Aller Dijon, Aller!

Tonight was the night to pull out the red dress and follow a pack of testosterone charged males to the local spots bar and show our support for team Dijon. I never wear red; but being told to do so I obediently dawned a saucy little number and some black heels to brave the cobblestone streets; and learned one valuable lesson. Watching sports on tv is dumb.

After having a beer spilled on my shoe and feeling that I had payed my social duty as a friend, I marched back to my beloved French pad early, enduring many rowdy shouts from sports enthusiasts on my way home.

The news this week is that I am 77% sure that I am moving to Paris for fashion school in September. Having worked as a model in my teenage years and just recently earned a degree in Art History and Digital Illustration, I think it might be the perfect fusion of my interests and the correct step forward. It might be. It might also be a colossal disaster, but I'm willing to undergo a certain degree of embarrassment for adventure. It's also expensive! So it's too soon for the last three percentiles.

And tomorrow I'm portraying the leading lady (yes, only because I'm the only available lady) in a short, independent French film. I'm both excited and devastated because I have some serious problems with getting up early. It's for an annual film festival in which small film crews assemble and draw genres form a hat and have 48 hours to shoot, edit, and present an 8 minute film to a jury. We pulled action/thriller. I was secretly wishing for Romance, but looks like tomorrow I'll probably be running and screaming. (but in French, so I'm not complaining)

So with all that under the belt I'm going to try and call it an early night; so the red dress goes back in the closet and I'm taking some sleeping pills; cuz from what I can tell the Dijonaise are planning on honking their car horns and singing our city's name all through the night.

The Virgin/Whore Dichotomy

I can't help but notice there there is a careful dance that a woman undergoes when looking for love that demonstrates two extremes. One, “I am not desperate, clingy, or easily attached," and two, “I am also a woman of fidelity and there is something old fashioned hidden somewhere beneath my hardened modern exterior.”

The social construct of dating, sex, and the sexes today has lead many of us to believe that we shouldn't allow ourselves to get too attached too soon; to not expect commitment after sex, to suppress the urge to fall in love, and to give the solid impression that we are interested, but not really that interested.

In any case, tonight while trying my hand at being a fun, carefree, and independent woman of the modern world, I was told: “I’m sorry, I just don’t think that I could have sex with someone I’m not in love with.. or at least, who isn’t my girlfriend.” When did our most secret, unfashionable, and suppressed basic desire start coming out of a man's mouth?

While I realize this display of honorable intentions could just be a cover up for a can't-get-it-up, frankly I'm feeling a little victimized by the unexpected turning of the table. I can’t help but wonder, when it comes to the game of love: does agreeing to play get you kicked off the field?

I think this question falls into the growing abyss generated by what is apparently called the "Virgin/Whore Dichotomy." The media is constantly hurling messages at the woman of today about how to be sexier, better at sex, and how to "proudly" navigate through the dating terrain by giving the impression that we can have sex like men: a la cart. The subtext of these messages however is really "-but don't actually have sex because then you'll be a slut." Easy, right?

Keeping it Light

"According to certain scientists, whenever a woman has sex, her body produces a chemical which causes her to emotionally attach. This chemical may also account for the series of terrifying questions that involuntarily pop into our minds even after just one casual tryst. Questions like: “does he like me?” “will he call again?” and the classic, “where is this all going?” When it comes to men, even when we try to keep it light, how do we wind up in the dark?"

A poignant question from my favorite fictional columnist. That said, Paris was lovely, but there's no fighting biology.

In response to my post on Sex and Sex Too Soon, another woman of words commented: "Turns out that humans don't value things that come too easily. Money, love, sex, new shoes; they all fall into the same abyss. Easy come IS easy go."

Is it too much to ask that humans could grow up a bit and get over the egos and the chemicals? Can we possibly learn to overlook the chase, or in some cases, the impulse to attach, and just start falling in love?

In other more travel related news my weekend in Paris, due to some embarrassing un-savyness when it comes to trains and train stations, ended with a day long tour of the Bourgogne region of France instead of the 1 1/2 hour it should have taken me to get back to Dijon. I even had a whole hour to myself to wander around the lesser known village of Laroche-Migennes; plenty of time to become pleasantly acquainted with all three of the town's inhabitants: a duck, and two old men fishing.

the canal in Laroche.

This is Getting Harry

50% off French flowery lingerie. Yes. Just yes.

I'm falling for an English guy named Harry. No lightening bolt scar though. No particularly Earth shaking good looks either, which is unusual for me. While I at first admired him for our ability to have a platonic relationship, after I went to his violin concert at the music conservatoire I was thankfully reminded how people can be attractive in other ways apart from the physical. After his show, we went out drinking and then back to my place, where, at 4 am, I received a breath taking drunken private violin concert by a weathered master. Fabulous - and, somewhere around the third movement, I felt an unfamiliar flutter in the less superficial part of my heart.

But he's taken! So back into the fray. I'm heading back to Paris this weekend ;)

In other more dangerous news I shall be attempting a home brazilian this evening. Oh yeah. This is life on the edge.

Boat Music

In not so sexy news I went to the boat and danced tonight. Danced to an amazing singing black woman with an afro and a sparkly dress and a band of good lookin guys playing trumpets and drums and electric guitars. It was unbelievably fabulous- the woman was incredible.

And tomorrow is job interview number one! With any luck. And next week brings three meetings with my three new English students! ..Again, with any luck.

Honorable Intentions! Oh, I Mean Erectile Dysfunction.

I wish I could say that this is the first time this has happened to me. But for those of you cued in to my previous post about the not-so-French and not-so-guy-like behavior from the fellow I've been dating lately, I now have an answer to all the burning questions.

That glimmer of hope for mankind that I saw the other night which came in the form of "I think we should wait," was clarified tonight with "I thought we should wait because sometimes... this happens." "This" being, you guessed it, an inability to rise to the occasion.

He explained incessantly that it wasn't me, that it happens to the poor guy all the time as of about a year ago, and used it to explain his earlier reluctance. I was as loving and cuddely and as understanding as humanly possible.

I did however kick him out when he asked to stay the night. Not in a terribly insensitive way, just in a... you don't have a toothbrush and you're a smoker... kind of way.

There's Sex, and There's Sex too Soon. (apparently)

I've been dating a guy the last few weeks: as in, allowing myself to be bought drinks, taken out dancing, and kissed occasionally at my doorstep. The guy in question seems nice enough, and even semi enjoyable, but my body just refuses to get butterflies and my mind refuses to stop dwelling on our differences as well as his just-not-totally-handsome-enough-ness. I can't convince myself I'd ever want to get """"serious,"""" but I haven't considered sex to be out of the question.

Tonight, while he was driving me home, he said "so... I have to see you again."

When we pulled over on my street and kissed goodnight, I told him I was tempted to invite him upstairs. He had been giving a rather valiant effort for some time, after all. To my great surprise, he told me that while he wanted to come up to my apartment, he thought it would be better if we "waited."

I'm sorry? Did I hear you correctly? This is a French guy we're talking about here. That's not "guy" or "French." Not to mention that this suggests entirely honorable intentions. Which might actually get me in trouble with a guy who ignites no butterflies. B says I should cue him in on this so I don't hurt him. Honestly, being so often on the other end of the stick I can't fathom being in such a position.

Are all men naturally programmed to ditch if they get sex too easily? Do the ones that actually have desire/intention to stick around want to put off sex just for the sake of prohibiting their own biological mechanisms to be jerks?? And, if so, does this really mean that a girl has to live her life denying the men who give her butterflies lest she gets a kick in the heart and a no show the morning after?

well phoque!

Brocante sur JJ Rousseau

Today was a lovely day! Thanks to the brocante, a big event where people take to the streets and set up booths packed full of all their antique junk/treasures. And it all took place right on my street! The cafes moved their tables out into the road and local musicians played great music all throughout the day.

totally putting this in my kitchen.

Love, Money

I seem to have a lot of men interested that I'm not interested in, probably because I'm not interested. And the ones that I am interested in aren't interested, likely for the same reason. It's like a mobius strip but for sexual attraction.

I went out to a concert at an Irish pub tonight and seemed to be remarkably well liked by the male population and relatively disliked by one French woman who I thought was very pretty. She imitated me and made fun of my accent to the guys around her thinking I couldn't understand. This made me sad, but fortunately the guys around her didn't seem impressed with her efforts.

Back in my apartment I receive not one but two loving and lengthy text messages from various French men! The accent must not be so bad. Also I took my resume' around town today and, with a trembling hand and probably horrific French because I was so shy, placed it in the hands of some very unimpressed looking proprietors. -Then I discovered via B it had some grave mistakes, so I cried, reprinted the thing, and made the rounds a second time apologizing and asking if I could leave the new one. "Désolé, c'était ma première fois que j'ai tapé un CV en Française!!"

baby steps.

The Bat of the Casemates

After missing my train due to the inability to wrap my brain around the 24 hour clock, I spent another day in Luxembourg. A wonderful day, I might add! We wandered through the old district of Grund, sipped peach ice tea under an old flower covered trellis, and ventured into the famous Casemates - The 17 kilomteres of tunnels that remain from the immense fortress built way back in the times or yore. During both World Wars, the Casemates functioned as shelters and provided space for up to 35,000 people during air raids and shelling. Definitely no place for claustrophobics, as it's hard not to get dizzy in some of the tinier and darker tunnels.

Anna and I both agreed that the best part of the adventure was wriggling through some probably not-meant-to-be-surpassable corridors and awaking an angry and fluttering bat, sending us both squealing and scrambling back the way we came. Then, lost, and unable to find the exit, we squeezed through a grate and climbed the walls of the fortress like the warriors before us to escape the casemates.

Luxembourg is in incredibly beautiful city. Modern, clean, and very very green. While every blade of grass in Dijon was cobbelstoned over centuries ago, Luxembourg, though larger, still manages trees, fields, donkeys, chickens and sheep not far from the city center. Loved it.

I've also started reading Harry Potter! IN FRENCH! I delved into on the train and was happy to discover that not only do I like Harry Potter, but I also speak French. Woo!

Grund

spooky

Casemates, exterior