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Because I usually am in Vino ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** In 2009, I gave up my studies as a medievalist and musician, left my home, my family, my life and moved to Provence in southern France for a guy. In 2012, I moved away from him to study wine. Today, I'm a vagabond sommelier working in Paris at one of the oldest and most famous restaurants in the world, struggling to find some purpose to what I deem the rest of my life. I'm still married and after 8 10 years, I'm still trying to fit-in with French life and culture and to understand why the French are the way they are. Because they're weird in a different way that I think Americans are weird. Perhaps it's me who's weird. |
| Lots happened today: New glasses! I can't believe I went over two months without them. I was such an idiot for leaving my only pair on the train. My script for the lenses isn't that strong, the correction is rather slight, and I can get by totally fine but what a difference it makes to be able to see properly again. It feels like a constant pressure on my eyes has been lifted and my eyes can open wide. Plus the frames are super cute. I really hated my other glasses. They were always smudged, the script felt slightly off, and they didn't look good on me. These are much better suited. New hair cut! Like many of us finally released from lockdown I went to have my hair cut. Can you believe at 38, I don't have a grey hair on my head? But because I never have time when I'm working and most hair salons are closed when I'm on weekend I hadn't cut my hair since last July. So I needed a cut long before lockdown. My hair ... god my hair. I don't know what's happened to it over the past 2 1/2 years. Even though it hasn't gone grey, it's become this frizzy, stringy, limp struggling mess. Combined with the fact that I hadn't cut it in over 8 months and I think I shocked the entire salon when I walked in. Plus curly hair tends to shock people anyway. My stylist asked what I wanted to do, like they do, and I told her just to cut it until she got rid of the damage. She had to cut about an inch and a half. Maybe more. So it's a bit shorter than what I was hoping for because I liked the length, but no shorter than what I've had in the past. She also suggested a product for me to buy as a leave in treatment, which I took because what's one more hair product to my collection? Between my hair, face, and body products I take up all the considerable space around the bathroom sink. She was also nice enough to give me a rather large sample of the shampoo they used on my hair and said it should help calm the disaster. Curly hair is no fun folks. It looks awesome when it's in good condition, but keeping it in good condition is a nightmare. New face masks! The medical kind, not the beauty product kind. I ordered face masks on Amazon three weeks ago and they arrived today. It was very exciting. The landlord came to look at the apartment. As we are moving he wanted to come by and take photos of the place because he's going to do work on the apartment when we leave. Poor guy. I came barreling in at 16h rambling to my husband in English with no idea he was in the next room. The cats followed him around like two sentinels, making sure he didn't disturb their kingdom. I went running and did yoga. And ran some other errands like buying juice and ice cream (necessary) and tampons as well as study supplies (pens, paper, white-out - all those things we word lovers love). I wrote just a little bit. Because the day was rather packed with out of the house things and getting the apartment ready so that the landlord could photograph it, I didn't have much time to work and I don't think I'm going to bother trying today. Going out and getting errands done is enough. It's hot and windy. Both things are annoying to me. The wind - well - in Arles the wind is not just wind. It's Wind. And my frizzy hair is not a fan. The heat I'd enjoy if I had any summer clothes down here. But as it is, I was walking around Arles in 80°F/27°C sunny weather in a sweater and jeans and Timberland boots. I'm hoping that the travel ban will be lifted in June so that I can go up to Paris to collect my clothes, otherwise I'll have to go shopping which I don't want to do when I have a bunch of summer clothes already. |
| Did you know that you can eat zucchini (better known as courgette in the rest of the world) raw? This was one of the first things I learned when I moved to France. Forget the language or any social skills. I learned about zucchini. My MIL was cutting up vegetable to have with a dip and I saw the zucchini sitting on the plate. I couldn't conceive of eating them raw so I asked her what they were and was so surprised when she told me they were zucchini and yes, it was totally possible to eat them without first cooking them. Until that moment, I had never eaten a zucchini raw. I'm making pizza with zucchini on top. That's why this story came to mind. So to recap what I did yesterday vs what I had planned. Run  Yoga Writing Sleep for three hours in the middle of the afternoon I did actually write though it was close to midnight. I started a story based on a prompt that I've continued this morning. I'm now 2000 words in. I'm not going to say more because yes, I'm feeling superstitious and don't want to talk about it. I also played oboe this morning. It didn't go so well. The muscles associated with oboe playing are quite angry with me. That includes the brain muscles required to pay attention to the music and coordinate finger/tongue/face movements. So I only played about 25 minutes total, but it's better than nothing. That's all I have today I suppose. My husband is starting to catch on to the fact that my constant fatigue and sleeping is unnatural. He asked me what I did yesterday and I said "You didn't notice that I was sleeping from lunch until 5:30pm?" He used to say it was because my job took a lot out of me and I used to agree with him - in part. But I haven't worked in two months and I try to stay active. So what's the excuse now? It's nice out today. I'm going to run later. A lot of people are sitting by the river quai in small clumps drinking and being social. Most aren't wearing masks. But I don't really mind. They are spaced far apart and the more people that are around the less chance I have of being harassed by the idiots that are by the river all the time because they don't want any witnesses. This is the south of France, so they are all kind of judgey but it's a small price to pay for a quiet run free of sexual harassment. That's one thing I miss about running in Paris. Just being one of the faceless running masses. |
| I played oboe today and yesterday. I had ordered some reeds and reed-making materials last week but they haven't arrived yet. I even kind of practiced, trying to go over some rough passages and smooth out the errors and bad intonation. There's not much I can do about the intonation though until I get better reeds but also build up my face muscles. Right now, I can kind of manipulate the reed into producing the right sound but only for a short amount of time. I don't have the stamina I once did. While working on my Short Shots story, I realised that I had reached a dead-end mid-way. There's nothing there. I don't want my characters do die and the evil spirit isn't going to change. I had a nice setting, even an interesting if somewhat cliché premise. But the story fell flat and I can't finish it. I've tucked it away for now. Maybe I'll be able to go back and start over - from the top - as it were and pull something out of it, but I can't do it now. So no Short Shots this month. I wrote a haiku about it instead. But writer's block is officially here. The rest of the afternoon was spent staring at my computer trying to write and getting nowhere. I fiddled around looking for prompts, for ideas, took a look at my novel outline - still haven't started the actual nove there. A few were inspiring and intriguing, but I couldn't write. I just stared at the prompts not knowing how to bring story to prompt. Eventually, I gave up and decided to study wine. That went just as badly. I had some notes laid out from my research a few days ago and was reading a few other articles and preparing to consolidate everything into my overview page on the Languedoc-Roussillon Region and couldn't even get that together. I put that aside and went to focus on just the AOC Languedoc. As I was reading the entry in Jancis Robinson's Oxford Dictionary, my mind just gave up. It wasn't working. I understood what I was reading. I was taking the information in, but it was like my brain just said "Who cares, I'm not listening to this bullshit." It seems I have a full Block not just writer's block The rest of the afternoon was spent reading Haruki Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. At some point my brain told me "I'd like to play the fucking oboe." Just like that. And so I did. My brain swears a lot. Much more than I actually do. Today feels like it's going in much the same direction. My husband and I went to the market, with masks and hand sanitizer of course. We bought some things for the rest of the weekend. Walked around town for a few minutes. I played oboe. I told him I'd make bread today, but I don't really want to. Haven't been running yet. Last night, after spending some time reading and lamenting the writer's block or full block or whatever is going on with me, I bought a book full of writing prompts. I downloaded a sample to my Kindle first that showed lots of genuine realistic and interesting prompts and just figured I'd go with the whole book. It was 6 Euros - so what do I have to lose. The prompts all seem pretty good, though I haven't used one yet. They aren't silly like I often see like use these three items in your story: a fake moustache, a pineapple, and a rotten staircase. What kind of a story can I make into that that isn't just a throw away, absurdist, slapstick? Or "Two monks and a cactus walk into a saloon on an interstellar space station, what happens next?" That's not a prompt. But if you want crazy prompts- I think I've just discovered a new talent. Hell, maybe this is what I should be writing. Absurdism. I do think life is incredibly absurd. I was playing around with it a while back. Murakami's books are very absurd. I feel a kinship with him at times. Here's a man who runs marathons, loves baseball, a good whiskey or cocktail, classical music, and writing. Except for the baseball, that's basically me. He even likes true crime, which is my guilty pleasure. Just change baseball to playing oboe or studying wine. Maybe I could write absurdist haiku. Anyway. The plans for today: Lay down for a bit. Because let's face it: that's what I want to do right now. Yoga and run. Or at least one of the two Write and study. Or at least one of the two Make bread. I'll check in tomorrow to see how many of those things I've accomplished. Playing oboe was already an accomplishment. |
| Yesterday, Julien called to freak out about some work stuff. Even when the restaurant is closed, it seems there is something to freak out about. I won't go into details because it's all rather stupid and irresponsible on the part of the administration and as usual, they are trying to put it on me and Julien when we have emails that show we were just following orders like good little soldiers. Anyway, he gave me an update on the situation in Paris and the restaurant. While restaurants in the "green zones" might be able to open on June 2nd, they still aren't sure about the "red zones" which of course, Paris is one. We, according to the Prime Minister are all allowed to go on vacation within France in July and August. So maybe restaurants in Paris might be allowed to open in July. That's all great except in Paris, anyone in the city who is not working in tourism or hospitality leaves - the non-touristy parts of the city are EMPTY - and all of the restaurants like ours are full of tourists. Full. Of Tourists. We get a few French tourists of course. People who are passing through from one place to another and decided to make a stop over in Paris for a night or two, but the ratio of non-French to French is pretty wide for those two months. So even if our restaurant is open, and Parisians are not quarantined to the city, well the restaurant will be empty. It's still not sure if inter-European travel will be allowed. Long story short, the owner of the restaurant has said that if we can't fill the restaurant properly, he's not going to open until September. For a long time I've wanted to find a way to have complete freedom to "figure shit out" while not worry about money and it is quite possible that I am now going to have that opportunity for at least a few months. I'll still have 75-80% of my salary, which is enough for me to get by even if I won't save much and I won't have to work. Of course, for the past two months, I've been in the same situation but it's different when the entire country is confined to their homes and no one is really sure what's up anymore. It was like a weird purgatory. Knowing that there is a very good chance I won't be going back to work until September feels very different. The question now is what is the "shit I want to figure out?" What do I want to do? Write? Study wine? Find a new job? Learn woodworking? Study medieval philosophy? Play oboe? Three and a half months of freedom to reshape myself. I can do whatever I want. If I decide it's all bullshit, I can spend the next 3 months in bed. I feel like I should take suggestions. Open up a poll to those who know me. What would you do if you were me : 38, childless, with many useless degrees, and free from any serious money concerns? (And can't travel) It's a huge opportunity that has dropped into my lap and I'm afraid if I put to much pressure on myself to "figure shit out" I'll just cry and hide in my bed. At the same time, I feel the pressure, because I know that I should take advantage of this opportunity to accomplish/change/grow/learn. Especially considering how much I bitch that my job doesn't allow me to have time for the things I love. In three months with nothing else to do, I could probably get back into oboe-shape if I really kicked my own ass about it. |
There was an article in the NY Times  on May 5th. But I heard about this yesterday during the 13h news broadcast my husband was watching during lunch. Ireland sent aid to the Navajo tribes in return for their aid in the Potato Famine 170 years ago.Can we back up a bit? The Navajo did what now? I learned about the Potato Famine. I learned - albeit in a watered-down, light version - about how we were genocidal assholes to the Native Americans. But I had never heard about this. Why is that? Why are we not learning about how despite being beaten down, killed, chased out of their homes and off their land, and having everything taken away from them a group of people stood up and said "What is happening to that group of people we barely know anything about, thousands of miles away is awful. Let's help them." Why are we not learning about how the people we treated like shit, turned around and gave a helping hand to our relatives overseas? This is what we should be learning about. While the atrocities our ancestors committed should be studied and brought to the forefront so that we learn that racism, xenophobia, genocide are wrong and the fear of what is different is an unnecessary fear, we should also be learning about how compassion and empathy can still survive. We should be learning about how a group of people stood up for others. That it is possible to be strong even when you've lost everything. We don't learn about the sides of humanity that show the good. Not in the right way. Good actions aren't rewarded because we don't reward them. They aren't remembered the way they should be. I have more to say about this subject, but I don't know how to put it into words. Topics like this lead into other topics and I am out of practice writing opinion, non-fiction, what-have-you essays. But I had to get that off my chest. I'm angry I never learned about this in school. I'm angry that this isn't common knowledge in the US. I'm angrier about how we treated the Native Americans. I often liken it to how the Jews were treated in Europe and being Jewish, the Native American experience resonates strongly with me. That's it for now. For today. I don't know. I'm getting angry. |
| I wanted to go to the post office today to send my keys to a friend so that he can take a look at my apartment in Paris, but the line was soooooooooooooooo long outside that I would still be standing there by the time they closed at 17h. Instead, I'm going first thing in the morning tomorrow when they open at 8h30. I might not be first in the door but here's hoping I won't be waiting two hours. My new glasses should also be ready tomorrow. I am very excited about that. Haven't done much else today. I cleaned the kitchen and the shower and my office. The shower was a big one because I hate cleaning the shower. Between two hairy people, one with A LOT of crazy body care products, and two cats who like to sit in the shower, it gets pretty disgusting very fast. I clean it with my pants off. My husband thinks I'm weird, and maybe it is, but I've always felt that wearing pants while cleaning the shower is uncomfortable. So I'll get in there with just a tank top and underwear. Sometimes I just do it naked and take a shower right after. Because if I'm going to get all dirty cleaning the shower, I might as well clean everything. I did yoga and went running and then went to the post office. Well, tried to go to the post office, which ended up me just wandering around town for an hour. Running is still extremely painful and slow, though today I'm less sore and was able to do a very slow 9km. I'm taking tomorrow off and hopefully I can do 10K on Friday. Oh and my husband and I ordered food to be delivered from Picard - king of frozen foods. I suppose that for some people that's a productive day, but I feel very tired and like I'm going to be unable to accomplish anything else. I am going to try to study and to write. Mostly, I want to go upstairs and lay down. Maybe I'll write in my paper journal. Often, I find myself drifting off and staring out into space thinking about nothing. It happened just while writing this paragraph. |
| Lockdown ended yesterday. And what did I do? I spent the day sleeping. I went running Sunday afternoon, despite confinement restrictions still officially in place because if I had to look at my elliptical machine one more time I would have vomited. But it was rainy and weird out and since I hadn't been running in two months, it meant my body was unprepared for it. And this Monday I could barely move. When I wasn't sleeping I was playing the Sims. That was my entire day. That's alright though. Everyone deserves one day of total blech and I was fairly productive last week. Relaxing and recovering one day is not going to be the end of the world. I can go running today. Which I will, in an hour. I am also going to put on my mask like a responsible citizen and try to get new glasses. Because I'm tired of everything being just out of focus. Monday I worked on my story for the short shots contest. I think I finally found the story in all the exposition. But when I laid down last night and thought about it, I wondered, is it too cliché? And the answer is yes. Probably. Very Cliché. And that makes me sad. But it's only the first draft, and it's not done yet, so maybe I can pull something less cliché out of it later. My husband and I were watching Le Quotidien yesterday on TV - it's kind of like a French version of the Daily Show (though not quite as racy) and they had a French comedian on who was just not funny. At all. French comedians aren't funny. The French aren't funny. In fact, I don't mind saying that their sense of humor is wrong. As simple as that. It's wrong. What they think is funny is either outdated, racist, usually both, or is very mistimed over the top slapstick. Exaggerated facial expressions, bad sarcasm and irony. It's just wrong. The newscasters were cracking up as this woman's jokes. I just wanted it to be over. It was so painful to sit through. At one point the host (who I do find humorous, way more than most French comedians) asked her what she was going to do on the first day lockdown ended. She said "Je vais faire mon pipi." Meaning she's going to get up and pee. Really? Pee jokes? That's the best you can come up with? I'll give her credit for making a good point -we all got up to pee Monday morning but still. Really? My husband says I'm too hard on the French. I probably am. They are not all like that. And there are a few French comedians out there who are pretty good. But when they bow down to their stereotypes however they go hard. There's no coming back. I don't know how other Americans can find the French so charming. Maybe my problem is that I don't really like Americans either. I should have moved to Germany where I can just look on with disapproval at the rest of the world. Europe is a strange place. |
| It's strange but I woke up this morning missing Paris. I have the tiniest apartment on the planet, the city smells terrible, it's a cesspool of infection and insecurity, most everyone is miserable (oddly enough, I have nothing against most of the people), there is a massive and obvious class divide, it takes 1 hour to get anywhere - ANYWHERE - even down the street and it was once filled with tourists. And did I mention it's expensive? So expensive. But I miss it. I want to walk around the Opera in the 2nd and pretend I'm trendy in the 10th and laugh at the students in the 5th and smoke outside of a café in the 6th. I want to fight the Asian and Russian tourists in the shops and when I go running I want to follow some firefighters 2km. I want to almost get hit by a bus. I want to take the metro lines 1 and 14 and contemplate that the only reason the super tall plexiglass guard rails are there is because the city didn't want the tourists to be hampered by how many people throw themselves in front of the subway cars everyday. (Sadly this is not an exaggeration. At least one person dies from suicide by subway car each day in Paris. If you visit the city and your metro is delayed this is quite likely the reason.) I want to have to watch my purse closely and surveille everyone suspiciously. Paris is in all respects, a weird, weird place. But I miss it. The lockdown ends tomorrow but Paris is in "the red zone" and travel has been restricted so that I can't actually travel to the city without a permission slip. I will have to ask my employer if they can write me one even if work isn't allowed to reopen. At least I can go running again and leave my house as many times as I like during the day. Although I wonder how this is going to work in Arles since I fear there is a large part of the community that is too uneducated to understand that the end of lockdown does not mean it's the end of the virus. I'm sure there are plenty who do understand the difference but I think it's going to be about 50/50. Also, all last week the weather was bright and sunny, 24°C with a nice cool breeze. Today it's raining. Tomorrow it's raining. I've been waiting 2 months to go running outside and it's raining. I will run in the rain. Make no mistake. I played oboe and worked on my novel yesterday. I'm feeling, snarky, angry, mean, negative today. In fact, now that I think of it, I felt that way yesterday afternoon too. My stomach hurts and um- I've been to the toilet several times this morning. It's calming down now. Perhaps some meditation and yoga would help me reset my mind a bit. |
| The taxes must have worn me out yesterday because today I find myself rather tired. There's a running problem I've had since I was an adolescent where my energy suddenly collapses to the point that I feel weak and barely able to hold myself up. It seems to come and go without any logic or reason. Some days I'm fine and other days I can barely keep my eyes open. Usually it falls within the hours of 2 and 6 but sometimes it comes earlier. Back when I was at Brandeis they tested me for a variety of things, thyroids, diabetes, iron deficiency, and they all came back negative. Another doctor in France encouraged me to have my thyroid tested again, but I never did it. I probably should have. Nothing really seems to help except laying down and taking a nap, but even then, I often wake up feeling worse than I did before I laid down so I'm just trying to push through it today. I did some studying, read some blogs, went shopping. I bought a new nail polish color because my nails are growing since I haven't been biting them, since I haven't been at work. Funny how that seems to work. No smoking, less drinking, long nails, healthy diet, all because I'm not working. Like I wrote yesterday, I don't hate my job, but I often wonder if I should return to it when the restaurant reopens. I won't say that I'm more productive now than I am when I'm at work because my job takes up so much of my waking hours, but I am more focused and I've spent more time doing things I enjoy than I did on my weekends when I was at work. For instance, I might have an evening off from work and go home around 6 or 7pm. Instead of going home and spending an hour studying or shopping or enjoying myself, I usually order delivery, get drunk, and pass out. Or if I have a long break in the middle of the day, I nap rather than exercising, reading, studying, writing, etc. On the weekends I sleep, run, and spend time roaming aimlessly around the internet. My waking, off hours are spent just recovering rather than being enjoyed. And that has always bothered me about this career that I've chosen. I don't expect to go home after a 10 hour day and spend another 5 hours writing or studying but an hour here and there would make me feel like I'm doing something for myself. I don't even have the energy to go out and make friends or be social. Therefore, my only friends are people I see at work. And I'm not really allowed to socialize with them all that much because of my rank within hierarchical structure. I started a story for the Short Shots competition but I haven't made much headway since Tuesday. I should go back to it later. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to enter since I've already won once, but it's a nice exercise. The word count limit is 1500 but I'm aiming for 5000 words at least for the first draft and then we'll see if we can either cut that back or abridge it for an entry. If not, then I'll have a 5000 word story. I should also get back to my novel prep. Now that NaNo is over and I don't feel crushed by the weight of my crappy NaNo story, I might be able to concentrate on creating a mood and narrative for my novel. I'm struggling with finding the voice of many of the characters as I develop them. I realize I will probably have to write in the 3rd person POV which I'm not thrilled about, but I think it will be the best way to tell the story. So narrative is going to have to be key. I always feel like even in the 3rd person POV the narrator needs to have a role, a voice, a developed character in the story, even if they are totally impartial. That's an interesting idea. I'm not the first person to make it, but it's something I've never put down into words myself. Something to think about and develop... It's been a long time since I've written a haiku. I'm going to lay down now. |
| Today I was a big girl and filed my US taxes. Don't yell at me but I hadn't bothered since I moved to France in 2009. In part because I couldn't be bothered, in part because for the first few years of living here I had no income to file and in part because I spent the first few years too much of a mental mess trying to deal with the French to deal with the US. Anyway, I sat down and did it for part of yesterday and today and it was a mess. But I got it done. All these papers to prove to the US government that I'm not interesting and have no money. Nor am I claiming any stimulus checks or refunds. Just take your stupid paperwork and go. I warned my husband that this is probably going to cause "a thing" because I haven't filed in 10 years and now the IRS is probably going to want to know where I have been since 2009. But one filing at a time. And honestly if the IRS and US government are going to get themselves in a tizzy for someone who makes next to nothing after taxes and living expenses they need to get their priorities in order. But I'm afraid that when I apply for French citizenship it might come up. Or if one day I need to go back to the States for whatever reason. I'm not planning on it but I told myself I'd never do a lot of things that I ended up doing. I also worked on my student loan deferments but I can't send those electronically because... because... why not? They will have to wait until I can gain access to a printer. Still, I feel like it's one small step towards being a better adult. I don't know why I should care. I don't want or have a lot of the things most people my age have and it suits me fine. I guess maybe it's the principle of the thing. I often consider myself a responsible person but in terms of finances and a lot of "serious stuff" I have failed miserably. I feel like if I can manage this, maybe, eventually, I can climb out of my crappy career situation and find something that allows me to have a personal life and not feel so miserable all the time. Or maybe I can learn balance a personal life with my crappy career and not put so much emphasis on something so insignificant. I don't hate my job, but it's a lot of stress for something that isn't really essential. Yes, restaurants and hospitality bring a moment of pleasure, a real memorable experience, and wine is a great existential, ephemeral medium, but in the long term it's A LOT of stress and abuse for something that isn't that important. And the hours I work- often 10 or 12 hour days are a bit much. Maybe with this small step I can learn to stop running away from shit. |
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I think it's awesome that you're using that negative experience to get creative. It's hard not to just wallow when those things happen. I use a paper journal for most of my actual coping process too, but I do share bits and pieces on WDC as well.
Might try a short story a day instead. Stay safe. 
