J'ai quitté la France il y a quatre semaines.

I left France four weeks ago.

It has become apparent to me that it has not been apparent to you that I am no longer in France. I didn't blog about leaving, I suppose because it was not an exciting or interesting event. But I did indeed leave, on Wednesday May 23rd, flying from Paris (Charles deGaulle) through Washington D.C. (Dulles) to Sacramento (ScoobyDoo). Since then, I have been in Davis, California, at my parents' home, the home I grew up in, sleeping mostly in the bed I slept in from 1989 through 1999. And, of course, days spent at your childhood home are not supposed to be as eventful as days spent in a foreign land. I didn't expect them to be, and they haven't been. I thought, therefore, that I would have ample time to catch you all up on what I did in Europe. However, it turns out that when I am very un-busy, it is more difficult for me to do anything. When I am super busy, I can get right on a task and bust it out in no time. Nothing to do today besides write 200-500 words about Florence? Next to impossible! Luckily, I took notes on my trip, so I am not in danger of forgetting much; it will just take some time for the notes to get translated into Bloggish.

As always, I have a much easier time writing 200 words about how hard it is to write 200 words about something. That is pathetically ridiculous. Or is it ridiculously pathetic? Or are those two things the same?

Finally, a picture that my sister took on our flight back from Seattle 10 days ago:


The Earth sure is something, isn't it?

Children of a Lesser God.

Last night I saw the film Children of a Lesser God* for the first time. I was in a play once that referenced it, but I didn't know anything about it other than it was about deaf people. Turns out it kinda isn't. William Hurt's character teaches lip-reading at a school for the deaf (he can hear), where he meets Marlee Matlin, a deaf woman who refuses to be taught; they fall in love quite rapidly. Their relationship is tempestuous and passionate. The film seems to be about his desire to help her, and her absolute unwillingness to be "helped" – such a simple, human story. The dialogue was very naturalistic (in the best sense), especially for an adaptation of a play. The film was quite beautifully shot, and both Hurt and Matlin are wonderful. In short, I really liked it. In fact, it touched me more than any film in recent memory. I'll admit that I teared up more than once.

(Then again, earlier in the day I cried during A League of Their Own**, when one of the players gets a telegram informing her that her husband has been killed overseas. It was really, really sad!)

* The movie was shown on Turner Classic Movies, late at night; it was shown in its entirety, uncensored, with no commercials, and in letterbox format. How refreshing!

** Two movies in one day? Well, dammit, I'm on vacation!

Secede! Succeed! Secede!

Do you have conversation nuggets? You know, little tidbits of information that you think are freakin' fascinating which you can insert into conversations when they are dying or when you want to really impress a girl? Well, I've moved on from "Gravity Train" (what's a gravity train, you ask?! It's fascinating...) to "Vermont Secession."

"Vermont Secession?" you say.
"Yes," I say. "There are folks in Vermont who want to secede."
"How many people, about?"
"Oh, at least thirty, I think."

The whole thing is interesting because 1) Vermont was actually an independent country for 14 years, until it joined the United States in 1791; 2) secession might actually be legal, according to the Constitution (or, more specifically, according to what the Constitution leaves out). The realists point out that it'll never work (for a number of reasons), but it sure is interesting to think about. Salon published a good article about it here. Anyhoo, if I see you anytime soon, and the conversation hits a lull, don't be surprised if I whip this nugget out.

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One of the reasons Vermont probably can't secede, people say, is economic. Some states, like the awesome California — actually, probably only the awesome California — could manage quite easily on its own, money-wise, but Vermont is itty-bitty! Well, there are plenty of countries much smaller than Vermont. Vermont, in fact, should it secede tomorrow, would have the 81st largest GDP in the world. Not huge, but I think it's quite respectable.

I got that number from this sweet-ass map of the United States, which replaces each state name with that of a country with a similar GDP, and which was posted on this sweet-ass blog website, http://strangemaps.wordpress.com. Chiggity-check it out, motherhumpers!

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Postscript: I believe that this is my first blog post without a title in French. That's because this post is the first to have nothing to do with my trip to Paris last month. Don't worry, I've still got Europe tales to tell, and I will be publishing them here soon, but I also want to transition this space into a regular, boring, day-to-day blog. I'll probably keep the blog title, "Je m'amuse," because it is accurate and it is appropriately pretentious.

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P-p-p-postscript number two: This blog post needs some color. Shazam!

This kid is my nephew, Kaz Despres (by Eli Despres, out of Kim Roberts). As you can see, he is fairly adorable, and he is growing up fast. I don't get to see him as much as my parents or my sister, and he is much more comfortable around them. It is really frustrating. He's got a nickname for my sister Elizabeth — he calls her "Eeebee" — and last weekend (at our family reunion up in Anacortes, WA), he just kept asking "Where's Eeebee? Where's Eeebee?" He knows I'm "Uncle Chris", but he doesn't like me. Kim swears that's not true, and I know she's right, but it's tough. So, anyways, I was joking around and being self-deprecating, and called myself "Uncle Jerk" in front of Kaz. Well, one thing that this kid is really good at right now is repeating things. So he starts calling me "Uncle Jerk." We'll see if it sticks. I can't decide whether or not I want a nickname enough to be happy about that. What do you think? Is it an endearing nickname?

Les gens prenant des photos.

People taking pictures.

The mythical "they" say that Paris is a people-watching town, and they are right. I think that is partly due to the fact that there are lots of people to watch, and also because the rest of the people have nothing better to do; I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. A lot of the cafés have all of their chairs set up facing the street — to sit across the table from someone takes some doing. And people spend hours at the café, so they see a lot of people go by. Another place to watch people is at parks, museums, and Eiffel Towers. I went to the Eiffel Tower one evening, intending to go up it, but the lines were far too long and I ended up sitting at the base for thirty minutes or so until I had to leave to meet Justin and company for dinner. The Eiffel Tower is pretty fucking impressive, but there is only so much staring to be done at the thing, and there are only so many pictures to be taken. (Also, it's so damn big that it doesn't fit in my camera's field of view from fewer than a few blocks away.) So I spent most of my time watching other people stare at it and take pictures. A surprising percentage of people lie down on the ground, their girlfriend/wife standing above them, to try to fit everything in to one frame.



Later in the trip I stopped by the Arc de Triomphe, at Charles de Gaulle Étoile. The Arc is lined up perfectly with the Champs Élysée, which runs straight from la Place de la Concorde. The best view of it, thus, is from the middle of the road. Which is where people take pictures from. They wait for a red light, and then walk just halfway across the crosswalk. There they direct their friends to bunch just right (they've got to set up the tripod first) and take twenty pictures, because some won't come out. In the meantime, French drivers are whizzing past them in both directions. It's cute.


Also, can you tell that I'm a shitty photographer? I like it, actually — it's artsy blurriness, right? Yeah, no, I know.

La politique Française déja me manque!

I already miss French politics.

In the French presidential debate last month (I blogged about it here), the two debaters were seated, facing each other across an enormous X-box. It was a deliciously confrontational setup, much better than two podiums at an angle, and way better than stools-in-the-round (although this last arrangement is the best possible for de-evolving into fisticuffs!). The two moderators, as I recall, could barely get a word in edgewise, as Sarko and Ségo went at each other like bulldogs. If you'll notice, there are two enormous clocks on the unoccupied side of the table, keeping close track of how long each spoke. (If there were a third clock for the moderators, it might read 00:35 or something.) By the end of the two-hour debate, the clocks were each close to 56 minutes, I think, and not more than 60 seconds apart. I remember being impressed with the parity of the debate, and the restraint of the moderators.

I mention all of this because last night CNN aired a debate last night between all eight Democratic Presidential candidates. And though CNN didn't keep a running ticker of each candidate's time, the Chris Dodd campaign did, and released the following handy bar chart:


Predictably, Obama and Hillary lead the way in allotted time, with JohnJohn Edwards holding down third. I know a bunch of people who will be stoked that "Lucky Charms" Kucinich got more time than Biden, Dodd, and Senator "Who? Mike Gravel? Wait, who?". But cast your eyes to the rightmost bar, which illustrates exactly how succinct moderator Wolf Blitzer was. Almost 14% of the debate's jibberjabbering came out of his mouth, more than all but two people actually running for President, and as much as the bottom two (Biden and Gravel) combined. I'm sorry, but that is too much. As I said at the dinner table tonight, I have come to hate the section of the Venn diagram where American politics and American media overlap, except for the little portion of Daily Show goodness.

P.S. Yes, we all knew that Kucinich finally got married a couple of years ago, but did you know that he married a babe? Both figuratively and literally, I mean, in that she is 30 years younger than him, and also a super good looking redheaded tall (6') woman. From the very cursory internet search I just did, it appears she is sort of hippy-dippy and slightly airheaded. Oh, I wish he had a chance.

Lost opportunities...

I had a weird experience tonight. For the first time, I found out that a girl I once had a crush on is now married. (Granted, I haven't kept in touch with many of my crushes. I suppose that Felicity Woods, for instance, could have gotten married in the last 20 years.) I have to admit that it made me kinda sad. Is that because finally there is no remaining possibility? What the hell is wrong with me?!!