Apple, Bacon, and Fennel Potato Salad

This is not a healthy salad, but it is a delicious combination of flavours. I made this last Sunday for guests and they raved about it, but of course I only tasted the problems. Well I've fixed the problems and decided to pass my recipe on to you as well as my menu for tomorrow's decadent Sunday brunch to hopefully be devoured on the terrace if the weather cooperates.

Update:
I've just finished the potato salad and put it into the fridge and the problems I had with it last week are gone. It's perfect, so for a tasty result, follow the recipe as closely as possible.

Tomorrow's Brunch Menu

Buttermilk biscuits served with Sage Butter

Spicy Southern-style Whole Wheat Fried Chicken

Apple, Bacon, and Fennel Potato Salad

Sweet Balsamic Corn Salad

Strawberry Shortcake with Whipped Sour Cream

I'll cover how to make homemade buttermilk biscuits in a later post because at the moment I am improvising with a glass to cut my biscuits and it's rather ghetto but in my defence I haven't been able to find a decent biscuit cutter after 6 years of living in France and I keep forgetting to buy one when I'm in the US. I've asked a friend to pick me up one when they go over for the summer, so I should have it in a few weeks or so.

However making sage butter is quite easy. I make mine with fresh sage, but dried sage also works. It needs to be made beforehand, allowed to sit in the fridge uncovered overnight, and then be re-whipped in the morning to achieve the right consistency.

Adjust the quantity of the butter depending on how many servings you need. I usually calculate about 3 tablespoons of the finished sage butter for each person (enough for 2 biscuits), but if you have butter or biscuit lovers present I would make more as it can go quickly.

Sage Butter

For 2 persons:

1 cup of butter, preferably demi-sel (salted)

4 leaves of fresh sage finely chopped or 1 tablespoon of dried sage

1 tablespoon of finely minced shallots

2 cloves of garlic finely minced

1 tablespoon dry white wine

In a small sauce pan add 1 tablespoon of butter and allow to melt on medium heat. Once the butter has melted add the sage, shallots, and garlic. Saute for one minute until the shallots are soft but not brown. Add the remaining butter and white wine, allow the entire mixture to melt on low heat and remove immediately when all the butter had melted. Stir and pour into a small bowl. The bowl needs to be big enough so that in the morning when the butter has re-solidified you can whip it with a fork. Make sure you whip the butter in quick clockwise motions. This step must be done the following morning because if you mix the butter when it's still melted you will get very green butter from the sage.

Apple, Bacon, and Fennel Potato Salad

For 4 persons:

8 medium sized potatoes peeled and chopped into slightly larger than bite size pieces

1/2 of a medium sized onion finely chopped (not minced)

1 apple (preferably sweet but with a firm texture like a Gala apple) chopped to the same size of the onions

1 generous handful of chopped (slightly smaller than the onions) fresh fennel (the bulb, save the leafy bits for garnish)

4 hard boiled eggs chopped

1 1/2 cups of bacon chopped (or you can use lardons allumettes if you live in France)

1 1/2 cups of freshly made mayonaise (see recipe below that must be made the day before)

2 tablespoons of Hungarian paprika

1 pinch of fresh saffron

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1 teaspoon of apple cider vinegar

1/2 cup freshly chopped parsley

1/4 cup freshly chopped leaves from the fennel

Salt & Freshly ground black pepper

Boil the potatoes until they are tender in the center, but not so that they fall apart completely.

Boil eggs for 10-12 minutes so that the yolks are firm and not at all runny.

While you boil your potatoes and eggs fry the bacon until slightly burnt, chop, and set aside chopped bacon and the remaining grease from frying.

Chop the vegetables and add to a large mixing bowl that can accomodate all the ingredients. Add the mayonaise, spices (except paprika), mustard, bacon, and apple cider vinegar. Taste and salt the dressing until it's moderately too salty. This is important because the less you need to remix the salad once the potatoes have been added the better.

When eggs are finished immediately immerse in cold water. This will keep the yolks from turning grey. I usually keep the eggs submerged in cold water and place the whole thing in the freezer while I finish the rest of the salad.

When the potatoes are finished, immediately rinse with cold water under the tap in a strainer. Do not rinse too much because it will cause the potatoes to fall apart. Set the strainer aside to let the excess water drain out.

Add the boiled potatoes to the dressing and mix well, making sure to coat all of the potatoes. Once you've coated the potatoes, cover the bowl, and set it in the fridge.

Peel and chop hard boiled eggs and when finished add the eggs, parsley, fennel leaves, and freshly ground black pepper. You should also use this last mixing of the salad to add more salt if you wish. Once the salad is finished, garnish with paprika, cover, and let sit in fridge.

This can be served as soon as it's cold enough to your liking, but I always try to make any potato salad the day before because like pasta sauce, it tastes better the second day. If your mixing bowl isn't something you want to set on the table, transfer it gently to a serving dish before garnishing the salad with the paprika.

Sweet Balsamic Corn Salad

For 4 persons:

3 ears of sweet corn cooked (or 4 cups of canned sweet corn)

1/3 cup chopped red onion

1/4 chopped freshly parsley

1 clove of garlic finely minced with the inside bit removed

3 tablespoons of finely minced basil

1 pinch of oregano

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Salt & Freshly ground pepper

Sweet Balsamic Dressing:

1/2 cup of balsamic vinegar (do not use an aged balsamic as it will already be slightly like a syrup)

Pour balsamic vinegar into a saucepan and allow to the vinegar to boil down until it is thick enough to coat the back of wooden spoon on medium-low heat (should take about 15-20 minutes). This is also how you make a balsamic reduction sauce, and is a great way to use cheaper balsamic vinegars you're more likely to find in grocery stores. Set aside.

Combine all the salad ingredients except the salt and pepper. Once the balsamic is cool enough that you can taste it with the tip of your finger, add it to the salad ingredients. Salt and pepper to taste.

This can be made the night before, but I actually think it's better to make it a few hours before serving to control the taste. Just make certain it's cold when you serve.

For dessert you can serve strawberry shortcake or even just a selection of in season fruits like watermelon or cantaloupe, but make sure you have plenty of either dry white wine on hand for yourself (or your guests) or a nice rosé like a Cote de Provence.

I won't include my recipe for strawberry shortcake or for the fried chicken because they're not yet absolutely perfect, so tomorrow I'll be practicing since they'll be no guests. I'll be using whole wheat flour for my fried chicken for the first time, so hopefully that won't be a disaster. As for the strawberry shortcake, I'm simply waiting to see how the whipped sour cream with amaretto comes out. So be sure to check back and if you do try my recipe for Apple, Bacon, and Fennel Potato Salad please let me know what you think, did differently, or how difficult you found the recipe to be. I'm currently working on a cookbook, so feedback is really appreciated.

Oh, and bon appetit!

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Check the archives

I decided to import some old blog posts from my older blog, so if you look in the archives you'll find posts from about 3 years ago.

Most of the posts are about writing and books, but there are a few that have some of my original writing taken from my notebooks.

Thanks to Blogger for making it easy to import old posts from other Blogger blogs. Otherwise it would have never happened!

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Building a Spice Collection

If you're looking for jars and containers for spices or spice racks, this isn't the post for you. I have barely sorted out my problems with the spice section of my kitchen (which is basically spices shoved into old glass Bonne Maman jars or anything with a lid), so I don't think I can yet be of use to anyone in these matters, but what I can do is help you build a spice collection because it's not as easy as you think.

Another thing I should mention is that I am a multi-cuisinal (this is not a real word) cook. If you are too, then you should start by sorting out the spices you currently have according to what types of cuisines you cook. Many cuisines use the same spices for example Mexican and Indian both use a lot of cumin, fine cayenne powder, and coriander powder. There are also spices I consider cuisine indifferent like onion powder, garlic powder, salts, different types of peppercorns, and paprika.

First make a list of what cuisines you tend to cook most often.

I regularly cook:

French
Korean
Italian
Indian
Chinese
Japanese
Thai
American (Southern, New England, Cajun, Tex-Mex)

While I cook other cuisines as well such as Vietnamese, English, Malayasian, Indonesian, etc. the above list are the cuisines I cook at least 2 or 3 times a month. Being half French and half Korean, I cook these cuisines most often, but I do like to keep my meals ethnically diverse.

Once you make your list of cuisines start to think of the spices you must have in order to create your meals.

Here are my lists:

French:
Rosemary
Bay leaves
Thyme (Thyme Flowers)
Marjoram
Tarragon
Basil
Lavander
Chervil (which looks like parsley but has a bit of anise taste to it)
Sage
Cumin (for duck a l'orange)
Mint
Cloves
Nutmeg (for red meat and desserts)
Saffron
Cardamon (desserts)
Cinnamon
Fennel

Korean:

Now Korean is more complicated because very few dried spices are used in Korean cooking. This doesn't mean you don't need a lot of space in your refrigerator or on your counter for the basics. You cannot and I mean cannot cook Korean cuisine without soy sauce, sesame seed oil, cayenne pepper (both finely ground and crushed), soybean paste (called gangjang), red pepper paste (called gochujang), sesame seeds (both white and black), garlic, green onions, ginger, and lots of flavoured vinegars.

You also need one off things that make all the difference in Korean cooking like brine shrimp, sea salt, anchovy powder, dried chestnuts or chestnut powder, and fish sauce.

Italian:

Basil
Garlic
Pepper
Saffron
Coriander (seeds)
Oregano
Borage (a bit like cucumber)
Ginger (used only in southern Italy)
Nutmeg
Bay Leaves
Fennel
Juniper
Majoram
Myrtle (used in Sardinia)
Parsley (flat leafed)
Rosemary
Sage

Now without listing all of the spices for all the cooking I do, you can already see where spices crossover between two cuisines, in this instance French and Italian. The best way to build a spice collection is to not only know what spices are used in multiple cuisines you cook, but also which ones are rather rare.

In Indian cooking you can't make aloo gobi without mango powder or garam masala. In Cajun cooking you need to have file powder or your gumbos won't thicken properly (and remember you serve file at the table, do not add it to directly to your pot of gumbo! I was severely chastised by a lady in New Orleans for telling her I added it directly to my gumbo and promised I would never do it again). In Mexican cooking a lot of spices from Indian cooking are also used, but you can't make proper Mexican food without all the various peppers used in Mexican cuisine like jalapenos, poblanos, and chipotles.

Once you make your list save yourself a bit of money by buying the most often used spices in bulk either at the grocery store or if you live in Paris at the Indian shops either at La Chapelle (Metro Line 2) or rue Saint-Denis (Metro Line 7,8.9). They're not only cheaper, but you can buy in bulk. I buy bay leaves at the Indian shops for example because I can have 250g for 2,00 euros whereas at a French supermarket 40g will cost me about 3,00 euros.

The good news about either building your spice collection or building from your existing collection (I counted and I have almost 100 different types of spices) is that it can also help you experiment.

I make Indian Tex-Mex for example where I switch up a few things by using nan instead of tortillas and make raita with sour cream instead of yogurt and instead of beef curry I make Mexican style carne guisada (beef stew). I also make fusion French-Korean food where I add a bit of gochujang or encrust pork tenderloin in roasted sesame seeds and make a ginger-wine sauce. With the right spice collection, anything and everything is possible.

Of course having almost 100 different types of spices takes up room and isn't always easy to manage, but take a page from cooking shows. Measure your spices out into tiny little glass bowls beforehand and the searching through everything becomes less of a nuisance because it's annoying to have to search for something when you're at a crucial point in cooking.

Plus, while I might not have a beautiful spice rack, I have given up aesthetics for practicality and for the environment. I never throw away any glass jar, not even olive oil bottles because I reuse everything. I simply wait until I have a fair amount of bottles to de-label, fill the sink up with hot water, let them soak, and once they're clean and label free I store them until I need them. It also means that when a bottle breaks or cracks I haven't lost whatever money I invested in spice jars because I simply need to finish up the mustard to replace it.

Be aware that dried spices do lose their freshness, especially when exposed to sunlight and humidity, and should be thrown out after about a year. Also, do some research because certain spices shouldn't be kept next to each other on a spice rack unless the containers are airtight. I learned this lesson when I kept my asofetida next to my garlic powder. It was not tasty as asofetida is foul until added to food and everything I added garlic powder to didn't turn out quite right.

What unusual spices do you have in your spice collection? Mine would probably have to be the powdered galangal I bought in Holland because it's very hard to find in France. I've used it to make a curry rub for a roasted chicken with great success. I love it's subtle flavour that is similar to ginger, but still has a little extra omph.

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Borges and La Bibliothèque des Mots

While most of the la Bibliothèque des Mots  is comprised of fiction books, a quarter of the books are merely for reference. I admit I will buy almost any sort of reference book if I think it might contain a little tidbit of information that will contribute to my writing. I like to think of my library as something Jorge Luis Borges would approve of and considering the number of books I have bought solely because they were somewhere mentioned in his works, he probably would.

To get you started on building a library Borges would approve of, here's a short list of books mentioned in Borges work that no library would be complete without:

1. Sir Richard Burton's 16 volumes of The Arabian Nights or "Alf-layla wa-layla" in Arabic.
I own the edition printed by the Burton Club in 1950 that was limited to 1,000 printings. It's quite expensive, but can be found on ABEbooks. The version I own is in 16 volumes, but the original 1885 printing is 17 volumes. Try to stay away from Lady Burton's edition however as it was strictly for "ladies" and has had all the juicy bits edited out.

And no, I have not read all 16 volumes because well obviously Scheherazade, the legendary Persian queen and storyteller of The Arabian Nights is a far better woman than me.

2. The Dream of the Red Chamber, Tsao Hsueh-Chin (also known as A Dream of Red Mansions)
Borges called this book "an almost infinite novel". It contains 421 characters; 189 of whom are woman, and 232 men. The Dream of Pao-Yu prefigures that chapter in Lewis Carroll where Alice dreams of the Red King who is dreaming her except that Carroll's dream is a metaphysical fantasy, Pao-Yu's is charged with sadness, despair, and a deep irreality.  If that doesn't convince you there is also a chapter on wanking.

3. The Odyssey, Homer
I have many copies of the Odyssey, but my favourite translation of Homer's work thus far is Lattimore's. I also own Fagles' translation, which is considered more contemporary but no less brilliant. If you'd like to know what you should look for when selecting a translation of The Odyssey or The Illiad, this is a very helpful link: On Translating Homer.

Borges liked Homer's adjectives such as "the wine dark sea", "the nourishing earth", "damp waves". In Borges' The Total Library there is an essay called "The Homeric Versions", where Borges discusses the translations and says that "thus a good film seen a second time seems even better". So basically Borges is saying you need to read Homer over and over again and which translation might not matter. However I personally implore you to stay away from Lamb's translation unless you like a serious scholarly challenge.

4. The Divine Comedy, Dante Aligheri
No library - Borges' or otherwise - would be complete without The Divine Comedy. Borges praised the Dent & Sons edition originally printed in 1901, whose three volumes Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso have Italian on one page and the English translation on the other. Borges read The Divine Comedy for the first time when he was 35, while taking the street cars to and from his job at the library. The interesting little bit about this is Borges read the English page while he read Inferno and by the time he started reading Purgatorio he was reading in English. "At the moment when Dante is abandoned by Virgil and finds himself alone and calls out to him at that moment I felt I could read the Italian text directly." So yes, Hell was English and Italian purgatory, but don't take it personally because Borges was a huge Anglophile (like Madame Mimi).

5. Sweet's The Anglo-Saxon Reader in Prose and Verse
Read towards the end of his life, Sweet's Anglo-Saxon reader helped Borges to rediscover his ancestry as Borges grandmother was of English descent. Borges said about The Anglo-Saxon Reader; "I thought I have lost the visible world (Borges went blind) but now I'm going to recover another".

6. Confessions of an English Opium Eater, Thomas de Quincey
Borges claimed that, "I owed to de Quincey to whom my debt is vast that to point out only one part of it may appear to repudate or silence the others". 

If you need further convincing Confessions of an English Opium Eater was also a big source of inspiration to Yves Saint Laurent, who believed that eating hashish helped him to be a better createur. In fact, in my humble opinion Yves Saint Laurent may be the greatest designer the world has ever known. Though drugs contributed to his poor health, his collections imply that his inspiration was not limited to hash eating, even if he did name his most famous perfume "Opium".

7. Heaven and Hell, Emanuel Swedenborg
Swedenborg was a genius who wrote in Latin and believed that one could visit Heaven and Hell as if one were taking a day trip. He also believed he could talk to angels (I think Philip Pullman took some inspiration from Swedenborg for his trilogy "His Dark Materials", but when I spoke to Pullman I was so in awe of him that I forgot to ask, will post the question to his blog, and if he responds update in the comments section.)

Borges liked Swedenborg for his crazy ideas, for example "from a symbollic reading of the Bible he [Swedenborg] went on to do a symbollic reading of the universe." Borges even wrote a poem about Swedenborg.

Taller than the others, this man
Walked among them, at a distance,
Now and then calling the angels
By their secret names. He would see
That which earthly eyes do not see:
The fierce geometry, the crystal
Labyrinth of God and the sordid
Milling of infernal delights.
He knew that Glory and Hell too
Are in your soul, with all their myths;
He knew, like the Greek, that the days
Of time are Eternity's mirrors.
In unadorned Latin he went on listing
The unconditional Last Things.

8. The 11th Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica
There are two celebrated editions of the Encyclopedia Britannica, the 9th and the 11th. The 11th is the last edition prior to the Encyclopedia Britannica transitionning to an American publication and carries over a lot of the text found in the 9th, but was the first to include an index. Many noted scholars contributed to both editions including Bertrand Russell, Edmund Gosse, and William Michael Rossetti.  While most of the information would be now outdated, so not suitable for scholarly purposes, it was for Borges a very important set of books.

9. Mathematics and the Imagination, Edward Kasner and James R. Newman
Highly considered to be the first book to explain the complex aspects of mathematics to the layperson, it is a truly fascinating book even for someone who has studied advanced mathematics there are plenty of things one has never heard of and is written to enchant. Yes, Madame Mimi finds mathematics enchanting. You might too after checking out this book.

10. Ulysses, James Joyce
Borges was the frst traveller from the Hispanic world to set foot the shores of Ulysses, a "lush wilderness". Borges said of Joyce, "Joyce is less of a man of letters than a literature and incredibly he is a literature within the compass of a single volume".

Still, considering there are two copies on the shelf (and one Bodley Head edition recently given away to a friend) and two companion books to Ulysses such as The New Bloomsday Book by Harry Blamires and Ulysses by Stuart Glibert that Joyce himself helped write, I have not made it past the first twenty pages and for this I feel a certain amount of shame. I've often said I should lock myself in a room until I finished it, but this has yet to happen.

I asked a friend, who first read Ulysses when he was 22, "One read Ulysses", he responded "for the same reason you climb mountains. It's a slog (UK English meaning task, drag), but it's rewarding [to read Ulysses] and funny. It's actually hilarious in parts."

He offered me the example of "the bit where he hangs off a ledge by his eyelids", which is pretty much the way I felt just reading those 20 pages.

Books of Jorge Luis Borges that no library would be complete without:

1. The Total Library
2. Fictions
3. The Book of Fantasy
4. Book of Imaginary Beings
5. The Aleph
6. Universal History of Infamy
7. Extraordinary Tales

While all of Borges' work is worth a look, one book in particular is my favourite and that is The Book of Fantasy. The Wiki page for this book says that Extraordinary Tales is a translation of The Book of Fantasy, but upon closer examination that is inaccurate. I will do some more research into the claim and see what I can find and update through the comments section.

Perhaps if you read a few books that Borges loved and books that he wrote you will better understand the quote I scratched in pencil on the underside of one of the pieces of wood used to build the shelves for La Bibliothèque des Mots.

I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.

And for those of you for whom I built this "Paradise", because the books were never just for me but for all my friends, I will never, ever tell you where this inscription is because it's the one part of Paradise that is just for me.

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My Hero of the Day is Monsieur Jean Genet

Yes I complained about Facebook yesterday, but today on my news feed was the greatest little video of an interview (or should I say, interrogation) of the writer Jean Genet courtesy of the BBC.

In the interview Jean Genet talks about "breaking the normal order of things". Not a big surprise considering that Jean Genet is one of the true rebels of literature who had a fascinating life. What makes it particularly interesting is that just a week ago a friend of mine came out to visit La Maisonette and I gave her "The Thief's Journal" to borrow telling her that if she wanted to know the mentality of a criminal, it wasn't a bad place to start.

I won't go into Genet's biography here, but simply leave you this inspiring video of Monsieur Genet. Yes he was imprisoned throughout his life from the age of 15, but also keep in mind that when he was sentenced to death he was spared because of petitions made to the French President on his behalf by Jean Cocteau, Pablo Picasso, and Jean-Paul Sartre. All because they pleaded, that to take Genet from the world would be a far more horrible injustice than the petty crimes he had commited.

It's not even 10 o'clock and I've already had a discussion with another writer I know in Colombia about writing and how to help each other with writer's block (which is called o terror de la pagina blanco apparently in Spanish, though he might have been taking some liberties). I wish I'd seen this video before so I could have sent it to him as he is also a big fan of Genet.

So today's inspiration is break the order of things. Which would do me a lot of good considering that now that I've outlined my entire book from start to finish I've been unable to write since. Perhaps today I will casse my writer's block, which Genet called la petite bête*.

*la petite bête is what the French call a jeux de mot so in this instance I don't think Genet meant l'appetite  bête so I can only assume he meant writer's block is "the little penis". See, I told you he was a genius.

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The Rumble in the Social Networking Jungle

In the midst of the controversey surrounding Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook's admission that they hired PR consultants to smear Google in a whisper campaign that included forcing newspapers like USA Today to write nasty op-ed pieces, Google must be doubly upset by the problems they experienced this week with their blogging platform Blogger if only because we can assume Mark Zuckerberg is enjoying their woes.

But let's get to the more juicy stuff. For example, how scared is Zuckerberg and his FB minions of Google's social networking platform Social Circle? Having already won the race from his dorm room I would assume Zuckerberg, who has often said he doesn't care about what he's worth (and I mean this in a literal and figurative way), wouldn't care about losing millions in revenues to Google. But obviously he does. What I don't get really is why FB would fess up to being shady so easily.

The reality is with people accessing webpages more and more often through social networking sites like Facebook, it's Google who should be scared. Their recent efforts to scan books and offer them online was met with lawsuits. Their Google art project received very tepid applause. Like golf claps tepid. As one of my friends so artfully put it, "it's pretty fucking useless". But then again this friend in particular has the means to stomp about the globe visiting museums and art in person. In the current economy not that many people can afford the luxury. And these are just recent muck ups. Google failed to buy Friendster or to launch their own social networking platform even though their original social networking platform launched one whole month before "The Facebook".

I simply don't believe that Facebook is the underdog in this situation, although there are those (yes I mean you senior writer for Wired) who disagree with me and believe in the end that with all their fingers in their many, many pies that Google is the Goliath and that Zuckerberg is going to need a much bigger and better slingshot if Facebook is going to keep their share of the market.

But Facebook does have one advantage and that is that their users don't seem to care for the most part what stunts they pull because they're not going to stop using Facebook. And why would we? Even I as a somewhat disgruntled user spend most of my day on Facebook communicating with my friends and not just my friend who is Papua New Guinea or my friends in Argentina. I communicate with my friends who happen to live just an hour away on Facebook. It's pathetic really but Facebook has become the Soma of the our brave new world.

Just take a look at this image that visualises Facebook connections around the world...

Sure I still use Google's Gmail to check my email and Google is my preferred search engine (I honestly don't think Google should be worrying about Bing at all, it's a horrible search engine), I log on for 20-30 minutes a day on Gmail. Today I've already been on Facebook for a solid 12 hours. With that kind of competition, no wonder Google is trying so hard to give us, the user, what we don't even know we want.

But there is hope for Google, who may just be the real underdog here. While I spend 12 hours a day on Facebook I have never once clicked on any of their ads. With the last violation of my privacy I make it a weekly mission to make sure none of my private information is being shared. It makes me wonder how many Facebook users are like me and don't click on ads either. It's hard to imagine that it doesn't affect Facebook's bottom line if not now some day in the distant future and that might just be where and how Google will win this rumble in the social networking jungle. I mean Foreman was pretty fantastic and all, but Ali still won in the end didn't he?



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C'est la vie...

C'est la vie is one of those widely known French expressions. Unlike zut alors or sacre bleu actual French people still use this expression from time to time. They're usually older and love irony. Especially when it screws with your vie and not theirs.

For the past seven months I have been dealing with the French bureaucracy. What is the deal with French bureaucracy you ask? Let me give you an example.

In one day I asked four people (who work within the same office for the same department and the same agency) the same question and got four completely different answers. I would be considered rather lucky by most French people for getting any answers at all. Most of the time when I ask a question of a civil servant in France I get shoulder shrugs, blank stares, or told I must complete a list of laborious tasks that are so complicated and so convoluted that even Hercules himself would have been like, "ummm no".

So how does one deal with French bureaucracy? Cute outfits, lots of champagne, and a sense of humour help. But in reality the way to deal with any messy situation in France boils down to your ability to write letters in French that you send via une lettre recommandée also known as une lettre avec avis de réception or une lettre avec acusé de réception.

Simply put une lettre avec acusé de réception is a very legal way of sending a letter that gives you the right to say "Hey I sent you a letter on this date, you signed for it on this date, and I have/have not received a response" because it must be signed for in order to receive it. When you send a letter by this method in France it means once the recipient signs for it, you'll get back a card in the mail with the recipient's signature. In the US it's called signed for delivery and it can mean you're merely signing for that iPad you ordered online, but in France there are a number of judicial implications that come with not responding to a letter sent this way as it meets the criteria to be entered into evidence in a court of law.

Sending a letter by this method is not to be used lightly of course, but it does show the recipient you mean business. For months I hesitated to send letters by this method because it's deemed so serious, but when the time called for it I sent a letter with acusé de réception and had the response I was hoping for (in part) within 2 days. I even got a phone call when I sent a second one.

And this from the same person who when I traveled 40 minutes (one way) to her office to speak with her in person looked at my paperwork, shrugged her shoulders, and when I explained I had endured this merde (I used the word "situation" when I spoke with her) for six months explained to me c'est la vie. That's life she said. Sure I was exhausted from my efforts, frustrated, and had spent an excessive amount of money on expensive footwear to dull the pain, but she was unsympathetic until she saw I'd figured out the secret and the majesty that is la lettre recomandée avec acusé de réception.

Granted I won the battle but not the war, but when you've been fighting at Waterloo for seven months it's nice to think you might be the Duke of Wellington and not poor little Napoleon. Plus to be honest back in Napoleon's time warfare was a gentleman's sport and the bureaucracy of modern day France is anything but. It's brutal and demoralising and really, really time consuming. Who likes unfun things that are extremely time consuming? Right, none of us.

Time is best consumed in other ways like cooking really good Mexican food (no seriously my carne guisada is so good I can't believe how good it is) or reposing in my divan to read Gaddis' Recognitions (which is according to my friend Richard the best book ever written and at 996 pages it better be) or sitting at my desk to try and be a literary genius. After all, that's what I'm supposed to be doing. Not dealing with some angry French lady who is mad at me for no reason other than that I've asked her to do her job. And that there as they say, is the rub.

The reality is that in France civil servants have no reason to do their jobs well unless their own personal work ethic demands it. While I find it hard to believe that this can happen given that most of the agencies are there to help people, there is no incentive for these workers, and the public knowing this tends to act accordingly.

One thing I've tried to do throughout all of this was to remain polite and respectful. Even in my letters I was careful to show the same level of respect, even if I knew the person I was dealing with deserved none. I still believe even 7 months later without a definitive end to my woes in sight that regardless of how you are treated you have to take the high road. When this problem is over it's over. Those people will still be in their jobs and I won't have to deal with them. At least not until some new problem arises.

But that doesn't mean you can't be a little snarky. I mean I can only hear c'est la vie and bon courage so many times. So when I was told yet again that that's just the way life is, I asked the woman, but why? Why can't we make this more simple and easier for both of us?

When I told my best friend tonight on the phone who is also French but lived here most his life that the woman actually picked up the phone not once but twice (the first time the line was busy) to ask if there was any way they could make an exception for me he was shocked. He even dropped his new Nexus-S phone in the Metro. He couldn't believe it.

So the moral to this story is that while the big boss said no exception could be made, this woman did her very best for me today and I'm pretty sure it's because no matter how many times she's delivered bad news to me either in person or by letter or by phone I've always thanked her for her time and smiled and wished her a good day all the same.

Now given that I've sent her a little handwritten thank you card today for her efforts I don't think I'll have a problem when I have to go see her, yet again, tomorrow. But as they say in French, on verra (we'll see).

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10 Things I Want Right Now

  Not just things mind you, but things. Welcome to the world of New Consumerism. Resistance is futile.

1. The Death Star Cookie Jar - $49.99

As a big fan and one time possessor of an original piece of the Death Star used in TESB (I sold it on the boards when my dog's eating chocolate cost a Mini Cooper in vet bills), the idea of eating homemade chocolate chip oatmeal cookies from a Death Star packs a massive amount of appeal (and calories because until the novelty of getting said fattening cookie out of said Death Star wore off, I'd probably eat them non-stop). It's also an officially licensed Lucasfilms collectible, made of ceramic, and very detailed. Plus if worse came to worse I could theoretically simply miniaturise myself, get into an X-wing, and blow the thing up.

2. Star Wars MP3 Alarm Clock Lamps - $49.99

Wake up with Bobba Fett and Darth Vader in a way that won't make you feel like you have to do the Imperial Death March of Shame. I honestly can't decide which one I'd want more, which means I probably want the Bobba Fett because even after over a decade since his tragic and pathetic death in ROTJ and his subsequent presence in the "prequels" that raped my childhood I am still a massive fan of Bobba and wouldn't mind having him wake me up, play my MP3 player, or provide me with a source of light for some late night reading. Plus the possibility of having someone say, "Hey turn Bobba Fett off already and go to bed" is a prospect I find highly amusing.

3. Kinetic Magnetic Suspension Sculpture by Bruce Gray - $7000

If you're like Pepper Potts and into kinetic sculptures, this one is a real beauty. Made by L.A. area artist Bruce Gray of  super high powered industrial rare earth (NdFeB) neodymium iron boron magnets on the ends of the cords that hold the magnets in place by magnetic force alone. While it doesn't have the visual display of the kinetic sculpture that made its cameo in Iron Man 2, this one did appear in Austin Power's The Spy Who Shagged Me, which was if only by a small margin, a much funnier film. It's also $6770 cheaper.

4. Astronaut Ice Cream - $3.99

NASA has apparently made one giant leap for mankind in the field of ice cream. Back when I was a kid and astronaut ice cream was all the rage we only had Neopolitan flavoured. Now there's mint chocolate chip and chocolate chocolate chip to chose from. Not sure if they've made any progress on making it feel less like you're eating styrofoam, but considering the amount of research that went into astronaut ice cream and the likely cost of this research - the fact that it's still cheaper than a pint of Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie Sundae and has been to space makes it really, really cool. Even if it isn't temperature-wise.

5. An Ant Megapolis - Cost Uncertain

Why settle for an ant farm when you can have an ant megapolis? This bad boy is 50 square meters big and goes 8 meters into the earth. Sort of kills the enthusiasm I once had for simply trying to capture a queen and a few workers to chuck into a fish tank. Now I'm thinking bigger. I'm thinking I want the Dubai of ant hills. Then I want to fill it with 10 tons of concrete and just stare at it like a sculpture. Sure millions of ants would die in the process, but fuck 'em. They invaded a few weeks back and they abandoned their takeover in the time it took to run to the grocery store and stock up on ant traps. They deserve to die for my amusement.

6. For people to stop writing Big Bang Theory (as in the TV show) related fanfiction - Priceless

I understand. We all love The Big Bang Theory. It is without a doubt the best show currently on television, but sometimes love can be bad. Really bad. Please stop because I keep accidentally finding BBT fanfiction whenever I try to look up where to buy Sheldon's awesome t-shirts. You are crossing a line. There's extemely geeky and funny and then there's extremely geeky where you reference sewing your own ComicCon costume while your tears of joy asborb into the rather absorbent fabric you bought to make your Hobbit costume. In the words of Dr. Sheldon Cooper Ph.D. himself, "Bazinga, I don't care."

But no seriously. Howard and Raj are never going to have sex. Just cut it out.

7. X-Men #1 signed by Stan Lee - $101,000

A 9.4 (comic book rating for condition) X-Men #1 sold at auction a few years back for $101,000. It was not signed by Stan Lee, but this is my wish list and on my wish list my 9.0 or higher X-Men #1 would be. I've not only been a long time fan of X-Men (and still am despite the movies mucking things up), but also of Stan Lee. I loved his little column where we answered questions and talked about his art in his comic books.

I would accept should Stan Lee should not deem me worthy a 9.0 rated All-American Comics #16 because while the X-Men are my favourite comic books of all time, The Green Lantern is still my favourite superhero. GL might have ousted all the X-Men from my affections, except I never really liked the idea of GL joining the JLA and well, let's face it Jean Grey as the Dark Phoenix was just too awesome.

8. 2 Tickets on Virgin Galatic - $400,000*

*Once it's been thoroughly tested and the chances of my dying painfully in space with a guest are as minute as dying (knock on wood) in a plane crash.

I'm not sure if every kid wanted to be an astronaut, but I sure did. Now every former kid with $200,000 can soon be launched into space courtesy of Richard Branson's Virgin Galatic. While the website isn't clear how long you hover in space before you come floating back down to earth like a shuttlecock (the plane's landing system is based off of that little net-ball thing you hit in badminton) and you apparently have to don some kind of helmet that looks more appropriate for riding a Kawasaki Ninja motorcycle than for keeping you from suffocating in the vacuum of space - I say why not?**

** Once again let me state only after it's been thoroughly tested and the chances of me and my guest dying painfully in space is no longer an issue.

9. To spend 3 months sailing from Thailand to New Zealand - Cost unknown, but pretty expensive.

Ideally the trip's itinerary would be: Start in Bangkok, stock on cheap stuff, rent a sailboat with a small crew and sail to Indonesia. (Yes I can sail.) After a few days break in Indonedia to stock up, make a brief stop in Papua New Guinea (to see my friend who is collecting rare orchids or something), then one more quick sail over the Coral Sea to Australia. Then presumably the last two months would be spent sailing the coast of Australia and sailing to Tasmania and New Zealand.

Of course I'd have to brush up on just about everything from sailing to how to get provisions to water depths, which isn't normally on a pre-vacation checklist, but whenever I think of adventure I think of Australia. I'm pretty sure it's because of having seen Crocodile Dundee I, II, and III as a kid. No wonder why Paul Hogan was awarded "Australian of the Year".

10. Betsy Lerner as my literary agent - 10% of everything I make for as long as I make it

I don't know why I want Betsy Lerner as my literary agent, not really. It's partially because I read her blog religiously (including the archives) and because of other writers she has represented (through the agency Dunow, Carlson, & Lerner as well as prior to her forming an agency with her partners). I have a gut feeling about her. I don't know her, have never met her, and yet somehow I think we'd get on well.

The problem is that the real cost of acquiring such a literary agent as Betsy Lerner is that I must sit down and write an amazing book. I must write a smash debut novel and several others and several more to keep such an agent as Betsy Lerner. But first and foremost I must write my debut novel which costs time, energy, patience, and of course a little bit of money for the bills, food, and the cigarettes I smoke obsessively whilst writing.

They say women never know what they want, but I do. I want my life to be full of the whimsy that a Bobba Fett MP3 Alarm Clock would bring me in the morning. The adventure of sailing in shark (and saltwater crocodile) infested waters. The fulfillment of a lifelong dream to go into outer space. I want to be amused constantly and enchanted and to achieve my goals and dreams.

At the end of the day the answer to the age old question of what women want is very simple. We want what we want when we want it, which is usually right now if not sooner.

I think Freddie Mercury said it best. "I want it all...and I want it now".

What do you want?

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Flashdance Flashbacks

Ah the 80's. The decade of decadence. I was juste une petite fille in the 80's. Living as the Godfather of Soul himself sang it in 1985 "in America" was my dream.

By 1988 the then Madamoiselle had learned a few tricks. I knew how to get my hair to levitate as if by magic six inches above my scalp (Aquanet). I knew how to fray stonewash jeans to give them that chic by way of trailer park air conditioning (Razor blades and putting rocks in your dryer). I could after hours of practice perform with precision the choreography (by Paula Abdul) in Janet Jackson's video "The Pleasure Principle". If you want to understand why I still boast of this with pride even though I couldn't do a lot of those moves now that I've ripened into Madame, check out the video below.

Remember I said "with precison". Meaning down to the back flip ladies and gentlemen. And unlike Janet I didn't have a stunt dancer do it for me director to yell cut and or film editor to give me offscreen time to pick up my choreography. I shoulder shrugged. I moved my feet and didn't miss a beat in the music to the next of Janet's steps. And the chair bit? I must have face planted about a hundred times before I got it right.

In 1988 I was obsessed with absolutely everything. The 80's was nothing if not a decade full of fads that came and went. Something could be in for a week and somehow while you sat in your math class with Ms. Slater who had a nose that looked like an obtuse triangle it would be over. Poof! And punishment was severe if you didn't realise that you were out of the loop.

1988 was the year I wanted my life to be like Dirty Dancing + Flashdance + Sixteen Candles + Flight of the Navigator. I really did. I watched Star Wars repetitively, worshiped Madonna, had Teen Beat posters of Corey Haim on my wall, went to the mall, and kissed Tommy Campbell.

I was wearing tri-colour pocketed stonewash jeans with zippers on the ankle and a t-shirt with penguins on it from the Boston Aquarium. I had accessorised this look with pink and white L.A. Gear sneakers that lit up when I walked, a side ponytail held up by a hot pink plastic banana clip, and three pairs of scrunchy socks that matched the colours on the pockets of my jeans. He was wearing a Guns-N-Roses Appetite for Destruction t-shirt and Levi's. He had braces and told me that my tongue was "slippery when it's wet" and then our seven minutes in heaven (heaven being a blanket with a wolf motif on it thrown over a dining room table) were over. I would later find out that Tommy Campbell had Return of the Jedi sheets, but despite how cool this made him in my eyes, he lived all the way in town and had a mother that didn't like driving him around.

By the time the 80's ended I was no longer paying much attention to boys because they were nothing but trouble. I traded my kicks for Birkenstocks, my tight jeans for peasant skirts, and my t-shirt of penguins for one of dancing bears (Keep truckin' Jerry).

But the 90's is a story for another time because if the 80's was the decade of this and that for now not later it was always about the things but in the 90's I became a teenager and the thing that kept changing all the time was me.

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Fran-glais'd Tomates

As mentioned in my previous post, I invited some friends to the country place to plant tomatoes and peppers in the garden. Despite having an entire weekend at our leisure this didn't happen. Instead we gorged ourselves for two days on my barbecue chicken, potato salad, ratatouille salad, green bean salad, and strawberry shortcake. Oddly enough despite this gorging, I lost about 200 grams. Combined with the fact that "the communists are in the funhouse", it's a miracle really because I definitely ate about 200 grams of mayonnaise this weekend never mind the chicken and the whipped cream and everything else I managed to get down my gob (which is my favourite word for mouth when used in the context of eating more food than my fat ass needs).

So thank God I'm not trying to grow tomatoes as a side business or anything. It's an experiment. An attempt for me to use knowledge and other people's experience to accomplish something that I'm normally not able to accomplish. My landlord-neighbours are talented with plants. Enough so that they do it for a living and I, will persevere if not today, then tomorrow.

Amidst all the brunching and rosé my landlord-neighbour's son came round. My friends CV and GM do a lot of translation and teach English and my friend AE is a professional translator, so I thought with so many varied native English speakers in the hiz-haus it would be a perfect chance for him to practice as we had 5 different accents for him to chose from. CV's a native French speaker and I'm a native Korean speaker, but we both speak near perfect English (do I?). CQ is from Northern Ireland, GM is from Australia, and AE is from America.

So the five of us gave CP an impromptu English lessons, but when he isn't sure in English I tell him the equivalent in French. So he, in all his adorable 8 year old-ness says to me, "But I thought I was to speak English". I told you he is a adorable.

Me and the awesome 8 year old make jokes about Franglais. Franglais is when you mélange French and English. (See what I did there?) But it also got us to talking about Franglais in general.

There are, let's say two different types of Franglais.

Type I: Mostly spoken by foreigners with little knowledge of the language who truly believe that by insertinng one word of French into their sentence that it will keep the waiter from spitting into their food.

Type II:  Spoken by both native English speakers and native French speakers who are either partially or fully bi-langue either to show their skill with both languages or their lack thereof. For example a skilled speaker of both languages might use either English or French words to perform cunning feats of jeux de mot for either witty or humourous effect or, in the cases of the truly fluent speaker of Franglais, both. For the unskilled Franglais is a necessity of communication, but in no way does it suggest that a previously unskilled speaker of Franglais might not progress to the level of a skilled speaker.

Examples of Type II Franglais from an unskilled speaker:

I'll just check my agenda.
Agenda = diary (UK English) or planner (American English), not your secret evil mandate.

I'll just go get my car from the parking.
Parking = car park (UK English) or parking lot (American English), not going to a secluded area to make out with a car.

I need to look at my planning.
Planning = schedule (UK & American English), not the method by which crazy Christians believe children should be conceived.

Examples of Type II Franglais from a skilled speaker:

Je ne care pas.
French: C'est n'importe quoi.
UK English: I couldn't give a toss.
American English: I don't care.

Ou est le swimming pool?
French: Ou est la piscine?
UK English: Wanna kill yourself at a festival? (It's the name of an English band.)
American English: Where's the pool?

I frapped the port cinq times!
French: J'ai frappé la porte cinq fois!
UK English: I was knocking at your kip five times!
American English: I banged on the door five times!

Now of course there are English words that have long been accepted into the French language and visa versa. But after quick discussion I decided after consultation that while those words are old Franglais, that Franglais in its modern form must involve using words from either or both languages in a way that would probably never be acceptable use in their own language.

We didn't spend nearly as much time discussing Franglais amongst ourselves yesterday as we have this morning and given that the sun is shining and the tomatoes aren't getting any closer to planting themselves I suppose I should hurry up and fais something about it toute suite.

Mostly because it's just occured to me that my blog is its own experiment in Franglais...which would be hilarious except that it just took deux people une hour to come up with this post on the aforementioned subject.

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Today's Daily Yumology - Terriyaki Chicken and Broccoli Rice Bowls

It has been a long standing FB tradition of mine to post what I'm cooking to torture my friends. Often times the torture gets so bad that they come by to have some of my grub. It is sort of the point.

Now truth be told I am not a fan of recipes. I'm sort of a maverick (Is it okay to use this word yet or did Sarah Palin and John McCain kill it completely and forever?). I throw things together and keep a lot of spices handy. I have cooked certain dishes so many times that a recipe isn't needed or I don't need the actually recipe I just need to check to see if I have all the ingredients.

But I don't go all out every day. For example yesterday I made gourmet meatloaf (it really was amazing) in single serving terrines with Creole style fried potatoes and a simple salad of cucumbers, tomatoes, and corn with a mild balsamic vinaigrette dressing. It was delicious, but exhausted from my efforts I went decidedly simpler today.

Tonight's Yummy is terriyaki chicken with broccoli and rice. See? Nothing fancy.

I made the terriyaki chicken with whole thighs I deboned and then pan-fried until the skin was a bit blackened and crisp. The terriyaki sauce was a mix of crushed garlic, ginger, soy sauce, sesame seed oil, and 2 T of sugar. I marinated the chicken about 1 hour before frying it and let it set on a pan to ooze out its juice before slicing it into strips (in the vein of magret de canard). Once sliced I quickly sauteed the chicken with pre-steamed broccoli (leave it a bit crisp). Once done I plated the chicken mixed with the broccoli and after adding 2T of water, boiled down the remaining marinade until it was thick enough to coat a wooden spoon.

I garnished my terriyaki chicken and broccoli with fresh green onions, the remaining marinade (containing all the deliciously fried up garlic and ginger that came off the chicken during frying), and sesame seeds.

Served with steaming hot cups of green tea and steamed perfumed rice, it's a quick and tasty meal.

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Ding! Dong! Osama's dead!

So in the end Jack Bauer, and by Jack Bauer I mean the CIA has finally gotten Osama Bin Laden, which given the CIA and Bin Laden's history is basically the real life equivalent of Mr. Miyagi killing Daniel-san after giving him the skills to fight his way through three Karate Kids.

As someone who losts friends to the 9/11 bombings (and almost lost my then bf and had to evacuate my lab at school because of DARPA supercomputers), what I want more than knowing Osama Bin Laden is dead is something not even the CIA can give me - which is America back the way it was before the Bush Adminstration inflicted Americans with their own sort of Terrorism (known as the Department for Homeland Security), but unforunately unlike Windows life doesn't have a restore feature.

But what irks me the most is the statements being made by various news agencies (and even Obama himself) that this is supposed to give those of us who lost someone or were injured or killed in the aftermath of 9/11 closure because, according to the news agencies and the American government, Osama Bin Laden is seemingly solely responsible for the thousands of lives lost on both sides since 9/11.

Yes Bin Laden was a terrorist, but the American government decided how it would respond and it did so by starting a war in Iraq that we are still not out of and another new war in Afghanistan. The reaction of the American government put its citizens at risk on the battlefield and at home. It is now widely agreed that the war in Iraq was not only unneccessary because it had nothing to do with Bin Laden, but made the US government look like morons in the long run.

There was no secret cave. Bin Laden (if we are to believe the government and the media) didn't die years ago. He wasn't in Iraq. He wasn't in Afghanistan. Yet it still took the government nearly 10 years to find Bin Laden in his luxurious mansion hideout located in a suburb just outside of Islamabad. Not that dissimilar to Bush sitting comfy in his mansion in Highland Park, is it?

So the only question that remains seems to be - with American's favourite scapegoat of the last 9.5 years buried at sea and Saddam gone - who will be the next face of Terror to keep Americans towing the line?

If you're read this Simon Cowell there could be a show in it somewhere. You could call it American Target. Think about it. Kim Jong Il is so fucking nuts he'd make for some brilliant reality television. Too bad ten years later we'd probably end up finding out that Kim doesn't even have enough nuclear material to generate electricity for the light in his shark aquarium (Fuck you Hans Blix!).

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À Rebours, J-K Huysmans

Every once in awhile you open a book and it speaks to you in a way that seems to make you think it's come along for some express purpose. Such is the case when I began reading J-K Huysmans' "À Rebours", which translates to "Against Nature" or "Against the Grain".

My father used to say that he believed if people shut their mouths and opened a book, the world would be a much better place. He was constantly seeing parts of the world most people would chose to ignore. The bombings in Beirut; the fall of some dictator only to replaced by another; how much money there was to be made just across this border or that. He often came home visibly exhausted to shut himself away in his library.

"...whither he could fly for refuge from the incessant deluge of human folly."

For my father when he had little need for anything else besides a library, though he was a man of many passions. He judged people by their libraries. He considered a vast library full of unimportant books to be vulgar, but my own little bookshelf at age seven earned a short nod of approval. I suppose if I could ask him now my father would say something along the lines of a man only need own one book, as long as it's a great one.

In the past few days I have often thought about what my Papa might say now if he saw my library. I think he would understand the joy I feel in seeing all my books in one place and be happy I've decided to be serious about my life as a writer.

As for me, I wasn't sure until I read this passage:

"...He searched the outer suburbs of the capital and presently discovered a cottage for sale, above Fontenay-aux-Roses, in a remote spot, far from all neighbours, near the Fort. His dream was fulfilled; in this district, still unspoilt by intruders from Paris, he was secure against all harassment...

As he thought over the new existence he meant to make for himself, he experienced a lively sense of relief, seeing himself just far enough withdrawn for the flood of Paris activity not to touch his retreat, yet near enough for the proximity of the metropolis to add a spice to his solitariness. Indeed, in view of the well-known fact that for a man to find himself in a situation where it is impossible for him to visit a particular spot is of itself quite enough to fill him with an instant wish to go there, he was really guarding himself, by thus not entirely barring the road, from any craving to renew intercourse with the world or any regret for having abandoned it..."

In modern days it's impossible to maybe feel the same level of isolation that Huysmans felt at the idea of retreating into the suburbs of Paris. These days more people live outside of Paris (Paris and its region is referred to as Ile de France than in Paris itself. And Paris isn't that far away from the suburbs anymore thanks to the Metro or the local trains. From the place in the country the train is a short walk or bus ride away and forty minutes later I can set my foot on the voies of Gare de Lyon. I don't think it'd be easier if we had a car because well, traffic can be quite horrible.

Within minutes of reaching Gare de Lyon yesterday I realised that Paris doesn't miss me when I'm away. She has kept going as pleased with herself as ever and perhaps a bit smug that I am forced to return at the end of the weekend. I know she had a hand in the forty minutes of queue I endured to simply buy a ticket to take the Metro and the torrential downpour I was subjected to whilst in suede shoes. And all because there are loose ends to be tied and things I left undone.

I must see so and so. I must get stuff to make kimchee. I want to have a really good cup of chocolat chaud. I want to stop by my favourite vintage store. I need a lamp for the country house and maybe a few things to hang up photos...so as much as a squawk about the madness of it all - I know already I'll have to stay in Paris all week. Then go to London. When will I get back to the country again?

But Huysmans would understand all too well my current predictament, "...purchases of all kinds still kept him perambulating the Paris streets, tramping the town from end to end..."

And there you have it.  The saddest reason of all to abandon my idyllic, fairytale came true, beautiful little cottage in the forest. SHOPPING. (and work, but I can't even get into what the hell is going on with work at the moment).

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Stumble of the Day

Now that I've decided to blog not just because I have a helluva lot of things I want to say, but also as a writing tool (whether it's to keep me writing even when I'm blocked on my oeuvre or able to be used later when I'm *crossed fingers* published) I've been paying a lot more attention to the Internet in general, mostly because I've decided to be more a part of it then leaving comments on my friends Facebook pages.

No one starts a blog bcause they don't want someone to read it. Right?

So I troll the World Wide Web via StumbleUpon. Partly because I can select what I'm interested in seeing and partly because when I tried to stumble around Blogger in a similarly haphazard fashion I kept getting blogs about Jesus or blogs written by extremely patriotic Vietnamese teenagers. StumbleUpon is convenient and allows me to like stuff I can sort through later to see if I want to read or research something I was for the 10 seconds I glanced at it, extremely interested in. I'd like to become one of those nifty people who reads blogs all the time so StumbleUpon helps me discover blogs I might not otherwise because my desires have yet to supercede my ability to be really, really lazy.

Which leads me to the Stumble of the Day!!! Today's Stumble is brought to you by The Wondrous and if you visit the site right this minute you will be treated to a bevvy of bikini clad babes bearing bare bellies*. So hurry or just search their site for bikini babes via their search function. It's wondrous.

*I just love alliteration, don't you?

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Backstory #2 - Love. A brief history.

I'm currently 33 years old, which means at some point between June and August it will be the 21st anniversary of my first teenage love affair. His name was Joshua C. and he had ginger coloured hair and loads of freckles. He was a peer counselor at the summer camp I went to for a couple weeks during the summer of my 12th birthday and I liked him so much that during the camp talent show I wore a poodle skirt and sang Madonna [badly] to woo him. We lived in the same city and wrote letters, but one day our correspondence stopped.

I was broken hearted. Given how long heartache can last at the tender age of 12 I proved to be amazingly resilient thanks to an always J. Crew or Ralph Lauren clad Argentian boy named Tomas H. who had longish hair and clear green eyes and a smile he never once beamed in my direction. Heartache for Joshua was now longing for Tomas.

Many other heartaches later and now 18 I ran into Joshua again. He was dating my friend and almost immediately I figured out that I'd dodged a major bullet. The first time we were alone together to catch up on the past five years he spent ten minutes telling me how he liked to fuck my friend Brandy in the ass - when she took a shower first. The boy I'd crushed on and given some of my very first kisses to grew up to be a dick.

I never said I love you to Joshua. I told my friends I was in love because that's what you do at the age of 12. You obsess about your boobs and your period and going to the mall and the boys you let kiss you and maybe cop a feel. You obsess and you call it love because to me it was love. I was a moron. I thought that was what love was back then- a few feelings, a few kisses, a few trips to the movies, and then a love that would last forever.

Love turned out to be nothing like what I thought it would be. After years of hoping to meet my special someone and fall in love I did. Then we fell out of love.  Then I met someone else and another someone else and so on until finally I met the person and now wisely I don't care to meet anyone else ever again!

All kidding aside for me there was a definite day where I felt something just sort of clicked into place.

If you've ever dislocated something and had it relocated (hopefully after being injected with very powerful narcotics because it does fucking hurt) that is the best way to describe it. One day there was a click and I just knew I was with the person I most wanted to be with in all the world and all those things I once told myself about there not being someone out there in the world just for me was just because I was afraid that one day I would want a future with someone and wouldn't find somebody.

As someone who has found their somebody, please let me offer you a little advice that I sometimes wish someone had given me a long time ago. It doesn't matter if you have things in common or if the timing is right or if you wait eight dates to fuck his brains out or eight minutes. All that matters is that you and your someone have a love between you that stays alive no matter what kind of shit you, her, him, them, or life chucks at you.

I wish I could tell you the how part, but there is no how. Sorry.

(And no, I didn't try to sound like Yoda on purpose.)

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