Post where I shamelessly plug my new writing location, which is already more successful than the previous one.

I have a website! And a cool handle for my online presence that gives me an excuse to look at and use lots of pictures of outer space: Gravity Gerbil!

I am again blogging about my adventures and fiascos, back in the home of the brave, and just because I speak the language does not mean I know what is going on! (Au contraire, mon frere!*)

Anyway, Gravity Gerbil talks about the same stuff as Lise, but also some projects and other stuff I like to think about. Check it out!


* Want accents? Use your imagination. I am once again a lazy American.

poste la vingt-quinzième, dans laquelle we look toward the future

soooo, here is the mysterious special wonderful surprise i promised all you internetsters out there: I HAVE ANOTHER BLERG. that's right! the fun is not over, no no, THERE'S MOAR.

I want to tie up a few loose ends on here at some point, like the harry potter and apocalypse posts I promised a while ago, but in the meantime, my life is continuing and the adventures* just keep coming!

So here you go:

Clare on the loose! It might be more than you can handle.

You're welcome. Blergging wouldn't be blergging without a little self-love, after all!

and a Joyeux Noël to you all!

- clarebear

*this is a loose definition of adventures, since most of the time i talk about either nothing or very mundane things, or things that are not even real but merely my misinterpretations of reality. anyway.

poste la vingt-quatrieme, dans laquelle we were there to learn, so here's what i've got.

In no particular order, the first 10 things I thought of:

1. date a bartender or waiter, or be friends with someone who's dating one, or just go out with cute flirty girls. you will get free drinks.

2. clothes dryers are SO convenient (because you can wake up and realize you have no clean clothes, and just be like, hey let's hang out 2 hours later I need to do laundry, instead of like, hey let's hang out 24 hours later or in our pajamas/birthday suits bc I need to do laundry), but it is nice not to have to re-break in your clothes every time you wash them.

3. it's not that hard to turn off the shower except when rinsing, and once you get used to it you will feel profoundly guilty every time you don't.

4. avoid trying to replicate american idioms in french. it gets awkward. (see the last section of this post)

5. everything is better with sesame seeds, including nutella paninis and spaghetti. just sayin'.

6. you can speak authentic french indefinitely without actually saying anything: 

7. sometimes when a creepy guy asks if you and your (girl) friend are a couple, it's not a bad idea to say yes.

8. i am probably not the next adele. or beyonce. however, that is measured in terms of talent, not in terms of how much heart i put into feeling the music. if that were the contest, i would win.

9. the french make pretty tasteless french fries. (the greeks, on the other hand, know what's up!)

10. dancing is best when done on tables and when you have lots of feelings, and when you know the words if there are any. (but we knew that one already!)

I'm home now, and I have a few more posts coming, things I meant to write about but never got around to but are so hilarious or significant I feel it would be a grave disservice to deprive you all of these stories. Also I had big adventures on my way home including a surprise stay in Iceland. Stay tuned, THERE'S MOAR! (potentially including some fahncy media stuff like PHOTOS, VIDEOS, and a special surprise really wonderful thing! AH PROMIZ!)

love from Seattle at last,
Clarebear

As I fell asleep finishing my French vocab list last night...

To appreciate the following, it is not necessary to understand french; they don't make much more sense even if you know what the words mean!


adouber – intégrer, adopter, we chatted, but the class sis not move quiet en

Tu as eu a borrne weekend !– un mauvais reinse

le sang neuf – personnes qui quie sont morte.

un feuj – personne juif (personée in English) 

=> this one is impressive because I have no idea how to make that little box thing when I'm awake!

...And the accompanying email to the prof (take 1):

Voila mes vocabulaire. Desolee our no fair voetre consiocnsiouc

(take 2):

Voila mes vocabulaire. Je suis desolee parce wu'ils seon tun boe thinee1

and finally:

Voila ma vocabulaire. Je suis désolée parce elle est en retard.

...close enough. For those of you who don't know, I have a history of typing nonsense as I fall asleep working and not noticing when I wake up that I did not in fact fill that last half-page with intelligent writing. This spring I ended a reading response in my language and gender class with a half page of nonsense and then the winning quote "Thanks for all your coaching! :)". Thank goodness that professor had a sense of humor!

Love y'all,

Clare

p.s. please observe the increase in content production the farther i get into finals week. enjoy it, because i am suffering over here!

p.p.s. i just checked out my final version from last night...uh-oh. sending in corrected version before my prof reads it i hope!

poste la vingt-deuxième, dans laquelle we revisit some of "our" "favorite" topics.

1. UMBRELLAS. (points for not swearing!)

So on Friday night, I went up the Eiffel Tower. Awesome, sparkly, obnoxious PDAs, etc. Also, a gift shop. Several actually, on each level of the tower. Obviously one of the worst places to buy something if you care about not getting ripped off, right? Well. Guess what? The freaking EIFFEL TOWER/PARIS -THEMED umbrellas (cuter/more interesting/a better souvenir than my plain black one) AT THE TOP OF THE TOWER were CHEAPER than my dumb boring overpriced MONOPRIX one! GRRRAAAAAGGGGGHHHH! and the difference was significant; at least two nutella paninis worth. but I am done.

2. DOORS. Sometimes a challenge, sometimes AWESOME.

AWESOME:
Many many weeks ago, in the distant corners of this blog and my mind, I didn't know how to open the door of my apartment building. WHATTT?! I realize this is absurd, je me smh.* Anyway, one day I came home and waved my weird little key thing at the weird little key thing reader, reaching for the handle to pull the door open. Suddenly, BEFORE I TOUCHED IT, the door swung open towards me! ALL BY ITSELF. Naturally, the first thing that comes into my Roald Dahl-reading, Harry Potter-loving brain is that I moved it with my mind! I am Matilda! My Hogwarts acceptance letter delivery owl really did just get lost in the Seattle cloud cover! This approximately 2 second period (which is 1.75 seconds longer than it really should have been) was one of the greatest moments of my life. Unfortunately, then reality caught up to me (or I caught up to it), and I realized that en fait it was the weird little key thingy that now triggered the door to open automatically because of our neighbor who uses a wheelchair. What a letdown.

CHALLENGE:
So, just when I thought I was really getting good at going in and out of places using those flaps they call doors, I have a really embarrassing moment. Or just like, how do I function in the world when I am une centimètre from doing things like this ALL THE TIME? Good question.

So half of last week was this awkward time where my NaviGo, my metro pass, wasn't usable because November had ended and I didn't want to pay the weekly price for 4 days. So I bought a carnet and just tried to beat the system whenever no one was looking. (don't tell!) Well, I really wanted my (rawther expensive) tickets to be reusable, so I put an old one into the machine, and after some fiddling around, the turnstile let me go through. Success! you might be thinking. No my friends, not success. There is a flap thing (enough like a door to be in this post) on the other side of the turnstile to thwart stingy people like me, which did not believe my invalid ticket and did not open. But I had my bag and (6 21 3 11 9 13 8) umbrella with me and was generally taking up space inconveniently, so to put it simply, I was stuck. I couldn't go backwards, I couldn't go forwards, and I couldn't move around enough to go over or under. Hmm.

This was the relatively quiet stop of Assemblée Nationale, so there was no one around to swipe their funtional NaviGo and give me a hand...even the ticket window was empty! I spent a good 30 seconds in this position. Evetually I managed to turn around to face the window and realized there was someone in the room behind the booth, so I threw away all dignity and began yelling "EXCUSEZ-MOI!" until she came into view and pushed a magical button to release me (sans billet!) into the underground kingdom of the Paris Métro. In retrospect, I could have coughed up another ticket from my carnet and gotten the door to open that way, but (1) I wasn't going to do that unless it was an emergency and (2) I was only interested in glamorous escape strategies, like shouting at strangers until they come to my aid.

Always use the buddy system,*
Clare

* franglinternetish for I am shaking my head at myself.
* ask me in person for a non-blog material (this was another low point in terms of my dignity level) story about why we use the buddy system. potty humor included.

ALL OF THE MUSIC, all of the wine, and a little bit of cornstarch.

(the old naming convention was constricting so i flexed the gray thing in my head that is stronger than any of my muscles except maybe my heart or my tongue depending on how you are measuring, and my skull cracked in two and the title template was written under my hair and now the words are just floating out)

seriously people, who needs drugs when you've got music? and that music doesn't even need to be drug-induced-experience-inspired? NOT ME. that's who. (and now you have the blog entry i carved out of a very trippy train of thought while listening to some crazy music last night. i think it is mostly coherent and empty of awesome synesthetic imagery)...

so tonight, i left french class, full of wise thoughts, namely the realization that my current french professor's teaching style reminds me of one of my high school teachers' teaching styles, and consequently i find myself actively having to fight the urge to turn into the mischievous nightmare i used to be in some of my classes. i have driven more than a few teachers absolutely crazy...

anyway, my destination was another magical exposition at the Porte de Versailles: an exposition of vignerons! a giant room full of ALL THE WINE. all the winemakers were there, over 1000, and my friend's host mom had a bunch of free tickets, so we went and had a little pre-dinner drink. I learned some fahncy wine words and tasted several actually tasty wines, including a fantastic (read: very drinkable) rosé. we got there towards the end, and unfortunately no one met another ice cream boy, but it was fun and now that i like wine, tasty.

life update: the parents leave tomorrow morning early, (well now it is tomorrow...tuesday morning) and i leave on the 11th. i think. SEATTLE: i will be there dec 12-jan 4ish. HOLLER AT ME!
also finals are next week -- what??

well without my musical ramblings, i feel like this is a sandwich with no guts, so, empty bread...oh well. i'm sure you have many other fun internet things to amuse yourself, so i'm not worried. if anyone is lacking in this department and likes cute things, queer things, music, or musings, i've got connections...

and now i am off to dream happy dreams...or else more apocalyptic dreams where tiny crabs take over the world (hello saturday night)...

CLARE

OH p.s. I JUST REALIZED WHAT WAS MISSING! the cornstarch.

on friday during our mad cooking frenzy, dad sent mom and i to the store with a grocery list including cornstarch. since we have not yet covered obscure food items in french 23 this quarter, he helpfully google translated it and gave us the french. OH THANK YOU. so when, after scouring the first franprix (that's right, there's MOAR), we enlisted the lady a la caisse to help us, she had no idea what "amidon de maiz" was and neither did any other french person in the store (she asked them all). Dear Dad, Google Translate is a Bad Idea. as someone who has not taken a language class since it was created, you may not be aware of this, but the french people you talk to will be. so we called the padre and he used wordreference.com (good decision dinosaur) and we learned (remember, we are here to learn) that en fait they just use the most common brand name, Maizena. at this point mom and i decided we could not set foot back in the first franprix for at least a few hours til there were different people working, so we walked like 5 blocks to the next one (they are everywhere; there are two within 3 blocks of my apartment) and when i asked for the Maizena, it was as though we spoke the same language, and i was in and out of the store in under 3 minutes. SUCCESS!

also, mommy ingeniously remarked that it "seemed to her" that if we took the diagonal road instead of one that went down straight and then made a right-angle turn, we would get to the same place and it would be faster, and guess what?? SHE WAS RIGHT.

mind == blown.

(i love you mommy!)

poste la vingtieme, dans laquelle we conclude our liveblog

11:15 pm: All our guests voted for our home-cooked pumpkin pie over the ridiculously expensive pumpkin pie from the Thanksgiving store (even if our crust did stick to the bottom of the pan).

11:45 pm: Mom: "Clarie! where's the blog?"
me: "ummm, on the internet?"
mommy: "No I know but is it in the bedroom?"
me: "well, it is if there is a computer in the bedroom..."
mommy: "oh good. I need to go defend myself, I'm just sure of it!"

12:30 am: I fall asleep while Mom sits on the next bed "rebutting" and laughing to herself at all her clever jokes.

11:00 am: WOW we slept in. Also I had nightmares and scared mom. Also we have a lot of dishes to do!

SUMMARY:
Success! We wined and dined (thanks to a bottle of wine from each of my frands and some delicious cheese from the host fam, and oh yeah, everything we made), and generally had a grand affair. Some of my favorite parts were mom's French phrases and the pie competition. I actually could not tell a difference between ours and the one we bought once they were covered in ice cream, although as my host mom said, "There is a very big difference between them. Yours is better!"

poste la dix-neuvieme, dans laquelle we do THANKSGIVING!

For this special event, we will be liveblogging throughout the day, a combined effort from Toodles, mah mommeh and me.

So, to give un peu de background infoz, my parents arrived in Paris Wednesday afternoon, and after a delicious dinner of Indian food on Thanksgiving proper, we are now in the process of creating an American Thanksgiving feast in this awesome (but completely empty of all relevant foodstuffs) Parisian apartment they are staying in, for my host family and a few Stanford friends.

10:30 am: Madre et padre wake up late, freak out that we don't have enough time, and go shopping. (I was in class) Mommeh here:  Make that wake up at 10:30, realize that we have  overslept by two hours and now only have 1 hour to do all our shopping because we are supposed to meet Clare at 12:30 across town to go to lunch with some friends  We race to he market where we hunt for things like cinnamon which is not called cinnamon but cannelle...so no store personnel knows what Paul is talking about and we have to search the entire spice section until Paul finds a picture of a cinnamon stick on the  front of the jar.  We race back to the apartment, unload the groceries, then race to the metro and rush to meet Clare.  Whew! We meet up with her as planned only to learn that our lunch with friends has been cancelled. Next trip we are bringing a cell phone that works in Paris.

12:30 pm: We meet up near the Thanksgiving store (it is literaly called Thanksgiving) and get some key ingredients they don't sell at Franprix, including a can of pumpkin guts, and an actual pie in case Mom and I are as bad at baking in French as Dad expects. So, thusly armed, we make our way back to the apartment with a couple other critical stops: ice cream for Mom, YOP and cookies for me, and a sandwich for Dad.

2:15 pm: Having decided we are taking too long to eat lunch, Mom comes in with the pie crust wrapper asking confusing questions to make us think she knows what she is doing, but when asked if she read the (French) directions, she comes up with a million ways to avoid saying no without actually saying yes either. Dad to the rescue, while I started the blog. I'm off to make sure the oven didn't explode when they turned it on to preheat. [Excusez-moi...for the record, my questions were not confusing.  Clare and Paul were just not following my quick thinking and talking. I blame it in on the fact that Paul is still jet lagged and Clare has has been speaking French for the past several months and can't follow my sophisticated brilliant English.]  (for the record, the brilliant English speaker just had to ask me how to spell "brilliant" to form that insulting and evidently false statement) For more record--the Stanford student has spells literally interestingly, ne c'est pas? pff. (1) you were rushing me, and (2) both your French and your English are questionable in that sentence.  BTW, I hope all readers take note that I was the only person not dilly dallying eating my lunch but was instead out in the kitchen starting the pumpkin pie...the first real work in the kitchen today in preparation for this feast.  Just saying.

2:25 pm: me: "Mom, can I show you how to do the blog?"
mommy (in her focused voice): "I can't right now honey, I'm at a CRITICAL JUNCTURE in my pie!" [And a fine looking pie it is, if I do say so myself...so far anyway.]

2:35 pm: mommy (gleefully): "Honey, I'm being a chef!!"

2:40: Paul: Your mother has pie on the wall! [Note: great cooks have to be creative and free form in the kitchen. So says the master pie maker]

2:45 pm  Indigo girls playing as our Thanksgiving background music.

3:00 Panic moment--4 hours till people arrive. Clare and I are off to buy some missing ingredients for the gravy, wine and something else that I have already fogotten. (This was a bit optimistic, we have not left yet 15 minutes later) (3:22): They've yet to leave--Annie is headed to the shower....well, yes, looking presentable for company is just as important as cornstatch for gravy, wouldn't you agree?

3:07 pm: Mommy has started talking like a blog. I remarked upon the fact that she has been sitting at the computer for a while (as the cooking gets going) and she shrieked (excusez-moi encore: I do not shriek--ever!), "Would you write that down so I can rebut that, please?!" And after saying we need to have a sense of urgency, she added "which is one my favorite phrases". Well let me tell you: as her comparatively slow-moving family members, we are already VERY aware that it's her favorite phrase!  It's  only a favorite phrase because of my slow-moving family!

3:17pm Paul here.  I am not used to having so many sous-chefs; I hope that too many cooks don't spoil the broth! RUDE. Clare's occasional experience as head cook at Columbae is showing! Cranberries are cooking. Dressing is partially made. Clare is cutting broccolli before heading to the market for gravy ingredients. Nothing here is quite the same. The oven control has numbers as opposed to degrees.  Everything is measured in metric and often by weight rather than volume.  The ideas of cups and ounces and teaspoons are foreign to the French, naturellement!  It makes things challenging, but fun nonetheless. D'accord--back to work.....

5:23pm Cranberry sauce done, dressing ready to go in, sweet potatoes ready to go in, tian partially assembled, broccoli cut up. Clare and Annie are off trying to buy wine.... Still to go--mashed potatoes, gravy, and final push. ca. 2 hours til showtime! 

6:26 pm: word from the host fam: they are en route! bathroom decluttering, tablesetting, wine opening! EXCITING! Mom thinks our pie is "going to win." :)  Wait till you see the pictures! Clare, you are going to post a picture, right? yes mommy, we have to do something with the pictures from that photo shoot of you and your chef d'oeuvre.

6:49 pm: I think the food will be ok, although we just realized there is no potato masher...Mom wants to make everyone take a turn mashing with a fork when they arrive, because as she put it "if I got there and they gave me a task I would be much more comfortable." (um. I don't know what to say to that.) and now she is practicing "French." At least she starts off with "Je ne parle pas francais".. For the record,.I did learn to say "Merci pour tous ce que vous avez fait pour Clare"  and managed to say it (painfully slowly) to Clare's host mother and sister when they arrive.  But I forgot to preface it with the "Je ne parle pas francais" --not a problem since that was immediately obvious as soon as I started talking.

6:53 pm: It's almost GO TIME!

7:00 pm: this is redundant but IT'S 7PM!!!!! remind me not to be a social organizer in my old age. I would certainly have a heart attack. whee!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING +1 everyone!
We love you all!

Check back later for more commentary/details from once cooking got intense! And summary of how the dinner went! Mom is very worried she won't get to finish "rebutting". And Dad has "one quick comment to make on there, lovebug." SO, a toute a l'heure!

(7:03 pm: photo shoot of mommy and her beauuuuutiful pie)

LOVE from Paris,
Annie, Paul, and Clarebear

poste la dix-huitième, dans laquelle our children stop being devils long enough to eat candy and make us laugh

Every Tuesday my friend Andrea and I go teach English to a bunch of extremely hyper, mischievous French children. They are 10, and the past couple weeks they have been little devils. But today a miracle occurred, and we had their undivided attention for an unprecedented length of time. We played bingo with fruit/vegetable/food words, and apparently watching your teachers draw is more fun than recess, because they all huddled around us and watched us finish making the cards in the yard before class. I was told my coloring was beautiful (did you hear that, Andrea??).

Anyway, it was a very successful class overall, and they were behaving really well even before we gave them candy to use in the game, after which we could do no wrong. As we walked downstairs after class, the girls told me that profs who give out candy are very rare and "trop cool" and that we are "très géniale." I hope this means they have forgotten how grumpy we all were after the unhappy anarchy of last week, and that they will continue to behave for another two sessions. Also! They kept calling us "Madame" which I think is a good sign of respecting our authority. So fingers crossed! I learned a bunch of choice phrases for disciplining, including "Tu tais ou tu sorts." so I am prepared, just in case.

A conversation as recorded by Andrea between Rayan, our smart little ladies' man, and Clara, who is well-behaved but secretly sassy:

Rayan: Tu as une 'sheet'?
Clara: Oui. Tu es une 'sheet.'
Rayan: ...
Clara: Tu sais ce qu'est une 'sheet'?
Rayan: Oui je sais! C'est une merde. Je suis pas une merde!
Andrea: Qui t'apprende ce mot??
Clara: Les films...

Andrea to me: We should note that they learned the word shit prior to taking our class. Just saying.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVE, Y'ALL!

- Madame Clare

Poste la dix-septieme, dans laquelle my day is an uphill battle, or, if I were a disney princess, I am doomed to be Snow White :(

So, I think it is time for the renaissance of brevity in this blerg. Which is why I am blergging at exactly 11:41am, before most of the day has happened. And what a day. The first words I heard from the mouth of a real live human being, other than myself or my good friends getting it on in West Hollywood, were "Tu es americaine?" OK, seriously? All I had said to her was "Bonjour!" Honestly, why even try after that?

This was such a depressing start to the morning that I got back into bed and watched another episode of The L Word.

Other super nice things people have said to me in the last 24 hours:

Kristhian: "There's white stuff on your face"
Me: "Where? Did I get it?"
Kristhian: "Oh wait, it's skin."
Me: -_-

Andrea: "Take a bite of my apple"
Me: "I'm allergic! Are you trying to kill me??"
Andrea: "Yes. You're like Snow White!"
Me: "Except I wouldn't wake up after you kiss me..."
Andrea: "What if I kiss you with an EpiPen?"
Me: -_-

And the awesomely intelligent thing I told my host family at dinner last night:

Mere d'acceuil: (in French) "Do you have enough blankets? Are you warm enough in your room at night?"
Me: "Oui, j'ai bien echauffee!" (I have no idea how to spell whatever word it sounded like I said, but I was going for something analogous to "nice and warm", and I think it maybe sounded like that.)

unfortunately, whatever I said can be translated as "yes, I'm nice and CONSTIPATED."

-_-

Clare

poste la seizième, dans laquelle I get ice cream and the anti-rejection! or, yes i am still in middle school, WHAT OF IT?

Hellooooo,

So this one time I studied abroad and hung out in Paris for 3 months and got actual class credit for awesome things. Like staring at naked people while playing with charcoal and ink, speaking English with a bunch of hilarious French kids, and going to a chocolate festival. yes, that's right, a CHOCOLATE FESTIVAL. Featuring a fashion show of CHOCOLATE COUTURE. And it was delicious!

I got to make my own truffle, eat a shitton of free chocolate samples (it was like VegFest, but 100% chocolate). Anyway, after several hours of munching on cacao nibs and olive oil-infused chocolate with the occasional macaron au caramel beurre salé, I decided it was time for some Real Food. So naturally, I decided to get (vanilla!) ice cream (my food options were limited, but let's be real I would always choose ice cream).

My friends and I did not move at the same pace throughout this extravaganza (my spirit animal might be a sneaky tortoise who can't pass up a single sample and ingeniously outfitted her shell with an ice cream machine), so I strolled up to get my frozen and delicious treat by myself. As soon as I made eye contact with the young Frenchman behind the counter, we both grinned (I may have blushed!) and looked bashfully away. Now, my French is not perfect even at the best of times, and when my lips are busy smiling and my voice just wants to come out as laughter, things get even worse. I communicated what I wanted, une boule de la glace au vanille, and he avoided my eyes as he scooped, fighting a losing battle with his face and thus beaming unprofessionally. As he added a final touch, a whole (not sliced into sample sized morceaux) chocolate truffle, his manager, a matronly woman in her 50s, appeared, observed the bejeweled cone, and gave me a significantly raised eyebrow that clearly stated, "you are getting special treatment here, missy."

In a sweets- and Frenchboy-induced euphoria, I went off to find my crowd of non-tortoises and figure out how to get my new friend's number. I finally convinced my friend Andrea that what she most needed to make her happiness complete at that moment was ice cream, so we came up with a sort of game plan, and after spying on the booth until the manager disappeared as well as the other customers, we approached the target.

IRRELEVANT TANGENT:
As a side note, I felt then and feel now as I am writing this, that this is basically what a lot of middle school (and high school, especially if you go to a school where real boys don't exist) is like. Having feelings and watching your crush (or your friend's crush) from afar and whispering about how nervous you are and how cute they are and plotting grand schemes to make them fall in love with you and maybe or maybe not actually carrying them out. Or maybe that was just me. Or more specifically some of my compatriots to whom the term "boy-crazy" has occasionally been applied.

ANYWAY, we went back, she got ice cream, he and I couldn't look at each other or our faces would have split in half, and every time he turned around or bent to scoop more ice cream, she whispered intelligent things I could say to keep the conversation going. (THANK YOU Andrea!) Very intelligent things, like asking his favorite flavor of ice cream, which was actually perfect because it was mine too, coconut. So he gave me a business card with the addresses of all the store's locations around Paris that sell coconut ice cream. And we left.

So, armed with the business card, we marched away, when suddenly I decided to carpe that diem and marched back to speak to him directly. He was bemused to see me again, and I said something along the lines of (I was nervous and French was hard that day, so it was pretty rough), "I am going to go eat that ice cream, do you want to eat it with me?" And he (1) SMILED (duh), (2) said "well if you come to the store then I don't know why not" (!!!!) and (3) CIRCLED THE ONE HE WORKED AT SO I COULD FIND HIM THERE. Not quite a telephone number, but overall a success. Definitely more successful than the first time I was direct about asking someone out, which resulted in a no and some bad decision dinosaurs, although that time I did have their telephone number.

And no, I have not gone to the store to eat coconut ice cream with him, for a host of reasons, actually. (1) It's far, and not actually in Paris proper, so transportation is less convenient (aka I'm lazy). (2) In retrospect and after consulting with other people who were not wearing rose-colored glasses, he may be a bit too young. (snatch!) (3) I am busy, with things I can't even stop doing long enough to blerg about, let ALONE chase dreamy French boys through the ice cream shops of Paris!

...and here I am, in all my post-no-rejection glory:

...exciting, no? As a comment on this photo on facebook reads, "look at me. no wonder he said yes. :P"

I mean, we've already been over my narcissistic tendencies, so I might as well let it all out now, right?

love,

CLARE the ice cream tortoise who goes for it, apparently!

poste la quinzième: a day in the life, dans laquelle I sort of talk about Halloween but mostly talk about nothing. except myself. just sayin'.

Note: jeez this was an incredibly trivial post, but it felt so important at the time. I wrote this on Halloween.

Preface:

I have (clearly) been an apathetic blogger lately. I am tempted to apologize, but then I would be guilty of the hubris* of thinking that this blog matters to anyone, (this assumption on my part is perhaps implied by the fact that I am blogging in the first place, because otherwise I could just use my gurrrnal), and since I really just want to drag everyone I love into the procrastinatorial vortex that is the internet, it would also be a lie. And since I have already admitted my vanity and hubris, let's just continue in that vein by going step by step through my day today.

Good morning, hot vater?:

First of all, I will spare you the details of the highly "relevant" and "interesting" dreams I was having when I woke up, so you should begin this paragraph feeling hopeful that I will be omitting all subsequent inconsequential details as well: this is not the case (cue image of soft feathery hopes being dashed against barnacley shore).

I woke up in a very good mood. This was high point number one of the day, because lately I have been waking up feeling somewhere in the range of neutral, glad-I-didn't-die-in-my-sleep-but-wish-I-didn't-have-to-get-up-yet, to exhausted-by-the-idea-of-looking-at-my-phone-long-enough-to-figure-out-how-to-snooze-it.

I spent the morning pretending to do yoga (unsuccessful because I am sore from climbing*), gurrnaling, and playing with my hair in the mirror while debating such pressing issues as whether or not to cut it at the next (at least 6 weeks distant) opportunity and whether or not to taint this new growth with fuchsia (another extremely pressing decision that will have to be made by sometime mid-winter quarter). Also, eating. I made a chevre and tomato sandwich for breakfast (how Columbaen) that was 18 inches long, and that was only half the baguette (how French)!

(and now we switch into the voice of me a week later finishing this up):

Since it was Halloween, I naturally needed a costume, but since it was Paris I also needed to be stealth*. Parisians do not wear their hearts on their sleeves. I looked in the mirror and realized I was halfway costumed already--wearing a Columbae shirt and looking both very American and very hippie (ie, probably exactly how you picture me in your fondest memories). So, I decided to claim my roots and just dress up as American. (Please don't judge me for this, my insides already have permanent damage from the self-inflicted cringing.) Anyway, I was feeling very good and Clare-y in my most commonly worn outfit (not this quarter but in life these past 3 years)*: my favorite tie-dye Cbae shirt, black jeans (I would have worn gray but the city life had not been kind to them and they were dirty), purple sneakerz, my wonderful effective raincoat instead of the f-ing umbrella, my beloved backpack, and giant emo free store headphones.

I ended up not even needing the rain jacket because it was Stanford weather. I'm not sure what other supposedly blog-worthy stuff happened that day. I went to French class, hung out for a while, and then came back to a night of watching tv in bed. The L Word and I have made amends.

There were some French kids out making noise, I think trying to trick-or-treat...seemed unsuccessful. As I was walking home from the Metro, I was on a particularly dark block and looking at my feet (navigating the minefield of canine and human secretions), when I glanced up at someone approaching me in full witches' robes and hat, and I nearly contributed to the sidewalk sewage before remembering it was Halloween.

And then I ate chocolate pudding in bed and celebrated not going out.

THE END

-Clarebear

* I would like to thank Oedipus and my 9th grade English teacher Ms. Shaddy for teaching me this word.
* This is technically true, but the bigger issue is that, well, I am no longer the class champion in the Sit and Reach...standing up straight is practically a stretch these days.
* Not ninja stealth, more like meta-so-stealth-you-don't-even-realize-I'm-a-ninja stealth. Hypothetically speaking. If I were a ninja, I mean.
* I am blogging about an outfit. WHO AM I??

poste la quatorzième, dans laquelle you peek into my brain and I pretend this is tumblr

Today I found this little gem, The Intimacies of the Urban, which basically captures my trains of thought every time I ride the Metro (aka I think about this general theme A LOT) and how I feel about Paris.

Bonus points if you noticed my pun!

Even moar if you liked it!

Clare the cuddle vaccuum

Poste la treizième, dans laquelle HAI I STILL EXIST AND I HAVE STORIES FOR YOUZ!

HELLO WORLD (<--recycled joke, that was completely unoriginal to begin with)

I AM STILL HERE! IN PARIS! I have lots of fairly valid reasons why I have not written lately, but the most suspense-inducing is that I have been out having adventures to write about on here. And write I shall! I have a midterm next week which will require a Herculean amount of effort to prepare for which means that I am in prime position to be productive on basically every other thing I can work on. So don't give up yet!

I will finally explain the mysterious hints I left a few posts ago, about HARRY POTTER and the APOCALYPSE. and CLIMBING! and PEOPLE, including one real French one of the male persuasion! :P I hope you have not been waiting with bated breath, because you would certainly be dead by now.

A toute a l'heure!
Clare

p.s. I am better at typing without looking at keys now! and this was on a French keyboard no less!!!!! WHEE.

poste la douzième, dans laquelle I HATE IRONY.

I don't like umbrellas.

I did not use them before I lived in Paris where only Americans wear Northface raincoats and everyone and their mother uses an umbrella. But when the forecast turned to Seattle weather but rainier for the foreseeable future, I followed the dripping French crowd to the nearest Monoprix and bought one. MISTAKE #1. Apparently Monoprix (a grocery/clothing/school supply/umbrella/makeup/etc store), which I assumed would be cheaper than someplace like H&M or another clothing/accessory brand store, likes to RIP OFF hapless individuals caught out in the rain. And it was NOT EVEN RAINING yet when I made this purchase. Anyway, the Monoprix brand umbrellas are certainly nothing special, but I could not find one for anything less than 14.90 Euro. Now, since I had never bought an umbrella before because I think they are worthless, I did not have anything concrete to compare this too, but I was pretty sure it was more than I wanted to pay. However, I was wearing a lot of leather (Baens, please forgive me, that is another story and I think it is called The Pearl (or something featuring a hypocrite)) and the weather looked threatening, so I decided to suck it up and buy it, because maybe umbreallas are worth it, I wouldn't know.

When I got to school (dry without help from the umbrella) I asked around for other umbrella-buying experiences, and discovered that the H&M around the corner from school was selling a virtually identical umbrella for the low low price of 6 Euro! Merde!

I ranted about this for a while, but not being familiar with the nuances of returning things in France, I didn't actually do anything about the situation. (Although this weekend I saw an umbrella for only 3 Euro. Damnit Monoprix!) But since then, I have been carrying around that umbrella in my bags, leather or not, so I can at least make use of it. And then today, the first day I forgot to transfer the umbrella between my bags (Mistake #2), IT RAINED. And I, in my soggy down jacket, carrying my mom's leather bag, got soaked. Comme mes enfants français m'ont dit, il pleurait des chats et des chiens.

Aside: Mommy, I would like to take this moment to mention that I sacrificed my left foot to keep your bag dry(ish). I was trying to keep it covered and not looking at my feet, and I stepped into a giant puddle that was really more like a lake. I love you!

And there you have it: irony for the win. I need to go wring out my socks again.

Clare

poste l'onzième: ree-JECK-shun. très impoli.

Bon soir.

Tonight I am here to tell you about the scarring* rejection I faced last week (was it just last week? Time passes so slowly when one is in despair*). As you may or may not be aware, the Stanford Center in Paris is located within an engingeering school, which, like many engineering schools, is full of guys. So when the program staff told us about the language partner program, in which we are each paired with a French student to practice our French and their English and go have delightful, cultural Parisian adventures, they warned us American girls that we would most likely get a boy and that they would most likely treat the necessary exchange of phone numbers as an invitation to call/text excessively, and the obligatory rendez-vous as a date (although with slightly more subtle phrasing). And that, my friends, is exactly what did happen. For MOST of us...

I went down to the "pot", a mixer kind of thing with tiny food, and began a nice if somewhat surfacey (but we just met, what do you expect) conversation with my partner. He was friendly and animated and seemed like a nice guy, but after talking for a few minutes he said he had to leave early to go have dinner with someone and could not go with the group to the Champs de Mars for less-supervised revelry. Ok, fine, we had already exchanged numbers and I wasn't planning to stay for long anyway. Before he excused himself, he had shown me a text from a friend of his who was also at the pot who had apparently been assigned to a "really cute" American girl. My partner got very excited, I assume because he had yet to see a "cute" American girl (RUDE). He then spent the next several minutes trying to get a look at her. We couldn't see who it was, but apparently my partner had not given up. He said goodbye to me and I found another partnerless person to chat with. Then, about 10 minutes later, I looked across the room and saw that my partner was still there, talking to this friend and the "cute girl"!!! * HOW RUDE. He has not called me since, and I do not think we shall be doing anything together. Hmph!

It's ok though, I have moved on. In fact, while passing by the Louvre (how casually Parisian of me) the other day, I fell in love at first sight:

And now I feel this is necessary:
DISCLAIMER: I was not interested in my language partner nor the idea of having someone text me obsessively (phones are expensive here, yo!) nor awkward obligatory rendez-vous. It was The Principle of the thing. (or for those of you twitter tweeties out there (I cringe on your behalf), #sarcasm throughout.)

Riding solo,
Clare

*It is not a real scar, just like my tattoo is not a real tattoo.
*I am not in despair.
*Clarification: she is cute actually, the quotes here are to indicate that I am quoting the text message.

Poste la dixième et demie, dans laquelle, we are still here to learn. Here as in on this website, apparently.

Rereading some recent posts, I learned a few things:

1. Counting is hard. Not only were there some issues (that phrasing indicates I do not take responsibility for these "issues") counting to 1 in the very beginning, but I also went from 10 to 11.5 earlier today (which I do take responsibility for). So to "fix" that (really to make up for it, because let's be real I could just go edit the posts and you would never know), this is 10.5, and shall be followed by 11. I am the queen of logic.

2. I did lie in that post where I said I didn't but then maybe that was a lie in itself (poste 10). I said the french never hug. In fact, there is a very high frequency of "the french hug" on the streets of Paris, which is easy to spot because it is always accompanied by a giant FRENCH KISS. Walking around this city, I see more PDAs per meter than in a high school hallway on Valentine's Day. And I am not just talking about a Holy Names hallway, people. And since it is hard to smoke and kiss simultaneously, although I have seen it done, most couples are not even obscured by a nice private cloud of carcinogens! Inappropriate.

3. This is just a happy tidbit of news. There is a little boulangerie across the street from my appartement d'accueil, and I am now a Regular. The ladies greet me and ask about my day, and they always know what I am going to order: pain au chocolat, and if it is almost lunch, a sandwich (this is a point of awkwardness however, since I do not know the proper name for the sandwich I always get and just discovered it as "the one without meat", which, based on their reactions when I ask for this sandwich, is not its real name.). I also realized that while it is ok to have a few days when you don't really feel like eating food other than chocolate croissants, when you start eating normally again, you should probably cut it down to one croissant a day.

Clare

poste l'onzième et demie, IT'S A PREVIEW PEOPLE.

This is what I have to say:

1. I have witnessed the apocalypse. Twice. And I think my neighbor is a carpenter.
2. I have the most beautiful rainbow-filled planner and lots of markers YAY!
3. I still have not had any wine since being here. I plan to amend this sad state of affairs this weekend in Normandie.
4. I know where Harry Potter really lived.
5. AND I have experienced rejection at the hands of a French boy when I was not even looking for acceptance (or whatever the opposite is) in the first place! I thought they didn't care about anything as long as you are American? RUDE.

Until tonight!

Love,
Clarebear the slow updater.

Poste la dixième, dans laquelle there exist(s?) cheating, lying, and KITTENS! (that were not inspired by KITTENS!), or, thank goodness I no longer have an expander because for a while there I couldn't make a long "ee" sound ("deee-zeee-ehm")

Here is the cheating:

I am too tired to tell you real things right now so I am giving you this: As I have mentioned at least once, the French do not hug. They prefer to kiss--not even each other, just the dirty dirty smoke-filled air around each other's faces. POUR QUOI?? Je n'ai aucune f***ing idée. I miss you all and I miss hugs. HUGZ and KUDDLEZ, especially aggressive Molly-cuddles when she wakes you up in the morning to pet her. So, in lieu of (#franglais, oh god I really hate hashtags, no seriously. what is the point? this is not twitter. I also hate twitter. Not even capital-T worthy, here in my blerg.)...what was I saying? OH, in lieu of tangible hugz and cuddlez, kitteh or otherwise, I give you this. Pretend you are one and I am one, and not only will we be the cutest things ever to exist, we will be CUDDLING!

And without further ado, KITTEHZ:

Smoke rings in the shape of hearts*,

Clare

* Just to clarify, I do not smoke. These are French people's smoke hearts I am offering. I spend my time filling my lungs with albuterol so I can then fill them with oxygen, which unfortunately is smoke-flavored and thus requires more inhaler timez. Albuterol-y exhales in the shape of hearts!

Also, I lied. There was no lying. (Are either of those statements true?)

poste le neuvième, starring SMALL CHILDREN!!! or, the children are the future. watch them and you will be able to open doors and find the communal toilet paper.

I LOVE KIDS. They make me so happy. Sometimes really annoyed/tired/exasperated, but mostly just full of love and sunshine and smiles. SO many smiles. (grown-up French people don't smile. unless they know you. but why would you want to get to know someone who doesn't smile? Je ne comprends pas les français, but what else is new?)

I was having a rough patch and missing people/Bae/kitties/music/HUGZ, but my day turned around today when I got to be a teacher! sort of. I am doing something called an internship (un stage) but it is basically just another Stanford student and I going into a French public school once a week after school to do an English workshop with a group of nine ten-year-olds. We can do pretty much anything, as long as it is in English, fun, and not illegal, etc. (dangit, no climbing the water tower!)

We got to the school a bit early, so we were hanging out in the schoolyard supervising the recess/snacktime before activities started, and I decided I would set a good example (or precedent, since I was the only one paying attention to myself) and do a GPP* before class. I went over to the little building with the bathrooms and the doors weren't marked but both bathrooms were empty so I picked the one that had been pointed out as the girls'. (First of all, there is not toilet paper in each stall, just one giant roll by the sinks...um, what? I definitely did not realize this until another girl came in while I was washing my hands. Oh well.) Anyway, while I was washing my hands, I gazed out at the blacktop, where a group of about five eight-year-old boys was staring at me and laughing. Perplexed, I made a confused face at them, which only made them laugh harder. Now, being laughed at by kids is not a new experience for me, but I usually know why they're laughing. Hurriedly emerging, worried I had gone into the boys' room (despite having seen a girl in there), I asked why they were laughing. As they shrieked and scattered, one stayed long enough to tell me: "We thought you were a boy!"

Oh.

Well, yay for realizing I wasn't? (this reminds me of picking up a prescription this summer at the QFC pharmacy on Broadway (in Seattle's queer neighborhood), when the pharmacist saw my dad's name on the insurance card and asked if I wanted him to change my name in the system to Paul. No thank you, but I appreciate your awareness/sensitivity.)

Clare

* General Principle Pee. Thank you Ro-Ro!