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And I mean flushed in the non-bathroom sort of way Weighing my pockets with stones of longing |
It having been a little over a month since I arrived in this country, I thought it a prudent idea to try and make some record of my new life and situation through photography. So to that purpose I woke up at 6:30 in the morning and struck out on the town. Much to my relief, I successfully beat the crowds--generally if anyone is around, be they living or otherwise engaged, I get much too embarrassed to risk exposing my possession of a digital camera, let alone disrupt the environs with a blinding flash. I made quick work of my memory card assembling photos of the walks I take on a daily basis and details of some of the local architectural marvels. Eventually I plan to put together a virtual tour of central Narbonne, but I am waiting on some key photos from Kate and some more efficient way to transfer my masterpieces to the world wide web. I expect to have something up, at least, by the beginning of next week. There is one photograph that I much regret not getting, however. Up on the Rue when I first got here one of the stores was having a liquidation sale, and in huge painted letters on one of their windows was written the phrase: "Tout doit disparaitre" or "Everything must disappear." I found the expression surprisingly profound, but sadly it too, like everything, had to go, and before I got a picture of it. It was a beautiful morning for a walk today, and the only disadvantage to avoiding the masses was missing the splendor of afternoon lighting in this town, and showing how lively a place--and full of dogs--it actually is. I think that the number of dog-like gargoyles says something about this as an historical phenomenon. I stopped by les Halles (the covered market) which is probably the only thing in the region open on Toussaint. I felt shocked, disappointed, and slightly responsible to see that there was a shortage of rose turkish delight at the specialties stand. So far my supply of (or at least demand for) loukoum has been so constant that it warranted buying a special container for them--my celebratory splurge on discovering that I finally got the pay advance I'd requested. Now if I can just figure out how to properly fill out a French check, I can pay my rent. Anyway, since there was no delight of the turkish variety to be had, I bought some bananas and fuji apples and headed home. On my way across the liberty bridge, a rowdy group of Narbonnais boys free from school came by and bid me good morning in the true rowdy French boy fashion. Now, Frenchmen, it should be said, can be every bit as smarmy as American men can be, if not more forward since historically they have such great success with women, but they are sneaky about it. They'll start out by saying "Bonjour, mon coeur" or something equally poetic to bait you into feeling nostalgic for the days of chivalry, and by the time you've recovered your senses enough to start regretting that creeping blush, they hit you with a slew of other lines considerably less formal, and by the end of it you wish a) that you'd taken judo in college and b) that such impolite discourse didn't sound so conflictingly flattering in French. All I can say is thank God I heard them coming early enough to put away my camera. A few feet later I ran into my friend Will, recently returned from visiting his family in England. Will, I've noticed, is actually quite a lot like Theo, only with the addition of a British accent and minus the video game/gang wrestling tendency. He is an intent, almost intense, listener, a philosopher by nature, appreciative, and he has long eyelashes, frequently sports a hooded sweatshirt, and he and Theo appear to have trained under the same dance choreographer. A very noteworthy difference I should add just to give a deeper dimension to Will's psychological profile is that Will is an incredibly and vocally anxious, self-conscious driver. It would have been quite funny if we hadn't been in the car he was driving at the time I discovered this. No worries, though, since his nervousness turned out to be unfounded, and everything went fine, except that time his car broke down. I hypothesize that he has developed an overactive guilt complex built on his own fear of the unreliability of his vehicle, now confounding what is simply faulty technology with his own personal failings. Will also frequently sings the praises of any male seen with more than one female companion in any given period of time, especially Wilson, the salsa king assistant from Ecuador, but that is neither here nor there. I exchanged bisous with Will, bid him adieu, and at last headed home around 9:00. My day after that disappeared in a blur of photo weeding, knitting and snack foraging. I did manage to finish my budget balancing for the month, did some decorative artwork involving shells, bamboo, and a spare piece of fabric, sewed a curtain for the front of my shelving unit, and tackled the colossal tower of dishes left after last night's eating marathon. The greatest gift/moral dilemma brought by living alone must be not having anyone to shame me into taking breaks in my constant feeding. Last night's dinner included a family-sized can of corn, a whole can of ravioli bourgognaise (a guilty pleasure--I love it even though it turns my mouth orange), one fourth of a bottle of wine, one fourth of a large box of crackers, four slices of heavily buttered toast ("just checking to make sure the toaster works"), a croissant containing all that was left in the jar of Nutella (a considerable amount--I applied it by the spoonful), all followed up with a jar of lemon yogurt. I feel that despite my weakness for ravioli (I had it again tonight, though accompanied by a plethora of other things) and sugary processed cereals that remind me of Dad (Frosted Flakes, Smacks, etc.) my forays into the culinary world are becoming significantly more sophisticated, which in this country basically means adding wine or wine-related products to everything. My snack of choice has gone from those artery smiting chips � l'ancienne to canned chick peas; I have salads with complicated wine-vinegar dressings, and today I tried out a 17th century toast recipe involving a paste made from sugar, cinnamon, and wine. Yes, there are recipes for toast. Also, I find that eating by candlelight adds a hint of romance while lightening up the electricity bill. A last note: I have discovered God's gift to closet-apartment dwelling 20-somethings: Leader Price brand cr�me caramel. It tastes like flan and butterscotch pudding had the most delicious baby. So good that if you brought it in your school lunch and accidentally dropped some on the cafeteria table, you would consider licking it off. Well, as Paul would say, "That is too much about trains, I think." Lately I've taken to spending my "down time," i.e. most of my time, dreaming up potential future careers. Few are actually plausible, but the fantasy alone leaves me pretty chipper. The last week palaeography topped the charts, but my toast got me thinking how great it would be to interpret and reconstruct historical recipes. Unfortunately, I don't think most medieval Betty Crockers were literate, so the manuscript reading element might be a bit reduced, but a girl can dream, right? Seeing as I now have convinced even myself that my life revolves pathetically around food, I'm off to actually work for a bit; hopefully I will have some lesson plans ready by this time tomorrow night.
Nothing starts the day like a little harassment. at 6:28 p.m.
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