that's right, they said it would never happen. but i caught a snowflake on my tongue, in paris. no. big. deal.
rockinnnnn
Sunday, November 23, 2008
breaking news
so i promise a legit update, with switz pics, david sedaris, and sartre, will be coming soon. but breaking news that cant wait: it snowed in paris today.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
look! i made a pretty
it is on this page. right here ------------------------------------->
on the top right corner of the page! it is a collaborative project between myself and MLK, by which i mean i took an awesome quote of his and then wrote a little me after it. i really like it. i am calling it an art piece and a poetry and a philsophy. i hope you like it! but even if you don't, it's staying. this is because i feel it sums up my life philosophies well. and if i was a little bit of words on paper, these words would most definitely be in the running.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
secrets and pennies and éclaircies
i thought this was just beautiful. also, my favorite online art piece, www.asofterworld.com, has a beautiful, eloquent piece up today. there are usually words, but this one doesn't need any. there is a picture, so maybe that counts as a thousand?
today is a day. and i am full of juice and pennies and giant thoughts like hot air balloons. in french the word for that is mongolfieres. which is my second-favorite french word. my first favorite is éclaircie. it means that thing when the sky is really dark and cloudy and then rays of sun shoot through a little clearing. if she wouldn't hate me so much for it, i would name my future daughter eclaircie. i think it's pretty. outside, the lights are bright tonight, and blurry, and the colors bobble up and around like fireflies. and my hat is warm, i wonder how my head plus some yarn creates so much heat. it is amazing. today is a day where i am easily amazed. it rained this morning; there was a secret sunrise that only clouds could see. and i stood outside on the patio, barefoot, in just a dress, and spun around and let it rain on me. i was really glad it was raining; i would have been happy no matter what, but i think i was the happiest when it rained. and there was no one there- it was like when i used to wake up early (or stay up all night) and climb down the cliffs at sunrise and sing and walk and dance a little on the sand before anyone was awake. but this sunrise was a secret. all i could see of it was water splattering on my arms in little liquid-balls. and it sounded like a million little tapping, laughing kissing goldfish. and the secrets are still there, but now the rain is gone, and the headlights and bricks and gray air are back. it is 34 o clock for me, and i am here and i am happy and i am full of juice and pennies. and someday, i want to be a giant, yellow, glowing, flying mongolfiere.Tuesday, November 4, 2008
post-election meanderings
it's 6am paris time. and my facebook status tells me that "laura judd is exhausted and in tears and so, so, so happy." and barack obama just made his acceptance speech, and he just told his daughters that they can get a new puppy for the white house, and he talked about that lady in atlanta, and oprah cried and jesse jackson cried and i cried. and i didn't know until this moment how sure i was that this would never happen. i was sure, absolutely sure, that the people who live in america would never elect someone like him, with brown skin and the middle name hussein and words about real, tangible equality. i always thought we liked our white men and our money too much to ever manage it. and i always, always hoped that it would happen, and i wanted it to happen, but mostly, i just dreaded the election party we had tonight in our apartment building. i just wanted to know, and i just wanted to hear that he'd lost, that the old white guy had won, as always, so that i could have enough time to get angry, put myself back together, and write off america for life. i've been trying all day to come up with a plan b, because i've always said that if we couldn't elect barack obama to be president, i didn't want to live there anymore. i didnt want to go home. not because i'm petty or bitter or anything, but if the country i was born in could hear the things that that man said and see him speak, and say "no, we don't want that", then it simply wouldn't have been my place. it wouldn't have been anywhere i belonged. and that was what i expected tonight, to know that i was going home in 2 months, and to find out now that i really, really didn't belong there anymore.
but... that didn't happen. and, after being up almost all night, after coming downstairs after my hour's nap and watching everything that happened on cnn between 5 and 7 am paris time (9 hours ahead of california time), i'm at a loss for words. i can't believe it happened. and i was so afraid it wouldn't happen, that i never thought about what it would mean to me if it did. i was totally unprepared for the emotional chords this struck with me. i kept saying i'd cry if he lost, i didn't even think about how much i'd cry if he won. and i was so happy, and so shocked, and so proud. i don't know if i've ever been proud of us this way before. i don't think i've even called america "us" in a very long time. and watching him walk offstage with his family was like watching a movie- it couldn't have been real because patriotic music was playing, and i liked it. and i cried for most of that speech, not even because of what he was saying, but because i couldn't believe we did it. and you can say what you will, maybe he won't be any different, maybe politics will water him down, maybe all those things. but right now, i'm just shocked that america elected someone who even looked like that.
and i need to get some sleep; im about to fail human rights class tomorrow because i have next to nothing done for this project i have due at 1pm. so i need to go to sleep so i can get up in 3 hours and do it, and i dont know really what im trying to say, but i hope that, whatever it is, i've said it. it's strange that i'll always remember being in paris when it happened, in a room full of french people smiling toasting and congratulating, and americans sitting quietly on the floor and staring at the screen with tears trickling down our faces.
and it's strange, and so surreal, and i hope i wake up tomorrow and it's still true. if it isn't, i'm skipping class.
maybe i'll skip class anyway.
but... that didn't happen. and, after being up almost all night, after coming downstairs after my hour's nap and watching everything that happened on cnn between 5 and 7 am paris time (9 hours ahead of california time), i'm at a loss for words. i can't believe it happened. and i was so afraid it wouldn't happen, that i never thought about what it would mean to me if it did. i was totally unprepared for the emotional chords this struck with me. i kept saying i'd cry if he lost, i didn't even think about how much i'd cry if he won. and i was so happy, and so shocked, and so proud. i don't know if i've ever been proud of us this way before. i don't think i've even called america "us" in a very long time. and watching him walk offstage with his family was like watching a movie- it couldn't have been real because patriotic music was playing, and i liked it. and i cried for most of that speech, not even because of what he was saying, but because i couldn't believe we did it. and you can say what you will, maybe he won't be any different, maybe politics will water him down, maybe all those things. but right now, i'm just shocked that america elected someone who even looked like that.
and i need to get some sleep; im about to fail human rights class tomorrow because i have next to nothing done for this project i have due at 1pm. so i need to go to sleep so i can get up in 3 hours and do it, and i dont know really what im trying to say, but i hope that, whatever it is, i've said it. it's strange that i'll always remember being in paris when it happened, in a room full of french people smiling toasting and congratulating, and americans sitting quietly on the floor and staring at the screen with tears trickling down our faces.
and it's strange, and so surreal, and i hope i wake up tomorrow and it's still true. if it isn't, i'm skipping class.
maybe i'll skip class anyway.
Monday, November 3, 2008
idiot lines
so really, im a little bit angry right now.
that is a lie. i am seriously angry right now. and i want to go home. ok not really, i dont actually want to go home. but i am angry. and, just for this next hour tonight, i really wish i was back in california.
every monday, we go to a bar. it's called the long hop. it's an american bar, and on monday nights they do american music trivia contests. we discovered it around the 3rd week here, and we've gone almost every monday since, even with class at 930am the next day. because it's fun, and it's awesome, and we can hear music we like and buy overpriced drinks and have fun.
so tonight we made our way over there- mind you, it's a 40 minute trip there because there is no direct metro line, so we have to transfer twice. and we walk up, 5 of us, and we're laughing and talking to each other, and the bouncer stops us. this is not A bouncer, it is THE bouncer. he is there every week, we say hi every week, he knows us, and we know him well enough to know his name is buddy, or teddy, or something. pretty sure it's buddy. anyway. he knows we're there every week, and he knows we're american.
and tonight, he didn't let us in. which, i mean, it's a bar, that's not something im ready to get offended by, but as we walked up, the people at the table next to him made some disdainful comment about the "american girls", and he laughed and nodded, and then refused to let us in the bar. let 3 guys walk past us into the bar. let another girl walk past us into the bar. still wont let us in. so we leave, we walk away, and watch him laughing with the other people on the patio. and we just stood there, around the corner, without any idea what to say or do.
we were furious. i was furious. it makes me angry. i dont know that i've ever dealt with something like this on this level before. i mean to some extent i am constantly looked down upon here by people who can't stand to look at an american girl wearing colors, carrying a giraffe, and trying to practice her french. luckily, i am used to being looked down upon. maybe it was all those years of everyone thinking i was dumb. or maybe it's just all the practice i get from being a girl. but things like that dont even bother me. i mean it sounds silly, but i've never lived without the semi-constant harassment and objectification, not to mention danger of personal safety, that comes with being female. in the context of my life, that barely even gets me angry anymore. (which, byt the way, is awful). but i have never felt as if i was being discriminated against in this particular way. and it hit an interesting chord. i was really, really, really angry.
and i know it's ridiculous for me to be angry about it, because i know people deal with that kind of stuff every day on a way bigger scale than i may ever have to. but i am angry about it. and i think i should be angry about it. because what those people on that patio were doing, i can't think of a single time i have ever, ever ever done that. to anyone. and i dont understand it, maybe i never will, but please tell me, buddy, what gives you the right to look down on me because im not you? i've never understood it. i remember in high school, dr. burns took almost an entire class period trying to explain racism to me. he spent another trying to explain sexism to me. and every time, i just sat there deer-in-headlights, trying to understand, and feeling like an idiot. but where does it come from? i kept asking. the sense of entitlement, the supreme arrogance that is required in order to declare yourself superior to another, WHERE DOES IT COME FROM? and no one had an answer for me. i finally resigned myself to a total lack of understanding of the concept.
so i want to go home. and it's so selfish. because i know it's not about france, and it's not french people. americans are experts at declaring ourselves to be exceptional, above all others. i mean, look at the way we treat mexican immigrants. look at the way we treat even fellow americans whose families came from different places a long time ago. it's awful, it's so, so awful. and it really depresses me how good we are at deciding that other people aren't quite as important of people as we are. and im angry at those people tonight, and im angry at rude people in general, and im angry at myself because really, all i want to do is go home, where my racial/national/whatever group (i dont think american is a race, haha... even if i believed in races in the first place) is in the power position, so that i dont have to deal with things like this anymore. and that's selfish, and it's stupid, but it's true. that's what i want. and i hope (but actually i know) that tomorrow i will be less angry, and i wont want to leave, and i'll love paris again. because this isn't about americans, and it isn't about french people, it's about idiot lines in the sand.
just for the record, we decided that buddy's karma would eventually catch up to him (even if his only punishment was having to be buddy forever, that would be punishment enough) and we went and got mcdonalds. we weren't even hungry. but we waited in a 25 minute outdoor line for mcdonalds, because on principle, i wanted a cheeseburger and a coke tonight. funny how those things work.
that is a lie. i am seriously angry right now. and i want to go home. ok not really, i dont actually want to go home. but i am angry. and, just for this next hour tonight, i really wish i was back in california.
every monday, we go to a bar. it's called the long hop. it's an american bar, and on monday nights they do american music trivia contests. we discovered it around the 3rd week here, and we've gone almost every monday since, even with class at 930am the next day. because it's fun, and it's awesome, and we can hear music we like and buy overpriced drinks and have fun.
so tonight we made our way over there- mind you, it's a 40 minute trip there because there is no direct metro line, so we have to transfer twice. and we walk up, 5 of us, and we're laughing and talking to each other, and the bouncer stops us. this is not A bouncer, it is THE bouncer. he is there every week, we say hi every week, he knows us, and we know him well enough to know his name is buddy, or teddy, or something. pretty sure it's buddy. anyway. he knows we're there every week, and he knows we're american.
and tonight, he didn't let us in. which, i mean, it's a bar, that's not something im ready to get offended by, but as we walked up, the people at the table next to him made some disdainful comment about the "american girls", and he laughed and nodded, and then refused to let us in the bar. let 3 guys walk past us into the bar. let another girl walk past us into the bar. still wont let us in. so we leave, we walk away, and watch him laughing with the other people on the patio. and we just stood there, around the corner, without any idea what to say or do.
we were furious. i was furious. it makes me angry. i dont know that i've ever dealt with something like this on this level before. i mean to some extent i am constantly looked down upon here by people who can't stand to look at an american girl wearing colors, carrying a giraffe, and trying to practice her french. luckily, i am used to being looked down upon. maybe it was all those years of everyone thinking i was dumb. or maybe it's just all the practice i get from being a girl. but things like that dont even bother me. i mean it sounds silly, but i've never lived without the semi-constant harassment and objectification, not to mention danger of personal safety, that comes with being female. in the context of my life, that barely even gets me angry anymore. (which, byt the way, is awful). but i have never felt as if i was being discriminated against in this particular way. and it hit an interesting chord. i was really, really, really angry.
and i know it's ridiculous for me to be angry about it, because i know people deal with that kind of stuff every day on a way bigger scale than i may ever have to. but i am angry about it. and i think i should be angry about it. because what those people on that patio were doing, i can't think of a single time i have ever, ever ever done that. to anyone. and i dont understand it, maybe i never will, but please tell me, buddy, what gives you the right to look down on me because im not you? i've never understood it. i remember in high school, dr. burns took almost an entire class period trying to explain racism to me. he spent another trying to explain sexism to me. and every time, i just sat there deer-in-headlights, trying to understand, and feeling like an idiot. but where does it come from? i kept asking. the sense of entitlement, the supreme arrogance that is required in order to declare yourself superior to another, WHERE DOES IT COME FROM? and no one had an answer for me. i finally resigned myself to a total lack of understanding of the concept.
so i want to go home. and it's so selfish. because i know it's not about france, and it's not french people. americans are experts at declaring ourselves to be exceptional, above all others. i mean, look at the way we treat mexican immigrants. look at the way we treat even fellow americans whose families came from different places a long time ago. it's awful, it's so, so awful. and it really depresses me how good we are at deciding that other people aren't quite as important of people as we are. and im angry at those people tonight, and im angry at rude people in general, and im angry at myself because really, all i want to do is go home, where my racial/national/whatever group (i dont think american is a race, haha... even if i believed in races in the first place) is in the power position, so that i dont have to deal with things like this anymore. and that's selfish, and it's stupid, but it's true. that's what i want. and i hope (but actually i know) that tomorrow i will be less angry, and i wont want to leave, and i'll love paris again. because this isn't about americans, and it isn't about french people, it's about idiot lines in the sand.
just for the record, we decided that buddy's karma would eventually catch up to him (even if his only punishment was having to be buddy forever, that would be punishment enough) and we went and got mcdonalds. we weren't even hungry. but we waited in a 25 minute outdoor line for mcdonalds, because on principle, i wanted a cheeseburger and a coke tonight. funny how those things work.
beautiful things
chapter 2: i saw the water lilies, and they changed my life~
last thursday, snapdragon and i made the trip out to Giverny, the little town outside paris where Monet lived. it had been pouring all week, but we had to go this weekend because the house/gardens are only open until the end of october, and then they close for the winter. and, for those of you who don't know this, i am obsessed, capital o-b-s-e-s-s-e-d with monet. i am just awed by him, maybe the way other people feel about... god i don't know the way my friends used to feel about the backstreet boys in the 6th grade. or the way people are obsessed with justin timberlake and jennifer aniston and brad pitt and lauren whatever-her-name-is that's on mtv all the time. he's a rock star for me, like da vinci and marx and benazir bhutto and and sartre and judith butler and shakespeare and olympe de gouges and the beatles. so when we found out we could visit his house for as much money as it cost me to print my revolutions project (about 30euro, which yes is ridiculous for printing, i told you this city was crazy), i had to, had to do it.
we got up early-ish that morning and got to the train station more than an hour before our train was supposed to leave (probly like 10ish), our train left at 11:03. we decided in line that, as we were at a major train station in paris, i would just ask for our ticket in english and we wouldn't waste the cashier's time and ours by me stumbling through sentences trying to practice my french. but, when we got up to the desk, our plans were foiled, because when i asked for "2 (and held up 2 fingers) to Giverny", the man looked down his nose at me and said, with no accent whatsoever, "i don't speak english". so, i glared back at him, held my 2 fingers up again and said "2 å giverny". he smirked a little, pleased with himself, but i was happy because he was unable to fluster me, and i answered every question he asked.
once we successfully bought our tickets, we wandered around outside for a little, and noticed a bridal shop! very normal, except it had a giant stuffed tiger in the window. jamila (my stuffed giraffe who is travelling around paris with me. dont worry about it, the pictures will explain everything) really likes finding other stuffed animals besides herself, so we took a picture of it. however, the connection between wedding dresses and tigers i dont understand at all, maybe here tigers are a symbol of matrimonial love, but i was not informed. observe the ridiculous:
anyway, so we got on the train, and took it to Vernon, a little town near Giverny. then we took a bus to Giverny, which was not at all hard to find. it was a fun game of: follow the old people! seriously, if it had not been for a 2 year old along for the ride with grandma and grandpa, we would have been the youngest people there by far. too bad this wasn't an episode of the amazing race, we would've won for sure. we even sat by the exit of the bus! just in case.
um this is the bus stop in giverny? supercute. when we got to giverny, i didn't even know what to do with myself. we were lucky, and it was an absolutely beautiful day. our bus arrived and pulled into a parking lot on a field, we could have been anywhere. the hills looked so much like home that i had to keep reminding myself that i was in france. we found our way to a roundabout-- and were nearly mowed over by about 4 minicoopers and a semi. again, we followed the old people (who by now we had discovered were americans) until we found this sign:
i took a picture of it for you, mom. <3>
we walked along the main street of this little town, which really, was the only street that wasnt a driveway (it was called rue claude monet). all the houses were covered in ivy, which was red because it was fall. it was absolutely gorgeous, and we both laughed about how stalkerish we felt taking pictures of random people's houses. i didn't feel too badly for them; they live in the french countryside within walking distance of monet's garden. we finally made our way there, and paid our 6 euros to get in as students (which is always an accomplishment for me; i no longer have a valid student id since it was stolen 3 weeks ago). but we finally got inside, and walked into the garden. it was breathtaking. honestly, there aren't words to describe it. we probably spent over an hour just in the first part of the garden, taking pictures of every flower we could find. normally, i have a hard time taking pictures, but this was different. i wasn't posing awkwardly in front of the eiffel tower,trying to smile as if caught, spontaneously, in a moment of actual life enjoyment, and not as if i'm exhausted and i have to pee and this is the 35th picture i've posed for today. it was art, and me making art, and art making itself, and i really, really liked it. i think i'd really like to be a photographer, really. i told snapdragon that with 3 hours and 3 nude models, i could make myself famous. my flower obsession was thoroughly satisfied; this garden was breathtaking. it had personality, and it was falling all over itself, too busy being beautiful to care. it was absolutely wild, as if someone had once, a long time ago, just mixed a thousand types of flower seeds in a big bowl and thrown them all over the place. and i remember asking out loud why anybody even goes to Versailles, and why there were only 30 people on our bus, and why young people don't go here. why was everyone in that garden 65? and why don't we consider this garden with the type of reverence we do with the kings' gardens? is it because they belonged to kings? is it because they remind us of an era we romanticize, and a time we imagine to be full of kings and princesses and chivalry, whatever chivalry means to us, and renaissance, whatever renaissance means to us? versailles was gorgeous, but i am not in love with versailles. i am in love with monet's garden. and if im in love with monet's garden, with its wildness and its poetry and its absolute refusal to be anything other than what it is, what is everyone else in love with? everything that versaillees represents- order, wealth, uniform extravagance, our supposed supremacy over the natural world? straight hedges, straight trees, straight roses, straight lines? i guess that explains our differences, then.
we continued through the garden, making art and begging the flowers' forgiveness for invading their privacy. but they insisted that they didn't mind. and we danced with them. it was nice.
we continued through the garden, making art and begging the flowers' forgiveness for invading their privacy. but they insisted that they didn't mind. and we danced with them. it was nice.
here, as promised, is my giraffe, jamila noor. as you can see, she's very photogenic.
next we went "downstairs". we climbed down the stairs to the lower gardens, and came out of the tunnel into the sun. there was a field trip of maybe 4th graders to the gardens (thank god) and they were playing pooh sticks. for the unenlightenened, i will explain: pooh sticks is a game, played on winnie the pooh (hence the name) in which all the players find sticks (see really, this game is pretty self-explanatory) and stand on a bridge with running water under it. they each drop their sticks on one side of the bridge, then run to the other side to watch them come out from under the bridge. the player whose stick wins the race and come out first wins. i have been playing this game with my family at henry cowell woods since probably before i could remember. so, these 4th graders were playing pooh sticks, and i turned to snapdragon and- remembering that no one i have explained it to has ever heard of pooh sticks- asked if she had ever played "racing sticks under bridges". to which she replied "yeah, of course, it's called--": and i said "we call it--": "pooh sticks". at nearly the same time. first, i almost died. then, i just stood there and stared at her, and asked her where she'd been all my life, and shook my head a couple times, and finally managed to squeak out:"you play pooh sticks?!" "oh yeah, my family plays it all the time. of course i know pooh sticks". my brain exploded several hundred times, and i remembered why we're getting married.
but when we saw the pond, we got very quiet, as if there was nothing else there. it was the most beautiful thing i've ever seen. there were trees and flowers and wines everywhere, and you cou;dn't tell one from the other. the horizon had disappeared and there was no way to differentiate between the sky and the trees and the water. and the water, it was made of light. there were lily pads and a little boat and a man in another little boat scooping leaves out of the pond and collecting them. it's one of the most beautiful things i've ever seen. and when i saw the bridge, i stopped breathing. i've seen that bridge painted so many times, beautiful every time. i was sure that when i saw the real thing, i'd be disappointed, that nothing could be as beautiful as the image monet had painted in my head. but i was wrong. it was incredible. and it made me think about... everything. i always wondered why he painted, what made him wake up and decide that today it would be water lilies. but i saw that garden, and the way the reflection in the water made real life and colors and lines blend together i thought that if i saw this every morning, i would be nothing but a painter. i wouldn't be able to help myself.
it made me think about why im not a painter, which strangely is something i think about on a pretty regular basis. really, the things i want to do with my life are crazy, and i've come to terms with the fact that doing them will not make me happy. it will not be fun. my chosen career is certainly an unpleasant one. i mean, im not one of those people who is planning to do something they hate for 10 years until they're filthy rich and can live off it for the rest of their lives. obviously. i want to work for an NGO that does human rights work, and maybe someday have my own- basically, i want to make social rights happen. women's rights, children's rights, prisoners of conscience, labor rights, religious/ethnic/gender/everything-else equality. and really, what that means is that i'll be dealing every day with the things that scare me most, the things that make me the most angry. the events that we talk about in human rights class and i have to put my headphones in because i can't listen to it, even just in passing. that's what i want to do with my life. and it's not for love and it's not really rational- i mean, there are rational aspects to the decisions i make. i am aware that i live in a staggering level of luxury compared to the vast majority of the people on this planet. i am also aware that my standard of living is unsustainable if a greater level of world equality is to be achieved. i think that if people who had things just gave some of them away, we'd all probably be doing ok. but we're not giving anything away and we're not doing ok. it bothers me that some people have everything and other people have nothing, be it money or political power or social status or anything else. and i want women to be empowered and i want white people to stop prancing around like they own the place, and i want our children to grow up better than us. and i know that this is me being silly, and that it won't happen, and that no matter what i do, i won't won't won't in a million years fix what's been broken for as long as we've been writing things down, but i think that's precisely why i know that this is what i want to do. because it's illogical, and irrational, and impossible, and it won't be fun, and i can't tell you why, but i just have to. if i was going to do something for love, it would be poetry, or art, or maybe fashion (but whatever it was, it would be philosophy). and some days i really just want to change my major and go to art school and after that go live in an abandoned lighthouse in iceland and make a living by building fountains out of weird things like pots and pans and silverware, and collect books and drink coffee and write a lot and paint a lot. and i wonder what would happen if i did, and if id be able to be happy that way, doing everything that would in theory make me happy. anyway that probably seems way off topic, but i thought about it a lot, looking at the water lilies, and wondering if, had i lived here, i could have ever done anything but paint.
anyway, so we walked around the garden for a while, and took pictures and sat and meditated and stood on bridges and watched the man in the little boat scoop leaves out of the water. we wandered through a bamboo area, and across a little stream, and around several giant trees, and then back to the pond. it was really gorgeous. and i told snapdragon that this was one of the only places in the world where i would never even think to take a flower from. if you didn't know, this blog is named after my poetry journal, also entitled "the secret life of flowers". and, in the back of the journal, i collect flowers from places that inspire me. im accumulating quite a collection. but i would never, ever, ever in my life pick a flower from monet's garden. walking around his house was like being in a holy place for me; i wasn't sarcastic and i wasn't funny and i wasn't even thoughtful, i just was. in his kitchen, which was wholly covered in blue and white tile, and a little overwhelming, we talked about how it must have been to live there with him. i love imagining geniuses in their pajamas, eating cereal. it's a very pretty thought, i think.
but when we saw the pond, we got very quiet, as if there was nothing else there. it was the most beautiful thing i've ever seen. there were trees and flowers and wines everywhere, and you cou;dn't tell one from the other. the horizon had disappeared and there was no way to differentiate between the sky and the trees and the water. and the water, it was made of light. there were lily pads and a little boat and a man in another little boat scooping leaves out of the pond and collecting them. it's one of the most beautiful things i've ever seen. and when i saw the bridge, i stopped breathing. i've seen that bridge painted so many times, beautiful every time. i was sure that when i saw the real thing, i'd be disappointed, that nothing could be as beautiful as the image monet had painted in my head. but i was wrong. it was incredible. and it made me think about... everything. i always wondered why he painted, what made him wake up and decide that today it would be water lilies. but i saw that garden, and the way the reflection in the water made real life and colors and lines blend together i thought that if i saw this every morning, i would be nothing but a painter. i wouldn't be able to help myself.
it made me think about why im not a painter, which strangely is something i think about on a pretty regular basis. really, the things i want to do with my life are crazy, and i've come to terms with the fact that doing them will not make me happy. it will not be fun. my chosen career is certainly an unpleasant one. i mean, im not one of those people who is planning to do something they hate for 10 years until they're filthy rich and can live off it for the rest of their lives. obviously. i want to work for an NGO that does human rights work, and maybe someday have my own- basically, i want to make social rights happen. women's rights, children's rights, prisoners of conscience, labor rights, religious/ethnic/gender/everything-else equality. and really, what that means is that i'll be dealing every day with the things that scare me most, the things that make me the most angry. the events that we talk about in human rights class and i have to put my headphones in because i can't listen to it, even just in passing. that's what i want to do with my life. and it's not for love and it's not really rational- i mean, there are rational aspects to the decisions i make. i am aware that i live in a staggering level of luxury compared to the vast majority of the people on this planet. i am also aware that my standard of living is unsustainable if a greater level of world equality is to be achieved. i think that if people who had things just gave some of them away, we'd all probably be doing ok. but we're not giving anything away and we're not doing ok. it bothers me that some people have everything and other people have nothing, be it money or political power or social status or anything else. and i want women to be empowered and i want white people to stop prancing around like they own the place, and i want our children to grow up better than us. and i know that this is me being silly, and that it won't happen, and that no matter what i do, i won't won't won't in a million years fix what's been broken for as long as we've been writing things down, but i think that's precisely why i know that this is what i want to do. because it's illogical, and irrational, and impossible, and it won't be fun, and i can't tell you why, but i just have to. if i was going to do something for love, it would be poetry, or art, or maybe fashion (but whatever it was, it would be philosophy). and some days i really just want to change my major and go to art school and after that go live in an abandoned lighthouse in iceland and make a living by building fountains out of weird things like pots and pans and silverware, and collect books and drink coffee and write a lot and paint a lot. and i wonder what would happen if i did, and if id be able to be happy that way, doing everything that would in theory make me happy. anyway that probably seems way off topic, but i thought about it a lot, looking at the water lilies, and wondering if, had i lived here, i could have ever done anything but paint.
anyway, so we walked around the garden for a while, and took pictures and sat and meditated and stood on bridges and watched the man in the little boat scoop leaves out of the water. we wandered through a bamboo area, and across a little stream, and around several giant trees, and then back to the pond. it was really gorgeous. and i told snapdragon that this was one of the only places in the world where i would never even think to take a flower from. if you didn't know, this blog is named after my poetry journal, also entitled "the secret life of flowers". and, in the back of the journal, i collect flowers from places that inspire me. im accumulating quite a collection. but i would never, ever, ever in my life pick a flower from monet's garden. walking around his house was like being in a holy place for me; i wasn't sarcastic and i wasn't funny and i wasn't even thoughtful, i just was. in his kitchen, which was wholly covered in blue and white tile, and a little overwhelming, we talked about how it must have been to live there with him. i love imagining geniuses in their pajamas, eating cereal. it's a very pretty thought, i think.
just a snail at monet's house. i just though it was cool.
the house
we left the house, and afterwards, i did probably the coolest thing i will ever, ever, ever, ever, ever do in my life. again, if you didnt know i constantly carry little packs of seeds in my bag and plant them everywhere, in sidewalk cracks and cemeteries and other people's flowerboxes. it would make sense that i plant flowers to replace the ones i take, in some weird attempt to maintain sustainability of world happiness and also to ease my guilt about picking them in the first place. but it's not. i've been planting flowers far longer than i've been picking them, and i don't feel guilty at all. but this was probably the coolest moment of my life thus far.
the coolest thing i've ever done
afterwards, we wandered around giverny for a while, looking for some food. it was glorious. we saw the monet family grave at the church, where i planted a few more seeds on the grave. snapdragon asked if it was strange that monet somehow feels like santa claus. "well we always see him looking ancient in pictures," i said. "i feel like he was old for most of his life." "yeah, i agree," she replied, "i think maybe the country can do that to you. but i meant that i feel like he's omniscient. like he randomly knows your name, and that you just did that, and the wind whispered thank you... or something awkward like that." we laughed about it... but we weren't really kidding. it was strange. we finally found some food, which was weird and not that good and expensive as expected, and with the typical semi-rude service that isn't outwardly rude, but where the waitresses were obviously looking down their nose at the americans. we've really gotten used to it. unfortunately, this time we gave them too much money for the bill, and when we didn't bring back change, we had to awkwardly go ask for it... and watched the girl pick coins out of her tip jar. awk. afterwards, we wandered back to the meadow/parking lot, where we were to meet the bus, almost got run over by several more minicoopers, and talked about how much the hills and the air made it feel like home. really, if i ignored the cottages around me, i could've been holding a starbucks and walking to valley fair to go christmas shopping. it was ridiculous.
...the end? 
the parking lot/meadow
more pictures that were too pretty to leave out
the parking lot/meadowmore pictures that were too pretty to leave out
jamila rockin out
me gettin in some flowers' space
can you find me? it's like where's waldo but with flowers
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
some serious flower talk and a little bitta party
this is the first blog i've written, i think, that's not trying to cover a 2month span of time. it's strange and very nice, actually. ive resolved to add chapters about my past life without internet and just put them up every once in a while; there's not one attached to this post, but there will be one at the end of the next one.
ive had a resurgence of energy; these 2 weeks were kind of insane. had a human rights presentation monday, 2 midterms scheduled for wednesday, and on tuesday a 20 minute revolutions presentation on anarchism, socialism, the rise of the "left" pre-world war 1 in russia, the great britain, france, and germany, and revolution. i didnt sleep more than 2 hours sunday night, or a half hour monday night. however, tuesday night i got a record 14 hours of sleep. which is a good thing, because it was an epic weekend to say the least.
first, id like to figure out some logistics. im a little weirded out by using my friends' real names on this blog (which is why this blog looks like i have no friends and i keep referring to a vague and confusing "we".) so after several long bus rides this weekend, everyone i know, including myself, has been endowed with a nickname. not just any nicknames, either. kill-bill status kickass nicknames. and because this is, after all, the secret life of flowers, all of my friends are represented by whatever lovely flora i think suits them. im only listing the absolutely necessary ones at this time; no need to confuse you all with a million names i wont say again for weeks. but, incomplete or not, here they are. please feel free to introduce yourself.
tulip~ if rays of sunshine disguised themselves as people and walked around in black star-studded converse, this girl would be a prime suspect. it's lucky that tulips are her favorite flower; i think she'd be a yellow one, and if she were any cuter, i'd probably eat her. she's an expert at all things pop-culture, she's completely obsessed with harry potter, and she loves to discover new music. she really, really really likes naps, but she moves like a rocket- the girl gets things done. watching her take notes in class is something else. she's supersweet, supercute, supersunshine girl, and im really glad she lives with me. that way, i get to hear her giggle in her sleep (fave quote, from her sleeping and completely covered in blankets except for one renegade foot: "heeheehee you look so funny!") AND see her bolt straight up in the morning when its time to go. also, if eddie the echo's friendly spirit were to wander the earth searching for a soulmate, this girl would be his salvation. so i guess that's all i have to say about her (cool cool!!), let's move on to another one (yeah yeah!!) and then (funny funny!!) we'll ((george) lucas lucas!!)... i dont even have anywhere for this sentence to go. (finish finish!!)
lilac~ she's supersmall and supersweet! she has several adorable pets, who we all know very well by now. shes obsessed with twilight, and has yet to find a fellow fan in paris. she also loves nutella banana crepes, and she chugs, like, a lot of tea. shes really the only person ive ever met who says "i need some tea". she wears a watch that's 3 minutes fast, but sometimes not, so the two of us getting to school together is quite an affair. she steals all the tiny spoons from the kitchen for yogurt, then discovers them weeks later in piles in her backpack. she really enjoys talking to her family, and our room is regularly filled with the sounds of the lilac family skyping. she and her little sister are really too much together (not to mention tika, which is some type of pet who usually skypes with them as well). she really likes leggings, and shes succeeded in looking the most french, i think, of any of us. in fact, she really loves paris; it's totally her place and i could definitely see her living here in the future. she has a visual journal for class which has pretty much taken over her life, and human rights professor, and she likes honey (because the two of them are both so sweet! hahaha). dr. scott blair (professor of the awful human rights course that she and i are both in) loves her, and is constantly trying to find a family connection between the two of them based on their similar (but not the same) last names. very strange and obnoxious, but par for the course. she's freed her mind from the prison of time, by which i mean she might respond to the 4th alarm she's set in the morning, but she always manages to get to class! also, shes famous for her straightener, and one time she woke up at 3am (about when i was going to bed) so she would have 2 hours to straighten her hair before we left for amsterdam. classic.
snapdragon~ this one's a character, not to mention my hero. she comes off as a snapdragon, but she's secretly a stargazer lily at heart. she's pretty much my soulmate, and we're getting married, which is convenient, because we want the same wedding. for those of you who didn't know yet, we've already taken the engagement photos,and you should be getting the invitations in the mail soon. we knew we were destined to be together when we talked about POOH STICKS in Monet's garden. it also doesnt hurt that we've lived our entire lives less than an hour from each other, (went to semi-rival high schools AND colleges) and then somehow met in paris. she's addicted to nutella, she's absolutely hilarious, and she likes walking really an inordinate amount, which is great because so do i. shes (not so) secretly a philosopher, and when we're together all we do is chase down the biggest questions we can find. she's really one of the only people who i feel i'm able to talk to about big things that i think about, because i know she thinks about them too, and it's really, really great to have someone like that. im so glad i met her. she might be obsessed with chicken nuggets, she really likes the idea of being a checkout girl at a grocery store for life, she has this weird thing about running on stairs, and one time she tried to ram herself THROUGH a metro turnstile. (in the girl vs. machine battle, this one went to the machine. that sounds like a joke, but in fact, there is an actual battle, because she despises technology. im sure the score will be settled in the near future). she really is my hero, that isn't just a cute joke. she loves to read, she will one day be a famous (but not too famous... maybe cult-famous) author, and ive never met anyone whose views on the universe are so close to mine. love love love her.
daisy~ she might be the love of my life, no joke. she manages to make me smile every day, without fail, and i find myself constantly doing things she does (like the double peace sign COOL or singing THE JONAS BROTHERS). shes addicted to orangina, trying hard to quit, and failing. she thinks she looks like david beckham (? i know), which i dont understand at all, but whatever. i guess gorgeous never recognizes itself in the mirror, right? shes a straight up gangsta; homegirl can throw down a beat, which is probably why she's such a great dancer. her talent for music is obvious- she's an honorary jonas sister (she's almost famous, no big thing), she's constantly holding workshops teaching us all how to do all the various nsync-style dance routines i refused to learn 7 years ago, and she's a human jukebox. which is awesome, because im also a human jukebox, but we're constantly playing totally different songs. needless to say, our room can only be described as the lovechild of mix 106.5 and wild 94.9. and maybe some 104.9 and that oldies station whose name i never remember. anyway, its pretty great. she was a tree for halloween, which is typical. she rocks natural waistline pj-pants which can actually cover her entire body if she tries (and trust me, she has. i encouraged this activity as well). shes really good at weird voices, she does cute REALLY well, she doesn't eat meat, and she's probly... awkward, with a capital A. it's awesome though, im really glad she lives with me, and if she and i didnt write love letters back and forth in fashion class, i told her i'd probably have killed myself by smothering my face in a puffy 19th century sleeve. and it's totally, totally true.
oleander~ this one's a boy (shocking i know), one of only 5 (of 100 girls! lucky boys) in our cea program. he's an economics major, but every day he says he should switch. he's a swiss citizen, and he makes semi-regular visits to the "mountain house" in the alps (absolutely ridiculous, i know). his parents live less than 2 hours from mine, which again makes it insane that we met in paris. he is obsessed with basketball, specifically ucla basketball. which is fair enough, but i make fun of him because it seems every article of clothing he has is stamped with those 4 letters. he also makes a strange and inordinate amount of references to daniel craig, and he's one of the nicest people i think i've ever met in my life. which is saying a lot for me, actually, i try not to keep un-nice people in my company for very long anymore. he's pretty much a giant, which sounds like im exaggerating until i tell you he hits his head on the ceiling beams in our room. he's also a good cook, and keeps threatening to cook things i cant pronounce for me. i'm going to assume they're weird swiss things and not magic potions, though you never really know. to be fair, everything he's ever cooked for me has been amazing, so i guess geschnetzeltes or whatever is probably amazing. he lives with a family in a haunted apartment close to the eiffel tower, in which there may or may not be a piano. there are so many living rooms in this place he doesn't know if they have one or not. we're in human rights class together, and we play (or keep trying to play) a game wherein we dare each other to cause mischief. (for example, in talking about human rights, each of us picks a historical figure- say, the aztec god quetzacoatl- and makes repeated references to this figure throughout the class. it is required to bring them up every time we speak, and to also bash the other players' historical figure, so that the class period degenerates into a verbal wrestling match between any number of entirely unrelated historical characters. it'll be great). needless to say, we have a good deal of fun.
iris~ this girl, love her. she's really down-to-earth and practical, but she's also maybe the goofiest person ever. she used to work at THE CAVE (really just A cave near her home), which we all know like the back of our hands now, having had multiple virtual tours in the past few months. that's not to say she's an excellent tour guide, apparently she was kicked out of tour guiding because they thought she would be "better suited" to working in the gift shop (mhmm). it was all in love though, because the CAVE now sends her care packages (?!?!?! wtf mates) which include hundreds of mentos, money, and shoe storage things? they've discovered her talent for spoonlicking (means what it sounds like), and they also call her agnes, which is weird because... thats not her name. i dont really understand it, but who am i to question the omniscient CAVE? anyway, she also loves j crew, but not half as much as she loves dogs- she really, really, really loves dogs. her dream day is to play with bulldogs all day. this is probably because animals have been good to her, she is the only person i know WHO GETS CARDS FROM HER DOG. with regularity, too. every couple weeks, heres another card from OP! shes also pretty much obsessed with the pope, which is pretty cool as far as obsessions go. we tease her about her pearls, but we love her to death, and we appreciate her luncheon-organizing talents.
so that's a start on my friends. obviously, they're all insane, but this goes without saying. you should see the tiny paragraph about me, i sound absolutely psychotic. speaking of which, i have my own flower nickname, and if any of you can guess what it is, i'll... i don't know, be your best friend forever or something? ill think of something good. but i expect guesses, by comment, facebook, or otherwise. do it. (i'll judge you if you don't).
so, as for this last week, it's been amazing. not that much happened in october, but this last few days made up for it. i should just stop now and every day of this week should have its own blog entry, honestly. but why not just make this one even more massive? here we go.
chapter 1: the halloween partayyy~
this is called halloween 1 because it wasn't actually on halloween. october 24th or something, maybe. it was last friday. anyway, the deal is that our entire building except the 1st floor (which in america would be called the 2nd floor, it's one story up from the ground) is european- that means french, german, or spanish mostly. but most of the 1st (/2nd) floor is americans, all CEA students. and apparently halloween is off and on in france. we've been told that they do halloween "maybe or maybe not, depending on whether or not the stores have halloween stuff". 1st of all, this blows my mind, because i cant imagine whether or not we have a holiday hinging on whether or not the stores put stuff out. i hear halloween was big here like 5 or 6 years ago, but it has since died, and most of the people here didn't even know it was halloween. weird, right? so we decided we would BRING them halloween, since it's our holiday. no trick-or-treating could be done (showing up unannounced at strangers' doors and threatening to "trick" them is they dont give you candy is apparently not a normal thing to do in most countries), but we planned a huge party and invited the whole building, to be held in one of the giant basement rooms. we made some decorations and bought some wine, and put posters all over indicating that COSTUMES WERE MANDATORY.
lilac was a detective, with a hat and a trenchcoat. daisy was a tree, made out of a giant paper bag and real leaves. tulip was a bunch of grapes, which may have been the cutest thing i've ever seen. oleander was the walk of shame, with lipstick on his face and disheveled-looking, iris was the snl cheerleader, snapdragon was matthew mcconaughey, complete with newspaper-ad mask, boy jeans, and drawn-on abs (that was all me). and i was a toilet-paper mummy. it was great during the party people told me i had a great last minute costume, and i, though not offended at all, indignantly informed them that this was definitely the plan from the beginning.
pre-party dressing up was a lot of fun. daisy, in her tree costume, could unfortunately not bend over. at all. so, when she knocked over one of the bottles of wine we bought to bring to the party, and it somehow broke and spilled all over our room, it was really funny to watch her just stand there and yell AHHHHHH while other people grabbed towels to clean it up. we blew up balloons and safety-pinned them to tulip to make her grapes costume complete, and i drew abs on snapdragon so she could REALLY be matthew. i did terrifying makeup to make myself look dead, and afterwards we wrapped me in toilet paper. which, i must say, is not a great costume idea. actually, no, it's a great idea. but seriously, toilet paper is, i think made out of like 1 actual solid molecule of stuff per sheet, and thus is secretly non-existent. BECAUSE IT RIPS EVERY 1.5 SECONDS. serious issues occurred when i tried to dance. oh well.
constructing my costume- thanks guys!
the transformation is complete!
me with matthew, no big thing
happy halloween-goers!
i guess there's not that much to say about the party itself, we played loud music and danced, and lots of our building-mates came. there were 2 surgeons, an amy winehouse, an indiana jones, an amazing lion, jerry garcia, a butterfly, mother nature, chewing gum, a vampire, several "french people", the spanish girls came as cats, and maria came as herself. a good time was had by all, i think. it seemed so, anyway, and they made us a poster afterward saying they loved it! so that's good :).
im going to have to postpone chapters 2-5(ish) for next time, which i would like to have up by wednesday of this week. but this thing is huge already, and i dont want to write badly about these things because i care about them. so check back by wednesday, and hopefully, barring any ridiculousness, there should be stories about monet's house, the loire valley, real halloween, disneyland, and my brand new haircut. talk to you soon :).
ive had a resurgence of energy; these 2 weeks were kind of insane. had a human rights presentation monday, 2 midterms scheduled for wednesday, and on tuesday a 20 minute revolutions presentation on anarchism, socialism, the rise of the "left" pre-world war 1 in russia, the great britain, france, and germany, and revolution. i didnt sleep more than 2 hours sunday night, or a half hour monday night. however, tuesday night i got a record 14 hours of sleep. which is a good thing, because it was an epic weekend to say the least.
first, id like to figure out some logistics. im a little weirded out by using my friends' real names on this blog (which is why this blog looks like i have no friends and i keep referring to a vague and confusing "we".) so after several long bus rides this weekend, everyone i know, including myself, has been endowed with a nickname. not just any nicknames, either. kill-bill status kickass nicknames. and because this is, after all, the secret life of flowers, all of my friends are represented by whatever lovely flora i think suits them. im only listing the absolutely necessary ones at this time; no need to confuse you all with a million names i wont say again for weeks. but, incomplete or not, here they are. please feel free to introduce yourself.
tulip~ if rays of sunshine disguised themselves as people and walked around in black star-studded converse, this girl would be a prime suspect. it's lucky that tulips are her favorite flower; i think she'd be a yellow one, and if she were any cuter, i'd probably eat her. she's an expert at all things pop-culture, she's completely obsessed with harry potter, and she loves to discover new music. she really, really really likes naps, but she moves like a rocket- the girl gets things done. watching her take notes in class is something else. she's supersweet, supercute, supersunshine girl, and im really glad she lives with me. that way, i get to hear her giggle in her sleep (fave quote, from her sleeping and completely covered in blankets except for one renegade foot: "heeheehee you look so funny!") AND see her bolt straight up in the morning when its time to go. also, if eddie the echo's friendly spirit were to wander the earth searching for a soulmate, this girl would be his salvation. so i guess that's all i have to say about her (cool cool!!), let's move on to another one (yeah yeah!!) and then (funny funny!!) we'll ((george) lucas lucas!!)... i dont even have anywhere for this sentence to go. (finish finish!!)
lilac~ she's supersmall and supersweet! she has several adorable pets, who we all know very well by now. shes obsessed with twilight, and has yet to find a fellow fan in paris. she also loves nutella banana crepes, and she chugs, like, a lot of tea. shes really the only person ive ever met who says "i need some tea". she wears a watch that's 3 minutes fast, but sometimes not, so the two of us getting to school together is quite an affair. she steals all the tiny spoons from the kitchen for yogurt, then discovers them weeks later in piles in her backpack. she really enjoys talking to her family, and our room is regularly filled with the sounds of the lilac family skyping. she and her little sister are really too much together (not to mention tika, which is some type of pet who usually skypes with them as well). she really likes leggings, and shes succeeded in looking the most french, i think, of any of us. in fact, she really loves paris; it's totally her place and i could definitely see her living here in the future. she has a visual journal for class which has pretty much taken over her life, and human rights professor, and she likes honey (because the two of them are both so sweet! hahaha). dr. scott blair (professor of the awful human rights course that she and i are both in) loves her, and is constantly trying to find a family connection between the two of them based on their similar (but not the same) last names. very strange and obnoxious, but par for the course. she's freed her mind from the prison of time, by which i mean she might respond to the 4th alarm she's set in the morning, but she always manages to get to class! also, shes famous for her straightener, and one time she woke up at 3am (about when i was going to bed) so she would have 2 hours to straighten her hair before we left for amsterdam. classic.
snapdragon~ this one's a character, not to mention my hero. she comes off as a snapdragon, but she's secretly a stargazer lily at heart. she's pretty much my soulmate, and we're getting married, which is convenient, because we want the same wedding. for those of you who didn't know yet, we've already taken the engagement photos,and you should be getting the invitations in the mail soon. we knew we were destined to be together when we talked about POOH STICKS in Monet's garden. it also doesnt hurt that we've lived our entire lives less than an hour from each other, (went to semi-rival high schools AND colleges) and then somehow met in paris. she's addicted to nutella, she's absolutely hilarious, and she likes walking really an inordinate amount, which is great because so do i. shes (not so) secretly a philosopher, and when we're together all we do is chase down the biggest questions we can find. she's really one of the only people who i feel i'm able to talk to about big things that i think about, because i know she thinks about them too, and it's really, really great to have someone like that. im so glad i met her. she might be obsessed with chicken nuggets, she really likes the idea of being a checkout girl at a grocery store for life, she has this weird thing about running on stairs, and one time she tried to ram herself THROUGH a metro turnstile. (in the girl vs. machine battle, this one went to the machine. that sounds like a joke, but in fact, there is an actual battle, because she despises technology. im sure the score will be settled in the near future). she really is my hero, that isn't just a cute joke. she loves to read, she will one day be a famous (but not too famous... maybe cult-famous) author, and ive never met anyone whose views on the universe are so close to mine. love love love her.
daisy~ she might be the love of my life, no joke. she manages to make me smile every day, without fail, and i find myself constantly doing things she does (like the double peace sign COOL or singing THE JONAS BROTHERS). shes addicted to orangina, trying hard to quit, and failing. she thinks she looks like david beckham (? i know), which i dont understand at all, but whatever. i guess gorgeous never recognizes itself in the mirror, right? shes a straight up gangsta; homegirl can throw down a beat, which is probably why she's such a great dancer. her talent for music is obvious- she's an honorary jonas sister (she's almost famous, no big thing), she's constantly holding workshops teaching us all how to do all the various nsync-style dance routines i refused to learn 7 years ago, and she's a human jukebox. which is awesome, because im also a human jukebox, but we're constantly playing totally different songs. needless to say, our room can only be described as the lovechild of mix 106.5 and wild 94.9. and maybe some 104.9 and that oldies station whose name i never remember. anyway, its pretty great. she was a tree for halloween, which is typical. she rocks natural waistline pj-pants which can actually cover her entire body if she tries (and trust me, she has. i encouraged this activity as well). shes really good at weird voices, she does cute REALLY well, she doesn't eat meat, and she's probly... awkward, with a capital A. it's awesome though, im really glad she lives with me, and if she and i didnt write love letters back and forth in fashion class, i told her i'd probably have killed myself by smothering my face in a puffy 19th century sleeve. and it's totally, totally true.
oleander~ this one's a boy (shocking i know), one of only 5 (of 100 girls! lucky boys) in our cea program. he's an economics major, but every day he says he should switch. he's a swiss citizen, and he makes semi-regular visits to the "mountain house" in the alps (absolutely ridiculous, i know). his parents live less than 2 hours from mine, which again makes it insane that we met in paris. he is obsessed with basketball, specifically ucla basketball. which is fair enough, but i make fun of him because it seems every article of clothing he has is stamped with those 4 letters. he also makes a strange and inordinate amount of references to daniel craig, and he's one of the nicest people i think i've ever met in my life. which is saying a lot for me, actually, i try not to keep un-nice people in my company for very long anymore. he's pretty much a giant, which sounds like im exaggerating until i tell you he hits his head on the ceiling beams in our room. he's also a good cook, and keeps threatening to cook things i cant pronounce for me. i'm going to assume they're weird swiss things and not magic potions, though you never really know. to be fair, everything he's ever cooked for me has been amazing, so i guess geschnetzeltes or whatever is probably amazing. he lives with a family in a haunted apartment close to the eiffel tower, in which there may or may not be a piano. there are so many living rooms in this place he doesn't know if they have one or not. we're in human rights class together, and we play (or keep trying to play) a game wherein we dare each other to cause mischief. (for example, in talking about human rights, each of us picks a historical figure- say, the aztec god quetzacoatl- and makes repeated references to this figure throughout the class. it is required to bring them up every time we speak, and to also bash the other players' historical figure, so that the class period degenerates into a verbal wrestling match between any number of entirely unrelated historical characters. it'll be great). needless to say, we have a good deal of fun.
iris~ this girl, love her. she's really down-to-earth and practical, but she's also maybe the goofiest person ever. she used to work at THE CAVE (really just A cave near her home), which we all know like the back of our hands now, having had multiple virtual tours in the past few months. that's not to say she's an excellent tour guide, apparently she was kicked out of tour guiding because they thought she would be "better suited" to working in the gift shop (mhmm). it was all in love though, because the CAVE now sends her care packages (?!?!?! wtf mates) which include hundreds of mentos, money, and shoe storage things? they've discovered her talent for spoonlicking (means what it sounds like), and they also call her agnes, which is weird because... thats not her name. i dont really understand it, but who am i to question the omniscient CAVE? anyway, she also loves j crew, but not half as much as she loves dogs- she really, really, really loves dogs. her dream day is to play with bulldogs all day. this is probably because animals have been good to her, she is the only person i know WHO GETS CARDS FROM HER DOG. with regularity, too. every couple weeks, heres another card from OP! shes also pretty much obsessed with the pope, which is pretty cool as far as obsessions go. we tease her about her pearls, but we love her to death, and we appreciate her luncheon-organizing talents.so that's a start on my friends. obviously, they're all insane, but this goes without saying. you should see the tiny paragraph about me, i sound absolutely psychotic. speaking of which, i have my own flower nickname, and if any of you can guess what it is, i'll... i don't know, be your best friend forever or something? ill think of something good. but i expect guesses, by comment, facebook, or otherwise. do it. (i'll judge you if you don't).
so, as for this last week, it's been amazing. not that much happened in october, but this last few days made up for it. i should just stop now and every day of this week should have its own blog entry, honestly. but why not just make this one even more massive? here we go.
chapter 1: the halloween partayyy~
this is called halloween 1 because it wasn't actually on halloween. october 24th or something, maybe. it was last friday. anyway, the deal is that our entire building except the 1st floor (which in america would be called the 2nd floor, it's one story up from the ground) is european- that means french, german, or spanish mostly. but most of the 1st (/2nd) floor is americans, all CEA students. and apparently halloween is off and on in france. we've been told that they do halloween "maybe or maybe not, depending on whether or not the stores have halloween stuff". 1st of all, this blows my mind, because i cant imagine whether or not we have a holiday hinging on whether or not the stores put stuff out. i hear halloween was big here like 5 or 6 years ago, but it has since died, and most of the people here didn't even know it was halloween. weird, right? so we decided we would BRING them halloween, since it's our holiday. no trick-or-treating could be done (showing up unannounced at strangers' doors and threatening to "trick" them is they dont give you candy is apparently not a normal thing to do in most countries), but we planned a huge party and invited the whole building, to be held in one of the giant basement rooms. we made some decorations and bought some wine, and put posters all over indicating that COSTUMES WERE MANDATORY.
lilac was a detective, with a hat and a trenchcoat. daisy was a tree, made out of a giant paper bag and real leaves. tulip was a bunch of grapes, which may have been the cutest thing i've ever seen. oleander was the walk of shame, with lipstick on his face and disheveled-looking, iris was the snl cheerleader, snapdragon was matthew mcconaughey, complete with newspaper-ad mask, boy jeans, and drawn-on abs (that was all me). and i was a toilet-paper mummy. it was great during the party people told me i had a great last minute costume, and i, though not offended at all, indignantly informed them that this was definitely the plan from the beginning.
pre-party dressing up was a lot of fun. daisy, in her tree costume, could unfortunately not bend over. at all. so, when she knocked over one of the bottles of wine we bought to bring to the party, and it somehow broke and spilled all over our room, it was really funny to watch her just stand there and yell AHHHHHH while other people grabbed towels to clean it up. we blew up balloons and safety-pinned them to tulip to make her grapes costume complete, and i drew abs on snapdragon so she could REALLY be matthew. i did terrifying makeup to make myself look dead, and afterwards we wrapped me in toilet paper. which, i must say, is not a great costume idea. actually, no, it's a great idea. but seriously, toilet paper is, i think made out of like 1 actual solid molecule of stuff per sheet, and thus is secretly non-existent. BECAUSE IT RIPS EVERY 1.5 SECONDS. serious issues occurred when i tried to dance. oh well.
constructing my costume- thanks guys!
the transformation is complete!
me with matthew, no big thing
happy halloween-goers!
i guess there's not that much to say about the party itself, we played loud music and danced, and lots of our building-mates came. there were 2 surgeons, an amy winehouse, an indiana jones, an amazing lion, jerry garcia, a butterfly, mother nature, chewing gum, a vampire, several "french people", the spanish girls came as cats, and maria came as herself. a good time was had by all, i think. it seemed so, anyway, and they made us a poster afterward saying they loved it! so that's good :).
im going to have to postpone chapters 2-5(ish) for next time, which i would like to have up by wednesday of this week. but this thing is huge already, and i dont want to write badly about these things because i care about them. so check back by wednesday, and hopefully, barring any ridiculousness, there should be stories about monet's house, the loire valley, real halloween, disneyland, and my brand new haircut. talk to you soon :).
Thursday, October 9, 2008
and it seems the curtain is drawing to a close on my disappearing act...
but before you jump up and down singing the praises of cea and/or aepp (my building), you should know that this is NOT because i have received the fabled special cea internet. it is because i am stealing the reception desk's internet in a more effective way than usual. and sometimes it is because i have acquired a fake password for neuf wifi, which im pretty sure i should be paying for. at any rate, i have built my own internet-based tower of babel, and am awaiting the wrath of the spiteful cea gods in return for my insolence. until then, my screenname on aim is singwithmejenny.
at this point, i have a massive word document filled with stories, thoughts, and rants from the past month, but it seems silly to put them all up here (you know you wouldn't read them anyway, come on). so i think instead of copying them all into here in a massive marathon of lauralife, ill highlight some key points, and in the next little while ill slip some stories in when appropriate. it'll be like a pre-episode recap on tv. sound good? great.
so over the past month, a lot has happened. which is to be expected, really; it wouldnt matter if nothing happened. im in paris. even if all i did on a saturday afternoon was step in cat pee, you could ask me what i did that day and it would still be a cool story. observe:
"what did you do today, laura?"
"oh not much. i stepped in cat pee... in paris."
see? amazing, right? i've automatically made my life 15times more interesting just by living here. way to go, me :D.
but back to this month. there have been a lot of really amazing experiences; it's strange living through experiences you KNOW are amazing beforehand and during, you know? like i've never known before i did something that it would change me. but that's how this is. at this point, im almost adjusted to living in paris. im overadjusted, actually, i think, because i keep forgetting that im not in america, and answering questions in french to people who dont speak french... sigh. it's really weird. i feel like... you know when you're falling asleep in front of the tv, and you're kind of halfway dozing, and kind of halfway dreaming, and then you have this half-dream that you trip over a tree root or something and you jolt awake, physically reacting to the dream? that's how i feel here, as if im constantly almost dozing off to comfortable adjustedness, and every so often im jolted back to the realization that i live in a country where i cant understand most of what people on the street are saying. it's very strange.
i've spent the month going to classes (for those of you who go to school with me, you will fall over when you hear that i've missed a total of 2 classes this month. a week ago, i would have been able to say ZERO classes, but i hurt my back randomly and missed french and fashion) and generally exploring the city.
so now it is time for the pre-episode recap of the last month. this includes several small chapters, and a few large and nonsensical paragraphs packed with everything im trying to say but dont have space for. get ready.
i have discovered hot chocolate that tastes like melted chocolate bars somehow in a constant liquid state. and i have ceased to understand why anyone buys anything from hershey's chocolate. because it is NOT GOOD. it is my opinion that americans buy disgusting food just because it's put in front of us. like, bread? baguettes here are 80 cents. and they're good. why do we eat sandwich-white bread? bad chocolate? even mcDonalds here is better, like legitimately BETTER, because people here will not eat it if it's bad. coke is the same way. things taste more real here, because they're made of real things, because people dont WANT to eat packaged, processed, semi-cheese and pretend raspberry flavoring and flavorless powdered hot chocolate. it's going to annoy me, i think, when i go home.
speaking of chocolate, one of the things i'll miss most about france is the ability to go to ANY street, ANYWHERE, and find an eclair. and a damn good one, too. it's really unreasonable. if there was somewhere on earth where i would go to try and make myself fat, it would be here.
there is NOTHING more beautiful in the world than the eiffel tower at night. ok this is maybe an exaggeration, but it is still so breathtakingly beautiful, i cant handle it. you dont understand unless you've seen. i love it love it love love love it.
starbucks costs $8 here. i mean, it's 5euros, which is circa 8 dollars. ridiculous, no? even more ridiculous? thats also the only place in town to get coffee to go (other than mcdonalds black coffee). AND, i have become addicted to coffee in the past 3 weeks. i dont know how it happened, maybe it's the espresso. but those two things together are really making my life unhappy. in fact, living here at all is SO expensive. i didnt really understand before i came here, but a coke is 4 euros. it's kind of terrifying, and im a little worried about my budget at this point.
im pretty sure i live in a movie, life is so strange. i guess my life always was like a movie, but it's never been this... cute before, haha. i go to the louvre every week to draw the winged victory. actually, i go to draw all the sculptures, but the winged victory is the light of my life. i cant stay away. i miss good chinese food and nachos more than i miss most things (that doesnt include you mom, dont worry :)). and nutella +banana crepes are all i need to be happy in life.
and the adventures here never cease. we break into children's parks in the middle of the night and just hang out on the octagon. im becoming a poet; i dont write that often but when i do it pours out in waves. i am becoming a ninja with the way i can sneak (myself and other people) in and out of houses (dont worry about it). i live in a room with no furniture where we can see into all the windows across the street like a doll house. i found a flower shop and bought seeds so i can plant them everywhere. (the secret life of flowers... get it yet?) i walk on the seine river a lot; im really going to miss it. i live next to the bastille, NEXT TO THE BASTILLE NOT A JOKE OH MY GOD. its amazing. every day here is just... amazing. because im never going to get over the fact that im in paris.
speaking of which, let's talk about paris. paris and i are over the honeymoon stage, and we still love each other, but i think we're beginning to see the places where we dont quite match up. and, much as im in love with this city, there are things i dislike. and there are certainly things paris dislikes about me. i would live here for years i think, but not more than 6 at a time. and i would probably never consider myself parisian. i wouldnt raise my kids here. and i've been thinking about that a lot lately, and why that is.
im too different for paris. and worse, im too stubborn about it. its a very stereotypical american thing, but i am fiercely individual, and when the CEA people tell me i have to dress like everyone else and act like everyone else in order to avoid being harassed, it makes me angry. and sure, ill do it to a reasonable extent, like ill stomp around as if im having the worst day of my life (this is, im told, apparently the standard traveling mood of parisians), but im not going to change my clothes. im not going to wear black sweaters and black coats and gray pants and tan scarves, and im not going to glare at everyone i see as if they're not worth making my photoreceptors break a sweat. it's not that i dont like parisian culture, i LOVE it. it's beautiful. but there is a certain inherent worth granted to conformity that i cant deal with. which, incidentally, is why i wouldn't ever raise my kids here. because, assuming that my children inherit even 1/4 of the potential (and probably inevitable) strangeness that would come with being my offspring, and assuming that they end up- through biology and proximity- with even 1/4 of the odd traits, habits, and happenstances that i seem to have acquired, they would be MISERABLE here. earlier on, before i had developed the understanding that for me, the exception is the rule, that its ok that the other kids dont think what i think, that crazy sock gloves are cool JUST BECAUSE I LIKE THEM AND THATS ALL THAT MATTERS, i would have been MISERABLE here. and i want to teach my kids that their lives aren't supposed to be a performance, and that they're beautiful, even if they want to wear crazy colored boots and smile at homeless people and sing out loud walking down the sidewalk. and i hope they do! i hope i can teach them to smile at EVERYONE, not just pretty and clean-shaven people, and to sing and dance and run and enjoy life, even on busy streets. and i dont think that i could teach them those things here. it would be very hard. because paris is like a historically significant hollywood; it's glamorous and giant and full and beautiful and cutthroat and ancient and proud and magical and it will judge you- either you're in or you're not. and if you're not, no one will even give you a second look.
paris and i are lovers. we could love each other very much for a long time, but we wouldn't get married, and if we did it would be a disaster. so we'd be one of those couples that is on-and-off for their entire lives, where they're attracted to one another so much when they're together that they just gravitate closer and closer together, like zombie flies floating closer and closer to the light. but then, they get close enough to the light that it shocks them a little, and they get angry, and they fight, and they leave and don't see each other again for years, when the same process will inevitably take place again. this is how i feel about paris. we're like a sine wave and a cosine wave- we can chase each other around forever 3 inches away from each other, in love and angry and miserable because of those 3 inches, but we'll never in a million years totally match up.
so that's paris, and me.
p.s. i was planning to add a couple chapters to this, about bigger events that happened, like trips to versailles, the american movie festival, and our adventure to belgium and holland. but this post is becoming gimongous, and it's a little overwhelming. so another post should be coming with those stories in the next 2 weeks sometime. until then, content yourselves with lots of pretty pictures of beautiful paris. they should be up in the next 2 days. enjoy :)
at this point, i have a massive word document filled with stories, thoughts, and rants from the past month, but it seems silly to put them all up here (you know you wouldn't read them anyway, come on). so i think instead of copying them all into here in a massive marathon of lauralife, ill highlight some key points, and in the next little while ill slip some stories in when appropriate. it'll be like a pre-episode recap on tv. sound good? great.
so over the past month, a lot has happened. which is to be expected, really; it wouldnt matter if nothing happened. im in paris. even if all i did on a saturday afternoon was step in cat pee, you could ask me what i did that day and it would still be a cool story. observe:
"what did you do today, laura?"
"oh not much. i stepped in cat pee... in paris."
see? amazing, right? i've automatically made my life 15times more interesting just by living here. way to go, me :D.
but back to this month. there have been a lot of really amazing experiences; it's strange living through experiences you KNOW are amazing beforehand and during, you know? like i've never known before i did something that it would change me. but that's how this is. at this point, im almost adjusted to living in paris. im overadjusted, actually, i think, because i keep forgetting that im not in america, and answering questions in french to people who dont speak french... sigh. it's really weird. i feel like... you know when you're falling asleep in front of the tv, and you're kind of halfway dozing, and kind of halfway dreaming, and then you have this half-dream that you trip over a tree root or something and you jolt awake, physically reacting to the dream? that's how i feel here, as if im constantly almost dozing off to comfortable adjustedness, and every so often im jolted back to the realization that i live in a country where i cant understand most of what people on the street are saying. it's very strange.
i've spent the month going to classes (for those of you who go to school with me, you will fall over when you hear that i've missed a total of 2 classes this month. a week ago, i would have been able to say ZERO classes, but i hurt my back randomly and missed french and fashion) and generally exploring the city.
so now it is time for the pre-episode recap of the last month. this includes several small chapters, and a few large and nonsensical paragraphs packed with everything im trying to say but dont have space for. get ready.
i have discovered hot chocolate that tastes like melted chocolate bars somehow in a constant liquid state. and i have ceased to understand why anyone buys anything from hershey's chocolate. because it is NOT GOOD. it is my opinion that americans buy disgusting food just because it's put in front of us. like, bread? baguettes here are 80 cents. and they're good. why do we eat sandwich-white bread? bad chocolate? even mcDonalds here is better, like legitimately BETTER, because people here will not eat it if it's bad. coke is the same way. things taste more real here, because they're made of real things, because people dont WANT to eat packaged, processed, semi-cheese and pretend raspberry flavoring and flavorless powdered hot chocolate. it's going to annoy me, i think, when i go home.
speaking of chocolate, one of the things i'll miss most about france is the ability to go to ANY street, ANYWHERE, and find an eclair. and a damn good one, too. it's really unreasonable. if there was somewhere on earth where i would go to try and make myself fat, it would be here.
there is NOTHING more beautiful in the world than the eiffel tower at night. ok this is maybe an exaggeration, but it is still so breathtakingly beautiful, i cant handle it. you dont understand unless you've seen. i love it love it love love love it.
starbucks costs $8 here. i mean, it's 5euros, which is circa 8 dollars. ridiculous, no? even more ridiculous? thats also the only place in town to get coffee to go (other than mcdonalds black coffee). AND, i have become addicted to coffee in the past 3 weeks. i dont know how it happened, maybe it's the espresso. but those two things together are really making my life unhappy. in fact, living here at all is SO expensive. i didnt really understand before i came here, but a coke is 4 euros. it's kind of terrifying, and im a little worried about my budget at this point.
im pretty sure i live in a movie, life is so strange. i guess my life always was like a movie, but it's never been this... cute before, haha. i go to the louvre every week to draw the winged victory. actually, i go to draw all the sculptures, but the winged victory is the light of my life. i cant stay away. i miss good chinese food and nachos more than i miss most things (that doesnt include you mom, dont worry :)). and nutella +banana crepes are all i need to be happy in life.
and the adventures here never cease. we break into children's parks in the middle of the night and just hang out on the octagon. im becoming a poet; i dont write that often but when i do it pours out in waves. i am becoming a ninja with the way i can sneak (myself and other people) in and out of houses (dont worry about it). i live in a room with no furniture where we can see into all the windows across the street like a doll house. i found a flower shop and bought seeds so i can plant them everywhere. (the secret life of flowers... get it yet?) i walk on the seine river a lot; im really going to miss it. i live next to the bastille, NEXT TO THE BASTILLE NOT A JOKE OH MY GOD. its amazing. every day here is just... amazing. because im never going to get over the fact that im in paris.
speaking of which, let's talk about paris. paris and i are over the honeymoon stage, and we still love each other, but i think we're beginning to see the places where we dont quite match up. and, much as im in love with this city, there are things i dislike. and there are certainly things paris dislikes about me. i would live here for years i think, but not more than 6 at a time. and i would probably never consider myself parisian. i wouldnt raise my kids here. and i've been thinking about that a lot lately, and why that is.
im too different for paris. and worse, im too stubborn about it. its a very stereotypical american thing, but i am fiercely individual, and when the CEA people tell me i have to dress like everyone else and act like everyone else in order to avoid being harassed, it makes me angry. and sure, ill do it to a reasonable extent, like ill stomp around as if im having the worst day of my life (this is, im told, apparently the standard traveling mood of parisians), but im not going to change my clothes. im not going to wear black sweaters and black coats and gray pants and tan scarves, and im not going to glare at everyone i see as if they're not worth making my photoreceptors break a sweat. it's not that i dont like parisian culture, i LOVE it. it's beautiful. but there is a certain inherent worth granted to conformity that i cant deal with. which, incidentally, is why i wouldn't ever raise my kids here. because, assuming that my children inherit even 1/4 of the potential (and probably inevitable) strangeness that would come with being my offspring, and assuming that they end up- through biology and proximity- with even 1/4 of the odd traits, habits, and happenstances that i seem to have acquired, they would be MISERABLE here. earlier on, before i had developed the understanding that for me, the exception is the rule, that its ok that the other kids dont think what i think, that crazy sock gloves are cool JUST BECAUSE I LIKE THEM AND THATS ALL THAT MATTERS, i would have been MISERABLE here. and i want to teach my kids that their lives aren't supposed to be a performance, and that they're beautiful, even if they want to wear crazy colored boots and smile at homeless people and sing out loud walking down the sidewalk. and i hope they do! i hope i can teach them to smile at EVERYONE, not just pretty and clean-shaven people, and to sing and dance and run and enjoy life, even on busy streets. and i dont think that i could teach them those things here. it would be very hard. because paris is like a historically significant hollywood; it's glamorous and giant and full and beautiful and cutthroat and ancient and proud and magical and it will judge you- either you're in or you're not. and if you're not, no one will even give you a second look.
paris and i are lovers. we could love each other very much for a long time, but we wouldn't get married, and if we did it would be a disaster. so we'd be one of those couples that is on-and-off for their entire lives, where they're attracted to one another so much when they're together that they just gravitate closer and closer together, like zombie flies floating closer and closer to the light. but then, they get close enough to the light that it shocks them a little, and they get angry, and they fight, and they leave and don't see each other again for years, when the same process will inevitably take place again. this is how i feel about paris. we're like a sine wave and a cosine wave- we can chase each other around forever 3 inches away from each other, in love and angry and miserable because of those 3 inches, but we'll never in a million years totally match up.
so that's paris, and me.
p.s. i was planning to add a couple chapters to this, about bigger events that happened, like trips to versailles, the american movie festival, and our adventure to belgium and holland. but this post is becoming gimongous, and it's a little overwhelming. so another post should be coming with those stories in the next 2 weeks sometime. until then, content yourselves with lots of pretty pictures of beautiful paris. they should be up in the next 2 days. enjoy :)
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