La Coquette

Causing ears to bleed since 2004

Here are a couple of clips from July 14, noted for being my friend Julie’s birthday and also, the French national holiday.   I’m going to need to do some translating for non-French speakers, and possibly French speakers as well. 

Warning:  As I listen to these videos, I realize I basically sound like the French equivalent of Fez on That 70’s Show.  Gird your loins. 

52 on Vimeo

Julie's boyfriend Olivier is lighting Julie’s cake and my big fat American accent and I are buzzing around him.  Vanity forces me to qualify that when I’m sober, I swear my nasal drawl is less offensive.  At least, I think it is.

Me:  52?  *pointing to the candles on cake*
Olivier:  What’s that?  52?  *switches the candles*
Me:  She doesn’t look her age.

Hey!  That was sort of borderline, maybe kinda quippy, right?  Okay, my humor bar in French is like this: if I were a 7-year-old and said it, would you laugh?  Then I’m killing.

There are a few dead seconds around the middle of the video, but hold on, here comes the money shot (sorry).   I don’t want to give too much away, but I accidentally get Guigui to do something really funny.  It was so unexpected it almost feels like cheating. 

At the end of the clip, Jeanne enters the room and I say, “On allume le feu, la!”   I am high fiving myself right now, because “allumer le feu” means to light the fire (Olivier is lighting the cake) and its double meaning is to get the party started.

I think if a first grader were to use such fancy word play, you would find the kid very advanced.  Just saying. 

Chanson en francon on Vimeo

I am pleased because a song I know the words to comes on.  I am also very drunk at this point, so the words “chanson francon” come out of my mouth instead of “chanson francais.”

But, can I point out the hideous inaccuracy in my claiming it’s the only French song that I know?  Thanks to family roadtrips I know numerous Dorothée song from the 80’s (Allo, allo, Monsieur Ordinateur) and also a staggering amount of Michel Sardou, both of which help me get dates on a regular basis.   My party trick is that I can do the entire phone conversation in Anais’ Mon Coeur, Mon Amour ("Coucou qu'est ce que tu fais mon coeur ?"  "La même chose qu'y a une demie heure... " etc.)

And on that note, I leave you, because I know you’re getting so turned on you can hardly stand it. 

(You can see some more clips on Vimeo.  Well, one more clip.  But I'll add more.)

*And I'd like to note that we are at Julie's parents' apartment.  When we have parties at our places it's like clowns in a car. 

Meetup Roll Call

Sarah, Camille, and Jen at Matilda on January 7th, 2006.

Certain assumptions can be made about the type of person who organizes a meetup of their blog friends.  (Of course, no one reading this would make those assumptions, but one of the more hilarious things I heard this week was my friend/host, Jen, explaining to her boyfriend that she would attend this blogmeet with me.  "Be careful!" he said.)

But when was the last time you walked into a room of virtual strangers and knew that everyone there would be awesome just like you?  (Star Trek Convention-goers and Junior League members:  I REALIZE NOW THAT WE ARE ONE AND THE SAME.)

The Blog Meetup Chicago attendees: 

Sarah the Drunken Bee--a.k.a. T.A. Most Likely to Break Your Heart.  If you ever meet Sarah, ask her about that time she ran into one of her students at The Empty Bottle.  Ask her.  You will laff. 

Camille--a.k.a. Best Person to Dish With Over 1am Pizza at That Place Across From Matilda.  My mother gave me a hardcover compilation of Town & Country's Social Graces column for Christmas last year and I'm pretty sure Wendy Wasserstein urges you wait until AT LEAST the third blogmeet to tell about your most recent personal scandal.  Oops, SORRY CAMILLE. 

Jen (No Blog)--Since Jen is of the non-blog persuasion, I'm going to have to tell you how funny she is. Prediction:  she is going to become a famed comedienne at Second City where, in the manner of Tina Fey, every man that watches her will have the feeling they are the only one who thinks she is foxy.  Notice how I dated the picture above?  YOU'RE WELCOME E! TRUE HOLLYWOOD STORY FACT CHECKERS.  Jen is also good in a boot debacle. 

Erin, Elisabeth, and DDJ

Erin (No Blog)--You all know sweet Erin, but this is Erin as you've never seen her before:  HALFWAY SOBER.

The Coquette--I think my hair is still reeling from the amount of Jerry Curl with which it was bombarded in Florida.  (Humidity counter-active measures.)  I'm sorry you have to see me like this--I like to give the kids something to look up to.  Sort of like seeing one of your heroes cry, isn't it?

Dessert du Jour--a.k.a. Wisconsinite Most Likely to Know His Way Around The Louvre.  Makes croissants from home.  Writes an excellent email.  Owns a bespoke suit.  Nice as all get out.  DON'T MESS WITH HIM, WISCONSIN. 

Amy, The SAK, and Dawn

Amy (No Blog)--When Jen and I got home, for some reason we started discussing how rare red hair is in France and then she said, "Yeah, and tonight there were three redheads just at our table!"  And my head spun 360 degrees and and smoke came from my ears because you can't just go around calling people redheads when they aren't redheads WHAT WOULD THE WORLD COME TO?  I went back and forth with Jen, utilizing Power Point to prove that you were most certainly a blond, Amy.  And then we opened up this picture and looked at each other as if to say, "I TOLD YOU SO."  But you are a very cool person--hair color notwithstanding--and when I have money, I will buy a painting from you, please.

The SAK (No Blog)--We didn't talk much, but you fiddled with my camera and checked out my pictures for a long time, even looking at the pictures I had taken which merely feature shoes: #1 WAY TO MY HEART. 

Dawn--a.k.a. Best Writer Who Happens To Be a System Administrator for a Big Consulting Firm.  I love your blog, Dawn.  Your real life personality is as sweet as the smile in this picture.  And your hair is VERY red. 

You could say we had a decent time!

A bient'

This post was originally published on August 16, 2005.  Since I arrived in the states, I've crashed at Erin's place in Evanston.  Neither of us knew when she left Paris that I'd be showing up at her doorstep asking for shelter.  Thanks, Erin! 

Erin, whom I met in January through the blog, has been one of my closest friends since moving to Paris.  Like a lot of expats eventually do, she moved on last week--back to the states to attend a graduate journalism program.   

What’s Erin like?  She’s full of beauty and mischief and just the right amount of geekiness and she liked to talk on the phone.  There are so many fun things we did together, but I single out the mundane phone talking because there are not a lot of people in this time zone who I can call to chat up on the phone, like a normal American girl would American do.  I’m so lucky to have a few french girlfriends, but we’d never call each at 2 a.m. to google a fella we had just met at a bar.  (Oh come on, don’t act like you’ve never googled for sport!)

Tuesday, after duck confit and Bordeaux from a cafe with turquoise wicker chairs near rue Cler, we went to her apartment, which I had somehow never seen before.  Her apartment has a SICK view of the Tour Eiffel (in the rap star sense of the word) and the most brutal eight flights of stairs that are also sick in the OH YEAH, DID I MENTION THAT I LIVE ATOP THE KANGCHENJUNGA? sort of way.  As we walked to the metro afterwards, I finally got to see the fountain where she once plunged her scrawny body shouting, “A poil!  A poil!” before a midnight swim.  I so wish I had known her then, as it made me realize my time in Paris has been lacking in fountain jumps, and that would really add a nice La Dolce Vita texture to things.  Next on our tour, she showed me the exact spot where a guy trailed Erin and her friend the other week and started jerking off in front of them on the street, until that is, her friend snapped a shot of him on her camera.  You’re maybe thinking I could have spared you this tidbit, but if you had seen her reenacting his exact hand motions Tuesday afternoon, on the street in the 7th, and then FREEZING with her mouth open in shock, just as he did--trust me, you would have laughed too. 

We kissed goodbye on each cheek (because yes, we live in Europe, this is what you do, and no, we are not the type of people who wear sunglasses indoors, thank you very much). It was the most unseasonably gorgeous August day--dry and crisp, no clouds.  Her blond hair was in a neat ponytail and she had a blue scarf with metallic embroidery wrapped around her shoulders.  Let it be known for posterity that the day I said goodbye to Erin Zaleski (Her full name, HA!  Hi anyone who has just googled Erin!  That thing I said about us googling people on the phone together, ALL TRUE.  She’s probably googling you this very minute.  Be afraid, be very afraid of her J-school-style research powers)...where was I?  Let it be known that Erin was down to her toenails the classic, BCBG-chic inhabitant of the 7th arrondissement on the day we said goodbye.  And now she’s going to Evanston, Illinois where they don’t allow you into class unless you are wearing a puffy Northface jacket.  (Ah Chicago, you know I love you, baby!)

Miss you already, Eh-reen. 

P.S.  She’s been writing for Newsweek here in Paris and I always felt badly that I never linked to one of her stories. 

The weekend we just had

My friend Alex lives on rue Vavin, just above Le Select.  I will never stop being impressed by that.  This is because I am uncool, but I am cool with being uncool. 

Alex had a shindig Friday night and I said to Sophie when I ran into her Sunday at McDonalds, (there are all sorts of places I prefer to use the internet, but McDonalds is the only one that is free, except sometimes I go on the benches at Place Maubert, but it was raining), I said to Sophie that it was a little like seeing all your friends on the first day of school after having spent the summer at different camps.  We were missing  Guigui, Olivier, Julie, and Caro, but still, it was a great night.

I’ve been reading A Moveable Feast and I said to Alex, “Can you believe you live above a cafe where Hemmingway hung out?”  He shrugged, handed me a kir cassis, and went to make out with his very nice copine, Chloé.  

Meanwhile, I took some pictures >>

Cheerio

London pics, yours for the clickin' >>

Bear Royale

Casual name dropping time!  Links to party pics!  Blogger social!  I hung out with a very famous bear Tuesday night at l’Entrepôt.  You know you've met a celebrity when your first comment is, "He's so much shorter in real life!"  I even got photographed with King Negrito in what is becoming the Obligatory Coquette Footwear Shot.    

There was happy chatting with Lauren, Sierra, and Petite.  Meeting Schuey and Nathan (one of the organizers of the very cool event) for the first time?  Also totally cool.  See what Wired wrote about Paris Blogue-t-il? in April.  (Fun fact: French is the #2 bloggiest language, after English bien sur.)

DNA Délicat

Around 1:00 pm Friday, it was decided by my french girlfriends that the apéro would take place chez moi and not on the bank of the Seine “si le temps continue à etre aussi degueu”--if the weather continues to be so disgusting.  I looked out my window at a bright blue sky.  The temperature was only in the high 60s, though, which meant that by 7:30 pm, it could possibly be in the low 60s. 

Cue horror music from Psycho. 

The low 60s--when I lived in Chicago, my friends called this “rooftop weather,” the weather for BBQs, bottled beer, and flip-flops.  Meanwhile, during our “rooftop weather” parties, I typically quivered in a borrowed Northface jacket, positioning my companions as human wind-blocking barriers. 

I can’t say it doesn’t please me to know which parent can be blamed for my various delicate sensibilities. 

If I had understood this as a child, when I was failing at sports like volleyball and being called “prissy” on the playground, I would have said, “I can explain.  I am not a priss, I AM JUST FRENCH.”

As for the party, if you're guessing it was super fun, you would be guessing right.  Thanks to blog friends Katia and Aimee for stopping by.  And an enormous merci to all who advised in response to Cake 911.  Grace à Miss Stefanie, I found a passably American cake at an Asian bakery near the métro Belleville.  Who knew?  (Stefanie, that's who.)

After the apéro, we forged ahead to a decidedly un-chilly place--a place called the Favela Chic where the people are hot, the food is hot, and the temperature is, um, let’s just say it looked like I'd been slathered in a vat of vaseline when I finally rolled out of there.  Let us also say that, in response to the question, “Have you ever danced on a table at the Favela Chic?” I can now answer in the affirmative. 

Kindly don’t show me a caipirinha until my next birthday. 

Not drinking Merlot

Dax and Kathleen, at dinner in Florence.

The villa had a vineyard, its own church, and a woman named Bianca who bakes fresh bread on Tuesdays and Fridays.

We hiked in the outskirts of Greve, stopping for a photo shoot with the herd of goats blocking our path. 

We drove to vineyards and rang the bells of stone-walled houses. We stood in cool tasting rooms where the sun streamed through the windows, highlighting our fingerprints on the wine glasses, making my hair glow fiery red, Kathleen's honeycomb brown.   

We said grazie and prego.  Scusi.  (I decided I could form any Italian word by putting "usi" at the end.  "Usi."  Italian is so cute, non?) 

We ate lasagna. 

If our trip had been a movie, there'd be a montage of four glasses lined up on worn wooden countertops, filled with good red wine, again and again.  And then some.

Swirling, smelling, taking nerdy notes (me), leaving nothing for the spit bucket (the guys--okay, me and the guys), buying 17 bottles of wine (Dax and Kathleen), and staining our teeth a hopeless shade of gray (everyone). 

Dax prefers the Super Tuscans.  I like when the Sangiovese grapes don't exceed 80%--a little Cabernet Sauvignon mixed in is nice.  I have preferences.  Chianti stipulations.  I'll be insufferable in no time.

Naturally, we quoted lines from Sideways. Hello, we were so "not drinking any fucking Merlot." 

Our car, the Fiat Panda, was a fearless mascot, as was the symbol of the region, Il Gallo Nero, the black, umm, rooster. 

Oh yes, and did I mention that I nearly ran away with Lorenzo, owner of a small vineyard and a dog called Pinto?

And that was all just on Friday.  See the pics for yourself >>

Actually Maestro, you CAN still get a villa in Tuscany.

Greve, in the Chianti region. 

Kathleen's neighborhood was less than a mile from my own, just across A1A.  We didn't meet until junior year when I transferred to her high school, but oh, how quickly the friendship flowered.  Like Roquefort and Sauternes, put Leeny and me together and 1 + 1 equals, shoot, at least 7.5.  We even have opposite good sides for pictures. 

The day Kathleen got a car, she drove straight into my driveway and began honking.  From that day forth, we always carpooled.  We drove to each others houses at midnight for wardrobe pillaging when we had, my god, nothing to wear for the next day's English presentation.  We got back from family vacations ready to kill all blood relatives, threw down our bags, and headed to our "second" homes.  When I began experimenting with jogging, I'd swing by Kathleen's for a glass of water and maybe end up watching Oprah, eating her mother's iced butter cookies, and getting a lift home come dinnertime. 

But what you really need to know is, on Thursday, MY BEST FRIEND PICKED ME UP IN FLORENCE, ITALY IN A BLUE FIAT PANDA.

Allow me to explain. 

Kathleen and Dax have been married exactly one year and eight days.  While some couples might celebrate their first wedding anniversary with a nice dinner and a movie, she and her husband stayed in a villa in Tuscany for the week.  (It was their wedding gift from the kind owners of said villa.  Yes, we all feel like it's something from a Seinfeld episode.)

Dax's best friend Pete and I arrived on Thursday, making us a boozy band of four.  Add a few sun-soaked days in Tuscany to the bank of "remember whens."

I still can't believe Kathleen is married.  We're supposed to be lighting a nice smelly candle, painting our nails and agonizing, why, oh why, must Dr. McCarthy torture us with the injustice that is Physics homework?  But if getting older means somebody actually trusts us to stay in their villa, maybe there are some advantages. 

Oh, and did I mention that Dax is amazing, makes Kathleen laugh until she snarfs, and I love him?  Couldn't be happier for both of my friends.  Congrats on one year, kids.  And thanks, so very much, for letting me crash your anniversary party. 

I'll post pictures shortly.

Because how many more innocent wine glasses do we need to see suffer?

Friday night, my friends met at place Saint-Michel and then headed to a nearby café where Jeanne took hold of my camera and snapped ABOUT A BAGILLION PICTURES.  What you see is me talking with Alex.  We began speaking about the Manga comic books he’s going to lend me, (I'm already amped), and then he mentions, offhand, the beauty pageant he’s entering at his graduate business school.  I repeat, he’s ENTERING A BEAUTY PAGEANT AT HIS GRADUATE BUSINESS SCHOOL, and he has provided his friends with the time and date of the event.  I haven't been so excited since I heard a Mac store was opening in Paris. 

And when I get excited, and there are no lighters handy, and my hair is tied back, and there is nothing else with which I can fidget, WILL YOU JUST LOOK AT THE MANIFESTATION OF AWKWARDNESS that occurs?

These are the only shots Jeanne took that are not entirely ruined by my big, white blur of a spasmatic hand.  My hand managed to wind up in the pictures of people down at the other end of the table.  We had to save wine glasses from being toppled, not once, but TWICE.  MY HANDS HAVE NEEDS OF THEIR OWN, AND THEY MUST BE OCCUPIED.  A cigarette to wave and swoop and stab at the imaginary points of my conversation?  Yes, this would provide an elegant solution IF ONLY I SMOKED. 

"Stop touching your hair," I was once ordered at a bar.  It was, apparently, distracting.  I therefore present these images as counter evidence that it is, in fact, a necessity of the highest physical order that I be permitted to touch my hair.  For the safety of untoppled wine glasses everywhere.   

P.S.  Yes, I am posting a shot that includes my boobs, and I will not have poster’s remorse if everyone will kindly JUST PRETEND LIKE IT NEVER HAPPENED.  Furthermore, I am taking the cue of every actress who has ever gotten naked on camera since the dawn of mankind to say “I felt it was vital and germane to the story.”  Thank you.