I Suck At Reading

I finished my book today. It was called The History of the Eye, and I would not recommend it to the faint of heart. I saw it on the Penguin list of 100 best books of all-time, so don't judge me for reading about some teenagers having sex with and killing a priest. And cutting out his eye. Ow!
Now I have to find a new book, and I've decided it's inexcusable to just read gossip girl. So I went back on the list of classics to try to find something. Madame Bovary? Boring! I couldn't even get through that one in English. Les Miserables? Too long. And probably full of crazy 19th century vocab I'll never use. I already saw the play, so there's also no suspense.
I'm stuck between Pére Goriot and the Charterhouse of Parma, but I'm guessing I'll go with the former since it's Balzac and I can acquit myself of some guilt for not getting through some other Balzac novel about a crazy woman who only repeated one word. After going through this decision process, it struck me that I suck. Instead of delighting in the classics of literature, I tend to be really dismissive of something if I don't like it. Madame Bovary is presumably a pretty good book, but about half way through I just couldn't take her whining anymore. It was the only book I brought to the beach, so instead I just stared at the ocean, which was much more enjoyable for me. What am I missing?
I made a rule that I will only read French in France, but so far I've only read two books. It takes so freaking long to look up every word I don't know. I have been realizing that I only use a certain amount of words and phrases every day, over and over. This is probably true in English as well, but I have a larger vocabulary in English for writing and reading. In French it's just not there. Today I looked up the word "to lift". Then I looked it up again, because I forgot it within an hour. Ugh.

Really Makes You Think

The expression “really makes you think” is something that I’ve been using ironically, but I don’t think that anyone else thinks it’s funny, or maybe no one knows I’m joking when I say it. How could something force you to think? I usually say it after someone saying something like “all those stars are so far away”, or something really cliché like that, so it seems kind of obvious that I’m joking. But I think I’m just making people think I’m stupid. Now this is making me think!
Anyway, top 40 radio is on in the office all day, and here are some songs that have been making me think:
1. Let's Make love in The Club by Usher: this song is about how Usher wants to “make love in this club” and he doesn’t “care who’s watching”. The situation as I understand it is that a girl he’s dancing with really wants to make love in the club, and he needs some convincing, but if she “keeps this up” then she might really get to make love in the club with Usher. But it never explicitly says she wants to make love in the club, it’s just kind of an implicit understanding that she does. It’s kind of heroic and comforting of him to make love to her, especially because she’s stressed that “her baby left school”. Just a little charity sex.
2. Wanna Be Startin' Something by Michael Jackson featuring Akon “I met her on a walkway/Stared as she walked by/She turned back at me sideways/Said ‘I can’t help but ask’/Do you wanna be starting something?” First of all, what the hell kind of walkway is this? Is it like a moving walkway in an airport? Or like a boardwalk, maybe? The walking side of a bike path in a public park? Second, she can’t help but ask if he wants to get with her? He is staring, so I don’t think she has to excuse her question by saying she “can’t help” but ask it. And who says they “can’t help but ask” anymore? Is this song based on a Jane Austen Novel? And third, the question “do you wanna be starting something?” could easily be misconstrued to mean “do you want to fight me?” If the world’s cutest boy (PS) asked me if I wanted to be starting something, I would run away. Anyway, they go back to her place and he wishes he “could tell you what (he) saw/Sexiest woman in a negligee” Umm, I think you just told me, then. They “hit it off until the dawn”. I think this song could be a pick-me-up for guys who stare at women in the hopes that they can be starting something. It’s their version of “Don’t Stop Believing”. Hold onto that feeling!
3. Take You There by Sean Kingston “We can go to Bahamas/Sip pina coladas/Shorty, I can take you there/Or we can go to the slums/Where killers get hung/Shorty, I can take you there” The whole song is based on the premise that this guy is asking where his girlfriend wants to go: the Bahamas or the slums? Hmm, tough one. He won’t think less of her for choosing the Bahamas; “Baby, it’s up to you, it’s whatever you like”. He is “known in the ghetto”, so and it’s where he’s from, but he has no problem with not taking her home. So it’s not a question of their relationship getting serious and he needs to take her home. It’s literally just her choice between pina coladas or watching killers get hung. The refrain says “Or we could go to a place you would like/the beach…welcome to paradise”, so he knows that she would like the beach. And the “or” before “a place you would like” shows that he knows that she doesn’t like the slums. So why is he even asking this question?

This is how I spend my days. This is the way I live.

Everything I Needed To Know I Learned In Kindergarten

I am sick and it’s only getting worse. I finally (day three) went to the pharmacy and bought twenty dollars worth of cough medicine, which in France means four days of pills to stop my runny nose and a small bottle of throat spray. I know what you’re thinking: why not buy an all-in-one medicine for colds, like NyQuil? Well, I’m way ahead of you, but France is not. They looked at me like I was crazy when I asked if there was one medicine that could do both things.

I went in to work sleep-deprived and voiceless, hoping I could just watch eBay auctions quietly. Asked Jean-Paul if there was anything to be done, unfortunately, there was. We have a lookbook with all of the product placements in magazines we’ve done, and I had to update it. Anyone who remembers my stunning performances in Book Arts knows that I have no talent for cutting in a straight line (the teacher thought I had a learning disability, it’s that bad). It probably goes without saying that I fucked it up, but for illustrative purposes: I started, lunched, came back and started pasting in a brand that has it’s own lookbook, undid that, realized that all the brands have to be separate, undid more things…Plus the cutting is clearly uneven, and there’s glue on the pages. Awesome.

I was doing so well on my diet and exercise, but now it’s all gone to waste. I can barely even walk up the stairs without feeling like I’m going to fall down, so I’m kind of stuck in bed. Today I had the most delicious pastry that I’ve ever eaten, I think. It was called the divorce; it’s an éclair filled with light chocolate crème and coated half with coffee-flavored icing and half with dark chocolate, with a small line of whipped cream down the center. I think I’m going to make that mistake again.

The Negative Effects Of Your Friendly Neighborhood General Store Clerk

There are two friendly neighborhood general store clerks in my vicinity. I have to take a break from one because he asked me out and I said I don’t have a phone and ran away. I went to the other one to see if he had the kind of razor blades that I use, and he didn’t, but he offered me some Bic disposables. I told him I needed another kind, but he told me his kind was really good. He seemed kind of sad that I didn’t want them, so I pretended like I did actually like them and I bought them. Then he didn’t have my change, so he gave me some candies of the same value instead. It was all cute enough until I came out of the shower and saw the streams of blood running down my legs. And out of two points in the centers of my palms. Just kidding. But I seriously did cut myself pretty badly.

Museums and Stuff

I went to the Natural Science Museum on Saturday, it was great. I liked it because it wasn't one of those ones where you have to read a lot to get anything out of it. One part was huge crystals and other pretty rocks, and another part was crazy things that live in the depths of the sea. There's some weird stuff down there. I felt kind of ungrateful since the third part was about dinosaurs, and I don't like dinosaurs as much as a lot of other people I know. I did enjoy the awesome dinosaur statue outside the museum, though. It was kind of like the one outside the McDonalds on Tanque Verde in T-town (holler!).

After that I went to an eco fair and got a free biodegradable bag to carry my groceries in. Jealous? Walked across the Seine, had some food that wasn't a sandwich or a pastry (soup!) at Wannajuice, and since it was Saturday night Nola and I got drunk and watched the little mermaid. I realized for the first time that Triton has the power to make Ariel human, so why can't he just make himself human sometimes to come visit her? Or vice versa, give her and Eric some gills and tails and they can come down for the weekend? And why do they all speak English? Plotholes!

Absurdly Boring

I saw a Ionesco play on Thursday. I'm not really clear on who picked it because we went in a large group, but if I ever find out who it was then that person will not be allowed to plan future events. Plot synopsis: a boy's family is mad at him. Then he says he likes potatoes, and they are all very proud of him. They set him up with a girl, but he doesn't like her because she only has one nose. So they put some more noses on the same girl, and they fall in love. This half lasted two hours. Everyone thought the next act was going to be an entirely different play since it had a different name, but it was actually part two. The grandpa of the boy dies, and then the girl and the boy give birth to chicken eggs. Then they make an omelette out of the eggs. The end.

The weird thing is that there were parts where I kind of enjoyed it in a creepy kind of Lynchian (real word?) way. But I ended up just feeling really irritated about it when it was finally over.

Synth Pop

I know this is nothing new, but I'm still not over these:

1. West End Girls: You've got a heart of glass or a heart of stone/ Just wait 'till I get you home/ We've got no future, we've got no past/ Here today, built to last

2. Inner City Pressure: So you think maybe you'll be a prostitute/ Just to pay for your lessons, you're learning the flute/ The ladies won't pay you very much for this/ Looks like you'll never be a concert flautist