Rest in peace

My grandfather died yesterday, almost exactly six months after my grandmother, his ex-wife.

Obituaries to write, a funeral in Holland to organize, Ave Maria to rehearse before the ceremony takes place.

So much to do, so little time to think. It's been a good year and a hard one, a beautiful time and a painful one. I feel ready to turn a new leaf and take time to grieve.

I wish everybody a wonderful 2011, with all my love.

Writing a book is hard

Thank you everyone for the lovely messages and support.

You are wonderful.

I'm currently working for a fledging company that publishes school books and co-directing the English book for beginners. This is complicated because 1° I didn't learn English at school and 2° working is complicated and 3°I'm working for very bureaucratic people and I'm a bohemian freelancer who needs hours off to help tidy up apartments, empty houses and other fun tasks.

My partner is called F, and he is sweet, befuddled and very, very clever. He is learning Persian and spends his time comparing English to Persian (NO) and telling me amusing adventures of his youth. I like him. It's fun going to his apartment and working on the book, imagining the drawings and the dialogues and which accent to pick, AMerican or British? And which American? Which British? Lots of questions like that. It's great.

When we first met, he shook my hand, pecked my cheek and told me earnestly :"Don't fall for me, because I'm tired of girls falling for me." If you had told me I would come to be very fond of him then, I would have rolled my eyes.
But I am very fond of him. He's such an old romantic, always falling for the wrong guy, always depressed about love, and then incredibly perky and stimulating.

I'm very grateful to him for bearing up with my moods.

Can't wait to finish our preliminary work. How fun will it be to see the finished product!

Still looking for a title. It seems that every thing is taken: Connect, Listen up, New Springs, Apple Pie, Enjoy, Teamwork, Borders, New Borders, Discover...

If anyone has a snazzy suggestion, I'll send you delicious French sausage. Now if that isn't tempting...

Watching

This is the time for contemplation. After my grandmother's death in July, my grandfather took a turn for the worst and called my mother up yesterday to tell her he was dying and had only a few weeks left.

I watch my mother cry on the phone, feeling helpless and bruised and lost.

I watch the world, a little slowly, retreating inside myself.

I'm still here, on the sidelines. I feel like asking for help, but I realize I can only help myself; that when my sister comes home for the holidays, the person who knows me best will be there, understand. No need to talk.

Snow everywhere.

I feel frozen.

Being yourself

I hate that sentence. Aren't we all a dozen different people every day? Aren't we all bits and pieces and experiences and unexpected reactions?

I'm not doing so well at being myself at the moment. I feel like I'm too tired to make the effort. Yes, I am a well-oiled machine: I have my social niceties, and my small talk, and even some ammunition for the big, difficult topics of life.

I'm tired. I'm afraid that I can't be happy right now because I don't feel the bounce. I want to be. But I'm just exhausted. Can we wait for a few months? Can you let me sleep this bad moment off? Then I will be Sara again, or at any rate the Sara I can be when social and active.

Phi Beta Kappa

Now I'm not good about American Universities slang, or lingo, or whatever you might call it. So when my sister called yesterday to tell me she was invited to her college's Phi Beta Kappa society in the fall of her senior year, this did not ring any bells. In fact, I thought she meant she was entering a sorority, although that also made no sense since her college has no sororities.





My mother, currently with me in Berlin, seemed to know and was incredibly proud. I resolved to google after dinner.

So I did.

You get a golden key! I'm not sure why! But it's amazing.

I may burst with pride.

Ubuntu 4 ever

In France we don't have geeks. Geeks are that quintessential American creation. Sure, we have computer engineers, physicists, mathmos with an intense manga obsession, but we don't think of them as geeks.

My first ever boyfriend was a geek. He liked writing computer programs at a time when we didn't have broadband internet at home. I then befriended a World of Warcraft fan who let me watch him plan world domination and organise druidic poetry competitions. But X was in so many ways (video games aside) the perfect geek. He is a chemist with an unhealthy love of lolcats, a collection of punning tshirts, and can spend hours fiddling with Linux; oh, I got him hooked on Battlestar Galactica. He switched my computer from Windows to Ubuntu back to Windows. It never did recover!

He would hate being called a geek.

But he is.

So now that my boyfriend has introduced me to the sitcom The Big Bang Theory, I am obsessed. It's clichéd and predictable, but it reminds me of all the wonderful geeks I've known in my life. The ones who pull all-nighters to join their American guild and live a jetlagged elf life, the ones who discuss how many microwave ovens you would need to power a jet engine, the ones who read comic books, and of course, all the wonderful computer obsessed people out there.

Because the truth is, we all spend ridiculous amounts of time online, but these guys actually KNOW what they are doing.

Here's to all the geeks who have let me use their science and enjoy their company.

SURPRISE

I'm coming home on Tuesday and have packed nothing, prepared nothing, have to find gifts for everyone, write cards, welcome my mother, clean the apartment. I have made a list, which depresses the hell out of me, so I ignore it zealously.


Well, on Wednesday I was supposed to have dinner with my boyfriend for the first time in more than a month.

And then I got an email in my inbox.

"Let's all celebrate Sara's return to Paris on Wednesday evening!".

A class friend sent this email to about thirty people.

I can't really express how stunned I am. All I can hear is my sister's voice lovingly and sarcastically saying that I've become Miss Popular. YES I HAVE J!
Well, most of the people invited to this thing don't like me, so I suppose I'm not Miss Popular, but Miss Good Excuse To Get Drunk. And that works for me.

I called AD to tell him our plans were cancelled due to my huge and out-of-control fandom.
We are having breakfast together instead. Meal of Kings.
Oh, and I'm getting a set of keys to his place.

THE LIST THE LIST THE LIST is taunting me. If you think this post makes no sense, wait until Monday sets in.