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

Back from Spain

Hi all,
I got back from Spain around 15 hours ago, and slept for 12 of them. Shit, there's so much stuff that I could talk about that I'm probably not going to get to any of it. My head's swimming so rapidly that I can barely concentrate on writing coherent english phrases. Maybe that's because I've had to be so comprehensively trilingual recently that my brain's turned to tapioca.
Okay, for the record, hitchiking is not on the way out. You can still do it. Just don't stand on the side of an interstate. That's illegal almost everywhere, and dangerous to boot. Also, don't do it at night. But otherwise, if you've got a good face and you're clean, somebody will pick you up. There's all types of people. I managed to get myself from Montpellier, France, to Santiago de Compostela, Spain, and back to San Sebastian, Pais Vasco, before I got too tired and took the train home. Go in pairs, a guy and a girl, if you can. That helps everything right along. Never solo as a woman.
My computer is broken irrevocably, expensively, and for good, I think. That means that this blog and the other will probably be a lot less complete in the time to come, either until I get a new computer, or a job, or whatever it takes to get reliable internet around here. Sorry. That sucks right now, because I have a lot to write, but I'm not willing to pay for the hours of internet cafe access that it takes to write it. Sorry. I'm really really pissed off about my really awesome computer not working, by the way.
Okay everybody. Start sending me letters or calls or something, because until further notice, my internet presence is going to be way low. Maybe it'll be a good experience for my soul. I doubt it. It'll probably just continue to piss me off.
But it'll be pissing me off in France.
love, Donald

Okay,
I'm packed. I leave tomorrow morning. Wish me luck.
-Donald

As in the other blog, it's been a while since I wrote anything. There's no real super-good reason for this, except for the fact that I probably have nothing interesting to say. Not that that's going to stop me today. Hold on tight.
Here's a bit of news: my good friend Paulo who lives in Brasil is now serving my music, as well as the musics of various other super-awesome totally independent to the max bands all over the world that everybody needs to know about, online. You should all go there and download everything. It might be a bit slow, apparently his ISP is "sticking it" to him. But it's worth the wait. I think you'll be able to figure out which stuff is mine :) Also, I now have a link on the sidebar (Seasac Records) where the Ugly By Now link used to be, because that's also where the Ugly By Now stuff resides these days. Much much music for free! And it's updated often often. I'm currently putting a track up every few days or so, but we'll see how long that lasts.
I was sick yesterday. So I figured out how to write graphical applications for Mac OS X. There's this thing called Cocoa, and it contains the power of white magic. Let me rephrase that. There are these things called Powerbooks. When you can get them to turn on, they are like God machines. Apple can quote me on that, provided that they give me another one that turns on consistently. Having to do a Cirque de Soleil balancing act, with a laptop poised on my fingertips, pressing various buttons, while I chant in tongues, in the park, every day, is hard on my social profile. Do you hear me, Steve Jobs? Are you out there? You want the French to like me, right? By the way, whiskey and soup and tea and Emergen-C take care of being sick. It's mostly the whiskey is our take on the matter here in Montpellier.
Being in the park with my laptop is like a social event.. Curious people ask me things like, "Does the internet come from the air?" or "Hey, is that WiFi (pronounced weefee in French)?" or "Where did the sleek-looking God machine come from?" or "Want some hash?" when I sit in the park with it on my lap, furtively stealing internet so as to download tracks by Miss Kittin and post blog entries. I answer yes yes yes. It feels good to be so positive. Although, I have to turn down the hash guys. Just not my thing.
I'm going on a hitchiking trip soon. I'm planning on getting around northern Spain and southern France. I'll probably not be updating the blog while I'm gone (like the last week of November), but with any luck, I'll have some good stories to write when I get back. You know, to keep everybody riveted to their seats, pressing "update" frantically in the hope that maybe I'll have posted one more, just one more, while you were reading the last.
Hasta entonces.

I'm reading a book of short stories by Jorge Borges, called Fictions (at least, that's what it's called in French). One of the stories in this book is called "The Library of Babel." It's funny how, a day or two after writing this post, I'd find that many of my thoughts and sentiments have been visited already by greater thinkers. Anyway, read that story, and consider these last couple of posts supplemental reading. The book is great, by the way, even for those of us who are reading the French translation, and who don't speak French very well. It's more entertaining than the biography of Adam Smith, the "father of economics." Trust me.

Addenum

This occurs to me a day after writing the other post, though I'm posting them both on the same day:
I mentioned before how, when dealing with complex issues, simple unambiguous statements and platitudes are simply not sufficient to gain an understanding, let alone a glimpse into the solution to, a problem. This is due to the fact that simple, single words cannot wrap themselves sufficiently around complex issues. This is part (a small part of a large whole) of the reason why I dislike George W. Bush, and his style of politics, so much. He tries to make issues that are unfathomably complex seem simple, by creating a world where his three words that he says about any particular issue are all there is to know about that issue. This is not the way I would go about solving anything more complicated than a simple algebra problem; it's not the way I would hold a relationship, and it's not the way I think the ruler of the United Three Countries of America should run them. Words like "terrorist" and "crusade" are so incredibly loaded and ambiguous that we should worry when they come out of the mouths of people in power.
Disheartening, that a majority of Americans are so fearful that they'll allow their lives to be run by such unproductive ambiguity. It's so much easier to tear things down than to build them up, and I'm sad right now, as I'm sure much of you (who've been able to wade this far into my dribble) are, that America is going to have to see so many more things go wrong before they can start to go right (left?) again.

Words

Ever wonder about words? It happens a lot learning a foreign language that you have this wonderful idea, but no words with which to express it. So you look for some other way to say what you want to say. Instead of "High Icelandic is spoken in falsetto," you might say something like, "In Iceland, they speak strangely in the court." Both of those are true statements, and they both sort of mean the same thing. Often, you'll leave a conversation wondering if you really communicated anything at all.
It happens a lot that my Spanish or French isn't enough. And, learning these languages, I notice that it happens a lot in English. You never think twice about it. Somebody doesn't understand what you say, so you try to say it in a different way. But have you ever left a conversation feeling as though you never really said what you meant, so what could the other person possibly be thinking about what you said? Almost as if you'd been speaking Spanish to a Portuguese speaker, only not so extreme?
Words are simply a medium of communication, much like music or art or holding hands or exchanging glances or sharing some sort of special hidden philotic link. It's common human nature to hold words as the ultimate in meaning, but this isn't true. How many times have you felt a feeling for which there was no expression, no single word that really sufficed?
The fact is, no word really suffices at all. Words are containers for ideas. Take a simple concept, like apple. Everybody agrees that an apple is an apple. Or do we? I think of a Red Delicious. Do you think of a Granny Smith? If you say pomme in French, are you talking about a potato, or an apple? If a concept as simple as a noun can be confusing and ambiguous, what about an emotion, like love? What about an adjective, like great? The fact is, no two people have exactly the same idea about what any word means, but we conduct our daily lives on the assumption that we all do.
Often times in the later stages of a budding relationship, I'll find myself arguing semantics over issues. I'll end up not actually arguing an issue, as in whether I did indeed leave the toilet seat down or forgot Valentine's Day. No, I'll be arguing what I mean when I say neglect, or something to that effect. Because at some point in a communicative relationship, you've got all of the easy problems solved, and you need a little more subtlety in your communications to simply understand the nature of the problem you're discussing, let alone the solution. Complicated problems require specific, focused solutions, and at a certain point single words or unambiguous phrases simply don't suffice to create understanding.
Talking to people is like an asymptotic curve in mathematics. You say something, and once it comes out of your mouth it's What You Think. From that point forward, each time you say it, you try out different word combinations and it becomes more and more What You Think, and less and less ambiguous for you. Eventually, you find the shortest combination of words to communicate what you feel is the essence of what you think. Approaching that asymptotic curve, as it were. Cutting the corners off of a square eventually makes a circle, if you do it enough. Thinking in this way is second nature when you're speaking a second language, but it's important to keep it in mind when you're speaking your first language, too.
-Donald

ugh.

Okay America,
I spent much of today carting my computer around Montpellier, trying to get some of that sweet sweet free wireless internet in the rain so that I could know about the election results. I couldn't ask French people; the answers I got varied from "I'm watching cartoons" to "I don't care about that." Some people did care, but they weren't of much help, so it's to the internet I turned.
My point is that I spent all of this effort just to find out that Bush won the election, and America hates gay people, among other things. What the fuck, America? It's like you want me to stay here. I might have to seek political asylum or something. Bush? Banning same-sex marriage? It turns out that America is indeed short-sighted (although only by a 3% margin), and that things are going to have to get much worse before they get better. But we all knew that already. Of course, y'all reading are the choir to whom I'm preaching. But what the fuck? That's all. I'm going to go drink some wine.

PS I thought the map with Republican states in red and democratic states in blue that they had on CNN really summed up the situation in America. "Yeah, I never would feel really comfortable in those red states," I thought to myself as I perused the chart. God Bless the Three United Countries of America.

Anna and I just got back from a week in Spain. The little French schoolchildren have their 1.5 week break for All-Saints Day, which coincides closely with Halloween. We would learn after our trip that French children are now prowling the neighborhoods in search of candy on the night of October 31st, much like their American counterparts. But I'm getting ahead of myself. My point was that after one week of teaching, Anna gets an almost two week break to do things like explore countries to the south of France.
This trip was important to me, because as most of you know, I lived in Spain around one and a half years ago. Our trip itinerary included (exclusively) Granada and Barcelona, both cities in which I'd spent considerable time, and cities of which I had very fond memories. So, the question is, are these towns going to be able to live up to my mental image of the way they used to be? Was I totally wrong about Spaniards being out so late, partying more, everything being cheaper in Spain, Barcelona being gorgeous, Granada being twisty and turny? Are these cities in reality just like Montpellier, France? Or are they boring after having seen a little bit more of the world? Kind of important to my internal sanity to establish some sort of answer to these questions.
To make a long story short, I was right. Spain is cheaper than France, and Barcelona is beautiful, and you can still get tapas for free in Granada, and the Alhambra really does kick ass, and the Sagrada Familia is still under construction, and a million other things that I remember still exist. My spanish came back, after a couple of awkward days of franglespañol being the only thing that would leave my mouth. I've not gone insane, and France really is a lot different from Spain, so I'm justified in being surprised by how my expectation of living here was so off base. That furthermore justifies why I had such a culture/life shock experience in the first (quite long) while here in France. This is good. It allows me to move on.
We took pictures. Go see them.

I've made passing references before to how similar I think America and France really are. How this is the real reason why our countries have a more-than-passing distaste for each other, overall, etc.
Today, Anna and I went futon shopping. Because, you know, if we're going to be the hostal, we need the bedding. Fortunately for us, aforementioned shopping is being split-financed by various family members who are going to be visiting in the future sometime. The whole thing works out because they pay less than for a hotel, and we get to have a futon. Of course, nobody gets to have any sex at the house while people are staying here, but no plan is perfect. I don't think Anna's mom and grandmom will mind.
But I digress. To get this futon, we have a couple of options. We can go to Futon Boutique in town, or The Universe of Slumber, etc., also in town, or we can go to the larger, more corporate stores out of town. The suburbs, as it were. So like good anti-corporate world-crusaders, we checked the local, private businesses first. Because they're close, and if it works here, why go somewhere else? Well, that didn't work. Beds are exceptionally expensive in those places, and our sense of community only goes so far. So we went out into the suburbs.
This is what blows my mind: it was exactly like suburban United States of America. In Lattes, Montpellier. I felt like I was in Woodbury (Minnesota) again. There were malls. Everything in English. Huge huge huge department stores, that sell everything. I shit you not, there was a department store (called Carrefour) that is even bigger than Home Depot. Home Depot! The warehouse super-monster to beat all space-wasters, and there are stores in France that are even bigger! I realized that the French are importing our culture, but I never thought Europeans would be putting up a fight on the "who takes up more space" front. I thought that battle was over.
So basically, I'm disillusioned about this. I thought that, of all things that Europeans might be wiser than Americans about, space-consciousness would be right there at the top of the list, and keeping money local would be, like, second-top. To be fair, the French government mandates that big department stores be closed on Sunday, to give the little guys a chance. That's a step in the right direction. The next step would be to not follow Sam Walden's example. But hey, we bought our futon there. Torn between our morals and our bank accounts. Our sense of community goes that far, apparently.

Some towns, you meet them, you fall in love, you never want to leave, you're enchanted. All the rest of your life after you've met, you're happy when you're there, and when you're not, you always harbor a (perhaps secret) desire to go back, to be with the city you love. Other cities, you meet them and you think "Well, she's pretty cool." You feel perhaps indifferent at first, but after you've been together for a few months, you start to realize a change. You're smiling more when you're together with your city. You're signing letters to the city "Love, Donald" instead of "Sincerely, Donald." You have secret places that you share, and fond memories together. You realize that a bond has developed, and maybe someday you'll leave, but you'll always look back happily, and you'll never regret the time that you spent together.
Sometimes, you'd see a town like Montpellier and think, "How could you meet this town and not fall in love?" I'll tell you one way. You get here, and you've got other towns on your mind. Towns where you know people and places. You think, "I've been in so many towns that I love, how could this one really take me and hold me?" And, for a while, this blinds you to the truth of your surroundings. That this town really is all the things you wish for from a town. Even though other towns have fit the bill in the past, this one's here, now, and it works too. After a while, you develop that slow bond, but your preoccupation and hesitation at the beginning has kept you from falling flat out in love. Perhaps that's for the best. Falling flat out in love can be detrimental; it's easy to burn out, to forget what you ever saw at the beginning after the passing of time. Platonic love, friendship love, seems to last longer.

Bonjour tout le monde,
It's been a while since I wrote. No real reason for that. I suppose there are lots of things to say, but last time I sat down to write stuff, it ended up being a preachy sermon about not creating social heirarchies and I deleted the whole thing.
Here's some news: my digital camera works again! I took it apart with a mini screwdriver, and put it back together again, and now it turns on! There is some magic involved in not knowing what you're doing and making something work again just by fiddling with it. Same thing "works" with my computer. Maybe it's the same thing with my entire life. Anyway, Anna and I went to Avignon, and took some
PICTURES
there. It's kind of ironic that the first set of pictures from Montpellier, France, actually come from some other town. But just wait, some more will be on the way.
I hacked my first wireless network yesterday. When I upload this post, it will most likely be from the beautiful Parc Rimbaud, just down the street from my house. This beats, for example, sitting in the street twenty minutes from my house in the middle of downtown, with lots of people around, (and, coincidentally, just across the street from an internet café) just to steal wireless. I think we all agree that parks are better than crowded streets with pooping pigeons overhead for stealing internet. And, of course, the park certainly beats paying for internet. Gasp! Why the hell would I ever do that? When my time is worth so little, and I'm so poor? But don't worry, if any one of my free wireless links goes down, I know of five others that I can use at any point in time. It pays to be wireless savvy. Specifically, it pays about 1.50€ an hour. Which, coincidentally, is about what you make playing in the street, depending on the day of the week and weather.
More later, I'm going to go steal some internet.
-D

We've been eating strange things here in France. This is not because the French are strange, or because we particularly want to try super-different cuisine. It's motivated entirely by price-consciousness. The things that are the absolute cheapest to buy, to eat, to wear, etc., are those things that are used most regularly by the denizens of the area where you happen to want to be buying/eating/wearing/etc. something. In America, eating crackers with brie and Nutella for breakfast, eating salami and roqefort sandwiches and drinking wine for lunch is not the kind of thing one normally does particularly on the cheap. But that's the kind of thing we're eating here, because brie is the cheapest cheese that there is here. And wine, litre for litre, ranges from about as cheap as water (for what would cost about $8 a liter in the States) to about as expensive as soda at a restaurant (what would be a $20-$30 bottle). Of course, there's really expensive wine and cheese and other things, but, as always, they might as well be on Mars, because I'm not about to pay for them.
But try to find a burrito in France, and if you have any success at all, it's probably going to taste strange, and it's definitely going to be expensive. This makes sense, but the net effect is strange. Hey, at least we're eating, which is a big step up from poor people everywhere else. I think I already ranted about how rich the French are, at least here in Montpellier, compared to the Americans with whom I come into contact (most of whom are definitely rich by world and sometimes American standards). So I'll spare y'all.

My gadgets have been a real pain in the ass lately. I don't mean to complain; it seems like that's largely what I've been doing since I got here, but let me just summarize: My camera stopped working. I dunno. It just doesn't turn on. Of the two phones I brought to Europe to use, one doesn't get any signal (I think it's an America-only phone, contrary to what I believed), and the other is blocked by a Canadian phone company, and unblocking phones is illegal in France. Fortunately, my dad's been kind enough to take on the task of trying to get his phone company to unblock the phone there in Canada, thus allowing me to have a (really nice) cell phone in France without having to buy a new one.
My computer is a riot. For one, it won't turn on reliably. I take that back. It turns on semi-reliably, but not when you simply push the power button. No, you have to (get this) unscrew several of the back screws, then turn the power on, then hope that the screen turns on, then screw the screws back in. It doesn't go to sleep anymore, either. So every time you want to take it somewhere, this process gets repeated. Also, either the European power system doesn't sit well with this computer, or all my unscrewing has de-grounded it, but I get mild shocks from the exposed metal parts of the case where the paint has worn away. Ah, the joys of old laptops. I'm going to retire this one when I get back to the states. But hey, free wireless internet is a blessing, and just as close as any internet café. Ironically, there's one internet café with a free wireless hotspot just across the street.
Oh well, I'm still surviving, which goes to show how non-essential to life those items really are. However, I hope nobody was holding their breath on pictures, because between Anna's camera being stolen a couple of months ago, and mine ceasing to function, and our budget not exactly accomodating a new camera, it might be a while (Christmas, family members?) until any visual account of our voyage will take place.
Keep us in your hearts, though.
peace out.
-Donald

All the cars in France are the same.
I counted, one time on the street, while Anna was in the store buying sandwiches at 10:00 PM after a hard night of scrounging in the streets for house supplies. Among the items we found: two pots for cooking, some cups, a wicker chair, a knife. But I digress: while Anna was in the store, I counted cars. 9 out of 10, the same type. Different brands, years, sure. But all the same. That hatchback, small, Euro-style economy size with the decent gas mileage and surprising cargo space, if low headroom. The rest are trucks or rich people driving cars that look like '85 Mercedes sedans. I literally can't tell the difference between tens of manufacturers and makes of cars.
They all look the same. I guess that's the style that works. And the style that works, if it works, is applied uniformly here. Look at the hair, or the clothes. Everybody in the latest fashion, which means everybody wearing the same uniform. The one that says, "Don't mind me, I'm hip and up-to-date. Nothing to see here." Or they wear the uniform of the concerted nonconformist, the one that you get at the non-conformist store next-door. And not just clothes, but hairstyles, lifestyles. But it's just a uniform. This is a by-product of rich society. When you have the luxury to be bohemian, to be a beggar, or to be a pinstriped businessman all with the same amount (or lack) of effort, it follows that the distribution would be uniform between them. But they end up looking the same, because the approach is the same: buy the latest thing, discard the old. Where does it go? Right in the street, for the taking. That's what we're finding out.
The beggars here look like everybody else: wearing nice clothes, but asking you for money. I'm thinking, "Are you sure you shouldn't give me some money? You see, my supply is limited, and the dollar-Euro exchange rate is pretty pathetic these days." On the one hand, it makes me feel good busquing in my normal clothes; I'll not seem out of place. But sometimes it feels like everybody is an impostor. So, basically, I feel right at home here. Same as in the States. Come visit!

la france!

Hi all,
You (the people that actually know me who read this) are probably wondering why I've been incommunicado for this last while. If you weren't, well, at least I have a reason. I moved to France, you see. I'm writing this on my laptop in my new apartment just off the center of Montpellier, FR. The town is in the south of France, about 1.5 hours from Barcelona, Spain, and about 4-5 hours south of Paris by train.
The apartment is right next to the town center, and it's beautiful, and all newly redone, and not too fantastically expensive. Definately less than a hotel ;-) We had it secured within 28 hours of arriving here. That's not to say that it wasn't extremely frustrating finding it! Even though it was unfurnished, between finding (nice!) things in the street and extremely nice neighbors and landlord, we've got a bed and a table and some chairs and a hot plate, so really the only things we need are a fridge, and an oven of some sort. That's pretty good, for no money thus far! At least we can cook, eat it on a table, and then go to bed. That's some pretty important stuff that one takes for granted when one is not travelling.
I've been using lots of exclamation points. That's to imply that I'm excited. Actually, I should write that we're excited, because none of this would have been possible without Anna, her french, her patience, her money, her companionship. She's the one who got everything done. I just haul it home. They call me "muscles."
The address:

Donald L. Anderson
244 Rue de St. Maur
34000 Montpellier
FRANCE

That's probably enough for now. I'm going to put another post when I get a phone number. And, of course, I'll write more and more and more, as time goes on. Send me an email, or your address if I don't have it, and I'll write you letters. It'll be great!
paix et amour,
Donald

Two Things..

Don't use a Windows computer. Have you noticed that it totally sucks? Normally, I try to stand the middle ground on these issues, but there are better options, people! Did everybody keep using the Ford Pinto after they found out that the fuel tank could explode? No. Your fuel tank is exploding, people.
Also, I put up some new pictures of a trip I took with friends Anna and Daniel to Montreal. Go and see them, if you crave visuals.
paz y amor,
Donald