Music for Maniacs, a new blog. Here's how they describe themselves:

Sick music. For sick people. Home-recordings, internet art-terrorists, and utterly unique sounds will be reviewed here, with links provided for your downloading/listening pleasure.

Songs to wear pants to

Self-description: "I make music from the instructions people send me." For example, "do a song where the beat is made from different fruits hitting the floor, the melody can be you humming things, and the lyrics will be about a mecahnical shark and his troubles getting along with the real sharks" OR "Please make a song about the results of when a Geometry text book and an Overhead Ceiling fan met and became the best of friends. The results can be anything you want, but it has to be in the style of a heavy metal song and the results have to include a family reunion in Canada.....please include a Llama somewhere in the song."

Despite lunch, my mouth is dehydrated and the chemical aftertaste of the envelope glue still lingers. I received my real absentee ballot today (I've already sent my emergency back-up). I filled it out immediately and ran down to the post office. It should be received by my election office on November 2. This means that they will count this ballot and not the other. It was fun voting for all of the local officials. There are some real crazies. I pretty much voted down the Democrat line, except for one local judge position where I was forced to select either a Republican or nobody. So I checked out the candidates, ended up voting for the incumbent, as he had pretty good credentials and hadn't made any offensive decisions as far as I could tell. But really, I couldn't vote for the other candidate, a woman whose only appearance online is an article written by her about her "New York Adventure" when she and her husband spontaneously moved to New Haven, hated it after a week then went to Brooklyn, but knew that Western, New York with the Bills and "spacious backyards" was the place for them. That's it. No political talk. No talk about her work as a lawyer/judge. Someone needs to talk to this lady about what it is to run a political campaign. And spacious backyards? I'd take Prospect Park anyday.

So, these past few days, I've slowly been coming out of my depressive funk, partly because I've been making a positive effort in my life to fix the things that aren't going how I want them to and partly because, of course, the Sun is making its way out of Libra, my opposing sign. There was a really negative aspect going on with the Sun and myself for a while and I can feel the tension melting away.

This is a real logical explanation, isn't it? But in any case, while some people go to Jesus, some to yoga class, and some to the bar when they are feeling down, I prefer to look to the stars. Call me a new-age, disillusioned Pagan, but is thinking that the stars somehow influence our lives any different really than believing that this dude lives in the stars and controls our life? We all need our bit of irrationality.

Anyway, I've discovered some great new ways to do chart interpretations, that have allowed me to progress greatly from looking up the answers in my little purple book and trying to reconstruct the statements so I don't plagiarize. What I found is that Uranus has a huge impact on my chart. (Yes, I know, Uranus is always going to be funny.) So far, I have figured out that I will become increasingly more eccentric and shocking as I grow older. So watch out. By age 60, I will be spewing conspiracy theories off the starboard side of my boathouse, going in only to work on the explosive detonators to place at the bottom of Lake Lochness to blow Nessy out of the water.

If anyone is interested in finding out which planets are strong in their charts, send me an e-mail with your info (birthday and time, place) and I'll get right on it. I am not putting my e-mail address here, because I figure if I want to hear from you, you already have my address.

And congrats to those that got the ND reference.

So, I have officially been in Paris for 1 year.

My feelings are ambivalent about this. I am proud for making it this far, disappointed that I don't feel more settled, scared that I have no more money, hopeful that I will be settled before the end of 2004 (but not too settled). I feel incredibly lucky to have Stephane as my partner in crime. Without him, I would have thrown myself into the Seine long ago. (Although, because none of the bridges are really high enough, I probably wouldn't have died unless the mutated piranhas ate me.)

What kind of scares me is that while the first time I was in Paris felt so long, and I remember so many little details, this time the year in my memory is a blur of movies, and family dinners, and passing friendships, and fleeting moments of inspiration that were quickly dissolved by ennui and bureaucratic frustration. Nothing meaty for me to hold on to. But, I am here at least for one more year and probably a few more after that, so there is no use wishing the past had been better. Only time to make sure the future is fan-fucking-tastic.

This message is for the Democrats amongst you.

Could somebody please enlighten me as to why all communications I've been getting from Democratic America is all a bunch of self-defeating bullshit? I have already voted for John Kerry, who while by no means a panacea to the world's problems, has proven himself to be an upstanding, reflective, and INTELLIGENT candidate that I would be proud to have in the White House directing my home country and representing it abroad. And I do not see how repeating over and over that Bush is going to win is really helping to rally the team here.

Sure, I understand that nobody wants to get their hopes up and in a way, if Kerry wins he has got a huge job to do and it will be tiresome to deal with all the problems the current administration has created and all of the ridicule that we, as Kerry supporters, will have to take from the Republican pundits will be nauseating, but please, we can deal with that once we get McW out.

Maybe it is the masses of people I see waiting in lines to send in their absentee ballots (a man who couldn't remember the last address he had in the US, who had been stationed in France during WWII and never left, a Study Abroad program leader with 50 students in tow) or perhaps it is the lefty media here or my eternal optimism, but I genuinely believe that Kerry can and will win this election. You can all mock me if I am proven wrong, but for all of our sakes, I hope I am right.

*the use of the words "all communications" above is hyperbole. One righteous young lady even went as far as to wager a bet on Senator Kerry to become President Kerry. Now that is what I call support.

So, I'm doing some homework and listening to a random mix on my computer and the cat keeps coming and going depending on what is playing. I am getting to know her tastes. She loves The Influents and Refree (probably because she is a Spanish-speaking cat), finds China, the Beautiful boring, absolutely abhors Tyondai Braxton and finds The Legendary Pink Dots good mood music for personal hygiene time. Actually, during this last one she kept tapping me on the shoulder and looking at me as if to say, "What the fuck is this?" and her disorientation is understandable. The song we are listening to kind of sounds like an 80s robot porn movie that takes place in a haunted house that is under renovation, a bizarre combination of analog synthesizers, moaning, organ, and cacaphonous, scratchy violon. She doesn't like the violon. It makes her want to attack things....like the other cat at the window. Yikes!

Anyway, this has been an interesting experiment. Back to your regularly scheduled program.

This is a call to action.

Background: In addition to sewing and cooking, my home economics class in middle school consisted of a class based on building self-esteem. I actually remember a lot of this class quite vividly, although I am still trying to figure out how learning how to yo-yo and doing Richard Simmons "Sweatin' to the Oldies" was supposed to protect myself from the shame associated with having to wear my "concert clothes" to school when the band had a concert, which meant wearing a skirt, which meant showing my fat legs, or not being able to swing myself up onto the uneven bars in gym class, or making cookies for my French class and forgetting to put sugar in them. In any case, the shame I usually associate exclusively with this period in my life seems to be seething all around me today after a series of events that I am not quite yet distanced enough from to write about. In any case, I have been fighting back the tears since the metro incident at 8 this morning. That makes 5 hours of holding in tears and that is totally not healthy. And so I blog instead of cry. At least it saves me the shame of looking like a nutjob in front of my new classmates.

Anyway, back to Home Ec. Perhaps the activity that left the biggest impression on me was the IALAC sign. IALAC stands for "I Am Loveable and Capable". We were required to wear the signs around for a day and tear a piece of it off everytime someone made us feel bad. The goal was to learn to see when your actions caused other people pain and how you were affected by other people. Then we would repair those wounds by remembering that we are loveable and capable. Well, at least that's how I interpreted it. Of course, it was a big failure as most kids were too terrified to let anyone else see when they were affected. But it didn't fail in the long term, as everytime I get the ashamed middle school feeling, I immediately revert to Mrs. Collins and the IALAC signs.

Today I am feeling neither loveable nor capable and I need a reminder. If you read this, would you help me to remember that I am both of these things. I know this is just a temporary blue period and I need your help to pull me out of it. Anything you could do would be appreciated. An e-card or email, a post card, a letter, a comment. Anything at all. I am very far from my support system and it makes everything seem so much darker.

Don't know how I stumbled upon this, but it really affected me.

http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties/

It's a gameboy orchestra! Check out the Gameboyzz Orchestra Project. It's got this crazy analog, hardcore sound to it. Funky. Ste and I are going to try to check it out when they are in Paris in November.

Be cool, buddy boy.

Nerve.com (still near and dear to my heart) published an astrolger/body language experts analysis of the sex lives of the presidential candidates. Enjoy it!

The Bodies Politic

Here I am in my computers for dummies class again. Today's topic: how do you filter viruses from your e-mail inbox. Yawn. I would love to learn something useful in this class and then I could make Mandounette bigger and better than ever, but alas, I am stuck in a technologically developing country. To me it is incredible that someone in their third year of communication studies wouldn't have an email address.

Anyway, enough bitching. Went out to a funny bar in the neighborhood last night. It's very "New York design." Everything in red, from the neon glowing bar to the wallpaper to the stools to the bartenders shirt. They even had cosmopolitans and black russians! I chose the latter which packed quite a nice punch, although I am regretting my black russian lover this morning as I suffer through computers for dummies. But alas, it's been too long since I've gone out and it was nice. What was funniest about the bar was the massive and continuously expanding table of hipsters next to us. Apparently their fashion inspiration came from Williamsburg circa 2002, complete with black-rimmed 60s glasses on the brunette girls and trucker hats (which are even more offensive for some reason on a French guy).

(Holy crap, he is actually teaching us how to BCC people)

Anyway, back to the gang of fauxsters. Seems like they need to take a trip back to NYC to get some new ideas. That, OR they could do their own thing. What a novel idea...

I have to go and plan my escape from this class that is so basic it makes me nauseous.

A cool thing about being sick: you can watch all the movies you want, guilt-free. So this weekend, between fits of hacking and moaning, I saw 3 and a half movies:

1. Collateral, the Tom-Cruise-plays-a-gray-haired-bad-guy flick. Obviously this was an I-feel-like-going-to-the-movies-but-have-nothing-particulier-in-mind-that-I-want-to-see-so-I-let-Stephane-choose moment, but I have to say that I enjoyed it. Although I fear I may be slightly narcoleptic because at the films action climax, when Tom Cruise is taking out an entire club, I passed out for about 10 minutes. But, as in most action movies (excluding Mission Impossible), when I woke up, I had no trouble figuring out what had happened and where we were.

2. Before Sunset, the sequel to mid-nineties indy classic Before Sunrise, which I have not seen (how classic can it be then???) Anyway, I feel like this film spoke to me maybe even more not having seen the first one because it left the past to my imagination. Story: a writer (Ethan Hawke) is giving a reading in Paris and a woman shows up, the same woman he had met 9 years earlier on a train to Vienna and had a wild one night affair with. This one really touched a nerve and I highly recommend. It is 80 minutes of one continuous dialogue (shot while they are walking around Paris), but the dialogue is wonderful, exactly how I'd be (have been?) if put in that situation. One thing that sucks: they stole my idea to make a feature length film that involves a character walking down the Coulee Verte (a walkway built on an old viaduc that connects Saint-Mande--where I used to live--with the Bastille).

3. BaadAssss!: Don't know how many a's and s's are really in this title, but it don't matter. A mockumentary by Mario van Peeble's about the making of his father's landmark movie, Melvin van Peeble's Sweet Sweetback's Baad Asssss Song, the first black power, blaxploitation film. This was another Stephane choice, but I found it highly enjoyable. Sometimes I feel so lame having been born into a white protestant family, perhaps the most boring culture that ever existed.

Now I just have to see Before Sunrise and Sweet Sweetback's Baad Asssss Song.

You should read the post "Suckity, suck, suck" first.

Here are some things that don't suck:

-Having a former classmate call me to tell me she got a job a different language school where they have very flexible schedules and are very nice and that she will recommend me to them if I am interested.

-Aurelie: the girl who was correcting my current event quiz who, when the teacher's back was turned, fed me the answer to one of the questions turning a possible 4/20 into a less embarrassing 8/20.

-Eating lots of madeleines when I got home because, hey, I deserved it, not having eaten lunch or anything.

-The amount of calories I burn coughing.

-Turning my game of shoe evaluating and seeing how high I can count between stops into a nice meditation time to help me visual the collage of movie stubs I want to make for the apartment

-The moment the cat comes to cuddle with me, letting me know that although the drops make her miserable, she knows it is not my fault.

Here are some things that suck in my life:

-Being told that my contract is being put on hold for the English teaching job because I haven't been able to get my papers together fast enough. (Obviously these people have no idea what I am up against.

-Getting a 8/20 on my weekly current events quiz because I didn't know which French newspaper was bought out last week and by whom, how many Internet users have been arrested in the US and in France (2 numbers) for audio-visual pirating, and who the Polynesian prime minister is (Answer: it's a trick, they have no prime minister, he was just overthrown.)

-Forgetting to take out money and finding there isn't an ATM any where near the campus and that I will have to fast for a day, having spent my last 30 cents on a damn machine coffee.

-Coughing so hard during class that I almost throw up

-Forgetting my book and newspaper, so I have to spend a total of 1h30 on the metro evaluating people's shoes to amuse myself.

-Having to put anti-tick drops on the cat that make her crrrrrazy with rage

The evidence is pretty convincing:

www.isbushwired.com

It would explain his bizarre behavior during the first debate, although his stronger performance in the second one indicates that the team gave up on that atrocious idea or, scarier yet, that they worked out the kinks. I wish we could just turn him off like they used to do to Vicky on Small Wonder.

And if it is not true, time to fire the tailor.

07:40
Woken up by cat meowing and scratching at bedroom door
07:42
I give in to her pleas and let her into the room, me and the cat go back to sleep on the bed
10:00
Woken up by Belgians delivering the second half of our couch, which we had ordered in May
10:25
Start to rearrange the living room so the couch fits
10:26
Scratch hardwood floors while moving couch
10:27
Start to work putting floor protectors on all legs of the couch
11:45
Start watching movie called "Demonlover." It is in French and I keep asking Stephane what is going on.
12:45
Stephane gets so tired of my questions and complaints that he shuts off the movie and goes to take his shower
13:00
I carry myself through the rain, in my pyjamas, to the pharmacy to remedy my hacking cough and pick up a much-needed prescription, only to find that the pharmacy is closed for lunch
13:20
I take my shower
13:40
Stephane and I, inspired by the beautiful new couch, set out to clean our disgustingly dirty apartment
14:45
Leave to go shopping for a coffee table to go with our beautiful new couch.
15:05
After 20 minutes walking in the cold Parisian drizzle, glued to each other's side to ensure shelter by the umbrella, I remember my prescription at the pharmacy.
15:08
After some deliberation, we decide the only choice we have is to walk back to the pharmacy
15:25
Arrive at pharmacy and get medications
15:28
Start walking towards the furniture stores (all conveniently located on the same street)
15:55
Arrive at first over-priced design store
16:38
Find some reasonably-priced ceiling lights and consider buying them; then decide not to. The heat and blinding brightness of the light display nearly ruined our decision-making capacity, convincing us that we needed them all, but we were able to escape their hypnotic powers.
17:41
Exhausted and bordering on grouchy, we arrive at Stephane's mother's house, chat with his sister, who is the only one home
18:05
Catch the premiere of The OC (called Newport Beach here)
18:45
Head to the movies to see Collateral (not bad at all, but a typical movie that the boring couple would go and see)
21:06
Leave movies and start the walk home
21:15
Stop at deli to buy bread and potato chips for dinner
21:38
Arrive home
21:39
Let cat outside
21:41
Pop the Picard frozen "Canard a l'orange" in the microwave.
21:48
Sit down to a lovely meal, while watching the France-Ireland game
22:20
I go online, while Stephane remains glued to the television
22:30
Start blogging
22:49
Finish this post
23:00+
Fill in the blank

Thanks for your interpretations on Thursday night's adventures. Last night, the car theme came back...same idea, problems with the brakes. But this time I was much cooler. I was looking for a car that would be good for drag racing (because I am such a hooligan) and found this dude that had a five 0'clock shadow and a bit of a sketchy, yet somehow sexy, look about him that was selling a yellow 1970s corvette...you know the kind that's all curvy and has the headlights that pop-up? Anyway, he warned me that the brakes needed some work, but I was so in love with the car, I bought it anyway and drove it to the race. Of course, I have problems with the brakes, but I was expecting it and it was more exhilarating than scary. Going faster and faster, and it didn't seem to matter if I stopped.

So, I guess this dream taught me to embrace this period of out of controlness and just go with it. After all, I've got an awesome car. However, I wonder why it was yellow.

I am driving a car. Aimpianen and KK are in the front seat, asleep and I am driving from the back. I have a hard time seeing over the seat and it is very difficult to steer. Breaking is even more difficult and even if I am able to get my foot to the break, I can't get a good angle to apply enough pressure to stop. I desperately want to pull over, get out and get into the front seat and eventually I am able to, when I guide the car into a mall parking lot and bring it to a halt.

This dream, while mostly new, contains the recurring themes of driving a car and not being able to stop. I have these dreams a lot, where no matter how hard I press on the brakes, I can't stop. For some reason, I never need to accelerate.

Go to work, my Jungian comrades.

First an apology to all those that I didn't inform of my visit to New York. I was only there for a few days (to get my visa, which I got) and I just laid low because last time, I got everyone all excited that I was coming and then I burned out after a day and a half. I didn't party as much as usual (I think I'm going through the change, the one where the misery of a morning spent hanging over is unattractive enough to destroy the utopian joy of a night of drinking). But I had a fabulous time. There were many highlights, watching John Kerry kick ass in the debate (shown at a reasonable hour) and then being able to get all angry at the Republican pundits who actually used the argument "Well, nobody expected Bush to be as smart as Kerry, so the fact that he didn't make a huge factual error was actually a victory" to spin their candidate's victory. Seriously. And although I was already going to vote for Kerry, his performance really solidified my support. He is a smart man.

Speaking of smart men, went to see a reading of a new play called Guernica by friend Kris Diaz (read by Sara and Burl, among others--well, one other, Carolyn) and it was brilliant! Simply brilliant. I wish I could recreate the discussion we had at Molly's Pub afterward, which helped me to articulate what struck me about the work, but I'm afraid I would need a Guinness.

And a final highlight, and this is one that needs no explanation, it only requires a command. On Thursday afternoon, reeling from the joy of having received the go ahead for another year in France, I slipped into the Sunshine when it started to rain just in time to catch Napoleon Dynamite. I had wanted to see it in June when I was in New York, but my partying and temper-tantrum throwing got in the way. But this time, I made it happen. And it was worth it! If Zoolander was my comedic obsession from 2001-2003, 2004 ushers in the Dynamite Dynasty. It was by far one of the most ridiculously wonderful 90 minutes I've had in a while. I almost wanted to stay and watch it again, but I had a dinner date that I couldn't miss. Many of you have probably already seen it, to which I say, sweet. Go play at the official site. For those of you who haven't, here is the command. Go see the trailer, then go see the movie. It's still playing in NYC at Cinema Village (I think) and should be playing elsewhere. It rocks. Here's a sweet glamour shot of me, Napoleon and Kip.

I am sitting in a class where the concept of blogging was just explained to me...poorly. I think I am a bit out of my element.