Love serving love

I took a short walk today. I was wearing a thermal shirt, jeans, an unzipped vest and jacket.The sky was a single underwhelming color above the mountains, which spun off like echos of themselves in every direction. I clenched my jaw against a breeze and lambasted myself for having not equipped the scarf I've lately worn around the house. After a few more strides the wind blew again, this time with no claws, and as it trickled away, I was suddenly aware that it was warm enough to smell the tannins of yellow leaves and the stark dark greens of juniper trees.

I haven't written you for the entirety of the government shutdown. I confess that this was of course completely premeditated on my part. But as I'm finding it difficult to staunch the flow of my ingeniousness,  I should also like reveal that I pronounce nuclear in the same manner as former president George W Bush. A terrible sin I know, but I as also say "rum" in lieu of "room" and "pup" when I mean popcorn, I'd prefer chalk the whole distasteful association up to our shared regional accent, (given that  Mr. W was raised in New York City's parking lot, the great State of Connecticut.) I tell ya, political infighting and the back and forth of stubborn statesmen always feels like a slow game of tennis to me. Even as I lick the salt off my lip and scratch the court with my shoe, I don't miss how obsessed I used to be with domestic politics. Erins can't survive on bread and circus alone.  

My computer made its final hard return a few weeks ago. It was a loss both great and untimely. Ichooch was a stalwart companion, a willing voyager and a guileless victim in the conspiracy between an unfathomably water-tight canvas tote bag and its accomplice, a significantly less than water-tight water bottle. This tragedy has most cruelly subtracted from the time I can spend dicking around on the internet, prepping my course or pursuing my interests. I don't know if I will be able to get my data back either. If that's not bù hǎo to the max I'm not qualified to say what is.

I had a mind to make a little video out of all the various clip smidgens I had gathered in France: a lot of parties and parks, loud bangs and people I might never see again; the kind of memories the mind naturally sets to music. I had also been making a playlist itunes folder of all the songs I wanted to sample. I am very busy hosting office hours, playing Ultimate Frisbee, teaching classes, planning, correcting, answering emails and meeting my colleagues. But I still have free time beyond my ascribed duties. (Yes, I am duty bound to play Ultimate.) #hardship

It's not that I don't enjoy spending time with Sebastien painting figurines

 or making dinner with students

Or even just hanging out out in Lanzhou with other PCVS

 but it had been my intention to do a glitch hop project with all the shiny little rings I'd gathered. Cuz sometimes, I just want to be alone with a creative endeavor on my plate and nobody in my way. 

It's true. Wǒ yǒu shì. I've been reading when I should be studying, but I've been studying just the same. I think that after two years of living in this country Sebastien and I will have a functioning level of the language. It will never be my favorite, Chinese, but China will always be part of me--no matter where I go from here. 

Infinite Jest is almost over. I really don't enjoy the Canadian terrorist subplot. I bet there are innumerable people who quit that book because of all of the French that gets tossed in. If only they knew how much of it was grammatically incorrect! Now, I'm no grammar ace of French or otherwise but there have been sentences that I just KNOW are wrong. E.g. In French, one can often substitute the noun with its gender after it has been named. And so I get what he was trying to do when the wheelchair gang of Quebec separatists complementing the soup (feminine) and asks if "c'etait toi, faisait-elle" ? Dude, what you tried to do there--I get it: third-person singular imperfect indicative, a tip of the hat, sir. But pronoun substitution just does not apply here, either technically or colloquially. Page 486, for the curious.

Most unfortunately, after doing a small amount of research I found a fair few of the good people of our own world wide web defending D.F. Wallace's incorrect usage saying that he made this and many other errors knowingly. Norman, s'il te plaît.... 

Merci

This assertion of blind faith is beyond ludicrous to me. The Emperor has no clothes, people! It doesn't make sense that a character bent on Nationalism and a separate state would use incorrect French. Mais, c'est pas grave--David s'not perfect--that doesn't make him any less a genius. 

So for all of you who gave up because of piles of French in italics, come back.  Let's all just take a few breaths and admit Wallace didn't always know what he was talking about. He has no idea what Boston is really like, who lives there and where they live, but when he describes a tree you may find you need to pull the book away from you face for a moment in quiet amazement, or it might just make your chest bump like a pair of sneakers in a dryer. He didn't get it all right--but it's still fine entertainment. ;) And we can still be impressed that he did it all without Google.

Incidentally, I'm reading an easy book in French and I've also been reading Fifty Shades. It had real potential to serve us softy a scoop the non-vanilla sex world but it been much more effective in boring me with word repetition and spreading confusion as to what the subconscious is. Yet, I don't begrudge  fans of this book for enjoying the sex there within because it isn't as though Heterosexual men don't have power fantasies of their own, and not just heteros, obvs. People's tastes come in all shades of gray beyond the ascribed 32 flavors and power dynamics are an amazing aspect of sex. 

I actually really enjoyed the emailing back and forth as a plot device. That at least was refreshing! However, it does get a little tiresome when every single man in the book can't help but make a pass at the protagonists, who, by the way, considers herself mal a droit and ugly. 

E.g. "My eyes are too big for my face." God, that must be terrible, said no anime fan ever. 

"I'm too skinny." ...Most women feel that way, don't worry. 

And then of course you have the happy couple who argue bitterly every two or three pages before cranking out a few rounds of insecurity fueled make-up sex that get progressively more pedestrian each go. 

Sexual fantasy is one thing but it is unnerving to imagine young people holding this up as an example of how they would like their relationships to go. I understand being impressed by power (though I prefer the power of intellect) and I definitely get wanting to date a guy who wears a tie, but half the stuff she puts up with have the Life Time Special, "Not Without My Daughter" written all over it. I find it curious--and I do mean curious--that someone could sexualize such attention...

Remember sweetlings, you don't come out ahead from people willing to throw money or time at all of your mishaps. In fact you should be weary of such safety nets--these people don't actually believe in you. They're insulting you. What they'd like to dress up as love is really just their own fear of obsolescence--were you realize your wings were never truly made of wax. Sure, they might want to save you the pain of failure, or bask in the fact they were integral to the sunshine of your achievement, but they do all of this for their own ego and at the detriment of a true success. So fly high, my pretties. Pump those wings and soar!

[Oh, and if you want to sound authoritative when talking about wine then just consider going to a degustation, asking questions and tasting things. Once you've tried a glass that you think you'd enjoy more of, buy a  bottle and  start experimenting with others made from the same grape, in same year or of the same region. Bam. Sophistication.]

Having finished both a Storm of Swords and the Drizzt Do'Urden origin story, Sebastien is now reading Under Heaven to me--captivating barely begins to describe it. It takes place during the Tang dynasty in the former ancient Chinese Capital of Xi'an a short ride by huǒ chē  from where we live! Beyond my amusement via proximity, there are quiet a few cultural points we've had glances at personally and see nods to in the book. The second book was called the Chinese embodiment of Game of Thrones by Salon dot com--purveyors of provocative titles and various opinions; so you might want to get hip to this. Prose like whoa. I means it. 

 I like explaining things to you, but I love being able to talk about books with Sebastien. We have this ability to start in about a character without naming them and the other quickly picks up the thread and begins analyzing the situation as though these are people who exist beyond the pages and outside of our minds. It feels almost like a secret and it makes me reach out for his hand.

Ask me about my obsession with the 9 sons of the dragon or the stellar deity 寿星 next time we talk because  I've grossly overused my time on Seb's computer. I think I'll head out for another walk and think about all the stuff I haven't had time to write down. Love, all. 

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