a little bit about a lot of me
I live in France.
I don't use capital letters when I write emails.
I do use capital letters in my blogs.
I turned 33 in October 2002.
I believe in God.
I am my own worst critic.
I have 11 piercings and 5 tattoos.
Sometimes I am very clever. Sometimes I am very stupid. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference.
I love my friends and make sure they know it.
My pirate name is Captain Mary Vane.
I read music before words.
I conduct a polyphonic choir.
I am the grammar police.
I can turn catty when I don't get my way.
Spiders are my greatest fear. Worse than dying at the hands of terrorists. Worse than being guillotined or thrown into a vat of boiling oil or forced to watch Manos, the Hands of Fate six hundred times in a row with my eyes taped open.
I too often forget to pardon those who trespass against me.
I am lazy. And I love pasta. You do the math.
I have never ever ever been blonde. Orange, once. Serious chemical error.
I wear my scars proudly sometimes, but usually I hide them in my sleeves.
I love getting email.
... when the fourteen-year-old boy who came to you for English and math tutoring last year, whose parents always gently mock your American clothes and shoes and accent, whose older brother applauded when the Columbia exploded, who along with his big sister spent the night once because the same brother was home and behaving threateningly, and who you suspect really just likes you for your cache of peanut butter, looks at you appraisingly after Mass on a really bad day, when you've spent most of the afternoon underneath your comforter crying, and says, "have you lost weight?"
Louis, if you were twenty - hell, ten - years older, I would marry you.
23:16
Cool Music find of the Week
Her piano playing is fine, a platinum tapestry gleaming in the indigo light of that nighttime hour when the moon still hangs above the horizon but the stars have gone quiet and the dawn hesitates to open its window. Her lyrics skip around the edge of obscure without getting lost in self-referentiality. She is a strong poet, with the doubled talent of graceful music that rises up to fill the words and shape them into something more. The more you listen, the more you find yourself thinking this is the kind of girl you want around on a cold night when you're feeling lonely. You could share your down comforter with her and eat buttery popcorn, drink steaming mugs of hot cocoa made from scratch and watch Peter Pan. And she has a strong voice - not perhaps remarkable for the vocal calisthenics other artists incorporate into their songs, but pretty and straightforward and with a gentle vibrato just in the right spots.
My favorite songs so far - "Lullabye for a Stormy Night," "Say Uncle," "Gravity."
And many thanks to Julia for the recommendation.
01:00
Lesson in Humility #29.
So. I'm sitting at my computer desk, trying to wring a clever blog entry out of the ends of my hair, and something catches my eye. Just a slight hint of movement, off to the right? A change in the play of shadows and light against my window as it catches the late-afternoon sunlight? So I turn my head. Well, there he is, wouldn't you know it, my handsome French Johnny-Depp-esque neighbor, and as usual he waves hello. Well, almost as usual. He stops sort of abruptly in mid-gesture then starts again. But there's something distant in his eyes. And it's not just because we're separated by 15 meters of fifth-floor-above-the-ground air. Something has altered. The fabric of our affable-salutation relationship is rent.
And then I realize: I am picking my nose. Waving at him with one hand, and gently feeling the inside of a nostril with the other. There's just no way out of this one. I could, I suppose, try to pull off a Seinfeld thing and pretend I was just scratching. But another flicker of light and a dull thud from across the street and he is gone.
00:18
I dreamed last night that my husband (now X) and I were meant to drive from Northern California to somewhere in Western Oregon, and he had mapped out a trip to Scandinavia as an extension of the drive. (Don't ask for cartographical specifics; geography is not the strongest subject in my subconscious. All I can say is, it made total sense, map-wise.) He was bound and determined to make this trip, and to make it in an old heap of a Peugeot Boxer - click on "kleur," then the green scribble under "combi/mini" to get a better picture of the heap in question - and also determined to make it directly from the place in Oregon where we both had to be. I didn't want to drive to Scandinavia, on the grounds that, well, it's cold there, not to mention that the drive was going to be long. X, however, had made up his mind. And so voilà. Essentially, I had to go along with him. We got as far as the California/Oregon border (which happened to be located somewhere near northern Belgium) and X said he had to make a stop. It turned out the stop was already planned: he had to pick up his girlfriend and, besides, we had run out of gas. From then on, we were going by train.
Probably at some point in your life you've made the decision to travel by car instead of by train or plane. The car has certain advantages. First, you travel with whomever you want (on principle). Second, generally, you stop when you want. Third, you pack as much or as little as you want because you know you don't need to limit yourself: you can bring your desktop computer in a car. And the computer chair.
I should have seen this coming. The prearranged stop, the switch to rail travel, the hizzo he'd invited to tag along with us ... and the fact that, once I'd hastily packed a bunch of wool sweaters and long underwear into a bulging unwieldly suitcase and was lugging it through the snow toward the train platform, X and the hizzo decided to take the car. I started running after them - but you try running through the snow while dragging a heavy, ugly suitcase behind you. In Cali-Scandinavia. Which, at the end of the dream, oddly resembled Western Massachusetts.
Maybe I'll write a song: "Hizzo and the X," to the tune of "Benny and the Jets."
Maybe not. I'm still bitter.
Listening to: "Cell Block Tango" from Chicago.
"He had it comin',
He had it comin',
He only had himself to blame;
If you'da been there,
If you'da seen that,
I betcha you woulda done the same!"
Drinking: coffee.
Annoying bodily sensation: I've been on the verge of a sneeze for about 20 minutes.
00:13
Thursday, March 06, 2003 Razzle-Dazzle 'Em.
I went to the cinema this afternoon with my friend and former student Anne-Sophie; we saw Chicago. I was surprised at how impressively the film was done - I mean, I didn't know exactly what to expect, but Richard Gere has featured in some real stinkers (and Primal Fear was simply creepy). And who knew Catherine Zeta-Jones could sing? (And act?) And why has whoever cast Queen Latifah as Mama not been awarded the Mensa genius prize of the year? And when is the last time a Broadway musical was faithfully adapted as a Hollywood blockbuster? The "Cell Block Tango" is possibly the best song in the whole soundtrack. "Pop ... Six ... Squish ... Uh-uh ... Cicero ... Lipschitz ..." And the choreography rocks.
It was awesome. Afterwards, AnSo and I sat in a little café and chatted about jazz, gossip in the department where I used to teach, plans for next year (she's going to New Orleans; I'm going ... to Figure It Out eventually), preparing for big exams, what it means to be a teacher, what it means to be a musician, coffee, computers, and how singing can save your life.
Then I had choir rehearsal, and to my great relief there was no yelling, no loudly grumbled discontent, no petty complaints about the tempo, and (mercifully, too) no objects thrown. Hey, it's hard to ask for anything more. Oh, yeah, and we also got through 2 weeks' worth of Gregorian stuff (the propers for 2 Sundays' Masses) and 3 (count 'em!) polyphonic works. Mon Dieu, Preste Moy L'Aureille by Claude Goudimel, Tantum Ergo by Déodat de Séverac, and Sicut Cervus by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. (I know, you didn't need all that biographical detail, but Palestrina's name is *so* cool.)
Now I'm home, listening to the first CD my computer has generously allowed me to burn in something over 2 weeks ... at 2x speed. :( Not super, in fact horridly slow, and I don't understand the problem since I have defragmented the drive and dumped about 15 gigs of stuff from my hard drive to make more room so the buffer won't continue "underrunning" (and by the way, what does that verb even *mean*?) ... but at least it was successfully burned. And it's a damn cool mix, if I do say so myself. My damn cool self. Especially since my 6-month hunt for a particular song finally came to fruition and I was able to transform Hypnotic Clambake's fabulous "Gondola to Heaven" into a .wav file. If you aren't familiar with the song, well, I'd love to give you a link and point you to the place you can download it. I don't know how to download Real Audio files because my computer doesn't want to acknowledge that possibility's existence in nature. But if you enter the website, then click on the "Sounds" link on the left, you'll be able at least to hear the song. And if you happen to live in West Virginia, you can attend the band's upcoming show.
All in all, a happy day. My computer is defragmented, my pop-culture has been polished up, my opinion of Richard Gere has risen at least one notch, my voice is tired but in a very contented way, and my CD is burned. Also I'm baking bread that I made myself this afternoon. A full day. No sign yet of the Johnny Depp neighbor, but all things can happen in the fulness of time.
Reading: A Month in the Country by J.M. Carr, First Comes Love by Scott Hahn.
Listening to: the best mix CD of the century (or at least the week). And to think it contains no Tori Amos anywhere!
Drinking: water with Efferalgan in (a fizzy aspirin thing that tastes sort of like chalky bitter-lemon. Surprisingly, it's not bad).
Smelling: baking bread.
Unfortunate initials in translation: "soundtrack" in French is "bande originale du film," which gets reduced to "B.O."
Unfortunate Saint name: last Sunday was Quinquagesima (50 days before Easter); the English dioceses of the world celebrated Saint Chad. It makes me wonder if there's also a Saint Bobby, Saint Leif, Saint Chet ... you know, the martyrology of shiny guys from 1975.
Currently craving: pepperoni pizza, spicy curly fries, flourless chocolate cake with raspberry coulis, a croque-monsieur (grilled ham-and-cheese sandwich), chicken burrito with lots of salsa and cilantro ...
Pet Peeve this moment: whatever quirk keeps making my scanner ask what program I want to use to open the Photo Print option.
Wednesday, March 05, 2003 Remember thou art but ash, and to ash shall ye return.
0700 - In the dark church, benediction of the ashes, imposition of the ashes (the cross on the forehead), Mass.
0745 - Lauds.
0800 - Hot water (no coffee; it's a fast day) with the priests.
0830 - Discuss choral projects with the head priest while counting Sunday's offering.
0832 - I see my first €500 bill. I think it's a first for the priests too; several others come in and admire the pretty magenta ink. Shame about the ugly bridge designed on the back.
0900 - Secretarial work for the priests.
1030 - A walk to the bank, the unemployment office, and an optician to pick up a priest's new glasses (he dropped his old ones in the snow last weekend).
1130 - Walk back home, thinking about the lunch I will not have.
1200 - Drink about a gallon of water.
1230 - Pick up a mystery novel in hopes it will distract me from my hunger.
1530 - Having finished both mystery novel and a nap I decide to fix the CD-burning problem on my computer.
1545 - I drink about a gallon of water.
1805 - Cursing at the computer and running lopsidedly in my clogs (I love them but the heels are thick, plastic, and wobbly somehow, and have nearly killed me on more than one occasion) I head back to church for the evening Mass. Dreading seeing my choir and hoping they will just be there to sing.
1810 - I wonder if the choir is as hungry as I am.
1812 - I wonder if, if they don't like the tempo at which I conduct "Tantum ergo," they will just start gnawing on me.
1815 - The church is full, the choir-nook is empty.
1816 - I go downstairs to the crypt and drink about a gallon of water. Meanwhile, several basses and one alto have arrived.
1830 - Mass begins.
1845 - The rest of the choir arrives.
1910 - We launch into "Tantum ergo" with the strength of 16 voices and 3 shared partitions. One alto makes hand-gestures for me to speed up.
1912 - The also says very loudly (mind you, this is during the Mass), "It's crap when it's that slow." With a heart full of Christian charity and dedication I shoot her down and blow the smoke off the barrel of my gun. Then the Ally McBeal moment recedes and I give her a wide, fake smile. And return to my bottle of water.
1945 - Ite, missa est; I chat with some non-choir friends and head back home.
2030 - I log on and discover my Favorites folder has been mysteriously erased.
I leave you with this fascinating rundown of my day (an anticlimactic way to celebrate Kevynn Malone day, for sure) as I am off to indulge in the appetizing succulence of ... about a gallon of water.
One day down - Vivement demain!
[Small postscript : I am having trouble, yet again, getting Blogger to post my entries, so this all appears a bit dated. Especially now that we're Thursday, otherwise known as Day After-Kevynn-Malone-Day, and several of the comments, and all of the schedule details, are completely false. Whatever, I'm sure you'll deal with it. I just hope Blogger will. I don't usually experience this much frustration with technology, but I am beginning to feel like a female cyber-Job. Feh.]
12:26
Tuesday, March 04, 2003 On Faith.
Comments on a recent post, and the post itself, have focused on faith and belief, and sparked my desire to talk about them. What they are, what they aren't, how they're different, how they matter, what they mean, at least in my own small context and corner of the web.
Faith vs. belief, that's a hard one. They're easy to confuse. If you ask someone "do you believe in God?" and he answers "Yes," you pretty much take it for granted that he has faith. If you pose the question "do you have faith?" and the person says "yes," you tend to think he believes in God. This is perhaps simplistic but in my experience it's true. And it seems the church(es? don't know much about other denominations really; it's certainly the case for the Holy Roman Catholic Church) almost promote the confusion ... We recite the "credo" - literally, "I believe" - but the acts of faith are appendices in the missal. It's kind of like the faith part is taken for granted, but we need to remind ourselves what we believe, all the subclauses and subparagraphs and details we overlook or underestimate.
But faith is greater than those things, vaster, and more difficult. You can't put a finger on it and define it. Sometimes it feels absurd. I know people who believe in God but are so angry with him that they pretend they don't believe in him, when in fact what they mean is they have no faith in him, he's let them down in something big and they're afraid to put their trust back in him now. And other people who say they don't believe in God but who have profound faith.
For me, the belief part is simple: I know what I believe, and I know it is True (and you know I don't use capital letters lightly). I work hard at faith. Sometimes all I have to offer is doubt, which really boils down to fear, which in its turn is really just my selfish heart closing in on itself. Faith re-opens me, soothes me, calms me, brings me back to love - even when I don't know how on earth I will survive this situation or what will happen next, even when I feel like there is nothing in me worth loving or keeping alive.
A few years ago, I saw a film about ten or so fifty-ish women on a bus that broke down in the middle of Canadian nowhere. (I've just spent 15 minutes searching for information on this film but, as it turns out, "ten or so fifty-ish women on a bus that breaks down in the middle of Canada" gets unastonishingly poor results on Google. So, if you know the film, please remind me of its title? It's a very good film.) One of the women is a nun, and another is pretty much an atheist. At some point, the nun and the atheist have a conversation about how to encourage oneself on the long walk to the nearest town. The nun says, "I would pray; I would ask God to help me and give me the strength to make this journey." The atheist says, "And what if God doesn't answer?" The nun says, "Well, what would you suggest?" To which the atheist responds, "I would say, 'Feet, don't fail me now'." And the nun looks at her for a beat and says, "You pray to your feet?"
Voilà, in a nutshell, the concrete difference between belief and faith. I believe in my feet. I know they are there and I know what they do and how they do it. Simple. Do I talk to them? ... Well, ok, sometimes, when I'm fed up with trying to get a shoe on or off or if I'm particularly bored ... never mind. Do I pray to them? No.
I started this entry all inspired to write about faith and in fact the whole feet thing (not to mention searching for that damn movie) has distracted me sufficiently that inspiration has fled, for the moment anyway.
But here's a pet peeve, just to ensure you get your morning's dose of my bitchiness (and again, a big fat-bellied cement-mixer barrel full of gratitude for that, X). Discreet vs. Discrete. Homonyms. One is careful with your confidences, and one is two separate things. Look them up if you're not sure which is which. Thanks.
01:34
Monday, March 03, 2003 A couple last-minute Weirdnesses before Bedtime. (in no particular order)
5. Shakira has a song entitled "Poem to a Horse" and it's actually decent.
4. The search "Horse" on Kazaa-lite produces 99.9999956% porn images, and no actual music by the underground 1990s group Horse (they covered "Wichita Skyline" and it was brilliant, I tell you, brilliant, and if you happen to be in possession of a mix-tape from me that dates from 1992 or 1993 you've heard it and can add a comment to that effect.)
3. My cute neighbor just turned out his light. I think he's gay. Tonight we waved, mouthed things like "salut" and smiled widely. Then a second topless guy (did I mention the topless bit? sorry, I must have been busy drooling) appeared, smoking, in the window frame.
2. I am having tea and cream scones tomorrow afternoon with former student Lili (the one I had to cancel with today because of gastrointestinal issues). There's a little tea-shop in Lyon called Simple Simon and they actually specialize in English pastries. And in case you don't know what those are, well, you just have to come to Lyon (or, you know, go to England) because I'll be too busy indulging myself for the last time before Lent to describe them to you.
1. I learned something important today: don't put off until tomorrow (or five months from now, just hypothetically speaking) the apologies and loving dialogues you want to have today, no matter what the price to your pride or embarrassment. It really costs so little to say "hey, I'm sorry, I was wrong and by the way, have I told you how much I admire you?" and it makes all the difference. I learned this - again - with my godmother, who gave me some excellent and very kind advice about dealing with the current choir disaster I have on my hands. She also told me there is so sin in being tired, and no need to ask forgiveness for fatigue (which is how the French conceive depression, when the word "dépression" scares them). This is hard-earned knowledge that I very much appreciate.
Another smidgeon of wisdom: every world is a small world.
Also, my ex thinks I am a bitch. I don't know if I agree or disagree or if I even care. Because I have to have the last word I will go ahead and say that I would rather be a bitch with principles than an agreeable slut. And there you have it.
Sur ce, I am going to try to sleep. Good night, moon.
À demain,
me.
15:44
Feeling Cursèd.
Ok. For starters, my whole career-evaluation thing wasn't today but is scheduled to start next Monday. Whether the date-issue is my mistake or that of the friendly woman in the (un)employment office remains to be seen. In any case, if nothing else, this false appointment got me out of bed and out of the house by 8:30 a.m. today, and that's pretty drastic on those non-penitential days when I don't force myself to the early Mass at 7.
B. I have another comment problem. I hope it's transitory. When I try to read the comments you lovely people have left on my site, here is the message I get:
"Warning: Supplied argument is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in /www/hosts/enetation.co.uk/www/comments.php on line 25
Warning: Cannot add header information - headers already sent by (output started at /www/hosts/enetation.co.uk/www/comments.php:25) in /www/hosts/enetation.co.uk/www/comments.php on line 50"
That's a lot of warnings for a comment or two. But what the hell, I've had a glass of wine and am feeling charitable, so I'm not going to rant and rave and change comment servers again. I like the blue colors on Enetation.
Nothing much else going on. Still unemployed. Still depressed. Plus I seem to have contracted the stomach flu or food poisoning, and have spent today not exactly as comfortably as I expected to. Oy. But hey, it could always be worse. I could have a horrible brain tumor. I sang at a funeral this afternoon for a priest who had a horrible brain tumor. I hope that when I finally die (and by the way, can I have a literal - not proverbial - bucket to kick please?), I will have lived well enough to be as loved and appreciated and respected as this man was. Keep an eye out, in say 50 years, for Saint Jean-Michel Duport.
Kasey Chambers has some good slow songs. I've been listening to her music ever since boz recommended her (that was roughly 16 hours ago now, but you get the general idea). The faster stuff I don't care much for, but the ballads are awesome. Good call, Boz; thanks.
Today's roundup:
Time Spent Online (TSO for future reference): 123 minutes.
Time spent at funerals: 165 minutes.
Time spent in churches, cathedrals, or adjacent chapels: 175 minutes.
Time spent with priests: roughly 240 minutes.
Advice about how to encourage chorists: good.
Advice about how to conduct: fair to middling.
Time spent walking along the quais of the Saône: 35 minutes.
Food consumed: scrambled eggs with hot-dog pieces stirred in, endive-and-walnut salad.
Drinking: red wine.
Coffee consumed: about 2 liters (ugh).
Listening to: the night news on France 2; also, French pop music (Axelle Red, Mylène Farmer).
Reading: One, Two, Buckle My Shoe by Agatha Christie; A Month in the Country by J.M. Carr, Vergers by Rainer Maria Rilke.
Political stances taken: One. I forwarded an anti-war petition via email. I don't think the question is as simple as pro- or anti-, but given the options, I am most definitely anti-. Et voilà, quoi.
Well, I'm not exactly off to work this morning, but I have an appointment for the first part of a six-week evaluation thing during which apparently my capabilities will be assessed and my job-possibilities clarified. Also I have to drop a CV by Kelly Services and also I have to go buy another damn printer cartridge because my computer still refuses to believe there's ink left in the current one. Naturally, this particular foible started happening just after the one-year warantee's expiration. Isn't there a clause about that in Murphy's law? This afternoon holds a funeral for a locally beloved priest (nobody I knew) and I promised I would go help out with the choral bits. Later I'm having dinner with my friend Liliane, who has kindly promised to take time out from her 30-hours-per-day study schedule to eat with her depressed former English teacher. Have I ever mentioned how much I love my students?
I watched Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil last night. Dubbed into French. Translated into French, the title was turned into "Le Droit de Tuer" (the right to kill). Quite a powerful movie, and I have to say they did a good job with the dubbing. Kevin Spacey actually sounded like Kevin Spacey, only speaking perfect French (now that would be a dream come true!). Samuel L. Jackson sounded like a French Samuel L. Jackson, gruffly excoriating the South's innate injustices. The only voice I question is that of Sandra Bullock, who sounded less like an adult female law-clerk fighting against racism in the deep south than a pink-clad nine-year-old from Sailor Moon. But then, it's been a while since I've heard Sandra Bullock's actual voice; maybe she's been sucking up helium or something.
With Mardi Gras only days away, it seems an appropriate time to make some resolutions for the upcoming Lenten season. (NOTE: This blog-entry is not merely space-filler because I have nothing real to say. It shall also serve as a self-motivator and reminder to actually stick to these resolutions ... unlike my New Year's resolutions, which all flew out the window by January 4th.)
The traditional Lent period - a literal quarantine, forty days before Easter - is a time of fasting, abstinence, and spiritual preparation. It is a time of austere grace and self-denial, a time of penitence and solemnity, pushing through travails and keeping hope, with a goal in mind greater than the immediate gratification of the pleasures of this world.
A. To that end, this year I am giving up the following:
1) alcohol
2) chocolate
A.1.a. This year will not echo those half-hearted abstinences of years past, when I gave up whiskey but invested in tequila, for example, or gave up chocolate but stuffed my purse with caramels. Not that substitutions are forbidden, but the point you see is physical deprivation, not mere replacement with some other treat.
A.1.b. White chocolate is still chocolate.
A.1.c. (NOTE: I do not promise to be in a good mood during Lent.)
B. I have also decided to add a couple things this year. 1) I will go to the gym 4 times per week.
2) I will volunteer my services in a homeless shelter or on a hotline.
3) I will be conscientious about corresponding with people, reading important mail, dealing with finances, and making phone calls.
B.1.a. The week shall henceforth be defined as consisting of the seven days between Monday and Sunday, regardless of dates. Liturgical activities, and the gym's closing at 3 p.m. on Sunday afternoons, effectively preclude that day's workout possibilities. Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday evenings are choral evenings: the workout must commence before 2:30 and finish by 3:30 p.m. (including shower and re-vesting) in order for choral obligations to be adequately met. These time strictures shall serve as guidelines as long as I have no job to offer any other guidelines.
B.1.b. About volunteering: this activity shall occur not just during Lent, you understand, but that will be the starting point.
B.1.c. I will endeavor to remember that it is always better to pick up the phone and deal with things than to pace around the apartment pulling my hair out as I listen to increasingly tense voices on my answering machine. Aforementioned "things" include the electric bill, rent, overdue library books, lunch dates I skipped out on, friends from church who scare me, and my family.
Basically, what all of this comes down to is I have two days left to finish 4 bottles of wine and a fifth of Kentucky bourbon. So, euh, party on Tuesday at my place. Who's with me?
I am also seriously considering moving back to the States, but that's a subject for another post when I have more energy. Until then, I remain your humble and most devoted servant, etc., etc. ...
15:38
