riots and domesticity
Regina and I met up with Arnaud, Cedric and Arnaud's slightly "interesting" (all the nebulously negative connotations applicable) friend Samir yesterday to go to the bars around the Pantheon and rue Mouffetard (yes, that means skunk, but it's actually one of the hippest areas to live).
Unfortunately, being as it was, St. Patty's Day, all the pubs/bars were more crowded than a Chinese public bus, and I'm not sure whether I prefer the fog of smoke in the bars or the sweatiness of Chinese buses...I'm leaning towards the sweatiness. Regina and I were envelopped in tufts of ashy haze the entire night, and I went home smelling as bad as if a skunk had actually unloaded his nasty odor on me.
Again, I don't understand how one can kiss/be intimate with a someone who smells like smoke. If I were a man, I wouldn't have wanted to kiss the smoky-smelling Kate of last night--how revolting! I Febrezed the heck out of my clothes...I cannot afford to dry clean all of my clothes every time I encounter chain smoking French men (and women), which is about every day. But Regina and I did admit...yes, for some men, smoking cigarettes does look slightly sexy...and some French men do it oh-so-elegantly. The cigarette becomes an accessory, an integration into their terribly stylish and witty characters. Watch it, the next thing you know, I'll end up with some chain-smoking, metrosexual French man ;)
So apparently, I forgot to mention the other day that Arnaud told Regina and I that French men like buying lingerie and other "sexy undergarments" for their girlfriends, to which the puritanic American in both of us responded with "Omg, what?" To which Arnaud explained, "Well, it's mostly for the men, they buy the lingerie so they can see their girlfriends in them." That makes sense...and I applaud a man who is sure enough of his sexuality to set foot into a lingerie store to buy satin slips for his girlfriend/wife. Although, I think it still depends on the man, as we asked Mathieu this the other day, and he said, "Yes, it's done, but I myself find the idea a bit odd..." But nevertheless, he admits to having been shopping with his female friends, and offered to come along on the Grand Shopping Expedition to augment and stylize Regina's wardrobe. Think 2 Pygmalions and a Galatea.
Hm, I'm totally off my original subject. Ah yes, so I met up with Frederique and Monalisa at Denfert-Rochereau to watch the grandest of the "manifestations". We stood at the fringes, observing the students milling around a virile lion statue adorning the middle of the square (I can't figure out why the lion...?), the huge blow up plastic balloons emblazoned with various abbreviations of the numerous "syndicats" (unions) protesting the blasted CPE. We waited 1.5 hours, and nothing really happened, unless you count the students singing that Ricky Martin song (whichever one it was that was the World Cup anthem, I don't even remember). And saw young "Communists" again. Don't even get me started on "Communism". It makes me angry whenever I see youth proclaiming to be communists--do they even know what it is? That this is an idealistic theory that is, by human nature, impossible and doomed to repeat itself in a series of fatal episodes, as history has already shown with Cuba and China, among many? Look at where Communism brought China? I implicitly and automatically associate communism with the effects that it's had on my family and my mother country, and it angers me that there are people who have no fucking concept (I'm sorry) of what applied communism degenerates into.
Ooof, this is getting into another rant post (why have I been ranting so much lately?!?). On to lighter things. Maylen, Regina and I cooked dinner tonight and Arnaud came over, the only boy again, as always. I think I delight in doing this to him. We had a yummmmy chickpea stew (Maylen), spicy tofu (Regina) and a mushroom and bok choy dish (me), plus this random rice pudding that I made for dessert. I had meant it to be originally a coconut mango rice pudding. But there were no ripe mangoes to be bought and I didn't buy enough coconut milk, so it morphed into a coconut-banana-nutella pudding. Which tasted decent, but the rice was a bit too mushy, I think.
Afterwards, the girls and I watched "Como Agua Para Chocolate", and now I'm in a pensive, romantic mood (despite my rantings).
Unfortunately, being as it was, St. Patty's Day, all the pubs/bars were more crowded than a Chinese public bus, and I'm not sure whether I prefer the fog of smoke in the bars or the sweatiness of Chinese buses...I'm leaning towards the sweatiness. Regina and I were envelopped in tufts of ashy haze the entire night, and I went home smelling as bad as if a skunk had actually unloaded his nasty odor on me.
Again, I don't understand how one can kiss/be intimate with a someone who smells like smoke. If I were a man, I wouldn't have wanted to kiss the smoky-smelling Kate of last night--how revolting! I Febrezed the heck out of my clothes...I cannot afford to dry clean all of my clothes every time I encounter chain smoking French men (and women), which is about every day. But Regina and I did admit...yes, for some men, smoking cigarettes does look slightly sexy...and some French men do it oh-so-elegantly. The cigarette becomes an accessory, an integration into their terribly stylish and witty characters. Watch it, the next thing you know, I'll end up with some chain-smoking, metrosexual French man ;)
So apparently, I forgot to mention the other day that Arnaud told Regina and I that French men like buying lingerie and other "sexy undergarments" for their girlfriends, to which the puritanic American in both of us responded with "Omg, what?" To which Arnaud explained, "Well, it's mostly for the men, they buy the lingerie so they can see their girlfriends in them." That makes sense...and I applaud a man who is sure enough of his sexuality to set foot into a lingerie store to buy satin slips for his girlfriend/wife. Although, I think it still depends on the man, as we asked Mathieu this the other day, and he said, "Yes, it's done, but I myself find the idea a bit odd..." But nevertheless, he admits to having been shopping with his female friends, and offered to come along on the Grand Shopping Expedition to augment and stylize Regina's wardrobe. Think 2 Pygmalions and a Galatea.
Hm, I'm totally off my original subject. Ah yes, so I met up with Frederique and Monalisa at Denfert-Rochereau to watch the grandest of the "manifestations". We stood at the fringes, observing the students milling around a virile lion statue adorning the middle of the square (I can't figure out why the lion...?), the huge blow up plastic balloons emblazoned with various abbreviations of the numerous "syndicats" (unions) protesting the blasted CPE. We waited 1.5 hours, and nothing really happened, unless you count the students singing that Ricky Martin song (whichever one it was that was the World Cup anthem, I don't even remember). And saw young "Communists" again. Don't even get me started on "Communism". It makes me angry whenever I see youth proclaiming to be communists--do they even know what it is? That this is an idealistic theory that is, by human nature, impossible and doomed to repeat itself in a series of fatal episodes, as history has already shown with Cuba and China, among many? Look at where Communism brought China? I implicitly and automatically associate communism with the effects that it's had on my family and my mother country, and it angers me that there are people who have no fucking concept (I'm sorry) of what applied communism degenerates into.
Ooof, this is getting into another rant post (why have I been ranting so much lately?!?). On to lighter things. Maylen, Regina and I cooked dinner tonight and Arnaud came over, the only boy again, as always. I think I delight in doing this to him. We had a yummmmy chickpea stew (Maylen), spicy tofu (Regina) and a mushroom and bok choy dish (me), plus this random rice pudding that I made for dessert. I had meant it to be originally a coconut mango rice pudding. But there were no ripe mangoes to be bought and I didn't buy enough coconut milk, so it morphed into a coconut-banana-nutella pudding. Which tasted decent, but the rice was a bit too mushy, I think.
Afterwards, the girls and I watched "Como Agua Para Chocolate", and now I'm in a pensive, romantic mood (despite my rantings).
posted by Kate | 3:19 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home