Should I shave this weekend?
My hair doesn’t have that long to go to reach my shoulders: maybe a few months. But in the meantime, when I pin it up I have to contend with some rebel strands of neck hair that always escape the clutches of my various clips and grips.
In a fit of ‘Enough!’, I decided shaving them might be the way to go. Until everything reaches the right length – then I’ll let them grow back and pin my hair artfully so they’ll regrow in stealth.
I’ve actually done it before and it doesn’t look half bad. Plus, it will make me feel a little bit punk. And since I have a baby face and I spent my Friday night at home watching a documentary on 10 ways to kill Osama Bin Laden (which was very interesting actually), I will take all the punk I can get.
So, should I shave my little neck hairs?
Winter walks
At the moment I know technically we’re supposed to be in spring. Except I’m pretending we’re in Autumn (because that’s what September is supposed to be in my world view, even after 8 years in Melbourne – stubborn I am). I think I’ve still got a good month and a half of denial ahead of me when I’ll be able to wear toasty stockings and shoes, and rug up in scarves and béret during our daily walks.
And then it’ll be on to summer and I’ll blind people with my paleness like every year, while my siblings go towards dark months and a winter Christmas. And like every year I won’t manage to get into the festive spirit of a hot Christmas day… I need freezing cold with a chance of snow, dark at 5PM, my brother scoffing marrons glacés and the telling of jokes from inside papillotes wrappers – and then it feels like Christmas. Stubborn and grinch-ey am I?
Sunday
I’ve been working very late every single night; once a week peek-a-boo seems to be all I can manage…
So here is a peek at my Sunday: rediscovering that my Porter has a long strap and that such a little detail can make a nice difference to an outfit. Also rediscovering a pair of knee-high black socks I’ve owned since I was 14 (that’s 17 years! Crazy…). Getting away to share a cup of tea with the most gorgeous friend (and feeling wired for the rest of the afternoon because black tea just has that effect one me… Even though it’s supposed to contain so little caffeine it wouldn’t even wire a gnat…). And adopting a succulent that found a home in one of our favourite glasses.
Please don’t ask me about ‘The Fall of the House of Usher‘ – I started reading it when I was 19 and haven’t finished it yet (it may or may not involve a story about insomnia while holidaying in Lyon, and getting spooked more than I care to admit).
Métro vandal
We don’t hang things on the wall at our house: we frame them and place the frames on furniture instead. This little fragment is probably my favourite framed thing – because of what it is, and because of the story behind it.
It is a piece of an old old Paris métro map – so old that it shows the station Arsenal (which closed in September 1939).
And I came by it because I ripped it off the wall during one of my many commutes (it was peeking from under layers of miscellaneous posters and if there is one thing I can’t resist, it is an old map. Or an old document. But especially an old map).
I can’t remember at which station the deed was done, but I can offer some advice if you also see something you like on the wall of a Parisian métro station but are plagued by hesitation (or manners).
- Own it: don’t look around to see if other people are looking at you. Rip the damn thing off. You want it no?
- Do it during rush hour, casually as you are walking by (or more accurately being pushed forward by the grumpy mob behind you). You are less likely to be noticed or have anyone comment on what you are doing.
- Someone will probably comment on what you are doing: an old lady who’s bored, a smart ass who finds what you are doing puzzling/hilarious/both. There is no wrong way to respond: not saying anything is good, or if the smart ass is old saying that you enjoy things that are decrepit is good too.
- Avoid ripping things off the wall in front of the para-military police that patrol the métro with machine guns. But I’m sure you’re smart enough not to do that.
- Frame it: it’ll look really neat. And you will chuckle when you look at it thinking back to how you’re a vandal at heart. Sort of.
If you’re curious about the few Parisian phantom métro stations (including Arsenal), go here. And look at some pretty pictures I posted of the Saint-Martin station (one of the phantoms) here.
Numbers
In the last 7 days, I turned 31 years and 31 days. I thrifted the perfect denim skirt for $4. I watched ‘The Hunt for Red October‘ for what must be the 15th time. I caught my first cold of the winter. I overslept my alarm twice. And according to this picture, I mixed patterns (stripes) once. Because my favourite warm scarves were both in the wash. Oh yes. I’ve been busy.
My little nature, and bread.
I was recently given a medical diagnosis and, simply stated, I won’t be allowed to eat bread for the rest of my life. Ever again. Or anything made with delicious pastry (adieu croissant, pain au chocolat, brioche…*). Please don’t anyone suggest there are plenty of alternatives, because I am freakishly gifted at detecting the taste of tapioca flour, and I am not ready in my mind to accept some grainy and squishy Frankenstein as the same thing as baguette. Or tartine.
Not to mention that in my own country, I am now a ‘little nature’: it’s not looked at with very much mercy not being able to eat everything. Let me tell you: the Frères Jacques sang about the difficulty of eating jam on a tartine. Not on a corn cake.
And by the way don’t be fooled by their black tights: I think that song is a cunning metaphor for how unpredictable and sticky life can get…
(*Says I in the spirit of Jean de la Fontaine).
(Image from here).
My father’s daughter, and the fruity oil lamp
We both blow our noses very loud (and have been known to wake people up doing so). We are both partial to the Barber of Séville which he took me to see when I was 12 (also both partial to its comical rendition by the Quatre Barbus). We love a good glass of wine or, even better, champagne – which neither of us can hold very well and which makes us giggly. Neither of us can lie. We both love our chocolate dark, our coffee black, and watching the Légion march. Neither of us is really handy…
Except… My father has an impressive skill which I do not share: if you give him a mandarine, he will eat it (so far, that I can do just fine as well). But he will eat it in such a way as to hollow out the peel and preserve the central tangle of fibres. And then he will turn the empty intact mandarine peel into an oil lamp.
I’ve only seen him do it a couple of times, and the rarity of the occasion and time gone by have just made the memory even more magical, bright and elusive.
But me, when I eat a mandarine it looks like this. And I haven’t tried but I’m pretty sure setting the random pieces of peel on fire wouldn’t look as impressive or magical…
La récitation: poetry as torture inflicted on little French school children
It is one of my most vivid memories from school (apart from the 7:50AM starts): standing at the black board and reciting poetry by heart, in front of the whole class.
I have a theory about this: I think it cracks the teachers up to listen to a 6 year old’s rendition of French Romanticism. Or a 13 year old’s rendition of French classical theatre. Or a 15 year old’s rendition of a Renaissance sonnet (with some old French thrown in). Or a 17 year old’s rendition of Baudelaire describing his perving on the seamstress workshop next door. All of which, you guessed right, I had to render.
And doing quick maths albeit with a glass of wine on board, I can confirm it’s been decades since my Alfred de Musset performance – my first récitation ever. And I can still feel my little 6 year old body shaking as I was trying to remember one verse after another – all about the damn moon: ‘Ballade à la Lune‘.
I never got it at the time – for me the days when we would recite were like the worst type of lottery: the one you don’t want to win but that you’re entered into anyway. But I think I get it now. Because when I look at the moon, I start to recite Alfred de Musset in my head. And boy, is the ‘Ballade à la Lune‘ beautifully written and strikingly imaginative (the man isn’t my idol for nothing…) And my love for him started there, during récitation, and has only grown stronger.
This aside, I still maintain the exercise is intentionally designed to torture and mock little school children, and petrify them by demanding they speak publicly in old French…
(The image is my 1959 copy of Alfred de Musset’s ‘Premières Poésies‘, which belonged to my mother – and which she gave me when I moved to Melbourne. The pages have yellowed to perfection, and it smells respectable like an old book should.)
The impostor with the two souls
If you have had a conversation with me, you would have found me saying words directly translated from French (which I do often) – then realise what I said did not make sense, curse, and try to substitute the right word with the right meaning. Like, say: ‘Syrup. No, crap! Cordial! Cordial!’.
It’s a funny thing living in a country where I don’t speak my native language day in, day out. Most of the time, I feel that the way I speak is wrong, or off. That I’m a fake. That I wasn’t born to speak this language (and it’s true: my first language is French – stating the obvious here). I may know enough words to communicate on a decent level, but my sentences are built according to French grammar and expression: long, long, long. Convoluted. Long.
I always worry I will say the wrong thing, or use a word which has a meaning I am not aware of. And insult someone unwittingly or come across as a pompous tit. I still put my head in my hands when I think of the time I qualified the seasons as ‘backward’ in Australia, when I meant ‘reversed’. Dang.
But I do love it for a few reasons, despite feeling daily like an impostor. I get a unique perspective on both languages: a foray into the economical qualities of ‘anglais‘, and a comparison of how we articulate our thoughts with such flourish and use some damn funny expressions in French.
Like ‘You are pumping my air‘ when someone is annoying you. Or ‘It’s pee in a violin‘ to dismiss something that’s unimportant. I wouldn’t want to trade the chuckles I get when I translate some of these into English.
So I may feel like an impostor, I may have two souls according to Charlemagne (read this article, I don’t have delusions of grandeur), it may be tricky to navigate and reconcile French brain and English brain, but it’s also kind of cool. Which by the way, translates to ‘cool‘ in French. Now that was easy.
(Image from here)
Happiness is… rain today as opposed to yesterday
I’m grateful: it stings a little bit to have my birthday in winter in Melbourne, but at least it was a clear winter day.
Today however, oh boy. And it was definitely not a good idea to wear denim shorts with stockings.
(Image from here – and have you seen what rain drops look like as they fall?).
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