now it makes sense

pretty weird: i talked to katie last night and she reminded me that it was the 24th. it's been 3 months since uncle mike died. august 24th. do you think i remembered subconsciously? creepy.

fields of gold...

i've been thinking a lot about my family these days. thanksgiving is coming up so maybe that's why i've got them on my mind. it's also because i've heard 'fields of gold' 3 times in the past week after not hearing it for 3 months. most people wouldn't understand that reference but i'm sure some do.

right before i left, my uncle died of cancer. it was really fast - we all found out last april that he even had cancer and he died within months. i miss him terribly and still have trouble believing he's really gone. but i think what makes it the most difficult to believe is that my cousins have now done this twice. adam and kate, andrew and i are best friends. the four of us were the only grandkids of my dad's parents. we grew up next door to eachother and have become even closer as adults. katie is my very best friend.

when i was 12 (adam 11, andrew 10, kate 9) my dad's sister and adam and kate's mom died of cancer. it was a long battle and she suffered for years. it was really hard for everyone. adam and kate were really close with their dad because of it. and my uncle mike was such a good dad. he worked harder than anyone i know to give them whatever he could and they grew up to be amazing kids - both so smart and...just great people.

so when uncle mike got sick everyone was positive that he'd make it through. no one even imagined that he could die. it was just so unfair. he went on this crazy strict diet and routine of organic medicine. he said he didn't want kemo because he'd fought against his body his whole life. now he needed to help it. he was so dedicated but it just happened so fast. he lost a ton of weight and then had trouble walking and finally even moving. there was no way he could continue with the diet and exercise and the cancer just took over. every time the doctors came up with a new solution, something else went wrong. next thing we knew he was home with hospice care - there was nothing else they could do but calm the pain. and he was in so much pain.

the whole two weeks felt like a total train wreck. we were all faced with a reality that we had not prepared ourselves for. it was just...the absolute saddest thing i've been through. there is no where else in the world i would have rather been than by adam and kate's side. but it was so hard to watch them lose another parent - to relive their worst nightmare. they are both the strongest people i know. they were left with these decisions that i can't imagine making. decisions that people don't make until they are well into their late adulthood.

it's not like adam and kate were alone in this or that they had no one to turn to. uncle mike's family is this big ball of support really. i think we are all strong - the whole clan. my mom, dad, brother and i stayed up in weymoth for days at uncle mike's sister's/parents' house where he died. we all made each other laugh and the cousins (we're all in our 20's) ran errands and rallied for uncle mike's parents and siblings. i think it helped to keep adam and kate busy.

i feel better after writing this all out. i still wish i hadn't left for a different country so soon after though. i have this hole that's unfilled. i feel like i should be with kate as much as i can. she's doing fine and, like i said, she is incredibly strong. she sang 'fields of gold' at the funeral (which explains the reference at the beginning) and adam read the eulogy. i could barely get through a short reading. but maybe it's part of my own grieving process to have that need to be with them. moving to france was so exciting and hectic that i pushed all of that to the back of my mind when i left but now that i'm settled i am reconnecting with everything.

i haven't talked to kate nearly as much as i have wanted to. it's too expensive. and the time difference makes it hard - i'm 6 hours ahead of the east coast. i miss her so much. i know she's getting through this but maybe i need her to get through it myself. maybe i need to see her doing alright in order to stop worrying. i want to be there for her even if i don't need to be.

god, i am SO lucky. i am so lucky...

the engagement party

it's a lovely tale of bad humor mistaken as wit and a grand scheme to excuse bad decisions. and it was so fun!

so a few weeks ago my computer stopped booting up. i needed my installation discs which were all back in rhode island. my friend found me the correct installation disc here from one of his friends and in my haze of elation i told him i would marry him. now this guy is a 20 year old brittish kid who is into house music and drinking himself silly. he is also skinnier than me. would never marry anyone skinnier than me. but, ironically, his name is brad. that caused some confusion on facebook (since my real and wonderful boyfriend is also named brad).

anyway, we decided to throw an "engagement" party and invite all of our friends. i was obviously the "bride" and bradley the "groom." my roommate, caitlin, was the mother of the bride and emily was the father of the bride. betsy was the flower girl and werner was the uncle of the groom (not sure what part the uncle plays really). bradley set up an event on facebook in which he listed rules for the attendees. we were all to dress as if actually going to an engagement party, each guest was to bring a gift for the happy couple, and everyone had to tell the bride (me) how beautiful i looked "despite how beautiful she does or does not look." (thanks bradley)

so many people showed up to brad's flat. i received lots of wine, chocolat viennois (it's bread) wrapped in paper with a string around it, lolipops, keychains, chocolate eggs with toys inside of them, a candycane and a small plastic bag filled with anthony's hair. if you all knew anthony (pronounced antony), you would understand the humor in THAT gift. he's a socially awkward welshman. we're going to go see britney spears together - she is his greatest love. i plan to throw the bag of hair on stage for britney. maybe it will inspire the poor girl to shave her head again.

i had a great time at the party. i'm pretty sure everyone did. there were italians, brits, americans, french, columbians...i love how diverse our parties have been lately. europe is beautiful in that way i guess. the pictures are great - they look as fun as the party actually was. i did, however, recover in bed for 2 days watching the entire (and only...and WONDERFUL) season of freaks and geeks. it wasn't so much that i drank too much. in fact, it's really because i got to bed at 4 and am just too old these days. my body needed some rest. it might have also been due to the snow and cold weather the past 2 days. the couple of hours i did leave the house yesterday i lost feeling in all of my extremities.

emily and werner slept on our new pull out couch (which fits wonderfully and beautifully in our tiny little apartment). we all got up in the morning and went in search of food. it took us hours to find something worthy of day-after-party food to satisfy our need for greese and lard. we finally landed on pizza but our 2 hour walk was so bitterly cold that i couldn't bring myself to leave the house again. we are going to watch some football (yay!) at an american bar in the 6th tonight and that will be our first time out of the house. i suppose i should try to come up with a lesson plan before that.

well, that's my story. turns out it's not as great as i thought it would be. i guess you had to be there. but you can't tell me the pictures don't make you wish you had been...

brad, we should have a french child.

the greatest story ever told

just a quick note

this is the life

this song is how i feel about my life in paris...

versailles with em

today was by far the funniest day i've had in MONTHS! emily and i went to versailles to get some of her beaurocratic paperwork crap taken care of. we met in st. germain and took a bus out to versailles but found out when we got to the prefecture that they don't DO cartes de sejour on thursdays so she has to go back tomorrow anyway. totally didn't kill our spirit though.

we left and went in search of a place to get lunch. i was craving 2 things: pizza and fries. i would have settled for one or the other. we ended up getting neither and landed on a britannique restaurant. we got galettes (mine with ham, raclette, potatoes and lettuce) which were even BETTER than pizza and/or fries. although some fries on the side would have been lovely. mmmm fries. i've been craving them since brussels.

so after the restaurant we headed up to the chateau. it was kind of weird when we realized we made it all the way to the back steps leading to the gardens of versailles that we weren't even PHASED by the chateau we just passed under. i've been there so many times that i kind of had the 'oooh that old chestnut' feeling. at the same time, however, emily and i did a double take and said outloud 'GOD that is so beautiful!' really though, i was completely unphased. i felt so...french.

we headed down into the gardens and i was equally unphased. that might have been due to the fact that the bushes were covered for the winter and the fountains were not running. i can't wait to go in the spring and see it in full bloom. i showed em some of the huge mouth fish (that's what i've named them) in the pond. they look like whales when they turn over on the surface of the water and they have these big ugly mouths that make perfect O's when they open them for food. creepiest fish i've ever seen. they were imported from japan i guess when marie antoinette was going through her 'exotic animals and folliage' phase. she was a spoiled little 16 year old queen, wasn't she?

i couldn't have been more excited to go back to the queen's farm. all of the pictures i'm going to put in this post will be from the farm. i inherited my grandmother's unhealthy love for cute fluffy creatures who don't talk back. i mean, grandma mo (i'm pretty sure) didn't like humans. but she sure did love animals. i think i enjoy both equally but could probably live happily ever after as a cat lady. only i guess more of a cat, dog, donkey, poney, sheep, bunny, every creature ever made lady. instead i think i will end up a brad lady though. (awwww so cute and gross)

aaaanyway, em and i walked around for a bit because i had a hard time remembering how to get into the farm. turns out i had no memory whatsoever and took us all the way around to the back. well, friends, they lock the back gate after about 4 or 5 and you can only get in on the opposite side of the farm. that's about a 10 or 15 minute walk back the way we came. this is where the story gets good.

there was a mote-like ditch in between us and the farm which was also reinforced on the farm side with a stone wall (this description will make much more sense when you look at the pictures). emily and i decided to scale said stone wall and climb into the farm. so the two of us, both with recently and severely sprained ankles, sidestepped our way down into the muddy ditch and scoured the wall for a spot we could climb. we took turns (so that the other could take pictures of our idiocy) and triumphantly and illegally (kind of, not really, more just frowned upon) tresspassed into the queen's farm. i neerly fell down on my back into the mud because i was laughing so hard. emily almost wet herself. we both rolled on the ground laughing for about 5 minutes before composing and visiting with the animals.

oooh the animals! they have donkeys and goats and pigs and chickens. there are cows and horses, bunnies and ducks. i love them all. there's even a little dog who supervises the WHOLE operation. i love everything about this place. i could live there and be perfectly happy, although i think you may have to be special and maybe part of a family of descendants to live there. it's funny, i would never imagine myself living on any other farm. but this one is just so charming and fairytaley. (i can't believe fairytaley is a word in the google english dictionary)

after visiting with the animals, i brought emily to the queen's little hideout as the sun was setting and casting orangey warm light on everything. there are all of these bungalo-like little cottagey buildings on this beautiful pond. i can't think of a better or more fitting word than charming. and in the spring everything is in bloom and the entire thing looks like a painting. it's official. i'm in love with the queen's farm. i tell everyone that if they go to paris, they HAVE to take a day for this place. it's magical.

we spent another 2 hours walking around and discovering whatever we could. we walked through marie antoinette's woods and her crazy cool paths. she had all of these outdoor music party gazebos built and super fun passages with caves and big stones. i mean, the poor girl was 16 and she was married to the stuffy, fugly, boring king of france (sorry france, that's probably a horribly rude thing to say). she needed to make her own fun. and this chick knew how to party.

it was just such a fun day. it reminded me so much of the time i went to the queen's farm with my mom 4 years ago. the two of us did the same stuff (well, minus the wall scaling) and had just as much fun. it's so rare that i get to spend time like that with my mom and i thought about her all day. it made me a little homesick but in a good way. i'm getting teary talking about it now but i was in such a great mood all day. (ps - my mom is wonderful)

as we walked back through the woods and towards the chateau (and civilization), the sun had set and the moon came out. it was dark and there was mist covering the grass. it looked really creepy and beautiful. i tried to take a picture but it just doesn't do it any justice. by the time we got to the back of the chateau, it was officially dark and versailles was lit from the inside. we could see into the hall of mirrors and the chapel was covered in a beautiful blanket of moonlight. i had never seen versailles at night but now that i have i can say with conviction that it is much prettier in the moonlight.

i wish every day could be this perfect but i know that if they were i wouldn't appreciate them the same way. when living in paris or in any big city i think we take the simple beauty of things for granted. i need days like this to take a step back and let myself really look at what i'm seeing. after the farm today i got back to paris and found everything to be a little prettier. i guess that's what vacations are for - to take the time to appreciate what we miss during the mundane routine. that's why i have music though. to remind me that the littlest chord progression can make the world seem a little more wonderful. (it all comes back to music folks. embrace it...i'm a musician inside and out.)

thank the sweet lord i can move back to the states in may!

so i would have written wednesday morning but my computer crashed and i haven't had access to the internet. it's a total bummer because i have SO much to say!

on to the important story: i was in paris 4 years ago when bush was reelected. i voted. i was not passionate at all about either candidate however and only voted to get bush out of the white house. unfortunately, that didn't happen and it was hugely anticlimatic here in france. no one understood and i was asked over and over why my country would choose the path it did. at that point i think i was disillusioned and skeptical of the authenticity of democracy in our country. i felt like i didn't make a difference or that it didn't matter even if i did because the results never changed.

well, this election has changed me in terms of how i view politics and the united states. there is racism and there is bigotry. there is prejudice and fear. it's everywhere - not just in the states. if you are muslim or north african in france, you are judged. if you are jewish, you are judged. if you are a female, you are judged. i believe that france is much more accepting in a lot of ways but less accepting in others. living here has made me realize what a global eppidemic racism really is.

but i also feel that our country is making strides, as little or as big as they may be. tuesday night we elected a black president and i was alive to witness it - to VOTE for it. my generation is so passionate and excited about our future. i know it sounds trite, but on facebook, there are huge groups of people supporting obama and supporting an overturn on prop 8. i've never seen people my age so united over so many causes. i am personally very passionate about gay rights and of course i am disappointed in the results. i believe every human being has the right to choose their own path. love is one of the most beautiful things we have as living creatures and to judge that love is cruel. it's demeaning an inherent bond. we should be thankful that this love exists at all. how dare anyone claim the power to question its form?

tuesday night at around 9pm my friends and i all showed up at an american bar to watch the results roll in. we brought apples to apples (if you don't know what this game is...you have NOT lived) and played for 3 straight hours. we went through the ENTIRE set of cards...which is epic! i was surrounded by my friends - brittish, french, american - and everyone was equally excited and nervous about the outcome. every time they announced barack's victory in a state, the entire bar cheered. i don't imagine the bar made very much money that night because no one was really drinking. we were all too focused on the tv screen.

when they announced obama as the projected president elect, the entire bar screamed for at least 5 minutes. even though the metro had opened 20 minutes before (at 6am folks...that's right we found out at 6am) everyone stayed to watch mccain and obama speak. you could have heard a pin drop. people were crying and hugging...it was such an awesome feeling. i will never forget that night. it truly restored my faith in my generation and in my country to get off their asses and do something.

part of me wishes i was home for the results but i know i would have been sitting on my couch watching alone. i'm so glad i got to share it with my friends and with another country. they are celebrating here just as much as they are in the us. it's a beautiful thing.

It's the answer that led those who've been told for so long by so many to be cynical and fearful and doubtful about what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.

- Barack Obama