My Friend Kathryn is a much better Blogger than me

I am the only person who calls her Kathryn, so I feel safe using her real name in this post, as no one will know who I am speaking of. Kathryn is my oldest friend, in terms of years she has known me (19 years now) (holy bloody hell that's more years than an 18-year-old person)(I grow old . . . I grow old. . . I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled).

This is vital information because Kathryn has reappeared as a character in the life of this Word Artisan, after a brief sojourn in the morass of the post-college/married/careerified real world. We reconnected over a boy named Griffin, who Kathryn and I both fought for the undying affection of during Christmas holidays. Kathryn won the battle when she flashed him with her left breast. That is not to say that Kathryn has a more spectacular left breast than I - scandale! - but that she was quicker to the draw. These bosom buddies initially found each other again, though, due to the magnificent world of les blogs. In short, I googled her until I found her blog, read through many months of posts, discovered a reference to our invisible mutual friend Pedro the Monkey, and immediately emailed her.

To be sure, if Pedro had not alerted me to Kathryn's still-fabulousness/perpetual relevance in my life, then I may not have taken the electronic mail plunge. But he was there when we needed him most, as he was in the idyllic driveways of Bexhill.
So we are reunited.

And now, I have the dual pleasure and guilt of reading her lovely blog on a biweekly basis, reminding me on a biweekly basis of my blogging negligence. I do not recall my last post. This is my attempt to remedy that dearth. Being of weary mind and mediocre faculty, I will not scribe poetry. Instead, I will scribe a "tag". (Tags are when an online friend requests you to perform a task and then pass it on.) (This has no relation to genital warts.)

25 Things About Me

1. I have ugly mutant Hobbit feet.
2. I am a pork-loving vegetarian.
3. I will make it to Montana.
4. My first and only horse was a Paso Fino and was a good-natured, well-intentioned disaster.
5. I have never smoked a cigarette.
6. I am smarter than most bears.
7. I have never started a forest fire.
8. I respect Smokey the Bear.
9. One of my cats fetches.
10. My other cat retrieves.
11. I am addicted to tea.
12. I finally finished Angle of Repose last week. It only took me 14 months.
13. I like the smell of cedar.
14. I like the smell of permanent markers.
15. I am not a huffer.
16. I like beards. (on men. as opposed to goats, pigs, or reptiles.)
17. I am wearing a large gray scarf and watching a candle burn and being stared down/judged by Moxie at this very moment.
18. Spinach had me at Hello.
19. Tequila and I had an ugly breakup.
20. The reverend at my church has a Virginian drawl.
21. I do not iron.
22. Sledding is one of my happiest childhood memories.
23. I dream of snow.
24. I do not have a favorite movie.
25. I need mountains.

As a result, I believe the saying goes - you are it.

je reve de neige

it snowed today. i took out my camera (film still looks better you digital Fascists), which had been sitting in my closet since January last - when I arrived in my rainy French wonderland.

i sat in my so-called pied-a-terre, and i opened the window and inhaled the cold, wintery Parisair. and i watched the big flakes fall, and i clicked away with manual focus.

they didn't stick.

but a girl can hope . . .

Don't Ever Go To Pisa

Often, hip and youthful Americans living abroad, particularly those in Paris, maintain an online journal detailing their exotic new home and life. These weblogs, or "blogs," as they are called by those in the 'know,' are then shared with friends and family members and random non-acquaintances as proof of the superiority of the blogger's oh-so-cultured-and-counter-American-culture existence. That is the first purpose of these humble writings. The second, and foremost, purpose of these journals is to score a book deal.

The trajectory proceeds as such: Blogger's writing doesn't suck (a lot). Blog fulfills primary American Abroad narrative criteria - I 1) moved to Paris/Barcelona/Florence, I 2) got my heart broken/fell in love/had impromptu sex on a futon with a European/bought really cool shoes/all of the above, and then, suddenly, I 3)discovered I could speak the language/found myself homeless/knocked-up/in jail, whereupon I 4)founded a wildly successful international dot-com/called that random guy I know at the Embassy to bail me out/found my true calling as a post-modernist slam-poet. In the end, I realized that 5)America really is the best/everything is more romantic in Paris-Barcelona-Florence/syphilis can be cured with penicillin. Blogger then strategically builds readership while teaching business English to pay rent. Blogger secures the notice of Small-Time Publisher who happens to be having an affair with Big-Time Publisher who steals Small-Time's manuscripts and clients away, thus securing Blogger their first book deal/heartless act of self-promotion. Finally, Blogger's book will be introduced to the (American) world with tepid acclaim. It will detail all of the above adventures, plus act as an off-color European travel guide with biting regional commentaries such as:

"People go to Rome to see historic works of art. People go to Pisa to see a historic fuck-up."

Of course, this weblog aspires to no such literary heights. Here, we're happy just to get spell-check's approval. (Currently we are falling short with "weblog." Irony is our friend.) So, while other, more enterprising bloggers fill their Macbooks with tales of love and triumph over European adversity, we will be at home with our cats, haphazardly typing our Mad Libs Moveable Feast.

You two-timing SonofaBlog

It's true what they say: not everyone is capable of being monogamous.

Phrase Book

As I am learning French, I often find that the French word for something is almost exactly like the English word. For instance: tennis=tennis, racisme=racism, superficiel=superficial. This makes learning French vocabulary infinitely easier than learning, say, Inuit vocabulary. All that is needed, really, to complete the cultural transformation from American to French, is a cartoonish French accent added to each word to properly translate the language. It is also helpful to know that in La France, some phrases are exact translations of the American English.

For instance: when a grungy dirty man sitting across the aisle from you on the crowded Metro "accidentally" "falls" out of his chair during a minor curve of the ride and reaches out to grab the "nearest" thing to him to keep from "falling" on the floor, and, instead of grabbing the pole between the two of you, he steadies himself by pawing your luscious breast, then the following phrase is an appropriate response in both languages -
"If you fucking touch me again I will fucking kill you!"

The only difference between the American and French deliveries is that, in America, you might follow the phrase with a spray of mace in the man's eyes, while in France, simply leaning in uncomfortably close and pointing your finger in his face will suffice. It may seem to the inexperienced Metro rider that such colloquial wording would not make sense in French, but I can guarantee you (judging by the look of sheer fear in the jackass's eyes), no translation is needed.

Vin Rouge/Similes

My cats are like Perfection, but they shed more.

Friends are like enemies, but more pleasant.

Lust is like disgust, but more palpable.

Lawns are like Hummers, but more standard.

Laughing is like crying, but more people are involved.

Twinkies are like the 1st Amendment, but more unnecessary.

A Few of My Favorite Things in My Apartment

NewBalance 992