Getting flogged

I am starting to hate the nice man that comes to my house to teach me French every week.
I actually started tearing up during our lesson today.
Let me say that again: I cried in front of my French teacher today.
30 seconds in, he starts explaining how "lui" could not be referring to a woman because it is the compliment of the direct object.
That's why he couldn't respond.  Because it didn't make any sense. Even though, when used in a different context, it can refer to both a man or a woman (or apparently any other object: plants, dogs, couches, etc.)
I wish that my first reaction had been strong like a boxer and that I wanted to punch him.
But no.
And then he tried to be nice and tell me that I speak very well.  Except clearly that isn't the case because he just got finished telling me that people should have been correcting me.
Right.
I do speak well.  I speak better than all of the foreigners I know here.
but I am giving the French language the big "doigt d'honneur" today.

Did your mother ever correct you?  Mine did.  I hated her when I was 8, but then I was 14 and really great at English I liked her more.
Do you know what it is like to feel 8 again? I do.
But I still hate you today Phillipe.

On a positive note, it smelled like summer yesterday.  It was really warm and someone must have cut some grass in the neighborhood. 

Diplomacy

Putin:  You WILL do what I want.  You are falling under my menacing charms. 
Merkel:  Seriously?

Regular daily thoughts

Every time I see flashing/flickering lights I think
"Epileptics can't do anything! watch tv, go to the gym (disco lights in rpm class), or even go in the metro (flashing Samsung screens)."

And other post about coffee

 
I should stop drinking coffee because it makes me weepy.  But then again, who doesn't want to get watery-eyed over commercials?

Brief freedom

I got sick again. AGAIN!!! 
I feel like a sickly child.

but Sunday I broke out and took a Velib.   And I felt like this

because, you know, no one in Paris leaves the house before 10 a.m. on Sunday morning.  (Even if there was a bomb, they stay stubbornly at the table drinking their bowl of coffee.)
So it's safe to Velib like I do - smiling like an idiot (because "only idiots smile" in France*), looking for my destination, ringing my bell at the one man, not yet awake, but standing on the only section of bike path in the whole dang city (WAKE UP!) 

And then we have a lunch with B's parents - which lasts 4 hours. And even though I am hacking up a lung his dad insists with the Champagne ("Just a little, to cheers with!").  

And then it is time to go home and try to detox** the cream, butter and sugar.  (All things I would generally enjoy by the spoonful.) and all I can think is

* Apparently things are so serious here that smiling is only done by people who have nothing going on in their head
**Sick diet: green leafy vegetables, clear liquids and a lot of raw garlic.  Super fun.

What's in a name

I have 2 people very close to me that want to be called something other than their given name.  What a weird thing.  I knew a girl in middle school that did that for a year or so, but suddenly she was her old name again.

These 2 wanted to have a break and start something new.  Be something different than they had been.
But here's the thing, I have years of memories with them. Years of laughing and eating (because most of my life revolves around food), and fun with that name.  I don't want them to be something new.  I want the person they are.  I want to keep saying that name and having all those good memories come back every time I say it.

So for the moment I am holding my own personal French strike and not actually calling them anything. 

global warming, ravens and crows

It is strangely warm here. And we're getting a weird amount of clear sky days. I am sure it has to do with climate change but I'm inclined to like it.  I have not been wearing an extra layer under my down coat.  I have been going commando.

But the other day I heard a crow and I automatically zipped up my coat. Even though it was almost 60°. (Like a sweltering summer for my nephew.) 
See the crows are the mascots of winter.  The black, menacing, overlords of the neverending gray of winter. (permagray soup anyone?).  Everyone is rushing around trying to get in and out of the metro or in a building or somewhere NOT outside. The only distinguishable noise is the sound of the crows.  They are like Edgar Allen Poe's poem The Raven.
Quoth the Crows of Paris:   The sun?  "Nevermore"

So climate change? I'll take it.


Too bad it's not the
The Black Crowes