Monday, January 23, 2012

Addiction, by Meaghen

In a little town in the south of France that has only two cafes and one good baker, the twilight of evening crept over the rolling farmland, along the D118 highway, and past the Salz before stopping abruptly at the corners of the town square. At the center of the square were two figures, sitting cross-legged and hunched over, a thin mist rising from their mouths into the cold air. As if in surprise, the dark mist hesitated over the two shadowed bodies before continuing its westward course to the Pyrenees.

"It's dark," said Meaghen.
"Why are we sitting in the middle of the town square?" Mary questioned the night.
"Cross-legged, no less?" Meaghen added.

This was just one of the many questions Mary and Meaghen had found themselves asking over the past few weeks, such as,

"Why are we laughing at everything?"
"Why can't we move?"
"Why don't we leave the apartment before 2:30pm?"
"Why am I dizzy?"
"Why am I single?"
"Why do we need ten hours of sleep per night?"
"Why does your nose look so weird?"

The soul-searching had begun after a Sunday spent at the market in Esperaza, where the two girls had gone to Mass, wandered through the farmer's market, bought a couple cookies, were force-fed a shot glass of tea (or water-infused honey), and watched the world pass by while sipping cafe au lait at their local cafe.

It seemed innocent at the time.

And then they woke up. On Tuesday morning.

"What day is it?" queried Mary.
"Is it actually 3pm," Meaghen moaned, "or is my clock wrong?"
"It's morning in Canada...somewhere," Mary justified.
"Lets go for tea."

They walked to the Bio Bakery, where they had already built a reputation for holding inappropriate conversations, eating entire loaves of bread, sneaking extra water for their tea, and shamelessly making fun of the staff, who nevertheless gave them free cookies.

Their waitress was a slight girl of about sixteen or twenty-two, who laughed after everything she said and spent three minutes putting the lid on the tea pot (or as the French would say, the the pot).

"She's totally high," Mary said.
"NO," Meaghen said.
The girl put the lid on the pot.
"She IS," insisted Mary.
"Sh!" shushed Meaghen, motioning that the girl was still standing in front of them.
"Standing in front of me, you mean," corrected Mary.
"Oh, right," acquiesced Meaghen. "I forgot your phobia about sitting with your back to the door."
Mary sipped her tea.
Meaghen sipped her tea.
Mary nibbled a cookie.
Meaghen scarfed a cookie.
Mary started to knead a piece of bread into mush.
Meaghen looked at her in disgust.

And then, simultaneously, the mental pieces fell into place. "The grey stuff," as P.G. Wodehouse might have said, "began to work." The light bulb turned on.

"We're addicted to Crack Rock."

Well, ladies and gentlemen, it's true. Remember that shot glass of tea, that you forgot about because it seemed so innocent at the time? We're pretty sure it had the Crack Rock in it. And that's why two chocolate bars disappeared from our apartment in a matter of days. And why we run into the bathroom when people knock on our door. And why we watched Due Date three times. In a row. And why Mary hasn't posted on her blog in weeks. And why I'm guest posting now. And why this guest post is so strange.

It's the Crack Rock.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

A Productive Use of Time

I think it's Meaghen's fault that this blog is so neglected.

(Damn you, Meaghen.)

In Greece I had no one to bounce ideas off of or to calm my nervous psychoses.

But with Meaghen here, I can rationally discuss all manner of things and have no need to encourage my narcissism and put my thoughts out into the ether.

We can sit down over Coffee and explore every possible option for why my period is ten days late, which may or may not include the most logical conclusion: I have been impregnated, simply from a glance, by the searing blue eyes of the charming French-man at the market.

Long meandering discussions are had about Downton Abbey: Is it right to force the kitchen maid to marry the dying soldier, even though she doesn't want to, but by doing so she is helping him die happy?

Meaghen: Absolutely not.

Mary: Absolutely yes.

Meaghen: She doesn't want to. She doesn't love him.

Mary: It doesn't matter. It's only for six hours until he dies and then she can go back to normal life. Besides, he dies happy, and it's no skin off her nose, so what's the big deal?

Besides it's war time. Suck. It. Up.

Meaghen: But it's a lie.

Mary: Sometimes it's good to lie.

Meaghen: Is it, Mary? Is it?

Mary: Yes. But only if you know that God isn't paying attention.

Meaghen:..........

(God: if you are reading this, I don't really believe that.)

Important discussions are had about highly important things such as:

a) How can Meaghen get Josh Groban's attention so that she can tell him how much she wants to have half a dozen of his curly-haired children?

and

b) Is Wentworth Miller REALLY gay?

Answers:

a) Create a Myspace account specifically for posting on Josh Groban's wall. Make completely outrageous statements guaranteed to gain his attention. Once his attention has been caught, insist on meeting him in order to gain his undying love. Success. End of story.

b) After hours of internet research - which was given attention and devotion to the facts that I am quite sure not one of our University papers benefited from - the conclusion is: No. Wentworth Miller has never, not once, confirmed that he is gay. To the contrary, he makes reference to his deep held desire to find a nice girl (Here! over HERE!). His supposed homosexuality is apparently a figment of Perez Hilton's imagination and as such, having found that out, Meaghen and I can now rest easier at night.

....Mostly because......if Josh Groban doesn't work out, Meaghen is making a flying dash into Wentworth Miller's manly, so excessively ripped arms.

I don't know why she gets all of the celebrities and I am stuck offering to become God-Mother of her future children whose faces, I am sure, will be plastered all over the tabloids from the moment they exit the birth canal.

Share just a little, Meaghen.

You wrecked my blog, and now you are trying to decide between two celebrities?

Not. Fair.

And finally: Listen to this song. It will make your world a better, brighter place, and possibly make your having read this blog-post.....NOT a complete waste of time.

Monday, January 2, 2012

Green Knee Socks

A nice walk down the road from us - I am not sure in which direction; when do I ever know where I am? - is a little village called Esperaza.

We first came across it on a Sunday morning when we went to explore the farmer's market. In the middle of what I suppose must be the town square, there were booths peddling everything from Alpaca sweaters, to statues of the Buddha, to home-made fruitcake.

People were dressed in all kinds of terrible clothing - ranging from what looked like burlap sacks, to what could have been the carcass of a dead dog - walking around smoking pot and flipping their deadlocked hair in the wind.

Meaghen and I were thoroughly enchanted. So much character was infused into this town.

We went back during the week, found a Cafe that we liked and decided that Esperaza was worth visiting AT LEAST two days a week. It didn't hurt that, being a cookie monster, Meaghen found a bakery which makes cookies fit to force her into a swoon.

Esperaza's charms grew - the supermarket carried a particularly good kind of smoked salmon, the cafe served a very tasty green-mint tea and produced a lovely cafe au lait, and the way the light filtered through the trees and onto the river was particularly magical.

Slowly, oh so slowly, though, we started to notice things.

Almost every person we saw was either excessively tattooed, or carrying about 10.5 pounds worth of piercings on various parts of their body.

The terrible clothing was not limited to the attendees of the Sunday market: it seemed to be a daily occurrence, and something that did not improve on further viewing.

We decided that Esperaza is possibly the ghetto of the surrounding area. Perhaps it is equivalent to a trailer park. Maybe this is where ex-convicts are condemned to. Possibly it is a hippie commune. Any and all of these options seem feasible.

Beyond that, though, the town has the weird feeling of being a completely alternate universe. You can walk the length of a street and not see one person or moving car, or the hint of movement from any house. This is contrasted with the fact that music is pumped very loudly into all the streets of the town. Speakers mounted on buildings insure that, no matter where you roam, you are inundated with music. Not just any music, mind you, but loud, pounding, club-type music.

There are few things more strange than walking down a completely deserted street in a quaint French town, accompanied by LMFAO's Party Rock Anthem.

Yesterday, having settled in at the cafe, we took a look around and noticed that everyone was shooting back shots or drinking wine. In the morning. Well before lunch-time.

As we tried to figure out if drinking this early on in the day is a French thing, or merely an Esperaza thing, one of the men who had been standing around with his buddies came up, grabbed Meaghen by the shoulder, kissed her on both cheeks, turned to me and did the same, tipped his cap, and then walked off.

We stared at each other, bewildered. The other patrons of the cafe seemed briefly interested, then gave a collective shrug and returned to their alcoholic endeavors.

There was nothing for it, but for us to do the same, except that we were drinking coffee, not Rose.

As I sipped, I watched little kids wander around amongst their madly smoking parents, drinking Coke and yammering away to each other. Old men walked by with baguettes under their arms shouting greetings to anyone they passed. Motorcycles sped by driven by barely pubescent boys.

Perhaps, I thought, I had been judging the town too harshly. It all seemed perfectly normal.

And then she walked by. A beautiful woman. And yet...she wore tight tan pants.....tucked into olive green wool knee socks embroidered with little fairies. That's right. Her socks were pulled up OVER her pants, all the way past her knees.

Weird. So weird.

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Give it Up

Soo........

I'm not dead yet.

(Also: Happy New Year! Merry Christmas! Klassy Kwanzaa! Hip Hanukkah!)

Well, maybe my brain is dead. I have the drafts of four or five blog posts saved, but none of them are suitable for eyes other than mine.

In other words: pathetic doesn't even begin to describe it.

To move on....

Two weeks ago, I was again watching educational programming - Millionaire Matchmaker - and a guy came on the show asking for a woman who would be willing to be by his side, and possibly leave any career she was pursuing. As a pretty constant world traveler, he assumed that it would be too hard for her to work and be with him as much as he would like. Plus, he wanted any children they would have to be with him as well.

The Matchmaker called him a chauvinistic bastard. Any woman worth anything would not give up her career just to travel with him and take care of his children.

He looked at her like she had three heads. "Why not? That's what a marriage is. You stick together and spend as much time together as possible. I will give her everything she needs - why would she need to work?"

"Because any self respecting woman would!"

In the scouting interviews, the Matchmaker interviewed potential woman and said something along the lines of "He might want you to give up your job so that you could travel with him and your kids..."

Each and every time, the woman's eyes would light up and she would pipe up with "Oh....well...TOTALLY not a problem."

The Matchmaker would shake her head in despair: "Where are all the strong women?" True - most of them might have been gold diggers (...They are on a show called Millionaire Matchmaker...), betting on the fact that they could float along with a few nannies. BUT - there is, I believe, a deeper truth here.

I don't think it's necessarily a weak thing to devote oneself to the raising of children and the care of one's husband. It might even be rather courageous. Anyone who has spent any time with kids knows how demanding they are. And what is that saying about "behind every great man, there is a great woman"? Statistically, happily married men advance faster in the workplace and earn more than their non-married counterparts. Could it be that having someone support them gives an extra edge?

SOMEONE needs to take care of the house. SOMEONE needs to do the laundry. SOMEONE needs to shuttle kids around. SOMEONE needs to cook nutritious meals. Since when did all of those things become not a worthy, fulfilling way of spending one's day, but rather something to be shoved off on recent immigrants who can barely speak one's language, and who are willing to work for a small pittance?

Why is the cultivation of one's marriage and the raising of one's children considered something that can be done in the hour before work, and in the three hours - at best - you have together before everyone crashes into bed?

To end: here you go, the column that sparked this post.

As the author says:

It turns out that the "traditional" marriage, which we've all been so happy to annihilate, had some pretty good provisions for many of today's most stubborn marital problems, such as how to combine work and parenthood, and how to keep the springs of the marriage bed in good working order.

And then:

When I asked her about what I had been hearing, she told me that she has seen many married couples who have gone without sex for periods of time ranging from six months to six years. Why? "Marriage has changed," she told me. "In the old days the husband was the breadwinner. The wife had the expectation of raising the children and pleasing him. Now they're both working and both taking care of the children, and they're too exhausted and resentful to have sex." I asked Greer the obvious question: If a couple is not having sex because of job pressures and one partner quits working, does the couple have more sex? The answer was immediate and unequivocal: "Absolutely!"

So.....let me get this straight......one person to take care of the money side of things, and one person to take care of the domestic side of things actually works better than both people trying to do both jobs at once? They might actually be happier? Life might run smoother?

Who. Would. Have. Thought?

Not that - inundated as I am with attractive visions of the career mother who "has it all" - I don't struggle with this idea. I do. However, if it came down to the reality of what could potentially further my happiness and the happiness of those around me, I would hope to be able to abandon the T.V. sitcom in my head, if need be.

After all:

Sex > Job (one would hope), and if it is true that the loss of the latter - for one person - improves the former -for both people - what is there to lose?

Better sit on that one for a while.