I once had a friend named Brian*

I once had a friend named Brian*
He confessed he liked cocaine and hookers
And knowing his kind I knew he wasn't lyin'

Just like the time he said oil was the future
And how he couldn't hate public schooling
Because his momma was a special education tutor

He loved his family and his country and his SUV
And defense spending and warmongering
Because you know freedom isn't free

I expected to find him in the bar around ten
And I didn't have to wait long before
Greeting him with 'I thought I smelled gin'

He stared at my cleavage like any other man
But lacking political correctedness
'How big are your tits?' asked the Republican

Nonchalantly pulling out a wad of $100 bills
Eschewing formality or frugality
Always covering the night's alcohol, women, and thrills

Too early the bar was shutting down
Though the crossfire lingered
Both refusing to cede any ground

Stumbling our way down the rainy rues
He suggested we recess at his place
Obstinately ignoring all my social cues

'I thought we were gonna kiss' said the would-be debonair
But all I could think was
You should really cut your hair

Mainly, I liked him because he was an original
*Name changed to protect the campaign
A party-line neocon in a land of liberal

Recipe

Summers in Paris are relatively mild - no highs above mid-80s (fahrenheit) and frequent rain showers. Rationally, such weather should be easy to tolerate. However, several inconveniences combine to make these 80-degree days simply unbearable. Among them: a wholesale lack of air-conditioning in the entire country of France, a top-floor loft which absorbs sun from above and rising heat from below, two fur-clad portable heaters who insist on burrowing into your lap/stomach/head at every moment, the inordinate numbers of Blood-Sucking Godless Monsters (mosquitos) that prowl said 4th-floor quarters late at night. During the day, the above annoyances can be avoided by taking your laptop to Starbucks or the closest movie theater showing the new Harry Potter movie. But when night falls, the forces of evil are unleashed upon your world, and you have nowhere to run. A sole sentry - a determined but feeble rotating fan - stands between you and Mordor. As blotchy red mosquito bites and massive, pulsing spider welts cover your body, you start to slowly lose your mind. Your skin has grown intolerant of the cortisone cream, after multiple applications a day. Either that, or the insect enemy has evolved. Their saliva is stronger than your steroid. As every combat soldier knows, sleep is not possible in the face of this onslaught. But sleep must be had.

So, after exhausting the military handbook, desperation drove me to dust off an old home-made recipe for summertime sleep I concocted in Los Angeles, modified for ingredients readily available in France. The instructions are as follows:

Dormir d'Été á la Français

Ingredients:
- half a loaf of pain aux cereales (whole grain bread)
- 250g frozen broccoli florets

Freeze a half-loaf of sliced whole grain bread. Reserve the other half for eating with chevre and honey the day of purchase. Between midnight and 1am on a hot summer night, remove the frozen half loaf of bread from the freezer. Remove any abrasive aluminum foil. Wrap loaf in paper towels (using as few as possible so as to maximize radiating cold and minimize death of trees). Wearing a fitted T-shirt, place loaf of bread under shirt and situate between breasts. (A half loaf fits snugly for me, but experiment with quarter and full loaves depending on your bust size.) Go to bed. Sleep for 7-8 hours, depending on the time it takes you to get ready for work in the morning. After 7-8 hours, awake from sleep and remove now defrosted bread from chest. Toast bread and spread with salted butter and confiture for a filling and refreshing breakfast.

The following evening, assuming the heat wave lingers, repeat the same procedure with a bag of frozen broccoli florets (or other vegetable of your choice). PLEASE NOTE: the frozen vegetables are water-based, so it is essential to wrap the bag of vegetables in a second ziplock or tightly-sealed plastic bag. Otherwise, you may awake to a broccoli water-soaked bed, which both looks and smells like a piss-soaked bed.

Both versions of this recipe should be accompanied by a rotating fan placed approximately 3 feet (or one meter) from your body, aimed directly at your head, and also a flat sheet draped over your entire body, leaving only a small hole open for breathing purposes.

If instructions are followed as stated above, then sleep is not only possible, but somewhat tasty.

Bon appetit!

Supercalifragilisticexpeditemythesis

Once upon a time, I had an interesting life. I tossed aside my glamorous L.A. existence and packed it to Paris. I brunched in the mornings, philosophized in the afternoons, and rocked out in the evenings. I plotted revenge against the Baguette Nazi, accompanied my friends to get blood tests for STDs, and avoided anglo bars like the swine flu. I learned how to cure hangovers with Tums, where I could pee in public on the Champs de Mars, which Israeli made the best falafel. I was young, witty, and fabulous.

Then I decided to write a thesis.

Since then, my life, and my blog, have become a wasteland of drudgery, escapism, and guilt. I despise Microsoft word. The Internet has become my mortal enemy. I'm even beginning to resent Barack Obama. (I love you, Barack.) Last week I took the drastic step of cutting myself off from Internet. I have been phasing it back in, but in measured doses. Only for essential activities like thesis-related research, my weekly dose of dooce.com, and craig's list fantasy apartment searches. Finally, I have taken my most drastic measure yet to break myself from the life-sucking claws of Internet: I have banned myself from the Huffington Post. No more, Arianna. No more speed-reading the quick-view news over my morning coffee. No more What did Michelle wear at G8? No more "accidentally" reading the entertainment section before the media and politics sections.
I quit you.

I'm experiencing the normal withdrawal symptoms - despair, anxiety, cautious glee at my newfound freedom, mild twitching. But thesis looks clearer in the light of day than it has in weeks. Ideas are coalescing into paragraphs. Aristotle and George Lakoff are not causing me gastric reflux. And when I lay down at night, I keep writing in my head, in my sleep. Hopefully, this sleep writing will materialize into awake writing, and these paragraphs will materialize into finished chapters. I need my life back. I need my blog to be more interesting than my grandmother's grocery list.