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rue-madame's Diaryland Diary

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All aboard the wayback machine!

Before they retired, both of my parents were teachers. My mother taught French + Spanish at high school level, and my father at college level. Every now and then, they would apply for year-long sabbaticals, and when they landed them, the entire family would pack up and move to France.

This happened about 3 times: the first time, I was 6 and we moved to Bordeaux. Not my finest hour I have to say (I didn�t respond well to the regimentation, though I was exceptional at drawing, handwriting and reciting poetry. I could not understand the times tables for shit.) Overall the experience was tremendous, and do you realize that I forgot all of my English?

The second time, I was 15 and we moved to Paris. This was the best year-in-France and the most significant. I arrived naive, preppy and dorky, and slowly emerged from my cocoon a more sophisticated and hip young woman. School at first was difficult--the language was not the issue so much as the schoolwork. Plus, the lyc�e was so enormous that I was late to physics and chemistry all the time because I could never find the damn classrooms. We all smoked with the teachers during breaks and drank shitty coffees from the machine. In addition to being in classes from 8 a.m. until 5 in the bloody afternoon, I had dance classes 5 times a week near Porte de Champerret, and had my pointe shoes custom-made by an old man on the rue Daunou. I had tons of friends, I did well in school, and I didn�t want to go back to San Francisco. I was a different person. I had different clothes, a different attitude. I had a feeling that things would just go downhill, and they mostly did until I adopted a very Victorian arriviste heroine mindset and went about insinuating myself into the cool kids group. They were mostly preppy, but I was damned if American high school was going to ruin my life.

The third and last time I ended up in France with my parents, I was 19. I didn�t want to go. I was getting some action and attention from boys (I was serenaded by a stone cold fox on a yellow Lambretta at 2 in the morning!,) I had a part-time job that I liked, lots of friends, money, parties to go to, drinks and drugs to imbibe/smoke/snort. The year was bound to suck because my parents picked Nice, which is an alright place to visit in the summer, but a boring-as-ass place to live in when you�re 19 and it�s the winter. No decent bars, no decent clubs, no decent music venues. The university was stupid, and I had not a single friend. Not a single friend. I am not kidding when I say this. There are very few pictures of me from that year where I am not scowling or furrowing my brow to look like Jimmy from Quadrophenia. I was so filled with anger and self-loathing that I cut off all of my hair and dabbled in bulimia. How�s that for unhappy? Thank god I had Morrissey to keep me company.

I can�t remember the point of this entry anymore. I think originally I was considering that there are certain times in your life when dramatic change can be a benefit and other times when it can be a giant obstacle. Or perhaps it is that occasionally you are more open to change and are more accepting and so those are the times where you are more daring and willing to try new things... are you ever aware of those phases? Or do they just happen? Or do you, at some point, decide �Fuck it, I don�t want to be like this, I want metamorphosis!� and go about effecting change? I suppose it�s probably a little of everything (what else can I suppose based on my limited experience? I am not an expert after all.)

Christ on a crutch, this is ponderous. Let me tell you instead about what I bought today! I went to a sample sale and bought some blue and white seersucker bermudas (very preppy but rest assured that I will subvert the preppiness in my inimitable way,) a red sleeveless t-shirt (alright not that exciting but it�s very flattering,) and a pumpkin/rust-colored 3/4 sleeve t-shirt that is so fricken tight I can�t believe I bought it because it makes my boobs look so grab-able. That�s what happens when you go out shopping with 3 friends and they all squeal with delight when you try something on. I had to buy the sexy t. I had no choice.

6:57 p.m. - 2002-03-23

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