Crois-moi

Achile the cat is insane. There’s no more euphemizing what we thought at first was just the tiger in him… he’s berzerk. Achile the Destroyer… funny that we named him after a mythical warrior. He gleefully shreds plastic bags and upholstery. We tried to discipline him, with, “Non!” or a squirt of water in the face, but it backfired. Now he gets vengeful when scolded : after being shooed off my desk this morning, he flounced over to my nightstand, gave me a meaningful look, and swatted my sunglasses to the floor. He’s barfed in all but one room of the apartment, massacred Pat’s plants, and given Xav (the only one willing to ‘play’ with him) a lacey set of scars on his forearms. We complain to each other daily, but our complaints are always blunted by our affection for the little beast. He can be nice sometimes, when he wants to. That’s the thing that leads us to believe he’s not just a violent brute, but perhaps a weaselly little old man reincarnated – he is the one who rules our relationship with him. He chooses when to purr or pounce, and we just take what affection we can get. He’s nice just enough of the time to keep us baited. So, though he be a brutal little monster, he’s part of the family.

     apparently I don’t have class today. toulouse’s universities are immobilized by some protesting students, and the administration doesn’t even put up a fight. this morning sue and mike went to class, but a handful of students refused to let the teacher into the amphitheater, so after ten minutes he said, “I can’t teach like this,” and left. for the most part, french students haven’t even been showing up for the last week. the institut d’études politiques is an echoing erasmus desert, where we foreigners, who didn’t get the memo that as soon as someone says “strike” you give up trying to learn, drift listlessly up and down the stairs.
     this is what I’d call a flaw in the french mentality. “solidarity” and “worker’s rights” are these buzzwords that just send everyone into a frenzy, until the protests seem to be less a show of disapproval than a show of support for the people who are doing the disapproving. there’s such a resistance to change, and a fondness for the principle of resistance, that tethers the french to ‘the way things are.’ the wall street journal interviewed someone who marched in paris on saturday who said that the protests aspire “not to change the world” but to “protect what we’ve gained.” but why not hope for more? why not make a new proposal to lower unemployment instead of just taking to the streets with bongos and streamers? manifestations are such a banal, party-day way for the french to say, “we don’t like this…” the public transport system quietly reorganizes its bus routes on protest days, the police kindly block off traffic access to the parade route, and everyone patiently waits for the demonstration to run its course. but what’s accomplished? the government doesn’t withdraw the proposed law, so the grévistes call for more strikes, more disruptions, more parades.
     somewhere, maybe a month ago, this struggle was an argument that concerned the students. a favorite chant at protests is, “to those who want to put the youth at risk, the youth respond, ‘resistance!’” they’re afraid of being fired without cause under the proposed First Employment Contract… sure, that sounds like a danger, and one that they don’t have to worry about these days since so few young people even get hired – unemployment is at 23%. and if they’re worried about getting stuck with “junk jobs,” maybe they should worry about their degrees, which none of them might get this year if the protests and blockades carry on for much longer.
     enfin, bref… I’m frustrated, if you couldn’t tell. but so are lots of people, and not just the ones who are against de Villepin’s proposed law. the french have got to come up with a way for the people to dialog with the government without being such a public nuisance. all of the protesters who are so concerned that their rights are being infringed upon should think of the students who want to learn, the people who want to take a bus home, and maybe come up with a solution to their problem. in november they were clamoring for the government to lower unemployment, and now they’re hollering that the government’s out to demolish workers’ rights.
     and all of this unfolds just when spring shows its face. of course the students don’t show up for class – they’re in the parks and at café tables, drinking beer with their sunglasses propped in their hair. there’s your spirit of resistance, france. bravo.

     the world is slow to warm. if I could, I’d chafe its ankles, get the blood flowing so it could take off on its own, set off running towards summer with us all hanging hopefully, gratefully on.
     spain was not warm, despite our swollen hopes. madrid felt like snowing on annie and me, so we adapted : three gargantuan museums and a royal palace filled our daytimes and our eyeballs, kept our toes warm, provoked long silences and good discussions. our luck in good finds held, with one exception (a fruitless quest for nun-ufactured candy) – a ham museum offered ambiance and cheap beer, teeny taperias provided cafe con leche and tender tortilla sandwiches, the botanical gardens wielded tenacious crocuses and cabbages.
     in malaga we reigned from an empty hostel. the first night we shared the facilities with twelve kids from everywhere, USA, who were quite nice and spent the evening drinking and playing catchphrase. just outside our door was the square where the youth of malaga meet in the evening for a ritual called the “big bottle.” not much imagination is required to guess what goes on there. we were only sad to be so near people our age, yet incapable of talking to them. in the absence of buddies to speak spanish for us, we battled valiantly with big gestures and big smiles. it was truly a great trip.

     I am in paris this week-end. during what other period in my life will I be able to look up from my armchair by the window and say to myself, “I think I feel like paris this weekend,” and three days later find myself nibbling mère poulard cookies on a shuttle flight to the city of lights? granted, the state of my bank account doesn’t really permit this kind of folly even now, but in terms of the distance and relative cost of fluttering off from paris, there will never be a more opportune time. with this logic in mind, I decided to take advantage of ned’s invitation and the coincidence of harmony, ellen and julie’s trip to paris… and here I am. ned and I hit the market this morning, harmony and I starbucks this afternoon. when I left the girls on the champs-élysées, I decided to head back to ned’s on foot rather than by metro. I discovered that the dazzling effect of the ‘city of lights’ is amplified on chilly, windy evenings because the eyes water unceasingly.
     so tonight we had a very good dinner and made plans to do some flea marketing in the morning. this is exciting, but will require a good jolt of caffeine or maybe a swig of vodka, which a kid from uzbekistan told me is what they drink there instead. anyway, the point is not the drinking but the victory over the chill.

     the rest of the film festival was rather great. I think biarritz might have had as many video cameras as inhabitants that week. at one point I pulled out my digital camera to film people who were filming students filming an interview of film students. cameras must have some magnetism that calls other cameras to it.
     the people at the festival were as interesting as the films we saw. some of them were probably sorry they couldn’t just turn their lives into films. some of them already had, and were there to try to sell the film. sue and I made some quite excellent, quite grounded friends from ireland. I also met a really sweet but apparently very depressed japanese girl with whom I’d have talked if we understood each other. then there was jeremy, very nice and very typical of the type of person you’d expect to meet in the biz – full of connections, full of fantastic propositions, etc. I hope he’s not full of hot air because he offered me a spot translating at another festival in march. we’ll see what becomes of that.
     my dreams of istanbul have been postponed once again. instead, winter break will see me head south and west in search of the sun. annie and I are going to madrid and malaga, then spending a brief daylong hop in brighton with the hiants. I keep picturing us in the spanish sun, wearing white linen sundresses and sipping tinkly icy drinks. then I remind myself that it will be february and therefore not at all like my dreams.
     speaking of dreams, mine keep on being weird. last night I went to some odd sort of family reunion where my whole family was taking shots together, I had to sit on the ground outside against a wall, and the only thing to eat was blueberry pancakes. there was some sort of disagreement about the music to play, cousins I had never met kept showing up and asking me for pancakes which I didn’t have… the whole thing left me feeling disconcerted and a little frustrated.
     the good thing about weird dreams is that you wake up from them. the good thing about a fun life is that it’s what you wake up to. I’ve got a fun life, and boy, am I thankful. it’s getting easier and easier to make each day awesome. today I quit going to a class I didn’t like and picked a random amphitheater. the new class, “alternative forms of political participation,” is excellent. afterwards I met up with katie to get some fresh-roasted, fresh-ground coffee – one of the best purchases I’ve made here in france. we girl-talked away the afternoon until she floated away for a rendez-vous and I met up with three marvelous dickinson friends for some improvised home-cooked dinner. it was great.
     oh, how french I have become while remaining incorrigibly, fundamentally american. I wear my scarf wherever I go; say, “bonjour,” reflexively whenever I enter a store; bise the world (the little kiss greeting); keep one eye on the sidewalk for dog poop; tear my hunk of bread from the loaf and toss it aside on the table; and cluck at the passage of SUVs with the little old ladies. dinner with friends is the old standby tarte-salade combo, wine, a mandatory baguette for sopping up whatever the fork can’t spear, and fruit and yogurt for dessert. however, our conversation inevitably hinges on our american syndome, the awkward encounters and minor complaints that accumulate in drifts to our knees. it doesn’t take long to rework your wardrobe or adopt a foreign greeting, but the little trials and discoveries feel endless. I’ve started to take a lot of things for granted here, such as the futility of asking university secretaries for anything. but despite understanding and even resigning myself to the peculiarities of franceland, they still feel distinctly foreign. knowing how to navigate a place doesn’t make it familiar.
     I intend no negativity when I say I still feel foreign. that’s part of what I love about being here; although people sometimes mistake me for french these days, I haven’t lost what makes me american, or in any case what makes me not french. voluntarily or not, people tend to make the goal of their stay abroad the assumption and total assimilation of the culture they’re in. nevertheless, what interests me the most about a stay abroad is the particularity that everyone brings to their foreign country and the critical perspective that this allows them. then, returning home, they can re-evaluate their home as well. an assessment of the place you live is like a film critique: broader experience with the genre helps you situate things and see how they relate to similar productions. the trick is deciding in which language your final version will be.

     so 2006 is off to a roaring start. we threw another party this saturday which, in my humble opinion, surpassed the previous one in hilarity, random encounters, noise level acceptability, and quality of beverages. all week pat plotted large-scale sangria production. he purchased the biggest receptacles that our fridge could hold, speculated about the suitability of the veggie drawer for sangria storage, and recruited katie to help bring home the jugs of red wine and sacks of fruit. for two days our fridge was occupied by two giant vats of fragrant nectar; a third squatted on our kitchen table, teasing us at lunch. for two days we took pleasure in periodically plucking chunks of apple from the bowls to “verify the absorption” of the alcohol. I’m not sure how much he made – twenty litres? thirty? everyone loved it but we still woke up to a giant bowlful of leftover on sunday morning. next time we’ll either have to up the guest list, up the consumption, or maybe just moderate our expectations. I can’t imagine how they’ll get all of that stuff off their hands this week while I’m gone.
     I am, in fact, gone this week. I’m reporting from a room with portable walls and zero windows in the basement of a casino in biarritz. the atlantic is licking the rocky basque coast a handful of meters from me, but these goofy removable walls are blocking my view of it. so I’ve been knitting all morning, waiting for someone to pass me an article to translate. we’re writing a daily newspaper documenting the happenings of the FIPA, a film festival that’ll run all week. it’s a potentially exciting project, but so far all I’ve done is get sick and make runs for coffee. both of those are done now, so I’m killing time by making you kill time on this wordy journal entry.
     it’s surfaced in my mind lately that I’m doing it, I’m becoming an adult. I’m doing things I love, standing on two feet, steamrolling bumps in the road, etc. when I look at my life with a little bit of distance, I recognize that I’ve been unconsciously amassing big and little wonders. I’ve realized that somehow I’ve come by some small experience and opinions, which only adds to my eagerness to keep on living and looking forward. so much is left to happen!

     the goal of throwing a party saturday night was, originally, to get to know the spring crop of dickinson kiddies. however, the fear of not having enough invités and the prospect of being responsible for a soirée supergé led me to open the guest list to, well, pretty much everyone I know. pat made a few calls, the two of us made a few party supply runs, sue and I spent the afternoon making dips, and thus the success of the soirée was assurée.
     I in my hot new digs, gin & tonic in hand, and pat sporting an open-collared chemise and preening at having found actual ICE for drinks, we coaxed the party to life. soon it was taking care of itself, opening its own door to newcomers, serving its own drinks, breathing and beating and mounting in volume. we opened the windows to let the revelry reverberate around the stairwell, stashed a few choice bottles on the balcony, and let ourselves go. it was good. trak from dartmouth revealed dignity-shattering secrets, annie made a german connection, pat mistook our neighbor’s wife for a hooker, achile went quietly (abnormal for him) insane (totally normal for him)… the night progressed. empties took over every flat surface. the apparition of our previously-unmet (though often-overheard) neighbor, his posse, and their two bottles of jack signaled the end of the alcohol and the departure of most of the people who had actually been invited. the supplies of bread and hummus dwindled along with my ability to stay conscious. as I shuffled off to get some good dodo at 4 AM, I was amazed to hear pat saying, “c’mon, eiko, time for shots. you and me.”
     I’d call saturday a great end to a not at all great exam week. I’d also call it a promising start to a new year of confidence and making things happen. the list of things to live here in toulouse is long, the time to live them short!

     it’s been crazy dream city these days. it might be that I’ve changed bed every few days for the past few weeks. it might be that I’m opening my spirit to a higher dimension. maybe it’s indigestion.
     cooler than dreaming is LIVING. especially these last couple of weeks. good things. 2005 went out with a bang, 2006 came in with a kapow, and I’m all for rendering that motion perpetual. c’est parti.
     finals have begun. there’s a good sentence. do professors feel badass or something, writing questions that aren’t questions? why else would they do such a thing? “limites de la fonction d’agenda?” that’s not a question. good thing you’re not a prof de lettres, eric.
     well, before I bid you a postmature good night (it being well past my bed time) I would like to declare the klub des loosers fun, but whoa, are they vulgar.

     brighton is unreasonably warm. unreasonably in that it is unreasonable that such a haven from the bone-cracking cold exist and that I not inhabit it. since I can’t live here, though, I shall savor the few days I’ve got before returning to the poorly-heated, drizzly toulousain chill.
     hianta and I spent our week in spain treading water, dreaming of internet connections and immoderate shopping blowouts. then, at last, we hit the highway for barcelona and the first of our anticipated spending sprees, only to be foiled in our mission to empty our pockets of their euros. the boutiques were boring, the winter collections uninspiring, the promising-looking hair salons booked solid. we consoled ourselves with a couple of book purchases and a long stint in a smoky cafŽ.
     london weather delayed our flight to gatwick but we made it, finally, through customs and into the arms of kris, who had been waiting for us all day (having forgotten when we’d be arriving, where from, and on what airline – and without any way to contact us, since we’d neglected to give her our numbers). then we trundled away to brighton, where we’ve been spoiling ourselves on each other’s company for the past few days.
     our plan for the new year was simple : the ocean rooms would provide the place, justice and pedro winter the tunes, and we the hotness. hianta managed to get us v.i.p. access and a couple of free tickets. how was the party? join me in an orgy of pseudo-ghetto party praise – it was crunk, off da hook, bangin’, phat, fly. just after midnight the basement was exhibiting some unrealized party potential. pedro and friends were making a half-hearted effort to get things dancing. clutching the evening’s first round, we headed for the front of the club and got into it. that’s all it took – for the next four hours we stamped out the old year, let the new one slide in over our heads and around our hips. justice and pedro kept us pulsing ; they probably could have cradled us there indefinitely, but when their last beats dwindled, so did our interest in dancing. we took our leave of the club and the people we had danced with, hobbled homeward through streets peppered with noisy well-wishers, chattered about sore feet and the house party cum fireworks bonanza which we thought awaited us at hianta’s. all that greeted us at the apartment, however, was a forelorn party hat, so we collapsed in a cloud of contentment and waited for sleep.