The Awkward, Painful, but Admittedly Delicious, Day Trip to Nuit St. Georges

Alive: Yes. Having recently bore witness to another beautiful country village in France: Yes. Mentally unscathed: No.

Yes, I just spent the entire day with my English student "Scratchy" after agreeing to go on a motorcycle adventure with him. I stuffed my head in a sweaty, stinky helmet, clung to his back, and endured an hour of thinking I was near death due to heatstroke as we blazed along en route to Nuit St. Georges. I'll admit, travel, France, and the little villages of Burgandy have a habbit of tossing my heart above my head and tugging dramatic tears of happiness from my eyes, so I savored this joy as much as I could wile trying to ignore my less than comfortable company. It is really hard to be friendly, casual, and personable with a guy if you're desperate to keep from giving the wrong impression. This difficulty only increases with alchoholic intake.

We were starving when we arrived in the village center and I was completely ecstatic when we sat down in a little cafe. Have I mentioned that I love eating? Honestly I think it may be my favorite thing to do in life. I happily ordered an amazing salad with toasted chevre and easily the best sun-dried tomatoes that have ever existed EVER. They were soft and sweet, (not chewy or tough) and frankly sent me into a coma of pleasure that allowed me, for the moment, to completely forget about Scratchy's increasingly annoying advances.

I managed to sustain my bliss until he started trying to feed me with his fingers, which I kinda suspected would happen since he all ready tried once with a chocolate almond during a lesson. This time it was little green olives. After the first glass of wine I was like "no way!" and after the second I was like "dude, seriously, no way," and after the third glass I was like "...yeah ok whatever."

So I let myself be sensually fed and stupidly let all my worries of platonic-ness melt away. After the food we walked around the village center; I managed to avoid hand holding but stupidly, out of guilt and a liquored mentality, consented to holding his arm as we wandered about. Yes, I'm an idiot. When the evening came we went to a wine bar and I was treated to yet another delicious glass of Côte de Nuits. It was nice, but I was seriously aching to get away from this guy before I did anything else retarded. 7 hours + of flirtatious, hopeful glances from a guy you like increasingly less but are helplessly leading on because you're dumb and eating up his money as time goes by can really start to turn a stomach after a while.

Finally I expressed that my feet were tired and insisted that he put me back on his bike and get me home. Another hour of noise and speeding, and we were at the dreaded doorstep good-bye and thank you. Here's where things get hairy. I started planning the escape maneuver when we entered Dijon: I was going to jump off the bike, act as much like a guy-pal as possible, offer a power fist bump, and turn on my heels. A normal guy would just sulk and motor off, right?

I don't even know how this happened by here's what I remember: He rolls the bike up on to the sidewalk and leans it on the kick stand. I'm completely exhausted and dehydrated from all the wine and feel like I'm going to die; I swing my leg over, hop off the bike and then- my thoughtful, presumably non-agresive, semi timid English student, GRABS HOLD OF MY SHOULDERS and totally face plants me with a kiss like he knew I was going to run away. Despite my misery and schock I'm evidently too nice a person to utter a cry of disgust, push him away and initiate a slap like anyone in the movies would, so I sorta just, stiffened and waited... trying to be... unresponsive, but in a... friendly way?? ..against his mouth.

Finally, what I seriously hope was only a few seconds later because it FELT like an eternity, he gave up and I sort of issued an unsure "sorry I don't like it" kind of ..grunt. He looked awkwardly at the sidewalk and I hurriedly added a "thank you! It was amazing and really fun!" While digging, as obviously I could, for my keys in my pocket.

A few more awkward words were exchanged and I finally felt sufficiently liberated to turn, stick my keys in my door, and escape into my corridor. Wow, it feels good to be alone. Wow, my next lesson with him is going to be awkward. Wow. Now I crash.

A Miss Who Misses No Opportunity

So last night at my ritualistically horrible English lesson, my student Scratchy was so moved upon learning the reality of my French existence: a pitiful stipend of €15 a week while surviving off of bread, special K, and green beans from the can while having little purpose in my life other than dancing naked in my apartment to Lady Gaga, writing, and philandering shamelessly with the opposite sex, that he insisted he "show me France" next Thursday. He's on vacation for two weeks starting tomorrow, he insists, and, as he works full time as a mason, has "some money," and wants to pick me up at 9am and whizz me off into .. uh, France, on his motorcycle.

If my mom is reading from the Pacific her heart just skipped a beat. For what it's worth I asked him if he had a big helmet for me and protective gear.

What I'm hoping is that this means a fun filled day of sightseeing to little outlying French villages and hopefully some good food and wine on him. What I'm worried about is that it's going to be bugs in the face, sunburn, and an all day hostage situation. But weighing is for grocers! So I said "you bet your bottom dollar I'll go!" And he was like "...quoi?" and I was like "tout a fait, m'sieur!"

"Let your youth have free reign, it will never come again, so be BOLD and no repenting!"

Extra-Curricular

I would like to take this time to name my English student "Scratchy," after his late baby squirrel. He is my age, nice looking, a non smoker, and one of those rare specimens known as "French Surfers" from the South. Understandably he comes with an air of nostalgia for the male species back home in the islands, wearing T-shirts and sporting surfer guy hair.

While I have long suspected that the only reason he comes to my lessons, since I'm the world's worst English teacher, seriously, may well be our age proximity and my not entirely horrible cuteness quotient, today he surprised me by offering to take me on a visit to Dijon's surrounding areas "some Sunday," "when he has time."

He also had a lot to say about me potentially finding work in a vineyard. I shall investigate this.

And in secondary news, I've been thinking a lot about dreams this week. Windows to the subconscious? Vast reservoirs of cryptic info about life, spirituality, or human psychology just waiting to be deciphered? Or are we unaccountable for any of the trouble our brains get into when we let em' off the leash each night?

Lately I've been dreaming about having a pug dog puppy and forcing cuddles on his tiny squirming body. I don't generally like dogs; and I've always found ownership of the small pathetic ones kind of a perverse display of a desire to dominate a lesser and submissive being. I've also dreamt of surviving a zombie apocalypse by fleeing to the ocean and staying with a pod of dolphins for 8 days, befriending a tree that had skin instead of bark, and always, alllwaaays, dreams about Harry. He emerges, full of love an reciprocity, and my chest fills up with warm delicious sunbeams; until the the sight of my ceiling extinguishes them with a swift bucket of cold awareness.

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.