The holiday seasons are an interesting concept. Everybody who's related decides that they should all get together, back in some location that they unanimously decided to leave (by and large), and try their best to get along, sometimes for an extended period of time. Now, that's fine and good, except that in most families, this getting-along stasis was never achieved when everybody lived together. IN most famlies (that I know), everybody getting along means everybody not seeing each other regularly. Therefore, the precedent is bad. How is a family going to get along well during a holiday season when they never succesfully did during any other season when everybody was living all together? So, in the spirit of the holiday season, everybody tries and hopes that for a few days, everybody can put aside their differences and forget the past and focus on making right now a good moment. Easier said than done. It inevitably leads to dad yelling at mom over some minor incident, or sister punching brother in the arm because, like always, he's a total jerk. Therefore, the families getting together for the holidays premise is flawed. Assuming that your family is like mine.
Fortunately, we avoided the whole issue this year by all being spread to the four corners of the world. Lilith is in Oregon, mom in Potsdam, dad in Ottawa, Rebecca with me, and Gabe in Phuket, Thailand. Right now, I'm hugely worried about Gabe, because him being in Phuket, Thailand, during Christmas means that he was in Phuket, Thailand during that huge earthquake in the ocean, and that he was in Phuket, Thailand, during the huge tsunamis that destroyed much of the city (apparently). So keep Gabe in your thoughts, even if you don't know him, because he was there when it happened, and we haven't heard from him yet, and basically I'm about to have an aneurism from occupying my mind with him so much and this typing and reading the news and waiting for the time to pass so I can call my parents is the only sort of therapy available to me right now. Also, if you know anything more about it, send me an email or something. I'm going to go and try to find some internet I can steal so that I can read the news.
-Donald

PS I just got an email from Gabe. He managed to survive the first wave in Phuket, even though he was on a boat on the pier. His boat was one of the only ones that made it. He got away from Phuket by bus before the second wave struck, with his baggage and money and passport and everything. Amazing, even more so considering the horrible tragedy that befell so many other people in Asia that day. Extreme luck, for which I thank whatever force responsible. I'm going to go nap now.

Now for the real holiday message. A little bit more than the smidgen I was able to type yesterday (Christmas) while I was stealing internet from the Apple store down the street from my house on the way to the video store and having to go to the bathroom in a powerful way. I was really getting in the spirit of sharing. Specifically, I was in the spirit of Apple Computers, Inc. paying for my hugely fast internet connection for just one day. I figure that’s the least they can do to help out a poor recently powerbook-less quasi-expat. Especially on Christmas. I don’t think anybody minds.

But I digress. Which I do a lot. I also write “But I digress” a lot. There’s a pattern here. Hopefully it’s not recursive, and all future posts won’t be locked into a cycle of me digressing and then commenting on how digressive I’m being in general. That would be really boring. Not at all the high standard that this blog normally achieves.

But I digress.

Ha! I’m just kidding.

It’s the holiday season. Hard to miss it. Montpellier gets lit up, well, like a Christmas tree during the holiday season. They hang these ornate light sculpture things over ever major street in the center of town (pictures are coming, I swear), and plant Christmas trees in the stone in the Plazas and spray everything with fake snow (that, fortunately, doesn’t wash off in the rain). There are all of these booths set up downtown, where they do things like get the whole town drunk tasting different local wines for 1 Euro a person, or sell local artisanry, such as glass jewelry, olive paté, and sausages drowning in hot string cheese. Basically what you’d expect. A very high standard of entertainment and consumption. There you have it: the holiday season.

Rebecca (oldest, wisest sibling) and Tim (oldest, wisest sibling’s boyfriend) are visiting for the holiday season. This is great for everybody involved. They come from Nantucket, which is more expensive in the low season for two than Montpellier is in the holiday season for four people. So they stay in our apartment (on the futon they so graciously purchased), and we guide them around town and generally speak French for them. It works out well for every concerned party. Not that we’re concerned, mind you. But I digress.

Oh well. My hot chocolate is finished, so that means I have to close up Anna’s fancy computer and go send this post off. I hope that everybody’s holiday season is awesome. And by awesome, I mean totally sweet.

Joyeuses Fêtes!

I'm back from the computerless abyss. My options were get a new computer, or leave France. Anna, bless her soul, upon hearing this, decided that it might be a good time to get that iBook after which she's been lusting for a long while. You know, to have a nice computer and to keep the boyfriend from actually having to abandon her in France for a piece of (admittedly finicky) technology. I know, it's geeky and sad, but that's where it stands. France is great, but not so great that I could stay here and do absolutely nothing computer or music-related for four months and justify that personally or to the world at large. Voilá.
I guess that I'm going to have to catch y'all up on what's going on. Because I'm running on the assumption that you care. Because any other assumption would lead me to stop writing entirely in the blog. Duh.
Okay, so a month ago I hitchhiked to Spain. There's so much to say about that that I'm so super-daunted that I'm not going to really be able to say much, except for in random installments, as it relates to some other topic that happens to come up in my mind. Here was the itinerary: the first day, I went from Montpellier, France to San Sebastian, Spain, by way of Foix, Toulouse, some town just outside of Toulouse, Bayonne, Biarritz, St. Jean-de-Luz, and Irun. The highlight of that trip was being insulted (good-naturedly) by several drunken tri-lingual border-dwellers as they trotted me to the train station and smoked hashish and bragged about the two legs of cured ham in the back (which were admittedly quite impressive) that they'd won in a card game. Classic. Then, from San Sebastian, I (and a friend Alex Marvar) hitched to Santiago de Compostela, which is the west coast of Spain just above Portugal, by way ot Bilbao, Oviedo, Aviles, and some other random sides of highways. Much tuna fish, chocolate, tea, and peanut butter consumed. The way back was more southerly than the northernmost coast, passing just north of Madrid before heading back to San Sebastian and taking a train back to Montpellier. In all, the trip was one week, a hundred euros, and many many friends made. Send me an email, if you want to know more, in a more timely fashion than sometime indistinct within the next two months or so.
Do you follow?
Pictures on the way, but I have to set this new computer up properly, so it may be a week or so.
After Spain, I tried and failed to get a job here. Which is for the better, because it goes contrary to my visa to work. Keep an eye on my music, though, because I'll be updating that regularly. Because making music is precisely the kind of thing I should be doing here.
Then Anna and I hitchiked to Lyon, just a few days ago. You know, just because. Hitching with a girl, coincidentally, is way easier. We never waited for longer than five minutes, and got to Lyon, which is 400 km or so away, by about 4 PM. Pretty solid travelling time. Also, we got to ride in an 18-wheeler. Which is key. More on that later, too. Lyon is fucking gorgeous, and awesome to boot. By which I mean totally sweet.
Now, my sister Rebecca and her boyfriend TIm are in town for the Christmas, so we've been touring and eating and drinking. Fun.
That's the basics. I'll fill in the details in the short time to come. Gotta get the facts out of the way so I can start focusing on something more interesting. It's just the way I work. I hope that everyone is doing well and being safe and having happy holidays or whatever it is you do where you come from.
-D