Why Don't You Just Go Gush About it

It's a little early to spill the beans on this, but I'm getting a bit too excited not to share. The previously mentioned me and 5+ drunk French guys in Prague adventure: just been potentially transformed into exclusively me and TMI romantic Prague adventure. Score! The result: I'm thrilled out of my mind.

I'll be honest, I was getting pretty excited about going with friends too, so if that option comes roaring back I won't complain more than expected, but romantic Prague under the snow with handsome TMI is just too wonderful a package to not gush a bit about. Plus, overly religious co-workers hopeful that I will redeem myself insist he's going to pop the question. I LOVE that people are gossiping about this, yes, but my young/wiser-to-the-situation self knows very well that's not what's going down.

But here's the really exciting part: a cold winter is on the way and, according to several reliable sources, winter in Prague is particularly chilly. This means I'm in the market for a new coat! Anyone have any advice for a Hawaii girl when facing the Old World in January? I've been sort of lurking around this navy blue Moment coat from Gentle Fawn the last week.. what do you guys think? What are your favorite looks this winter? ..And favorite coats you can share with me? I promise some classy Prague photos! (artistically anonymous, of course <3)

Dangerous Daydreams

Despite my efforts over the past few years to become a woman above irrational sentimentality, premature attachment, and above all, devoid of the foolishly romantic and idealistic fantasies of diamond rings, wedding dresses, and dramatic public proposals, I am a girl, after all.

Weddings drive me crazy. They absolutely do. In my opinion, a wedding should be a small intimate ceremony sans all the hubbub, and then, after the couple discovers they're still in love after ten years, comes the 100 guests, expensive catering, floral arrangements and enormous cake. Now that's something worth celebrating!

And yet, I remain a lover of romance novels and sappy love songs. Today, I actually caught myself day dreaming up a romantic marriage proposal while I washed the dishes. I dropped the cup I was so ashamed. It was TMI, on the beach at home in Hawaii, down on one knee and in front of my family. He was shamelessly singing devotion and my praises in a very long and unlikely speech.

What does this mean? I'll tell ya what this means. The fact that I was day dreaming about praise just proves that I'm in love with someone loving me and not the someone. I tried to warn the world (and myself) about this type of love in a previous post. Listen up, you can bet your buttons that if what makes you happiest is them telling you or showing you how much you mean to them, you're not in love with the right entity.

It be a dangerous and tricky world out there!

Romance: Life vs Literature

While many of us have learned that romance REQUIRES conflict, (you can't have a love story without problems: forbidden liasons, misunderstandings, danger, separation, etc.) the majority of us stubbornly cling to the hope that there is a kind of love that transcends this fantasy. We do our best to believe in a real, practical love of the adult world that keeps on sizzling even though it’s without problems. Stories need conflicts, real life relationships need stability. The perfect man is single; your families aren’t feuding; you aren’t dangerously younger and he isn’t a priest; yet magically, with the right person, your heart flutters and the two of you share hollywood kisses, perfect sex, and a lasting relationship. ..right?

As I’m writing this I can’t help but smile at how increasingly unlikely it sounds. As I’ve said before I’ve experienced a sincerely good kind of love, the kind that I’m shooting for in future relationships, twice in my life. Both instances started out with platonic friendships which slowly grew into honest admiration, and, eventually, a delicious elation that comes from a heart FULL of an irristable drug that pumps your veins with a hit of blissful exhiliration with every beat. Wow!

BUT. There's a catch. I’ve been pushing it aside as an unimportant detail, since I’m so persuaded that the above feeling had nothing to do with it, but for the sake of discussion here it is: in both cases neither man was single. Hmmmmmmmmm..

The more recent was Harry, and the more dangerous was a forbidden professor. Last year, while in a committed relationship of my own, I fell and fell HARD for a man 20 years my senior, happily married, and professionally off limits.. but, he made me laugh. The affair escalated to passionate Thorn Birds style make outs on office desks with lights turned out and shades drawn. Fortunately the whole thing was extinugished when I left the country for my future in France, but to this day I think of him often and in the highest esteem as one of the only men I’ve ever truly loved.

Do calm seas a happy relationship make? Can we really find that kind of love that makes us “ooh” and “aah” without any bumps in the road? Let's be honest: love in the "real world," can we ditch the fiction and still keep the romance?

Talk Dirty, M'sieur

I think I may have just discovered where the French earned their supposed reputation as lovers. As any reader will know, it has been a long and relatively unrewarding search, but I've at last turned up a little gem.

Because TMI has a friend staying at his place this weekend, he stayed last night with me and will again tonight. It's starting to feel dangerously domestic.

Since the sex is still far from remarkable, I tried to raise the bar of quality in what may be my new entrapment by trying: "say something sexy." Turns out, "dirty talk" in the language of love is UNTHINKABLY delicious. Honestly, you'd think I would have figured this out a little sooner. "Je veux emprunter toutes les portes de ton corps" whispered breathily against your jawline can definitely muster a blush, I'd say.

Courage and Karate

In certain forms of martial arts, if you hurt yourself during practice, it's customary to wipe your blood on your belt. The stains are intended to help a student learn from their mistakes, speak to their experience, and strengthen their confidence; proof that they can suffer a blow and fight another day.

A bit morbid, maybe, but I still appreciate that taking a hit earns honor points and the guts n' grit to get back into the fray. If only the blood spill after a kick in the heart came with the same thing. There's a good many of us out there who could use a little assurance that we can roll with the punches.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right?

My belt earned a smudge of honor this past week when Harry left for England. He was in a hurry to jump on the train, so I was able to throw my arms around him and plant a kiss on his neck in the last fleeting moments, but I didn't have time to say anything meaningful or even look into his eyes. The train door shut between us, and I was assailed by a ninja star to the heart. I took the hit. So here I am, alive to fight another day, but still waiting for the subsequent pride and courage.

Last night, TMI and I had what-could-be-called an intimate experience cozied and naked on the couch until the wee hours, wasting a startling amount of time discussing the potential hurt of learning to love one another. We've both been victim to several degrees of ouch, so while we should be weathered and courageous warriors, we're acting like a pair of teenage scardey-pants.

Harry left me a scooter named Berlioz and I rode him nostalgically home in the early hours of dawn. I thought about courage and karate. Can you imagine how many of us are sneaking around on eggshells while we have belts so drenched in heart break we could have armies pledging their allegiance and masters bowing their heads? I have to wonder: when it comes to our feelings above the belt: why don't our battle scars make us stronger?

This is Getting Harry, pt. 3

Despite all of my relationships, suitors, dates, romantic mishaps and famously frequent French sex, I'm half-way-to-confident to say that I've experienced real love only twice. And to address the scoffing in the audience I will concede that there are different types of love, etc etc, and that this type is suspiciously frequent with men that are not particularly handsome. Very, very, unusual for me, I might add, as my current incarnation is shamefully preoccupied with the physical.

Last night, in the back of a dimly lit bar sometime after midnight, I was sitting on a table and Harry was standing within reach. For the moment we were alone, and there was absolutely no part of me that could have let me escape the situation without breaking some social boundaries. I reached out and touched Harry's stomach. When he didn't protest, I stood up and put my hands on his chest. Still no effort to escape, so I rubbed his shoulders. Then I moved a hand to his neck. Still no running away, so I stepped closer to him and, very slowly pressing my body up against his, cautiously lifted my face until our lips were brushing. I didn't quite have the strength of conviction to go the last millimeter, so I waited, lips parted, for Harry to loose self control and fall into the kiss. Instead, against my mouth, he said so very tragically in his irresistible accent, "I can't."

It was all very Thorn Birds. When I didn't retreat he turned his face slightly and I tormented him further by planting a line of open mouth kisses on his neck, hopefully leaving him at least partially as weak in the knees as I was, before we were interrupted.

When we left the bar, Stephan, the owner and mutual good friend, shook Harry's hand and insisted in a thick French accent: "Harry, you are a very stupid boy." To which he replied. "I know."

The three of us spent the next few hours practicing our new Olympic sport, Tri-Person Cycling, laughing up a storm rolling through my beloved Dijonaise streets. When I slept I dreamt of blissful hand holding. I'm both elated, a little sad, and increasingly worried. Whatever I'm feeling, it's formidable, and with Harry about to leave France, probably a little dangerous too.

emotional love song >>link<<

La Bise that was Heard from Space

"Et pour les amoureux.." Says Stephan as he rings up our drinks at the register. Harry smiles nervously as I'm a little slow to pick up the French, like always.

The bad news: Scratchy the squirrel died night before last when the little heater in his night-time box inexplicably ceased to work. The following day, his owner and my English student, broke three fingers, one on one hand and two on the other, at his construction job while building a wall. The result: a teary eyed student struggling through the past tense for one painfully awkward hour on a rainy Dijonaise evening.

While recovering with a glass of wine with Harry in the aftermath, we talked about music and where it stops being music and starts to be noise- and art, and when it starts to be art and stops being stuff. (Any art student like myself or music student like Harry can answer "never" or "always" to the above and can easily spend an evening arguing about why either, neither, or both are dumb answers)

After words, in the street, I rubbed Harry's arm. He joked about some people being inefficient on bikes as they passed, seeing as there was only one on each and we'd recently become experts at piling on three. We shared a laugh. Then I asked if we could faire la bise. With a smile I added that it was "platonic enough."

So faire la bise we did, and, like usual, as my lips brushed against his left cheek my heart fluttered into space, and when I kissed his right it was all ready lost somewhere beyond Europa. He had touched my arm lightly. It was more poignant and more electric than all the kisses I've had in France to date. Then I dragged my sorry self up my formidable spiral stairs like I do every single night, wondering about love, about sex, the calories in a glass of wine, space travel, etc.

The Right Kind of Courage

I consider myself moderately courageous. I can approach a stranger, initiate a date, ask for kiss or toss a compliment; I can move to a foreign country where I don't know anyone or speak the language. I can fall in love. But, like most silly human beings, I can't, for the life of me, talk about my feelings with someone I care about.

Yes, I have brazenly asked Harry if he wants " to go make out." I've even casually tossed the "welp, lets go have sex" card on the table, which, granted, wasn't terribly easy. (Nor did either go over particularly well.) But when it comes to telling someone that you have feelings for them beyond friendship or physical attraction, something most everyone hopes to be told, why is it so impossible to find the right time, the right words, and the right kind of courage?

Last night, after giving an English lesson to a nice French guy that showed up with a squirrel in his pocket, (a soft, wonderful, baby squirrel named Scratchy) I went out with H and J for some drinks and squirrel talk. The night ended with the two of them "giving me a ride home" by all of us spending an hour giggling in the streets trying to pile onto one bike. It was a profoundly good time. We were so proud of ourselves and our team spirit when, finally, with me on the handle bars, Harry on the seat, and Jonas on the peddles, we managed to swerve around the Chapel St Michel laughing up a storm the whole way. That's some lovely novelty right there: a Hawaiian, a Frenchie, and a Brit rolling around an ancient French cathedral at 3am.

It's fun but it's starting to get a bit ouch inducing as well. And not just from the bruised butt after the handle bars. Each evening when I faire la bise with Jonas and give Harry a defeated handshake my heart gives a little whimper. Hiding affection seems so gosh darn criminal. Every inch of me wants to scream "YOU ARE LOVED! thank you for being you!" in the universal language of kissing, but instead, the laws of relationships force me to walk up my spiral stair case each night with an added ouch on every step.

I seemingly have no trouble with love and loving all sorts of people, all over the place. Why, when we have naturally so much love to give, is it so decidedly against the rules to be loved by more than one person?

"I wish I could tell you face to face instead of singing this stupid song, but yeah, I just think that we might get on..">link<

This is Getting Harry, pt. 2

I look forward to the day when I know better than to drink and text. That said, I'd like to reiterate my growing infatuation with Harry. Which actually isn't an infatuation, it's a pleasant, happy, authentic, attraction that bubbles in that friendly way which you know has nothing to do with the physical, (Harry isn't at all handsome) and everything to do with how well the two of you get on.

He makes me laugh; full heartedly. As any woman and slighter wiser-to-the-game man knows, that does it for most of us.

So, in a nut shell, this is what happened tonight: I went out with Harry and Jonas, our mutual French friend, to the cafe I live above, our usual place. In a span of several hours, I spotted a Frenchie I found attractive and, at the urges of my two usual bar buddies, (and several glasses of wine) I decided to make contact. I stuck my leg out as he was passing by and tripped him. I jumped up from the table, apologized, and then assaulted him with some terrible French to tell him brazenly that I found him handsome. He was more or less shocked, as can be imagined, but we managed to exchange a bit of info before I returned to the table with J and H. Harry spilled his beer on me. Yeah, that's the second beer this week to end up on a French outfit of mine. A lot for a mild mannered girl who doesn't even drink the stuff.

Meanwhile! In the street just outside! The nice guy with erectile dysfunction. You remember. He sees a light on in my apartment and has begun to call and text me lovingly saying he wants to see me and he's waiting below my window. I may just be in the bar next door, but I don't have my phone with me. Then it's closing time! So every one jostles into the street.

Handsome guy who I broke the ice with is trying to kiss me while I'm trying to kiss Harry who's seemingly disinterested while Jonas is trying to kiss me in what should be the platonic French way but its going all wrong, so suddenly im in a kiss orgy with everyone except who I want to be in a kiss orgy with.

Then Harry's gone, so, like any rational girl, I dart across the street and up the stair case into my apartment where I send him a desperate text message. "Damnit Harry, can't you see that all I want in life is an affair with you before you leave?" -smooth as silk, I know.

Then, moments later, I notice the 6 messages and three voicemails from E.D who had been below my window in the street. Several more minutes later and of course I realize that I really need to stop texting Harry like this at 3 am. He's taken. He's taken taken taken all over the place, (in England anyway) and I doubt our platonic relationship has any hopes of surviving my sillyness.

Lastly, Handsome Parisian is online. The only of all the above who's properly available and whom I harbor an authentic affection for. So I said hi, and he logs off.

check please

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.

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!

The Good, the Bad, and the Disgusting

(and you guys thought I was exaggerating)

I knocked on B's door for 15 minutes today trying to pick up my laundry. I was trying to wake him out of his usual comatose, so 15 minutes wasn't bad, but it was a HORRID experience because there was a pile of rotting shrimp in front of his door. The air was putrid and I was trying to hide my nose in my sleeve while I knocked. When he finally answered I was so enraged and disgusted I yelled and swore at him that he had "fucking psychological problems" and his shrimp were disgusting etc, then ran up stairs to gather my laundry while I cried. He went out side and smoked, his feelings obviously hurt.

uuuugghhuughh. I know, I shouldn't be so hard on the guy... ? Right? Everyday I go over there and ask him if he wants to go out and if he reeeaaally wants to stay on the couch all day every day, but he's seemingly hell bent on wasting his life.

And now, finally, THE GOOD NEWS! Handsome Frenchi from Paris is spending a small fortune of 80 Euros to catch a train to visit me this weekend in Dijon. Hurray! I'll be very very happy for his sane company, (as far as I know anyway) and much needed handsome male physical contact. (Which we're pretending like were not committed to, but my apartment is the size of a walk in closet, so I'd say our intentions are pretty obvious.)

And last but not least I'm adding a lovely oval shaped standing mirror and loft bed to my mini abode, which I shall stop at nothing to make a feng shui haven. Photos soon :)

Small Romance

YES, I spent the afternoon with a handsome frenchie. Yes he bought me some of the famous Berthillion ice cream and yes we kissed ever so sweetly on the bridge with all the locks. (The one where couples write their initials on each one and then throw the key in to the seine. How sickly sweet.)

We met at the Pyramide at the Louvre and blushed and laughed for an hour in a street side cafe nearby, then circumvented the more romantic and interesting sights of the Paris. It was lovely and much much much needed by a romantic animal like myself, but, alas, he left me at the metro where I began my path back to Dijon. I think we're too long distance for success. But I'll happily waste calories clinging to some small shreds of hope that I'll see him again for more of the above.

How did I meet this guy again? Perhaps you are wondering. Via online dating. FOR SHAME!!!!

I know, I know. But I am a girl abroad, after all. Actually I receive an obscene amount of messages every day from less than suitable male and female celebataries, so par my mom's advice, I've decided to start a blog to post the more amusing efforts to break the cybernetic ice. Ye can find its fetal form here: Desperate Men's Messages. Sneaky!