(a record for September 26th, 2009 at 13:31) * Listening to * Feeling   sleepy... * Listening to * Feeling   Simon & Garfunkel - Patterns... Western Union = good idea. La Poste = bad idea. Western Union at La Poste = flip a coin. So of course they decided to go on a Western Union specific strike (what?) today, of all days. At least I think it's a strike. What else could "social conflict" mean? Civil war? I also saw my first guy in a surgical mask on the street today. Yay. Then some old lady at the grocery store (where I spent my very last 25 euro on very important things like Skittles) engaged me in a fascinating conversation about metal vs plastic shopping baskets. If you're interested, plastic is better. Anyway, I haven't slept in forfuckingever and I just wanted to post ( this ), but of course I had to babble. War. War never changes.

(a record for September 22nd, 2009 at 04:54) My friend Cécile is a cynical, sarcastic bitch. I love her for it, because sometimes I need to be reminded that the world isn't restricted to the things I want to see, and more importantly, that laughing about it is a necessity. War.

(a record for September 12th, 2009 at 19:14) ( Meanwhile... ) War.

(a record for September 12th, 2009 at 18:40) Pour, Bacchus! the remembering wine; Retrieve the loss of men and mine! Vine for vine be antidote, And the grape requite the lote! Haste to cure the old despair, Reason in Nature's lotus drenched, The memory of ages quenched; Give them again to shine; A dazzling memory revive; Refresh the faded tints, Recut the aged prints, And write my old adventures with the pen Which on the first day drew, Upon the tablets blue, The dancing Pleiads and eternal men. ( Vendanges ) War.

(a record for September 12th, 2009 at 06:39) * Listening to * Feeling   silly... Mankind is awesome. Not good, not great, certainly not admirable, but awesome in the most literal sense of the term. I always come back to this. How could I not be in awe of a species that constructed so many things around itself - ideas and ideals, languages, gods, laws written and unwritten - that it can no longer see past them? We have become so far removed from our most basic attribute - life, animal life - that every step we take in any direction only removes us farther. We are painfully self aware, and this self awareness is both what isolates us and what makes us crave a return to the source, though we haven't known the source for so long that it might be entirely impossible to even recognize it. We take great pride in not being animals, and the absurdity of this idea, as if humans could constitute a new biological kingdom of their own (like fungi), is universally ignored. But sometimes we do cease to be human in the sense we have given to it, not an animal. It's always a horrible thing, something to be avoided at all costs, something we wish our children never had to know about. We look at genocides, famines, wars, and we mourn the humanity of those who were robbed from it. Dehumanization is probably the worst crime anyone can commit. Because that's where the irony lies - our humanity, the one thing we refuse to give up, the one thing that ties us all together, the one thing that makes us not animals, can't be taken away by anything or anyone but mankind itself. Holocaust literature does not focus on hunger, illness, torture or survival. It focuses on humanity, the efforts to retain it and the horror of seeing it slip away. And when hunger and survival become major themes, they're replacements for humanity. We are no longer human, all we are is hungry, all we want is to survive. Is this what humanity is, then? Something to distract us from the urge to survive? I find the idea both beautiful and utterly repulsive. It's always been a fantasy of mine to be directly confronted with the animal me, the me who doesn't think about things like this and instead just focuses her efforts on survival. Of course, my animal instincts, the basic ones, are alive and kicking. I eat when I'm hungry, sleep when I'm tired, and have sex whenever I can (which is frustratingly rarely). But all of this is wrapped in so many layers of humanity that the instinctual nature is easily overlooked, and it all becomes part of the greater human machine - I choose what I eat based on a ridiculously long list of non-vital criteria, sleep is as much of a reprieve from the waking, civilized life as it is physical rest, and sex is tangled up in countless tendrils of things that have little to do with any reproductive urge (and some of them are all about trying to prevent reproduction). I've never had much money, and I've never had less money than I do now. As it is I receive no government welfare (by choice) and live well below the French poverty threshold, and most likely that of any first world country. And yet, save for a few life-or-death moments, I have never felt I had to fight - or even work - for survival. For comfort, yes. But what are the chances that I'd starve to death? Freeze to death? In this country? (I suppose freezing to death would be more of a danger.) I don't think this is the famed illusion of immortality young people are supposed to feel. I know I could die at any moment, I just don't feel like there's anything I should be doing to prevent it. And even though that's something I have very rarely felt in my life, I miss the feeling like I miss a lot of things I've never had. And this is really what is at the root of my fascination with extreme survival scenarios (scenarii? maybe when I start calling a single spaghetti a spaghetto). Post apocalypse, stranded on a desert island, surviving a plane crash, all those things I've always felt guilty to wish for. Any situation where I would have to shut down all those unnecessary (are they? I'll never know otherwise), constructed parts of me that make being alive a philosophical concept rather than a reality. But there is another layer - I love humanity. I love that people write and sing and dance and laugh and think about unnecessary things, I love that people mourn and love and do entirely absurd things like get married or ponder the death of God. I love that being a human being gives me the freedom to despise other human beings for the things we do to each other. I love the fact that I think about these things, even if that's exactly what keeps me from ever knowing what I'm talking about. It never ends, does it? In other news, I stayed up all night thinking about this and am going grape harvesting in two hours. Also, Ben Vautier is annoying. War.

(a record for September 10th, 2009 at 16:00) * Listening to * Feeling   tired... I am so fucking tired of talking about how tired I am of my mother. An hour and a half on the phone with her just now. When we hung up, and after I'd been brutally honest about my refusal to deal any longer with her stifling pessimism, complete lack of faith in my ability to be happy, and utter blindness to any and all things positive, she whined: "I was so glad to hear you sound so upbeat when you picked up the phone, and now you're crying! Why do you always do this?" I would have laughed in her face if I hadn't been so busy crying. She was glad? For the first hour of our conversation I put forward things I had to be happy about, each and every one of which she dismissed in favor of all the ways everything could possibly go horribly wrong. "But it's because I love you", she says, "if I didn't love you I wouldn't care!" She is on a lifelong quest to prove her love to me by anticipating catastrophes that might happen to me following every single choice I make. But sometimes the best way to show your love is to be happy for the person you love. She says she will be happy for me. When I am happy. When she has the certitude that I am absolutely, wholly happy. I, for one, think she's full of shit. She will never be happy for me. She never has been, not when I was the happiest I've ever been, not even when I was only somewhat happy but conforming to her idea of happiness. Sometimes I think that the simple truth is that she is an inherently unhappy person, and that I, the wayward daughter, have always provided her with just the perfect reasons to explain her unhappiness. Even if, one day, I reach something as preposterous as absolute happiness, it will be impossible for her to hear it. Love, to her, is a thing of fear. Loving someone means constantly being scared for them, even when they're not, especially when they're not. There's little joy in love, only temporary relief. Outside of those few moments, it is excruciating. And so, as a loved one, which she is to many people, it is also her self appointed duty to appease those fears - because she loves them back. But that is not how I love. Love is a thing of joy to me, and fear, while it happens, is transitory and easily forgotten. It's a matter of trust. I can be scared that things outside of the person's control will go wrong - and what use does being scared serve? I'd rather enjoy the countless moments I have, during which nothing bad is happening. Or I could be scared about things that are in the person's control. Which, really, amounts to not trusting them. What kind of love is it, if I can't trust them? And so I love for the laughs and the warmth and the memories. I don't know what she loves for. I don't understand. It seems like a burden to her, a life long agony. Sometimes it seems she would rather not love me. Because of those major differences in outlook, there is a basic flaw in our relationship which resides in her fear that I don't love her, and that I don't know she loves me. Both of which strike me as utterly ridiculous. No one can upset me like she does, and I am perfectly aware that she does all the things she does that upset me because she loves me. And I don't understand how she can not see that. I am guilty of not calling her. I am guilty of purposefully keeping things from her. I am guilty of having distanced myself from her to the point that she has to beg for me to talk to her. Because that's the only way I have to find joy in loving her, when I see her once a year, and for a few days-hours-even minutes she is reduced to my mother, the person who made me, who wrapped me in a blanket at six A.M. on Saturday mornings to drop me off at my nanny's house. Not the person whose fear threatens to taint every good thing I know, just someone I love. War.

(a record for September 1st, 2009 at 00:10) * Listening to * Feeling   indescribable... I've been thinking about why we worry about people we love. I didn't know that's what I was thinking about, but it seems obvious now that it was. I don't like people worrying about me. Well, that's not entirely true. I don't like people worrying about the choices I make. I don't see anything wrong with someone worrying about me if I'm sick or if I'm somewhere and a bomb goes off. But there's this other worry, that says "I worry about you because I think you're not living your life right", and as much as I know I shouldn't care, I do. It's been eight years now. For eight years I've been uncomfortably standing somewhere between doing what I want and trying to spare those who worry about me. It's time to admit that it's not working. They still worry, and still don't do what I want. No one is happy with this situation. So, where do I go from here? I think there's only one solution - I've got to leave. Literally and figuratively. I have to let go, and to stop worrying about whether they're letting go. And maybe, then, if they see that's what I want, if I can honestly say "I'm entirely happy", maybe they'll stop worrying. I don't actually believe that. But maybe. They want me to be happy, that's why they worry. I hope it is. If it's not - if they only worry because they want me to fulfill their expectations... Well, they're screwed. Because I'm done. I am tired and I am hopeful and I am, strangely, angry. And I am a whole person, and this is my life, and I'm done pretending I'm okay with it being half theirs. War. War never changes.

And he was always human when he talked (a record for August 31st, 2009 at 23:50) * Listening to * Feeling   morose... Richard Cory went home last night, and put a bullet through his head. War.

(a record for August 22nd, 2009 at 19:20) * Listening to * Feeling   melancholy... Here's to a day spent watching movies. Productivity is relative. ( Lyrics and translation ) War.

It's a strange world we live in, but yours is stranger still. (a record for August 21st, 2009 at 01:37) * Listening to * Feeling   lonely... However many words a picture may be worth, I'll take a single word any day if it'll save me from death by misinterpretation of Eurostar emergency instructions. What is this? Step One: Produce a miniature hammer out of thin air and hit the window with it. The window will break and emit squiggles when it's ready for step Two. Step Two: Shrink the broken window until it comfortably fits inside itself, and throw it outside through the hole thus created. Note: this might create what is referred to, in Eurostar jargon, as an M.C. Escher paradox, resulting in the window reconstructing itself. If this is the case, refer to steps Three and Four. Otherwise, go directly to step Five. Step Three: Locate a yellow panel that presents absolutely no distinguishing features. It is somewhere on the train. Which is on fire, by the way. Open the panel and tinker with very tiny things inside it. No one knows exactly what these tiny things look like. Just experiment. Step Four: It is now safe to rip one of the horizontal bars off the train wall and break the window with it. Note: if this creates an M.C. Escher paradox, stop screwing around, this is an emergency. Step Five: Escape the burning train, of which you are the last occupant since everybody else swallowed themselves into oblivion. Good luck! The grass is greener on the other side. Probably thanks to all the rain. War. War never changes.

(a record for August 12th, 2009 at 04:15) * Listening to * Feeling   tired... I'm Down and Out (or possibly Up and In) in Paris (briefly) and London. I swear I meant to sleep until it turned out to be four. War. War never changes.

Drop your panties, Sir William, I cannot wait till lunch time. (a record for August 11th, 2009 at 00:13) * Listening to * Feeling   amused... If I had taken art history, it might have not have taken me this long to realize my tastes in art and literature are much less random than I thought. Somewhat related: "French footballer Eric Cantona, when interviewed by the British press about influences on his life during the early 1990s, named Rimbaud as one of his heroes. However, the press thought he was talking about the Sylvester Stallone movie character Rambo." Poor Cantona, even the British don't take him seriously. Except for Ken Loach, who takes everything seriously. War.

Words, we can't keep meeting like this. (a record for August 4th, 2009 at 23:28) Sometimes I relate to this: Not today. I am... floaty. I don't feel connected to anything solid. I want to lie in the grass and feel the weight of the earth pushing against my back. I want something deep and whole and full and real. No half measures. My sister left today, hiking to Santiago or wherever her feet will take her in a month. She is walking now, heels drumming against the soft dirt like a one woman army. Which she is. She's walking and I'm sitting here stringing words together like I'm on a quest to find the one combination that will make me feel real. Well, it's not this one. War.

Conversations with my mother (a record for August 3rd, 2009 at 17:31) * Listening to * Feeling   amused... Of missionaries Sister: He calls himself a missionary of God. Mother (eyes shining): A missionary! Sister: He's not actually a missionary, Mum. He's a proselytizing oyster merchant. Mother: What's the difference? Of deafness Mother: Gaby, what's the name of that comedian I can't stand? Father: Jamel Debbouze. Mother: You know, the one who really irritates me? Sister: Jamel Debbouze. Mother: I can't remember his name. Amandine: Jamel Debbouze. Mother: Yes! Him! Wait, how did you know? War.

(a record for July 28th, 2009 at 20:10) * Listening to * Feeling   tired... ( Hey ho ) War. War never changes.

Amandine has a field day. (a record for July 2nd, 2009 at 21:20) This entry promises to be very boring. Times are approximative. 7 AM: Eager to escape the construction workers that have been rendering her deaf reinforcing her balcony foundation for the past three days, Amandine steps out with the intention to not return home until 6 PM, at which time the construction workers leave. She takes with her Nikita Lalwani's Gifted. 7:10 AM: Amandine sits in the park overlooking the lower city and reads her book. It's intermittently very interesting and vaguely boring. Amandine only gets to page 64 before she decides to move on and keep the book for another time when more exciting diversions aren't as easily available. 7:40 AM: Amandine looks at the city and says hello to everybody who passes. 8 AM: Amandine goes to sit in a café for proper breakfast. The waiter sings loudly to the radio. The flower merchant next door is putting up her displays in Dr Scholl sandals and a gardener's apron. Two old ladies are selling cherries across the street, out of big wicker baskets. 9:35 AM: Amandine, despite the presence of a barely started book in her bag, goes to the bookstore. It is closed. An old man with a huge white beard is also waiting in front of it. The beard immediately makes him likeable to her and she warns him that his backpack is open. He tells her he doesn't care and they engage in a small conversation which results in them concluding that the bookstore must open at 10 and not 9:30 as they both thought. Amandine goes to sit outside and reflects on her strange affinity to facial hair and her automatic assumption that facial hair makes people smarter and nicer. Especially white beards. 10 AM: Amandine returns to the bookstore and buys Haruki Murakami's After Dark and Mary Ann Schaffer's and Annie Barrows' The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. 10:30 AM: Amandine goes to the botanic garden, where she lies in the grass by the pond and reads After Dark. It's very good. 11 AM: Amandine is still reading her book. A duck harasses her relentlessly by quacking loudly and splashing water at her until an old man starts throwing bread into the pond (for the swans, he says, but the duck doesn't care and eats it anyway). 1:30 PM: Amandine is just done with her book when a huge storm breaks and she finds herself completely wet after ten seconds. She finds shelter with a construction worker, a teenage couple and a shirtless man under a big copper beech tree. A black girl of about 20 with very short hair stands under the rain, unmoving. Amandine has water up to her ankles. Her reed soled shoes are holding up remarkably well. 2 PM: Amandine has managed to make her way to a sandwich shop where she drips all over the floor and eats at a table despite paying the takeaway price because the manager took pity on her. She decides there is no better opportunity to go to the movies, especially since this is Cinema week. 2:30 PM: Amandine goes to see Coraline. She's disappointed by the changes made from the book and once again regrets reading the book before seeing the movie, which is actually pretty good on its own. 4:00 PM: The storm is over but Amandine decides to go see Whatever Works, which is good and would be even better without the crappy all-happy ending. I liked the rest of the movie for its mix of cynicism and optimism, but the cynicism was nowhere to be found in the ending and I really regretted that. I mean Amandine did. 5:30 PM: Her balcony soon free of deafening construction workers, Amandine starts to walk home when another, even huger storm breaks out. She crawls along walls to the next theater where she hopes to catch something good, but all that's playing in the next half hour is this horrible looking Lars Van Trier movie with Charlotte Gainsbourg and Amandine decides to pass and go home. She soon realizes, however, that it is impossible to walk uphill under this rain (she has to get to the other side of the cathedral hill) as the water cascading down the streets and around her ankles is very forceful and she can't see anything anyway. 5:40 PM: Amandine finds shelter under the awning of a crowded bar. An old lady carrying three breads (pains? I don't know what the English term is) joins her and the conversation goes like ( this. ) 6:30 PM: Amandine finally walks the last stretch and gets home, dripping water everywhere. The End. This was a good day. War. War never changes.

(a record for June 27th, 2009 at 01:42) I feel very alone. War.

(a record for June 21st, 2009 at 16:00) * Listening to * Feeling   okay... I celebrated my silver anniversary with myself. A rocky partnership, that one. We didn't always agree, I asked for a divorce once. But we do love each other, don't we? I don't know what I have learned in twenty five years. Most of the time it feels like all I have learned is the constant necessity to unlearn. But all the unlearning did teach me things. I learned that misery does not better people any more than poverty makes them more generous. I learned that love takes many guises and obviousness is not the best of them. I learned that words can't account for everything, and touch is more precious than I am inclined to think. I learned that freedom is not only doing what you please, but also living with your choices. I learned that some things can't be undone, and maybe they shouldn't be. I learned I'm a pretty good person, no matter how few of other people's expectations I meet. I learned lateness is not always fashionable and I have to leave now. It's summer and music day, I am off to sing. War.

(a record for June 6th, 2009 at 18:09) * Listening to * Feeling   sad... It's all good and well, this ideal that I have that I can live my life according to my own beliefs, my own needs. I keep forgetting, time and time again, what it feels like to be a disappointment to those close to me. Foresight is something I've always critically lacked. I see a definite correlation between my inability - and unwillingness - to think of the future as something that is actually going to come eventually, and this perpetual, retroactive guilt. "This is what I need right now," I tell myself, "and that's all that matters." But then, later, it's not. It's not all that matters at all, because no words will ever convey that feeling of immediate need, and all that remains is "Look what you've done. You did this and only thought about yourself." And I feel terrible because even though I knew it would happen, when I made my choice it didn't matter. And I feel terrible because as much as I wish I could regret it, I don't. It is who I am. And maybe this is the price to pay. War.