Wednesday

Green Porno.

Isabella Rossellini writes, directs, and acts in "Green Porno".
My friend showed me this during class this afternoon. I think it's amazing in a strange uncomfortable way.





Tuesday

Swine Flu.

I sent my mother an email letting her know that I am sick as fuck. She replied with...

Oh!

Did you get any pictures at Annik's?
How sick are you?
Have you heard of the flu epidemic?
You were just in Spain and should be seen.
Please call you campus Doctor and write me back. Please. Or I will worry myself sick. Please.
Love you
mom

I love my mom and am glad that she still cares enough to worry about me. But I take issue with a few things in this email.

1. Is the epidemic she referring to the Swine Flu? Alright. I am vegetarian, did she forget? I know it's easy to forget sometimes even though it's been like 16 years. My grandma still forgets I don't eat chicken all the time. And aren't outbreaks are pretty much confined to North America and Mexico? I can't imagine that much of the pork in Europe comes from another continent.

2. What does she think Spain is some sort of third world country where there is raw shit in the drinking water? How does the fact that I just visited Spain have anything to do with my illness?

3. The whole "I'll worry myself sick" but got old like 7 years ago.

4. I love my mom. Just had to put that out there. She is sweet for worrying about me.

**update. I just searched "Flu Epidemic Spain" and this came up. Sorry mom.

p.s.
The festival went well today. Not so much of a 'malade imaginaire' more like a 'vraiment malade' didn't have to search deep in to my core for that one.

Itinerary.

May 5-13
Finals.

May 13-14
Paris.

May 14-17
Marseille + Aix.

May 17-23
Nice+Cannes+Ventimiglia.

May 23-27
Paris.

May 27
Seattle.



Also. You guys really need to start answering the phone when I call.

Baby food.

I suddenly remembered reading about the Heidi Slimane diet a few years back when I was buying applesauce last night.

I'm sick again.

Nothing is making sense.

Monday

Festival.

Le Maladie Imaginaire-Molière.
Isma, ou ce qui s’appelle rien-Nathalie Sarraute.

Tomorrow at 6.

Thing I love vs. Thing I hate

Thing I love: Travel is encouraged.

I feel like travel is encouraged. Especially for students and young people. I bought this 12-24 card. It is for people ages 12-24 and it gives you big discounts on trains. I'm going to Marseille and Nice for 53 euros. That is insane. Totally insane.

Thing I hate: French time.

Everyone is fucking late all the time. Chronically late. I do not like it when people are late. It might be my biggest pet peeve. And the worst part is 'french time' is supposed to be endearing. I'm sorry, but I have shit to take care of. Well, I shouldn't say everyone is late all the time. But it's pretty bad.

Sunday

Pants.

I've tried on countless pairs of harem pants and I still don't know how I feel about them. I think I hate them.

In other news, I ate an omelet today. The first one I can remember eating in at least 10 years. I went out to the chicken coop and picked the eggs myself. But I think it will be another 10 before I do it again...

Jean Cocteau.

You know how they say "If you could invite anyone to dinner, living or dead who would it be?"


Saturday

Yeah.

I could make excuses, but when it comes down to it...this place is basically Wal-Mart with a killer wine section.

Quote.

*Jay Z in the background*

"Caitlin, can we listen to something like more party music?"

Incense.

Something outside smells like 2005.
I find spring to be the most nostalgic time of year for me.

Riviera.

Two weeks.

Emails.

I've sent more emails home in the last week than I have in the last year.
Don't really know why. Could be that I know I'm coming home soon?
Could also be that I have been staying out in the sun all day and not sleeping at night. Not much else to do when insomnia is staring you in the face at 4 in the morning. I hope the emails make sense. Probably not.

Also. I've never been one for big biopics, but I'm making an exception for "Coco avant Chanel." What can I say? I think it will be amazing.

Demain après le théâtre.

Thing I love vs. Thing I hate

Thing I love: Walking.
Nantes is not a big city. I bet it is 1/3 the size of Seattle? Maybe smaller? There is sprawl, but it really doesn't amount to much. The thing is, it's such a hassle to drive. None of the streets line up. There is no grid. There are all of these damn roundabouts everywhere. The traffic can be absolutely horrible around 6 o'clock...It can take 30 minutes to get downtown sometimes (should take 10, maybe less). It is much faster to walk than to do anything else. I love it. The city is flat and surrounded by water.

I always talk about how much I miss the density of a big city. But I just remembered how ugly Aurora is.

Thing I hate: Feeling stupid.
I feel like I am constantly questioning my intelligence because expressing myself can still be hard. Right now in my classes we're talking about the idea of death in cultures across the world. Last week was especially hard for me because I did't feel like I had the ability to make the type of contributions to discussions I would have liked. I kept feeling like, if our discussions were in English they would have been completely different. More enlightening? I still feel like I speak quite literally and that is frustrating. For me, it doesn't feel so much like a question of ability to speak the language. It's hard to explain.

Maybe I should have just said "I hate those gypsy pants." Because I do. I seriously hate those fucking hippie gypsy pants.

So.

Is that or is that not Vincent Gallo in the new H&M ad campaign?

Tuesday

France.

I really don't want to leave.

I don't know.

mauvaise humeur: bad mood.

This is my translation. Not sure if it's correct.

Woke up on the wrong side of the bed. The only thing keeping me going is that in 5 weeks I will be able to listen to this...





One of my gems from Emmaus. It's going to be a gift, so sadly, this lovely record won't be mine forever. Just enjoying the time I have with it now.

Monday

Seriously?

The 'man purse' is alive and fucking well in France right now.

Saturday

Manteaux.

I know it's spring. I know.

I can't stop buying jackets. In the last three weeks I've bought four. They're all completely different, but totally relevant right now.

I had mountains of success at Emmaus yesterday.

Wednesday

Laryn Hill.

Shit. I almost forgot.

When we were in Spain, in the apartment, we listened to concert/interview with Laryn Hill.

That woman has lost her marbles.

French Radio.

Since we were in the car for something like 60 hours I listened to a lot of radio.

We ended up sticking with "Virgin Radio" which seemed like one of those top 100 stations. But the thing that surprised me was the diversity of music they played, while still managing to play the same 7 songs over and over again. They would play this fucking song by James Morrison 15 times an hour, but in between they threw in the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the Shangri-las and this weekend they are doing a tribute to Curt Cobain (a week late).

I have to change the subject. Why the fuck are people still doing tributes to celebrities who killed themselves? It is a horrible fucking idea and it is sending the wrong fucking message to individuals who are considering suicide. I remember listening to the radio on the anniversary of Ian Curtis' death and hearing the DJ say "...this isn't to glorify the way he died blahlbah..." then why fucking do it? I think doing a tribute on a birthday would be more appropriate.

That also reminds me that when I was in the Guggenheim there was this great film installation called "3 dopplegangers." It was a series of huge rooms, one right after the other (you walked through a dark hall). In each room, projected on a screen was a different musician performing. One was Michael Jackson, one was Kurt Cobain, and the last was Ian Curtis. The footage was slowed way down, and each clip of performance was filmed differently. It is hard to describe, but the film was being projected in a way that you couldn't necessarly tell who the musician was by looking at them. You recgonized the movements. It was great. One of the highlights.

done.

Tuesday

Affiche.

When I was in Bordeaux I saw a poster advertising a Jane Birkin concert on April 28th.

Kind of a once in a lifetime thing.

Soeur Sourire.



I only found out about Jeanine Deckers recently. This woman was fucking awesome.
I saw the trailer for this movie when our day in Toulouse got rained out, and we decided to the theater.

New Vintage.



Because I dont' know if I'll ever get a Rick Owens.

[From an amazing little store called Wild Horse in Nantes. I waited all year to buy something from them.]

Spain.

I didn't realize until I was in the car half way to Spain that I was with three people who aren't too keen on planning. If there is one thing I have fucking learned traveling around Europe it's that planning is key. SERIOUSLY! We showed up at 10:30 in San Sebastian with no place to stay. Thank god I had written down the names and addresses of a few "backup" hostels and we got lucky.

The next day wasn't as easy, but it was equally as lucky.

There were no beds in any hostels in San Sebastian. We looked forever. We also slept on the beach for three hours. I was the only asshole in all black. The Uniform doesn't exist in Spain. Somehow we got in contact with a guy who we knew in Nantes. He is Spanish and lives in San Sebastian now. Anyway, this guy let us stay in his parents empty apartment. This place was right out of 1975. Swear to god. Everything was mirrored. And in the master bedroom there was one of those forest murals behind the headboard of the bed. You know what I'm talking about. They are getting more popular these days (much to my dismay...I prefer white walls). I wouldn't usually like something like this. But it was fucking original. The paper was all yellowed. GOD. I could have stayed there forever.

The next morning we left hung over and sun burnt. I still had sand between my toes from swimming in my underwear the night before. I think I managed to scare the hell out of our Spanish host when I ran in to the ocean. Crazy American girl.

Monday

West Coast 2009.

Just got home from a six day road trip.
We made many stops.

1. Bordeaux (2 hours)
2. San Sebastian (40 hours)
3. Bilbao (3 hours)
4. Pamplona (16 hours)
5. Biarritz (20 hours)
6. Toulouse (16 hours)
7. Bordeaux (3 hours)
8. The Car (god knows.)

I got sun burnt, slept in a car on the side of the road, swam in the ocean at three in the morning, learned some German, taught some English, and saw the Cai Guo-Qiang wolves.

Eastern Europe.

I met a strange young man tonight.
I knew he was odd when I first met him because he was in a tennis uniform, but had not come from tennis practice. I doubt he plays tennis at all.

He (inadvertently?) offended me by asking why I voted for a black president and mentioned something about America being a friend of Kenya now.

And he kept playing youtube videos.
My favorite one was of two Russian twins singing some sort of independence song. But it was a pop tune, and the girls were in matching cute-sy soldier uniforms.

I was so confused.

Clothing.

So, I've come to realize something.

I love the way French people dress. It is practical, but also kind of whimsical? I don't know. Like film characters. They look like walking pictures. Well, I suppose this is true for the way 89% of French people dress. Euro-trash exists here. But, fuck that. I love euro trash too. It's like these guys got up this morning and said to themselves "Hmmm...I know what goes with white. More white." That's all euro-trash is. White in different textures.

Anyway. I came to realize something today. It's like every French woman I see went out and read that article that has been written a million damn times "The ten essential items for every woman's wardrobe." I could list what they are, but we all know.

I have a word for the way people dress here..."The Uniform".
Not bad. I don't mean it in a bad way. This is good. Yet also kind of hard to describe. I have it all worked out in my head, and my mom understood it while she was here.

I got my last piece of "The Uniform" recently.
Now all I need are some immigration papers.

Quote.

"Oh Caitlin. Quit it with your sunglasses and your face."

Language barriers can be so amazing sometimes.

Road Trip.

By this time next week I hope to already have visited The Guggenheim in Bilbao.

Shit.

I learned that the direct translation from German to English for having "The Munchies" is "Eat Flash."

I think this is genius.

[unnecessary capitalization?]

Lunettes de soleil.



Throw out your wayfarers.

d'Eau.

Water ain't working.
Wonder how long it's going to last this time...

Sunday

Musee.

All museums in France are free for everyone each first Sunday.

Today I hit three.

The 'Musee d'Histoire Naturelle' was my favorite. It was so beautiful. Like being in the most amazing taxidermy store ever.


International.

They said I "look Swedish with some french flair."

I couldn't ask for a better description.

Saturday

Printempts.




Yesterday I had a little party in celebration of Spring vacation...And I tried to learn German. Busy day.
Thank God for mac photobooth.

Friday

Sarah.

Yesterday in my culture class we talked about Sarah Bernhardt.
She was considered at one time to be the most famous stage actress in the world.
I should have known who she was before yesterday...I really should have.