Just Too Many (Imaginary) Friends

Keeping friendships alive through Gmail and Skype can be disorienting enough for someone living time zones away from her former life. Of course, it'd be even harder without the Internet, but then maybe we'd be obliged to live more completely in the present: the here and now. Take Facebook, for example: sure, it's great suddenly to be in touch with people you haven't seen or heard from in 15 years, but that doesn't exactly help you get on with your life on the other side of the Atlantic. Not only do virtual networks like Facebook propel you into another time zone but back into another phase of your life.
Nothing refutes real-life parameters more, though, than our weekly flirts with "imaginary friends" (as my mom likes to call them): that is, the Susans (and Mikes) and Fionas (and Michaels) of primetime TV. Soon you find yourself racing home for a date with DH (and when you're abroad, it's not as simple as just turning on the télé: first you need to wait for your "friends" to air in the US, and then you can start trying to find them online [or ask Mom to send you their whole season on dvd]), rather than immersing yourself in your adopted culture. But if the alternative would mean TV à la française (i.e.: Ségolène live from the Zénith), give me savvy American smut (albeit delayed) anyime.

Teri Hatcher and Gabrielle Anwar as Susan Mayer and Fiona Glenanne. [Online images].

Baby Talk

For an intellectual and sophisticated language, French can certainly be pretty infantile. Especially when babies are involved. Seeing a tiny bundle of joy seems to transform the most composed and respectable of French people into simpering ninnies. And soon expressions that are already nauseating in their cuteness, like pitchoune, minou, and coquine, take on the uber-cute -ette ending before gushing from proud parents' lips: "Hello, coquinette! How is my minette? Yes, pitchounette?" Ever taken care of a French baby for an afternoon? When the parents come home to their pauvre petit chou, they don't just say, "Thanks for watching Marie-Claire." They will cluck and coo: "Oh, have we been pouponning? Oh, yes, we've been pouponning, haven't we?" As they papottent, the parents will probably ask if you remembered to wrap their darling in her doudoune before going outside or if you tucked her doudou in with her at dodo time. Or whether her precious didis got dirty while she was playing in the gadoue.
If only it could end there, but the poor girl will probably be referred to as choupinette by her family till her 35th birthday—not to mention as bibi by her own sweet self for the rest of her life. . .

Lucille Ball as Lucy Ricardo. [Online image] 1953.

Home Sweet Home

After a mini-break, the shock of being back on French territory usually hits me as soon as I step onto the plane (if not up to the Air France check-in counter). No one knows better than an Air France steward how to piroutte over one of my outlandish requests ("Can I please have some peanuts?") with a single patronizing glance. Quel knack for making one wonder, even before take-off, what the hell she's doing back in the rooster's coop.

Pauline Collins as Shirley Valentine. [Online image] 1989.

"La Mi-Saison"

I really didn't understand the whole mi-saison concept when I came to France—and I still don't get how you can be between two seasons when everyone knows it has to be one of the four. Of course, in Southern California, there really weren't seasons at all, so I could wear pretty much everything all year round (I didn't hear about "no white shoes before Memorial Day or after Labor Day" till college). Anyway, in Paris, I guess that mi-saison means you can go outside without wool tights or a coat but not with bare legs or arms. What usually happens, though, is that you have people who just aren't ready for the last season to end (and so continue sporting sandals and mini-skirts over their goose-pimply legs well into October) and those who can't wait to start showing off their up-and-coming winter fashion feats (and so start wearing high-heeled bottines and retro wool hats in August). Maybe this mi-saison, it's time for a compromise—I'm thinking white boots. . .

Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly. [Online image] 1961.

"La Rentrée"

In France, September doesn't just mean "back to school": it also means "back to work" for all those who spent most of August figuring out the best rapport qualité/prix for a bottle of rosé and the most effective way to tan under gray Atlantic skies. It means back to overcrowded métro stations and rushed evening Monoprix runs, back to cardigans and cafeteria lunches. Not to mention planning for the next holiday! La Toussaint is just two months away!

Megan Follows as Anne Shirely. [Online image] 1985.

Barley, Poppies, or Lavender

The "deuxième quinzaine" of August starts in a couple days, meaning vacation time for many here in France. And this year, I'll be joining in!
I, too, get to load up the car with maillots and robes d'été and head South (on the passenger side, bien sûr—CA licenses still aren't up to speed here), pretending to be Augustine in La Gloire de mon père (minus the kids). I've been listening to my "Relaxing in Provence" cd and am ready to nap in lavender fields. So please, cicadas, forget La Fontaine, and keep singing!

Helena B. Carter as Lucy Honeychurch. [Online image] 1985.

Paris Angst

Life in la ville des Lumières can be filled with romance and Perrier bubbles, but it can also be frustrating and grueling (especially when you have a petit accent). After 5+ years of endless métro and RER commutes, raised eye-brows from in-laws, and utter indifference from fonctionnaires, I've begun to think that maybe I've given it my best shot, and now it's time to move on (and away).
Though I've got to admit that I wouldn't have 40 vacation days in the U.S. ...

Naomi Watts as Roxeanne de Persand. [Online image] 2003.

The Break-up

I’ve tried to dress like you and eat like you, talk like you and think like you.

But it’s over now.

So go ahead and keep your curt pardons and greasy steak-frites.

Just give me back my wide smile and tofu cheese, and I’ll be fine.

You can have your leather flats and throaty “r”s back if I get to wear flip-flops and laugh out loud.

I’ve been waiting for you to fall in love with me for five years now, almost six.

But you don't give a shit.

I’ve read your poetry, your history books, and watched your bad TV.

Only to hear you say, “Vous n’êtes pas française.”

To feel you push me into tired trains and step on my feet.

But this time, I’m not coming back for more.

You can rain on me and blow smoke in my face all you want.

Profites-en.

Because it won’t last for long.

I’m leaving you, France.

And even though you won’t miss me, I’m taking along someone you will.