That Happy-Sad Feeling

When my little brother was younger, he came up with a series of Mixed-Emotion faces to amuse and delight his three older siblings. Sammy (also known as "The Face") was blessed with a supremely flexible facial epidermis, which allowed him to encompass multiple emotions à la fois. His most successful of these caricatures is that of the Happy-Sad face, as illustrated below:

Happy-Sad perfectly describes how I'm feeling this week.

Cloudless skies and temps warm enough to wear a dress. Happy. Saying goodbye to some of my favorite students, urging them to write me if they ever come to America. Sad. Knowing that when I return I'll be living in Uptown Minneapolis with my favorite roommate of all time, and just minutes away from many of my other Lovely Lady Lumps. Ecstatic. Knowing that I have to go back to a real job and real responsibilities. Gloomy.

Feeling famous as students shout my name and give me les bises as I walk down the street. Excited to be anonymous again. Knowing I'll miss being surrounded by French. Knowing I'll love being enveloped in the nasal vowels and Oh Yahs and the You Betchas. Eating baguettes still warm from the oven and cheap but fabulous cheeses and wine while I still can. Dreaming about mojitos a the Kitty Cat Klub and sushi at Nami and the tuna melts at the French Meadow Bakery.

Wishing I could make this idyllic, perfect French experience last forever. Itching to get back to my life and loved ones.

So much to miss, so much to come back to. Happy-sad. 

Beautiful day in the Diggy-hood... almost

 Today was one of those days where I was all, "La la la I love France." I had the day off from my arduous 12-hour-per-week-job-that-sometimes-is-only-nine-or-10-hours, and by mid-morning it was gloriously sunny and warm.

The morning frost was drip-drip-dripping off this tree by the canal as Mr. Sun reached out to give it a hug. Bonjour, Monsieur Soleil! Ça fait longtemps depuis je t'ai vu!

The weird knobbly branches on this ubiquitous species of tree looked so much less creepy against the blue, blue sky than they do when they're ensconced in fog. Bonjour les branches! Je vous préfère comme ça!

How sunny and warm was it? It was so sunny and warm, mes amies, that someone left their shutters partially open! Bonjour les volets ouverts! Maintenant je connais tous vos secrets!

After lunch I decided to read Tartuffe by the Loire, because the act itself struck me as extremely French and, as previously noted, I was in a "La la la I love France" kind of mood. The sun on my face was just the best, and I was feeling so warm and comfortable and happy and French that I even dozed off a little bit.

Not too long after I had awoken,  a small green truck drove by and its driver tooted his horn in greeting. In my post-doze haze I reasoned that only someone I knew would have done that, so I waved. I heard the truck turn around, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a rotund, middle-aged man get out and approach me.

He asked me if I was studying. I tried my age-old trick of being like, "Um... quoi? Je no speaka the Frenchy!" but he wasn't buying it. After asking me a few more questions about how I ended up in Digoin, he asked if I was married. I said yes, hoping that perhaps M. Soleil would help me blind this jerk with my bling. "Dommage," he said. "Mais on peut avoir une affaire en secret tout le même." I politely declined his offer of having a secret affair with a "non merci" (damn you, Minnesota nice!) and got up and left.

Au revoir Monsieur le Draguer! Mangez un sac de l'enfer!

Neenuh, According to the French

"Hi! Nice to meet you! You're so pale!"

This was said to me by a French 20-something who I met in Nevers last Saturday night. The French seem to be extremely fond of telling me how pale, sick, and tired I look, none of which I appreciate that much. That, combined with the fact that I was un peu pété, led me to retort, "I'm always pale! I was born this way! Plus I'm from MINNESOTA!" Yeah, that shut her up pretty good.

"Hello America!"

One of the guys who works in my school's office loves practicing his English with me. I'm OK with embodying my home country, as in this greeting, but it's a bit annoying when I need to get something done and he insists on responding to me in his broken English. Last week, for example, I ran out of my allotment of photocopies and I went to talk to some of the secretaries about getting a new quota. As I was attempting to hold this conversation with her in French, my buddy kept piping up from the corner, "You done all your paper! No more for you! You need more but there is none! You wanting more!" in a strange, sing-song-y voice.

"Toi, tu est normale." (You, you are normal.)

I had a student stop by for some extra conversation practice... most of which ended up being in French. Oops.  The conversation turned to obesity in America.  He told me that he doesn't understand why Americans think it's so disgusting that the French smoke, because if the Americans are so worried about health, then why are they so fat?   He told me that he was "normal"-- not skinny, not fat, but normal. He lifted up his shirt and gave his belly a jiggle to show that he was starting a paunch. Then, staring at my chest, he told me I was normal too. Just to verify, he reached over and poked me in my tummy.  "Ne touche pas!" I yelped. "I'm from MINNESOTA!"

Holiday melancholia

Right now, at this very moment, my fiancé is sleeping in my bed at my parents' house, having just eaten a scrumptious dinner prepared by my dear mama and presumably having been schooled in Scrabble by my older brother, entertained by He Who Makes Noise (my younger brother), and philosophized to by my papa. And I am so, so jealous.

I'm not usually one who gets homesick very easily, but this is the first holiday season I've spent so far from all my peeps. Oh, how I miss them! How I miss Duluth and Minneapolis and Portland, the places where I've left the largest, most irreplaceable chunks of my heart.

I miss pumpkin pie and Blue Moon beer and doggy bags and big American breakfasts and customers always being right and cookies and gyms where everyone ignores you and always having correct subject/verb agreement and COUCHES and ovens big enough to cook two turkeys if I wanted to and wearing bright colors and cheap haircuts and hot apple cider and knitting and being 100% comprehensible (unless I'm mumbling) and personal space and people caring that Sarah Palin might be our next president and keeping Portland weird and reading real books in English and soft water and...

You. More than anything in the whole entire world, I miss you.