Oh you want to shake hands? Sorry, I’m already moving in for a hug. This is awkward. But it’s only going to get worse. I think this as I move in, arms out, already committed. As if it’s all happening in slow motion, I see you’re caught off guard, don’t know where to put your hands. You flail, trying to decide where to put your arms, where to move your head. I wish there could be a cool way to back out. But I have to commit.
I’ve been on your side. I know. I’m not always a hugging extrovert. A huge portion of my life, I’d rather be home reading a book. So if I am expected to attend some event, I’m likely still in my introverty mood. Then I see someone coming toward me, arms out. I’m not squeamish about hugging back. But I know some people are. I do get that.
And that’s what adds the weird cherry on top of this cringe-inducing moment: I can feel it as I’m coming in for that hug. But there’s no way to reverse without it being even more awkward. Sorry.
Walking back through the Marais in Paris, after visiting the Musée Picasso, one afternoon, Ian and I stopped to eat at a café called Les Philsophes. Situated on a corner, we sat at an outdoor table and watched the relatively tourist-free (compared to the Left Bank) street. Parisians were buying bread across the street and picking up laundry next door. A man on a bicycle rode by with a basket full of baguettes. He fell over, tossing his crusty loaves about the cobblestone street. People stopped their shopping and laundry picking up to run into the street to help the man up and gather his baguettes, just when our waiter approached our table.
“Quelle est la soupe du jour?” I asked.
He told me what the soup of the day was in his rapid French. But I didn’t understand.
“Pardon?” I shrugged, and gave him a helpless look. “Je suis désolé. Je ne comprends pas.”
He placed his index finger and thumb on his chin and seemed to search the gray sky for an answer. He paused during his thinking to tell me, “One leetle minute.” This was taking more time than either of us thought.
Finally, he pinched his fingers together as if holding something very small and squeezing, as he said, “Leetle brawken pee-ass.”
I stared at him, shaking my head. And then I got it. “Oh. Broken peas! Split pea soup!” I nodded, looking over to Ian.
The waiter’s eyes lit up and he clapped his hands. “Oui! Oui!”
Even if I wasn’t in the mood for split pea soup, I ordered it anyway. After all, the waiter worked so hard and was so excited to find the right words, how could I not? It was very good.
Top Photo of Les Philosphes taken by Charles Halton – http://awilum.com/
When people travel to Paris, France, they often come back with romantic stories about the Seine, the light, champagne and brie, oooh la la! Not me. Here are Some things I experienced and learned on a recent trip to Paris: 1) Don’t use French phrases you learned from Patti Labelle’s “Lady Marmalade,” they’ll get you into trouble with a horny French cowboy. 2) When going to strip clubs, you get what you pay for. 3) The Metro stops running sooner than you think. 4) Fighting in front of dildos is funny, even if you’re too mad to realize it.
One night, Ian, my husband, and I take the Metro to the Pigalle district with the idea we’ll check out the dancers at Moulin Rouge. After seeing the show’s price and thinking it might be too touristy anyway, we duck into a strip club a few doors down. Hey, we’ll save money and get to see a sexy Parisian strip show, we think. Well, we’re wrong. Nothing sexy about it! What we get is a discount show from the world’s worst stripper. She has to be the worst. Nobody could put this little effort into her job. Slouching, with a cigarette limply hanging from her lips, the pot-bellied stripper lethargically slides down a pole as though she has just been injected with a sleeping dart and is about to pass out. Then she crawls back up and stands there weaving back and forth. The audience, just as lethargic, doesn’t even have enough energy to boo or leave.
We get up and head out to wash our disgust away at an Irish Pub a few doors down. (I tell the other tales of the cowboy and dildos in a story in my book, “Craving Normal.”)
As a child I had a large imagination, which led to confusion. Why? Well, I believed flying dust particles were fairies and thought little people in the TV box spoke to me. I also believed giants existed. Mom read me Grimm’s Fairy Tales in which giants ate children, trolls lived under bridges, and old women stuffed kids in ovens. To me, giants were as real as that man named Walter Cronkite Grandpa watched on TV. I never met Mr. Cronkite, but I believed he was real, too. So when I heard an announcer on the radio say, “The Giants will be returning to San Francisco,” I ran through the house, screaming, “Mommy, giants are coming! Giants are coming!” imagining they were the kid-eating kind of giants. Then Mom calmed me by explaining they’re San Francisco’s baseball team.
What did you once believe as a child? Were you disappointed or happy to find out you were only confused?
Photo: I loved Grimm’s Fairy Tales so much I “read” (pretended to read while I made up the story) to my little sister. She seems riveted.
Before I ever dared publish my writing, or think about writing my own book, “Craving Normal,” (Because I don’t think I’ve bored you enough in previous posts about MY BOOK. Did I mention I wrote a book?) I merely admired the work of real writers, while hiding my own stories in binders. At the time, one of my favorite LA writers was Sandra Tsing Loh, author of “Depth Takes a Holiday”, and other work. Sandra had me hooked after I read her Buzz Magazine article, “The Joy of Temping,” where she wrote about working as a temp in the North San Fernando Valley – a “land of fluorescent lighting, faux hardwood paneling, olive-green carpet and gummy IBM Selectrics.” There, she was forced to wear nylons and eat lunch from the vending machine. Of course, the story was way more hilarious than my second-hand telling… But it made me laugh and I related. I’ve lived that temp life in the Valley. I knew just that color green carpeting.
Anyway, I began buying Buzz Magazine just for her witty tales of life in the San Fernando Valley. Reading her pieces inspired me to submit my writing. So I really wish my exchanges with Ms. Tsing Loh could have been wonderful. But, no! I had to make a fool of myself.
So, in the mid 1990s, when my husband and I went to a friend’s party, and I saw Sandra Tsing Loh there – dancing in front of the band – I knew I had to meet her. And, little did I know, our husbands, both musicians, know each other. Somehow we (Sandra and I) ended up at the same table. I don’t remember how. But it probably involved me skulking over there like a twelve-year-old fan. I cringe to recall the entire exchange. But part of it went something like this:
Me: Yeah, I’m taking a writing class right now…
Sandra nods and smiles.
Me: But my teacher, she smells a little musty – you know, she’s a little artsy-fartsy…
Right then, I wanted to smack myself in the head. I’d never, ever used that goofball phrase before. What a dork! I meant my teacher was a little new-agey, touchy-feely, took herself too seriously for my taste. Instead, I just blurted “artsy-fartsy.” It’s a phrase that might sound right coming from a 70-year-old woman who buys her living room paintings from Walmart to match her sofa.
Right about then is when Sandra began looking around for her husband, the bathroom, a drink, any reason to escape. I got the idea every new person she meets tells her about their dream to write, so maybe she just figured I was another writer-wanna-be, one who uses stupid phrases like “artsy-fartsy” and would just shame the writing world if I ever got published.
Well, that’s what I was thinking she was thinking. Sandra was actually really nice and supportive, leaving me with something like, “Well, we need more women writers,” before fleeing.
Still, I wanted to stick a cocktail toothpick in my eye.
I enjoy Lev Yilmaz’s work. But if I ever meet him, I’m sure it’ll be awkward.
Yes, it’s true. I sang out in public without shame. See this photo above? I’m dancing and singing, as I often did. And from the big hand gestures, I’m guessing the number I’m assaulting everyone in my vicinity with is Age of Aquarius.
And if I had more room in the Daily News piece, I would’ve included how I, as a Freshman (who should have known better by then), sang Linda Ronstadt’s Blue Bayou to my entire high school. Yep, it was just me singing a capella – standing in the middle of the auditorium during a school rally.
So, yes, I was truly delusional… I say in the past-tense, while typing about my life into cyberspace as if anyone gives a damn. Some things haven’t changed.
The dawning of the Age of Aquarius; yet my lack of talent did NOT dawn on me –
Jug wine was to the 1970s what Scotch was to the 1950’s Rat Pack crowd; what Martinis were to 1960’s cocktail parties or what Bartles and Jaymes wine coolers were to the 1980s. Yep, jug wine is just as ’70s as mood rings, shag rugs and Pong. The combo just somehow went together – like Sonny & Cher, the Captain & Tennille, Shields and Yarnell… Okay, I think I’ve taken that whole thing too far, haven’t I? (*Don’t know what a mood ring is? See the 1970’s mood ring commercial, bottom of this post).
While going through slides for my book, “Craving Normal,” I discovered a theme in many photos from the ’70s involving my parents and their friends: the ever-present (or nearly always present) jug wine – there it was at house parties, diving days, beach outings, camping trips… and even at a kiddie party at the San Francisco zoo. No wonder whenever I see memories of the 1970s in my head, those bottles always seem to be clanking around there somewhere.
Hey, let’s play find the Jug O’ Wine (I guess the “wine” in each photo might give away the answers, huh?)
It’s 1970’s kid’s birthday party at the zoo, so of course there’s wine.Scuba diving and wine… just makes sense. I guess.
Maybe adults were trying to run away from home as this 1970’s Mateus ad reflects –
Do you have a superpower? I bet you do. Mine? I create universes, control the actions of others and can even time travel. How? I write.
Ever since I was a kid, I have been creating worlds I can control. Darn, I only wish I still had the story I wrote, when I was 8 years old, about a little farm girl kidnapped by fun-loving aliens. She went to live with them on their planet, where she could stay up late and eat junk food.
Life experiences, one huge reason I devour memoirs and biographies. Again and again, I’m fascinated by what other people have gone through and how they use those experiences as they’ve grown. Did their bad experiences make them stronger? Or were their easy childhoods a detriment? An advantage?
Last night, I started reading Amy Poehler’s “Yes Please” – and, boy… can I relate. Middle school (or as it used to be called: Junior High) was brutal on my self-esteem. Mean girls and boys name calling and pointing out my flaws. Sad to read how much these little creeps hurt Amy. But look at her success!
In my book, “Craving Normal,” (available soon!) I share a story called “My Place in The Sun.” In it, I tell about the summer between 7th and 8th grade where I morphed from a chubby kid with a metal front tooth into a slimmer version of myself with a new white capped tooth. The boys who once made fun of me did a 180. Creeps!“When I returned to school for eighth grade, instead of my old husky-sized jeans and embroidered smock top, I wore Ditto pants that fit my butt just right and a purple satin baseball jacket. Now the boys who once teased me with “Michele Miles, I wish you were miles away,” and taunted me with “Michele, Michele, the Liberty Bell!” smiled and squeaked, “Hi, Michele,” which made me want to scream: “Hey, you idiots! I’m the same girl you teased only a few months ago!” But I ignored them and joined the cheerleading squad.”
I stared at him, shaking my head. And then I got it. “Oh. Broken peas! Split pea soup!” I nodded, looking over to Ian.
