Nil by Mouth

A few things for rainy

A few things for rainy friday. A new old marley tune in the d-laods section of the broadcast. It makes ya feel good. Also check out my best french bud, Anne-Marie’s, new age hippie flashy website.

• Nov 30
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This is a chunk

This is a chunk of what i’m working on right now. It’s the navigation design for a demo of our web app in VoiceXML. I won’t get into the acronym-laden specifics, but everyone who walks by my monitor while i’m working on says, “That’s cool.” And i think it sorta is. My job as art. Who’d a thunk it?

• Nov 30
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Tonight I will go and

Tonight I will go and see a french movie. That means: a movie, here in france, where the actors in the picture speak in the french language exclusively. How will i fare? Will i understand anything? Will i rudely snore after the first hour. Or more likely, will i concentrate so intensely for two hours that i will go home with an enormous headache?

• Nov 28
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Ariel’s post about her interview

Ariel’s post about her interview with Toys in Babeland reminded me that in every single search statistic report on my blog, i get at least 5 hits from people searching on “shit in mouth” or some variation thereof.

I’ve considered excluding the phrases on my meta tags, but i find it amusing that someone (probably secretly and feverishly) searching for “scat play” will spend at least a half a second reading about what i had for breakfast – ha!

• Nov 28
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Could it possibly not even

Could it possibly not even by 8pm and i am quite seriously considering getting into bed? Wait! It’s not as bad as it sounds.

Woke up ridiculously early to go to the “Medicale Controle” for my work visa which was outside of paris. My appointment was at 8:30. I was quite late anyway, and it was far. Got there, got lost because since the place is outside of paris it’s not on my map. Finally found the street and Whoops i forgot my passport. Brilliant. Back to my house, pick up passport, 3 train transfers again and back to the medical place. Guy at counter asks if i’m 2 1/2 hours late to all my appointments, in this very snide and very irrelevant way considering he’s the security guard, and then more irrelevant considering there is no real appointment, just a maze of lines where you let people in white coats do things to you.

Line 1 : stand against wall for height

Line 2 : scale for weight

Line 3 : vision test

Line 4 (here’s where i starts getting good) : Woman tells me to into this booth take off my necklace and and clothes from the waist up, put on gown. A few minutes later there’s a door on the other side of the booth that sort of magically opens up. Woman opens it to this big room, ohh xray, got it. She shoves me, yes like a real shove, against the machine. I’m thinking this is for TB (?).

Line 5 : pee in cup. I really had too pee so i filled up the whole thing. I remember once when i was a kid peeing in a cup with my mom. And i filled up the whole thing. I go out to where my mom is waiting and hand it to her, and she’s like,

“You don’t have to fill it up to the top. What do you think, you’re handing her cup of damn lemonade?!”

So i’m cracking up at the memory of this, and i hand the lady a full cup of lemonade. She looks at me like the damn foreigner i am.

Line 6 : very very very long line to see doc about all these tests.

Well, i’m all checked out. Tomorrow morning at the prefecture and i should be as french as they come.

• Nov 27
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I have been trying to

I have been trying to find a book on the history of the Israeli Palestinian conflict for the past few days and have been getting really disheartened. There are no books listed on amazon that aren’t called biased by an angry someone.

I figured i’d have to put myself down for two books then.

One deemed a damn lie by Jews, and one deemed a damn lie by Palestinians. I definitely don’t know enough about the history of the region to be able to have a defensible opinion, but the thing is, i don’t believe *anyone* who talks, reports, writes, pontificates, or anything else on it. I can’t help but be suspicious of all them and their motives. So it’s hard to decide where to start. I mostly went for the ones’ whose writing samples didn’t put me to sleep. I don’t read too much book length non-fiction these days, so i need to be charmed back into the genre.

• Nov 26
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So it’s sorta been a

So it’s sorta been a bum weekend as weekends go. Sunday evenings are always difficult, what with staring down another week of work like it’s the barrel of a gun, and the added difficulty of how little daylight the winters provide here. Retribution for the 10pm sunsets in july i suppose.

I went for some exploration in Pigalle and Montmarte today. There are certain streets that i am just sort of drawn too. I was pondering what was it about these certain streets, and i realized they are the streets that are narrow and have trash on the sidewalks and in the gutters. I also remember pointing out one such street to my mom when she was here, and she said “That’s cause this street looks like it could be in New York”. Hmm.

Otherwise, it was just sort of grey and gloomy, and i’m beginning to feel a bit apprehensive about how much time i spend online. I mean i like the web, i really like it. But is it kind of unhealthy? Isolating maybe? Am i missing some sort of life-changing Paris experience by spending so many evenings a week with my head in my laptop? There must be others out there that have had a similar dilemma. I waffle between thinking that the connection it provides me to my old life in New York keeps me from getting too lonely, and then having the sneaking suspicion that maybe this connection to my old life is keeping me at arms length from my new one. Hmm.. I really don’t know. What do you think? Then again, i think to myself, i do do quite a bit here. I have this gnawing need for deeper relationships than i’ve found here so far, but of course i’ve had that feeling in New York many many times. Right. Right?

I didn’t come here for a life-changing experience. I mostly came so i wouldn’t have to face being unemployed in the dwindling economy of New York. And from that angle, it’s proved to be the right decision. I don’t handle indefinite unemployment very well. Anyway life changing, and the thrill of living in Paris weren’t really part of it. But this is hard to convey to most people i know. Most people have the totally understandable reaction of “You lucky bitch.” And to be honest, there are certainly those moments where i look around me, and something particularly french and beautiful strikes me and i *am* utterly amazed at my luck. Those moments happened a lot in the beginning, but they are sort of few now. I guess the novelty’s worn off. Mostly i am just trudging along with life now. Everyone says the period between the novelty and the fitting-in are truly difficult. Knowing this helps a little, but it is a very real fear for me that the fitting-in is just never going to happen.

And i do feel this certain pressure to have a life-changing experience. I asked my friend Ethan if it would ruin my street cred’ if i came back before a year was up. He said no but i didn’t believe him. Anyway it would ruin my street cred’ with myself which is what counts, right? And more to the point, i ain’t goin back without either a job or at least 10 grand in the bank. Neither of which could plausibly happen before March. And then i have a few excursions planned for April. And by that point maybe i’ll fit in, and if i don’t i can certainly suck it up for 2 more months for the sake of my reputation. Well there’s the rationalization anyway. I feel better already. Really, i do feel better. Who needs a shrink when you have a blog?

• Nov 25
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i can’t say it better

i can’t say it better than peter did about this.

• Nov 25
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New pics! Fall in NYC

New pics! Fall in NYC

• Nov 24
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I missed an excursion to

I missed an excursion to the catacombs tonight due to the totally ridiculous amount of drinking i did last night. Originally i wasn’t even planning on going out last night. This past week has kicked my ass big time. All i wanted to do this weekend was sleep, move my website to another server, and generally regroup. But much to my dismay i woke up at noon with a pounding headache and longing to talk-to-john-on-the-big-white-phone (trans: barf). I spent half the day in bed cuddling with a can of coke and a magazine. And the other half getting lost in my own neighborhood. I did buy a new hat since my last one got burned during a fire performance at a halloween party (note: i’m almost finished cropping all the pics from ny).

So yeah i suck. No errands, no catacombs. And the key to this city is to target your hungover-do-nothing-but-veg-all-day days to sunday because *nothing* is open on sunday. No dept stores, no supermarket, no boulangerie even (at least not the good one). If you have anything you need to do or buy, ya better do it saturday or wait a whole nother week. Thus i pushed myself outta the apt to get the hat. It’s a cute hat. See:

Yeah i left the flash on, i’m hungover ok? Oh and yes my hair is strait, just got a haircut. Fear not, it won’t last.

So then a total hottie on a bicycle, in a cute hat himself, stopped to ask me for directions to St. Michel. I know where it is but couldn’t think of the word for across (as in “across the seine” – it’s “à travers”). I pulled out the standard “excuse me for my lousy french”. And he said “ok, in english?” His english was quite good, like everyone’s here. Mastering another language is proving to be one of the most difficult things i’ve ever attempted, harder than calculus. All these people, like my entire family, who know 4 or 5 amaze me. Anyway I was hoping cute hat boy would invite me along to wherever he was going, but no dice. This is an indication of where i am on the love life scale here: That was the highlight of my day.

So it’s saturday night and i am going to stay in, listen to stevie nicks, write some embarrassingly tardy emails and maybe watch a DVD. Getting the hosting service is going to have to be rescheduled. I’m having a leftover beer from my party and for the first time today i am feeling like a normal person.

• Nov 24
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