Water Sports and other sorts

Got to say, never really been     t h a t    into water sports. No, I mean, I bought the rubber sheets and everything but getting wet just kind of pisses me off. Can't relate? Here, maybe this chart will help:

Evidence in suport of all your base belonging to me

So yah, making that graphic organizer is twenty minutes I can't get back. Everybody wins. But seriously folks, I just tried wake-boarding for the first time last Sunday. Well, and water skiing too, but that was my second attempt. Have you ever water skied? Way harder than wake-boarding in some ways. The most difficult thing was the full frontal wedgy I was so scared everyone in the boat could see.
If you digested the mixtape I made, you may have discerned that  in my youth I led a most nautical life. But most of that is crap. I'm more of a Spongebob than the Gorton's Fisherman, you can trust me on that..
All of my older siblings by contrast have been commercial fishing for at least a summer and one or two of them still fish professionally. And then there is me,  who's only sailed a handful of times and never been dangerously out of sight of the coast. I think most people look at the ocean and don't even realize it doesn't give a damn if it kills you. You have to respect its majesty and understand just how tenuous is our comprehension and control. It can still be beautiful while being dangerous. Many of the best nouns are.
To me, wake-boarding is just like skateboarding but instead of smashing your face on pavement when you fall you get water up your nose. I'm not going to lie, I rather prefer the trade off.
I'm told I did a 180 before I faceplanted so I felt sort of cool. I'm kind of addicted to trying again.

Like this picture of me water skiing? I call it, 'Dear god, I hope they can't see my vag.'
Yeah, it was on a river as you can tell, some place up near Euro Disney. Sebastien loved it.
Check out this badass photo of him:









It was ridiculously adorable watching him grin like a crazed child or a dog with his head victoriously out the window every time we took a tight turn in the boat. I wasn't a big, big fan of going as fast as we can. Never am. In fact, a few times I said, "Oh my death, oh my death"--which is what I say, in an unconscious way, when I'm fairly certain I'm about to die.

Other ongoings in my life include:
My second section of my French classes. The first teacher was really cheery and funny. I super enjoyed her methodology and was very sorry to see it end. I think I really dig into language classes because people are so impressed that they even understand when a joke is being attempted that they are more inclined to laugh--this of course brings the humor threshold way down to my level, as illustrated above.
 I think I'm getting better too, Frenchically speaking, since nowadays when I try to find a synonym to stir up a post up for youz, the first word my brain usually goes to is the orignal word's equivalent in French. Which isn't altogether helpful, but is probably normal, all things considered. (Plus ou moins.)

My bike is also sort of a big deal. I've recently discovered two important things about riding around in Paris. One, I don't get scared when I'm lost, unlike on foot. And two, the bike lanes that exist on one way streets going against the normal flow of traffic are awesome. I have a better time when I seek them out. Ok and three, people who ride scooters don't place much value on their personal safety. Or mine. Or yours. Fais Gaffe.
Even though it's a bit foolish to share the road with their likes it's way better than the  air-conditioner-less metro.
Mais oui, you read that correctly--
Part of me is like,  'Wow, the French are so practical--why waste energy when the windows being open will cool down the car as we move!!!" And then some frickin delay comes along and I'm like, 'Stupid ill-planned city, we're going to bake to death and everyone who ever smelled bad in their life is standing around me!' Tourists, don't act like this doesn't apply to you.

On Friday I went to a 'silent disco" where everyone wears headphones and chooses between three or four Dj's. It was only 12 euros to partake and a drink was included in the price of the headset so I'll probably do it again.

It was only about a 30 min walk back home after last metro and it was super funny to take the headset off now and then because it was kind of like being in a room of deaf people who were just screaming at random. No offense to deaf people--random people, that knock was at you.

I finally started reading 1984. I was embarresed to admit it at first but each time I have in a group there is always at least one person who hasn't read it yet. It's interesting that we can have such a cultrual touchstone that gets referred to and insinuated upon in ways that are fully comprehendable without having read it yet. I like it, but it's a little depressing. There's just something about dystopia that gets me down, you know?

No matter what, the summer is off to a great start. Bike rides, picnics, water sports, table tennis, spray paint and BBQz just to name a few. Sebastien's birthday is next month and I finally have an income to spoil him with! We still haven't picked where we'll go on vacation this year but we have it narrowed down to--well, we haven't narrowed it down much at all, frankly. But we'll see. I'm holding out for Portugal, Southern-Spain/Morocco, Istambul or Saint Petersburg.

 I'm feeling good, gang. The road ahead gleams as though gilded with sunshine. I can see it, and it stirs me, but I don't want to look too longingly because I've lived long enough to wonder with measured caution, will it tarnish as I walk?
The answer, I suppose, more often than not is yes...but up ahead, just up there, almost beyond what I can see--the road goes ever on in gold.



And so it goes.

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All talk and velociraptors

When I was a kid I rebuilt my first bike with  my dad and my brother. We found a pretty choice BMX frame at the dump and got to work on it. We greased the bearings, oiled the chain, sanded the frame and trued the wheels. We called it the Halloween Bike because we spray painted it bright orange and found a black set of handel bars. Current events have brought these things back up for me.

My dad has always been self-employed, putting ads in local papers as a catch all handy man, prouder of me when I work my way up a level than if my education grants me access. His parents were of the Depression, and you could see that in his paint stained pants and pre-existing-condition-no-insurance staunch Republican stance---in his scrap metal side venture and vocal disdain for planned obsolescence.  The bike he taught me to ride on was an old Schwinn from the fifties. I think he's really into reselling lead soldiers online right now, but for awhile there, he had a solid E-bay business where he fixed bikes and sold them to Chicago college students.
Till the wheels fall off I can fix a flat, but other than that I've built only one more bike in my life, back at Uni--even so, the smell of grease, and WD40 will always make me remember that first bike with my Dad and my Zack.

My new coloc--A GIRL!!!!!!- showed me this bike coop where I'll be fixing up a cruiser three days a week. The deal is remarkable, 15 for the membership, parts, labor and education, and the bike is pay what you can. So I'm working on this velo and it's so cool because I've never worked on a cassette crank--I'm learning all kinds of technical language and a practical skills. Admittedly, my new ride is far from sex on wheels, but I'm going to put my time in on this one and pay the difference on another beautiful blue racer the shop was hoping to use to turn a profit. It's tubeless, so I'm planning to replace the tires and rims, ride it for awhile and give it back to them to sell when I leave Paris. Can't say how long this will all take, should be fun though!

A short time ago, in a galaxy near you, I was teaching English three times a week from behind my computer screen. It's kind of weird leading a course via the internet--mostly because I've never really had lectures modeled for me by other proctors. Back at University, the biggest class I was ever in had 30 people and even then the professor knew everyone's name and we all spoke freely.

-->The class I'm referring to was Existienalism, my second class with Sebastien. Oddly enough, the person whom I habitually sat next to would always draw pictures of Seba and write things he said out of context beneath the images. It's so weird that I'm writing this from a room that I share with him now, in a different country--no less, because when all of this was my here and now,  I didn't have a crush on him.......although upon honest reflection, it was slightly more important than it should have been for me to impress him with my intellect each time we spoke... frankly, I didn't give it too much thought, at the time. I guess that's how I managed to not screw it up.

On to my classes again, I think the most important aspect of language acquisition is to be sure you practice speaking, which is impossible when there are 60 some odd persons in attendance.
I had some fun with it, though.
It made me smile to mentally fill in the blanks of the following section with the singular or the plural of "suck."

If not now, when? If not me, who?

That's droll enough, but I actually had to stop a few times  to keep from cracking up while reading this next section out loud because filling in the blank  with "blank"was just as hilarious in my mind as using the ongoing action form, the past tense, or the infinitive of Fuck. Try it!

Blankety, blank, blank, blank--pilgrim. 

Damn, it feels good to be a teacher.
But you're all clever girls around here, you who know me so well rest assured that I'll not trans-mutate into a grammar genie. That's 'prolly why I'll stay all talk and velociraptors till the sky falls.

Off to test the fences, be well.

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