On Bastille Day

It’s too bad that Bastille Day has finally come and I don’t have time to write anything.

On Bastille Day, my thoughts turn to bromance.

First off: Fuck Sarkozy. Who voted for this bozo? Second: Ségolène Royal should have been president. Not only because she’s a pinko, but because she has such a bizarre approach to policy (and not one that I wholly agree with) and because she is beautiful. And in the end, I am not French so I can have whatever opinion I want. In the end, those who would not elect her said she focused too much on societal issues. The end, oh well.

God forbid anyone attempts to lead a country by effecting the people who live in said country.

Four: Here’s what I’m a bit irritated about. Sarkozy, reacting to tensions between China/Tibet in March, says we should boycott the Olympics. So… that starts a bit of action, then, he thinks: Hey, maybe I should ally with China. He says he won’t boycott. He’s going to the opening. He has plans to meet with the Dalai Lama, to which China says: Don’t do it… we’ll get angry.

Celui que je dis n’en tiens pas compte. Alors…

It occurred to me on the way to work that I’ve never been in France during the quatorze julliet.

I have been on the Eurostar a few days after the national holiday, where I happened to sit with a guy who went to the same college (we didn’t know each other) and who went to study abroad and never went back the US. I also sat with a parisienne who’d lived in London for years and who was moving back to Paris, leaving her boyfriend behind, and crying the entire trip. inconsolable crying. It was a strange trip. The guy’s last name was Brilliant. That’s about all I remember of him. We were the last train of the night, but at a point we powered down and stopped in the countryside for over an hour, the train dark. I’m not sure what was going on, the voice from the ceiling only telling us everything was fine and we’d be moving momentarily. As we sat in the darkness, fireworks began going off in the middle of a field. Left-over, of course, from earlier in the week, but it was so strange to see the explosion from a dark train with no homes in sight.

Off the train, in Paris Nord, I went straight to the taxi stand and promptly got into a fight with my cabbie who didn’t want to put my bag in the trunk. I asked, in french, if he spoke english and he said no, so I only spoke in french until he refused to respond. Fine, whatever, but I gave him the address to my hotel, told him it was in the 17th Arr. — I stay in the same hotel every time — and… he pulled out his A-Z.

While driving, he consulted… …and consulted, then threw the map in my face and said “You find.” Not in french, either. I found the street in a second, and he yelled at me that I’d found the wrong street, so I pushed myself through the partition and shoved the map under his nose and said, “Non, il est ici. Regarde, mec!”

“Ok, ok.”

Then, he made a big show of taking my bag out of the trunk in the middle of a traffic jam, when we were sort of close to the hotel… saying, “You find.” Honestly, I was happy to finally be done with vehicles and happily tipped him. Dumb American.

And, as for liberté, egalité, fraternité, or maybe… confraternité d’attirance(?).

Bro-dy

My friends and I… are a bunch of bromance m.f.ers. You see us at a bar, we’re leaning against each other and close talking, we hug a lot and it’s definitely a tender and wondrous connection. We braid each other’s hair and help with the manscaping, exfoliation, drink microbrewskis and get together for every Yankee’s game in front of the television and drink manhattans.

Okay, not really, but we’ve gone through long conversations recently about how short our curlies are, and how we get them that short. A mate (British) is convinced all Americans shave their balls. Another mate trims his with scissors and takes pains to make sure there’s a bit of a… ravine… between the brush and the tree. Others have all sorts of methods/designs/reasons. One guy says his nipples could blink if he didn’t keep his chest trimmed. Another buddy trims his chest/stomach down real close and trims the pubes, but says he wasn’t really planning on the back hair and doesn’t know what to do about it. To his credit, it’s light, sparse and not that noticeable. I keep my chest and stomach trimmed and that’s about it. And this weird small patch of hair on my right shoulder… where’d that come from? Why’s it there? This pisses me off.

As for the face, we’ve spent hours trading methods like some kids trade baseball cards… in the 1950s. One friend, no matter what, cannot keep razor burn off his jaw and throat. I’ve event shown him how to shave, which direction his hair grows in, and he says it doesn’t matter. Thank god his balls don’t get ingrown hairs. That would be a bitch. Some buddies go from Grizzly Adams

Total bromance.

to

with no in between. I vary between heavy stubble to clean shaven, and every variation between. I started shaving when I was about 11, which is about the age half my friends started and about five years before my other friends started. I had a goatee for a while in high school, but then again, about 80% of the guys did. I, of course, grew a beard in college and had it for about six months. It was fine after I got used to it, but my facial hair is definitely coarse, so it wasn’t the best for romance of the non-bro kind. After I trimmed/shaved that up, I had a goatee for a long time. When I lived in England, I didn’t shave for a while, then shaved… and without clippers… one hard son of a bitch. Once, after a while on the Mediterranean, I had a good beard going and some dark skin. The only time I’ve been searched at an airport. Since 22, though, I really haven’t gotten too crazy with the face fuzz. I look older with too much ten-day shadow, so I try to trim once a week, and I usually shave down on Saturday. Occasionally, I’ll rock a variety of face creations on the weekend, though, many times they don’t get past the couch.

I have to meet a friend for drinks (basic crew cut, no more than a two-day stubble, no body trimming), but I have so much to actually say about bromance.

And I have to talk about the guy who hit on me last night.

Also… you may say: la quatorze julliet is not today, for today is 9 July. Yes… see I thought today was the 14th.