Hail to the Pretendership
This post will feature insightful comments on cultural differences. If you neither see the insights nor the need for differences you're basically a douche, and not my friend, in the French sense.
So hammered, well nailed
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| Actual picture of me, some friends, some foes, in a pastlife |
I read this from a book of poetry in my dream. I had the sense then that it was quite famous and I was considering updating my Facebook status with it to see how many of my friends would recognize it.
I am at once annoyed and amused that Facebook status found its way into my dreams. For my part, and more creatively, I started writing a poem for it this morning. I was, however, quickly out of my depth, and it will take a long time before I deign it worthy for your ingestion.
Eat something else why don't you. How bout the rich?
Funemployment is loosing its luster. I keep trying to schedule sessions as an English teacher but it takes so much bloody effort to read in French and then respond in French. It's like they don't even want to work on their English. *wink*
A lot of dudes are writing me to have sex with me, too. Asking me if I "teach other courses" or explaining they want a companion, male or female, and in my age range....why so picky, bro? Someone even put their prices in their email, 200 euros an hour. I mean, thanks or whatever, that's certainly more than I could make teaching you English. But, think of all the front end investment in yoga and hot wax that would mean.
I do have some great fuck-me-boots but those get put to fine use as is. Everything is pretty super around our apartment. I feel really lucky to be friendly with the folks who share my space. It's just that well...I really miss having loud sex. I miss it so much. I miss it as though it were a 4 packs of oreas and I am a kid still away at fat camp and I want it more then I ever wanted a piece of the Agrocrag. (Check out our 20sb discussion on the matter)
Truth be told, I bet my flatmates probably already think I have loud sex. But honestly, I am totally keeping it down for them. Ok, there was Friday night when one of the guys was being generous with his whiskey, and Sebastien and I ended up at the bar afterwards...
It's funny going to bars.
There I am, finally practicing my French, flirting haphazardly with the bartender, being silly with some English guy named Peter all the while slurping down a 6 euro whiskey and coca when a handsome shape catches my eye, turning around, my body abruptly warms, I notice the man I absolutely must have my legs wrapped around in the next five minutes or else. Oh yes, the internet, I am just like you. I go to the bars to find someone to practice my mantra with. Thankfully, the male I selected was likewise inclined, and thankfully he also had the key to my apartment, because I had left my copy up in our room. He smiled back at me as I slinked toward him meaningfully, all while thinking, but my face surely not saying, why are we spending money here? We could be upstairs messing up our sheets...
So yeah, we had loud sex on Friday night. Although, I think the second time was much quieter.
On a somewhat unrelated note, as most of my blogger friends already know, Sebastien and I are in an open relationship and we've selectively been telling our housemates now so that they stop introducing us as the "American couple." A couple of Americans is just fine. You are what you eat, after all. Damn, I must be rich. Rich in spirit at the very least, for I am a powerful dark sailor and I have sailed many a gibawa wave.
An ugly poem.
I won't eat it, I'll never eat it. The blood red gush and purple mass of whatever it is my sister pulled out of that can. It isn't cranberry sauce. Why can't it just be cranberry sauce? I am not the oldest, I was once the youngest. Three of my sisters are setting up the table. It's big, and oak, and four of us can squeeze onto the bench.
My oldest sister doesn't live here. She has her own family in her own house. She is maybe too drunk to make dinner, or she is waiting tables. Her son plays next to me, hopping from one yellow square to another, again and again on the sandy, scuffed floor. I pretend he is my brother. Our sisters talk for a time around the table, and among the clinking glasses and the splashes of sliding silver, in-between asking me to get out the milk, they talk above my brother and I about a foster child we never met who lived in my mother's house before me.
She, apparently, loved beets. She called them cookies. She pilled them in her mouth and asked for more cookies. She, apparently, was a fuckin idiot.
I by contrast am 7. I can tell the difference between something that ought to be cranberry sauce, yet isn't and what definitely passes as a cookie.
I am headstrong and heart sore, ruckus, rude and dirty mouthed. At the park or or on the street, I cuss like the sailor they tell me my father wasn't, though a city boy he wouldn't pass for, either. I'll smoke my first cigarette two years from now, in a circle with my older sisters on the old tennis courts above our house. I will cough, and it will burn while they laugh, and I will swear that next time I'll do better.
I can't say if they are smokers now. Each has children and entire lives on another content. But then they were my guardians.
We made cookies on the weekends, from scratch, on the same counter where our old dad used to pound ground beef into patties for the grill. He was always lecturing us, that one dad.
He's gone, I guess. They all are. All the dads we ever had are gone. But what they taught us about men sticks around, like cookies you make from scratch on a Sunday.
Today is not a Sunday. Our mother is not here to make dinner. She is working third shift. She lives with us again.
She left us once. I don't remember it fondly. I had to get used to it. I had to understand it much later: my mother as a young girl, getting pregnant at sixteen to avoid a home life worth leaving, getting mixed up with the sort of men you don't bring home to mom because they are too much like your father. Ending up with a kid like me 17 years, and whole lives later.
I had to grow into forgiving her for how she left me with a dad who wasn't my dad to try a profession that wasn't waiting tables in a city that wasn't in our town. Though she was not here now, save in spirit, and in the fridge. She was keeping the lights on. She was passing night meds at some hospital, she was wearing white shoes. Her heart was too big to waste on such small children, or her head was too stupid and she wasted her self on such small men.
Beets aren't cookies, they aren't even terrible, but they weren't hot dogs and macaroni, so my brother who was not my brother and I handed them to the dog, and when that didn't work we spit them into napkins, and when that didn't work we pretended we needed to use the bathroom and fed them to the toilet.
My brother who is not my brother is dead now. I deal with it every day.
My fathers who are not my fathers aren't dead. But my father is. I only thought of it once, his death, and how it could have been--on the day I found out he had been dead for six monts. Maybe I think of it sometimes in February, or when I hear certain songs. But is hard to miss what you never knew.
My mother who was really my income does not work now. She has three kids left. They were my kids once, at night and at dipper changing time. Now they are not. I dream about them sometimes as they were: small and perfect, jubilant and good natured. I remember what it is like to be a teen in that household, but they do not think I do. I am sorry every time we speak for the comments I don't make, for the waves I won't wake because I am not convinced they will help.
I am like my mother. I am here to help. Tonight, I had beets for dinner, in a salad, mixed with corn. I laughed when I told the story about eating them, getting rid of them, or getting beat and sent to bed.
Beets or beat, heh, that sister only beat me once. Twice if you count the time I called the cops on her. My eye was swollen and my shirt was torn, but wasn't like the time she dragged me up the stairs by my hair. Mom was away at nursing school then, and there was no one to hear my screams.
Forgive me, I've been too honest.
My oldest sister doesn't live here. She has her own family in her own house. She is maybe too drunk to make dinner, or she is waiting tables. Her son plays next to me, hopping from one yellow square to another, again and again on the sandy, scuffed floor. I pretend he is my brother. Our sisters talk for a time around the table, and among the clinking glasses and the splashes of sliding silver, in-between asking me to get out the milk, they talk above my brother and I about a foster child we never met who lived in my mother's house before me.
She, apparently, loved beets. She called them cookies. She pilled them in her mouth and asked for more cookies. She, apparently, was a fuckin idiot.
I by contrast am 7. I can tell the difference between something that ought to be cranberry sauce, yet isn't and what definitely passes as a cookie.
I am headstrong and heart sore, ruckus, rude and dirty mouthed. At the park or or on the street, I cuss like the sailor they tell me my father wasn't, though a city boy he wouldn't pass for, either. I'll smoke my first cigarette two years from now, in a circle with my older sisters on the old tennis courts above our house. I will cough, and it will burn while they laugh, and I will swear that next time I'll do better.
I can't say if they are smokers now. Each has children and entire lives on another content. But then they were my guardians.
We made cookies on the weekends, from scratch, on the same counter where our old dad used to pound ground beef into patties for the grill. He was always lecturing us, that one dad.
He's gone, I guess. They all are. All the dads we ever had are gone. But what they taught us about men sticks around, like cookies you make from scratch on a Sunday.
Today is not a Sunday. Our mother is not here to make dinner. She is working third shift. She lives with us again.
She left us once. I don't remember it fondly. I had to get used to it. I had to understand it much later: my mother as a young girl, getting pregnant at sixteen to avoid a home life worth leaving, getting mixed up with the sort of men you don't bring home to mom because they are too much like your father. Ending up with a kid like me 17 years, and whole lives later.
I had to grow into forgiving her for how she left me with a dad who wasn't my dad to try a profession that wasn't waiting tables in a city that wasn't in our town. Though she was not here now, save in spirit, and in the fridge. She was keeping the lights on. She was passing night meds at some hospital, she was wearing white shoes. Her heart was too big to waste on such small children, or her head was too stupid and she wasted her self on such small men.
Beets aren't cookies, they aren't even terrible, but they weren't hot dogs and macaroni, so my brother who was not my brother and I handed them to the dog, and when that didn't work we spit them into napkins, and when that didn't work we pretended we needed to use the bathroom and fed them to the toilet.
My brother who is not my brother is dead now. I deal with it every day.
My fathers who are not my fathers aren't dead. But my father is. I only thought of it once, his death, and how it could have been--on the day I found out he had been dead for six monts. Maybe I think of it sometimes in February, or when I hear certain songs. But is hard to miss what you never knew.
My mother who was really my income does not work now. She has three kids left. They were my kids once, at night and at dipper changing time. Now they are not. I dream about them sometimes as they were: small and perfect, jubilant and good natured. I remember what it is like to be a teen in that household, but they do not think I do. I am sorry every time we speak for the comments I don't make, for the waves I won't wake because I am not convinced they will help.
I am like my mother. I am here to help. Tonight, I had beets for dinner, in a salad, mixed with corn. I laughed when I told the story about eating them, getting rid of them, or getting beat and sent to bed.
Beets or beat, heh, that sister only beat me once. Twice if you count the time I called the cops on her. My eye was swollen and my shirt was torn, but wasn't like the time she dragged me up the stairs by my hair. Mom was away at nursing school then, and there was no one to hear my screams.
Forgive me, I've been too honest.
Self assured, dirty words.
Are you familiar with the concept of punctuated equilibrium? Well, I'm quite fond of it, as a major proponent of the theory attended my university. I'll save some of you the wiki visit and say it states that instead of a population evolving slowly through out time, the population will enjoy periods of stasis punctuated by rapid changes made necessary by outside forces. That is to say we evolve when we need to, not slowly everyday. And of course Mr. Gould isn't talking about evolution of the individual, but I am.
And so, are you in a period of stasis or are you attempting to regain equilibrium?
For my part this surely is not equilibrium.
Nor, I suppose is it stasis.
Flux.
A state of flux.
A perpetual state of flux. I may bend time at this rate. Spoons though, are still out of my league.
I went dancing this weekend with my colocs. Now, some of you may have read my short story about an eastern European disco-tech tour. Well, that never happened. Sometimes, a hotdog is just a hotdog. -Freud, (attributed) And leastwise, I've not yet left western Europe, and even then, although I love to dance, most of my friends do not. So this was something of an anomaly for me.
Dane Cook pretty much has it right with this denim cock business. But all things in moderation. I can't speak to club culture generally, but I will say that the men I was dancing with and I had a certain level of mutual respect. Yes, we molested each other like no one could see our hands, but if I ever moved his or made it clear that our dance was over, each accepted this and moved on. Did they stare at me when I danced with someone else? You bet. Did they attempt to convince me that I should dance with them again, yes sir. Who isn't attracted to a person who knows what they want and how to go for it? Makes me wanna mix my Guinness with a Dr Pepper.
I love big parties, I blame my birth order. I promise you, the internet--I am most alive in a crowd of people I will never see again. In high school I confided in my chemistry teacher that I should be paid to shmooz. The way the smile fell from his face, I got the impression that he didn't expect someone who was getting an A in his class to select that as a future destination. Damn, he must be proud.
So yes, flux: modified by the metabolic pathways of my on going cellular metaphor. The hope, homeostasis--striving for an equilibrium, my prime directive. But only so that I can knock that wall down and try, try again. Shut up Yoda, yes there is.
In fact watch us try right here:
Oh, what fun!
I really lucked out with this group. They're most definitely helping me to make a home for myself here on this lonely planet. Speaking of which, Happy MLK day, America. <-----Lest we forget that we have laurels upon which to lean...
PACE!
And so, are you in a period of stasis or are you attempting to regain equilibrium?
For my part this surely is not equilibrium.
Nor, I suppose is it stasis.
Flux.
A state of flux.
A perpetual state of flux. I may bend time at this rate. Spoons though, are still out of my league.
I went dancing this weekend with my colocs. Now, some of you may have read my short story about an eastern European disco-tech tour. Well, that never happened. Sometimes, a hotdog is just a hotdog. -Freud, (attributed) And leastwise, I've not yet left western Europe, and even then, although I love to dance, most of my friends do not. So this was something of an anomaly for me.
Dane Cook pretty much has it right with this denim cock business. But all things in moderation. I can't speak to club culture generally, but I will say that the men I was dancing with and I had a certain level of mutual respect. Yes, we molested each other like no one could see our hands, but if I ever moved his or made it clear that our dance was over, each accepted this and moved on. Did they stare at me when I danced with someone else? You bet. Did they attempt to convince me that I should dance with them again, yes sir. Who isn't attracted to a person who knows what they want and how to go for it? Makes me wanna mix my Guinness with a Dr Pepper.
I love big parties, I blame my birth order. I promise you, the internet--I am most alive in a crowd of people I will never see again. In high school I confided in my chemistry teacher that I should be paid to shmooz. The way the smile fell from his face, I got the impression that he didn't expect someone who was getting an A in his class to select that as a future destination. Damn, he must be proud.
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| The cosmos is full beyond measure of elegant truths...some of them are Jim Beam |
In fact watch us try right here:
Oh, what fun!
I really lucked out with this group. They're most definitely helping me to make a home for myself here on this lonely planet. Speaking of which, Happy MLK day, America. <-----Lest we forget that we have laurels upon which to lean...
PACE!
American Barbaric
When I was 12 years old, I stole a bottle of pills marked, Red Hot Sexy from a road side tourist shop that specialized in plastic crap for people with bratty kids. I selected it from among a rack full of other types of pills because I could tell by the fancy font that these would improve my as then latent sex drive. Also, they were red. They turned out to be cinnamon flavored candy in a stolen jar. Such a novelty, that. People like to tell you the oldest profession is prostitution, but I have it on good authority that the oldest profession is in fact false advertisement.
I was too sick to participate in the karaoke ring of awesome. Muy triste. But all though I haven't been blogging much, I sure has been jogging much. That's relevant too, because I say so. One thing I don't like about France is that they don't have like, CVS or RightAid or whatever they call it in your town. I have to go and talk to the pharmacist, who for some reason is more of a doctor than a bottle-filler, and oh, I forgot, I have to go talk to the pharmacist, IN FRENCH... which is more of it's own language than, say, loud, slow English. They refer to the drugs by their proper names in lieu of the brands we know and love and worst of all, it's like you're buying a car. I can't just go in there and be like, "Hmm, I'll take 12 kinds of vitamins, two amino boosters, four kinds of day and night quill and 5 sorts of cough drops," right off the shelf, as I want. Nope. No soup for you. Instead they're like, "You wanted a fucking scooter? No, you don't want a fuckin scooter, you want a Peugeot, merde." And these mofos don't even mean bikes. (The whole time they say this shit in French, mind.)
Français, well I'm getting better, I guess. I'm sort of like the little Salvadoran kid who's mom talks to them in Spanish and only knows how to respond back in Inglés. I may never get another haircut because that would mean speaking in French. Maybe even small-talking. And not even with a beer. (!!)
Colocation is what they call flat sharing here. So, instead of flatmates, I have colocs. I super dig mine to the max. I started collecting video of them which makes me a little sad because it admits that I know the magic can't last. One day, this here and now will be little more than a fond memory and a video montage. Le sigh. But damn, it's fun. We have a dinner together once a week, go through bread and wine like woah and hang out every night. Now they want to play beer pong. It makes my heart swell with nationalism.
And my country is such a thing to be proud of, am I right? Some fuck-up who got kicked out of community college and rejected from the army was allowed to own and operate a hand gun. He also somehow obtained non-civilian issue extended clips. (Previously banned, and reserved for law enforcement officials, officially.) Best of all, Glock sales are up now.
Fuckity fuck, America. Fuck.
I was too sick to participate in the karaoke ring of awesome. Muy triste. But all though I haven't been blogging much, I sure has been jogging much. That's relevant too, because I say so. One thing I don't like about France is that they don't have like, CVS or RightAid or whatever they call it in your town. I have to go and talk to the pharmacist, who for some reason is more of a doctor than a bottle-filler, and oh, I forgot, I have to go talk to the pharmacist, IN FRENCH... which is more of it's own language than, say, loud, slow English. They refer to the drugs by their proper names in lieu of the brands we know and love and worst of all, it's like you're buying a car. I can't just go in there and be like, "Hmm, I'll take 12 kinds of vitamins, two amino boosters, four kinds of day and night quill and 5 sorts of cough drops," right off the shelf, as I want. Nope. No soup for you. Instead they're like, "You wanted a fucking scooter? No, you don't want a fuckin scooter, you want a Peugeot, merde." And these mofos don't even mean bikes. (The whole time they say this shit in French, mind.)
Français, well I'm getting better, I guess. I'm sort of like the little Salvadoran kid who's mom talks to them in Spanish and only knows how to respond back in Inglés. I may never get another haircut because that would mean speaking in French. Maybe even small-talking. And not even with a beer. (!!)
Colocation is what they call flat sharing here. So, instead of flatmates, I have colocs. I super dig mine to the max. I started collecting video of them which makes me a little sad because it admits that I know the magic can't last. One day, this here and now will be little more than a fond memory and a video montage. Le sigh. But damn, it's fun. We have a dinner together once a week, go through bread and wine like woah and hang out every night. Now they want to play beer pong. It makes my heart swell with nationalism.
And my country is such a thing to be proud of, am I right? Some fuck-up who got kicked out of community college and rejected from the army was allowed to own and operate a hand gun. He also somehow obtained non-civilian issue extended clips. (Previously banned, and reserved for law enforcement officials, officially.) Best of all, Glock sales are up now.
Fuckity fuck, America. Fuck.
Madness a priori
How does one mark the passage of time? In diapers, report cards, cups of coffee? Yes friends, 525,600 minutes. How do you measure, measure a year?
Well, how about hangovers?
Yes, quite.
Given that, my first hangover, at 17 found me passed out over my Nintendo Power trashcan cross-legged on my bed. Such that, I quit my job that very day, July 5th, and went on to sleep in the shower.
Given that, my last hangover was when I visited the Cape at the same time as pool shark Pete, such that, we found our way to three pubs and a beach, where we toasted the moon rise with Drewbot and two uncomely Russians.
Given that, the last time I woke up still drunk was the day after I passed out, still believing Obama was the right man for the teeshirt. Such that, I had no voice from cheering and my right hand was sore from high fives.
Picture then this:
Packed into the train, packed onto the street. A loud screaming Paris, drunk on thoughts of the future and repeating their smiling two word mantra, "bonne année, bonne année.." until you took it up in turn, and wore it like a pair of smooth black gloves, so that everything you caressed with your hands or your words would hold the scent of that goodwill prayer.
We toasted the new year like champs, straight from the bottle, dans les Champs Elysees. We spoke in loud, nasty--boorish tones of finest bastard tongue. Nota bene amigos, I'm referring to English. We met strangers, slapping backs and loaning swigs...
"Bonne année, bonne année..."caressing the words with your lips as its meaning formed in your mouth and your mind and fell next to your fingers to guide that message where you would.
"Bonne année, bonne année."
When I woke I was still drunk, sore of throat and ready for a shower; this was a synthesis of all my most meaningful hangovers. Mock my choice of terms if you must, but passage of time my friends, is marked only by a collection of data points selected by a subjective viewer meant to sow meaning, and guard the roots of our beliefs. You could as easily chart the passage of time in New Years Eves, or birthdays and how silly that would be, indeed.
I offer you no resolutions for the coming year--nor the now upon us decade, there is no albatross around my neck, and there is water if I want some. I am cared for, desired, and useful. There are no white whales to be hunted and none of these hills look the slightest bit like white elephants. I may never talk pretty one day, but I promise you Mr. Abbey, I am outliving the bastards.
Check out a much abridged video from the night that Sebastien and I spent with our new flatmate Pascal. I warn you, the level of intellectual discourse found within may shock you.
Well, how about hangovers?
Yes, quite.
Given that, my first hangover, at 17 found me passed out over my Nintendo Power trashcan cross-legged on my bed. Such that, I quit my job that very day, July 5th, and went on to sleep in the shower.
Given that, my last hangover was when I visited the Cape at the same time as pool shark Pete, such that, we found our way to three pubs and a beach, where we toasted the moon rise with Drewbot and two uncomely Russians.
Given that, the last time I woke up still drunk was the day after I passed out, still believing Obama was the right man for the teeshirt. Such that, I had no voice from cheering and my right hand was sore from high fives.
Picture then this:
Packed into the train, packed onto the street. A loud screaming Paris, drunk on thoughts of the future and repeating their smiling two word mantra, "bonne année, bonne année.." until you took it up in turn, and wore it like a pair of smooth black gloves, so that everything you caressed with your hands or your words would hold the scent of that goodwill prayer.
We toasted the new year like champs, straight from the bottle, dans les Champs Elysees. We spoke in loud, nasty--boorish tones of finest bastard tongue. Nota bene amigos, I'm referring to English. We met strangers, slapping backs and loaning swigs...
"Bonne année, bonne année..."caressing the words with your lips as its meaning formed in your mouth and your mind and fell next to your fingers to guide that message where you would.
"Bonne année, bonne année."
When I woke I was still drunk, sore of throat and ready for a shower; this was a synthesis of all my most meaningful hangovers. Mock my choice of terms if you must, but passage of time my friends, is marked only by a collection of data points selected by a subjective viewer meant to sow meaning, and guard the roots of our beliefs. You could as easily chart the passage of time in New Years Eves, or birthdays and how silly that would be, indeed.
I offer you no resolutions for the coming year--nor the now upon us decade, there is no albatross around my neck, and there is water if I want some. I am cared for, desired, and useful. There are no white whales to be hunted and none of these hills look the slightest bit like white elephants. I may never talk pretty one day, but I promise you Mr. Abbey, I am outliving the bastards.
Check out a much abridged video from the night that Sebastien and I spent with our new flatmate Pascal. I warn you, the level of intellectual discourse found within may shock you.
Remember team, all's well that ends how you like it. Bonne année.