Monday, April 13

This is a Chateau. A French Chateau. A French Chateau where I just spent the night for the wedding of a friend, during which all sorts of shenanigans took place. Some of these shenanigans were fun, some were dangerous, and some were just plain inappropriate.

When you are staying in a chateau with 100 wedding guests, including the majority of your friends, you don't necessarily tell yourself that you need to sleep with the door locked... and you are making a terrible mistake. Because it's possible that you will be awoken at 6:30 in the morning by 30 people singing and chanting in your room, including some random guy you've never seen playing a guitar in the corner. These people might yell at you, taunt you, make several failed attempts to expose your naked body from under the covers... and you may choose not to speak to them for a little while....


Drunk thirty-somethings
Champagne to the sleeping face
Inappropriate

Sunday Poll: April 12

Think Fast: Easter

Saturday, April 11

Spelling from England
Favourite, colour, neighbour
Why not drop the u’s?

Friday, April 10

In France, people use an exceptional amount of Franglais. This is the application of English words with a French accent in the middle of a French sentence. An example of this could be, "J'ai un super feeling avec les animaux" which means "I have a great feeling with animals." However, "I have a great feeling with animals" doesn't really mean the same thing in English, so this sentence could more appropriately be translated, "I get along well with animals." Another example of this Franglais can be noticed in the overusage of the word "hardcore" as in sentences like, "Putain, c'est trop hardcore" (meaning, "Sh** that's really hardcore). The French LOVE this word and will use it as often as possible.

When speaking Franglais, for some reason the speaker feels compelled to refer to everything in the plural such as un cookies, un muffins, or une chips (a cookies, a muffins, and a chips, respectively.) I've tried to explain that cookies can never be one, the "s" means by default there are at least 2, but they don't care. Now, having explained this Franglais business, I present for your approval the most bizarre of all Franglais mistakes:


That's right. Donut's. There not just inappropriately plural, they're possessive. These donut's own something and they're not letting go. Which brings us to:

Possessive donuts
You are not the boss of me
Let me live my life

Thursday, April 9

Recently in Paris it has been exceptionally beautiful outside. Warm, sunny, perfect blue skies with white fluffy clouds... and everybody's out to enjoy it. First of all you should know that the French love to talk about the weather, in general... all of the time. Second, Parisian people completely change when the sun comes out, shedding their faux frowns for light, happy smiles as they bask in the sun with some obscure juice like strawberry or melon. During moments like this, the outdoor cafe seating, or terrasse, becomes a full out war for the best places in the sun and once you get a good spot you don't move for a long time. Which brings us to:

Terrasse au soleil
Parisian snobbery
I’m better than you

Wednesday, April 8: Reader Submission

Today's reader submission comes from Alfonso, who responded to my personal request for lifekus inspired by life with no internet:

Internet go boom
1991 again
Where's my Sonic Youth?

Tuesday, April 7

I recently stumbled upon this article about a boy who killed his father in his sleep, but was apparently sleepwalking and therefore not responsible for what he did. Personally, I don't know if I believe that, but it certainly makes you think twice about falling asleep with the door unlocked:

Sleepwalking killer
Your dad should’ve locked the door
But you’re off scot-free

Monday, April 6

Strangers on the street
Please don't be afraid of my
Impromptu Jazz Hands

Sunday Poll: April 5

Think Fast: Jesus

Saturday, April 4

Pretentious lady
Take your nose out of the air
When you talk to me

Friday, April 3

This is a photo that I took the other day with my iPhone QuadCam (if you don't have this app, you really should) because I needed proof of the terrifying masked children that were haunting me in the metro. First they got on with me at Saint Paul Le Marais, which isn't that strange except for the fact that they followed me all the way to Lamark Caulaincourt, which for anyone who knows the Paris metro, is about 30 minutes with a directional line change on the 12 at the Concorde.

When we were waiting for the elevator (this particular station is in the bottom of Montmartre, which is like the San Francisco of Paris, so if you don't take the elevator you have to walk up like 40 flights of steps to get to street level) I half expected them to bust out tiny little knives and go for my Achilles Gage-style from Pet Sematary. I mean, seriously, look in the 4th photo the way that little girl is taunting me... leaning in my direction like she's about to jump out and start eatting my fingers as if they were chicken nuggets. I've got goose-bumps just thinking about it....


Echoing giggle
Ring around the rosie, no!
Tiny hands of death

Thursday, April 2

Woman on diet
Exhibit some self control
Stop. Don’t break the seal

Wednesday, April 1: Reader Submission

Today's reader submission comes from "Anonymous".... an Anonymous who clearly resides in the DC Metro area:

Hey, Georgetown a-hole
Your sneer is eclipsed by that
Lame pink popped collar


PS: For those of you not familiar with Georgetown, I have provided this handy and informative photo of The Exorcist stairs

Tuesday, March 31

I recently experienced a delay in my regular Nespresso delivery... this meant that I hate wake up without the fresh, delightful morning odor that I had become so very accustomed to. Instead, I lagged my heavy body around the kitchen until I found some [shudder] instant cappuccino to which I added [shudders again] instant coffee for a creation vaguely resembling a decent cup of coffee. Vaguely, but not really...

No coffee morning
Minimum brain wave function
Eyelids made of lead

Monday, March 30

Hello. How are you? I'm doing well, thanks. I'm going to need you to watch this super awesome video that I stumbled upon immediately. Yes, immediately, as in RIGHT NOW. It is full of information that you simply cannot live without.



Wasn't that amazing? Don't you feel as though someone turned a light on in the pit of darkness in which we've been living? Duh. Lies. [scoffs at science to self] First of all, I'd like to know who taught this man to speak, because that was a mistake. I'm going to assume it was his mother, who was also apparently responsible for teaching him biology... which we just saw did not turn out so well. And I thought public schools in the States were bad... Regardless of whoever taught him evangelical gibberish in place of the laws of physics, this man sounds so freaking retarded that I almost feel sorry for him. "Explosions kill people." [sigh]

Good job home-schooling
Dang fancy telescopes duh
So-called gravity

Sunday Poll: March 29

My mother...

Saturday, March 28

***Today is the mother of Daughter's birthday. In my neck of the woods we call her "Moomie." Don't ask. So Happy Birthday Moomie!

In honor of Moomie's birthday, I decided to write a haiku about my personal feelings on canned tuna fish, or "chicken of the sea." If you don't get it, don't worry, she will.

Dear canned tuna fish
You are so rank and nasty
Keep away from me

Friday, March 27

I'm sure you've all heard the interesting story of the Siberian woman who invited her friend out for a lovely evening, only to finish it by killing and eating her:

You thought we were friends
Girls night out really ends with
Cannibalism

Thursday, March 26

I recently celebrated my birthday, and found that after 4:00 am my friends actually turned the music back up after I would turn it down. This is not acceptable.

Loud party goers
My house is not a night club
Pump down the volume

Wednesday, March 25: Reader Submission

This week's reader submission comes from Tara, who totally has a right to complain about overuse of air conditioning... even though I live in France so I don't know what that is anymore.

"I’ve been inspired by my freezing cold office building to write a few lifekus. I don’t know why the facilities people feel the need to blast the air conditioning when its 55 degrees outside…"

Dog gone management
Why must you blast the A.C.?
Hypothermia

Can’t feel my fingers
Thanks for keeping me alive
Awesome space heater

Tuesday, March 24

Sometimes, as women, we face difficult situations... like when your girlfriends are significantly hotter than your guy friends, but your guy friends haven't quite registered that fact and still think they have a shot at some action. Luckily, I have prepared a lifeku for moments such as these:

Drunk guy-friend of mine
You get no love from my girl
Stop hitting on her

WikipediaWictionaryChambers (UK)Google imagesGoogle defineThe Free DictionaryJoin exampleWordNetGoogleUrban DictionaryAnswers.comrhymezone.comMerriam-Webster

Monday, March 23

Anyone who's anyone knows that a new cycle of America's Next Top Model has begun. Or maybe I should say that anyone who knows me knows that ANTM is my ultimate guilty pleasure - I can't miss an episode, get strangely emotionally involved, and become totally obsessed. This is the 12th year in a row. The best part is, I have no shame about it... abslutely zero. I read 5 books a month (and not by authors like John Grisham), speak another language, and do grammar exercises for fun, so I definitely deserve to enjoy watching girls cat-fight it out for a modeling career that we all know will never go past My Year As A Cover Girl. If you have ever actually watched ANTM, then you would know that it's the 40 most entertaining minutes of your life ever, filled with tears, traumatizing make-overs, and dream crushing goodness.... So in honor of my not-so-shameful love for Tyra:

ANTM girls
Who’s gonna cry first this time?
Oh no, not my hair

Sunday Poll: March 22

Life without internet...

Saturday, March 21

I'm a positive, optimist person. I would even say that I am overall happy, and some people find that irritating. Of course by "some people" I mean "Parisian people" since it violates Rule #3 of Being Parisian, which is: Never smile. Ever. But even amidst my happy existence, I come across people who are like me times 800 million and are therefore capable of showing extreme excitement about the most mundane subjects or achievements.

Jubilant woman
Nobody is ever that
Enthusiastic

Friday, March 20

Today's lifeku goes out to someone in particular, who made not read it right away... But when you do, you know who you are:

Overgrown man-boy
Do not start fights with strangers
You’ll injure yourself

Thursday, March 19

Even though I written this lifeku a little while ago, I felt like it was appropriate to post after yesterdays Reader Submission about too much information online. Sometimes, people can be just way too open for their own good, to the point where it becomes weird and unhealthy and you really want them to just stop talking. I remember, when I first moved to France, I did a two-year make-up school in order to have a student visa. During this time, I learned how to make it look like someone took a blow-torch to your face, give perfect pin curls, and other random stuff that was pretty fun. I also had this client, a choreographer, who will remain totally namesless just in case she is still stalking me and reads this blog. She was American, from Los Angeles to be specific, and immediately took a liking to me because I was American. I met her on a DVD shoot where I was one of 3 interns for a chief make-up artist from MAC and soon after she began calling me, asking me to do her make-up privately. At some point, she began to feel a little too comfortable and started telling me all sorts of really personal details about her marriage, her reproductive organs, and the current state of her body while I would do her make-up. After a while, it escalated, and she started calling me just to talk about her problems, like I was her therapist or something. I would put the phone on speaker and set it on the table and she would just go on and on for a couple of hours. Eventually, when I started avoiding her because she weirded me out so much, she didn't take it too well. She even kept calling for a year. Now, I avoid her studio like the plague, even though it's only a couple of minutes from my apartment... which brings us to:

Hey oversharer
I didn’t need to know that
Keep it to yourself

Wednesday, March 18: Reader Submission

Today's Reader Submission comes from Laurie, who makes an extremely valid point about too much information in cyberspace. I try to limit the info about myself on the net, for example I only allow photos where I look good. All others must be immediately untagged and deleted. But, I digresss... some people feel the need to put everything online, from the details of their break-up or the famed "it's complicated" Facebook relationship status to photos of themselves drunk and wasted in compromising positions. People, it's just not necessary. Laurie explains:

"Sometimes, I'm afraid that I'm the only person left who doesn't feel the need to plaster my entire personal life, interests and every event I attend all over the internet. I hate going online and knowing every little detail about people I barely know or care about. Maybe if they were mildly entertaining, it would be less annoying."

Self-centered a-hole
I don't care about your life
You are so boring

Stranger don't tell me
About last night or your job
Makes me feel creepy



*Do you have a lifeku about something that annoys you? Send it to dailylifeku@gmail.com!

Tuesday, March 17

I just spent one full week with no internet. Zero. None. Zilch. I basically wanted to die. My internet stopped working one day, at which point I made a phone call (which I then did not know would precede many, many other phone calls) to my internet service provider, which would be Orange. Also known as: Quasi-Fascist-Anti-Humanitarian-Internet-Mongers. QFAHIN. Or something. First they gave me one explanation, then another, then another, then no internet and some more phone calls later, yet another. And of course none of the 15 people I spoke to actually knew what was wrong.

7 unconnected days and 100 hours of Orange's hold music later, it turns out that my account was mistakenly closed. Indefinitely. Why? Because, like a total idiot, I paid my bill online. This was obviously too much for the computers at Orange, who provide internet service I remind you, because their computers didn't take my payment into account. Wait, let me re-phrase that: Orange was more than happy to physically take the money out of my bank account, they just didn't register that they had done that, because they're awesome. So for 3 months in a row, as I was thinking how convient it was to pay my bills online, for Orange I was actually not paying. Even though they were taking my money. Really, I love France.

So how did I have to fix the situation? This is where the awesomeness reaches a whole new level, because once an account has been closed, you have to open a new one. Once this process, comparable to a root canal, has been completed it takes UP TO 15 DAYS to re-open the line. There is, of course, nothing that Orange can do about this. Obviously. Because it's not like the line was functioning a couple of days ago or anything. I began to feel like an idiot for having believed the woman who claimed to have put my file "in priority." I even had one guy who said I would receive a text message when the line was open again, and it obviously is because I am posting this right now, but I never received said mysterious text message.

Let me stop right here to handle any questions or concerns you may be having with this ridiculous situation: If you are asking yourself, "Why didn't she just get a new internet service provider instead of waiting the 15 days?" I'll explain why this is not possible. It turns out that ALL OPENINGS OF INTERNET LINES IN FRANCE TAKE UP TO 15 DAYS, no matter what company you are with. And since I had already done 5 days of waiting, I wasn't about to go back to the beginning. You feel me?

Back to resolving my situation... I called again Saturday to have an estimate of when it would come back on, where yet another idiot gave me some more useless gobbelty gook crap of an explanation equating to up to 15 days, but he did offer to give us one month of internet free. After I already paid for the month of March, which is not over by the way, and during which I did not have internet for about 10 days, in order to open the new account. It's times like this where if I didn't have social security and 8 weeks paid vacation, I would totally move back to the States just for the customer service. Anyway, this morning, when a certain someone found themselves at the house with me after a certain accident (more on that later) it seemed that the internet just HAD to work. So we called yet again. First the "service commerciale" and then of course, because one phone call is never enough, the "service technique." Finally, when I got someone who actually knows computers on the phone, we managed to figure out the problem. It turns out that my stupid livebox had reset itself, and I had actually had internet since Friday. As you can imagine, I am far too tired and frustrated to be angry about this. I was just happy when she re-sychronized and my internet magically came back. Naturally my experience inspired a lifeku or two:

French “service technique”
You do not know anything
I hate you so much

Internetless life
Ostracized empty black void
I feel so alone


Most of you have had a similar experience, send your life-without-internet haikus for dailylifeku@gmail.com for next week's Reader Submission.

Monday, March 16

I was yet again spending a relaxing Saturday morning with my new amazing boyfriend, StumbleUpon Toolbar. It's the best relationship I've ever had... he always has something interesting to say and he listens to my wants and needs. Anyway, I came across this article about the "male girdle" and found myself facing the difficult physical challenge of not throwing up in my mouth while laughing so hard I cry. It's supposed to be the equivalent of Spanx but for men with beer guts... the article goes on to explain the woes of men under the pressure to succeed in bed and at work, and how they deserve "the same products that women have had for years to make [them] feel better."

Oh boo hoo. I feel so sorry for you, men, because you don't have your own line of concealer and cellulite-disguising panty hose. Wait a minute, no I don't, because most of you still manage to get laid on a regular basis, even married, whereas nobody wants to do the nasty with a woman sporting a moustache. That's right, I said it. Women go through all of this preparation crap because men won't sleep with us if we don't. They are revolted by that which naturally occurs on our bodies. However, a fugly ass "man" with a "great personality" or a "sense of humor" will always end up with a woman who is too good for him but has surprisingly low self-esteem. That's the way it is. Think about how men become distinguished with grey hair but a woman who wants to keep the door rotating better run out for a box of Nice and Easy ASAP before people start asking her if she's a grandmother yet.

What is my point? My point is this: after years of shaving, waxing, exfoliating, buffing, smoothing, moisturizing, plucking, powdering, blow drying, and many other verbs ending in -ing, we have earned the right to judge you if you take longer than us to get ready. Your unrealistic vision of us automatically gives us twice the time in the bathroom (or more) with no justification what-so-ever, so when you start buffing and plucking and smoothing we start wondering if you're thinking about switching teams. Men, you want real women? Then don't be surprised when we want real men.

Metrosexual
Long prep time isn’t sexy
Take off the mirdle

Sunday Poll: March 15, 2009

Think Fast: Twitter...