"I took a risk when I hired you, Manny - don't eat muffins when I'm developing you - I took a risk when I gave you this job. A lot of people wouldhave said 'who is this rudderless hippy? How do I get away from him? Has he got a hunting knife strapped to his shin?' But I saw through that." First, let's start with what I hope will be my last installment of Getting Hit On In The Metro. So this morning I'm on the way back from running errands, on the escalator up from the quai, when this guy walks by me, checks me out so blatantly that he's leaning over as he's leering at my chest and says very enthusastically, "FRRRESSSHHH."
Now, over the past few years I've lost my ability to pinpoint English accents, so the best I can do is say this guy was from either Africa, or maybe he was West Indian, but whatever it was, he was clearly comfortable with English, 'cause as he continued up the escalator, he loudly (and in English) says "All the French girls are UGLY. But that blonde down there? I'd hit that." A few people look back at me, and then this older gentleman who had smiled at me earlier when I'd held the exit door open for him comes up a few steps, stands next to me, and says (this time in French) that I have quite the admirer. I laugh a bit, tell him that it does seem that way, and then reach the top, managing to dodge the FRESH dude when I go into my bank. Le sigh.
And here we have part deux, which lucky for you will be full of pictures. Welcome to the series that I'm calling Death Star: A Library. I know I've talked a ton about the BNF because I sometimes feel like I live there, but I don't know if you can really appreciate the experience unless you've seen what it's like just going into the place. See, the library has this highly intelligent design, as the books (some of which are very old and/or very rare) are all stored in book-shaped towers above ground, and the people are below ground in these ginormous reading rooms. To read the majority of the books, you request them online and someone pulls them and they come down from the towers and then you pick them up at this desk. The whole thing is really not too terribly efficient.
The Death Star parts are the bases of the towers, where there are sorta lobby-ish things and bathrooms and the entrances. When you pass through the first of three turnstiles (provided you've managed to get a research card, giving you access to the ultra-special research level), you push through one set of heavy metal doors and pull open the next set. If you look to your left, you see this. Look to your right, and you get the first escalator. You go down the first escalator, trying to not get caught as you surreptitiously take pictures even though you vaguely recall being told cameras aren't allowed when you got your first research card a couple of years ago. You get to the landing, turn right, and you can start your way down the second, even longer escalator, and now you can see the ground and the people several stories below you.
Because there are guards and a librarian at the bottom of that tower, I put the camera away and then took pictures from the bottom in another tower that isn't used as an entrance, and instead just contains an available bathroom and serves as a place for people to use their mobiles. The picture here is at the base of the Tour des Temps; please note the walkway at the top. Here are two views from the back: one more of the escalator and another walkway, the other more of the concrete walls. You probably can't tell (I tried to get pictures of the texture, but they didn't come out) but above the concrete, the walls are thin wire cables woven into a mesh pattern, and those big round things are for ventilation. You might think that this area is just unfinished, or in the middle of a remodel, but no, it was designed to be concrete and woven metal mesh. If stories and stories of metal walls with mostly pointless walkways (maybe they serve as plot development for a nerdy researching Luke and Leia?) don't add up to a library version of the Death Star, then I don't know what ever will.
"After talking things over, we have decided not to take part in your diabolical plan. Consider us no longer in cahoots.Furthermore, we are going to expose you to everybody." I've been taking care of all kinds of things today in preparation for my impending departure, and I'm honestly a bit shocked at how relatively painless it's all been. In order to open these accounts I had to provide my right pinkie toe and a contract for my first-born child, signed in blood, and considering how much I've not enjoyed dealing with French bureaucracy (especially when my attempts to get through it as painlessly as possible resulted in an invasion of privacy) I expected similar awfulness in trying to close everything out.
Would someone please explain to me how it is that everything is actually easy? I suppose my language skills now, versus my skills three years ago, have something to do with the relative simplicity, but still... Where are the arguments? The dismissive looks? The requests for eighteen forms that don't even exist? The voice indicating that I have the intelligence of a retarded chimpanzee? The part where they tell me I should have done X weeks ago, and now it's too late, so now I have to wait for another month before I can do said X?
Then again, what are the odds that I still end up with supposedly canceled account withdrawals next month?
"Fruit on the bottom, hope on top."
My parents flew out this morning, after a week full of togetherness. 24/7 for a week - we spent three nights in my teeny apartment here in Paris, and four nights on a long road trip. I think overall, I'd have to say that the week was really all about incredible food. Every meal we had was just... amazing. Creative and interesting and full of asparagus. And apparently I've become more French than I had thought, because my starters with asparagus and gesiers confit or escargots? Sooo good. When did I start *liking* gizzard? Now, I could do a review of the food: the BEST croissant (housemade, natch) I've ever had, or the BEST brie I've ever had (also housemade, by the same chef) or the roasted lamb with a heavenly gratin dauphinois or an Alsatian rabbit stew or this fish stuffed with a moutarde à l'ancienne sauce - oh, and the sauces? Mmmm.
But, since we never remembered to take pictures of anything before we ate it, that can't be very interesting. Instead, just a few highlights of pictures I really like, or pictures with me in them that I don't hate - not a small feat since I've pudged up over the past year or two. (One more benefit of spending a month or two in the States without a job: going to the gym, working out a ton, and getting back into shape.) Mostly, I just figure if I don't write something now, I'll never get around to it... you know, sorta like my trip to Morocco (although, I really am going to write about that eventually).
So when my parents arrived, the weather was fabulous and since this trip was just the three of us, we made a point to do a few more things that my dad particularly would enjoy. After I finished yet another document for my advisor (waaaay too much slap-dash writing last week) and a visit to the musée de l'Armée before we had our first heavenly dinner, stopping on the way to watch a little French boy play in a fountain with his sailboat. Classically adorable.
Sunday we began our road trip. Since last year we did Normandy and a bit of Bretagne, this year we headed east. We hit Reims, mostly just to see the cathedral. We spent the night at this hotel in Champagne that was all about the food (the aforementioned asparagus with escargots, croissant, brie, etc). Champagne is GORGEOUS - but then, pretty much all of France (that I've seen, and that's really quite a lot) is gorgeous. It was lovely and rainy the morning we left, but it mostly just made the land seem more dramatic. And pasture-y.
In the rain we visited WWI sites - the Kaiser Tunnel, trenches in the Argonne (la Fille Morte), the underground citadel at Verdun, and specifically the Meuse-Argonne cemetery where my mother's great uncle was buried. He died three days after the American push into the Argonne - exactly where we'd been earlier that day, if what my history brain figured out was correct.
Then, because Strasbourg had been on my shortlist of places to visit for the past three years (although I'd really wanted to go during the Christmas market) we spent the evening there, once again experiencing local cuisine and kind of hating the rain. The next day we spent in Germany, driving the whole length of the Black Forest. Since the only place I'd been in Germany was the Frankfort airport and the little town of Friedrichsdorf nearby, it was actually really cool to see so much there, including an open-air museum with all sorts of farm buildings moved into a little village-y sorta thing. I've gone to similar places in Belgium and Ireland (at least, those are the first that come to mind) but this was the only one where the buildings were so BIG. The farmers of the Schwarzwald had a loooot of space - rivaling most chateaus here. Bonus: you didn't walk out of the place smelling like smoldering peat for the rest of the day (which is mostly all I remember from one we went to Ireland; at least the other one was more medieval and less stanky).
Let's see... So then, we drove to Bern, Switzerland -- except we got lost. A bunch. Maybe it's because I speak French, but I'm pretty sure signage in France is a bit more effective than non-expressway signage in Germany, and a whole lot more comprehensible than in Suisse. But then, I'm probably biased. We eventually arrived in Bern, crashed at our hotel, got up the next morning to do a session in the temple there, where I made Italian the sixth language I've spoken/butchered as part of the prayer circle. After the requisite temple ground photo shoot we went back to France -- ahh, a lanuguage I know! -- to check out Franche-Comté and Burgundy. Since I'd already spent time in Dijon, I convinced my parents to stay somewhere else. We ended up in Beaune, this beautiful little town that's invested a lot in tourism, if the plethora of clean public bathrooms are any kind of an indicator. We did a mustard tour/tasting (not unlike a wine tasting, sans the spitting) and saw the famous bits in the town and walked the ramparts and... I don't remember what else. It was interesting, though. And interesting is good.
We came back to Paris that night, packed up the majority of my stuff to send back with my parents, and then went out for our last (and seventh, I think?) wonderful dinner. It was beyond delicious, but I think at a certain point, it starts becoming a bit commonplace. When you're at one of the ten best restaurants of any given region every night, it sorta all blends together. (Maybe that's why today, I just had popcorn and strawberries.) My dad got a bit sentimental because it was the last time they would come visit me while I'm living here, and... I dunno. It really was great overall. I thoroughly dig being on a more equal footing with my parents and having them treat me like more of a peer, especially because we mostly just end up laughing the entire time.
Uhh, that was a much longer travelogue than I'd planned on, but... eh. Keep checking back this week; as busy as I will be with packing and finishing things up (have I mentioned that I'm moving back to the States on the 26th?) I'm sure I'll have plenty of last-minute observations about being an American in Paris. And then, it might all be about reverse culture shock. Err, yeah.
"That's why I said 'oh.' It was an attempt to corral those words back into my mouth."
Words o' the Day (because I'm pulling an all-nighter and I need something to keep my mind sort of occupied as I vomit out pages of gunk):
Oh my. It's almost 9:30 am, and unless we're counting a power nap at 3 (which I'm not, since I need 9+ hours a night, not twenty minutes) I've been up working alllllll night. As I'm now going to take a shower and finish the day's writing at the Death Star library before I meet my advisor at four, it's time to post this. And to wish to die.
"The judges may have been confused when you ad-libbed the phrase, "Catholics and other people of color.'"
I've been here in Paris for a while - almost three years - and in that time, I've tried to assimilate in a lot of ways. Well, maybe not so much assimilate or even fit in as much as just not stick out like a sore thumb, a desire which increased the more I Got Hit On In The Metro. And yet, today and yesterday I was reminded just how much I don't really belong here (even if I do wear scarves).
Let's start with yesterday. I had to go to the grocery store; really, I should have gone a few days before that, but I'm getting sick of hauling everything fifteen blocks and then up four flights of rickety stairs. (Yes, it's clearly getting to be time for me to head stateside.) My mood was such that if I was going to be going out and carry a bunch of junk back, there was no way I'd be doing it in actual clothes, so I went in yoga pants, a long t-shirt, and a fleece, knowing full well that I was breaking Parisian convention. Here, you just don't go out dressed like a bum, and unless you're actively running, wearing stuff one might work out in on the street is highly unacceptable. Now, dear reader, you might be thinking that sure, it's a social convention, but people break those all time; you're not supposed to wear pajamas out in public either, but walk onto any American college campus, particularly during finals, and you'll find plenty. Paris isn't an American college campus, though, and I definitely get sideways looks when I get lazy and go out in yoga pants.
So, yesterday, I'm at the grocery store, walking up and down the aisles picking stuff up when that Insanely Strong Body Stench hits me - that ultra-ripe smell that stings your eyes like ammonia. Two aisles down from where I first noticed it, I found its source: an employee restocking the shelves. I walked past as quickly as possible to get away from quite possibly the worst smell I've experienced, and so based on how often I find myself surrounded by that smell, all I could think was "how is it that smelling like this is socially acceptable while wearing what I'm wearing isn't?"
Seriously, Parisians... shower. With soap. And I know doing laundry here is kind of a pain, but after your shower you have to actually put on CLEAN clothes. Merely looking clean isn't sufficient when people can smell you from a mile away.
Now, today. I went to church, as a good little Mormon girl is wont to do on a Sunday morning, and I spent much of the time trying to pay attention without being critical, which in my ward [congregation] is pretty easy to do. Being critical, that is. A friend was making snarky (and accurate) comments through RS, and then in Sunday School I was sitting by myself, trying to *not* pay attention now because the lesson was devolving into arguments about the merits of Coca-Cola. The reminder of just how much I still didn't fit in came at the end of the lesson. Now, for those uninitiated in the ways of teaching a lesson in an LDS Sunday School, the hour should end with a short little wrap-up including your own, relevant-to-the-topic beliefs. The guy teaching this lesson wrapped up as badly as he taught the rest of thing. He said something to the effect of "don't lose heaven because of a cigarette. Don't lose heaven because a young woman walks by." Something this inane made us laugh a bit, predictably, but that just made him elaborate, about "sinning when a blonde walks by."
He went on about blondes for a good five minutes, during which I realized that I am the ONLY blonde in the room and everyone is staring at me. So, there's this dude up front, in somewhat of a position of authority, essentially telling everyone in the room that I'm going to keep them out of heaven. And sure, the bishop [pastor] chimes in and sort of corrects him, except he's still using "blonde" as shorthand for "attractive woman," and it's possible that I missed it but from what I could tell, he never got around to mentioning the fact that no one makes choices for someone else, so if you're being kept out of heaven, it's certainly not a blonde's fault.
So, proof that I still haven't managed to fit into my ward? That would be the ten minutes of Gospel Doctrine spent on how I'm leading everyone to Hell, all because of my hair color.
And something completely unrelated: do you think I can count a tarte aux framboises as part of my 5 a day?
"What for you bury me in the cold, cold ground?"
Sometimes there are bright sides to being really sick, even though you've got less than two weeks to finish your master's thesis and you're so pressed for time that the idea of buying functional lungs on the black market is seeming less and less stupid. Hmm. Maybe just borrowing a pair.
Anyway, the bright side of having walking pneumonia and wishing for death: since you're lying in bed all day, thus staying at home all day, you get to hear all the stuff going on in the streets. Some of this ends up being the workmen across the way, but sometimes it's not quite so loud, shirtless, and smelly-even-from-fifteen-feet-away.
For example, it just started raining here - one of those perfect, fat-droplety summer evening rains - and because I'm home and it's been warm today my windows are open, which means I can hear a couple of crazy guys staying with someone in my building. Said crazy guys are standing in the middle of the street in flip-flops and shorts, holding bars of soap, yelling at each other while they lather up the shampoo in their hair. You miss stuff like that when you're, you know, a productive member of society.
What sticks out the most are the random English phrases floating up from people who are clearly not anglophones. Thus, another example: a conversation between some French woman who ran into a neighbor of unknown origins (unknown to me, other than not-French and not-anglophone). They started in English, and in response to him asking how she was doing, she said, "I'm a leetle beet fine." After that I stopped listening as I started actively trying to expel alveoli out my nose, and then they were speaking French, and then I coughed some more, but something about that just really made me laugh.
"I will not voluntarily put on the chains of France while struggling to throw off those of Great Britain!"
As I type this, I'm wearing only a scarf. I think this might mean I have become more French than is good for me.
See, I have a nasty case of bronchitis, and prior to finally going to see my doctor yesterday and getting antibiotics and cough syrup and an inhaler to open my poor bronchi (which, if I had paid for completely out of pocket, would have been 22€ for the visit, and another 20€ for the plethora of prescriptions; please, GOP, realize that any amount of tax credit won't do us any good if we're still being grossly overcharged by the health care industry -- but this isn't a political blog, so moving on...) I'd been self-medicating with hot, HOT showers roughly every four to six hours and trying to keep my bronchial area warm in between, primarily by cocooning myself in big huge comforters. Yesterday I only took one shower, which I think resulted in more hacking up of lungs, so today I returned to my pre-antibioticized practice of the near-constant showering. Now, when you're in the shower that frequently (and when you're not much of a fan of clothes anyway) you'll discover that complete nudity is a logical choice, unless the weather is crazy nice like it was today and wrapping up in multiple comforters is making you slightly die of heatstroke.
And so, you become French.
When people ask me about the differences between the USA and France, the first thing I usually say is that in the US, everything is bigger. When people ask me about the differences between Americans and Frenchies... the first thing that comes to mind is what I call the Hierarchy of Cold-Weather Clothing, for, like so many things, the French and American systems are completely different. In the States, you get cold, you put on a sweater/sweatshirt/hoodie, then a coat, then gloves; hats and scarves tend to be about equal although different subsets handle scarves differently (id est, hipsters immediately toss on the scarves; two-thirds of the guys who went to my old uni wouldn't have been caught dead in a scarf).
For Frenchies, the scarf goes first. You could be wearing a tank top and when you get cold? Put On A Scarf.
What if you're already wearing a scarf and you're cold? Yes, you Put On A Scarf, but you've either A) wrapped it incorrectly or B) chosen the wrong thickness.
If you go on a beach vacation, and you're frolicking through the waves wearing nothing but a speedo (because anything else is just UNCLEAN!) and the sun starts to set so it's now two entire degrees colder than it was an hour ago? Put On A Scarf.
If there is sleet coursing to the earth so hard that even the cobblestones under your feet are ducking for cover and you're dressed in a hooded parka and pants and boots so thick you could withstand an Antarctic windstorm even though you're in the middle of Paris, two blocks from your house? You will still be cold, until you Put On A Scarf.
And, if you have bronchitis and you feel like your choices consist of either breathing but coughing so hard your pain level has gone to 11 or not being in pain but then also not breathing, so you take long hot showers because the steam and heat help a lot with that nifty breathing thing, but in between showers it's too warm to go the comforter cocoon route even though you're naked? Put On A Scarf.
And that, my friends, is how I have become Too French.
"Plastic cups for two, Electric Boogaloo."
Today is my bestest friend's wedding anniversary so it's, you know, a good day and all, but it's also James Brown's birthday. So, Em, for your and Stevie's anniversary, and for all people who use the number two followed by "Electric Boogaloo" just because of the Breakin'sequel without knowing anything about what you're actually saying, let the Godfather of Soul teach you all about the boogaloo:
"I've had it with these monkey-fighting snakes on this Monday-to-Friday plane!" So I just spent fifteen minutes trying to figure out if I'd blogged about this friend I had last spring, to whom I referred as My Roommate Who Doesn't Live Here, in hopes that I wouldn't have type it all now. Alas, my blogging those months was less than thorough.
Anyway, at an Easter conference, I met this American guy who had just arrived and was here for a couple of months to improve his French and hopefully do some volunteer work (clearly, he didn't know much about the French) and as he was looking for a place and was staying in a hostel a few blocks from my place, he ended up hanging out at my place to use my computer while I was gone teaching, and then when he found a place out in the suburbs he would still hang out here a lot, and by the end of his two months here, he was my roommate who didn't live here.
At the beginning of May, he went on a trip with his family to Egypt and Israel. Since he was moving back to the States right after this trip, he brought over everything he wasn't taking to store for the couple of weeks while he was gone. When he got back, he came over to pick up his stuff and repack it all, and left a bunch of stuff with me that wasn't worth hauling back after being thrashed in the Middle East. At the time, I still hadn't found a French version of Goodwill/Salvation Army/DI, so I just left the stuff in the bags he'd put them in and tossed them in the only storage place I have: under my bed. And proceeded to not worry about it, at all.
And then, last fall, prior to Last Fall's Disappointment's trip over here I was doing the usual monster cleaning you do before a guy you're seeing comes to visit. As a result, I discovered a ton of these little bugs, and bug carcasses, and so freaked out. They'd eaten little holes into the other clothes I had down there with his stuff, and after chucking everything and praying that this infestation really did come, as it appeared, from those shoes in the ripped bag, I employed an unreasonable amount of chemicals hoping to kill any leftover larvae or eggs or whatever, so that my Egyptian infestation wouldn't repeat itself. Also, I didn't really think brown ovoid insects with white pus-like guts would add to the romance of the weekend.
Wellllll, a couple of weeks ago I started finding the same bugs. I think. At least, they look the same, although they're smaller and exude clear pus-like guts when squished, rather than white. I didn't take any pictures before, so I can't be sure, but my guess is that they're the same. I've only found half a dozen or so, so it's not like Vincent D'Onofrio is living under my bed or anything, but I still went through the search-and-destroy ritual, although I found nothing visible. And yet, today, I found another bug sitting all by itself in the middle of my bed. You know, I'm not terribly familiar with native fauna here; maybe they're coming in through the windows or something, or maybe they're wafting in on the Neighbor Stench.
I realize that the picture is more of my hand and less of the bug (you try snapping a good shot as the stupid thing is walking around, while making sure it doesn't get away because its death is imminent), but I just figured that if I have to be creeped out by tiny bugs, I ought to share.
On the bright side, if that whole moving to Africa next year pans out, this is just premature acclimation, right?
"Do you know what he did? He watched me work for 10 minutes, and then started to design a simple piece of software that could replace me.""Is that even possible?" "As it turns out, yes."
I live in a hermetically sealed bubble.
Not intentionally, mind you. And it's been a quite recent development. Last week, they started putting up this scaffolding on a building across the way, as they're apparently going to resurface it. Because my street is narrow, that means the workers are roughly fifteen feet away from my fourth floor (fifth floor in the US)window. This picture? Doesn't really capture how incredibly close they are. Or maybe it does, if you take into account the fact that this was just snapped (surreptitiously, natch), without zoom. So, with these loud-talking dudes working fifteen feet away from me, I've been living with the drapes pulled shut; they're kinda nosy, and I'd rather not be stared at while trying to think. And trying to write. And then failing at writing.
Also, with the drapes closed, I can go back to my normal pants-eschewing ways.
I thoroughly love fresh air, though, so I'd leave my windows open behind the closed curtains, put up with their loud babbling and be really grateful for the fact that they took a two or three hour lunch and didn't work much past four.
Unfortunately, this week, they (I'm assuming a different "they" - most likely city workers rather than an independent resurfacing company - but a "they" nonetheless) started doing some work on the road, cutting up the cobblestones and covering up the holes by laying down huge plates of metal, judging from the noise, mostly likely dropped from several feet off the ground. What with the endless jackhammering and the 4-inch-metal-plate-dropping and the yelling, I've had to shut my windows, too. And that means no air, no light. No life. Hermetically sealed bubble. Or at least, that's how it feels. Well, assuming one could still smell their neighbor's smokey stench while living in a hermetically sealed bubble.
Eventually, it will get back to my beautiful street (feel free to ignore the part of the picture my parents referred to as "Last Fall's Disappointment") but for the moment, I suspect I'd be content if I didn't feel like there were people trying to peer though the curtain gaps to see my (semi-awkward) yoga practice.
De gustibus non est disputandum.
Due to medication-related issues, I've got this raging headache that promises to get worse. In a few hours, I'll start to get a lightheaded-esque sensation, roving all over my body, which is horrendous but also makes me contemplate what tripping might have been like. This is one of the main reasons I generally prefer to avoid drugging myself regularly. I'm not really sure why I bring this up; it just seems a bit relevant.
Anyway, so until a couple of days ago I had three of my aunts here in my teeny apartment for a week. It was oddly uncrowded, considering the size of my studio, and I never once wished they weren't there - also odd, considering how much I value my space and privacy. Remarkably, I was even a bit sad when it was time for them to go, although that might be related to the high level of loneliness I've been experiencing lately. However, there was a downside to their stay.
See, I don't like pulp in my juice. Or my lemonade. Or any sort of liquid. In my world, liquids should not contain solids; really, this is a pretty basic concept. (That reminds me: New Neighborhood Indian Place With The Really Good Biryani? What would possess you to put sliced almonds in mango lassi? I'm so disappointed in you, New Neighborhood Indian Place.) I kind of prefer my juices on the weaker side - usually in a ratio of about three parts juice to one part water. This works well with clear juices, particularly with grape and apple, but with orange... eh. Water orange juice down and you start to feel like you're drinking a pulverized Simpsons character. Back home, I discovered the joy of original Simply Orange, as it's pulp-free (glory be!). The first little while I lived here and hadn't yet explored my neighborhood I went to the local ED for groceries - it was between my front door and the metro. This is when I discovered the ED store brand orange "nectar" - watery and pulp-free, and since then, I'll stop by ED and stock up on juice. Well, the "nectar."
Apparently, I'm beyond unobservant, because it wasn't until Sunday night when my aunts and I were sitting around, playing games, cackling (more them than me, although I'm sure the cackle is in my future), eating popcorn, and drinking said juice. "Nectar." And they mentioned that it's sweeter than normal juice, and so now I can't drink it. And I can't find orange juice without pulp. And now I'm contemplating adding to the multipurposeness of my French press.
"So here's some advice I wish I would have got when I was your age: live every week like it's Shark Week."
I've been more than a little tied up with my thesis - gotta earn it if I want to be Mistress Zannah, right? - but I thought I'd share this picture with you all, since it's been disturbing me lately and, well, why keep something disturbing to yourself? I got it in the mail, and it's full of useful phone numbers and stuff, and I know the Bastille is the most recognizable landmark in the quartier, but let's talk about angles.
Now, if that picture doesn't make it clear enough, check a larger version of the picture here. Now, maybe this is just my Puritanical Anglo-Saxon upbringing, but when you've been commissioned to create this huge statue to stick on the top of a huge pillar in the air, is it really that important to be anatomically correct? And, if it *is* that important to be anatomically correct, do you have to put a picture of said statue from THAT ANGLE on the cover of something that could, ostensibly, be a daily-use sort of object? Call me old-fashioned, but I can do without golden taint on my phone books.
Also, I know I've been swearing to write about my last trip (I really, really want to) but I can't justify taking the time when I've got a thesis actively whipping me. However, I promise to do it before my henna completely fades:
"We're not saying anything new here. We're just saying the same things that need to be said again and again with fierce conviction."
You know how some moms occasionally (often?) get so tied up with caring for their families that finding the time to shower seems beyond impossible? I suspect that should I ever have progeny, a shower won't be the issue, but rather, managing to put on pants will be my own personal laurel wreath.
Reason #157 I don't gamble: I believe it would be statistically impossible to have a worse bracket than I do at the moment. I would say that's what I get for filling out my bracket with Sara the night before she left, at 2 am, while half-asleep - picking teams not completely at random, but just about. Or, we could chalk it up to the mistake of choosing three NC teams to put in your Final Four.
In an unrelated NCAA tournament note, I derive an odd sense of pride from knowing that "March Madness" comes from my beloved IHSA. Ahhh... the memories. You know, the amount of IHSA crap I did in high school really cannot be quantified.
Falling asleep in the middle of watching Patton will give you seriously crazy dreams. Dreams in which you're part of some airborne division, dropping in over a mountain range in Sicily separating Spain from France, and while you make it to the Spanish side like you were supposed to, you end up first soaring up to 20,000 feet and then crashing into a bunch of trees, and when you come to after being knocked unconscious, it's in a USO and LDS chapel hybrid and your friend Jacquie from a couple of years ago is part of a Canadian Sparkle Motion dance troupe (notorious!) and so she helps you find an officer to send a wire to your unit, and in your dream you end up sitting and waiting for a few hours while surrounded by British and Canadian chaos until you wake up with an odd sense of patriotism and hell of a lot of confusion, because you're not sure if you were male or female in your dream. You felt like yourself, but at the same time... you were a WWII combat soldier. Also, the confusion may come from the fact that my subconscious's grasp of geography is beyond pathetic.
Speaking of movies, I realized recently (err, while watching it, of course) that my favorite parts of Apollo 13 are the bits in Houston, in Mission Control. All of those engineers, developing all kinds of crazy things, doing so much founded on nothing more than their raw brain power? HOT. If wishes were fishes, I'd so find me an engineer from the 60s, or at the very least, a guy who can rock a slide rule.
Speaking of geography, I was talking to someone (although I can't remember who; not even if it was a Frenchie or what) recently about how too many Americans know very little about world geography, and as an example of how this person really did know something, I suggested werf name the largest city in India, thinking that was ridiculously easy and yet decidedly "world" geography. Werf's response, however, was "Dubai." Let us all hang our heads in collective shame.
Just because you're living in France doesn't mean you need to sing "happy birthday" to your friend in French. Particularly when you're a gaggle of drunken Irish girls, and your friend is also Irish. And even more particularly when one of you lives right next to me, who hates Anglophone accents. You're already going to keep me up for the next several hours with your plastered cackling; must there be poorly accented, off-key versions of "joyeux anniversaire" too?
I could be finishing my long, sure-to-be-painful-for-you-who-make-the-mistake-of-reading-it Marrakesh post, but instead I think I'm going to watch Lawrence of Arabia while I wait for the drunken game of Truth and Dare to quiet down next door; it's been a while since I've had a First World War dream.
"I'm sick of you being so dark when I'm so impish and whimsical!"
So I'd really intended to write the whhhhole Marrakesh story (scrubbed like a monkey!) today, but I got caught up researching a lovely last-minute trip for next week, and then talking to my mom, so I never got around to it. As a consolation prize, though, I've got a short video we took of the teeny streets in Marrakesh; it's part of the walk back from Djemaa el-Fma to our riad. Oddly enough, the Moroccan parts don't seem strange to me (have I mentioned how badly I want to go back?), but seeing myself from behind, particularly seeing how long my hair is? That's the weird bit.
I really am working on a full report of my two full days in Marrakesh, but I've been a bit preoccupied with my thesis and figuring out what I'm gonna do for the next few years once I finish this horrid thing. But, since I know at least a few of you like to know the end from the beginning, here's a picture from the end of Sunday night; I promise to give you the whole story as soon as I can.
And here we have part deux, which lucky for you will be full of pictures. Welcome to the series that I'm calling Death Star: A Library. I know I've talked a ton about the BNF because I sometimes feel like I live there, but I don't know if you can really appreciate the experience unless you've seen what it's like just going into the place. See, the library has this highly intelligent design, as the books (some of which are very old and/or very rare) are all stored in book-shaped towers above ground, and the people are below ground in these ginormous reading rooms. To read the majority of the books, you request them online and someone pulls them and they come down from the towers and then you pick them up at this desk. The whole thing is really not too terribly efficient.
So I just spent fifteen minutes trying to figure out if I'd blogged about this friend I had last spring, to whom I referred as My Roommate Who Doesn't Live Here, in hopes that I wouldn't have type it all now. Alas, my blogging those months was less than thorough. 
