dad do it (wrong country), make my boyfriend do it (wrong country AND hates spiders more than I do - sorry, Ev, but it's true), make my neighbors do it (I don't have neighbors that I'm aware of) - I decided to heed the advice of a friend who'd responded to my urgent Facebook message. In the ensuing battle, I squealed a lot, lost the stupid spider, tore my room apart, found him again, and considered moving to Finland where it's too cold for Woolf Spiders. I finally managed to trap him between a folder and a plastic cup, which was barely able to hold him and was also unfortunately transparent. I then threw the whole cup out the window, feeling only a mild pang of remorse for my litter but mostly glad I hadn't given the thing the chance to crawl out of the cup and seek his revenge. It's been two days and still, I find myself scouring the room every couple of hours, certain that his progeny will be back in an organized coup for vengeance.
All of which is my way of saying that dark chocolate, solitary meals, and wine tastings are all well and good, but I still really don't like hairy, crawly, leggy things in my living space and I am perfectly okay with that. And sometimes a bar of Hershey's chocolate is delicious.
I have felt similar rushes of gratitude in solitude over the past couple of days. Riding my bike home from the university in the setting sun, running along the quays with the wind whipping at my back, cooking dinner to the sounds of Miles Davies streaming from my computer. Recently, I have caught myself indulging in the occasional piece (well, bar) of dark chocolate after dinner. Not only am I getting this whole being alone thing down, I'm also turning into an adult! (My reason being that only adults eat dark chocolate). Needless to say, I've been feeling pretty smug, secure, and grown-up lately. That was, until I walked into my room the other night and found this
His name is Woolf Spider and he is terrifying. He also has nothing to do with my happy little adult dream world. In fact, he makes me want to renounce everything having to do with adulthood and independence. After a panicked few minutes, during which I'd exhausted all of the options involving me not having to do anything - make my mom/dad do it (wrong country), make my boyfriend do it (wrong country AND hates spiders more than I do - sorry, Ev, but it's true), make my neighbors do it (I don't have neighbors that I'm aware of) - I decided to heed the advice of a friend who'd responded to my urgent Facebook message. In the ensuing battle, I squealed a lot, lost the stupid spider, tore my room apart, found him again, and considered moving to Finland where it's too cold for Woolf Spiders. I finally managed to trap him between a folder and a plastic cup, which was barely able to hold him and was also unfortunately transparent. I then threw the whole cup out the window, feeling only a mild pang of remorse for my litter but mostly glad I hadn't given the thing the chance to crawl out of the cup and seek his revenge. It's been two days and still, I find myself scouring the room every couple of hours, certain that his progeny will be back in an organized coup for vengeance.
All of which is my way of saying that dark chocolate, solitary meals, and wine tastings are all well and good, but I still really don't like hairy, crawly, leggy things in my living space and I am perfectly okay with that. And sometimes a bar of Hershey's chocolate is delicious.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Black cats, spilled salt, broken mirrors and other stories
They say bad things happen in threes. For a long time, I didn't believe it. Bad things happen in other numbers, too. Ten, for instance. There were ten plagues. Two is also an option. There were two world wars, no matter how many times sci-fi writers latch onto the intriguing, proverbial prospect of a third. Bad things can happen in ones, too. Mononucleosis. You can only have mono once. (In other news, I just figured out why "mono" is such an appropriate prefix). Lately, however, I have become somewhat of a believer. When I arrived in Paris this weekend, I was at number two. Number one was the week long shenanigans surrounding my apartment disaster. Number two was getting my credit card information stolen. I'm not sure how it happened, but someone managed to spend $1500 of my money on airline and train tickets to, from and potentially around Peru. Whilst in Paris, wandering around the Cimitière de Montparnasse (where you can find Jean-Paul Sartre, Marguerite Dumas, Eugène Ionesco, and Ricardo who I thought was a very loved cat but turned out to be a person who just really loved cats, as made evident by the very large, very porcelain, and very colorful cat that marked his grave), I mentioned to Yanie and Michaela that I hoped having two buses drive straight past me without stopping on Friday morning might have constituted number three. Yanie reckoned no. She was right.
While exiting the metro on Friday night, lighthearted for being in the presence of women I love and excited for the bar we were heading to in the Marais, I skipped happily into the waiting arms of a Gendarme (I recognize that this is an incorrect use of the term, but I'm appropriating it here for dramatic effect), all uniform and stern face. He would like to know if I could please show him my validated ticket. I could not, thank you very much, because I had thrown it away, I'm so sorry, Monsieur. This was a lie. In fact, I had not bought one. This is besides the point. This particular bout of being-in-the-wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time cost me 40 euros and my good mood.
However, as I stalked angrily up the stairs of the metro station, I found myself unable to wallow in my misfortune. In fact, as we walked along in the crisp (read: a little too cold) Parisian air, I felt a weight lift off my shoulders. I was done. My bad things had come in threes and I was finished. I considered buying a lottery ticket. But then, as I sat in the Quatre Etages (thanks to Margot for the find) with my girl friends and my snifter (I've always wanted to use that word) of delicious, if over-priced, Amaretto, I realized that I have all the luck I'll ever need.
Of course, I now find myself compelled to knock on wood for writing an entire blog post tempting fate. There. I just did. Superstitions exist for a reason and I've decided it's time to take advantage of the opportunity to relinquish a little control to fate or luck or karma or this counter top which I've just realized is not wood at all but vinyl. In the meantime, I'm going to go find something wooden.
While exiting the metro on Friday night, lighthearted for being in the presence of women I love and excited for the bar we were heading to in the Marais, I skipped happily into the waiting arms of a Gendarme (I recognize that this is an incorrect use of the term, but I'm appropriating it here for dramatic effect), all uniform and stern face. He would like to know if I could please show him my validated ticket. I could not, thank you very much, because I had thrown it away, I'm so sorry, Monsieur. This was a lie. In fact, I had not bought one. This is besides the point. This particular bout of being-in-the-wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time cost me 40 euros and my good mood.
However, as I stalked angrily up the stairs of the metro station, I found myself unable to wallow in my misfortune. In fact, as we walked along in the crisp (read: a little too cold) Parisian air, I felt a weight lift off my shoulders. I was done. My bad things had come in threes and I was finished. I considered buying a lottery ticket. But then, as I sat in the Quatre Etages (thanks to Margot for the find) with my girl friends and my snifter (I've always wanted to use that word) of delicious, if over-priced, Amaretto, I realized that I have all the luck I'll ever need.
Of course, I now find myself compelled to knock on wood for writing an entire blog post tempting fate. There. I just did. Superstitions exist for a reason and I've decided it's time to take advantage of the opportunity to relinquish a little control to fate or luck or karma or this counter top which I've just realized is not wood at all but vinyl. In the meantime, I'm going to go find something wooden.
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