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I’m awake!

The Photo That Got Away

A nondescript, conservatively dressed woman in her early forties on the bus, wearing a skirt. When she crossed her legs, I could see three large tattooed cat paws going up her calf, as if a mountain lion had just finished climbing into her lap.

They’d shut down one of the major roads, so the traffic on the side roads was terrible. The bus driver braked so hard that we were all thrown forward in our seats. The bus driver called out, “Just making sure everyone’s awake back there.”

A man in the back of the bus yelped, “I’m awake! I’m AWAKE!” and everyone got the giggles.

When they hear about how many places we’ve lived in the past 10 years, my Canadian friends are quite convinced that I am only flitting through Toronto on my way to new adventures. I think turning down six months in Paris for Todd’s job made a dent in their convictions. (The dent is something like, “My god, you moron, GO TO PARIS, what are you THINKING?!” but…it’s a dent.)

When I went to France as a teenager in the mid eighties, I was bowled over by the kindness I was shown by the French people. I was able to experience Paris as well as a remote town with a population of less than five hundred people. Everyone made a sincere effort to understand my stumbling high school French, and I enjoyed being there tremendously.

That said.

Recently I found out that Americans can be assimilated (resistance is futile) by France:

Assimilation is reserved for persons of non-French descent who are able to prove that they are more French than American, having mastered the language as well as the philosophy of the French way of life.

Which, I must say, somewhat supports my view of France as the Popular Kid’s Table of the world. And if the rules were reversed, how would a Parisian prove that he was more American than French?

“Hello, sir. If you’ll look over my paperwork, you’ll see that everything is in order…Yes, it’s Jaq - Jack, I mean…I’ll be living in Kennesaw, Georgia. No, I don’t own a gun. Is this relev -? The law? Surely you are making a mockery of me, sir. I don’t…Well, all right. Sec. 34-1. Yes, I do see that all residents must own a gun. It’s…you know what? I think I want my paperwork back.” ”

Little Man

Woman in Black