Charis Brice: dancer, whiner, fisher, baller.

Friendship Bartender : Copper Mugs and Bitchface

Sometimes, after struggling to articulate the reasons I am railing and whining against the grain of my life, I have to smile: 
I miss a lot of people, and the new people I meet are not the people I miss. 

 

One of my greatest pleasures of life is going out to eat with my friend Meghan. Not only are we both lovers of trying new restaurants and unafraid of exchanging several pretty pennies for excellent cuisine, we also adore each other. 

There is nothing more fun than having good food and drink in the company of someone you deeply enjoy, and who deeply enjoys you back (HALLELUJAH).

I look forward to my next dinner-adventure with Meghan like I look forward to my next trip, or to Christmas: time with her is that good. I should start calling her "Christmas."  

Last time I was in Seattle we chose a restaurant featuring the Moscow Mule as their "aperitif." It was my first time trying this concoction, and I was decidedly smitten. We kept them coming the entire meal, deciding to pretend we did not speak French at all and that "aperitif" meant, "To drink before, during and after your meal, 4 drinks being traditional." All four of them were delicious, and the drink itself felt wonderfully representative of the perfect, long-awaited magic happening between Meghan and me.

The Moscow Mule is a little bit magic. What is so special about vodka, fresh lime juice, ginger beer and mint? Nothing really. The combination is delicious, duh, but no reason to get breathless or patriotic. However when these same ingredients are placed inside a chilled copper mug, the taste transforms into something new - I'm talking make-up sex, national-anthem good.

What is so hard, really, about making friends? There are people all over the world, and if we break down the list, Making Friends 101 should be an easy A.
Be kind, be open, be yourself... right? It's so SIMPLE. And yet no matter how many times I add the kindness, the vulnerability and the ME to a cup, it is rarely a Moscow Mule.

Friendship requires chemistry. I am not talking about love-at-first-sight, although this sometimes happens (I met one of my best friends at a bar -- she literally met me, kissed me on the mouth, and announced to the bar that she had found her soulmate. She was drunk, but she was right. I have loved her like a sister since that moment). More often the delicate chemistry of friendship occurs over time, influenced by changes in the ingredients or temperature or environment.

The reverse is also possible. Relationships can fizzle out - a friend can forget or stop caring - a drink that was once delicious can turn sour, even toxic.

Meghan sent me a present for my birthday. The package arrived about an hour ago, barely procured from the hands of the speedy, Italian delivery man (they are definitely not paid per delivery in Brussels).

After racing down 10 flights of stairs (the elevator is too slow for times like these) and bursting out the front door I successfully detained him by yelling and waving at his departing car.  The driver saw me, got out and began yelling back, angry at me for some reason, that my door buzzer was 'kaput.'  He then ensured that I was Charis Brice by pointing to my name on the package and giving me a thumbs-up.

Oh, Belgium.

I rode the elevator back up to my apartment with a huge smile on my face. I had no idea what was inside the box, but saw that it was from Meghan, so the box was already guaranteed "PURE HAPPINESS."

Inside the box there were two copper mugs and hand-written instructions on how to make a Moscow Mule.  There was also a note telling me that I am missed, I am missed, I am missed.  

I have been openly whiny about making new friends in Europe. It is hard to make friends when your primary emotion is "WHINY, and your nickname, "BITCHFACE" but friends have found me nonetheless (generous souls).

 

This weekend I had a birthday party where I invited the people I have met over the past year living in Belgium. I felt waves of panic during the day before the party and wondered if I had designed the party specifically to make myself feel lonely - but the waves of panic changed to waves of gratitude throughout the night as I received kindness after kindness from so many of the people present.
I have friends in Seattle and friends in Belgium who love me, and I am so grateful. 

Whiny Bitchface is slowly changing to something more palatable; thank god for copper mugs. 

 

Sometimes, after struggling to articulate the reasons I am railing and whining against the grain of my life, I have to smile: 

I miss a lot of people, and the new people I meet are not the people I miss. 

... but they could be someday. 

 

Dinosaur Fish, Tomatoes and Martin Freeman

Things I loved this week:

1. Roasting tomatoes

I know, so random. I bought a bunch of little tomatoes on the vine at one of the outdoor markets in town and when I got home discovered they were absolutely tasteless - truly terrible.
Rather than toss them I decided to try roasting them, which I had never done with tomatoes before.  The result was divine.  I smeared a tiny bit of olive oil on a cookie sheet, and then cut the tomatoes in half and put them on the sheet cut-side-down. I then sliced (not pressed) about 5 cloves of garlic and sprinkled around the tomatoes, and added a little fresh basil (again, scattering around the pan). A little sea-salt, pepper, cayenne (I am addicted to cayenne) and thyme (I didn't have rosemary) and I stuck it in the oven.  I roasted them for about an hour and a half, until they were super wrinkled and tender.  I dumped it all into a bowl and then smeared it on bread with some cendre chèvre on top... DELICIOUS CITY. They were also good for days cold, straight out of the refrigerator. I am about to go eat some now.

 

2. The Wolf of Wall Street

Are you kidding me? This movie left me speechless. It was shocking, entertaining, brilliantly executed and quite nearly perfect; there were several scenes where I thought to myself, "I think this is one of the best scenes of ____ that I have ever seen." Leonardo DiCaprio is perfect throughout. But so are the other actors, the editing, the writing, etc. I wanted to watch it again immediately after seeing it, and I never want to do that.  Go see it.  I hope it wins everything.

Side note: how boring was Gravity? Kill me now.  Sorry, wrong list.  

3. Sherlock

I feel like I have been waiting for 10 years for this season. As usual, it was worth the wait. I mutter, "Benedict Cumberbatch," frequently throughout the day, not because I love him more than Martin Freeman (I adore them both), but because saying his name actually releases endorphines.  

 

4. Watching my man's face as I explained the Chris Christie scandal to him.

5. My friend Meghan buying a ticket to come to Belgium in September

Words fail me. So many people have the intention of visiting, but so few people actually do. Meghan is one of the reasons I consider myself to be the luckiest woman alive, and I will enjoy every moment with her as I show her my home and explore Europe with her. ECSTATIC.

6. Café Georgette and my birthday party

I don't know if anyone will show up (expat reality), but the venue is so fun that I will just dance with Arnaud and order drinks from my personal bar-tender for the entire night regardless. Complete with one of the best burgers I have had in my life (I know, extreme but true), a smoking room and a view of the city, this private bar (within walking distance from our house) above Café Georgette makes me very happy. It also makes me wish that I could fly all my Seattle and Chicago and Texas and Arizona and Louisiana and Tennessee and California and North Carolina friends up to attend... again, wrong list. 

7. Zella "live-in" Leggings, from Nordstrom

When I say that I never want to wear anything else, I am dead serious. I have arranged every outfit around these bad boys since receiving them for Christmas. My sister Kensey and friend Nikki have told me for years that they are fabulous - I am now a believer. I can now frequently be seen stroking my legs distractedly, amazed by the support and comfort they feel and the softness of the material. I am getting excited just talking about them... they are in the wash right now so I feel panicky.

 

8. Watching my man get dressed in the morning

I said it. Every morning I pretend to be asleep but am actually watching as he busts into the bedroom from the shower, always rushing.  It's such a good show every time, like an intimate, erotica vitamin. 

 

9. My red watch

I received a beautiful red watch from my man for my birthday. He once gave me a battery charger for Christmas, so let's just say that this gift took my breath away.  I  feel about the watch like I feel about saying Benedict Cumberbatch.  Win.  

10. Feeling like a food snob

Not that being disappointed is fun, but realizing that we eat (cook) very well as our norm was a fun moment this week.  We ate at a "nice" Italian restaurant and could not believe how mediocre the food was.  We still had a great time and loved the atmosphere, but spoke later about how our "home cooking" put their "upscale cuisine" to absolute shame.  Then we high-fived and slapped each other on the ass.

11. Dreaming about dinosaur fish

I had the most vivid, apocalyptic dream that the world transformed into a thick jungle where  dinosaurs again roamed. The main point of the dream was that the FISH were about a thousand times bigger than normal - dinosaur fish - it was a fly-fishing wet dream. YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN the fish I was catching on my 5 weight fly rod...

 

12.  Ishmael Beah

How am I just hearing about this man and his books?  Thank you Colbert Report.  I felt more hope watching a 10 minute interview with Ishmael, a phoenix, than I have felt in quite a while.  I am starting his books tonight.     

My worst fear

*** do not read this blog post unless you want to be neurotic like me about bed bugs *** 

 

As she sits and watches the January rain pouring down, the sun strangled from the sky until May, they are waiting. As she picks her cuticles and sips her coffee and waits for her soaking hair to dry because she again forgot her umbrella, they are waiting.

It is time for a confession.
My name is Charis, and I have an almost crippling fear of bed bugs.
My home has never been infested, nor have I ever been bitten (though I imagine it often). I only know one person (who has admitted it) who has been infected. Yet despite my complete lack of direct interaction or suffering because of them, these disgusting little bastards continue to sit proudly on the throne of my absolute most righteous terror.
I am absolutely terrified of bed bugs.

Early in the night when the sun goes down and the mountains fade from her view, the world gently tucked-in beneath a giant blanket of darkness, they are waiting.

 

It all started when a guy I used to sleep with -- we'll call him Fernando -- informed me that one of his friends had an infestation of bed bugs in a living room couch. It was so bad they ended up putting the couch on the street. Disgusting story, right?
I listened, was grossed out, and went on with my life, virtually unaffected.

Fast-forward a few months and Fernando discovers that he has bed bugs as well, all from sleeping on his friend's filthy couch.  That's when I began to panic. 

What if on one of the nights Fernando crashed at my place he had unwittingly delivered hitchhikers from parasite hell? I googled, and googling bed bugs was the single most awful decision I have ever made; I have never recovered.

 

As her tossing and turning at last grow still, finally slipping into a sleep deeper than her will, they begin to stir, their flat, weightless bodies scurrying towards her. To dine before the perfect moment means death, and these creatures love to live. They can wait for 9 months without feeding, like a baby waiting to be born. All their waiting lives are spent in hiding, their bodies pressed like guerrilla contortionists into the crease of a mattress, an electrical outlet, the lining of a jacket, completely still, hidden, waiting, hungry.

The right moment arrives only rarely – always in the deepest night, when her heart and breath slow to a point clearly declaring oblivion and helplessness. This is when they feast.

Blankets and clothing mean nothing to them – their agility and contortionist expertise allows them access to any portion of the body they desire. Some bodies taste better than others – some are delectable, causing gluttonous feasting and multiple meals in one night, others merely suffice for sustinence, boring them with the lack of a secret ingredient.

 

Here are the facts. Bed bugs love to travel and can be found all across the world. They are easy-going, Republican and Gemini. They can travel up to 100 feet to get to their prey in the night -- however they usually "infest" and live in an area within 8 feet of where someone frequently sleeps. They do not like to be far from their food. They can wait up to 9 months without feeding and be perfectly fine (meaning that you can move into an apartment that has been vacant for 6 months, and not realize that bed bugs are included in the rent). Their bites are felt and appear differently on every person, and it can take 9 hours to 14 DAYS for their bites to show up on the skin, meaning that you can be feasted upon in a hotel and not know until a week or two later. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to anyone, you have carried bed bugs in your luggage and clothing to multiple other hospitable locations - airplanes, hotels, couches, homes, etc. Or so goes my ongoing nightmare.

The places on her where they choose to feed swell up in their honor – a flag of sorts, “Here is where we took what we wanted,” the swollen flesh seems to convey. These signs of invasion cause her to curse and to scratch, searching in fury for the cause, but by now hours and even days have passed, and the culprits are long returned and sleeping in their hiding places, satisfied and patient, full and pregnant, already beginning their wait for the next perfect moment for themselves and their children.

Feeling panicky yet? Feeling itchy? Feeling anxious for no reason except a description of a parasite? Welcome to my world.

Try as you might to catch them in the act, they are virtually impossible to find. Fernando used to set his alarm for multiple times during the night with a flashlight beside him, and never once discovered a single bed bug in his home with his own eyes. Yet he would awaken the next morning to a new round of itchy evidence. They wait until the heart beat and breathing of their prey have slowed down to the slowest rate possible: usually 4:00 in the morning. I think of them as having human-like intuition and evil, corrupt little souls. I cannot imagine anything more creepy...

...except for this: unlike other infestations, bed bugs cannot be terminated conventionally: they are immune to poison. The only sure-fire way to get rid of them is by using extremely high heat. Terminators actually bring in crazy industrial heaters to spaces that are infested, and bake the little bastards dead. This technique is limited in availability, extremely expensive, and not extremely effective.

I have no idea why bed bugs won the right to so effectively terrorize me. But they did.  Fear of them is where my anxiety lands: and I hate them. Thanks a lot, Fernando. Thanks a lot, google. ("Thanks a lot, Charis," you are now saying).

Her breath quickens as she tries to calm herself, but images and phantom sensations of crawling invaders prohibit her from sleeping. Every invitation she whispers to herself to sleep, to breath, is instantly turned on it's head by the fear of awakening her crawling nightmares. And so she oscillates between her logic and her fear, her sweet man laughing in blissful sleep beside her, leaving her to stand guard alone against the invaders, her only weapon a racing heart.

 

Expat soup

I recently made soup while wearing only underwear. This lack of classic attire was neither a rebellion against the confines of restrictive clothing (if I had a nickel…) nor was it in hopes of seducing the various raw vegetables (don't act like you haven't noticed -- vegetables are sexy). Far from scandalous my reason for rocking "the toddler" was because I simply could not find the gumption required to get dressed. Since when has getting dressed required gumption, you may be wondering? Since this week, I would answer. Nakedness by lack of gumption, she cried.

Actions like 'donning pants' do in fact require energy; science has proven it. On this particular day math and science combined: I had only enough mojo to do one thing. I chose soup.

And so my day continued. I made the soup. The soup was good. I remained naked. No one cared that I was not wearing clothes. No one laughed or chastised or cheered or whistled or became concerned or fell in love or slapped my ass or copied me or felt condescending or got offended. No one had any reaction whatsoever because no one saw ("Thank GOD," my parents are thinking).

If a woman cooks soup in her underwear and no one sees, is she still indecent? ("YES!!!!"… sorry, just my Dad that time).

I think she is. But I am not entirely sure.

I am realizing more and more that I feel undeniably out of sync when I do not have a witness or when I refuse to witness. It is the absolute driving rhythm by which I exist - my heartbeat. Not just to be seen of course, but to be known and to know.

To communicate is to breathe, and to go through life without that breath would not be any life at all... and also makes it difficult on some days to acquire pants.  

The more I isolate the more easily I can become invisible, my skin becoming transparent and my blood fading to air.
The depth at which my lungs can take in air is the depth at which I am in relationship. When this air in my lungs grows shallow, because of isolation or language or depression, I start to fade. Or so it feels in my ever-visual world. Remaining unfaded and embodied has grown more challenging living thousands of miles from the people, landscape and language I know and love the most.

I am so very lucky to live here, and I love it : but not a day goes by that I do not think, "My GOD the air here is thin."

I was reminded this year (as if I needed another reminder) of how much I love books and movies: because in reading and in watching I am moved beyond myself and my solitude into someone else's life and into someone else's story. What magic this is!
All books and movies are exhibitionists, and people are no different. It is like deep down we are all Stuart from MAD TV, jumping maniacally, twitching and yelling "LOOK AT ME!" He has long been a hero of mine, for obvious reasons.

I think we also witness the earth.  Long runs center and illuminate me in a way nothing else does, each foot pounding and pulling against the earth, the ground reminding me that I exist, that I am felt, that I am grounded yet also flying. The stars that expand me, the bugs that bite me, the fish I hunt and catch and then kiss and throw back : these are a different sort of witness, but a witness nonetheless. My breath deepens. My skin darkens.

Paintings long to be seen.  Stories long to be told.  Races long to be run.  Soup longs to be tasted.  My ass longs to be slapped.

If I cannot interact with the world surrounding me when I travel, then to hell with travel.  And when I stick a flag into the ground and yell, "HOME", if just then I cannot see the art, love the person, listen to the story, explore the city, taste the soup and slap the ass, then to hell with flags.    

I annoyed so many graduate students when I was a teaching assistant after reading their brilliant, academic papers filled with excellent writing and solid research, by then leaving the comment, "So what?"

 

If all that I

learn and do and know and fail at and eat and drink and wonder about and dance with and scowl at and create and delight in and grieve and long for

does not have a witness (a listener, toucher, learner, lover, hater, taster, watcher, teacher, critique, fan, partner) then to hell with all those things I have done: soup to masters degree.

My itty-bitty-tiny baby 19 year old brother sent me a short video of himself singing a song that I had mentioned over Christmas vacation always made me cry. In the video his friend plays the guitar beside him, and my brother's face while singing is as lovely and nakedly sincere as his beautiful voice.

At the very end of the short song he smiles at me and that's where the frame freezes: his smile. His smile portrays so much love I can hardly bear it. His smile also speaks of so many other things that only a younger brother can feel about his older sister. Compassion, perhaps? Gratitude? Acceptance? Concern? A unique combination of emotions and experiences mixed together to create his love for me, revealed in that smile. Unlike any other love, because we are unlike any other two. This is what I mean by witness.

 

I hear his song and I see his smile and my breath deepens, my skin darkens.

 

If a woman lives very far from the people and land she loves, does she still exist?

 

Yes.

Collin, if this does not convince you to guest-write a blog for me, then I do not know what will. MY GOD.

I promised my baby brother (he's a tiny, tiny baby, always spitting up and laughing at the word "poop") that I would write a blog today, but I am so out of the writing rhythm that I might end up just posting several pictures showing how dirty our kitchen is right now.  The pictures MIGHT be more interesting -- dirty kitchens are SO different in Europe.  

I have lived in Europe for exactly one year: ONE YEAR!  HEAR ME ROAR.

Sadly, I still roar in English.

When you are learning a language, there will be a period of approximately 100 years where you will be technically able to communicate, but will consistently sound just a little bit like a douche.  Sometimes it's fun (or "funny", as all French/Dutch people say "fun" -- drives me crazy, "You should come tonight!  It will be so funny!"  Rude), but sometimes just awkward.  

Take five minutes ago. I walked up to the counter of this café and ordered "un espresso." For those of you who do not speak French as fluently as I do, this means "an espresso." I know, crazy different. The beautiful European barista looked at me with the normal concentrated scowl all native speakers don when listening to foreigners -- not unkind in the slightest, just clearly requiring extra effort. He understood me. His scowl softened. "Un espresso? Pour ici ou apporter?" "Pour ici," I cleverly responded. For here. TOTALLY NOT to go. BOOYAH, BRICE. (this inner extreme and for some reason military-inspired dialogue regarding French is constant for me -- constant) I decided to be risqué and show my language belly button JUST a bit by changing my order. "Mmm, en fait, je vais prendre un DOUBLE espresso." He responded, "Bien sûr, alors vous voulez un espresso et un double espresso?" I then panicked, (he had used more than 4 words and had spoken to me like a normal person instead of a very young child) latching onto the words I recognised, "double espresso" -- YES, YES!! "Oui, oui... merci."

I then watched as he began to prepare an espresso AND a double espresso, exactly as he had confirmed with me. Fail.  I thought about sitting down with the two drinks and acting like that's how I always do it -- maybe praying over one and throwing it over my shoulder -- but then I'd have to do it again tomorrow, and if I showed up with a client or Arnaud and they gave me my "usual" of one single and one double espresso, that would be hilarious and also ridiculous.  So, I slowly covered my proverbial belly button and said, "Oh, er, seulement un double espresso, desoleé." Just a double espresso, sorry. He smiled and said in perfect English, "It's okay, so just the double espresso for here?"

 

France is much easier to learn French in (imagine that) -- Brussels is truly filled with people who speak 5, 6, 7 languages.  The thought of having this many linguistic options  makes me feel like I might wet my pants, and NOT in a good way, since wetting my pants is normally super fun ("funny").  Being surrounded by people who are quad-lingual means that nearly everyone can and will speak English with me as soon as they pick up my accent.

Everyone in Belgium thinks I am British. Even after speaking with me for a few hours people think I am British. WHAT IS GOING ON? The other night Arnaud and I were walking down a street in Brussels where every restaurant has a man standing in the entrance with the sole purpose of convincing you/physically dragging you inside to eat (a tourist trap that I find immensely fun -- it's like walking down a street where you can guarantee interactions with 900 people -- FUN), when a man looked me up and down and yelled, "LONG LIVE THE QUEEN."  I made the sign of the cross out of confusion and as a quick replacement to giving him the finger.  Hopefully he now thinks that's the normal British response.  Probably not though, because I then yelled, "I AM NOT BRITISH," directly in his face.  

I know that Arnaud is a good man for me because he observed the entire interaction between this man and me,  his arm around my waist the whole time, as if it was a totally normal scenario... not a word.  

The other night Arnaud brought home a gigantic box of chocolates from Leonidas - he had seen the company as a client that day, and they had gifted him a box filled to the brim with nearly sexual delicacies, most likely because they wanted to have sex with him - which I completely understand.

I do not like white chocolate, as a rule. This is why when Arnaud moaned with ecstasy when he bit into a certain chocolate, I was unimpressed.  It was white.   He insisted that I try, so I licked it with the most passive, bitchy, pointy tongue I could muster, and I kid you not, I have never in my life tasted anything as good as that little morsel of WHITE, BUTTERY GOODNESS.

Here's the deal: it tasted EXACTLY like butter inside, with a little bit of sugar of course. But mostly just butter. Pure butter. PURE BUTTER IN MY MOUTH. Was it real buttercream? Was it magic? Is there a god and is he made of butter?  

Whatever it was, I am in love with it.  I want it all over my body and inside a lasagna.  I want to fill boxes with it and save them for my future children.  I feel like I might need an intervention in a few weeks: it was that good.  I plan to stop at Leonidas on the way home tonight and purchase a box filled with only butter magic cream candies.  

What's for dinner? White chocolate filled with pure butter.  The other, other white meat.   

And that reminds me of my baby brother. Because he is white and sometimes eats butter.  

Collin, you're welcome.     
#changedyourlife

 

Also, I miss you more than words and love you endlessly. 

Your sister,
Charis 

News update of extraordinary importance

This is currently being born.  Don't laugh at the birthing juices.   They're delicious in some cultures.  

http://www.charisbrice.com

 

 

4 years with my sweet man

I first saw Arnaud on October 3rd, 2009. He was smoking outside the Frontier Room in Seattle. I was a hot mess, and he was unbelievably attractive. His English was terrible, my French non-existent, but Lordy Jesus did we hit it off.   He danced with me/let me dance for three hours without touching me: and I was smitten.

I got his number at the end of the night and texted him at 3:30am when I got home.   He texted back; my stomach did a flip. He came over for dinner the next night and I cooked for him.  He kissed me with his perfect kiss and took me to bed with his perfect everything; my stomach flipped so many times it threw up a little.  I was so in love with him.   I didn't tell him, of course. I had to be cool. Grown-up. Mature. But the fact remained: the moment I started loving Arnaud was the moment I saw him: October 3rd, 2009.

I took him fly-fishing that first week.   I think that's when he fell for me.   This is the first photo of us: 2 days after we met.  

We saw each other almost daily until he went back to France on October 30th. I took this photo of him the day he left.

I ached when I later looked at this photo : I missed him horribly. He missed me too, thank GOD.

I found this photo on my camera later: a little good-bye gift he had left for me. 

I went to France for three months starting in January of 2010. I met his family and I photographed beautiful things, but what I really wanted to do was photograph him. He was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen; I simply could not get enough of him.

When I was in France I admitted it: being with Arnaud was home.

We traded visits across the ocean until he found a way to be in Seattle for 9 months. So many hard and wonderful things happened in that 9 months.  He continued to be my favorite person in the world.  He grew a beard and I named it Stanley and had an affair with it.  




We decided to get married when I was visiting him a few months later in Ath, Belgium.
We got married in France in July of 2012 and partied in Seattle in August.

We honeymooned and fished in Montana, where both of our hearts were stolen completely.

I moved to France in November, and now we live in Brussels.

We love Brussels.  We love our little home and life.  

This summer we hosted my Mom and aunts for their very first visit to Europe: Arnaud genuinely loved having these precious women in his world for 10 days.   He also loved seeing me with my Mama.  He asks me about my family nearly every day when he gets home from work.   He understands what it is to live far away from almost everyone you love.   

Last night we ate at a very nice restaurant beside our house where we were the only people present. It rained the whole time we ate, and the staff of 6 treated us like royalty. We laughed until we cried, we ate good food and we were both exactly where we wanted to be.


He is still the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, and I still cannot get enough of him.

Our life-rules remain: No pants, No dying, No panic.
I break the third rule almost daily, forgetting where I am and who he is, and he always brings me back.   Home for me now is with a good man who sees me, likes me, needs me and loves me. How the hell did I get so lucky?

Tonight we have a fantastic night planned of doing absolutely nothing. We are both so excited it's basically Christmas at Chez Brice-Souquet.  After weeks of travel and work and illness and missing each other, to snuggle up together with a Belgian beer and to just be home feels like heaven.

I am so lucky to have had four years with this sweet man who is proud to call me his girl.

Cheers to 1000 more, since neither of us is allowed to die.  

Arnaud, je t'adore.

I always lose my paddle

Arnaud and I kayaked here in Belgium with a group of friends a few weeks ago. We wore our bathing suits and applied sunscreen and took a few beer-breaks along the way. We had such a fantastic time, and dominated so clearly in every way, that we decided to do it again last week while we were on vacation in the Pyrenees mountains in Spain.

Finding a kayak rental was easy enough in a little village we came across called Campo. When we signed up for the next day they asked us if we wanted a guide. We said something like, "Oh no, no -- we've got this." We then smiled and winked at each other. "More like, we DOMINATE," our little smiles and winks seemed to say.

We talked that night about whether we should bring our fly fishing gear or cameras with us. There were likely to be great fishing spots along the way -- and it is always painful for me to not have my camera. We decided to not worry about fly fishing gear, and to just bring along my 'cheap' camera.

The next day there were about 40 people present when we arrived 20 minutes late for our appointment - chaos was occurring. Wetsuits and helmets, lifejackets and special water shoes -- Norwegian-looking kids eating hamburgers and hairy men and ass-cracks everywhere. I looked at Arnaud at some point as we were sucked into the chaos and ourselves strapped into safety cocoons. "We are going to die," I mouthed to him from my newly helmeted face, these words pulling my helmet strap painfully. Fully suited up we waddled, my wetsuit much too large, following the giant group of people who seemed to know where they were going.

A man stopped us, "Kayaks, yes?" We confirmed that yes, we were kayaking. He gave us an enthusiastic thumbs-up, and said in a thick Spanish accent, "You are the only ones -- very good choice -- it is the best option." He then laughed, and walked away with the 37 other people, all of whom were rafting.

Arnaud and I stood alone, holding the wrong kind of paddles, as the huge group of families loaded onto a bus, laughing and still somehow eating hamburgers, myself again mouthing repeatedly, "We are going to die," until a woman began spraying our faces with freezing water from a hose, a great technique for distracting a person from impending death.

We asked the hose-woman if they had water-proof boxes for my camera, which had been sitting at the front desk. She looked confused and said, "No," but I was sure there was a language barrier. I retrieved my camera to communicate more clearly: we tried French, and then our very horrible Spanish accompanied by my pretty good miming. Her answer was always the same, "No. No," pointing to my camera. "No." Waterproof box-less, we waddled to the car, depositing and covering the camera in the hot interior.

We stood awkwardly for a few minutes, constantly in the way, until a man motioned us to follow him. "Come," he said. He was like a tiny, theatrical, high, Spanish Jesus. "I know English in England. England is around the boom boom in Texas! HAHA!"  I laughed and responded, "Yes!" which is usually the right response.  Our conversation continued like this for the next 15 minutes as we drove incredibly fast in a van on a mountain road.

The walk from the main road down to the river was quite long, and when we finally got to the water (our two person kayak was heavier than I expected) our guide proceeded to give us a pre-water lesson as I dripped with sweat and cursed my safety cocoon.
He showed us how to steer. "Duh," I thought.
He showed us how to row. "Double duh," I thought.
He told us to make sure we did not lose our paddles no matter what. "I wish I had my camera," I thought.
He showed us how to turn the kayak back to its right side if we flipped, one person handling the job by holding two specific areas. "We are not going to flip," I thought, paying attention now despite myself.
He showed us how to hold our bodies in the water if we found ourselves without the boat, in order to avoid injury from the rocks. "We are going to die," I thought.
I can go from arrogant denial to hopelessness in less than 3 seconds.
He told us that he would be there the whole time, showing us where to go and helping us along the way. "PLEASE DON'T EVER LEAVE US," I whisper-screamed.


The first time we flipped I lost my paddle immediately. I did not remember that I was in Spain or kayaking or married or that I had a family, I just wanted to not drown. That's it. Air, NOW. Once I found air and came back to reality I was horrified. "MY PADDLE!? OH MY GOD.... the BOAT... ARNAUD???" I banged my bones against the rocks a few times, having also forgotten the proper way to hold one's body while being smashed against giant rocks by urgent, surging water. We righted the boat, climbed aboard, and our guide retrieved my paddle. Off we went.


The second time we flipped I lost my paddle immediately. Again I remembered nothing: no language, no food preferences, no future dreams. Only: WHERE IS THE AIR. This time in my struggle to find air I found SEVERAL rocks, and the pain in my bones was substantial enough that I remembered one of the guide's lessons. If I had died at that moment, it would have been with proper body stance. I had proper body stance but couldn't find the strength to pull myself into the boat. My arms were bruised and I had hit my funny bones so hard on both elbows that my arms were temporarily useless.

This second flip was in the worst/best (strongest) area of the river, and the current was so strong that within a few seconds Arnaud and I were 50 feet from each other. When I was above water I managed to grab the boat, and then heard Arnaud yelling my name in fear, "CHARIS"... only with his French accent it sounded like, "CHAREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!"

I watched as he spun and surged and tumbled down the river, and I was touched for a moment that he was worried about me, his girl, in his moment of terror. And then I realized that he was in fact yelling FOR me. His yell was a cry for help, a request to be saved from a watery, bone-bashing death. He was fine (his ass and the bruise he maintained in that region would beg to differ), and eventually found a tree to grip hold of while I bobbled stiffly (paddleless and arm-strength-less) beside the kayak until our guide again saved us.

A few minutes after the second flip we reached calmer waters and drifted a bit, grateful for the break and thrilled by the adrenaline rush and freezing water and smashing of bones. In the silence I softly said, "CHAREEEEEEEEEEEEES!"
We laughed until we cried, and then a few more hundred times on the 15 hour drive back to Belgium. "CHAREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!"


It is hard to explain why I love this story so much.   I completely love Arnaud's dramatic scream for my help.   He was afraid, so he yelled for me.  There is something so simple and honest about this moment -- something that I avoid so often and that Arnaud embodies so naturally.

I think the reality is that we save each other. I really do. I can learn the proper body stance and work out my biceps and learn some tricks of navigation and wear all the required safety gear, but when it really comes down to it I have never saved myself, ever.

"I am a strong woman," and the grand idea that I have done anything on my own or by myself is such horseshit: The boat flips over and I lose my paddle, every time.

I am a strong woman because of the people who have loved me and saved me and remembered me and taught me and stayed with me and chosen me and seen me and heard me and touched me and corrected me and yelled at me and yelled for me and laughed with me and cried with me and had a drink with me and pulled me onto the boat, yet again.

If there was a microphone inside my head it would screech with feedback due to the sound of me screaming the names of so many people I love and need in order to even pretend to function.

I am a very lucky lady to have so many names to scream. 

I miss my Mama

My Mom and her two sisters came to visit for the first 10 days of August.  They just left on Sunday and the house feels incredibly lonely.  And by, "the house" I  mean, ME.  

Me feels incredibly lonely.  

I have tons to say, but for now I just miss my Mama.  

Things I saw today, and photographed, obviously

The man walking past the graffiti was trying to be cool, but he is obviously the artist.  The words say "kill the pope : my body is mine."  

The graffiti below says "free abortion."  

Holler at a baller

I had my first class at l'Alliance Française in Brussels aujoird'hui (THAT MEANS, TODAY.. good job Charis!), and arrived at the front door of the building this morning soaking wet from a downpour.  As usual Brussels weather has outdone itself.  Rude.  

I looked like a wet cat.  A nervous wet cat on her first day of school.  A cat wearing jeans and rain boots named Charis who enjoys fly fishing.  
There is also about a 99 percent chance that my breath smelled like poop from drinking too much Nespresso before my rainy walk (black, liquid courage).  

However, despite looking like a cat and smelling like a butt, I had a fantastic day.  

I realized as I was sitting in the classroom understanding phrases in French and saying things in French (these are big deals - react to them) that part of the reason I have felt so incredibly linguistically frustrated the past few months is because I have not had a forum to utilize the information I have been learning.  
I have A LOT of French vocabulary and grammar and sayings and stories and curse words in my head from the past few years of studying on my own and from being married to a Frenchie, y'all.  It would be like studying cooking, hanging out with people who are cooking, and constantly reading "How to cook real good" online, but NEVER ACTUALLY COOKING A GODDAMN THING.  That would be frustrating.  RIGHT??  Yeah it would.  
I sure am glad I gave you that analogy; you might not have understood otherwise.    

What?  Back to me? Oh gosh - sure, so sorry! 

So today I felt a substantial bump of relief to realize a bit of why moi+French has equaled frustration and an almost continuous stream of brain farts rather than my desired result: wizardry (communication).  I also felt excitement in seeing a few moments where communciation occured, despite horrible grammar.  

I must admit that there was an equal amount of excitement for me in realizing that the desks and chairs were little roller-pods -- SO COOL.  All 10 of us in the class were constantly rolling around.  I was NERDING OUT with the space age roller desks.  Every time the teacher would turn around from the white board I would be in a slightly different location, trying to pretend I was not thrilled to the bone.  "Play it cool, Brice," I kept saying to myself -- in my head so I wouldn't smell my own breath.  
Learning-while-rolling is a perfect scenario for someone who has had way too much Nespresso.  

Next step: I need to go back and do about 150 more hours of classes.  
Easy peasy.  Or in French, fastoche.  

Also, I need a French replacement for the word, "holler."  It obviously won't be an exact translation, because then I would be saying "LOUD SCREAM" in French, but I am curious if there is something similar.  Basically what I am asking is can you say, "holler at a baller" or "holler at your girl/boy," in French?    

Anybody?        







Anybody?  

 

Zombies make it all better: Brussels Zombie Parade 2013 and BIFFF

So this morning I was having a bit of a shit day and therefore decided to go for a run, because that is what I do.  It works, by the way.  Also, has anyone else tried this running-on-the-balls-of-one's-feet?  It has SAVED my knees, and I am back to being able to run like (no, not JUST like, not as well as he does, just LIKE) my Dad, which is an awesome thing.   

On my walk back from the gym, this is what I saw: 

  

Seriously, my neighborhood is wacky.  I am in LOVE. Where else have I ever lived where I have been greeted on my front steps by a ZOMBIE PARADE??
I am never moving.  

This week is the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival, or BIFFF (all the films are "fantastique" which I guess means horror/sci fi/etc... other worldly in some way), and the venue for the films is, you guessed it, directly beside our house.  Directly beside as in, ON OUR STREET, DIRECTLY BESIDE OUR HOUSE.  
I do not even have to cross a street, which is a relief since that is usually why I do not go out...   
It's thrilling to do so much by doing so little.  Thrilling.  

There are no words to describe how much better I now feel.  
Thank goodness for running and for zombies -- I might do really well in Walking Dead, actually.  

I bought a ticket to watch all 4 horror films playing tonight:  they start at 11pm, and end with breakfast in the morning, which I think is a super fun idea.  

The line up is starting with Mama produced by Guillermo del Toro (he's the guy who did Pan's Labyrinth --  this new one has Jamie Lannister from Game of Thrones in it! Maybe he will be there so I can ask him his real name... and then call him by it as he walks away and say "____, don't go!").

Here are a few more from the festivities this afternoon.  

My usual shot - a bit different. :) 

Okay also, the "free hugs" guy KILLS me.  I cannot stop laughing at his face. 
He's so obviously the guy pretending to be a zombie to feel up some tits, hahaahahahah.
His expression is perfect. 
You can view the rest of the photos here 

Sadness: Recycle it or people will go blind

My cousin Lauren is hilarious.  So is my friend Mike.  As are my siblings, my parents, my sweet man and my fairy-godmother.

I know some seriously funny people, which is good because I love funny people.  In fact, if you are funny, or appreciate funny, please email me and let's be friends.

I have always told Arnaud that aside from Rafael Nadal, comedians are my weakness. If I ever run off with someone and live to run back and tell the story, I will most likely reveal that I was ultimately undone by that sexy little thing called humor.

I think really funny people are sad.
Not slang sad, not, "Oh man, that outfit is just SAD," but the real sad, like the emoticon. Of course, funny people are not JUST sad, because that is not funny in the least.
Example: "Look! A dog with no legs! He's HUNGRY!" See? Not funny. Just sad.

Comedians have an awareness of the sadness inside and around them, and also possess the ability to slant and refract it a bit before the people around them see it, like light inside a camera lens.  Basically, they are wizards. 

Sadness refracted can cause it to become mesmerizing, therapeutic, often offensive and sometimes hilarious.

Sadness refracted, my friend, is how funny is made.


A friend of mine loves to say in moments when we die laughing together, "Oh my god, we are HILARIOUS!"
I think if she were to say instead, "Oh my god, we are SO SAD!" she would be saying almost the same thing.

The act of refracting and filtering one's sadness is hard work. The job comes more naturally to some people than to others, but it always requires sweat. It is an art and a science, and requires trial and error to perfect.
The easy-way-out always beckons, saying: "COME ON, just glare your sadness directly into everyone's eyes, blinding them -- they're all assholes and everyone hates you."
"Geeze, SHUT UP easy-way-out, let me STRUGGLE," we might perhaps reply.

You know the feeling, from yourself or from someone else (or both), the sensation you feel when someone hits you with full force sadness, no filter, no refracting: "I am sad, fuck everyone."

Actually no, it's more like,

"I AM SAD, FUCK EVERYONE."

This, kids, is sadness not refracted, and it is awful to be around.

The thing is, everyone is sad.  Right?  Not everyone is deeply, horribly sad (or so I've been told: I happen to be married to a downright, happy man - it abounds from him like sound effects abound from me), but everyone has some kind of sadness.  
Everyone has bad days and no good days and horrible days and has reasons and stories and documentation to prove that yes, it is affirmative, they are or once were or could be, sad.

There is a game that is becoming popular called, I Have It Way Harder Than You Do.  Maybe you have started a game lately, or been invited to one.   This game also goes by the names, I Am Sadder Than You Are, and, Fuck You. It is similar to Settlers of Catan (just joking, but I do hate that game).
This is not the same as just feeling down or bitching to a friend -- no no, this game has specific rules. 

The game rules are as follows:
1. Everyone is against you.
2. No one understands you.
3. Everyone will leave you.
4. Punish everyone with your sadness for items 1-3 as hard as you can, no boundaries.
5. The first person to burn everyone else's eyes off wins.

So, in the end the winner is alone. They were right! Everyone did leave! Hooray!
The saddest person wins again.



I hate this game. I am sick and tired of playing all variations, add-ons and spin-offs of this game. I Am Sadder Than You Are, is endless and boring and I do not like it, Sam I am,  I do not like it in the dark or with my lunch or in my bed (I can't remember the book).  

However, Feelin' Fucked? REFRACT!  is a game I quite love, as it values creativity, boundaries, humility and vulnerability (and also balls) over victimhood, whining and punishment.  


Pure sadness turned at full force into someone's face is horrible. You have felt it, right? I am well accustomed to the sensation.
I felt it again recently and was reminded that full strength sadness is a devastating and punishing weapon.   When someone cannot (or will not) figure out how to slant and refract her sadness before it hits the people around her, it is as blinding and as damaging as the sun.

Even to the people wearing sunglasses...

And yes, I have pretty good sunglasses. I began wearing them at a young age because my Mom and Dad were sad.  They were also hilarious and loving, but there were times when their sadness ruled.

"SUNGLASSES ON!" my fairy-godmother would announce. "Sadness is here."

And we would wait.  For the blinding flash or the quiet house.  I was always, always hoping and waiting for the laughter,
                            and it always eventually came.   

The level of "offensiveness" in comedy (dark humor, dry humor, etc) is the angle at which sadness is refracted. Comedy is almost always tragedy, and some people can tolerate a very tragic angle of funny, while some people need or want it more diffused. I believe this is why humor is so personal and why there is so often offense caused by humor: because comedy is sadness refracted.

Thank goodness, right?? Otherwise what the hell would we do with it all?  Humor is like recycling for sadness... 

I love when I "get" something. When I hear a joke or a a story and think "YES." There is nothing that feels better than not being alone. "I AM HERE!" I want to shout in those moments, "I exist and I GET it, and so does that girl on TV! We should be FRIENDS!"
And when I hear a joke or a story and think, "Oh my god, that is HORRIBLE and SO not funny," it is usually because I feel sad.

Perhaps when we feel outrage or offense with a moment meant to be "funny" it's because when the angle of funny is too strong, it can feel violent. In those moments we are MADE to feel our own sadness pulse and shiver inside of us a little too clearly: sadness not enough refracted is just sadness.


Some people develop addictions to control their sadness.
Some people steal things, write things, drink things, cut things, abuse things, abandon things.
Some people spend money, research the best schools, eat organic food, exercise, have sex with strangers, organize, take on huge projects, fly fish, go for a run, eat fast food, masturbate, make money, pick their cuticles, inject heroin, pick fights, isolate, go to work, quote Bible verses, go to bed, make a difference, become ill, cook, buy stuff, put on lipstick, fall in love, go on vacation, smoke weed, smoke fake weed, quit smoking weed, play an instrument, adopt a baby, become an expert, go dancing, argue politics, continue education, have a baby... you get my point, right?

Some people is all people.  

Everybody's got the blues, people, and most people, people, are doing their best.

To those who are not, to myself on a lot of days, to those taking the lazy way out: you will never be truly funny or able to really laugh because you will always be too goddamn sad.         

Life is too short and too hilarious to blind the fuck out of the people around us.
Also, my eyes are getting old and tired of the abuse, as I'm sure yours are too.

Do the work.  Recycle your sadness.  

In the words of my cousin Lauren, "What if our belly buttons are afraid of the dark and they just scream in terror the entire time we wear clothes?"

I think that about sums it up.  

High/Low, anyone?

I am having one of those days where I want to scream and punch kittens and go for a forty-mile run. Grown-up hissy fits are not allowed in our house, so instead I am going to paint our living room. That's right, I decided to do it myself.   Turns out we are too poor for even a Polish painter who calls me Lord: so instead of (or perhaps, in addition to, she discreetly added) screaming and punching, I am going to paint.
Plus some people emailed me and said "YOU CAN DO IT" and complimented my strong jawline, so obviously I agreed with them.  

Off to the hardware store.  Oh, excuse me: le bricolage. (I cannot lie, it is another of my favorite French words).  Je suis un bricoleur.  (I am a handyman).  See how I did that?  I just said it, and now I am a handyman.  Language is incredible.  

Also, I think it's time for a little round of High/Low.

My high for yesterday (because today isn't over yet and I don't want to TALK ABOUT IT) was a moment that began by watching a truly horrible show on television with Arnaud (Carnivale from HBO -- seriously?? The show should be shot.  It is HORRIBLE and is now dead to us.   We started Band of Brothers instead -- he has never seen it.  SO GOOD.  Okay, tangent over).
The sun was coming in our windows with such a ferocious glare that Arnaud decided to put down our massive shutters for a bit (all French people are part vampire, how do I know? What is "vampire" in French?  That's right: vampire), plus he probably wanted to busy himself and have an excuse to not watch the show for a hot minute.

He turned around on the couch on his knees and leaned over towards the window to try to reach the lever behind the couch to pull down the shutters.   As he leaned over I decided, naturally, to startle and hopefully make him scream by poking him in the butthole.
Butthole poking and attempted butthole poking are, for us, normal techniques of annoying each other and I can speak from experience that at the truly "surprise" moment they are unprecedented in their success.

However, at this potentially perfect moment, something happened.

The new rug in our apartment has us absolutely FULL of electricity, so instead of simply poking Arnaud's butthole I shocked the HELL out of it, and my finger, startling us both and causing us both to scream.
We then laughed hysterically, especially because I had instantly broken out into a sweat and was bright red from how much it startled and embarrassed me.

We later high-fived. It was a definite "first" for us.
That was my High.  

My low was getting my fingerprints rejected by the FBI (a 6 week process) because they were "unsatisfactory," not "deep" or "clear" enough.   Good thing I was being bashful and modest with the full curve and shape of my fingerprint grooves.   I was just trying to be hard to get... keep 'em guessing.  I guess I'll have to just suck it up and really show them what I've got this time around.
?????????????????????
IDIOTS.

Ella Donne, you know.

I purchased two giant rugs on Amazon (which does not exist in Belgium, similar to living on the moon) and folded them up and shipped them across the ocean when I was in the USA a few weeks ago.  One rug was for the living room, the other for the bedroom.   In other words, I purchased rugs for our entire home.  

The rugs are gigantic: 13x10 feet.  I did not tell Arnaud about my purchase, and surprised him speechless (in Belgium and France owning a rug of this size is a pipe dream...) When he saw what the box contained he just went silent, stunned.  It took him about an hour to believe that I had not spent all of our money and gone into horrible debt and sold my body a few times in order to buy them.  (They were 250$ each... WHAT? SERIOUSLY!  I think they were probably stolen from a palace and sold on the black market at a 99 percent discount - or perhaps purchased through shady, unethical means and resold on Amazon.com to Americans with no import laws... nah, that last one is just too crazy).   We have been doing somersaults and walking barefoot ever since.

When we woke up this morning Arnaud rolled over, hugged me and said, "Waking up on this new rug makes me feel like Ella Donne."
"Say what?" I responded, picturing a demure, 1940's jazz singer.  
"Waking up on this new rug makes me feel like Ella Donne," he unhelpfully repeated.
"WHO??" I asked again, having absolutely no idea who Ella Donne was or is or thought herself to be.
"Ella, Donne. Ella Donne. You know!! I know you loved him too! When you were a child you loved him!"
By this point I was about to scream.
"Ella Donne is a MAN?" I cried, "I definitely do not know who that is or LOVE him!"

But turns out I did; he was saying Aladdin.

When I finally understood I proceeded to perform, "A Whole New World" in its entirety.

I definitely do love Ella Donne. We might watch it tonight... on our new rug, bien sûr. 

Mon Appartement - le salon - RUG?

I am torn because although I love the hardwood floors in this apartment, I also love the color and texture and warmth the rug provides.  The hardwood is still visible on the periphery of the room -- but I feel a bit cruel covering them.  Thoughts?  

 

HA

I have to admit that I really do say "Winter is coming!" on an almost hourly basis.  It never stops being funny to me - and Arnaud is kind and also genuinely amused by me and gives me a laugh on about 1 out of 4.   This morning he surprised me.  I was getting out of the shower (which, you will see after my bathroom installment, is an almost communal event) and was telling him that I was so excited the sunshine was shining, when he walked up to me holding a few eggs in his hands.  He was preparing to cook them for breakfast, but had an ashen, somber expression on his face.  He looked deep into my eyes, my naked body dripping, my mind racing as to when I had betrayed him with the eggs, when he said in an ominous, emotional voice, "Easter is coming."  

I have not stopped laughing.

Seriously.  I have been laughing all day.  

Aroused by Dutch, the story of a Sexbot misunderstood

The other night I was awakened at 3:00am by a robotic, female voice, clearly audible in our bedroom, coming in from outside.   The voice was distinctly sexual and was telling me in two different languages that I was going to die.

"Attention, attention," she began in French.   This was followed by many French things I did not understand, except for the words, "exit" and "immediately" and "certain painful death by fire."

When the robot finished in French she began in Dutch, only I did not know this at the time.   The Dutch word for attention is "acht", which the robot pronounced with a sing-song, super creepy intonation, like a sex-line for Satan.  The word "acht" sounded like "Ahhhhhhhh, ahhhhhhhhhhh" when the robot said it, over and over and over, the first one high, the last one low, like a song.

She repeated her warning in French and then in Dutch, "Attention, attention..... aahhhhh, aahhhhhhh."

I woke Arnaud after a few minutes of trying to figure out what the hell was happening and also because I was getting super aroused by the Dutch (a very new response to this language for me -- I am really growing up), and when he heard the sexy robot of death he became very afraid.  I guess being able to understand the details of a coming apocalypse is a bit more terrifying than just catching the main jist.

"Wait, actually take off my clothes and jump INTO the pit of flames? OH man, I was WAY off..."

Now, when I say that the sexy robot voice was loud, I need to make sure that you are understanding my meaning. Her voice was so clear from our warm, sweaty bed (it's cold in our bedroom and we need to change the sheets) that it sounded like her robot face was directly outside our 4th story window, mechanically moaning her sexual death warning onto our frigid, 19th century window panes.  "Ahhhhhhhhh, ahhhhhhhhhh."

Arnaud can sleep through just about anything, including his own hysterical nightly laughter -- but sexual death robots seem to be his achilles heel.   Now we know.
  
So there we lay, eyes open, feeling the dread for about half an hour before investigating further.

When we did (which meant, getting out of bed and walking to the window to look out onto the street) we discovered that the moaning seemed to be coming from the museum across the street, but as far as we could see there was not a hint of commotion, movement, light or fire coming from any window of the museum or surrounding building.
The street was eerily quiet, except for the sexbot, probably because it was, by this time, 3:30am.   We decided eventually to call the Belgian equivalent of 911 (which is 112, FYI) and let them know that the alarm was going off at the museum, even if just to be able to sleep for the rest of the night, give ourselves a gold medal for being good citizens, and to get some relief from the growing mixture of terror and arousal growing inside of us.

"Attention, attention......................Aahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, ahhhhhhhhhhhhh."

The Belgian emergency line said they would send someone, but I don't think they did.

The sexy robot did not stop her moaning until 6am.  

She began again at 6:45am.

I am pretty sure that somewhere around the 5am hour Arnaud and I fell into a strange, uncomfortable trance where we stopped caring about life or sleep or each other, and instead envisioned our escape route, naked, over and over.   It's like we went to live inside a robot porno about escaping from a burning building.
"WHY is this SEXY? It's supposed to be INFORMATIONAL!!??" We seemed to scream in our trance world, James Dean style, wanting more information from the night, and then morning, sky.  
"Attention, attention.......Ahhhhhhhh, ahhhhhhhh" is all we ever heard in response.  
____________

I tend to anthropomorphize on an almost continuous basis.  I appreciated my Saab's ass and saw distinct similarities between the face of my Maxima and my father;  I thought about him more than I ever have while I owned that car.   I compliment my cameras, I have my lamps on a sticker chart system, you get the idea.  

Arnaud and I heard a car alarm the other day that was broken.  Or at least, that's what people said about it.  Instead of the normal car alarm sound (ya know, reee errr, reee errrr) this one was going FAR and away higher and being much more creative in its musical reach -- like 4 octives higher.  As I heard the car alarm screech and wail with its fantastic range, unique to his kind, I clearly heard him saying: "I don't want to be a car alarm, I want to SING!"    

I think the sexbot was tired of her life of portraying urgent information -- sure, the museum evacuation alarm is a great job to have, but it's not all she is -- not many people feel like having sex when they need to evacuate a building, am I wrong?  
I think she was trying to break out of the stereotypes she lives with.  Who's to say a fire alarm can't be sexy?  Not I, for one.  Not anymore.  



At random times during the day now I will sing, in the exact intonation of the sex robot's warning, "Ahhhhhhhhhh, ahhhhhhhhh" and Arnaud will shudder, and say "NOOOOOOOOO."  

Maybe that's just the way she likes it.  

Study finds addictions tied to certain days of the week

I MIGHT have just gchatted Arnaud and told him to "please (absolutely make sure without a doubt or I will most likely kill you) pick up bananas and chocolate on the way home"... that's all.      

Mon Appartement - le salon

Okay so before we begin I would just ask that you be a good friend and NOT look at my living room right now, because it is super trashed. 

I know I can trust you, and I know that you would never......



OMG. Seriously? Rude.  NO, it's not funny at ALL. Ugh. Hold on.

**ENTER 7 CUPS OF NESPRESSO AND JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE'S 'LET THE GROOVE GET IN' ON REPEAT**   




Okay, that's better.   No, it's okay - I'm not mad.  

As you can see I did a bit of re-arranging from the way things were situated when we first moved in. The reason for the switch (the couch used to be over by the television on the far left side of the room, now it's, "RIGHT THERE, RIGHT THERE -- LET THE GROOVE GET IN -- THERE-THERE, RIGHT THERE") was that Arnaud and I were not sitting at our little table to eat or to work.

We were instead living on our couch, which is fine (is it though? is it?), but I happen to detest this particular couch, comparing it and all couches for the rest of my life with my beloved couch in Seattle.  They all fail.  I am not over it.  Let me grieve.  

Anyways, watching all of our nightly rituals occur on and around and behind and underneath the evil couch was making me quite the Crankypants McBitcherton.  But how could I change the ritual?  Why were we acting so couch-bound in the first place when we had a perfectly fine little table at which to sit? (grammar five).  

Though I would like to be the exemption to the rule, I certainly am not: we were not sitting at our little table because it was all the way across the room from the television, and the television has the same "centering factor" as a fireplace, at least in our home.  We only watch organic, fair-trade television, of course, so we are still better than most people.  

In order to try to remedy this URGENT predicament (it really was making me SUPER cranky), I decided since the television had to stay in the same corner ("are you comfortable... right there-right there... let the groove get in... there-there right there..."), I would make the couch the 'far away' item of furniture, and put the table close to the TV.
This really changed the room (which is MASSIVE -- the windows are 13x8) into feeling like one big room rather than two little ones, one of which was beginning to feel like the corner we only went to when we were super pissed at the other person (not that that ever happened... we don't fight... ever).  

We still have virtually no furniture, as you can see.  The blue industrial bins (which I am obsessed with) are what Arnaud's parents gave to us to move our few belongings from France to Belgium... I think they are expecting them back soon (which is not going to happen... I will just use the, "Oh my gosh, I didn't understand, again!" card -- but seriously I will beg them and say, "ARE YOU COMFORTABLE -- RIGHT THERE, RIGHT THERE -- LET THE GROOVE GET IN -- THERE-THERE, RIGHT THERE").

Eventually we want a giant bookshelf for the wall behind the couch, and a fabulous bar credenza type thing for the wall beside the table, and also a bird.   Other then that, we just desperately need stuff for the walls.  Here's a few more pictures to get the feel.  
We move the two chairs around all the time -- and the fact that the coffee table and two chairs match was the BIGGEST cluster.  I choose to pretend that I did it on purpose, but let's just say that we had a surprise 'extra' delivery... and everything matched, and it was not supposed to, but we got it for free.  Awkward.  
I like to explain it this way:  Where's the purpleish, gray velour tufted furniture? 
"RIGHT THERE, RIGHT THERE -- THERE-THERE, RIGHT THERE"

Can you see now why I am obsessing on getting the room painted??
It is begging for color.  I think the gorgeous white ceilings will pop even more against a different color.  I found a store half a mile from our house that is a showroom for Farrow and Ball.  I am eyeing this color, if by eyeing you mean obsessing and dead-set on: Skylight

Soon, soon.  (the Polish painter is only an awkward email away).  
After the paint, (which I might do myself because I feel so desperate...honestly, how hard can it be? Pretty hard?  Oh okay)  CURTAINS.  Again, the room is screaming for them, yes???  Those WINDOWS. Kill me now. So beautiful. 

 Stay tuned for the next installment of Mon Appartement... turns out the next installment is a 4 part series about my bathroom.  

Goodness gracious LIGHT bulb

To say someone left a light on is to put it mildly... 

rude.  

William made me cry, again.

It is hard to explain how beautiful the view is from just outside my front door.  It is SO European.  But seriously, it is.  It's Europe.  

The view is of la Grand Place -- and the beautiful church-steeple-looking-castle building is the holy church of beers n'things. Actually it is the Hotel de Ville, and they FINALLY lit it back up with the fantastic lights they used over the holidays.  The giant steeple changes from pink to blue to red to green to yellow... I see new variations every night.  

Why did they re-light on March 28th?  I am hoping someone who knows Brussels a bit better than I will tell me, but for now, I will just say it is because I prayed for this.  

Prayer works.  

There are several musicians who play at night on the platform looking out over the garden with all the lines of trees and funky lighting.  Tonight my favorite musician  was playing.  We will call him William.  William plays the saxaphone, and he always, always makes me cry.   Seriously -- tonight when we walked past him it was barely snowing, and the church of beers n'things was glowing like a cracked out, radioactive Christmas tree of dreams, and this man's jazz was filling up the quiet, empty park, and my SOUL -- you'd have to be dead not to cry.   

Here's a few to try to show you how gorgeous it is.  
William is featured in the third photograph. 

I am LORD

Okay so I have been communicating with this adorable Polish man who I am bartering with to paint our apartment. We have been emailing for a few weeks .. he came by to see the space. The price has gone down 80% because I am awesome/we are poor (the best bartering fuel EVER).
He is really sweet. But he speaks no English or French and I speak no Polish (except TAK TAK which means YES YES) so we communicate only with Google translate.

Our conversations have slowly been getting weirder and weirder.

I told him yesterday that I would contact him after arnaud got paid and tell him if we had money for the paint job, but that it would probably be for April 1st.
His response:

"Well I'm waiting for a message from you Lord. I have also a question because I do not know who writes that with you or with you? Regards Gregory"

I have not a single fucking clue how to respond.

Maybe:
"Gregory, it is me, Lord. It is always me and never me who writes with me. Lord"

AWKWARD CITY.

Luxembourg: done

We went, we froze, we came home. My night and day in Luxembourg City were very cold, and quite lovely.

Here, let me show you.




OH sorry, that's me looking at some beautiful, incredible things.  Too bad you cannot see them.  I think my facial expressions should suffice.


My day began with breakfast at the hotel.   We realized the night before that the hotel was the EXACT HOTEL WE HAD STAYED IN YEARS AGO.   This might have been more incredible had we not then realized that Luxembourg only has about 3 hotels.   This fact bumped the story down from a category Its-a-sign to Coinkidink.

One of the options for breakfast was hardboiled eggs painted in FANTASTIC, brilliant colors. I was instantly inspired and in need of sunglasses.   Which to choose??  Yellow and neon pink?  Royal blue and lime green??   If I did not eat anything else, could I potentially eat all 7 colors??  My daily life is filled with difficult decisions, this day was no different.  I would tell you what colors I chose, but that would give you an excuse not to make up your own mind about what color hardboiled egg you will choose.  Also, there is a picture on my Instagram.  

As I was eating breakfast I was reminded that left to my own devices (and also when not left to them) I am a very angry, immature person.   I have this revelation a few times a day, usually beginning at breakfast.  

Here's what happened.

While I was eating there was also a very talkative toddler eating breakfast with his mother. The toddler had a lot to say, and he said it all in Dutch.   As I listened to him speak (and I am sure asking questions like, "Why is sunshine so silly" and "Why can't we fly to heaven and visit grandpa") I wanted to slap him.   I really, really do not like the way Dutch sounds.   Then, as I turned towards the light of the morning to try to get my Dutch Anger eye-twitch under control, I saw that the street just outside was called "Rue Dicks." (Rue is the French word for avenue). This made me laugh.

And so with my intolerance and immaturity established, I set off into the frigid Luxembourgian day.   I walked for about 6 hours, mostly in an attempt to keep death-by-hypothermia at bay, (WINTER IS COMING) but also because the city is very walkable and quite lovely.


Oh, what's this? 

It appears to be to be a quiet little secluded area with benches and shade from trees, where you can rest in the frigid wind whipping in from the valley and slowly freeze to death. Nothing to see here... nothing on the horizon. What, what is that?? GO on, ZOOM.





Yeah nevermind. It's nothing.



I require hot chocolate every few hours in order to stay alive, and chose this little café called the Art Café to supply me with my lifesource.

Super cute place, right? Everything was decorated in a "theater" theme, and the menu was the first in Europe I have seen in which everything was fair-trade and organic.  It made me think about Seattle and the joys of being an organic, fair-trade snob, which made me happy.  

I realized about halfway through my fair-trade, organic chocolat chaud that I was the only person in the whole place (it's about twice as big as this picture shows, with another room in the back). Luxembourg City was a bit like a ghost town throughout my entire day -- I guess Tuesday mid-day during 23 degree fierce winds with a high of 31 is the perfect time to see a new city.  Filled with fair-trade, free-range, organic, first edition chocolat chaud I kept walking.

Here are a few of the things I saw.




Also of note: my new boyfriend



... we did not have a lot of time together, mostly between when he clicked his heels together, turned around and started walking the other way, but it was enough.  "GOD I love you so much!" I would say, and then he would click, turn and walk.  "You were made for me - I WILL NEVER BETRAY YOU!"  It was a whirlwind of a relationship.  I have no regrets.  


This is me, totally forgetting how to take a selfie (WHY am I leaning back so far?? WHAT am I doing??) 





A cold woman walking: 

I don't have anything else to say about her.  

I ate lunch at a tiny, perfect little French restaurant called l'Adresse on 32 Rue Notre Dam. The owners and staff were all French, and they were the sweetest and most wine-generous folk I have met in a long time. Unfortunately I could pronounce and understand (YAY) everything on the menu, so I ordered the tartare. I also almost died because of how delicious it was, and combined with their suggested wine (something Côtes du Rhône) I was one happy little American.  
A few hours after I sat down for "lunch" I realized that I was the only person left in the little restaurant (this joint had actually been packed for lunch). "Oh, are you closing? Should I leave??" The owner responded, "Oh no NO no NO! You sit and you drink, here, have another glass, stay warm, we have not eaten yet!" As if I would be rude to leave a restaurant before the staff have also eaten after their shifts.  So I stayed, and I kept drinking, and had a really fun conversation with the staff.  
I learned that one owner had moved to Luxembourg from France in order to have better school options for her children. While it is required in France to teach a foreign language (usually English), in Luxembourg it is typical to hear and learn 3 or 4 while in school.  My brain exploded.  
She told me that it is a wonderful place to live, although small and cold. "Walk to the Tourism Office -- on the way there you will see all of Luxembourg!" she joked.
I eventually said good-bye to my new friends in order to meet Arnaud, who had finished with his work for the day.   

And now what you've all been waiting for.   These were taken at a bar/lounge/restaurant/strip club (just joking, but geeze it looks like one) calld ZanZen.  

He really is one of those people that is always begging to be kissed.  

So I did.  I KISSED HIM, OKAY??  

Luxembourg City.  Over and out.  So glad to be back in Brussels.  Also, my throat hurts today.  That's what I get for sleeping with a guy I met in a strip club.  

To view the photos in a more concise way click here 

Luxembourg: the original cute and tiny

Tomorrow I am spending the day in Luxembourg.

A few fun filled facts: 
Luxembourg is a country - I did not know this until recent years. (HOMESCHOOLED).

There are just over 500,000 people living in Luxembourg.
"OMG, It's SO CUTE AND TINY!" said Germany, Belgium and France, Luxembourg's bordering countries.
"UGH, stop calling me CUTE, IDIOTS." Luxembourg responded.

I know, it sounds made up, but here's a recent picture of Luxembourg:



Now you understand. 


The last time I was in Luxembourg was during a freezing, rainy weekend with my sweet man.  We made love like never before, and the architecture made us weep. Nope.
One of those is private, the other is a lie.

The true story is we were so bored that we spent most of the day in H&M buying Arnaud clothes.  This scenario should show you that we really were quite desperate. Shopping is included in Arnaud's particular version of Hell.

So yes, tomorrow I am spending the day in Luxembourg. Arnaud will be working. I will be not working.  

My plans for the day include not going to H&M, walking around, being cold, wiping my nose on my hand because I always forget Kleenex when I travel, eating as many times as I physically can, washing my hands before I eat, only ordering things to eat that I have never heard of/cannot translate, and taking pictures.  

Stay tuned.  

How I received my French residency card: a story of breasts revealed.

The person with whom I feel most at home was born and raised in a different country. His brain thinks in a language from another mother.   He and I both pursue the other's respective language, and connecting with words is a feat that does not come naturally to us (and girl, it normally comes naturally to me, let me just TELL you).
When I can make him laugh in French (it's a very different sounding laugh, more of a "héhé" than a "haha") it is as if I have successfully traversed a land mine.   Actually no, it feels like a reverse land mine, one where I am running around like a dog who has just pooped, looking everywhere for the explosion... is THIS the mine? is THIS it? Where the hell is it?!

The explosion caused by successful, bilingual communication feels like magic to me - probably because of my adult-learner status.   I can say words that seem like jibberish and thereby communicate.  When I accomplish this I feel decidedly like a wizard.  'It's just a different language!'  I can hear all the fluent bi, tri, octi-lingual people exclaim upon hearing my amazement.  (Only they probably said it in Russian or Mandarin.) And it is.  But those people are creepy, and I will never be like them.   Get AWAY from me.  I don't WANT to play.   (I'm just jealous and I desperately want to play).

I think speaking French will always make me feel like a child discovering they can pour their own milk or touch their own genitals.  Touch here, feel pleasure.  Say something that sounds like, "blabity bloonkie wonkie ween, nanky, nanky funky klees", and people understand that I was raised in Texas and have four siblings.   I'M A WIZARD.

I am currently living in Belgium with my husband Arnaud (he is French... with a name like that you never know) learning French.   It became clear several years ago that for many reasons my sweet man would NOT in fact be moonlighting as my teacher.   He is, how shall we say, a terrible French teacher.   He also loves the shit out of me most days for exactly who (or really close) I am - a trait always disappointing to discover in your partner.  However he is extremely good in bed and is so hot that I sometimes wonder if his Mom slept with sex angel or a cartoon character, so I let his lack of teaching ability slide...into my nether region.

My teachers have instead been Monsieur Internet and Madame Rosetta Stone, who have both helped me articulate many fine sentences in many important categories, including, 'jumping over fences', 'eating rice' (in all forms - a man eating rice, women having eaten their rice, even a boy NOT eating the rice, scandalous though it was) and falling off one's bicycle (followed by asking for and/or refusing a BandAid, of course).

Arnaud has been very patient with me, but a man can only eat rice, watch equestrian television, and let me role-play, "Fall off the bicycle" in bed for so long.   The man has his limits.  French limits. (so, like a normal limit but with tongue).   He craves lobster and Game of Thrones and doggie style.  "NON," I say firmly in French, to ensure he understands.  "My vocabulary is not big enough for those wild shenanigans."   This phrase is not actually said aloud, as I do not know the word for "shenanigans" in French, so instead I clink my chopsticks together and ask him curtly for a BandAid.

Only recently have my studies managed to catch up to my desire to say meaningful, adult, everyday things, including:
"OMG that thing or event or sound or person we are talking about right now is SO crazy/funny/annoying/awesome!"
General profanity
"Totally."
"I don't feel like talking right now."
"Wake up! This episode of Game of Thrones is not over yet."
"Do you think these chicken breasts are bad?"
"Daenerys' boobs are SO hot! Yeah, now you're awake."
....etc

Arnaud is thrilled my French vocabulary is expanding.


When I moved to Europe my intention was to learn French in France.   This plan seemed good to me for obvious reasons, and also because I love cheese.   After many months of paperwork, driving to San Francisco and showing Skype my tits many times, I finally acquired a visa for France. I then moved there and lived happily ever after.

"UP UP UP!", as Arnaud says ("Up up up!" means, "NOT so fast"), NOT so fast.

During the first three months of living in France the immigration office, called OFII, requires a final meeting in order to finalize a visa, finally... the finalé, if you will.   This visit to an OFII office takes several hours and in my case required over 40 people with the same "appointment time" to go through five different offices before receiving the magical sticker (residence card) on our passports. The anxiety in the room was palpable: imagine a DMV office where you had to acquire 5 different stamps of approval, one with your shirt off, from 5 different pissed off DMV ladies in order to renew your license - and if you DID NOT renew your license, you had to leave your family and get whipped and spat at and called 'Boob.'  Stressful.   I added a few things in, but that's pretty much how it felt.

side note: Most official offices in France and Belgium open at 8:30 or 9am, similar to the USA.   However what is NOT similar is that for many offices you will not be seen if you are not in line sometimes hours before the office's official opening time. For example, in Brussels Arnaud and I arrived at 7am for an opening time of 8:30, just to get a number.   The couple behind us was the last couple to get a number for that day.  True story.  We then all had to wait about 5 hours to be helped. My American brain exploded.

The first room was where we watched a video showing the amazingness of France, showcased by numerous shots of the Eiffel tower, happy children, Hospitals (free), university (free) and soldiers (for protection... from WHAT you ask? Exactly).   The national motto for France is, "Liberté, égalité, fraternité," and the film examined each of these for about 10 minutes.  All in French, of course.    

If I ever want to get Arnaud in a really good mood I just say, "Liberté, égalité, fraternité!" and he sits up straight, smiles and tries to kiss me.   French people are like Texans in how much they love their country.   I think the Texas version is something like, "Trucks, guns, barbecue sauce!"  We go fuckin' crazy if you say that.  

The film ended, and then began again.  It was on repeat.   The man who had pressed "play" had left the room.  I looked around to see the response of my fellow shiny-sticker-pursuers.   Not a single person moved.  All 40 people sat watching the television, pretending that it had not just started over.   No one wanted to make waves.  So I decided to take one for the team, and because I really did not want to watch the video again, and got up and wandered around the hallways until I found a room full of administrative people drinking coffee.

"Excuse-moi, désolé, je pense le film se répète!"
I had practiced this phrase as I wandered through the hallways, knowing that I had to fake my French in order to get that magical sticker.   The man who had originally pushed play turned to me with a twinkle in his eye and said... well, I don't know exactly what he said, but what I heard was, "film... très bien... voulez-vous... une fois de plus?"   And from this, combined with the twinkle in his eye, I realized he was being funny and saying that since it is such a good film, I probably want to watch it again, yes? 

I responded, "Oohhh non. Sil-vous plaît Monsieur, NON!"
I then acted like it would kill me to watch it again, and my dramatic show made him laugh, and also inspired him to stop the torture by patriotic film in the next room.

With the film room complete we were herded to a second and third room where papers were checked and passports were verified.   The next room was the ominous x-ray for tuberculosis.  In this room I was asked to remove my shirt and bra in a small private room with a door behind me and door in front of me.   I was then whipped repeatedly.  Just joking.  

When the doctor in the room in front of me knocked on my door, that meant it was my turn to walk in and get my tits photographed.   The doctor was very young, and asked me to press myself against the glass of the machine and to hold my breath.   He then asked me if I was enceinte.   I did not know what this meant, and my mind was racing through my lessons... rice, bicycles, falling, climbing trees... enceinte??  He finally translated for me, "Are you pregnant?"   I was FURIOUS!   I might be a little bloated because of all the cheese but JESUS, how rude was this guy??   Rude.   I curtly said "Non," in French so he would understand, and then turned and pressed my tits harder against the glass, nose very high. "Are you sure?" he asked me in English.   Rude rude rude.   I did not look at him this time, and spoke in English, "No." He was quiet.  I then had to correct myself because I had meant,"Yes", I was sure I was not pregnant.   Being offended is extremely awkward while topless and pressed against glass.  

I realized a few minutes later that he asks everyone that question, because it's an X-RAY.  

After the x-ray I wandered back out into the main area and stood with all the other people who had just been topless with the rude young pregnancy obsessed doctor.   We all stood around a GIANT printer (the prints were life size, about 20x30 inches), and waited for our x-ray to emerge.   The only way to tell whose x-ray was whose was by reading a TINY typed name at the top corner of the print.   A few began to emerge, each fully visible to everyone in the room, all of us standing, silent, terrified, hard-nippled immigrants.  I laughed a little too loud when I saw mine.  I am always shocked when I see my scoliosis in all of its glory, and this was one of its finest moments.   The x-ray showed two lungs, two fantastic tits, two crooked hips and a spine that snaked violently, four sharp curves from my neck down to my tailbone.  It was definitely me.

The next room was the first of the doctors.   Her office was a private one and she began by having me remove my shirt in order to take my blood pressure.  I was used to it by now.  I was also nervous that she would hear my heart murmur and call in the guards to escort me to a Texas bound plane.  But she didn't seem to care.   She then examined the x-ray and listened without smiling to my joke about how it's a good thing she wasn't testing for crooked spines.   EY??? YEAH???
Sometimes I have these clear moments where I realize that I am like a small dog that cannot stop barking.  
She ended by asking me if I was pregnant, and I once again did not understand.  
Have I mentioned I am an adult learner?  Enceinte?? WHAT?  "Are you pregnant?"  Damn it.

Next room.   Again a private office, again called in by a woman in a white lab coat.   I entered and was told to sit.  The woman then asked me to,
"Sil-vous plaît retirer votre manteau et sa chemise."
Or at least this is what I thought she said.   I heard her ask me to, "Please remove your coat and shirt."  
This made sense, because let's be honest, most of my goddamn morning and afternoon had been spent topless.  So I obeyed.  
I removed my coat and whipped off my shirt, and then saw that the woman was looking at me like I was LEGIT crazy.  
Her face was priceless -- it was a perfect, frozen combination of confusion and amusement.   "Non," she said, the tiniest smile on her tilted face. "Non, non, non."  
What she had actually said was,
"S'il vous plaît retirer votre manteau et des chaussures," coat and SHOES, not coat and shirt.
She had just wanted to weight me and check my height.

When I realized that I had whipped off my shirt when asked to take off my shoes, I LOST it laughing.   I apologized profusely, saying "OH mon dieu, j'ai trop nerveux pour entendre! Pardon moi!" ("OH my god, I am too nervous to hear! Sorry!") She had virtually no response, just the tiniest little smile and a twinkle in her eye.
"C'est pas grave... pas grave," she assured me.
This is one of my favorite French phrases, "pas grave" translates "its not grave"... "no big deal."  

Arnaud and I now have an inside joke where I pretend to take off my shirt whenever I cannot understand something in French.

I went to one more office and had a few more tests, during which I did not remove my shirt, before receiving my shiny new residence card sticker in my passport. And then it was done.

I could work in France! I could live in France!
Liberté, égalité, fraternité!!  
Was I enceinte? NO! I had learned a new word, AND I was not pregnant!
All was good in the world.
Well, all was good in France.

Because you see Arnaud had already accepted a job offer in Brussels, Belgium.   We live in Belgium, remember?   I now have to start the whole process over again in order to obtain a Belgian Visa.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Magic wands, Ohio and virginity: if I had a nickel.

Recently during a quiet evening of working across the table from my sweet man, candle lit, music playing, dinner cooking, drinks a'sipping, I suddenly remembered something.  The something had been so dormant in my mind, so buried in my subconscious, that I felt amazement the scene in my mind was real.   I am rarely brought to hysterical laughter from a thought produced within my own, lonely head, (I usually require the chemistry of two or more gathered) but this one was quite enough.

I laughed so hard that Arnaud finally put away his work and said, "Tell me." I had to consciously gather myself before speaking. "Well," I began, snorting a few times, "I just remembered this one time many years ago my ex-husband and I played a "special" as they called it, for his sisters wedding. I played the violin, and he played the piano."
I fell immediately back into gasping, howling laughter, so deeply amused by my own story that breathing seemed secondary.
"Oh pookie, come on here." He said with a smile.
This is the broken-English phrase Arnaud uses to say "get over here" when he hugs me.  I don't correct him because I love it so much; I hope he doesn't read this.

He understood. Even though he really didn't.   Christ, he had been in France discovering his body and about to turn 14 when I stood in front of that congregation and made music with my ex for the glory of god and holy matrimony.  But he understood enough to know that playful comfort was what I needed in the midst of my ROFL time.

There are muscles in me that can only be exercised and developed through laughter. Some people do not understand this fact. They understand that laughter is contagious and heartwarming, it makes people's eyes soften and transcends language barriers and tastes delicious in both dairy and soy, but laughter is also very hard work.   Babies have tummy time, I have ROFL time: in the end we both put our heads wearily on the ground and give out a little whiny cry of exhaustion. "I am finished," we seem to/literally say. "I'd like some breastmilk/vodka now."

I am a teenager, playing the violin in a church in Ohio, a virgin, accompanied by my future husband on the piano.

Why is this memory so funny to me? Certainly I am different now; I have changed. (I got laid!)  But even if I had changed every aspect of my life, body, sexuality and religion I would still expect to look at who I once was and say, "Yes, that was me - and now it is not."  So why am I so damn tickled?!


I have always given people the impression that I am "mature."   I know exactly what I mean by this, because you see, I am mature.   (I never said I stopped).  

As a baby I was advanced verbally, like a sassy little alien stuck inside a tiny, sickly body.   When I was a child I remember yearning to be seen as "one of the gang" by the grown-ups.  I read David Copperfield when I was 11. (NERD).   I was the oldest of five siblings, homeschooled by my Mama and was daughter of a Bible church preacherman.
I received accolades beyond description for my Bible memorization and leadership skills at summer Bible camp.  I could make people laugh.  I was a beautiful ballet dancer, an adequate violin player, a class clown, and a Jesus freak.   I was told I was special, the cream of the crop, a valuable member of God's army against the world. Jesus was the reason for the season, truth was absolute, and I loved eyeshadow.   I wore combat boots and a violet plastic dress to a public-schooler's prom (he had blue hair). I picketed against abortion alongside my tearful Father and later alone at my Bible college.  I was going to stay a virgin until I got married.
And so I was dubbed "mature" - like a "gifted child" title, but for Christians.

It wasn't true.   Or maybe it was.  All I know is that I did not know what I was doing at any given moment of my life.   I was a normal child - but like magic I could wave my maturity wand, and a spell would cast a hue of rightness on everything I did or did not do.  And so I waved that fucker, hard.


The wand stopped working a few years ago. For a time I could be found alone, waving and waving and waving that wand.   I wacked it against the wall, covered it in neosporin, put it through the wash, put it in my vagina. "It has always worked... this must be right... pleaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaase work... I cannot have been so completely, fantastically wrong. FUCK."

When I was 19 my wand was working perfectly.  I decided to marry a handsome, outgoing, smart, Christian man I met at Bible College. He and I would live in a far away land called Seattle, and I would be a real woman. I saved my virginity for him, even from him, until we were married. He did not, but had tried his hardest and God forgave him, and that was what really mattered.

The years that followed were so dark and so sad that they feel less like a life and more like a bad dream, only instead of waking up I waved my wand.  "This is right. This is marriage."

The years went on.

Other women, the never ending, all encompassing thrill of addiction, fear, rage, hurt, contempt, sexual starvation amidst sexually charged perversion.   He confessed to me constantly, enamored by his chaos and distracted and exhausted by his own struggle, as was I.  "I watched porn while you were out with my shirt pulled over my eyes so I could not see it."  Excuse me?   My soul and body continually read: Response: Unknown.   There was not a single inch of room for me to exist, which made things easier.  But it also made me furious.   My rage could have filled up the sky and blackened out all the stars.  I gripped my wand with an iron fist: magic don't fail me now.

The wand stopped working after seven years of marriage.   Even magic can't be that full of shit.


I am a teenager, preparing to play the violin in a church in Ohio.  I am accompanied by my future husband on the piano.  I am a virgin. The scene is washed in the hue of rightness.   I look to him for comfort before we play -- his eyes skitter across the crowd, darting from face to face.  He adjusts his shirt and does not look at me.   He begins.


I tend to feel and see my life with a sense of grandeur. "No shit," says everyone I know. I blame growing up with a magic wand of rightness.   But regardless the reason, removing magic from a scene is awkward.


I did not want to play the violin for that wedding.  I did not want to wear a dress and panty hose for Jesus and feel a thousand churchy eyes on me.   I did not want to marry that boy and live unseen in chaos and darkness for seven years.   I did it because I was mature, and it was the right thing to do.   Because I had no idea how to exist without the chaos, without being special and right.   I did these things and a thousand others because my wand protected me from ever having to feel what I wanted.   I never had to just see my life simply as it was.

I think that is why the scene was so hilarious to remember the other night, as I sat across from my sweet man, having a quiet, ordinary evening: because without the hue of rightness, without the darkness and the magic and the grandeur, the remembered scene is just miserable, stiff and awkward, as was I.  

And it turns out awkward is not only hilarious, it is also quite endearing.

"Oh pookie, come on here."

My Plans for Friday Night (tonight)

I am giddy that it is Friday: A REAL Friday.
In the past Fridays have seemed more like Sundays for me. Fake Fridays. 'Mind-fuck Frydees', as Mama used to call them.
"OH Friday" I always said, "You seem like SUNDAY."

Being a wedding photographer means that Saturday is work day (WEDDINGS ARE ALWAYS SO HAPPY AND WONDERFUL, LA LA LA), making Friday the prepare-and-feel-stressed-and-refrain-from-going-out-late-or-drinking-too-much day (aka: Sunday).

However, I now find myself bound in holy matrimony to a person (he's a man, I'm sick of playing the pronoun game with you) with a job requiring "traditional hours."

Watching him in his normal routine has been like my very own wildlife channel -- a private channel to observe his bizarre, foreign behaviors.
Behaviors like setting his alarm for 6am, only to then use the snooze button for 45 full minutes. Why not just sleep the extra 45 minutes, I think to myself, not mad at all from being woken up every 5 minutes every morning from 6am-6:45am.
Why, I'm a non-traditional job holder, I realize. I couldn't possibly understand. You know nothing, Jon Snow.

My man works hard, often coming home much too late, bleary eyed and so exhausted that he cannot remove his suit and tie without some help (he is SO sexist - also the new JT album is fantastic). Sometimes we attempt some conversation in this strange, pre-collapse twilight.

"How was your day?" he might ask, "What did you do?" Rude.

I might respond, "Nothing. It's Tuesday. What did YOU do?"

He might then tell me he is SO glad to be home and to see me, and give me a giant hug and pull me into a perfect French kiss (get it?), and then say with a sigh, "I worked. All day."

So sexist, right? I mean, how does he think his working so hard affects ME in my non-working state?! I can't believe him.
He obviously has a lot of growing up to do.

Despite his endless selfishness, I forgive him, and am giddy that it is a real Friday.  Friday means two full days with my (rude) man... and of not waking up every five minutes from 6am-6:45.

The plan for the night involves extremely comfortable lingerie (it's for ME you perv, stop imagining Arnaud in lingerie... but seriously, I know it's hard to stop), dinner about 50 feet from our front door, here (the tag line makes me laugh: So Tasty So Italian), followed by Arnaud making me my new favorite dessert.

He should never have revealed to me that he could make it.  He calls it, Chocolat Banane Vodka Yum

Chocolat Banane Vodka Yum
All you need to make this recipe is:
1 French husband
3 bananas (which I normally hate in desserts)
Chocolate
Vodka (which I normally love in everything)
An oven

Directions: Tell the French husband you are dying for his special dessert, and wait 30 minutes.

MMMM, yummy!  So easy!  

Please do not wear white to my blog wedding. Seriously, I will be super pissed.

It has recently come to my attention that I am living in a foreign country with exactly zero of my friends nearby. The most accessible friend is an eight hour plane ride away, which isn't bad unless you consider that it's actually really bad, hence realizing it is way more badder than you originally thought.

Through a tale involving sorcery and nudity I am currently living in Brussels, Belgium with my sweet man, Arnaud, who is both a sorcerer and nude.  I am not working (unless of course you consider my daily workouts and dish-washing to be work, which I DO) and am devoting all of my time to learning French.  Putain de merde.   See? Already learned it.

It has also come to my attention that my lonely, isolated, foreign, happy, bizarre life is interesting.  A friend recently told me that I "have so much to say."   Rude.   I think perhaps this was code for my friend telling me that my life is such a clusterfuck that I really should be making money by flashing my life-tits to the world.  If so, that actually sounds much more appealing than being interesting.  I'll take it.

So, in honor of ending isolation and flashing life-tits, I hereby renew my vows to my blog.  Blog, take my hand.  Good.  Blog, we have been together for many years but for the past few I have really not been connecting with you on any level. I know you've been there, staring at me like a goddamn fool, never changing... I know you have tried to be available, but I just haven't given a damn, ya know?   "Good-night, blog." I have seemed to say each night. "No touchy.... NO, no touchy."

Well, blog, it's time to touchy.   It's time to get really, really dirty like we used to get. I'm gonna take you to a scary divey blues club and dance all up on your, block? blick? blody?, until I offend at least half the crowd and just when you think we're done I'm gonna, write another blog.  Damn it.  Analogy lost.  

(give it time... I'm out of practice).  

In recent years my blog has been primarily for posting photographs from my business and sometimes pretentious writing from my soul and nether regions.  There will still be some pretentious writing (as the saying goes, "you can take the girl out of the pretentious writing, but you'll never take the pretentious writing...") and some photos, but the bulk of my 'advertising' will be on my business facebook page from now on. Information I share on my blog will be because I want to share it, so, I will be posting about all the important things in life: relationships, fly-fishing, music, ongoing face breakouts and how to pretend to manage them, Belgian beer, what to cook for dinner, how to make my apartment not look like a poor person lives here, etc.  

The sun is out in Brussels today.  The first time in a very long time.  
 

Cheers to telling isolation to fuck itself, because it is obviously alone, so it will have to take care of it's own needs. YEAH.  Sucks to be you, isolation.  Sucks so hard.

Plan visit Seattle because I miss it terribly: check.

1 + 1 = I need a drink

I really do love Seattle.   

 

And I really do love this man.  

2011: My Year

I know – this is late.  For those smartasses out there, “this year” means 2011, not 2012. 

 

This year began in my beautiful Narada apartment overlooking Seattle with the ferries floating across the sky.  Arnaud was with me as the New Year arrived: he was with me in my life and bed and heart.  
He was also with me when I realized that I was undeniably broke.  I don't know what I would have done had he not been with me.  

I left my beautiful home in order to save money, and I have missed it every day since.   I did not realize at that point that 2011 would be a year of homesick wandering.   

We moved in February to a house-share in Capitol Hill where we joined homes with a person who was crazy as shit for a little under 2 months: it was hell.  Arnaud and I spent most of our time at bars just to stay away from the creepiness that was our home.  

Our housemate would not flush the toilet (environmental reasons), he covered the windows in plastic to keep out the cold, and he refused to turn on the heat (as in, he would get up in the middle of the night and turn it off if we turned it on).   Combine all these delightful attributes with also being a control freak, neurotic, nocturnal asshole, and this housemate lands the number one spot for 2011 Person I Would Most Love to Punch in the Throat.  

One morning as I came downstairs, already feeling annoyed by the inevitable encounter I was about to have, I heard, “Hey, can you bring back the batteries you took out of my remote?”  
As you may have already guessed, Arnaud and I had not taken the batteries from his remote.  In fact, I had a virtual barrel filled with batteries in my apartment – the notion that we would go downstairs in the cold, find his ancient remote and open it for some batteries from 1986 was a bit ridiculous, which is what I told him (in a nicer way, of course).  He responded, “Oh really? So I guess the batteries just jumped up and went on vacation, all by themselves?” 
He continued to leave notes saying “Please return batteries!!” for the next week on his remote so Arnaud and I could see. 

When we moved out a few weeks later he refused to return me the deposit until I threatened to call the police because we had “stolen his remote.”  Looking back I am truly grateful we were not murdered in our sleep.   His weapon of choice would probably have been a remote. 

 

I acquired a 2001 Saab --- in order to drive it I had to learn to drive a stick.  Arnaud taught me.  It is a miracle he still loves me.   I cannot imagine going back to an automatic.  I already knew that driving could be sexual, but I had never even HEARD of the positions that come from driving a stick.  Hot.    

 

In March I found out that a bizarre resident manager position I had applied for (along with three other young, thin, blond women – all of who had been led to believe they already had the job) and not received was again open – funny how in retrospect you can see what you should have done.   I might have asked, “So, why is the other girl already leaving after 1 month?”  But I chose the response, “HOORAY!”  Free rent in exchange for managing an apartment complex, and an easy way to escape a remote-obsessed psychopath equals turning a very blind eye to the obvious. 

So Arnaud and I moved again, out of the crazy house-share, and into the winner of “Worst Boss I Have Ever Had” category.   My boss, the owner of the apartments and a psychiatrist for sociopaths (seriously), turned out to also be a neurotic control-freak asshole, and was very obviously working out his issues on his apartment manager.   How can I know this for sure?  I can’t.  However, I did find out that I was manager number 23 in 5 years… the job provides a beautiful apartment in a beautiful neighborhood… and for 23 different people, it was not worth it to stay.  During the two months with the crazy boss I acted as maintenance woman, leasing agent and onsite manager… if anyone has a 1920’s bathtub that is leaking, I promise you I can fix it.   It was a “valuable” experience to work for someone who quite literally was never happy or even remotely satisfied with my work. 

 

I ran a Living Social ad and sold 448 coupons.  I ran another a few months later because I am a masochist: all in all I acquired almost 800 new clients in 2011.

Having this many clients is like driving a car: I love to drive, and I will continue to bitch about the traffic.

I met three other women, RANDOMLY, who had also been played by a certain gentleman in my past whose name rhymes with Paed Nalhas.  It’s a small, small world.   I really want to make a poster with his face on it, and the only words will be “Do you think he’s your boyfriend?  SO DID I!” 

 

In May Arnaud and I spent a week in Cozumel, Mexico.  It was the most magical vacation of my life – I think “Cozumel” has replaced the “heaven” archetype in my psyche.   I could be sweaty, half asleep and slightly drunk with Arnaud for a very long time. 

 

I got skunked on the Deschutes River for two days.  Arnaud and I stayed in a stinky hotel room right on the river and almost got caught by a fishing policeman dude (my fishing license had expired… and I am a lazy ass).  We got trashed at the Deschutes brewery and I learned that getting skunked can be really, really fun. 

 
I fished every chance I got, and Arnaud caught his first, second, third, fourth and fifth trout on a single trip to the Cedar River.  I have rarely been so proud. 

 

I drank a lot of sake with Arnaud, and we played a lot of cards. 

 

In June Arnaud and I moved out of the free apartment for the sake of our souls, and house-sat and dog-sat for my friends Rae and Rob for three months in their beautiful home.  During this time I fell in love with their two dogs, Oscar and Harvey.  I also fell more deeply in love with Arnaud from watching him interact with those dogs.

 

One of the dogs (Oscar) has some major issues.  Before Rae and Rob went on their trip Oscar began biting random people during his walks.  He is a small dog, but was doing some major below-the-knees damage in the neighborhood.  Because of this ongoing problem he was introduced to the muzzle, and Oscar, hated, that, muzzle. 

He didn’t fight getting it on, just a timid little twist of his head, but when it was announced, “OSCAR! Time for a walk!” he would now run and cower beneath the coffee table or couch, just out of reach, dreading the moment that muzzle restricted his ability to chew grass and wound old women.   
My response to this behavior was to fish him out, or to firmly call him to, “COME NOW”, or to take Harvey out alone in order to show Oscar that he needed to buck up and stop being a pussy. 

Then one day I watched Arnaud take the dogs out.   He walked to the door and announced the walk (I think they have a special connection because they are all French), and after putting the leash on Harvey he just stood by the door and waited.  And stood.  And waited.  And waited. 
He waited a full five minutes – and in my world that is almost out of my capacity to comprehend.   
I was skeptical (to say it nicely), thinking thoughts like, “JESUS, just GO GET HIM,” and other such dainty, sparkly phrases.   But after five minutes Oscar came slinking out from under the couch, slowly, slowly towards Arnaud and that muzzle. 
As I watched him slink towards Arnaud I felt my chest clench – I could see from his little body that he desperately wanted to go outside, but he really hated that muzzle.  Arnaud’s gentleness and patience let him figure out what he really wanted, and did not punish him when he finally figured it out at his own pace.  

 

I love this man who waits for me patiently while I am writhing and cowering under my proverbial couch, trying desperately to figure out what I really want.  His patience and gentleness continue to astound me. 

 

Arnaud left a few weeks after the house and dog sitting began.  He went back for many reasons, and when he left we did not know when we would see each other again. 
His departure undid me. 

 

My Mom and my brother came to visit me after Arnaud left – I felt their love through a haze of depression.  My family’s unconditional love is always there in my life – this year was no exception. 

I saw James Blake with my friend Trapper and fell so hard before the concert that I thought I had broken my leg.  I sat on the ground and watched with amazement as my shin sprouted an apple sized ball of swelling before my eyes.    

My friend Rae had been in the final stages of building a triplex in Capitol Hill when she left town, and in her absence I took over the project, acting as her stand-in as best I could.   I could not believe the amount of work involved, and was truly exhausted when she returned.   

Two of the guys who were building the triplex took me bait fishing in September – I caught on pretty fast and brought in three king salmon and quite a few rocks.  I still prefer fly fishing, of course, but it was magic to bring in fish that were basically my size.      

 

When Rae and Rob returned I put all of my belongings in storage where they remained for the next 2 and a half months.  

 

In the Fall I read the SOIAF series by George R.R. Martin and the Hunger Games trilogy --- You know nothing, Jon Snow… Peeeeta.   

 

I went to Toronto for the film festival in September, and got stuck there because of a stolen passport.  I had lunch with Iko Uwais and heckled (during the horrific film Anonymous) with Brendan Meyer, and saw some really amazing films (and some really, really bad ones).     

This year I finally admitted that knowing someone since childhood does not trump the reality of him being an asshole.  Or maybe I had just finally had enough… it often takes me way too long to say goodbye to a man.  

 

I bought a painting from Joseph Arthur after watching him perform for the umpteenth time.  During the concert I felt my friend Heather’s unborn baby dancing to the music.   Smart boy.  (Isaac was born in December, adding another member to one of my favorite families).  

 

I spent October and part of November with Arnaud in Europe. 

 

We went to Antwerp and looked at diamonds. 

We went to Amsterdam and had the best night of dancing to date - one of those nights where truly no one else exists and you can’t stop laughing. 

We went to Paris and finally went up the Eiffel Tower, which I hated.  We later found that Arnaud’s car had been towed, leaving us stranded in Paris at 4am in the freezing cold.  We stumbled to a random hotel for the night – the guy tried to overcharge us but ended up making a mistake and giving us the room for about 30 dollars – and for some reason that night is one I know will be in my mind when I die.  It was a clusterfuck, but it was perfect.   The wallpaper was so green in that room that it seemed to glow in the dark.  

We went to Brussels and Ath and ate Chinese food way too often and cooked food and did so many lunges after a run one day that we could hardly walk the next.   The beer really is as good as they say in Belgium. 

 

Leaving him in November was agony, as being with him was the closest thing to home I had felt in months.  

The day before I left we were out running errands and I was sitting in the passenger seat scowling, trying not to cry.  At some point I realized I needed to either tell him what I was feeling or beat out the windshield with my face, so I turned to him and said, “OH Arnaud, I just feel like BAWLING!”

He looked into my eyes, and said, “Then Charis, we will go bowling.”

This year I experienced the endless joys and frustrations of language difference. 

 

When I got back to Seattle I signed a lease on a beautiful, huge 2 bedroom, 2 bath apartment in Capitol Hill with a gas fireplace and a loft.   It was a stunning space, and my loneliness expanded to fill every room - my loneliness there was mind numbing.  

 

I ended my 6-year not-seeing-Over the Rhine marathon, and in fact DID see them in concert.  It was one of the most beautiful concerts of my life (thank you Meghan). 

 

I spent Christmas in France with Arnaud’s family and New Year’s in Haute Savoire.  We ate home made foie gras and sledded down a mountain in the Alps. 

We went to Luxembourg and spent most of our time in H&M because of how boring it was.   

 

We celebrated my birthday together in Brussels the day before I returned to my lonely apartment, and it was the perfect end to a perfect trip. 

This year I felt homesick for the entire year.  

This year I worked so hard that I often felt I could not get enough air.  

This year I felt more lonely than I ever have before (I thought that was LAST year!?) 
 _______________________

It is January 24^th, 2012 as I write this, and I am 2 days away from moving back into the Narada… almost exactly one year, to the day, from when I moved out.  It's weird how I often don't connect things until I write them.   I broke my lease on the huge, lonely apartment.  My stomach hurts at the thought of moving again, but there is no doubt in my mind that I am going home.  

 

I feel exhausted as I recap my year.  I continue to be baffled by how security and stability elude me.  I know some version of those things is coming soon, it has to, but I am so tired of waiting for it that I could go bowling.  

And yet with all the exhaustion and homesickness there is gratitude brimming out of my eyes on a daily basis.  I am so fucking lucky.  I really am. 

When my eyes close at night and when they open in the morning, in those moments when I think about who I am and what I have, I am only grateful.  I am grateful, I am grateful.  

She's not fragile; She's my joy.

I am currently spending seven weeks in Belgium with the man I love.  He and I are in what the kids are calling a "long distance relationship" (oh, those crazy kids).  

For those of you who do not understand this confusing, cryptic phrase, it describes (from my understanding and from the help of urbandictionary.com): "Two people who love each other enough to touch tongues on a daily basis but live far enough away from each other to cause intense sexual, emotional, logistical, conversational, political, existential, denominational, geological and even sometimes (there have been reports) nutritional longing." 
 
"Why on earth would two people do this?" you might ask.  And I might respond, "Yeah, seriously... love is for FOOLS", but then I might recover and answer more maturely, "I am doing it because my man is French, I have no choice!"  And then you might say, "Oh là là! How romantic!"  And I might respond, "Yeah, but he lives in FRANCE."  And you might respond again, "Oh là là! How romantic!"
And then I might walk away and order a beer, and wonder why I have portrayed you yet again as a complete idiot in my imaginary conversation.  

I am so in love with my sweet man, and having a man who does not live in this massive "here" that is the United States (AMERICA, FUCK yeah) is indescribably hard.  Yet these two realities continue to co-exist, though I have done my damndest to snuff out the flame.  

I think my heart must be douced continuously in lighter fluid (the lighter fluid of love -- what? Oh that's right, I said it) -- there is a definite leak somewhere -- because I continue to want to touch tongues with this man enough to wait.  
And I hate waiting.   


____________________________


A friend and I were talking the other day about how joy is like a vagina. That is the end of my story.  

No just joking, there is more.  But that would be funny, right? If I just left it like that?  Maybe strange colloquial expressions and gestures might develop... "Oh JOY" someone might yell, as they slapped or grabbed their vaginal region, similar to guys grabbing their junk in moments of intimidation or aggression, women would grab their "lady junk" ("lady junks?") in moments of joy and happiness.  I'm telling you, it could work.  

Anyways.   

Boys and girls are taught in a variety of ways and in a multitude of sins that men are strong and women are weak.  Yes I know, these ideas are more complicated than that and are being fought daily and much progress has been made (yay), but there is the basic "vibe" of these ideas that feels accepted as true in our world (boo).  

We are taught (both men and women) that the vagina is fragile, that it is a budding flower, beautiful and delicate.  Yes, yes, hooray for gentleness and dirty orchid drawings - all good. But what about the reality that the vagina RIPS OPEN in order to birth a baby, and then heals itself completely??  What about the reality that the vagina is by her very nature designed to undergo enormous stress? 
...And not just in childbirth. 

Most children who walk in on their parents having (good) sex believe that their mother's are being killed.  Imagine the honest talk afterwards, "No little Billy, sometimes Mommy screams like she is in pain when she feels pleasure -- no, Daddy was not trying to kill me through my stomach, he was making sweet, sweet love to Mommy with his super-sword love muscle."  

The line between strength and pathology is near and dear, I know -- and I am walking it -- but perhaps we are so afraid of the pathology side that we are forgetting the complexity (badassness) of our budding flower ninja's.  

My friend and I were talking about how we often feel like our joy is hanging on by a thread - like one strange wind or awkward step could knock it from its strategic placement and shatter it to the ground.  "Sorry, I meant vanilla instead of toffee nut.. Oh DAMN it, my joy is busted... I KNEW it wouldn't last."  
Lists of potential "ruiners" line up:
We could have a fight we cannot resolve;
We could get depressed;
We could gain or lose weight;
We could become boring; 
We could lose our sex drive; 
We could get fired; 
We could sleep with someone else;
We could panic; 
We could start to be obsessed with saving dogs from shelters;
We could drink too much;
We could get sick or insecure or jealous or afraid or shy or passive or angry;

...each item on the list bares its teeth and threatens to destroy not just a piece of our joy, but every bit of it.  Why? 

Why do we believe our joy is so fragile?  

Why am I afraid that one gust, one mistake, one difference, one misunderstanding will, as the kids are saying, fuck everything up?  

I have always been a big believer in my pain - it is real and it is hard, and for some reason it is a much easier way for me to deal.  

But I am just now becoming a believer in my joy - it is deep and it is strong, much, much stronger than my pain -- and although the screams sound similar, my joy is not trying to kill me.  

My joy is not going anywhere.  

Rochefort is a beer: Roquefort is a cheese.

I am in the land of beer.  
Don't get me wrong, Seattle can hold its own in the realm of access to great beer and in the production of ridiculously good micro-brews... but Belgium really is the land of beer.  I have not tried a single beer that has not been good -- plus everything is cheap as dirt.  Just for fun I brought up the beer menu from Brouwers in Fremont (LOVE that place) to see if I had tried any of the Belgian beers they have available -- the one I am drinking at this moment (for instance) is 12 dollars for a bottle at Brouwers: here in Belgium the six pack at the grocery store was 5.49 euro.  Basically I am drinking lots of beer in order to save money.  

I love it when a place loves and cultivates something well.  Discovering and respecting (and drinking) a product that has a thousand layers of flavor and a thousand (or many more) years of history is so much FUN - it is the same experience I had in France with the wine and with the cheese.  Hundreds of brilliant, patient people did all the research and work and I just get to drink it and say "my god, YES, well DONE history."  Pretty much the best deal ever.  
The people of France are très, très passionnés about their wine.  The same is true in Belgium with beer and, although the countries exist side by side, these passions remain distinctly separate.  It is as if in Washington state we were OBSESSED with coffee (push your imagination for a moment), but then as SOON as you crossed into Oregon no one ever drank anything but drip, and were obsessed with orange juice.  Okay, bad analogy, but you get what I mean.  

One of my favorites that I have tried so far is a trappist beer called Rochefort 8 (FYI: it is 9.2 percent... are you kidding me?).   I love this beer.  I recently tried it at a bar in Bruges for the first time and when I made my order I pronounced the beer, “roquefort” (like the cheese).  The waiter's face immediately glossed over with the snide look of the globally understood sentiment, “I've got another idiot tourist here."  He then mocked me thoroughly and with great animation when he got back to the kitchen (all of which I could hear and understand – I speak the flailing French of an adult learner, yes, but am approaching fluency thanks to hard work and sleeping with a frenchman, though I am sure he assumed otherwise based on my poor pronunciation).  I knew I had to act fast in order to have something different than a moment of eye-rolling from him and a "thankee kindly mr french speaking beer man, ARF ARF" from me when he returned.  
I made sure my cleavage was visible (this takes time and effort - it is only visible with strategic angling and lighting... I often wish at moments like this I could just whip around and speak with my ass - it would be SO much easier) and when he returned with my beer I looked at him with every ounce of Seattle-snob I could muster and said, “Est-ce que le fromage que j’ai commandé?”

I got the second for free.  

Skullcaps in Belgium: a story of terror, discrimination and censorship

Last night as Arnaud and I prepared to go for a swim he mentioned casually that Belgian public pools require a skullcap to be worn at all times.  He jokingly played the sugar daddy and offered to provide the 1 euro needed to purchase my skullcap.  I smacked him on the ass in response to his joke and laughed at the absurdity of such a requirement, saying something like, "What if that were TRUE?!  My GOD - what a WORLD that would be." 

I had a mild panic attack (I squeezed out all the remaining dishwashing soap and listened to Slide by the Goo Goo Dolls on repeat for an hour) when I realized that pools here in Belgium DO actually require hiding your head-hair inside of a stretchy head condom.  In that moment of realization it became clear that wearing a skullcap ranks among my top 5 (previously unknown) fears.  The only other known (but previously unknown) fears currently ranked higher are: Video taping myself while sleeping, and Volleyball.  (actually, Toronto was recently added to this list.) 
As I squeezed the soap bottle harder and hummed, "ya wanna get married, and run away, DOO DOO DOO," I imagined the horrors that awaited.  

Will someone mistake me for a Dum-Dum?
What should I do if someone asks me what flavor I am or tries to lick my head?  
What if someone thinks I am their free treat from the bank? 
How much bigger will my ass actually seem once the true size of my head is revealed?  

These horrific questions and more flooded through my (tiny) head as I envisioned squeezing my (tiny, so it would be a really easy process actually) head into the shiny, sticky head-condom.  

I decided to be mature.  I am almost thirty, after all.  So I told Arnaud I would rather kill myself than accompany him to the public pool where my hair was not also welcome - this was perhaps a mild exaggeration, but it got my point across.  He left for the pool after laughing at me for about 10 minutes, and my head and my hair and I sat down for a cup of coffee (beer).  

That was yesterday.  

This morning, after horrific nightmares of being stuck in a land of professional swimmers and 1920's hats, I decided to address my fears head on (get it?) in the only way I know.  

What you see in the following photographs is actual footage of my head in a skullcap.  Shape has not been changed to protect the innocent. 

 
My hair is currently suing for discrimination, censorship and for a (completely fabricated) latex allergy.  

 

A few things that make me happy:

1.  Ath, Belgium is my home until November.   

2. My man lives in Ath, Belgium. 

3. The combination of items 1 and 2.

4.  The beer in Belgium really is as good as they say - drinking beer in Belgium is like eating cheese in France or drinking coffee in Seattle: PERFECT.  

5. I recently acquired a giant painting from my hero in both music and art, Joseph Arthur.  He signed "to Charis, love Joseph Arthur" and painted another painting on the back of it after I had chosen and kissed it for a while and asked him to marry me (he always says no).  He explained, "Now you will know when it is hanging on the wall that there is another painting on the back, just for you."  Yeah, I almost died.     

 

6. During said Joseph Arthur concert one of my best friends felt her baby start to go CRAZY in utero; I have rarely had such a magical moment as holding my friend's belly and feeling that sweet baby dance to a musician who has moved me so much and for so long.
Consequently I have now named her unborn child Joseph Arthur - my friend's do not agree, but they will get used to it after a few years.  "Is Joseph Arthur hungry?"  "Does Joseph Arthur need to go potty?" It will be so great.  

7.  This past weekend was spent very happily in Bruges, Belgium.  I only took a few photos, and about 90 percent of them are of of my and my man's face, so view them at your own risk.  

8.  The massive bruise on my leg.  
Explanation: I recently fell going up some stairs on my way to a James Blake concert.  I really thought I could have fractured it based on the force of my fall and the size of the knot that immediately sprouted (Charis means "grace" in Greek... true story).   The tennis ball sized knot eventually disappeared under ice, and days went by with only the bloody gash to show for my pain.  LAME.  Only now is the bruise speaking the truth, and the truth is incredible.  The blackish color spread over the entirety of my shin and calf like someone poured "bruise" onto my leg and it spilled everywhere.  This bruise makes me very happy.  

9. My souvenier from Bruges is a pair of BRIGHT orange tights.  

10. This picture: 

 

Happiness by Hurts

   05 Stay

I. Am. Obsessed.  
Ever feel like an album was written specifically for you? MON DIEU, this one is it for me. 

Plus, they are hot like tabasco:

  

I ♥ Cozumel destination weddings. I know, WHO DOESN'T, RIGHT?!

Cozumel: YES.

I am currently imbibing in the Rogue bar in PDX. I have 2 hours until I take off for IAH. And then two more hours after that until I take off for Cozumel, Mexico.

I will not be responding to any voicemails or phone calls or texts for the next 7 days.

Please email if you have an emergency or a dirty picture to show me.

Vitamin D starved,
Charis

Amy, Boudoir Photography, Seattle

 

 

Kelsey, Senior Pictures, Seattle

 

I love my job right now.

He who says being engaged is not hilarious is a FOOL...

...because being engaged is super hilarious.  

View more of the beautiful hilarity here.  

I. Love. My. Job.  

 

 

Bethany and Shane: a-freakin-dorable

 

Jeannette: Senior Pictures in Seattle

 

 

Happy Anniversary: Chanel and Ariyah

Keenan: Senior Pictures in Seattle

Backstage and Vintage with Wonder

Are you kidding me? -A Sampling