The Bold Soul

Spinning

This week has been a whirlwind of wedding plans, trying to figure out and organize paperwork to satisfy the French authorities for translation of our American wedding license into the proper French documents, and to top it off, it was a short 3-day work week here in France because there was a national holiday Thursday, another one on Monday, and in between a lot of people take the Friday off to get the full five day mini-break.

Not that we have time to go anywhere right now. Holiday or no holiday, we both have a ton of work to do for our jobs.

Let me start by describing the less pleasant aspects of marrying a French citizen, and I'm totally referring to the quagmire of red tape the French authorities throw at you when you're not a citizen of another E.U. country. First of all, know that it's quicker/easier for us to actually get married (i.e. the ceremony part) in my home state of NJ. In "Joisey", we walk into the town hall with our ID, a witness over 18 with a drivers license, and $28 to apply for our marriage license. Three days later, we get the license and can then be married by anyone in the state who is licensed to perform marriages. No physicals or blood tests required. If we wanted to get married in France, we'd have to do things like provide a document stating that no one in France objects to our marriage, get physicals with letters from doctors, publish "bans" two weeks before, and there's a lot more personal documentation needed. Add to this that my family is in New Jersey and since I won't be seeing them much from now on they deserve to at least see me get married.

Most people think it's the planning of the wedding that makes a bride into a Bride-zilla, but in my case it's what comes AFTER the wedding itself that gets crazy-making. After the ceremony and party at my sister's home, Georges and I will sneak off for two nights to a B&B at the lovely Jersey Shore. So we'll be back on Monday some time. On Tuesday or Wednesday, I will need to pick up our official copies of the wedding license, and of course we need a bunch of those so I can orchestrate name changes on everything from my social security card to my bank accounts, credit cards, and passport.

But the main reason we have to rush to get the license is that we next have to go into New York City to the French Consulate. There, we provide them with the license and all kinds of other documents to prove who we are, and they will generate the French "Acte de Mariage" and the "Livret de Famille", both of which you get when you get married in France. Without them, our marriage will not be recognized in France. We have to go in person to do this and I suspect they will also interview us together and possibly separately to judge whether this is the real deal or a fake. Not that we have any worries on THAT score. If we're lucky we can squeeze in a little sightseeing that same day.

And the main reason we have to get THOSE documents processed so quickly is that soon afterwards, probably the following week, I will have to schedule another appointment for myself alone, at the Consulate, for my long-stay "spouse visa". They need the French marriage documents or it's no go. Fortunately, the other documents they need for the spouse visa are considerably less than what one needs for the regular long-stay visa if one is self-employed and not over here on a work visa, student visa or any other visa (don't even ask, it's not pretty -- check the French Consulate web site near you for the gory details). The big question lurking in my mind about this visa appointment is the turnaround time. I've called twice and been told two radically different things: the first time I called, I was told it could take the same time to process the spouse visa as it would to process a regular long-stay visa, i.e. "up to TWO MONTHS"! Gulp... which would mean I could be separated from Georges that entire time while I wait it out, since he has to come back to Paris for work and the kids after two weeks with me in NJ. The second time I called the consulate, I got a different guy on the phone and a much nicer answer: if all documents are in order, I can get the visa the same day. This jives with the information I dug up on their web site. I need to call them a third time to confirm which it is so I can plan other things, like a return plane ticket!

The main reason I need this visa is that the laws changed in 2006, and now when you get married to a French person *whether in France or elsewhere, and you're not an EU citizen, you must get a spouse visa in order to come back to France and apply for the carte de séjour, which in turn leads to permanent residency and/or citizenship. It's like playing connect-the-dots, where every dot you connect leads to another dot and in order to reach the finish line, you need ALL the dots connected or you lose. And "losing" is not an option!

So you can imagine, I'm sure, that the paperwork aspects of this are leaving me rather stressed out. My head is spinning.

But then there's the FUN part of the wedding planning. Even though this is going to be a very small wedding, there are still a lot of details to take care of. I spent about 90 minutes on the phone with a good caterer I know (Country Picnic) giving them the info so they can give me a quote, and we can nail down the details and cross THAT off the list. And checking out wedding night accommodations was also fun, and at least I've got that narrowed down to 3 possible choices after over four hours of research (maybe I'll run a blog contest to let you all vote for your favorite).

Last but not least there is managing the costs. The airfares are unbelievable (and I mean that in a bad way), given that it's summer and what fuel prices are going for. Our two plane tickets will probably cost more than the entire wedding AND the cost of all the immigration paperwork put together, that's how bad it is. I found out yesterday that if we fly Continental, they're the cheapest, but if we fly on Monday morning instead of Sunday we can save nearly $500 USD PER PERSON, and that's HUGE. So we're going to fly on Monday, arrive around lunchtime in NJ, race to my mother's place and pick her up as our witness, and go to the town hall get the wedding license the very first thing.

I feel like the Road Runner, only he never seems to run out of steam, and I'm exhausted.

But I still can't stop smiling. Especially when I am sitting here blogging, and Georges is sitting across from me at the kitchen table, and he says, "I love you"... for no reason other than he does.

Fanning the flames of love

Reading this post just now reminded me of the rather unusual thing that happened on Friday night while MY FIANCÉ (sorry to put that in all caps but I'm not bored with saying it yet) was presenting me with my lovely ENGAGEMENT RING (saying that hasn't gotten old yet, either).

Georges took me to a very good Vietnamese restaurant near Abbesses. We got there before the dinner rush and got a table in a corner with a little bit of privacy but still with a view of the street outside. About half way through our main course, the restaurant started to fill up, when suddenly a very unusual couple came in: two gay men, one of whom weighed at least 300 lbs and was completely done up in a rather flamboyant drag. (Sad to say, considering the amount of effort that had clearly gone into his choice of outfit and makeup, he didn't make a very attractive woman and I suspect that under the many layers of pancake makeup that did little to hide his 5 o'clock shadow, he probably wasn't a very attractive man, either. But I digress.) The other man was more androgynous-looking in a 1970s-era beige corduroy jacket, pants and matching cap, but a man nonetheless.

It took them a few moments to choose where they were going to sit, apparently requiring some debate between them, and they ultimately chose the table directly next to ours. Other than periodically sneaking a sideways glance at them (it was obvious they wanted to be noticed), I did as I normally do when surrounded by French-speaking people who aren't speaking to me: I tuned out their conversation and focused on being with the man I love. I found out later from Georges that the drag queen was saying to his friend that he didn't like going to restaurants in certain parts of Paris like the 6ème, because inevitably -- and here's where I thought he would say that people made fun of him for his appearance and lifestyle -- men were always hitting on him.

OK. Whatever you have to tell yourself to get through the day, I guess.

We ate such a good meal that I was rather full and could have easily skipped dessert, but Georges seemed to want to try something exotic, so we agreed to share a banana flambéed with rum. Georges, for some reason, got up to go talk to the owner about making it, even though it was on the menu, but I didn't think a whole lot about it at the time. I had never had a flambéed banana so I thought it would be an interesting choice.

When the dessert arrived, it was a very large banana that had been dipped in some batter and pre-fried so that it was kind of puffed up, which made it really, really huge-looking. Uh... quite impressive, actually. In fact, the couple next to us seemed VERY impressed by it, because they laughed and the dramatic one said to his less dramatic friend, "Ça te rappelle quelque chose?" (Does that remind you of something?)

After setting the banana on fire, the waiter brought out two glasses of champagne and I thought how sweet that was for Georges to order champagne to go with the flambée. He's very good at making normal, every day moments very special.

Except this turned out not to be a normal, everyday moment. Because after the flames went out (on the banana), he reached into his right coat pocket and pulled out a little box, all wrapped in shiny gold paper and gold ribbon. He placed the box in front of me, and smiled, the love and the fire in his eyes so evident as always. I started to cry a little but for once, was able to contain myself so the other customers wouldn't have to see me go into my "ugly cry". And I opened the box.

Later that night, as we were curled up in bed together rehashing our evening and I was doing what women usually do in these situations -- holding my hand up in the light to admire the ring, of course (what did you think I meant?) -- Georges told me that when he presented me with the ring and I put it on, the thinner of the two men at the other table said something else:

"Je rêve qu'il m'arrive la même chose." I dream the same thing will happen to me.

I truly hope he gets his wish someday, because everyone deserves such a magical moment, to have the person he/she loves plan such a special evening with a perfect finale. Even if it does come with an overweight transvestite à côté. Because you can't plan everything. And I wouldn't have had it any other way.

We are definitely going back to that restaurant again.

Like the sparkle in his eyes when he asked me

He surprised me with this last night, at the end of a very lovely dinner out. It's perfect for me, simply perfect. And today, when we took the ring to get resized (just a tiny bit small), we also picked out our wedding bands, and order our names and the date engraved.

No turning back now... as if we'd want to.

The Lusty Month of May

It's May in Paris! Go forth and be lusty. Kiss with your amoureux or amoureuse in public places -- go ahead, no one will care! Do as you will.

I wonder if it means anything that my birthday is in May? Does that make me lustier than people born in other months?

*Clip from Lerner & Lowe's Camelot. Vanessa Redgrave can't carry a tune to save her life sings like a casserole, and for this I might apologize, but I didn't cast her.

Well, THAT didn't take long...

... for the "Bridal Insomnia" to kick in, I mean. Last night, I absolutely could NOT get any decent amount or quality of sleep. I went to bed around 11pm, a very respectable, healthy hour. And despite Georges being next to me, throwing off his furnace-level central loving body heat, I could not get warm and comfortable for over two hours. I know this because I kept looking at the clock as it passed 23:30... 00:00 (midnight)... 1:15.

Then, of course there are all the wedding details jostling around in my head. I'm about 90% sure this is the major reason I wasn't sleeping -- there is just a lot going on and I'm in hyper-drive. Because of the time difference, I am also having to make many necessary phone calls to the States in the evenings, and last night I talked to both the caterer and the French Consulate within an hour of trying to wind down to go to sleep. So that certainly didn't help my brain relax.

And for some strange reason, (get ready for Too Much Information) I had to get up to pee about five times last night, way more than my usual average of 1-2 times. This is not exactly conducive to a good night's rest, and hopefully I didn't wake Georges up in the process because there's no reason for both of us to be without sleep.

Last and definitely least, I had a song stuck in my head. Well, two of them, actually... both of them loud, energizing songs from Sister Act 2 which I had been watching earlier in the day. I love a good gospel choir, really I do - but NOT in my head at 3:37 am! And they're both still there this morning, alternating with each other, vying for what little bit of my mental energy is left after that LONG sleepless night.

I could have gone back to sleep after Georges left for work this morning but my brain was already revved up into high gear. However, it is now 10:19am and I am feeling the bed calling my name. I think I will need a little lunch-time sieste... before I start calling numbers on the US Embassy's list of official translators to inquire about getting certain of our papers translated into one language or the other.

I only hope it's not going to be like this for the next two months or my wedding photos are going to show me with big dark circles and bags under my eyes. Not at all the "glowing bride" look I would be going for.

Our week in Paradise

I have actually managed to get most of the photos uploaded to Flickr, from our week on the French Riviera. [NOTE: These are the public photos only... if you're on my friends & family list, I'll be creating a separate Flickr set for the family photos and will let you know when they're ready.]

In the meantime, enjoy this look into what we did on our April vacation in the sunny south (besides deciding, officially, to get married)!

Zoo 'appy to zee you

One afternoon last week, we took the Little Guy to one of his favorite spots near Saint Raphael: the Frejus Zoological Park. Thought you might enjoy a break from all the mushy love stuff (or maybe not?) so here are a few of my favorite pix from that day:

This friendly little (by elephantine standards) pachyderm enjoyed the treats we tossed to him so much that when we waved goodbye, he waved right back!

Love the hair, dude!

I tried to get him to smile for me, but this hippo is too hip to get excited at every camera-toting tourist who comes along.

Beautiful tiger. And I was glad for the very high fence between us.

Frogs and snails and prairie dog tails? These industrious little guys aren't French, though... nope, they were imported from the American southwest, just another group of tourists who came to France and then never left.

A week of nearly wedded bliss

One week ago today, my life changed forever, and so did Georges', because he asked me to marry him. Which is a very pleasant surprise -- feeling like something has changed in this way -- considering we pretty much knew we were heading in this direction after the first week of our relationship, and started actually discussing it out loud after the first month. Some people think six months is "too soon" to be planning a wedding, but when you're "of a certain age" I think you should be given some credit for knowing yourselves and what's right for you. And we've known this was a done deal for a very long time.

So it's really funny how this little ritual of asking and affirming has taken our relationship to an even deeper level. There are things we are still learning about each other after "only" six months, of course. For instance, he didn't know that in my family, I'm called "Lee" instead of "Lisa", and he discovered this after listening to me call my sister to tell her the news, and saying "Hi, it's Lee". I don't even think much about it, but there are only three people on earth that call me this: my mother, my sister, and now my brother-in-law who seems to have picked up the family habit after being around us for over 20 years.

Yet every day this past week, we keep having these frequent moments of stopping whatever we happen to be doing, and just looking into each other's eyes, and then saying something like, "My bride" or "Mon mari" as we try our new titles on for size. Friday night we attended a friend's wedding and I got to introduce Georges as my fiancé for the first time, and don't think THAT wasn't a real trip!

To fill in some of the blanks for those of you who have asked or wondered:

• Yes, I answered his question in both French and English. Since he asked me in both languages I thought it was only fair, although I think the most French I could manage in that moment, through my happy tears, was "Oui, mon coeur".
• We will be married on Saturday, July 12th, at my sister's home in New Jersey. Very small, intimate gathering of about 20-30 family and close friends with a relaxed party afterward.
• A very good friend of mine is going to officiate. This makes it extra special as neither Georges nor I are religious, so we don't want to have it at an actual church... but my friend is an ordained interfaith minister and will custom-design the ceremony with us.
• Since we are doing the official bit in New Jersey and none of our French/Parisian family and friends can be there, we are planning to do a party of some kind in September after summer holidays are over. I'm hoping to video the ceremony so we can show it at this party.
• We will do the vows in both English and French, though. My friend has a very good French accent so she'll have no problem helping us pull this off.
• I do not plan to wear white, or even off-white. And no big formal poofy merengue-type thing, either... it's just not me and at 47 there is no reason to act the princess. If I can find the right dress, I'm thinking of wearing red, and something low-cut. a dress I can wear out to another occasion some time. I already bought the shoes though (photos to follow)!

There are many more details to work on so I"ll share as we go along. In the meantime, I'm going back into our little bubble for a while, where life feels wonderful, and love just grows and grows.

Market Day

I love the open air markets you will find in every city and village in France. The spice vendor's display is so colorful and smells incredible!

Strawberries and white asparagus are in season! Yum!

So are the local small melons which taste so much better than the big cantaloupes I was used to eating in America.

And yes, it was one of these very melons that Georges "dropped" before asking me to marry him. He says this is probably the last photo I took before officially becoming a bride-to-be!

It's a hard life, but somebody's got to live it

Blue skies over the marina in Saint Tropez... parking for your big yacht is over to the right. Designer shops about two blocks over.

Or perhaps you'd prefer Cannes, where the big film festival takes center stage here every May, and where you can shop at Fred and Cartier while strolling on the beach-front promenade. Not too shabby.

 

For my money, I'd rather have something in between... a bit more secluded, with an incredible view and a pool.

Inévitable

I wasn't really planning to blog on the first day of my vacation with Georges; really, I wasn't. I mean, I do have SOME restraint and I know "vacation" means unplugging and relaxing. I was planning to do pretty much exactly what we ended up doing:

1. Sleep in
2. Eat breakfast
3. Take a walk with Georges around Saint-Raphael
4. Buy a fresh melon at the Sunday marché
5. Take photos of some of the pretty Provençal houses in the old town
6. See some shoes in a store window, making mental note to come back later in the week
7. Get excited to see the Mediterranean for the first time
8. Be amazed at the unexpected sunshine and warmer-than-we-expected temperatures
9. Test how cold the waters are (not bad, really; no one swimming but some kids in bare feet in the shallow surf)
10. Look at the pretty views of the beach, harbor and marina
11. Take a walk along the waterfront promenade and enjoy all the palm trees
12. Stop for some champagne at a beach-front terrace to celebrate
13. Have lunch at a place on the beach with Georges, the Little Guy and his sister
14. Come home and have a sieste like everyone else in this part of France does on a Sunday (seriously, there was barely a soul -- bold or otherwise -- out on the streets after 3pm)
15. Hang out, play games, talk together as a group

But something happened between #10 and #11 that took me by surprise.

As we stood next to the water's edge, he put down the bag with the melon. I thought he just wanted to have both hands free to kiss me some more. He took my camera and camera bag and put it on the sand. I started to wonder what was going on. Then he removed his hat. I couldn't breathe for a moment. And he put his arms around me, looked me in the eyes and said he wanted to ask me a question. I started to cry.

Slowly, he lowered himself on one knee, right there on the plage. And he asked me the question -- in French and English -- we both knew was already decided between us long ago, but which still needed to be asked.

And answered.

Immersion

My brain is exhausted. The backs of my eyes actually hurt. I never thought being immersed almost entirely in French for three days could take it out of me like this. We went to bed early last night and I even slept late this morning to try and get some energy back, but I'm still wiped out.

We had some invités for three days, French (of course) friends of Georges who used to live in Paris but who headed south to Marseilles a few years ago for a warmer climate (given the bizarre weather in Paris, one can hardly blame them for wanting to retire in the South, although Marseilles will never be Paris). Every so often they have business that brings them back north, and they stay here when they do.

They are absolutely delightful, this couple. He speaks fairly good English (he says he speaks "Frenglish" and I say I speak "Franglais" so we're both pretty much in the same bateau) and she has been trying to speak more. I actually met her some months back when she was visiting, but before I lived here, and at that time she was very shy about speaking any English, so she has made some fair progress since then.

As have I, apparently. Even though I still mainly speak English with Georges and the older kids, it seems that speaking my spotty French to the Little Guy, the nanny and the cleaning lady on a daily basis has paid off a bit. I am picking up more vocabulary and I am more comfortable at least attempting to express myself in French, although I frequently get stuck for a word or expression and have to call in someone else to interpret.

I knew I'd really made progress, though, when I was actually able to engage in several real conversations with the wife, some genuine girl talk -- and even if the words weren't always exactly perfect, we understood each other. And when the couple very graciously invited me to come with them to see the Goya "Graveur" exhibit at the Petit Palais yesterday (while pauvre Georges had to work), I didn't hesitate because I knew I would be OK even without him there in case of Franglais emergency.

But as much fun as I was having with them (and I will concede that maybe some of my fatigue was a result of the nightly apéro and a lot of wine with dinner, and we are normally very light drinkers in this house), by the time I came home yesterday afternoon, I was completely done in. Fatigué. Beyond fatigué, although I don't know the French for "so freaking tired I could barely see straight at 3 o'clock in the afternoon".

Clearly I can only take two straight days of immersion French right now. Once I cross into the third day, my American brain just goes into overload, and starts to crave massive doses of my mother tongue. I even found myself momentarily missing American reality TV until I got myself under control again, realizing The Bachelor and American Idol are not the solution.

So today, it's mostly back to my usual balance of French (with the Little Guy, the nanny, and local store employees) and English (with Georges, my clients and anyone else who will let me speak English to them). I need to recharge my batteries, because tomorrow we leave for a week in the South for a visit to Georges' sister. She does speak and understand some English -- in fact she reads this blog (waving at her!) -- but let's face it: once again it's going to be French and more French, and plenty of it. FAST French, too. I will be outnumbered again, three to one. And this time for an entire week.

Oh well, that's one of the reasons I moved here in the first place: to become more fluent in French, finally, after 30 years of trying it without immersion. It's just that no one warned me how tired you get when you've been treading in the French eau for a while, without an English life jacket.

This message is inspired by the sadistic bastards who are in charge of currency exchange rates

I will be the first one to admit I know absolutely nothing about how one currency is valued (or devalued) against another currency. I simply don't understand it so I don't wrack my brains trying. I just try to cope with the bad news that the dollar is sinking against pretty much every other currency out there, except for the Swiss Franc and even with that we're now just breaking even. Even the Canadian dollar is beating our asses.

But THIS? This is just plain P-A-I-N-F-U-L. Today I needed to transfer some bucks from my American bank over to my French bank, so as usual I checked the going exchange rate... and nearly had a stroke:

1 EUR = 1.58407 USD

This means that $1,000 of my money only buys me about 630€ of goods and services here in France. And doesn't that just royally suck.

God help us all, we poor (and getting poorer by the minute) ex-pat Americans. We may love living abroad and there are many good things about having this kind of life experience, but we sure are paying a high price for it right now.

So my message to whomever it is out there who is tinkering with my hard-earned money all for the sake of trying to get rich, at MY expense, by gambling (they call it "investing") on which country's currency is going to be worth more today than another, is this (and I apologize in advance for not be more elegant in my phrasing, but sometimes you just have to say it):

Dear Greedy, Inconsiderate, Selfish Creeps:
I hope some day someone comes along and tries to piss all over YOUR dream by fucking with YOUR money, you rat bastards, whoever and wherever you are. And when it happens to YOU, I will laugh maniacally and do a little happy dance around a pile of my bank statements, in your honor. And then I will burn a dollar bill, in effigy. Because at the rate these rates are going, it won't even be fit for burning before long.

But know this: no matter how you try to screw with the US dollar, you will not kill MY dream or force me to crawl back to suburban New Jersey with my tail between my legs, whining about how it's too expensive to live in Paris. I will just live my dream on a budget if I have to. And then I will write several best-sellers and be fabulously wealthy, and will be paid by my publisher in euros, in order to beat you at your own game. I will sit in a café along the Seine at sunset, watching the pink-amber afternoon sunlight work its magic over the old stone buildings, thinking how good my life is here in ways having nothing to do with money; and I will then happily drink a bottle of champagne with my amour as we toast a victory over this game you are playing with other people's lives. Because living boldly is the best revenge.
Sincerely yours,
The Bold-But-Totally-Pissed-Off Soul

Pressée

If you've wondered why there have been no blog posts since Wednesday, the answer is: simply too damn busy.

I am under significant deadlines for two different ghostwriting clients (and frankly, not making much progress), finishing up odds and ends for a third client from my web business (from which I have now officially retired but still have a few loose strings to tie up), and trying to get a fourth client to make some progress so I can wrap up his book proposal (my clients can often procrastinate better than I can). I am now taking French classes for four hours a week - that doesn't sound like much but when you add in transportation time and the fact that after the class ends at 12:30 I have to stop for lunch, I don't get home again until around 2pm on average those two days.

I had my income taxes to prepare and file (and pay) this week -- ugh, but at least unlike last year I did not procrastinate and file an extension, so it's done and off my plate for another year.

There have been social commitments. I have a friend in town who is visiting from NYC and we had her over for a lovely dinner last night. We have house guests coming all during the early part of this week. We made plans to go away for a week's vacation for the first part of school holidays, starting the 19th (during which I will meet another of Georges' sisters -- we have been very eager to finally meet so this is something I am looking forward to, except that I might have to put on a bathing suit which I NEVER look forward to). The evening of the day we come back, we are attending the wedding of couple we know here in Paris, so it's off the TGV, a dash to get home and change, and we're going to the mairie to watch them get married and then party the night away at a jazz club rented for the occasion. (Can you say champagne and mojitos and great jazz? Yeah, I'm there.)

On a more somber note, I found out yesterday evening that my brother-in-law's father passed away Thursday night after an illness of several months, and although I will not be going home for any services (they will do a family memorial over the summer because the family is very spread out), of course this adds to the people I need to be mindful of right now.

And last but definitely not least, I've been doing a lot of research into -- well, let's call it a "personal project" -- that requires a HUGE amount of planning, documentation and paperwork, and which will, by necessity, take up an increasingly HUGE amount of my time for the next three to four months (but it's all for a very wonderful purpose -- to be discussed in some future posts, so be patient). For now suffice to say, this project creates an even more pressing need for me to be hyper-organized and learn how to allocate my time to all my commitments so that I can keep everyone happy, keep some money rolling in, and everything that I want and need to accomplish gets done, and done properly, especially with this personal project which is more important to me than everything else combined.

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. [slaps forehead in disgust with self] I've started working, albeit sporadically, on MY next book, too.

I am still struggling to find my new writing/work "routine" since moving in with Georges -- which makes me laugh as I look at the words I just wrote, because to be brutally honest I didn't exactly have an OLD routine, not since being in Paris at any rate. I have never been a creature of routine, someone who has a need to schedule everything. In fact, I have studiously avoided routine throughout my life, preferring the "well, let's see what looks interesting today and do THAT" model, but since becoming self-employed ten years ago (Wow! Has it really been 10 years? Cool!) I have realized the necessity of at least some routine, or there is nothing to drive you forward and it's all too easy to become distracted. I suspect I will be one of those people who always struggles with this idea of "routine" my entire working life because I am a creative type with many interests and there is always something new to be explored. Yet to be successful, I know it's important to stick to something until you finish it, even if you don't quite feel like it and ESPECIALLY when you've made a commitment and someone is paying you good money to do it.

So here I am... once again avoiding one of those aforementioned deadlines by blogging -- which for me is a completely joyful kind of writing, no pressure and no stress involved, just pure FUN. But now I've pretty well run out of excuses to go write a chapter or two for this person's book, or I will have one very unhappy client tomorrow.

I will therefore quietly excuse myself to go do some writing and keep the paying customers happy, and I apologize in advance if blogging is sporadic over the next two weeks. Don't worry, I'm still "out here", and April in Paris is still April in Paris.

N'importe Quoi: Six Mois Haiku

We are ensemble,
A force inséparable;
Each choosing l'autre.

Question or answer,
Implicit or explicit,
No matter... it's love.

N'importe qui demande,
N'importe où, comment ou quand,
La réponse: la même.

This Franglais Haiku has been brought to you by an overwhelming rush of love. Happy Anniversary, mon bel amour.

[Photo credit: Aimee Gille, 2007]