A Bidet, and a Lot of Hope

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So, I recently started a new job at a French lycee (which is a school, not to be confused with those pink, syrupy nuts one finds on the dessert menu in certain Chinese restaurants). It's another job doing fund development, only this time for the benefit of extremely rich kids. My last job was rather miserable, and caused me to spiral into a black hole of depression, although working for a charity in East Harlem was arguably doing more to "help humanity" than my current job. Although, technically, extremely rich kids are also a part of humanity, which is something to consider. Also, I am a part of humanity, and I'm being helped considerably by having more money and 5 weeks vacation each year.

School just started in September, but we already have our week-long "fall break" coming up, starting on October 9. God, I love the French. My first "real job" in New York was working for the French Embassy, and the new job kind of reminds me of those days.

The other day, my friend Amy reminded me of an episode from that era. I was taking care of my friend Jean-Pierre's cat for the weekend, and one of the nights I was staying at the apartment, I went out and partied with the Eurotrash until 5 in the morning, at which time I came home I barfed in his dirty clothes hamper, having mistaken it for a toilet (a natural mistake, under the circumstances). I didn't remember this until he and his girlfriend found it when they got home. Sigh. Good times.

I had just spent several years in Paris, where I had read a lot of Anais Nin, just to add that superlative layer of cliché to the already-ridiculous cliché of the flighty chick who runs off to Paris with no money and no clear way to make a living. My main memories of this time involve a slew of ill-considered romances, as if researching a future memoir called, "I'm Not Slutty, I'm Just European." Bread, sex, cream sauces .... those Euro types do a few things right, which is the only reason they haven't been entirely obliterated for being a bunch of gits.

Test subjects in The Experiment ranged from a young Indian diplomat; an American football player; an aging abstract artist who cooked well enough to make him seem young; a Spanish art student who couldn't draw, paint, or sculpt ("you're entirely missing the point of art," he said...), a French TV producer who wore a lot of purple shirts and silke Hermes ties with butterflies on them (in France, it's not considered gay - v. confusing ...); a Russian "artist" (the quotes are key) with a magnificent loft/studio on the Ile St. Louis, but no visible means of financial support; a conflicted German on his way back to the Vaterland post-Harvard; and a writer who, in his own words, had “a wife, a girlfriend, and somewhere in the misty backwater of the Bay Area, two snakes.” Hey - at least he was honest.

Lesson #1: Never, ever date an artist. Or an "artist." Or a "diplomat." Or a "German."

This is particularly true if the lover in question is a soi-disant “artiste” who is a) supported by his parents or b) has loose ties to the Russian mafia or c) claims that your relationship is a part of an “installation.”

So, I made some questionable choices. At the time, I thought of them as “erotic adventures.” Of course, at the time, my whole “life” was surrounded by imaginary quotation marks. I was a “writer” (the kind who never wrote) dating several “artists” (read: alcoholics) living in a “garret apartment” (maid’s quarters, but the kind any real maid would be too insulted to live in for free).

Still, I was bizarrely happy in the way that one can be when one has no money or prospects, or even a bathroom with a shower. I did, however, have a bidet, and a lot of hope. (The title of my future autobiography, after retiring from the Senate: A Bidet, and a Lot of Hope.)

But I digress. Part of the reason why I digress so often is because I have Adult Attention Deficit Disorder, or “ADD.” I’ve actually had ADD all my life, although I was only recently diagnosed as an adult.

As you may have noticed from the television commercials on the subject, ADD is a serious affliction that causes one to randomly see people dressed like plush bunnies waving at them from the corner of the room. However, people with ADD are not crazy. They’re just perverted, and feel strangely attracted to people in bunny costumes. Fortunately, there’s medication we can take to make our symptoms go away. Ironically enough, these medications, such as Adderall, are actually amphetamine salts.

Overheard at the psychiatrist’s office: So, Doc, I’m seeing the Easter Bunny, and you want to prescribe amphetamines? Dude, score! Can I get some crack rocks with that?

But I digress. I finally decided to stop apologizing for the unconventional way my brain operates. I’m never going to be the kind of person who can tell a story in a linear way, going from point A to point B, in the same way that I’m never to be the kind of person who will send in the warranty on a hair dryer, and file it in away in a color-coded folder with a typed label (I have a friend who can). I’ll never have an alphabetized spice rack, or be someone who “folds clothing” or has “good personal hygeine.”

Anyway, I had a point. Unfortunately, I don't remember what it was.