smalltimore

i am knackered (pronounced, "nack-ahhd"). matthew and the brits just left a little while ago, and while i hate to see them go, really all i could think of was, "now i can SLEEP!!!" in my defense, though, these 16-to-21-year-olds were dragging just as much as i, so it is not simply a matter of me not being able to hang anymore.

thank you so much to all of you who came out to see and/or support the show at Theater Project. i know for many of you it was a long drive or for others it was a tight week financially, but thank you for any sacrifice of time, convenience, or funds that you made to support this worthy cause. i feel confident that none of you felt short-changed in the end. i have seen many Songtime Theatre Arts productions both here and in London, and the more i think about it, this may have been the best show i have seen them do. i actually woke up this morning thinking about these five characters, and i was very sad, because when matthew backed the rented mini-van slowly out of my icy parking lot a couple hours ago with these five kids in tow,  it was like i was saying gooodbye to eleven people instead of just six. and worse yet, five of these people, the characters from the play, are people i like, people i would like to know better, and people i will never see again. i want to make sure that jamie and ste, the two young gay men, know they have friends who support them and they definitely, "can find people wha' won' kill them," (and not just on the mediterranean isle of, "Lesbian"). i want to tell leah that she doesn't need to be such a hard-ass, that is she wasn't so brash she could make friends more easily, but that i can understand why she lives her life on the offensive. it is survival of the fittest for so many. i want to go out for drinks with tony and tell him not to kiss so much ass the next time he finds himself a woman, that we like that far less than most men think. and i especially want to know sandra better, be a friend to her, to tell her i am proud of her for supporting and protecting her son, for breaking the cycle of prejudice. for being human. that is what stood out to me in this performance, and what these brilliant young actors portrayed so well. these characters were not caricatures, they were so true-to-life...each with their own aspirations, fears of rejection, longing to please everyone at the same time and failing miserably, finding strengths they didn't know they had, being forced to make decisions they didn't want to face. making jokes in their most desperate hours to keep themselves sane.

instead i had to settle for telling only lee, chris, jessica, michael, and holly how proud i am of them. watching them interact with each other, and with people they have met here, is not so different than watching these characters that they portrayed (but fortunately within circumstances far less dire). they are so incredibly talented, and such lovely people in general, they blow me away every time. the writing, of course, was brilliant, but it is up to the actor to make that character memorable (or forgetable). to make that character sympathetic, regardless of how flawed he or she might be. to make that character human, in a manner that reminds us that we all are exactly that. that, to me, is the litmus test of a talented actor. i am lucky to know so many of them, and i am glad that some of you were able to meet some of them.

UPDATE!!!! IF YOU WANT TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE BALTIMORE SCHOOL FOR THE ARTS-SONGTIME U.K. THEATER EXCHANGE PROGRAM, THE THING TO DO IS TO WRITE YOUR TAX-DEDUCTIBLE CHECK TO BALTIMORE THEATER PROJECT AND NOTE "BSA-SONGTIME THEATER EXCHANGE" IN THE MEMO. please scroll down to the post titled "Beautiful Thing" if you would like to know more about this exchange program.

ahem, question, HAVE YOU BOUGHT YOUR TICKETS TO "BEAUTIFUL THING" YET? if not, please get on that right away, and PLEASE bring anyone you can, and spread the word. missiontix.com or the Baltimore Theatre Project box office at 410-752-8558. 3 nights only, opening night tomorrow at 8pm, fri and sat shows also.

i wasn't aware until last night that this is actually the U.S. premiere of the stage version of "Beautiful Thing". it is adapted from the film by jonothan harvey and has been performed onstage in the UK but never in America.

lots going on so no time to write much, but i very much hope to see you one of the next three evenings at theatre project to support this worthy cause. scroll down to the entry titled "Beautiful Thing" for more info.

thanks!!!!

what makes for a good story? i mean, what is more essential, the material or the style in which it is relayed? or perhaps the key lies in the interests of the person that is reading, listening, or watching the tale unfold. or perhaps equal parts of all three.

that's what life is, isn't it, just a series of stories that we live and then retell to each other. there's that bit in, "When Harry Met Sally," where harry is freaked out after sleeping with sally, that he doesn't know how to handle it because usually when you start sleeping with someone, part of the ritual is telling each other your stories, and they already knew all of each other's stories. i think there is a lot of truth to that.

i have a lot of favorite stories that i have told a million times and will tell a million more times, i'm sure. steph's favorite story of mine is when i dated the homeless, toothless scotsman. or, more specifically, how i found out he was toothless after i had already been dating him for awhile. ahhh, a classic. there's the one when i almost didn't get to see the pope when i got trapped in a bathroom stall in vatican city. of course there are a bunch that took place in france. my friend joe and i spending the most ludicrously decadent day of our lives at the veuve-clicquot mansion in reims. and then there was "the end" of my last trip with jonathan. using up my last few minutes of video i complained that he needed to, "do something interesting!" so, to the shock and possible dismay and/or delight of the young ladies sitting at the table beside us in a bar in paris, he stood up and mooned me. i'm talking shorts down and all. and baltimore...at the end of each day i have several new ones piled up. don't even get me started.

what is it exactly that holds one's attention, though? i saw the film, "Pan's Labyrinth," this evening.  well worth seeing, though as much as i liked it, i think some people would hate it. but the storytelling was so tight, i can't imagine ANYONE walking out on it. it was a two-hour film, but it didn't drag for a moment.

all stories are a sort of voyeurism, aren't they, as all stories are some form of autobiography, or at least all good stories are. events a narrator might tell an audience may not have actually occurred in real life, but they occurred at least in that person's head and it all comes from somewhere inside that person. just as you could likely trace all of your own little idiosyncrasies back to experiences you have had, in even the most outlandish work of fiction one can find some basis in fact.

i bought a book today, "Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda," the letters written between F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife. when i find the time to read, i almost exclusively read biographies or autobiographies of people that interest me, writers, artists, stars of the silver screen (and by that i mean true stars like katherine hepburn or mae west, both heroes of mine and both far ahead of their time). why read fiction when fact is usually far more dramatic? did you know that zelda had a stay in the psychiatric ward at sheppard-pratt when they lived in baltimore? or that scott embarassed his daughter scottie at her sweet 16th birthday at the belvedere hotel here, when he was inebriated and tried to dance with her friends, or that he is buried in rockville, maryland?

he wrote his masterpiece, "The Great Gatsby," largely in order to impress zelda, and to convince her that he was talented and worth marrying. his undying love for her, and his anxieties about ever being good enough for her, shine through in this brilliant novel. "Rich girls don't marry poor boys," Daisy Buchanan sobs to Jay Gatsby. "Rich girls don't marry poor boys..."

it is fascinating. but it is all in the telling of the story, i think. fictionalizing fact. "Pan's Labyrinth," was set in spain, at the end of the spanish civil war. this reminded me of a novel by another of my favorite authors, ernest hemingway, "For Whom the Bell Tolls." i have read quite a bit of hemingway, and i appreciate his straight-forward style of writing. in most cases. but i can't seem to get through this particular book. it is a fairly long book, and twice i have gotten about two-thirds of the way through it before giving up. the thing about this book is, from what i remember, is that the main character (which in hemingway's novels, the main character is always easily recognizable as hemingway) is working with the rebels in the spanish civil war to blow up a particular bridge. it is strategically very important and takes an enormous amount of meticulous planning. and two-thirds of the way through this thick tome, they still haven't gotten around to BLOWING UP THE DAMN BRIDGE ALREADY. at this point i get frustrated and toss the book under the bed and pull an old "Calvin & Hobbes" collection off the shelf. and yes, i KNOW that the book is not really about blowing up the bridge. but i find the whole business about it so distracting and frustrating that it is the only thing i remember about the story! perhaps i will try to return to it one more time.

anyway...i guess i am thinking about storytelling from this angle because i have had a number of friends comment (in person, i mean, not comment online, though those are fun to read, so feel free!) about this blog, including one friend who told me he now has a friend of his who i have never met reading this blog. apparently, this woman is actually married to a straight american man who occasionally buys her hot shoes (if you go back a few postings to my time in paris, this will make more sense). this is how she connected with a story of mine, and now she is a reader. so what have we learned here? we have learned that the only straight american man who knows how to buy shoes for a woman is happily married. so stop looking, ladies.

about a year before my grandmother died, i taped a conversation with her. this started because my mother had bought a book for me, sort of a family tree book but more personalized. it was set up so that i was to more or less interview my grandmother and fill in the blanks with stories, like about how she met my grandfather, things she remembered about the births of her children, stories from her own childhood, etc. though i write a lot, my actual handwriting is very slow, and it was breaking the rythym of the storytelling to try to take dictation, so i decided to tape it. there was no special occasion this night, no holiday, no birthday party, just a typical evening at my grandmother's house. my mother and grandmother and i sat at the kitchen table as we often did, mom and grandma each with their cup of tea. grandma even had her teeth in, as i remember.  sometime my mom would remind gram of some funny details she had left out. sometimes grandma would get the giggles so badly that it would take her a few minutes to continue with the story. my aunt pam, in an obvious ploy for attention, would walk through and interrupt the conversation on her way to the fridge, my uncle vincent (same ploy) would walk through and fart or tell an off-color joke. my brother would clatter a few dishes as he made himself something for dinner... someone could be heard coming in the front door in the next room and chatting with someone else over the white noise of the television in the living room...the dog barked at a stranger walking by the front of the house... 

this tape is a treasure. writing down my grandmother's words alone would not really be telling the whole story. the stories needed to be told in exactly the way that they were recorded. i remember being very annoyed with my family that evening for continually interrupting us when i was trying to document history. but to write simple words on paper, without my grandmother's laughter, the laughter of three generations of women sitting around that table, the parade of characters in and out, to tell the story without the constant low din, the warm hum that always buzzed in my grandmother's home because of the wonderful person that she was and her family that loved to be around her...it would not be telling the whole story at all.

another friend of mine who reads this blog is probably unwittingly at least somewhat responsible for shaping my own style of writing. about a million years ago, when we no longer lived in the same city, i wrote him a letter (remember those things? real letters? a lost art...). later he was making fun of me, as he likes to do, about this letter. i don't remember what i wrote or what prompted me to write it, i only remember him saying that, "reading your letter is like having a conversation with you." he was trying to pick on me but actually i took that as a big compliment, and i have never forgotten that he said that to me. i like that. and i hope that that can still be said of my writing. even if i've never met you and you are reading this, i hope it feels like we are having a cup of tea at the kitchen table together. my life, welcome to it. just be glad that you can read this at your leisure and not have to deal with my crazy-ass family.

Okay, I promised you a few posts ago that I would talk more about, "Beautiful Thing," and Songtime Theatre Arts, a youth theatre training program in London operated by my friend Matthew. Matthew is bringing five students to Baltimore tomorrow. They will be here for a week, and will perform, "Beautiful Thing," at Baltimore Theatre Project at 8:00pm Thursday February 22, Fri Feb 23, and Sat Feb 24. THREE SHOWS ONLY, so get your tix now at missiontix.com or at the box office 410-752-8558. I know, I know, you don't read this blog for the commercials, but this is REALLY important (I am actually capitalizing, so it must be), so please read on.

If you want the Reader's Digest Condensed Version of the story, click here: http://www.baltimorefunguide.com/calendar/detailEvent.do;jsessionid=1d06zn7ct1?date_month=2&date_year=2007&event_id=13228&date_day=22

This show is a fundraiser, the only fundraiser we are allowed to have, for the Baltimore School for the Arts-Songtime UK Theatre Exchange Program, to try to get the senior theatre class of BSFA to London for one week this May. This is NOT a free vacation for these kids, this is a true cultural exchange. When last year's class went, they rehearsed 6 of the eight days they were in London, for four to eight hours a day, culminating in a live performance for an invited audience at the end of the week. This is an opportunity for both groups of students to gain international experience, work with their peers from across the Atlantic, and to learn from a director (the play was co-directed by Donald Hicken and Matthew Chandler) with a near polar-opposite style of how they are used to working.  

Last year's class was only able to go due to the generosity of the parents of one of the students, who underwrote the entire cost of transportation for the group of 18 students. Most people don't realize that Baltimore School for the Arts is a Baltimore City Public School. The majority of students are not the super-privileged. Because of BSFA's ongoing capital campaign being behind schedule and behind budget, no other fundraising efforts for any department of BSFA are permitted this year. If we cannot raise the $20,000 needed, or another angel does not appear to carry the bulk of the financial burden, this year's BSFA class will not get to London.

Therefore I am not freewheeling with the freebies and discounts I did the last time that Songtime performed at BTP, but these kids very much need your help, so I hope you will take into account any time I have ever been able to get you a freebie or discount, gotten you drunk at my holiday party, etc, and purchase a ticket to this show. I PROMISE you you will not be disappointed, these young people are such incredibly talented actors that you will forget that the oldest of them is only 21.

If you want the full Jeanie Clark Extended-But-Heartwarming Version of why you should see this show and how you will be helping these deserving young people, read on.

After floating the idea for a few years, the circumstances were right for Matthew to bring a group of students from London to perform to an American audience at Baltimore Theatre Project in September of 2005. For many of the 10 kids, this was their first trip to the States. It was the first time for all of them performing in the States, though all of them had been onstage many times in London. These students were selected from Songtime's enrollment of more than 700 hard-working young people.

If you have ever been to Baltimore Theatre Project, a 150 seat black box theatre, you might not think this was such a big deal. But this was, and is, HUGE. Even with a small group of young people, most of them minors, this was a financial and logistical nightmare. Several of the students were actually understudies for their roles. Some of the kids originally cast could not afford the trip, even though all they had to pay for was transportation and food. When these costs were underestimated, Matthew's company picked up the slack. No one made any money on this venture, Songtime actually spent a great deal of money to make this opportunity for their students happen, and Baltimore Theatre Project generously waived the balance of the theatre rental when tickets sales didn't cover the original agreement.

The most important thing, we thought, when we were planning all of this, was that these kids have a chance to perform internationally. A feather in their cap, an important experience on their CV (resume) that might give them an edge to get into a better university. We had no idea how it was going to take on a life of it's own.

Anne Fulweiler, the Managing Director at BTP, suggested that I invite the students from Baltimore School for the Arts to fill some seats on Opening Night. I called Donald Hicken, the Theatre Department Director at BSFA and extended the invitation, also offering to let his students stay after the performance for a Q&A with the British students.

Excited by the notion of performing for an audience of their American counterparts, the Songtime students brought their A-game and delivered a stunning performance of Willy Russell's, "Stags & Hens." After the show, the American students lingered in their seats and the Brits joined them after the lights came up and the rest of the audience dispersed. The questions started slow and simple, a little nervousness, and desire to impress, from both sides of the pond. I left the theatre to get a drink in the lobby and let things take their course.

After 20 minutes or so, the BTP staff was ready to wrap it up and lock the doors. I returned to the theatre to see how many of the kids were still there. All of them. It was a cacophony of energized voices and laughter, stories and questions and accents overlapping. You would have thought these were friends who hadn't seen each other in ages. We let them go for another fifteen minutes or so before we pried them out of the theatre so the staff could lock up.

Donald invited the Songtime students to BSFA for an afternoon a few days later. This time there was not a shy or uncertain moment. We spent quite awhile with the two groups of students going back and forth, asking one question at a time from the other group. It was quite fascinating, and the kids were so interested in learning from each other, as much about the difference in their cultures as in the difference in their artistic approaches.  Though there was a very memorable polarizing moment when one of the American students asked the Brits something about how they must "feel grateful," to the Americans for "being their savior," in World War II. Every British student instantly bristled and one young man said, "That's not the way that we remember it. We remember asking for help and being ignored until Pearl Harbor." And then all hell broke loose. Well, broke loose, but stayed in it's seat. It was very eye-opening for both groups of students to realize that they are not taught the same history, and a very timely reminder that people from other parts of the world do not see each other the way we each respectively see ourselves, or our motives.

After all of our planning for the show, it was this afternoon that in retrospect Matthew said was the most important part of the trip. I couldn't agree more.

That was the beginning of the beginning. Before Matthew and his group left Baltimore, talks of an exchange program sprung up. We talked about it for months, but there was no getting around the financial reality of it. As late as March, it seemed it was not going to happen. And then our angels, and their checkbook, appeared.

The last week of May of 2006, after classes at BSFA had finished but before graduation, the senior class of BSFA flew to London for a week of grueling rehearsals that combined 18 British students with 18 American students for an amazing performance of, "The Laramie Project." Matthew hosted 5 BSFA students at his own house and the others were dispersed among host families of other Songtime students and their parents. Matthew's sister catered most of the lunches and dinners during this week of concentrated bonding and hard work. Some of the planned extra-curricular "tourist" activities had to be cancelled because the students were simply exhausted. But no one was complaining.

The day after their joint performance of "The Laramie Project," was rewarded with a standing ovation from the crowded London theatre, the American students were shuttled to Heathrow via a mini caravan of their new British friends' own cars. Goodbyes were said and tears flowed. Donald and Matthew were even surprised at the emotional connection these young people had made in such a short span of time. Later, in seperate conversations, each of them told me that in some of the students own words, this was, "a life-changing experience."

May is only a few months away, and no angel has appeared. So we are hoping for a host of angels. I hope you will each be one of them. Please buy your tickets now, and spread the word. I will be at every show, hope to see you there. 

finally! some real snow. not too much, just enough to cover up all the grit that is baltimore. by the beginning of next week it will look like hell, when it starts to melt and everything turns to an icy gray sludge. but for now, the city is as pristeen and virginal as baltimore ever gets. i realize that might not be saying much.

personally, i love snow. it makes me feel like a kid again. i grew up in pennsylvania, and we know snow. and hills. and they are a great combination.

our yard was the place to be in the summertime, as our house was on a large corner lot, and one of the only flat backyards in the neighborhood. wiffleball, football, frisbee, whatever, there was always something going on in our yard may through october. but when that first flake fell, we could all be found one house to the right - the hilsters' backyard was the steepest slope on mohican drive.

remeber how resilient our young bodies were back then? we would pack the snow high to make ramps at intervals down the hill. most rides did not end well. but goddamn, was it fun. our yard was separated from the hilsters' by a thick row of hedges on the west side of their yard. the south side was bordered by "the weeds", an undeveloped, overgrown plot of land, thick with prickly wild raspberry bushes. the sled run would start at the top of the hill on the northeast corner of their yard and tracked on a diagonal, ending at the bottom of the hill in the southwest corner of the backyard. one had to be very skilled, or very lucky, to sail through the small opening between the hedges and the raspberry bushes and into the backyard of another neighbor. usually, once you hit the ramp, you were far more likely to be flung into one or the other, much to the delight of everyone waiting to take their turn. things were so simple then.

i haven't been sled riding in a little over four years, but i remember it like it was yesterday. we had an early snowstorm in baltimore, it was the second week in december of 2002. i do love baltimore. it is like neverland. there are pros and cons to that, but part of the charm of charm city is that no one here seems old to me. i think it is because people that live here know how to laugh at themselves. and we provide ourselves with plenty of good material, believe me.

snow days in baltimore there is only one question: at which bar do we start? on this particular snow day, my friend joe was my partner in crime. we worked our way down one side of charles street and back up the other, ending up all the way over at the mount royal tavern. every bar was packed and everyone was in a great mood. i think for anyone who grew up in a snowy area, no matter how old you get, seeing that beautiful white fluff brings back the thrill of all childhood thrills - school cancellations.

joe and i had started early, and it was probably only 8:30pm or so when we decided to head home. but on our way back to the neighborhood, we had to pass the big hill at maryland instistute college of art. some students had left large pieces of cardboard that they had used as makeshift sleds. halfway down the very steep hill, i spied - a ramp! it was on.

joe and i flew down and trudged up that hill over and over and over, laughing our asses off and huffing and puffing, the hairs inside our nostrils becoming teeny tiny ingrown icicles. it was exhilirating. i really did feel like i was nine years old again, flying down that hill, the snowflakes catching in my hair and melting down my neck, the moon reflecting blue and shimmering on the crusty snow . the perfect end to a perfect day, all responsibilities ignored.

when i got home after 10:00pm, i found several messages from my mother on my cell phone, which i had left at home. there was also a message from my neighbor, that my mother had tried to find me at their house also. i returned the call, a little annoyed at being tracked down like this. i just wanted to crawl under the warm covers with a smile on my face, and not think about how sore i would be from head to toe the next morning.

my mother had news. the doctors finally figured out what was wrong with my dad, who had started becoming ill as far back as august. he had pancreatic cancer. a particularly evil form of cancer, and a particularly deadly one. survival rate is less than 5%, though it would be a long time before i learned that. not long enough, though.

life is not so simple anymore.

i look back on that day with mixed emotions. the majority of it was nothing less than magical. but of course that night was the beginning of the end for my father, who died nine months later at the not-so-ripe-old age of 56. i know that i am not the same person i was before that phone call. but i think that taking that day as a whole summarizes some important life lessons. in a nutshell, enjoy it while you can.

today i unboxed some supplies at work, and i am now in possession of some fabulous specimens of cardboard. anyone want to play hooky tomorrow?

it has been so bitterly cold since my return to baltimore that it has been difficult to maintain my new year's resolution - "be more glamorous". of the five pairs of shoes i bought in paris, none were built for traction on my icy parking lot. i have even had to do something i swore i would never do, and have never done until now: i put a coat on my dog, timmy. max has a little more padding, but poor tim doesn't have an ounce of fat on him, so while max sniffs around for the perfect spot to christen, timmy shakes like a leaf. at least it is a fairly manly little coat, a tan flannel plaid.

i did get to take some of my new parisian accessories for a spin today, and received a few compliments on them - a hat and luxe scarf of rabbit fur, dyed olive green (to match my eyes, dahling...). and before anyone has a fit about buying fur, i am not a hypocrite - i eat rabbit, so i have no problem wearing rabbit, just like i have no problem wearing leather.

but other than that, i was dressed pure baltimore today, jeans, boots (sans sexy heels), and a hoodie. a far cry from a 2 weeks ago, when i was the best-dressed person at a party in paris. i swear it! i never thought i would be able to say that, but it is true.  

hortense invited paul and i to her party, a welcoming get-together for her new roommate, gail. "it's just an apertif!" she kept saying. that didn't really help me to determine what sort of party it was to be. hortense is a lawyer, but she is only in her late twenties, and dressed fairly casually when we went out to dinner. by the way, the night we went out for dinner, arnauld was late ("i know no other way!") so hortense, whom i had never met, had to find me outside of metro anvers near sacre-coeur. there were loads of people waiting around to meet other people (or pick up prostitutes), but hortense found me quickly. "You are jeanie? i am hortense. arnauld is late. let's find a bar." over a beer i asked her how she found me so easily. how had arnauld described me? "did he tell you, 'look for the american'?" she said no, he told her i did not look american at all, so not to look for what she was expecting. that may be one of the nicest things anyone has ever said about me :)

i had no idea what to wear or bring to this party, so i tried to cover all my bases: i brought both flowers and wine, and i dressed in all black and tastefully accessorized. just in case i didn't stand out enough...i think aside from one hippie chick who was wearing an almost floor-length retro dress, complete with love beads, i was the only female not wearing jeans, and most of the guys were even more comfortably dressed than the women. this was a very casual party.

when i arrived, hortense told me arnauld was not able to make it. this made me more nervous, as now i had no touchstone. paul was not there yet and it wasn't confirmed that he was definitely coming. i made a mental commitment to stay for two hours to be polite before i bailed. paul soon showed up, though, so i committed myself to another half-hour.

the flat was shared by three roommates. they each had their own bedroom, but there was no living room. so the majority of guest sat in a circle on the hardwood floor in hortense's bedroom, drinking 10 ounce bottles of lowenbrau and smoking weed. lots and lots of weed.

i had to laugh. i have been to parties in baltimore exactly like this and not felt half as comfortable. everyone was very kind to me, i never felt that anyone was eyeing me critically or making a snarky remark about me, even though they easily could have been and i would have had little idea what they were talking about. several people went out of their way to speak to me in english, but once the ball got rolling everyone reverted to french. i didn't mind, i made sort of a game out of it. paul asked me, "do you understand what they are saying?" i told him i understood some of it, that it was like listening to music. gail, one of hortense's roommates, turned around and smiled at me. french is such a beautiful language, when everyone was talking at the same time with their little overlapping conversations, it was like being at the symphony and trying to listen to just one instrument. i would concentrate on whoever had the strongest voice and try to follow what they were saying. often i could pick out enough words to at least know what the topic of conversation was. for a very long time, the topic was genetically modified farming (they are all against it, strongly).

once in awhile hortense would try to get people to speak english, "engleesh pleeeze!" but most of them were as uncomfortable speaking english in front of me as i was speaking french in front of them. i do have to try harder next time. the hippie chick gave it a shot, just to make us all laugh. "allo! my - naaame - ees - strawberreez! no!!! my - naame - ees - razzberries!!!" gail told me that the girl's name IS actually "framboise" - the french word for raspberry.

it is fun sometimes to be the different one. there was one very young guy with a baseball cap on the other side of the room that i could tell was curious about speaking with me. he made his way to my side of the circle and asked me, "so where ahhhr you from?" his name was florent (sp?), "flo" for short. i told him i live in baltimore, and as i was about to explain where that is, as people rarely know, he told me that he knew where it is, and that baltimore is very famous for a new kind of music, "baltimore ghetto". i have never heard of such a thing, so imagine my surprise at being educated on the subject by a french guy at a party in paris. he borrowed hortense's laptop and googled " baltimore ghetto" so i could listen to a piece.

i ended up staying until the last minute that i could and still get the metro back to my place, around 1:30am. i was glad that i went and i had a very interesting time. i wish i was a little bolder and would have attempted more french, but when i am out of my element to that degree, i am lucky to be able to force myself to talk to anyone. before i left the party i was telling paul how nice everyone had been to me. he smiled and said, "french frogs don't bite." he also said that as we were on the east side of the city (the 20th arrondisement), people were generally younger and friendlier than on the west side, where you will find the most expensive properties in the city.

i was flattered to have been invited at all, and it was so intriguing to me that it wasn't much different than a hundred parties i have been to in the U.S.    the biggest, and perhaps the only significant difference, was that when everyone got the munchies after smoking tons of weed, instead of sending out for pizza, Ms. Razzberries took over the stovetop and made everyone crepes. score one for the french parties.

damn, it is nice to be home. my own bed! my own shower! my own dogs! wireless scrabble on my cell phone! funny the things you miss.

real sushi. well, american sushi, anyway. my first meal upon my return. and second, for that matter. out of sheer joy i ordered far too much and had leftovers for breakfast :) it is only recently in paris that sushi has caught on, almost certainly more because of the tourists than the locals, as most of the sushi restaurants are exactly the same, with combination platters complete with photos of each so that you can just point to what you want. McSushi. but if i can't have the Wild Mushroom roll with shiitakes, eel, and fresh crabmeat at Minato on Charles street (my favorite sushi restaurant IN THE WORLD), i can at least get a few slices of raw salmon for my raw fish fix.

though there was one sushi place in paris whose name made my jaw drop a little - "Japorama." maybe it is a real word, but it looked like, "Jap - O - Rama!" to me. when i mentioned this to a (sometimes politically incorrect for the sake of humor) friend, he said, well, maybe it wasn't a sushi restaurant at all. maybe it was full of overprivileged young women whining that they would rather be in miami.

ahem, SPEAKING of politically incorrect, has anyone seen the animated movie, "Flushed Away"? i caught part of it on the plane on the way home yesterday. i can't say i didn't laugh, but i couldn't believe some of the things they were getting away with! the funniest character was the Frog, who was, take a wild guess, french. he was an evil frog with a big attitude. "i am french! i care about no one's pain but my own!" he was trying to help his english cousin, an evil toad, steal something from the main characters, a pair of rats, who were also brits. the only americans i saw in what little i watched of it were fat rats who were lazy, junk-food eating slobs that complained loudly about everything, especially while watching the world cup match. in full texas accent, "them brits don't know nothing about FOOTBALL!" but anyway, the Frog....when he and his band of other french frogs jump aboard the british rats' boat, he commands his french henchmen, "now! we spring into action!" and the other frogs throw their hands in the air and shout in unison, "we surrender!" this made me cringe a bit. but i had to laugh when his cousin, the english toad complained, "you're late!", Frog replies, "yes! but fashionably so. i know no other way."

this reminded me of a post-dinner conversation i had in paris last week. i was out with my friend arnauld, his girlfriend hortense, and my other french friend, paul. it was kind of strange to be the american who was introducing people who live in paris to each other. paul was speaking to hortense in french. she answered him, he laughed and turned to me to explain the conversation. "they don't fart in front of each other." if you met arnauld, who always looks impeccable, you would understand why this was doubly funny to me. i said to arnauld, "do you fart?" he said, "no!" then, after a pause, corrected himself: "once. in 1982. it was a mistake."

anyway, back to the japorama...or to shops, restaurants, and products named with non-native tongue words, that seem kind of silly to a person that is visiting from the country where that language is spoken. for example, when i was visiting my american friend in germany, he told me about a pizza place there that boasts, "american style pizza"! - with corn on it. i believe i speak for all americans, when i say, "????????"

some things you just shouldn't even bother with if they are not indigenous. crab cakes outside of baltimore, for example, serve simply to annoy people who know what a real crabcake should taste like, and bastardize the tastebuds of those who don't. i brought a british couple to dinner at the Prime Rib in baltimore, arguably the best restaurant in the city. they ordered the lump crabmeat cocktail as an appetizer. the heaping mound of drool-worthy crabmeat arrived at the table untainted by overseasoning and in lumps as large as your thumb. they seemed to enjoy it and cleaned their plates, but when i asked them how it was, they responded, "it didn't really taste like crab at all." that is like saying filet mignon doesn't taste like meat! at first i was appalled. then i just felt sorry for them.

of course, americans are more guilty of borrowing and bastardizing than anyone. i love sandwiches from "au bon pain", and the bread is not bad, but i don't know what a thai chicken wrap or a flavored coffee in a cup as big as your head has to do with france. and of course we have french fries, french donuts, french kissing. i've been kissed by a lot of french people, and very rarely was anyone's tongue involved.  who makes this stuff up and how does it catch on?

but still, it's good for a laugh. walking near rue montorgueil last week,  i passed a very sleek, polished starbucks' look-alike cafe. it's name?

 "eat me."

back in the UK of A, just for the night. i can tell because as i was in the grocery store this evening grabbing something for breakfast in the morning, i walked past a group of lads out for a night in the burbs, and the conversation was exactly this:

lad A: let's go to subway!!! (meaning the american sandwich chain, across the street)

lad B: oy!!!

lad C: do you think they'll let me toast my crumpet?

i swear i am not making this up.

anyway...matthew is ill with tonsilitis so even if he weren't sleeping i'd have no one to talk to. it is nice to be able to sit quietly in front of the computer, though, without being subjected to other people's conversations, and personal odors.

paris was great, as it always is in general. but each time it is different, each time a little better than the last. the first day i stepped foot in paris over 7 years ago, i felt very comfortable there, and have further entrenched myself in small degrees with each visit. now i know people here, and that has brought my relationship with the city into a much more tangible, and emotional, realm. it is no longer simply a vacation for me, it is now an escape from life into a microcosm of life.

i would like to think that i see paris, and the people i know there, in a realistic light (though through fashionable rose-tinted sunglasses, purchased on sale at galeries lafayette). people are...people. they will surprise you, they will flatter you, they will sometimes disappoint you, and most often they want you to like them, too. i think the key to being a generally happy person is to find a way to gauge what you can expect from the individuals in your life. holding everyone to the same standard is nothing less than a recipe for disaster. i am not saying that  you should let one person walk all over you while you hold someone else to a higher standard. in the simplest of terms, my method can be broken down into the following steps:

1. figure out what you can expect from that person.

2. don't take it personally if it is not as much as you would like it to be.

3. don't expect more than that.

4. don't accept less than that.

5. don't invest, emotionally, more than you can expect a return on.

6. adjust accordingly, periodically.

this method is more difficult than it sounds, at first. but if you have a few people in your life that drive you crazy, give it a shot, and if you can HONESTLY adhere to the above steps, you will probably relieve yourself of some stress (and maybe some dead weight). it usually requires some trial and error, though. like if you have a glass that is full and one that is empty, and you try to pour exactly half of it into the other glass. you have to go back and forth a few times before you get it right, and even then, it will never be perfect to the milliliter.

the most difficult step is the first one, because figuring out what you can expect from that person involves figuring out what role they see YOU playing in THEIR life. a friend? a lover? an acquaintance? a drinking buddy? a fling? an amusing accent? a sociological experiment? one with potential for another? one with no potential for any other? this is the hard part, because we never, never see ourselves exactly as someone else does, we only know for sure how we wish to be seen. but there are two rules i follow to help me figure this out, especially when i think my judgement may be clouded (you know, when you keep shaking that Magic 8-Ball ((there, TK, i used the shift key)) until it gives you the answer you WANT to hear? those kind of moments):

7. actions speak louder than words.

8. lack of actions speak louder than actions.

in other words, most often you should accept things at face value, not read too much into them, and not make excuses for anyone. in the immortal words of janet jackson, "what have you done for me lately?" (ok, i'm dating myself there...but at least i am dating...) but in fairness, make sure you are asking the same question of yourself, in regard to that person.

i try to apply the above theories to all my relationships, not only romantic ones. in order to avoid continuous disappointment and disillusionment regarding personal relationships, you have to figure these things out - who are your A-list friends? your casual outing friends? your bury-the-body friends? your friendly acquaintances? your 3:00am crying-jag friends? i think i can truthfully say that before i started discerning between the levels of friendship, i was much more often hurt by people i considered to be my friends than by boyfriends. words are important to me, i do not say things i don't mean, and i do not use words lightly. the word, "friend", to me, is as strong a word as, "love," or, "hate."

it still happens, getting hurt,  that is just part of the trial-and-error. but if at this moment you are specifically trying to come to some conclusions about a would-be relationship, please also keep these things in mind:

9. people do not change. but they do grow.

10. chemistry cannot be forced and should not be faked.

and

11. timing is everything.

hey there. sorry i have not been writing much. i did write a lengthy post the other day but it disappeared, i don't know what happened. it had a lot of vulgarities in it, so maybe there is something on this blog.com thing that blocks that type of language. i'll try again from home when i am not paying 2 euro an hour to spend an hour writing a post and then it disappears.

i've been busy. i actually have a social life in paris now, that is pretty cool. that is also why i am exhausted today - was up until five with friends bacause the superbowl did not start until midnight. what a great game! i am very happy for peyton manning, he deserves it.

i leave tomorrow, catch the eurostar back to london, one more night there before flying home. it will be good to be home.  i miss my dogs more than anything, but there are a lot of things i am looking forward to, like a heaping portion of girl-talk over some sushi at minato. my friends in paris are all guys, and i have been itching just for some juicy gossip. i'm sure matthew can give me a fix in london, though ;)

it is an oppressively grey day here, i think i will get some lebanese carry out and go take a nap before starting to pack. this evening i will see some friends to say goodbye, and then i will be slowly headed home. it was a great trip and i'll tell you more about it later.

 xx

jc 

i'd like to take a moment to briefly introduce you, at least vaguely, to my friends in paris. but first, i have to tell you that i was surprised to look over my list of things to tell you that i had left at home yesterday, and find that i had remembered all but one thing, and that had to do with london, which is probably why i forgot it.

london these days is, to me, almost a caricature of the states. some people there even refer to britain as the UK of A, which i think is pretty accurate. i am not sure anymore what british culture is, because your average person in britain seems to embrace american culture to a much greater degree, although they modify it a bit. my friends in germany, who are semi-reformed anglophiles, and i had a long conversation on the subject.

sky tv, british television, largely consists of imported american drama and sit-com reruns. granted, we steal a lot from them also. "there is only one american idol!" i have to laugh when i hear that tag line, as we completely borrowed the concept from the british show, "pop idol", for one example. british fashion is anything but. and don't get me wrong - i love london and have many friends there. but i don't understand the attraction to shiny objects that persists in their choice of clothing. ok, i do like shiny objects myself, just not cheaply made garments that expose my midriff. and speaking of midriff, as opposed to paris, shopping for clothes in london, while i would not advise it given the current fashion trends and weak dollar, makes me feel nearly svelte. and as far as british cuisine...the term is an oxymoron. curry, i think, is the national cuisine; indian and thai food, followed by italian and sushi are what people eat there.

i am not complaining, just observing. but none of that was really what i wanted to tell you about london. what i wanted to tell you about is the british national obsession with the television show "big brother". EVERYONE in the country is completely addicted to this program! i find this completely bizarre. the actions of some of the participants in the house have actually sparked international incidents, when one of the housemates used what could be construed as racial slurs against another housemate, an indian actress. completely absurd. but that isn't even what i wanted to tell you. what i wanted to tell you was: one of the housemates was dirk benedict! remember him, "face", from the A-Team? and the only thing that i found entertaining about the show, was that every time he entered a room, the other housemates, including jermaine jackson, would belt out in unison ( to the tune of the a-team theme), "DA da da daaaa, da da daaa, DAA da da daaaa, da da dada daaa!" i must admit, this made me laugh every time. but i still didn't run for the newspaper every morning to see what the front page had to say about it.

ok, on to my parisian friends...i do know an american couple here, but they are always traveling and i am not going to see them on this trip. aside from them, i have three french friends, arnauld, X, and paul.

i won't describe them each to you physically, i will let you use your imagination, but they are each very handsome in their own way. more than their looks, though, i am constantly fascinated and entertained by their similarities and their differences.

they all like america, but they each see both good and bad things about it. i have yet to meet anyone from any part of europe who likes the bush administration, and that is enough said about that. i find it very funny when i hear each of them (and none of them have met) say the exact same opinion on a subject, and one thing they have all complained to me about is how much french people complain about everything. the irony of it is endlessly amusing to me.

paul is the youngest of the three. he is the biggest fan of america among them, and the least typically french of them (typical by their own standards, not mine). he is a generally happy fellow who loves to go out and have fun and especially to meet new people, and americans in particular. i love that in paris, when you walk into a shop, the employees say hello, you say hello to them, and then they leave you alone. paul loves that when you are checking out at the grocery store in america that the cashier will ask you how you are, and then tell you all about their own day, that their feet hurt and they missed their break but they will be going home soon so they are happy. this does not happen in paris, the cashier does not even ask you rhetorically how you are doing. people keep to themselves, which to me is fine, i hate being in american shops and fending off people who are trying to "help" me when i just want to look around, or complain about their day to me when i just want to pay for my groceries and go home to make dinner. but paul loves this, and he often says things like, after coming home from a trip to america, he is in a "very american mood" and is very friendly and tries to talk to the grocery store clerks in paris and they look at him as if he is crazy.

arnauld is a few years older than paul, and quite a bit more french, one might say. he smokes more, he complains more... paul, i should mention, is actually from toulouse, so maybe he seems less french because he is less parisian. arnauld loves american football more than any sport, which is how we met, though unfortunately for him he is a new york giants fan, and therefore often frustrated and disappointed. his favorite show is "family guy." i am ceaselessly entertained by hearing this frenchman quote stuey in a british accent. "victory is mine!" i think he relates to stuey. he is very intelligent, and thinks he is never wrong, but somehow pulls this off as charming, and makes it that much more fun to argue with him and once in awhile prove him wrong, because he really, really, really hates to be wrong. he LOVES to debate, and while i usually hate to debate, it is fun with him because he gets SO riled up.but i think the funniest thing he has said to me goes back to "family guy". at dinner one night when i saw him last summer, he threw out a stuey quote, "damn you, vile woman! you have been thwarting my plans since the day i escaped from your wretched womb!" he then told me he often says that to his mother when she frustrates him. i found this a little shocking and asked him if he was kidding, but he assured me he wasn't. " but i say it in english," he said, "so she doesn't understand."

X is my age. X, of course, is not his real name. it is not even his real initial. his real initial is J, but he is very private, bordering on suspicious, so we will call him X. currently, he is the only one of the three who is employed. the other two quit their jobs last fall and have been living on the dole for a few months now. during their time off, paul spent two months in america and arnauld just returned from over a month in australia. are you beginning to understand why i would like to live here? not that i could ever get on unemployment anyway, but it would be nice... but i digress. so, X's job often involves observing and interviewing people and i think this is why he does not like to be the one being observed. he will not let me take his photo, for example, and he doesn't want to meet my other french friends, though i think if they were beautiful women instead of men, i could probably convince him. when asked his favorite color, after a long thoughtful moment, he replied, "blonde". like arnauld, he is charming and intelligent and argumentative, he is clever but his sense of humor is more subtle and sarcastic. he is also probably the ony one of the three who might read this blog, so i shouldn't compliment him too much or it will go to his head, and he will probably be a little skittish about being described here at all. but he will just have to get over it.

it has been very nice this trip to spend time with people i know. paris can be an intimidating city, even if you love it and are comfortable here. personally i have always been more intimidated by new york. though i at least speak the language there, so many people are rude and the stress level is simply pervasive. paris is a big city, and many of the people here are serious and in a hurry, but there is an appreciation for beauty and simple pleasures, such as sprawling inner city parks, wine with dinner always, and my favorite, great shoes, that is often lacking among americans who are consumed by the constant pursuit of the all-important dollar. perhaps it is no coincidence that the dollar continues to lose ground to the euro. there are many things about paris and france that make it easy for me to love, and people, i am sure, make their own assumptions about why it appeals so much to me. yes, the art, the history, the architecture, the cuisine, the fashion, the language, these are all intriguing and charming. but the bottom line is the difference in priorities. i will never be a millionaire. and it would never occur to a french person to be surprised that i don't want to be.