The Land of Squee

I'm confused now. I'm almost finished with my application to TAPIF, but I don't know anymore. I might not get Paris. I might not get Créteil or Versailles (the closest suburbs) either.

My original plan was to turn it down flat if they didn't put me in or around my city, but somehow something changed and now I'm starting to consider letting the fates take Paris away. I'll still be in France, which is better than the States... but when I think about letting all the theatre and concerts and landmarks be a train ride away rather than a métro ride, it makes me panic a little.

But things are winding down with the Frenchman I guess, so it's not like I specifically have a life here. I mean, I do have a life here, but it's solitary. If I left for any amount of time, nothing would change whenever I got back.

Plus, if I get this job, almost all my income will go to rent if I stay in Paris. If they put me in any other city I might actually earn a little something.

The only thing I'm really looking forward to in my future is 1789. It's weird not knowing what you're waiting for or where you want to go. If they take me away from Paris, I won't be able to become bff with Roddy J.

I guess I'll wait and see where I get assigned, but I almost dread having to figure out a way to pay my rent if they keep me in the city I love. But I know this city, I know the métro lines and I know where to have faxes sent the cheapest and I know how to jump turnstiles when necessary. I'm an expert stagedoorer. This is my world.

I could still turn them down and au pair for another year, but that scares me a lot more than Parisian rent.

And even if I do become an English teacher, I won't make much money. Probably not enough to pay my rent. I'm fighting and fighting my way up a hill but once I get to the top it's going to be a dead end.

A million mental breakdowns last week.

One breakdown began when I finally started coming to terms with the fact that I was secretly expecting a relationship with my friend with benefits (I say benefits... right now we have only acted on our thing once) and I finally started coming to terms with the fact that it's not going to happen and I'm learning to be okay with that. I honestly am okay with that, I don't know why I was deep-down holding out for more. It's better this way, and this is what I really did want. I think the world had just convinced me that I'm supposed to be needy and require a lot of attention, plus I have the self-image issues and a constant desire for validation, so of course the man who isn't even my boyfriend lets me down a lot. I need to be honest with me or I'll never be able to be honest with him. I'm also getting better at accepting that he's not the only man in the world who would agree to sleep with me. Heck, there are probably even men out there who would fall in love with me! I hope I'll be collected enough soon to figure out how to meet more people.

Then my host family had a long talk about how life is a train and I'm standing at the quai hesitating to get on and how they're worried I'm going to ruin my future and stuff. Good to hear. They even got Shantelle the last year au pair nagging me about what I do with my free time and why I'm not doing yoga or something, I don't even know. I LIKE SPENDING FREE TIME ALONE. Why is that not okay with these people?

Though their conversation inspired me to go back in my room and cry until two o'clock in the morning, it was a kick in the pants. I've realized that my problem is saying I'll do something "in a second" and then never doing it. That's how clothes end up piled in the corner and that's how deadlines pass and that's why these people think I'm lazy. That's how things slip my mind.

The other thing I'm realizing is that I don't have any friends here. When something funny happens, there's no one for me to send a text to. I spend so much time alone that I've isolated myself from the other au pairs and I don't have a support network here in Paris. If I didn't have my internet friends and Kelley and Phoebe on skype I would have probably had this breakdown much earlier. I need to make friends somehow!

So I'm now waist-deep in information about how to continue living my life here. I probably will only be able to afford the teaching assistant program if I live with a roommate, and apparently a great place to start that search is that American Church in Paris. Meanwhile I finally found a place that does faxes and sent off for a copy of my transcript and I finally started investigating just what the problem is with the imagine R company and why my student navigo pass hasn't come yet. In an effort to appear to be someone who does things I went out alone last night and watched French Mamma Mia. It was a lot of fun, but the problem is that it cost me about €45. I just want to stay in my room and not spend my money and use the wifi. Why is that so abnormal?

Still, the mom did make a good point: I do need money, so why am I not going out looking for English lesson opportunities like ~*~*Shantelle*~*~ did? Oh. I just didn't think about it. I'm still hesitating. I'll go to that American church thing sometime and see what they have to offer.

Losing my fixation on the relationship to that man has opened my eyes to a lot of things. In some ways it feels better because I feel like an individual again, like a person who's worth more than he deserves and like a badass. In other ways it terrifies me, because I realize that my parents don't want to always be my safety net, and if things stop working out they aren't just going to send me rent money. I mean, they won't let me live on the streets, but it's time to be an adult now.

Going back to school isn't quite an option. I hate homework and I can't afford the housing. There are JILLIONS of offers for English teachers here, so I'll just get my shit together and do that. I always swore I wouldn't become a teacher, but I also always swore that I would move to New York and die a virgin. You do what you gotta do. Life changes, you change, aspirations change, perceptions change.

I just don't want any obligations. I want free wifi and a pantry to raid and unlimited time and limited human contact. But I do what I have to do to not starve and to stay in the country where the little things make me feel amazing. Next year, TAPIF and finding my own housing. The year after that... who knows? Maybe a real job. Then it's two more years and maybe I'll want to stay, or maybe I'll go back to America and complain about everything for the rest of my life.

In other news, Grimm and Once Upon A Time are both AMAZING shows. Why did American TV get so good when I decided to leave?

Okay, so I think it's been a long time since I posted an unlocked entry. My life is pretty busy most of the time, which I'm getting used to. It feels better than lying around on a futon all summer crying over flotos.

Speaking of crying over flotos, there is to be a MOR reunion concert on Monday November 7th around 10pm and guess who bought her ticket one hour after the announcement was made! I saw the news and literally started bouncing up and down and crying. ON SE REVERRA BITCHES. The parents are usually home by 7, which is dinner time, or 8 at the latest... if the mom gets home before dinner I'll ask if I can leave RIGHT THEN. The doors open at 9h30 and it'll take me a half an hour to get there but I don't want there to be any chance that I might not see them in person. It's free placement too, so if I get there early enough I can get right up in their faces. I'm hoping that since it's so late on a Monday night a lot of fans won't be able to come since a lot of the craziest ones weren't from Paris.

I also already have tickets to see MOR in 3D with German Lara. There's only ONE SCREENING in Paris! It would be fantastic if that meant awesome people would be there. You know they'll look cute in 3D glasses.

Speaking of seeing awesome people who look cute I finally got to see Patrice Maktav last Monday. I'm not sure how much of what he said I'm allowed to repeat, but I guess I can reveal that it looks unlikely that he'll be in Robin Hood but he DOES have plans to be in another show. He seemed kind of sure he would be in it but I don't think it's confirmed yet. He also wants to put out a CD of new songs. And he's still a sweetheart.

As for the host family, I know I was recently moaning about the mom lecturing me, and the other day I told the dad I needed to clean my room and at the end of the day he had seen it and agreed that it needed cleaning, but he chose to express that through a long speech about how when I get a job someday I'll have to be more organized than that and they're trying to teach the kids to clean up after themselves so I have to set them an example and blah blah blah. The thing is, the host family is very nice. They're just preachy. They want to make me be just like them since I'm living with them. Let me tell you something though, my room is a little messy right now, I have a tendency to set things on the floor instead of getting out of bed and putting them on a table, I tend to put clothes I've only worn once in a pile on a chair rather than back in the drawer or closet, but the way this room looks right now? It is STELLAR compared to the norm. Guess there's no point in telling him that though.

The family is very nice, but they just think their way is always the right way and aren't really open to correction or alternatives. And because of the position I'm in, I usually just kind of agree. One interesting thing is my host mom told me how my life is nothing but MOR and then she told me that I never ask about their lives and I need to be interested in them. That weekend crazy stuff happened to me, I ended up getting into a food fight with Gregory Deck, the next day I went to hang with Patrice, the day after I went to Shakespeare and Co and played their piano... but I waited to share all those things till she asked. She never asked. So who isn't interested in anyone else's life? I just kept my silence at the table, made sure Nilou the Nightmare Child was eating, and waited.

Speaking of Nilou the Nightmare Child, we are thick as thieves these days. I'm not sure when it happened or how, but that kid loves me to death. We really get along and it's great. He doesn't always do what I ask, but I can eventually make baths and things happen without tears or too much complaining. We horseplay, I fling him around and tickle him, it's going really well. Even the dad commented that we have a very good relationship, he said Nilou never tells him "J'aime PAS Ehreen!" He didn't finish the thought, but I knew what he was thinking... I have finally beaten Shantelle the Miracleworker at something. He was saying that it's easier for me to get along with Nilou this year since the other two kind of take care of themselves, and sure, I agree with that. Sometimes in the morning when he's still sulky he'll go "T'es PAS ma copine!" and I go "Ohhhhh nooooo!" and he flails a hand in my direction and one minute later he gets over it. More importantly, he is OBSESSED with C'est bientôt la fin. He constantly asks me "Est-ce que tu peux mettre Mozart dehors?" which translates as Can you put Mozart outside but he means can you put on the video where Mozart is outside... haha. And last time he was kind of trying to hum along. Then he asked to watch it again and spent the whole time poking the screen and going "C'est qui?" and I go "Melissa!" or whoever and he goes "J'aime bien elle!" Then he started just going "J'aime bien elle, j'aime bien lui, j'aime bien lui" (which is I like her, I like him, I like him) and when Flo came on he goes "C'est qui?" and I went "FLOWWWWW" and he goes "J'aime PAS lui!" and I went "Nooooooo! It's Flo, I LOVE Flo, I LLLLLOVE HIM!" and Nilou was like "Lui je l'aime PAS!" and I went NOOOOOO and it was actually really funny. When it was the whole crowd at the end he said he likes all of them, then asked me which was Flo and when I pointed he went Je n'aime pas lui!" it was SO funny.

Nilou has also started also repeating my English all the time, which I love. He found a stick in the park and said "Ça c'est big!" and when I go That's enough he says "Non c'est pas nuff!" It's very fun. I'm also giving English lessons on Saturdays to a neighbor kid, and she is ADORABLE. She seems to learn quickly and it's surprisingly easy for me to figure out what to teach her next. I make €13 for amusing myself for an hour with her.

Making dinner is getting easier, Mimi and I baked a cake together last Wednesday and, even though we were translating the recipe from cups to centiliters and kind of guessing at times it came out alright. A little bit chewier than a cake should be, but hella delicious. On Wednesday the mom left on a business trip and I was in charge of getting the kids to their various practices and getting dinner on the table until Friday night. It went beautifully.

Yesterday after the English lesson I decided to go into Paris and just kill time on my own for a while. I went to Les Saveurs and got a long sandwich, a piece of apple pie, and some Minute Maid, and I ate them in the jardin du Luxembourg, which I hadn't been to in a while. Then I went up by the Seine and sat in Shakespeare and Co reading The Giver until some douchebag got off the piano, and I played MOR and LM for an hour and a half. Then I went to the little park next door to finish reading and got hit on by a random dude who was kind of cute but had really short hair. To escape that situation I said I had to go and I went to Les Halles where I got some new tights in darker colors, then I came home for dinner. No one asked how my day had been or where I had gone. I don't mind that, just... don't tell me I only exist in terms of MOR and that I need to ask people questions about their lives unless you're planning to ask me questions about MY life every once in a while.

I do miss having friends who answer text messages... like, when I see something funny or something weird happens I want to be able to tell someone and get a reaction. One of the au pairs sometimes answers me. There's another one who never answers who I text sometimes, we hang out right after class. I also have three French friends from last year: Bénédicte from the Florum who gave me the extra backstage pass in Strasbourg, Laure who was in the bar with the Troupe trying to get me to dance in Caen, and Camille who always wants to speak English with me... but Laure and Camille live in another city, so I don't get to see much of them. Bénédicte and I got lunch last Friday, it was nice. She let me chatter incessantly and we went to a fancy sit-down restaurant with servers dressed in black and dim lighting and burgundy walls... it was a Pizza Hut. Oh France.

I really love being here. I like the solitary-ness, I like being able to wander out and do things on my own. I like pausing in the sidewalk and looking up at these old limestone buildings and thinking... my town is Paris. The town where I know how to get by, where I understand my life and where I never get lost no matter how aimlessly I wander... is Paris, France.

I think that after June finding a way to stay with my own little place would be perfect. I can do childcare, I can do English lessons... I just want to stay. I don't want to have to clean my room for a host family's sake or go out to prove that I have a life... I just want to be free to decide for myself.

I do worry a bit about the future since I'm living one year at a time, but usually in my life I know what to do next. I know when something strikes my fancy, and I'm waiting for that. When an opportunity shows up I can tell it's right and I go after it, but right now there isn't anything yet. I think the fact that I'm learning childcare and English lessons is meaningful, I think I'm starting off in a good place to keep getting enough work to get by. Sometimes I worry that I should be planning for the future, like my parents did and like these host parents did, and start training for a career, but I genuinely don't even have a clue where I'd want to start. I hope that when I'm old I don't regret not looking harder for a way to settle down, but honestly I'm still learning how to live and I'm not ready for that yet.

Wow these kids are keeping me busy.

Every day is a little better than the one before. Nilou is learning that yes I am the boss of him and starting to listen to me, plus he's starting to like me. Last night he wouldn't go to sleep until I came back upstairs to give him a bisou and yesterday his bath only took a few minutes! Mimi absolutely loves me; she repeats my English under her breath sometimes and climbed into my lap last night while I was reading her bedtime story and she wears the headband my mom sent from UNC all the time. I took her and Yoyou to the pool while the mom stayed home with Nilou, who has a cough, and it was so cute and also kind of scary because I had no idea what to expect. I had to wear a swimcap! Yoyou is a good helper, but the problem is that it's hard for me to be the boss of him because he has to explain things to me so often. I have however gotten a pretty good game going where whenever Yoyou is rough-housing with Nilou the little one will squeal "EHREEN AIDE-MOI!" and I'll go in and tickle Yoyou until Nilou has a chance to escape. I don't mind rough-housing as long as it doesn't get too mean.

Anyway, I need to start sleeping more. At night I usually go to my room around 10 or 11 and I end up doing my old routine of refreshing the same pages over and over. If I could learn to just check them once I could sleep like a mofo, but instead I end up staying up past midnight.

My host dad started talking last night about how just knowing English isn't really enough, translators only work on commission so that won't be enough either, and I should think about deciding on a job and seeing what kind of schooling is required to be qualified for it. Oh. Honestly, I think I might end up working as a mofo teacher because it's what makes the most sense. An English teacher. But maybe I can at least work teaching adults or something? Whatever it takes to stay, though. So I need to look into that. I can take more classes at a French school/university next year if necessary. I swore I would never take more classes only a couple of months ago, but that was before I realized how much I need to stay in France. Being in the US broke me a little bit. I know how to live here, and anything I don't know (like being part of a household and cooking dinners with stoves that are in Celsius) I'm going to be a boss at by the end of this year.

I went into actual Paris yesterday, and I hadn't even gotten all the way into the métro here in this suburb before some man (a really attractive man!) started telling me I was pretty and we should stop and talk. I didn't because my standards are hella high right now, but DAMN I missed this.

I miss Paris so much that sometimes my lungs kind of seize up thinking about it.  A random forgotten image surfaces in my mind, like the flashy green pharmacie signs or the ridiculous way St-Lazare was decorated for Christmas, and remembering it makes me breathe funny.  I never thought I would be so obsessed with a city.  I haven't forgotten about dog poop on the sidewalks and the way the métro smelled like pee, either.  I haven't forgotten about crowds of tourists clogging the sidewalk or shivering all night because my heater barely worked or living under a gray sky for more than a month and becoming convinced that the sun was a myth.  I miss the things that bothered me too.  And there was enough good to cancel out the bad a thousand times.

And then I remember that I'm going back NEXT FRIDAY and I panic.  But what about my mom's dog Flossie and what about doing paperwork in English?  What about Kelley and my boss and the guy at work who I could have totally had a thing with if he hadn't gone back to university the other day?  Wouldn't it just be easier to stay here where I know I can get by?

But the thing is, I'm doing nothing here.  I'm waiting.  And no matter what I accomplish if I stayed here, I'd always wonder what I could have done had I gone back.  In Paris, just recharging my cell phone made me feel like I was ruling the world.  If I bought a sack of avocados at the store or cooked myself a pot of ravioli with oregano and olive oil I felt like I was the biggest badass around.  Here it's skillets of macaroni and cheese, Papa John's pizza, and lying on the futon jealously facebook stalking my past self.

Staying here isn't an option.  I don't even want to come back, even though the finality of that scares me to death.  I've always loved France, I've always studied Paris, I just never would have set my sights high enough to imagine that I could move there.  I settled for America, I settled for dreaming of New York City.  But Paris... it's not just the city life that I adore, it's having that gorgeous French culture as well, it's well-dressed men and bisous and ooh là là and feeling like I can do anything.

I honestly don't believe it, but next Friday I am leaving the United States for what could be the very last time... not including holidays, of course.  I need to be challenged.  I need to be in a place where I feel good about myself and where living healthily is the easy option.  I am so excited and so terrified that tears are gathering in my eyes right now.

Oh my god I can't wait to get back.  I can't wait to get back.  I have new clothes and new confidence and a few friends waiting for me over there.  It's even bigger than freshman year of college: I'm starting all over again with a completely new way of living my life.  Let's see how far I can go by myself.

I got what I wanted.  I'm going back to Paris.  I leave the US on September 9th and I arrive September 10th.  I'll see MOR in 3D in cinemas, I'll go see if Nuno remembers me when Adam et Eve comes out, when Flo's album comes out I'll buy it.  I'll buy fruit from the sketchy guys on the street corner for spare change, I'll be speaking French, I'll be "Ehreen" again.

So why have I been miserable for three days?  Why did I just now collapse onto the futon and burst into tears?  Why did I just lie down on the floor this morning with no desire to get up again?  Why do I stay up till 3am and write long, emo posts that make me sound like I hate everything?

It's not menstrual.  There's no reason for this.  That's what makes it terrifying.

 An appointment finally opened up for August 22nd and I jumped on it.

Unfortunately, that's three days before the family wants me there and visas take fifteen to twenty-one days to process.

Last year one of my friends pulled some strings and got herself an expedited visa in a matter of days.  But I can't make that happen for me somehow, I won't be back till early September.

It would be nice to know so I could buy what I hope will be my last one-way ticket between the United States and France.


Can I just say?

I feel like I was meant for France.  I feel the way people in movies feel when they've found their soulmate.

I have been studying French with passion since I was thirteen years old.  They didn't offer French class till I was fourteen, so I bought a French-English dictionary a year early and tried to teach myself.

I have been obsessed with shows as long as I can remember.  In America, that makes me singular and makes it hard to relate to me.  In France, it made 200+ people send me facebook friend requests.

I have also always wanted to feel like I was special and important.
  In France, I'm immediately interesting and memorable because of my nationality.

I have always wanted to live in a big city.  I have always wanted to lose weight without trying.  I have always wanted to feel like I belonged to something, like I was a part of something.

I feel like I was meant for France.  We didn't know it at first; the first few months we bickered and squabbled and I dreamed about home.  It wasn't until I visited America for the first time, last Christmas, that I realized how hard I had fallen for France.  This summer has only cemented it and made me know for a fact that it was true.  I want back.

Second semester I never missed anything from home except, every once in a while, macaroni and cheese.

I have done nothing since May but lie around complaining about all the things I miss from Paris.

I want back and I want to stay.

 If my visa paperwork gets finished in time I'll be back in Paris on August 25th.

 

We skyped but their mic wasn't working so I just waved and all the children waved and giggled and rolled around on each other and showed off.  The oldest boy stole the keyboard from his dad and told me he likes handball.  They want the daughter to learn piano.  Then the tiny one started poking his face up into the camera and then the oldest one typed "Salut!" and tried to blame it on his dad and his dad shook his head and pointed at the kid and the kid made a face omg.

AUGUST

25TH

 I don't like how one little thing can set me off and give me a bad feeling for the rest of the day.  Maybe once I get back to France I can pick up where I left off and maybe I'll be able to feel good about myself most of the time and not just every once in a while.

Apparently the host family liked my dossier and the next step is for them to contact me directly.  I've gotten kind of attached to the concept of these three kids, but not as attached as I am to the concept of having my own apartment in the 13th arrondissement.  Yeah, I'll be getting up early and bundling three kids off to school, then picking them up later and spending most of the afternoon entertaining them, not to mention a bunch of housework on Wednesdays and stuff, but I'm suffering here with nothing to do with my life.  I think I've used the word "directionless" in every entry.  If I wasn't working toward getting back to Paris I think I'd have gone kind of crazy weeks ago.

Maybe I play the Sims too often and now I just always expect to have an achievable goal in sight.  It was easy as a groupie: every weekend I went to another city and accomplished so many things on my own--hotels, trains, teeny moments endearing myself to the famous people I love and admire--but here I go days at a time without leaving the apartment.  I don't want to leave.  Every time I open the door the humidity grosses me out and I just want to go back inside and lie down some more.  I only go out to go to work, and then I come straight home and get right back online.  Yesterday I turned the computer off long enough to watch Amadeus (sobbed my way through all the scenes that made me think of Da Ponte) and halfway through the movie I got an urge to get back online.

I know I can be awesome and I know I enjoy it.  I like challenges that I have to overcome, like speaking French on a daily basis or getting the name of the Troupe's hotel.  I don't like sitting around trying to think of something to do.

I'm sorry to every single person who's had to talk to me this summer, online or in person.  I can't talk or think about anything but Patrice Maktav.  I wish I could for everyone's sake.  I know how easy it is for me to cling to something like this and lose touch with rationality, but when you've done the things I've done, at what point are you being unrealistic?

I need something to do, but at the same time I don't want to do anything.  It's 9:30 and I've already put on my pyjamas and gotten in bed.