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

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.