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Mishka
It's the season of colds. I'm stuck at home, working, nursing a cold and taking Decolgen every six hours. But I don't regret going out Saturday night with my Kenyan friend Grace and her Kenyan friend Ann, because we got dead drunk over Desperados and gossiped about our French language school classmates. The night ended at 3 am, running towards the car shrieking with laughter in 7 degree temperature; Julien, who was dead-sober, had to endure driving us home, listening to our drunken lamentations about France not appreciating us, etc.
Talking about a lot of things
Recurring problem:
At 7.34 this morning, a huge insect with plenty of hairy legs fell from the TOP of the COMPUTER to the KEYBOARD and almost crawled up my GODDAM HAND. ARGH! It looked to me like a scorpion, but it couldn't have been, as it didn't have the claw thing attached to his stupid insect head. Of course, I didn't spend hours admiring it; I killed it at once. I feel violated. First the scorpion, then the brother-of-scorpion. It must be my karma, for always pincing stalks of thyme and other spices from the row of plants just outside our window. And for vacuum-cleaning a spider yesterday.
Cassis, St. Victoire We went to Cassis twice last summer (those were the days... the leaves are now falling, and I'm back to using my coat.. bah). A very nice place, although the beach was a bit of a disappointment.
 :Enter dramatic sunset:
Woes My mother is not in the best of moods, now that she has learned that my sister, Doctor Doom, is leaving next month for the US with her boyfriend, for her medicine practice what-not. She calls me constantly these days, bitching about spending the holidays with the Terrible Four - my father and my three brothers. I totally sympathize. My brothers - PartyJesus, BlackSheep Paolo, and Nikko - are hooting, sharp-tongued, sarcastic boys in their early twenties and teens. They are dense to the point of suicide. Scandalous, really.
Eropolis Last weekend Julien and I went to Montpellier to attend Eropolis, a huge exposition on erotica. Watched tons of pole dancers and live shows, which included audience participation. No, I wasn't picked. They probably thought I was underaged --- it's a miracle I got in. The live shows were an absolute hoot. There was this one show in the main stage entitled: Conan the Barbarian. This male stripper was all decked in a tiny slip and sheepskin boots (which I highly doubt was Conan the Barbarian attire), roaming around the smoke-machined stage, looking for a female participant. When he finally chose a girl, and he HAULED her up the stage (the stage being around 4 ft high) and threw her on his fake animal rug! Everyone was laughing as ol' Conan chewed on an apple and gyrated infront of her. The girl was game, though - she kept on touching his ass. I couldn't help smiling because I was having visions of a lion springing from the backstage and devouring Conan and his 'love prisoner', with the audience running amok. People probably thought that I was thinking of Conan's enormous wang. We walked around the expo a bit ('a bit' --- right. We stayed for four hours), marvelling at the various gadgets I've never before seen. The lingerie selection ranged from decent-sexy-notorious: lots of lace, leather, latex, nurses' and maids' uniforms, whips, handcuffs. There were lots more, but I don't really know how they're called. Thoughts on Sex I've never been squeamish towards sex. I did go to an all-girl's Catholic school, listening to my classmates talk about boyfriends and French kisses and first-to-second-to-third base (Sadly, I could never take part in their conversation --- Nirvana and my guitar had all my attention then hehe). Once I was mature enough to understand, my mum, having been a weed-smoking hippie in the seventies, never made me feel that curiosity about sexuality and sensuality were taboo. It's funny, because my Father grew up in a very conservative family (Proof: his sisters, all three of them, are unmarried, even though they wanted to), and at times he does get into a frustrating conventional mood, but all in all, he's cool about these things too. I never had to lie about sleeping over at a boy's house during college, never had trouble having boys over at home. And when I lived in with Julien for half a year, I never heard anything bad from them (just from my other people, those close-minded gossips). And so, one of things I like about Europe is the healthy attitude towards sexuality and sensuality: it's so open, it's not dirty. You see people kissing in the streets of Paris and people go "Aaaaaw, l'amour" (on the contrary, you see people in Makati kissing and the reaction is, "God, PDA!") It's just love. And with love comes discovery with your partner, in all aspects, sex included. People of all ages were at the exposition : middle-aged couples holding hands, young couples like us, veterans pushing into their sixties. Gays. Lesbians. People in wheelchairs. All in love, all in tune with their sexuality. I wish that when I get older, when I finally have children of my own, I can be as open to them as my parents were to me. Because with the right attitude, love and sex can be two of the most beautiful things on earth. Some things never change, though. I remember looking at a middle-aged woman holding up sexy lingerie, displaying it to her husband, who was nodding impatiently, as if it were a piece of cabbage at the supermarket. Ah, women and shopping.
After that, we went to the beach in Montpellier, which looked exactly like the beach in the movie Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind. It was freezing cold, almost sunset, and I felt so bad, because all the dogs were running around like mad with their tongues hanging out of the sides of their salivating mouths, and I so wanted to steal one dog and take him home and call him Bubba :cry:
 Eternal Sunshine, Movies, Movies I finally got to see Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind (the hype has died down, but I've just recently been able to drag myself out of the house). ...Praise the Holy Triune God of Cinema - Gondry, Jonze, Cunningham (For those who liked the 'originality' of Coldplay's music video of The Scientist, let me set it straight: it was adapted from an earlier work of Jonze). ...Praise scriptwriter Charlie Kaufman (Adaptation was sheer genius). ...Praise cinema! Just when I started to think that cinema was being more and more commercial and less and less artistic, movies like these pop up and give imagination another form. I hope the their work will open opportunities for other less-known-but-just-as-daring directors. There are gems everywhere, if only we know where to look. And only if they want to be found. Over-and-out-Kala
Where are they?
I bought a gigantic lollipop the other day, which, by the way, was also a magical lollipop, because no matter how I long I licked at it, put it in my mouth and sucked at it, it wouldn't melt (Ding! Ding! Ding!... ah, the sexual connotations of a lollipop!) Anyway, I got bored, eventually, and abandoned the lollipop on top of a piece of foil paper on the floor (yes, I'm a slob).
After four days (all right, I already admitted to being a slob), I saw the lollipop and was faced with an earth-shattering realization.
THERE ARE NO ANTS!
I'm used to having ants swarming around unattended food in a matter of 0.00945 seconds.
I shared this thought with Julien (an insight on the meaningful conversations we have) and this is what he said:
"Maybe, the ants are happy outside, playing in the grass. They do not need to come inside the house."
*please, let's have a minute of silence to contemplate the weight of this revelation*
It's raining. I'll decide when it'll stop.
Information for the Needy
I am so fucking FED-UP of France.
I have a one-year hole in my CV. I don't do anything all day. I send and send and send and send and nothing ever comes back. All I get are rejection letters from all the freaky jobs I apply for. I search and search and seach and come up with... surprise... Nothing. To continue the Nothing Thread : There is nothing in the south of France except pastis and silly southern accents. Sure, this is the place to be if you're an engineer, most especially in nuclear, but I'm an artist fuckit and I just want to go to work and start to live again. It's been too long and there have been too many rejections and there have been too many hours wasted, and soon there will be an equally wasted 25-year-old girl sitting on a futon with her brain cells ebbing away while she bites at her nails and watches her life disappear.
Oh wait that's already happening.
No worries mi amigos.
The What's and the Why's
The newest addition to my personal list of Irritating Habits (which I unwillingly collect, don't be mistaken) is replying "What?" whenever something is said to me. When and how exactly this habit has surfaced, I know not, but there it is, a big WHAT; an irritating reply to anyone who wants an answer.
I don't talk to a lot of people these days, reasons being that it is summer and the few people I know are off on their respective holidays; and because Julien doesn't want to get a dog. And because Julien doesn't want to get a dog, I am forced to sit in front of the computer all day, soaking up its rays and getting a virtual tan in the process, instead of teaching my dog how to save lives a la Lassie or communicating with him in our special girl-dog language --- which we might've established through day-long activities of tapping our innate extrasensory potential.
So it's Julien who gets all my What's thrown his way. He is in danger of becoming a parrot, and he knows it, although he doesn't (yet) show signs of the building trepidation in his chest. "Have we got a bottle of wine?" "What?" "You want to have dinner yet? "Huh?" "I only have 15 more pages of this book to go..." "Eugh???" It's not only What's that I shower him with. Variations of the word slip out of my mouth : Huh?'s, Eugh?'s, Eh?'s, and sometimes, the very Filipino Ha?'s.
I'm sitting here typing while he's 6... no, 5 pages away from finishing a Murakami novel, and I'm biting my tongue in case he tells or asks me something, in fear that I'll volley a What? or a Variation of What? towards his side of the conversation court.
Honestly, I've no idea of what has happened to me, or when this What Disease ever started (although I have a sneaking suspicion it's been going on for 3 months - or at least, I've been conscious of it since). It only happens with Julien. And I don't get it. I clean my ears regularly. I hear the phone ring when I'm in the other room. My last EENT check-up (not so long ago, incidentally), tells me that everything's fine. My ears suffer every time our downstairs neighbor plays his Elton John Live! cd at full volume. True, I can't hear a pin drop in Greenland, but, well, you know what I mean. So, yes... I don't get it. At all.
Checking the notes I made upon further in-depth introspection concerning my What Disease (which is an indirect confession that I don't do anything significant during the weekdays) has led me to believe that I understand what is being said to me. It's just that I want it repeated, confirmed. As if I didn't trust myself and my hearning skills anymore.
So when a person begins to doubt his/her abilities concerning the 5 senses - touch, sight, smell, taste and as in my case, sound - what does it all mean? In my case, does it mean that I've lost the ability to hear, not in the physical sense of course, but in that other sense, that special sense where you can hear your loved one's heart singing love songs through layers of bulky winter clothing, or that character in Edgar Allan Poe's The Telltale Heart who goes bonkers over some beating heart hidden in the floorboards, or some crap similar to that? (In short, the 6th sense)
It leaves me undoubtedly sad, my current "What?" situation. Sad and baffled. I feel nothing but pity for Julien, who churns out 60 sentences when all he wanted was to utter 30. It feels as if my social skills are going down the drain, along with the bits of cabbage and leftover potato peels in the kitchen sink. And he should know that I still hear him, that I listen, that I understand.
Which leads me to a story about my youngest brother's Why? Stage. His then- 7 year-old Why Period caused grief to everyone at home. Our patience was growing thin, having to explain to him the Mario-Luigi-Princess' relationship, why people kill, why snakes crawled, why I loved Radiohead's Thom Yorke (well, there are lots of reasons for that hehe). One evening our family sulkily boarded the car to visit my doctor sister, Dr. Doom. During the ride my two brothers and I wanted to kill Nikko, who was babbling away, pointing at the neon lights, asking "Why? Why? Why? WHY???" to everything he saw. My brother PartyJesus bonked him on the head. "Aaaah," cried Nikko. "Mommy, why did he hit me?" "Because you're driving me nuts," muttered PartyJesus. My mum turned around, irritated, and gave us a sermon, saying that we should encourage his curiousity rather than bonk him on the head, and that all children went through this stage, and that if she had bonked our heads each time we asked her "Why?" we would've all been under social service custody and she in jail, blah blah blah. Just at that moment our car passed the Sperm Bank, and PartyJesus nudged Nikko. "Hey, why don't you ask Mommy what that building is." Nikko read the panel. "Spe-erm Bank. Sperm Bank. Mommy, what's a sperm? Why is there a bank for sperm? Is it some kind of money? Mommy what's a sperm?" "Sperm is... it's..." my mum started, paused, then turned around and said, "Okay, all of you, shut up." The remainder of the car ride was silent, except for the occasional chuckle from my father.
So what else should I do?
After turning the whole flat upside-down I can now report with absolute certainty that there are no secret cigarettes anywhere.
A friend of mine from the Philippines visited about four months ago, bringing two reams of Marlboro Lights (soft pack!), which was promptly smoked in its entirety in a matter of two weeks.
And I'm not even kidding.
I meant to hide a pack or two for emergency purposes but I never got around to doing it. Still, I searched the apartment for my phantom 'secret cigarettes', just in case I'd really hid some and forgotten all about it.
Denial.
I never really earned tons of money during my professional career (LOL - professional career!) but I always liked the jobs I'd landed. My CV always impressed... well, myself. 1. Camiguin After graduating from college I went to Camiguin with friends to teach Art to the children of Benoni, Camiguin. Organised by the dreaded Sister R, who was - aside from being a nun - a witch. We were joined by a French couple who introduced me to the music of Lhasa one hot May night. We slept in Benoni Elementary School, we drank boiling Coke, we had the beach in our backyard, we had our knickers stolen off the clothesline, we were verbally and sexually harassed by our ten-year old students (ah, the fear they put in us!), we were not paid, and it was, without doubt, the Best Time of my Life. I don't want to get sentimental and soppy, but only the people I shared the experience with can relate to what I'm saying. During this time, I found myself. *cue violin, then rousing applause, then wiping of tears* 2. The Yellow Shit Store. Because after Camiguin, spirits soaring high, I decided to succumb myself to the ultimate insult: To Be An Underpaid Overworked Underachiever (U.O.U). So I became the Store Artist for T---- R------. My job wasn't so bad, even though my "office" was a tiny room in the bowels of Glorieta. Proper ventilation being the key to survival (because we worked with spray paints), we worked with gas masks. I shared the room with Finn my fellow-artist, the lead singer of the death metal band Resurrection. We emerged from the Art Room coughing and fanning our faces each time we finished a store display artwork. My best work-related memory was having the New Year shift till 8 in the evening and making my way home via MRT amidst SuperLolos and Sinturon ni Hudas(es? - plural). Felt like a Pink Floyd concert. 3. Tall Building With Lots of Mirrors Now I shall move into the yuppie part of my work experience, GetAsia - a combination of literature, art, and informatiques. First of all, I got along really well with the artists, especially my art director, Mr. Marcus, who up until now remains one of my good friends. Second point, I loved my job. It was creative and challenging. To be paid to make art and surf the net via DSL wasn't bad at all (surf! surf! surf!). My work description was JPEGing, HTMLing, FLASHing, and WRITing (bon, writing). Best work-related memory was one "overtime" evening where we played Fall From The Chair, where we sat on the chairs and tipped ourselves over to the floor. It hurt like hell but it was fun, wasn't it, boys? Special shoutouts to Junnie, Mari, Astrid and Marcus! Remember the very exciting fire drills? 4. Bummer I spent 9 months as a freelance artist. I painted, I slept, I wrote a lot, I went to France, I hung out with friends, I smoked lots of pot, I went to exhibits, I helped set up exhibits, I painted, I slept, I wrote a lot, and over again. I had fun. Best work-related experience was every damn day. 6. Magazine I was reunited once again with Job No. 2, under a different management. I was hired to create the layout of the first issue of a music magazine. I had to perform miracles - 50 pages in one month, missing articles, late articles, last-minute changes. It was a crash course in everything - layout, printing, pressure. But the magazine's doing all right. Best work-related memory was smoking with Kerwin right under the No Smoking Sign. Hehehe. 7. This is a Hold-Up Until one day I woke up and had no more money, and no projects were coming in. My next job was with INQ7 - the Inquirer website. There were no job openings, but I emailed the VP (Hi Leo!) and bullied him into interviewing me. Not very professional, I know, but I got an interview with Joey (who won a Palanca!), where we argued over the then-Amazing Race contestants Flo and Zach. I said Flo was a bitch. Joey said Flo was essential to the team and to the show. I said Flo was a bitch and that anyone who liked her was mad. What the fuck, right? But he hired me, and we're good friends till now. And Joey, if you're reading this, I still think Flo's a bitch.
And then I come to France and they tell me they won't consider my three fucking years of work experience, because that's just how it works here. Great.
Extra Selected Fire Cracker
Goddamit, I really need a job.
Another thought: Why haven't I come across any blogs of Filipinos living in France?
A few more beats - and maybe, a new sound.
The sky was dark yesterday morning. These last few weeks I've been waking up to sunshine. Yesterday I knew it would be a different day. During the afternoon the sun picked up. Jumped into 28° pool water. And I dove and I dove into the water trying to touch the bottom. The pool is an abyss; I never reach the bottom.
So I went to the library, and stayed there for four hours, borrowed 5 books and 4 cds. Some annoying asshole borrowed all the Bob Dylan circa 1960s cds and I had to settle for something less. Took the bus home. Drank water. Then I dove into the pool trying to reach the bottom once more. Because at the bottom of things we see ourselves clearly. At the bottom of things we find a mirror.
And as I expected it rained that night. At around 8 pm the sky darkened and thunder rolled like bowling bowls; Opening the windows I lay watching the summer storm lying on a red comforter with my feet up against the railings. Counting seconds after the lightning before hearing thunder. An approximation of how far away it all was from me. And it rained and it rained. And after the storm I tried to look at my reflection in the water, but I couldn't see a thing, because raindrops were disturbing the puddles, making me look shattered, disrupted, blurry.
1999
I think that maybe things happen just because the world is tilted at a certain way during a certain time at a given angle...
And sometimes I think that, perhaps things happen because of the mind's little tricks. Mind over matter.
Other days I wonder if we are just characters of a play with implanted memory chips containing dialogue-data sufficient for an entire lifetime.
One afternoon I saw an old couple sitting on a bench. The husband was reading a book, with his sleeping wife leaning her head on his shoulder. They looked so sweet; they looked like One.
Which reminds me of Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, where Catherine says, "We really are the same one, and we musn't misunderstand on purpose."
"We won't," says Mr. Henry (was his name Henry?)
"We musn't. Because there's only us two, and in the world there's the rest of them. If anything comes between us we're gone and then they have us."
"They won't get us because you're too brave. Nothing ever happens to the brave."
"They die, of course."
"But only once."
So I ask myself : How is bravery measured? And is bravery dependent entirely on strength? Is is bravery, to spend your lifetime the way you want to? For a person can be plenty of people in a lifetime. One could play different roles, to the hilt.
Or maybe things happen when your clock starts ticking. When do we really start to live? When we see the first light of day? Just before we close our eyes? And when do we stop dying? In my opinion we die each day; that we kill ourselves unconsciously with every opportunity we get. Unconsiously. We die when sleeping, and we die still when we're awake.
It doesn't make sense. Things are in a strange light. Yet certain people make life worth living.
My friend's thesis years ago, a performance art, required him to stand motionless in the middle of a room that had four tv sets and videocameras fixed in each corner. He wasn't supposed to move from his position. "I find your thesis a bit... religious," one panelist commented. "You look like you're nailed there." My friend paused, then replied, "I know it. I am nailed." When grades were released a few days later, we read the professor's comment on his thesis. Written down : "Why be nailed to a cross when you can come down alive?"
Randy described eternity
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Why Marseille Will Never Have A Place in my Heart.
Is it because of the 'France's second biggest city' competition between Marseille and Lyon, and the fact that I lived in Lyon six months before moving to the south? Or is it because my classmates at Lyon's Alliance Française were much more friendlier than those of Marseille's? Is it caused by normal-looking men in expensive shoes along the streets of Marseille, asking whether I'd go out with them, then calling me mefiante (suspicious) for trying to chuck my bag at them and run away upon having my arm grabbed? Is it because I always meet men who exude the 'I-am-a-crazy-man-who-happens-to-look-normal' aura?
Answer : all of the above.
I shall tell you why I went to Marseille in the first place, and then I'll tell you about the crazy man I encountered while lost in the Arab quarter.
Why I went to Marseille in the first place.
Ca y est. It was a Tuesday when Monsieur N called me in for an interview for Friday at 5 pm. Taking into consideration my history of fucking up only the most important situations, I carefully planned every detail, from the bus ride I'd have to take, down to my outfit.
I swear I had everything planned. I did a better job than my planning engineer husband.
Friday afternoon, the temperature rose to 31°. Wanting to look fresh, professional, and presentable (since I had to make 3 bus trips just to get there and I didn't exactly know Marseille that well), I put on an old shirt and stuffed my interview shirt in my bag, planning to change once I got there.
So, all smug with all my brilliant ideas, I went downtown and took the bus to Marseille.
'I am pure genius', I thought to myself, arriving in Marseille 2 hours before my interview. 'I will now change into professional shirt, find the building, and sit in a café somewhere till 5 pm, then Monsieur N will interview me and beg me to work for his company, and I'll tell him, very coolly, that I accept the offer. Hurrah!'
Lost in my dream of job domination, I almost felt like laughing out loud. (I think I even did, a bit, because the woman walking beside me moved away cautiously.)
Forking over .30 cents to use a bathroom (nothing is free in Europe : not even a public bathroom with piss all over the floor), I reached into my bag for my shirt.
Which, of course, was not in my bag. It was on my bed, probably smoking cigarettes and watching videos, back in Aix en Provence.
Looking down at the ugly stained old pambahay shirt I was wearing, I realised sadly that with this shirt I wouldn’t even get a total of one euro in change if I did backflips and ate fire as a street performer, much less a job.
But no biggie, right, since I was two… no, an hour and a half early for my interview. This was a big city, so all I had to do was find a nice, presentable shirt in a shop somewhere.
Note : all the shops in Marseille have something against simple yet elegant shirts.
Half an hour later, I was still walking all over the little streets of Marseille's 1er arrondisement, until I found myself in the middle of the Arab quarter, where the only things for sale were Doc Martens and, surprisingly, garlic.
And then the realisation hit me : I didn't know where I was anymore.
But no biggie again, right, because I could ask for directions, or buy a map, or ask a policeman.
Note : in Marseille's 1er arrondissement, there are no maps for sale, nor policemen, nor a single person who knows how to get to Boulevard de la Liberté.
Desperate, I asked Stranger No. 51 where Blvd. de la Liberté was. He was a garlic vendor, and said that he didn't know where it was, but wouldn't I like to buy some garlic? I snarled into his face what I thought about his garlic and left, checking my watch. I only had 30 minutes to go till my interview.
You know the feeling you get whenever you recall the very first time you got lost? In a supermarket, perhaps, spending one minute too long in front of a toy robot, only to find that your mother wasn't where you'd left her? Or maybe in a movie theatre in a crowd surging for the exit, only to find yourself holding the hand of a stranger, with your cousin (the idiot) laughing behind you?
I wanted to hit the garlic vendor, because I always feel like hitting someone when I get lost, but I hadn't any time.
So I started looking for a metro station, because it's a rule to always have maps in a metro station. No biggie.
*** Enter scene: normal-looking-crazy-man.
Normal-looking CrazyMan.
He was normal-looking, but believe me, he was c.r.a.z.y. After a few minutes, the guy walked up to me and asked, 'You were looking for blvd. de la Liberté?'
'Yeah,' I sniffled, because I was a bit teary by now (I find it appropriate to cry during life-and-death situations.)
'I can show you where it is, if you like?'
'Ok.' I stood where I was, thinking he would give me directions. He started to walk, then called after me, 'Well, I'm walking to the place myself, follow me.'
I thought to myself : 'I am 25 years old and following strangers in a strange city is something I shouldn't be doing. Fuck this guy, I can find my own way.'
'It's here,' he said, sensing my hesitation. 'This is a main street right here.'
So I followed him, since it was a main street I remembered passing once or twice from my Alliance Française days, and if ever he tried something funny I could perfectly cry for help. No biggie.
Then he started to get weird. Like all men all over the world --- starting out normal and ending up crazy.
'So, I take it you're not from here.'
Observative fucker. I grunted in reply, still walking quickly.
'Thailand? Indonesia?'
'Yeah,' I said, and he probably still thinks I'm from Thailand and Indonesia, the fucker.
'How do you find Marseille?'
One question I couldn't resist answering. 'It's one big mess, and there aren’t any maps. I don't like it, at all. So, where's the street?'
'Just a few more blocks. So, how do you like France?'
I didn't answer him because I was busy checking out the street for policemen and metro stations.
Then he said, 'If you were to stay in France, would you go out with me? I mean, I'm not too bad a chap, am I? I'm even helping you look for a street.'
I removed my cellphone, without any credits of course so I really wasn't calling anyone but merely pretending to (FAMAS awardee, I am), and started to dial random numbers. 'Thanks, but you know what, I think I'll call my friend, who's waiting for me at Blvd. de la Liberté, and just ask him to come get me here instead.'
'I assure you, I'm not trying to hit on you or pull your leg or anything. I like Asians. I think Asians are a lovey race. I just want to know if you'd go out with me. I mean, I'm not too bad a chap, right?' He was certainly boring with his mad-about-myself attitude.
Fifteen minutes till interview. Then I spotted a metro station just across the street. 'There's the metro. Well, thanks for your help. I think I'll take the metro. I'm really late.'
'No, really, it would be stupid to take the metro since it's only around two blocks away. I'm not kidding. Asians are very suspicious. But you see, I just want to help you. You looked lost so I thought I'd help you. I tell you I'm not kidding.'
'Bye!' I said almost hysterically, starting towards the street.
Then Mr. Normal Looking grabbed my arm. Fiercely. I guessed he was going to :
Around 4 men started towards us, and the man ran away in the opposite directions like he had ants biting his sorry ass.
'Are you OK?' one man asked. By this time my French was not functioning, and I was almost bawling, and I had 5 minutes till my interview, and I still hadn't found a shirt, and I was not going to get the job on account of my shirt, that is, if I ever got to Blvd. de la Liberté in time for the interview, and I was sure I wasn't going to make it.
I ran to the metro station, found a map, sniffling like a goddamn idiot (I'm glad I'm used to being a goddamn idiot : I felt no shame), located the fucking place, and took the metro to where I was supposed to be.
The few minutes in the subway had not calmed me down, and I was resigned to the fact that I would be interviewed by a three piece suited businessman wearing my ugly pambahay shirt.
Then, the clouds parted, and there was a sound of a holy choir of angels singing 'Ave Maria', and a light pierced through a gap in the clouds and pointed towards a clothes shop, just next to the office building where I would be interviewed, that sold nice, presentable, classy interview shirts.
***End choir of angels music.
To summarize, I met up with Monsieur N, who went on with the interview without a clue of what I had had to endure to look smashing in my new shirt, and the meeting didn't give me anything solid because I wasn't mobile, meaning I didn't drive my own vehicle and all that crap. Then we shook hands, he said : 'I'll call you'. Like all the men all over the world --- saying they'll call, but don't. And I made a little sorrowful death march towards the place where Julien was supposed to pick me up. I took pictures of statues at the TGV station to pass the time, and I also took pictures of Marseille, because I’d figured I’d never go back there. Ever. Again.
( When I think about how big the world is. It freaks me out, honestly, because I have the unfortunate gift of having no sense of direction. This isn't the first time I've gotten myself lost. This won't be the last. And when I won't know what to do the next time, what will happen to me and who will grab my arm and will I be able to save myself ? )
Now. Do you know the feeling you get whenever you recall the very first time you were found after being lost? Like turning around and seeing your mother in the supermarket ('I was just here by the vegetables getting you some nice cauliflower. Do you want some cauliflower for dinner?') Or your cousin telling you, 'I was right behind you the whole time, you weren't really lost, so don't go pooping in your pants or anything'. People: the best part of getting lost is being found.
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