Sunday, November 25, 2007

Quel Loser

Last night one of my friends invited me to a birthday party for one of her friends in the suburbs. It was a nice gesture, considering I didn't know a single person there and felt like a bit of a crasher.
Anyway, after scanning the room, I scouted out a cute girl from Aix-en-Provence. I was wearing a tight, black t-shirt to show every nook and cranny of my perfectly toned pecs, and I had an adorable Anglophone accent--I was ready to work my "thang," as it were.
Something happened that only happens once in a blue moon: I was charming. We had a long conversation on everything from Aix, to Sarkozy, to how the effects of coffee don't actually come until six hours after you drink a cup, and how the "caffeine buzz" is just psychological.
Correct me if needed, but I'm still pretty sure she was incredibly wrong about this coffee thing. I've always read 15 minutes, but when you're going after a cute French girl, semantics don't matter. Six hours it is. As many hours as you want, mademoiselle.


We even got to the point of doing that little salsa dance where you hold each other and turn around. I told her she was cute, she giggled. We kept turning and looked longingly into each other's eyes. It was one of those ultra-rare moments when I had less than a 15% chance of rejection. I then did what anyone who knows me would expect me to do.
I stared at her like a goon and smiled awkwardly until the song was over. We let each other go, and there weren't any more salsa songs for a while.
The friends who invited me were tired and wanted to leave. But I needed another salsa song, dammit. Go ahead, friends! I'll catch up with you guys later! Haha!
Suddenly, when lift-off was imminent, the mothership crashed. I realized I didn't actually know anyone at the party anymore, and I was "that guy" who was clearly sticking around in a last-ditch effort for romance. I awkwardly ate snacks and tried in vain to strike up another conversation, but the iron had clearly cooled off. We did not dance again, and the night ended with an awkward French cheek kiss--a greeting which I have come to call the "Kiss of Doom," since it never signifies anything else.
In conclusion, I am ridiculously lame.
Note to you ladies: If you think I like you (and if you have to ask, the answer is yes), then make the move. We will see Korean reunification before I ever get enough confidence to actually kiss a girl and move past my 13-year old, Peter Pan-ish existence.
True, the relationship would have lasted for thirty minutes.

But children, strike while the iron is hot.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

La Voisine Folle Part 100

Around 11 this morning, after trying in vain to force hot water out my sink, I decided to ask my non-crazy neighbor if she had the same problem and discover if this was indeed the work of the devious French utility company against my apartment.
I rang at her door. Like clockwork, the *crazy* neighbor on the other side suddenly popped out of her own door.

"The police are watching you!"
"Go away."
"Look at you, spying on the neighbor with your ear against the door. They're watching you, the whole building is watching you!"
"Go away."
"I'm calling the police!"
"Go away."
"Son of a whore!"

Whoa. That was a left-turn.
Now normally I think crazy neighbors are kind of funny--at the very least, her psychotic rants are a small break in the routine over here. But menacingly calling someone a "son of a whore" drops from being "amusing" to "only slightly amusing." This comes only two days after she burst into my conversation party and made the same rants about owning a hotel, having the police spy on me, etc. etc.
Thus, I finally got enough motivation to go to the police and register a complaint against this lunatic.
Of course, this is Paris. I waited an hour in a line that I didn't even have to wait in. After I finally got inside, I waited alone in a pale-yellow room for nearly 45 minutes.
When I finally talked to a policeman, he informed me that since it was really just an "insult," nothing would hold up in a complaint against her unless she kept it up. So he registered some kind of preliminary complaint which will blossom into a full-grown one after a bit more harassment (which is sure to come).
I also noticed that the lock on my mailbox had been changed, as of this morning. The hilarity never ends!

I would like to briefly compare the American versus the French way of doing things. Let's say I need an electric razor. The American way:

I go to CVS whenever I want, 2 minutes away.
"A razor, please."
"15 dollars. Thank you, have a nice day!"

The French way:

I take a 45-minute metro ride to some obscure electronics store in the suburbs. I am fifth in line and wait 45 minutes.
"A razor, please."
"Okay. Do you have a copy of your CV, a letter of motivation, and three passport pictures?"
"A letter of motivation? I need to shave."
"Do not get huffy with me, young man!"
"Sorry. Here's three passport pictures.
"You are not wearing a green shirt in your pictures."
"What? Why do I need a green shirt?"
"Without a passport picture, you must carve a bust of yourself out of this block of marble before midnight."
"But I don't have a chisel."
"Then you must fill out these forms to apply for a government approved chisel which will arrive in 6 to 8 weeks."
"I don't have a pen on me..."
"You can fill out this form to apply for a temporary vistor's pen. Use this wedge of Camembert in the meantime."
"How can I write using cheese?"
(French person dumps pot of scalding water on my head)


Anyway, it's off to solfege.
I am coming to realize that, whatever slight talents I may have when it comes to actually playing the piano, I am far, far away from being a gifted "musician" in general. My sight-reading teacher actually whacked my hands yesterday and described my work as "frightful." And my solfege teacher gives far more attention to the only other student in the class--a 14-year old girl who obviously shows much more promise in solfege than a grizzled 23-year old with a large yogurt stain on his sweater. I'm going to the dry-cleaner's tomorrow, I promise.

Ca Suffit!

Note to France:

END THE FRICKIN' METRO STRIKE ALREADY.

When I'm starting to agree with the words of devious supervillain Nicolas Sarkozy, something is wrong.

On another note, I woke up this morning to find myself without hot water. While I haven't investigated the cause, I have a sinking suspicion that it was cut off by "EDF," the French utilities.
The reason for this would be simple: when I first signed up with my utilities, I set my monthly payments to be automatically withdrawn from my account, starting on Nov. 14th. I deposited a British check into my account at the beginning of the month, which would involve the apparently ardurous task of converting pounds into Euros.
In a developed country, it would take less than a week to cash the check. But this is Paris. I opened my account over a month ago, and I still don't have a debit card. When I went to the bank and inquired into this yesterday, the woman told me it would be ready in "a week...well, maybe two." Read: "It will be ready when you start coming here every day and harassing me until I finally begrudgingly give you a card to leave me alone."

Apologies for such an acrimonious post, but no metro and no hot water makes Adam grouchy.

Monday, November 19, 2007

La Greve Part Deux

Armed with a suitcase full of random papers and photocopies, I made my second sally today down to Paris' Chinese neighborhood to get my long-stay visa.
I might as well add here that we're in the midst of a crippling metro strike, and I live a good half hour metro ride away from this place. Thus why I woke up at 7AM to start frantically calling taxi companies to come pick me up--of course, this is Paris, so every person I talked to said that it was "too far" or that it just "wasn't possible."
After waiting half an hour in the street, I finally got my taxi and found myself back in the barren basement of the student "Cite Unversitaire." This must be the most stereotypical "bureaucrat" room in existence--everything is dimly lit by fluorescent lights, the walls are a pale-yellow color, and there's no decorations except a wilted plant and a sign on the mirrors on the walls saying "Do not dirty the mirrors."
And of course, since it's a metro strike, and a "suspicious package" was found on the one working line, there were no workers at the place. I joined a group of angry Turks in asking the one woman what the hell we were supposed to do with our appointment now. She assured us, in a very loud and belligerent voice, that she was "just like us" and didn't know how to handle the strike either.
Yes, I am just like her--except that I have a heart instead of some sort of robotic machine that pumps pure evil throughout my veins.
I waited three hours, which actually is completely painless by France's standards.

At the very end, everything was finally sorted out and printed and all I had to do was sign inside of the green rectangle on the form without touching the rectangle itself.
I failed.
Under the pressure to not touch the lines of the rectangle, I made some sort of big tail on the end of "Jaffe" that crossed way over the top.
The guy working with me took the paper back and looked at me incredulously.
"I told you to sign inside of the rectangle."
"I know, I'm sorry."
He audibly sighed and started to print everything all over again. That one slip added ten minutes to the process.
The next time I signed, I was visibly shaking under the pressure, but I somehow scrunched up my name into two little scribbles that just made it into the rectangle. I did it. I now have a temporary "carte de sejour." All I have to do now is go for a medical check-up in January, gloss over my €1,000 a week smack habit, and I'll finally be done with this bureaucratic nonsense.

I'm hosting a French/English conversation party at my apartment tonight, which has inspired me to make radical changes, such as wiping my bathroom mirror with Windex and squeezing a lemon into my sink. I don't know where I came up with this "lemon" idea--I feel like it's something I read in "Good Housekeeping" circa 1995, but that's the sort of knowledge I have to rely on to make my living space presentable.
And of course, I just got an email saying that probably nobody would show up the conversation due to the strikes, leaving me alone in my newly-freshened apartment with a bottle of wine and a carton of Flanby.
Flanby, by the way, is flan in a little yogurt carton--it even comes with a little pull tab that, once pulled, will make the entire blob of flan slip out of the carton at once and make a little splash onto your plate.
Who needs friends?

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Les Ricains

Last night may have been the first time I got an exciting slice of the seething anti-Americanism that France is fabled for. And of all places, I got it from a taxi driver.
I always strike up conversations with taxi drivers here, but it rarely leads to good places. Last night's conversation went something like this:

Driver: How are you?
Me: Good! This metro strike is bad though.
Driver: You're American.
Me: Uhh, yes. Good ear. I'm from Atlanta.
Driver: Have they abolished the death penalty in Georgia?
Me: I don't know.
Driver: You all still have it in Texas and California. It's disgusting.
Me: Umm, yeah, I'm not a big fan of the death penalty.
Driver: It's horrific! In France, you're presumed innocent. In the US, you're caught, and you're guilty, and they're going to kill you. And then there's Iraq.
Me: Hmm, yeah, the Iraq thing is no good.
Driver: Millions of Iraqis have been killed. And all for oil, it's all for oil, it's disgusting.
Me: Yeah, uh, I guess my country's done a lot of things that I'm not too happy about.

Not that I really disagreed with his attitudes, but I was starting to feel uncomfortable. He was getting worked up and starting to raise his voice, he was humming manically along with Mozart's "Jupiter" symphony on the radio, he had a lisping, Mike Tyson-esque voice, and he had an axe in his passenger seat that he kept caressing. The axe is only a slight exaggeration.
At the end of the ride, I gave him a nice tip. Even globalizing war-mongers can have hearts.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

La Greve!

I finally shook off my ever-growing apathy long enough to go apply for my long-stay visa. I remembered applying for my student visa, and had steeled myself for an army of unattractive, hostile French bureaucrats and discussions such as:

French person: Do you have a photocopy of your birth certificate translated into French?
Me: Umm, yes, I think it's here...
French person: (pours pot of scalding water onto my head)

Needless to say, French bureaucracy did not disappoint. Although I got to the place as soon as it opened (at 8:30 AM) and was about tenth in line, I waited for almost two hours. I listened to the entire Goldberg Variations with repeats while in line, and was thus exhausted on multiple levels by the time I finally talked to anybody.
I was instantly rejected, since I didn't have proof that my apartment was insured. This was never, ever mentioned on the website, or any instructions for applying for the long-stay visa. I showed the woman my apartment contract to prove that I was indeed sleeping in a bed, and not on a bed of straw in the metro. Her response was typical:
"Humph, well, anybody could have that contract. It doesn't prove anything."
Except that I have an apartment. And that I hate you all.

No, that's not fair--I've met some very nice people in Paris recently, although I keep making awkward gaffes that put friendship just out of reach.
Example:

French girl: Did you hear that a woman in Belgium had her daughters kidnapped?
Me: How can she complain? They have the best waffles in the world in Belgium.
French girl: (silence)

Was I wrong? I've never heard anyone complain about extra whipped cream and strawberries, but maybe it just doesn't suit some people.

I have lost pretty much all of my battles here in Paris until now, but I believe I have emerged victorious from the one with my crazy neighbor. I crossed her while leaving my building yesterday and prepared for the inevitable psychotic rants and poxes on my head. I glared at her as she came inside. She looked to the ground and didn't say a word. I even held the door for her.
I then immediately walked outside and whispered "I win" to myself and gave a little cackle. I wish I was making this up.
It's going to be a fun week--we're looking at one of the biggest metro/public transportation strikes in history. Of course, this is Paris, so the students have now joined forces with the transportation workers and are blocking off the universities.
And of course, this is Paris, so there's a huge counterprotest against the strikes on Sunday. Obviously my work is cut out for me, and I need to organize a protest against this counterprotest until the entire country implodes, like when you put a humidifier and a dehumidifier next to each other.
Vive la France!

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Caca

I have stepped in dog poo three times in the last 24 hours, which is pretty heroic even by my standards. One of the incidents was so catastrophic, that I was forced to throw out a pair of Pumas after many attempts at salvation.
I also spilled eggroll sauce all over my sheet music.
Stupid Paris.
Although I guess the eggroll thing was my own damn fault. And China's.
Stupid Hu Jintao.

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Dans la Merde

I met a Caribbean guy in one of my classes last night who had been at my school for three years. Since my school feels like some kind of cosmic prank that's been organized by aliens, this was the first time I could actually talk with somebody, in English, who was "in the know" about things.
Ever since "Casey at the Bat" set me straight, I have never counted my chickens before they hatch. But my teacher hinted yesterday that I had made "huge changes" in the last few weeks and that she may switch me into the "performance" division. I was happy until I met said Caribbean guy who described the final exam for the 5th level:

1. The students (15 to 20) all play a Chopin Etude and a prelude and fugue. The teachers then instantly fail half of them, meaning they have failed the entire year.

2. The rest of the students go on to play the rest of the their program (a whole Beethoven sonata, a concerto movement, etc.) The teachers then fail half of these students.

Me: Holy shit! So only a quarter of the students pass at the end of the year?

Caribbean Guy: If even that! Sometimes only one or two pass. I know people who have stayed three years just trying to get past the fifth level.

Me: But...there's a sixth level, right?

Guy: HA! I only know one guy who ever passed that exam--he had been playing concerts around Russia for years, and he did it nine years ago.

Me: (vomits everywhere)


I don't want to be a negative Nancy, but I believe I am in way over my head here. I had the idea that this was basically a degree program--I do my work for the year, and as long as I make progress, I get something to show for it.
Instead I've apparently signed up for the Van Cliburn competition.
Maybe I'm just naive, but why do they do it this way? Why do they make 3/4 of the students waste the best years of their life trying to get this one degree? Why does every class lead up to one single exam in June, completely discounting any other progress made throughout the year? Why are literally all French people my age in really long-term relationships? I don't understand any of it.
I guess this doesn't really change anything for right now--I was practicing a lot anyway and shall continue to do so, although with maybe a bit more urgency and panic than before. This has even inspired me to sign up for yoga classes again, meaning that Shivam and I may meet again for a final showdown.
See you all in Atlanta next year!

Madeleine

On a more positive note, however, I ate madeleines yesterday. I then suddenly realized that I was in front of the Madeleine metro sign, and next to the Madeleine church.
It was kind of like the time I ate cake while listening to Cake, or the time I shot up while listening to the song "Heroin."

Just kidding. I would never listen to Cake.

Putain de Housse

I had the most stressful morning of my life a few days ago. Since my futon, as of Sunday, was just a white mattress on top of some wooden planks, I figured I should get some sort of cover for the mattress. I wouldn't even know how to ask for it in English, let alone in some weird Romance language in a country where most people don't even know what a futon is.
Apparently the word for those things that you stuff your comforter or mattress inside is a "housse." I used this word about 40 times over the course of a half hour conversation at a French department store:
"You know, I have a futon...you understand 'futon?' Yes? I need something to cover my futon."
"Ah, yes, a bedsheet."
"No, to cover the mattress. A housse? A housse for the mattress?"
"A housse for the mattress? This does not exist!"
"Yes, a housse...uh, for the mattress."
"You do not know how to express yourself, young man!"

It's the first time I've gotten this particular insult, but it stuck with me. I ended up leaving empty-handed, as I do from most encounters with the French these days.
And yet again, my neighbor pounded on my door at midnight, claimed to be the owner of a presitigious hotel next door (I checked, and she is not), screamed that she was going to call the police, and then ran off cackling.
Can I come home yet?