The Land of Squee

 Just read an article called "reasons to get a tattoo" and it listed memories, tributes, and passions.  Check, check, and check.

Welp, that's it.  Unless I get sick of looking at the words written on my foot during the upcoming week, it's gonna get permanent.  As Yvonne pointed out on my last entry, this is what "vivre à en crever" is all about.  It's better to regret something you did do than wonder about something you didn't.  The bad news is I won't be good to go swimming for basically the rest of my time in the US.  The good news is Kelley is stoked about this idea and really ready to drive me to the place.  I googled a bit and kept coming up with the name of a place in Raleigh, and when I asked a friend who grew up here where she wants to get her tattoo done she named the same place.  Apparently it has an amazing reputation.

In France news, I CANNOT GET THE ATLANTA CONSULATE WEBSITE TO WORK to schedule my appointment.  That's basically the only step I have left besides a followup at the doctor on Saturday for my medical form.  I'm SO. CLOSE.  I called them and the phone said to email them so I did that earlier today and now I'm waiting.  I check the site every once in a while, but it WILL NOT WORK.  I hope this is a site malfunction and not a sign that all the appointments are booked for the rest of the summer somehow.  I guess there's no way I can go to a different consulate?  Or make them HURRY UP the visa process?  Ffffff.

I WANT TO BUY A PANINI SPÉCIALE GENIA FROM THE CRÊPE LADY IN THE QUARTIER LATIN FOR TWO EUROS AND FIFTY CENTIMES AND I WANT TO DO THAT ASAP

I WANT TO HEAR THE DING OF MY NAVIGO PASS WORKING

I WANT TO SEE CREEPY DUDES SELLING EIFFEL TOWER KEYCHAINS

 I think I'm entering some kind of rebellion phase that most people go through a lot of years ago.  I want to get out there and go against all my preconceived notions.

It started with the revelation that I like spicy foods.  All my life I've claimed I hated them, but when I was in France Sherry and I went to an Indian restaurant and I ate a whole plate of it.  My mouth was on fire and my nose was running and if I'd been at home I would have thought that meant I was unhappy but I realised that I wasn't.  I enjoyed it.  If I like spicy foods, what other opinions was I wrong about?

We know what happened regarding me and how I almost developed a sex life.  If I'd had one more week... that was another one.

I think that in the past couple of weeks I have finally, finally divorced the judgmental child I used to be.  I knew something was different when I was pouring a glass of wine for a customer at work and suddenly I had no idea why I didn't allow myself to drink.  Sure, I probably wouldn't like the taste, I have obsessive tendencies, I'm afraid of the idea of losing control, but if I started drinking it seems pretty unlikely that I would immediately wind up clutching a bottle in a ditch.  Not saying I plan to start drinking, because I still don't quite see the point of it, just saying... why not, really?

My brother turned 21 on Friday, and on Saturday he called me.  To chat.  He and I have practically been estranged since middle school, but suddenly I get it.  He's NORMAL.  Heck, not only normal, he's a good kid!  Yeah, he went to parties where he drank underage, who knows if he tried drugs or not, but that does not make him a bad kid!  He's a normal kid coming from an uptight family.  Thanks to Paris, I was finally able to break through the walls of rules I'd built around myself and see this.  And while we were talking he started telling me how he almost got a tattoo but he didn't have enough money.

And that was when it really hit home with me... I could go out and get a tattoo.

But I've never wanted a tattoo, I told myself.  But the idea was there.  I could do it.  I have (a bit of) money.  I could just go out and draw something on me that would be there forever.  And why not?

I was musing over it with Chestnut in skype this morning and I wrote something like "I mean, the only thing I'd ever want a tattoo of would be, like, the words 'vivre à en crever' or something, so it's not like I even have a plan" and even as I was typing an argument against getting a tattoo I saw it in the sentence.  "vivre à en crever", the song that changed my life, the words that inspired me to run uninhibited after my dreams, to live the best time of my life and to finally become a person who thought for herself and was proud of what she had accomplished, who she was, and heck, even what she looked like on occasion.

I have been thinking about it for less than a day, but it seems so shiny.  Before leaving Paris I wanted to do something to mark the change in me, to make it official that I wasn't the same.  Up until the last moment I thought that was going to be achieved with the help of a gorgeous Frenchman, but we all know nothing happened.  But this could be it.  I would have it done somewhere I could cover up, though since I hate most of the things about my torso and I never wear shorts or a skirt without tights anything there or on my legs would basically be permanently hidden thanks to my persistent lack of self-confidence.  I think arm tattoos are cliché and I don't want to limit my ability to wear short sleeves in a professional setting.  So... foot tattoo?

Obviously I'm not running to a tattoo parlor tomorrow.  I don't leave the country until August 25th, so I have time to mull it over.  But today at work I wrote the words on my hand (since I was wearing tights and my foot was inaccessible) and just pretending that they were permanent was fun.  Maybe I'm just thrilling in rebelling against the way I was brought up for the first time in my life (not including the time in high school when I dyed my hair darker brown without permission), but there will never be a time when those words don't represent a period in my life when I thoroughly kicked ass and was totally, fully happy.  I've already lived through the worst repercussions of my groupie lifestyle (being broke and going my first weeks and then months without acknowledgement from the Troupe) and I still don't regret an instant of it all.

Anyway, I'm not the type to fully abandon obsessions.  If I had a Les Mis tattoo right now I'd still be proud of it, even though it's no longer a fandom in which I'm active.

I don't know what I'm getting myself into here.  They say foot tattoos are incredibly hard to care for, but I can't imagine getting one anywhere else.  Is there somewhere else?  Apparently ankle tattoos hurt like a mofo.  But like I said, it's a crazy idea and it's less than twenty-four hours old.

Does anybody have a tattoo and have advice on the subject?

 I just changed my religion to "Mozart l'opéra rock" on facebook (which, awesomely, was already a suggestion).

If/when my parents see it, they will not think it's funny.  I'm not convinced it's a joke.  But these are the same parents who, when I had comedic middle names like "Zydrate" and "Lestat" and "Musichetta", asked me if I was doing that because I was ashamed of my real middle name (which is the name of my grandmother who had recently died at the time).  These are the same parents who used to bully my brother so much about the pictures of him partying with friends that he eventually blocked them on facebook.

A few weeks ago my mother posted a status about her retirement.  A friend commented to congratulate her and my mom replied asking how the friend was doing.  The friend said fine, you? to which my mom said something about how she would be much better if her children had kept true to God's will like the friend's children and hadn't strayed so far.  I immediately commented too, saying something almost lighthearted like Wow, thanks for that, Mommy.  Then I saw that earlier that day my mother had left a comment on her brother's status about going drinking with her friends that said something about how her daughter's weird new ideas after living in Europe were driving her to drink too.

Since then I have strongly considered blocking my mother on facebook, the same thing my brother did that made the rest of us tease him for years.  But now that I'm finally becoming my own independent person and not a mirror of my mother's thoughts (after twenty-two years!) I understand what he was doing.  I guess he isn't the black sheep of the family after all; he's a normal, maturing person.

That's all.

Here, have a video of me singing my badass English lyrics to Le Bien qui fait mal.  Please do not judge my Southern-ass accent.  "Twisted duh-sahr."

It's that part of the night where I start getting verbose and sappy, but a thing happened on tumblr and I started thinking again about what Mozart l'Opéra Rock means to me.

I talk a lot about how I was having a rough time about a year and a half ago and watching Mikele and Flo be precious through interviews was something that helped me stave off depression, but today I realised that there's even more.

One week ago I was curled up in a ball on my futon, a box of tissues under one arm as I sobbed so hard the whole futon shook. Snot and tears were running down my face and I just felt so lost and hopeless.

Today I started my paperwork to get a new visa. Today we found someone to split the apartment with me and someone who will take over my half of the lease if I leave.

What made me get up off that futon, throw those tissues into the trash, and keep on fighting and googling and emailing? What kept me from giving up and moving home and letting myself be miserable and crushed in an environment that I've totally outgrown?

Place, je passe.

Oser l'impossible.

Vivre à en crever.

Je suis reine de mes rêves. Without even realising it, in this past year I've developed a whole philosophy of bravery and determination and straight-up carpe diem-tasticness, and it's all thanks to this one show. This one silly French show full of glitter and sequins and nonsense and a dancing clown has changed who I am in so many ways. It's only two hours of sappy rock music and questionable acting, but it's so much more. It sounds silly and it sounds melodramatic but this show means absolutely everything to me.

Toulon, then Bercy. There are so few performances left. It hurts to know that soon there won't be new footage, soon everyone will be going their separate ways, but I said my real goodbyes to them one month ago. I cried then, I'm crying right now, but I'm not sad. I'm so happy and so proud and I just feel so much pure, real love. If what I feel when I think about Mozart l'Opéra Rock, about the fans I knew and about the two guys in the show who really took the time to get to know me, about the music and the way that fog smells as it rolls off the stage during curtain call and the way the sun shines on Diane's shoulders in the C'est bientôt la fin video and the way Patrice's mouth became a straight line when he smiled down at me while he uncomfortably clapped during curtain call, if what I feel when I stop and think about Florent Mothe's sassy face or Mikelangelo Loconte's cologne isn't actual love, then nothing in my life is. I love this show. I love the music and the lyrics and the artists involved. I don't care if it wasn't written to change lives, I don't care if most of the fans don't take it seriously as I do, I don't care if there are issues with the storyline and if the whole thing was choreographed to appeal to a child.

Last week I felt utterly crushed beneath the weight of my bleak future. But the image of an Italian flirt no taller than me wearing a coat made of sequins and snarling at the world, posing fiercely, flailing his arms about and telling everyone to back the fuck up and show him some respect inspired me.

Today I started my paperwork for my new visa. One more year in Paris.

But if I still want to, I know I can make it through to two.

And three.

And everything I want.

Je suis reine de mes rêves.

 Two options: sublet and move out (all the good times with Kelley that I'm supposed to be having this fall...!) or find someone to split the room.

Splitting the room means sharing the closet and the bathroom with a total stranger (granted they won't be a stranger for long...) and at night probably sleeping on my futon in the living room.  Right now I'm sleeping on the futon but in my bedroom so it's not a big difference.  The prime candidate right now is a young man who apparently sounds like a gay man on the phone or a Swiss doctor who doesn't understand banks.

The other option is for me to move into a "converted den" in the house of a friend of a coworker and sublease my half of this apartment.  Right now there's one prospect to take my half of the lease in August, a girl from craigslist.

The converted den is cheaper and closer to work and the rest of the world, meaning it won't take me two hours to make the trip to work which would only be about fifteen minutes if I had access to a car, but my roommates would be two guys who are total strangers.

I'm so frustrated by all this I haven't had time to mope about how Patrice apparently doesn't read messages on facebook anymore (or he hates me) or how much I miss France and Frenchmen or the fact that in less than a month MOR is closing and, at the risk of sounding melodramatic, THE WORLD WILL BE OVER.

So maybe it's a good thing to immediately be launched into this madness without time to languish.

Also, I've already picked up two shifts this weekend from coworkers.  Looks like I'll be working quite a bit more than I'm scheduled to!  Two hours of bus nonsense or not, I will NEVER turn a shift down.

As soon as I get a response from one of the fans I messaged I'm going to send five dancer dolls to France to be given to ANYONE IN THE TROUPE AT ALL, along with a note telling the other dancers to please send me an address so I can finish a doll for each of them too because they're all fantastic.  Then I can open for business knitting dolls for people with money.

My book thing is coming along okay.  I'm up to chapter two and I've wrangled a way to denote the difference between someone speaking French and someone speaking English without having to write every sentence twice.  Today I narrated the details of my entire relationship with Patrice Maktav, starting with the doll-giving and ending with the hug and free ticket my last day in France, to a friend on fb chat and it was such an epic story that I forgot it was true.  She thought it was over so many times and would be like WOW YOU'RE LIFE IS AMAZING and I'd be like BUCKLE UP KIDDO WE AREN'T EVEN AT THE GOOD PART YET.

And I realised again as I was telling the story that he's SUCH a good guy and I so often misrepresented him due to my crazy (cough cough Lyon entry about how much he hated me cough).  I was worried he'd come off looking like a total ass in my book, but I expect he'll be okay.

The thing that scares me about just how much information is going into this story is the fact that if it gets published there is like a one hundred percent chance that, if he ever hears it exists, Florent Mothe will read this book.  And he will know all the things that I'm not even comfortable telling my mother.  Haha.  (She's gonna find out too if the book gets published...)  Or, as the girls on the Florum so perfectly put it, "I was looking yesterday... in the bookstore... and by accident... I found your book?"

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I'm going to shut up before I have to lock this entry.

So!  Things!  1.  Find out if that craigslist girl is worthy of living with Kelley, find out if I'm okay with living with two strangers, and also find out if letting a gay man take my room is a better and more plausible option.  2. Mail those dancer dolls.  3. Take some doll orders and get to knitting.  4. Go to the career services place on campus to get my résumé fixed up so I can put out more job applications and stuff.

FIVE: RUN AWAY TO FRANCE, FIND PATRICE MAKTAV, FORCE HIM TO MARRY ME, AND LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER IN NERDY BLISS.

I want to write a book.

Today's popular culture is predominately fangirl and nerdish types, and for a few gorgeous months I lived a fangirl wet dream.  I went from an anonymous face at the stage door to one of the most well-known fans in the whole country.  And beyond, to be honest.

I already have my livejournal entries--a rough draft.  Very rough, but still.  The Accidental Groupie... lol.  But it's a coming-of-age story too, isn't it?  It's not just about how many pictures I got with Florent Mothe, it's about how much I changed and grew (and shrunk) over the course of my experience abroad.  It's about how celebrities are just guys, about the ones who have already lived through screaming fame and are just trying to do what they love, but it's also about the ones who are finding fame for the first time.  And my little love triangle with them.  Love pentagon if you add in their dancer girlfriends... ;)

And it's about a girl who never in her life felt good about herself slowly realising that, even though not everybody understands, she kicks ass.  It's about a group of artists in a foreign country pulling me through the worst part of my life without having any idea they had reached someone on the other side of the ocean at all, much less given her so much hope.  It's about me paying them back as best as I can.

I need an angle.  I suppose I should change some names so no one gets into trouble.  Maybe just make it a band instead of a show.  I joked about making a German musical about Beethoven, but I obviously have to keep it French.  But would it be a narrative or diary-style?  Obviously first person.  Where does the story begin?  More importantly, and I honestly don't know the answer to this, where does it end?

I don't know.  I'm considering it very strongly.  I even started composing the first chapter in the shower this morning.

  

I printed this out and autographed it.  And on the back I wrote "Hey Florent Mothe. I was going to print out a Floto (that means a picture of you, by the way) but I realized this one is much more interesting. And I autographed it for you, so you have to treasure it.  Anyway thanks again for always being awesome onstage and off.  There aren't many people like you out there.  I'll try to keep trolling your fanpage and the second you cross the ocean I'll probably hunt you down, so in a way it isn't goobye.  See you on the internet! <3 Erin (P.S. - Can you tell Patrice I say hi?)"

Yeah I probably should have given that more thought before I started writing it.  I like how last semester I wrote a huge love letter that I angsted over for ages and this semester I was like PEACE OUT.  Haha awww Floflo.  I'm gonna see that man for the last time in a few hours.

After spending two days with some crazy wonderful German girls stalking the filming of the next series of Merlin at Pierrefonds (yep, I saw Colin and Bradley and the gang IN THE FLESH and then went off to bother Florent Mothe the next day) I swung back by my house in Paris, showered, changed, repacked, and set off for Rouen.
 
( Read More... )

AND THEN I WENT HOME.

THE END.

WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED BY LESMISLOONY

NOW I NEED TO WRITE ABOUT CAEN.

I'm kind of falling apart.  Maybe all this tour stalking has finally caught up to me.  Obviously my personal life has me on an emotional rollercoaster again and I'm constantly at war with myself over my decisions and that's just concerning me and myself and my choices.

( I am a terrible student. )

Yet when I show up at the hoteldoor I feel like the best person ever.  I recognise almost all of the hardcore fans and I like them all (even though they don't seem to like each other).  I love using bus maps to find my way around a new town and I love that moment when I use the strange key to open the door to my hotel room and see where I'll be crashing for the next two nights.  I love dozing off with my mouth open on the train.  I love that funny noise the machine makes when I stick my train ticket in and I love handing the contrôleur my carte 12-25.  I always come home with new French phrases and new facebook friends and, most importantly, flotos.  The Troupe knows me, a bunch of them call me by name, at least two of them have read my lj and at least one regularly stalks my facebook.  Three have tried to get me free tickets to the show.  As for the fans, in Rouen some of them wanted pictures with ME, one told me she could find me a job if I ever wanted to come back to France, several have told me I'm welcome to stay with them if I ever need a roof over my head in various cities, all of them are willing to give me rides in their car when my hotel is an hour and a half away on foot...  People want to buy dolls from me, people try to commission other knitted stuff, it's ridiculous.

Maybe that's why I've completely stopped caring about classes.  My friends back home just graduated and I'm stuck in class limbo for a few more weeks.  And then I have to start real life and I have to just go to work every day and pay bills and reread my own lj entries and remember that for one year in France I was a legend.  For one year in France my life was indescribable.  For one year I lived in fangirl heaven.



For anybody who was with me when I left for Christmas break, when I thought that without the Palais des Sports every night my world was over... get ready for all that angst to crank up again.  Times a hundred.