The place: your own dining room. The time: a Saturday evening, just a couple of months from today. The setting: Your table is filled with happy guests - and they're raving about the spectacular Lobster Fra Diavolo dinner you prepared.
- From the French Culinary Institute, description of "Essentials of Fine Cooking" class.
One of the perks of my job is that they'll pay for "professional development" classes. I just have to convince them that Advanced Wine Tasting or the Pastry Cycle at the FCI will somehow further my career in school fundraising. My employers are French, so they at least waited a full 30 seconds before saying "no."
Lately, I've become somewhat obsessed with the idea of Self Improvement. I'm not sure what it is, but I suspect it has something to do with the fact that, for exactly one year, I have simultaneously had a job, an apartment, and a relationship. All three. At the same time.
Back in the day, I was lucky to have one - occasionally two - of the above at any given time. Of course, its a cliche that New Yorkers are always searching for at least one of these. But until recently, this had always been the case for me ever since I moved to this city on January 1, 1998.
Amazingly, looking for a job, an apartment and a relationship are remarkably similar processes. A job interview is often compared to a first date, only without booze or the possiblity of sex (depending on your line of work, I suppose). And looking for an apartment in New York is simultaneously like dating and job hunting. You have to fill out forms and show credentials, like an interview. You risk emotional heartbreak when you realize that the gorgeous apartment/guy you have a wicked crush on is dating/being leased to another woman.
There's also a lot of false advertizing involved in the hunt for employment/housing/lovers. Ads for apartments always have more square footage and "exposures" (New York for "windows") than they really have, in the way that people on online dating sites purport to be taller, younger and much less desperate than they really are. And the job ads always make it sound like the position will specifically not involve changing the toner in the color printer, although this seems to be the central focus of virtually every job in New York.
Even now, I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night thinking I'm late to a job interview, or with some confusion as to whose bed I've woken up in. Or, worse yet, I dream that I've showed up late to an open house for a rent stabilized 2BD HWF w/NE XVR.
"So, what do you, like, do with your time," asked one of my still-single friends, "you know, now that you don't date anymore?"
"Oh, you know..." I couldn't come up with an immediate answer. I felt a sudden urge to take up knitting.
It may come as a shock to those of you who read my three-page reports on the ethos of Transformers, but, my friends, I think I have a bit too much free time.
Maybe it’s the back-to-school season, but every year around Labor Day, the desire to bite off more than I can chew rears its ugly head. As a kid, this was the time of year that I insisted on signing up for ballet, soccer and art classes, in addition to (obligatory) violin lessons. A month later, it would occur to me that it is much more enjoyable to go home after school and watch cartoons than to be involved in activities that required talent, exercise, or - worse yet - both.
By November of each year, violin was the only extracurricular activity I couldn’t avoid by faking a sprained ankle. It’s not that I particularly liked playing the violin, but my mom would cry whenever I suggested it wasn’t “for me” - a fact that was abundantly obvious to anyone who heard me play. Neighborhood dogs howled in unison to my consistently sharp E-flats. Much like Britney Spears’ mom, mine remained committed to the noble illusion that sheer tenacity can make up for a complete and utter lack of musical talent.
My mother, who as you might recall is a founding member of a cello trio known as “The Yo-Yo Moms,” remained committed to the belief that I would follow in her musical footsteps, and that I was destined to become a Great Violinist. Which is kind of like the Bush administration insisting that the war in Iraq is going really, really well.
Later, in college, every August I would sign up for 6 classes in totally random subjects, like “Feminist Nihilism and the Victorian Novel” or Yoruba Language & Literature. Then, invariably, the day after the deadline for course refunds, I’d drop at least two classes because they were “too early in the morning” (3:00 PM).
So I've decided to take some classes. The only one I've signed up for so far is Creative Writing in French, which work will pay for. It was the result of an elaborate fantasy involving winning the Prix Goncourt, which is the French equivalent of the National Book Award. Not that I've ever written a book in French. Or English, for that matter.
But, really - how hard could it be? Most contemporary French novels - like French movies - are rather short, and feature lots of of gratuitous sex and existential pondering and bourgeois ennui. The whole "developping a storyline" and "conflict and resolution," and other things that might require discipline are considered small-minded American/capitalist constructions. So I came up with the idea to write an entire novel in the present tense, hence avoiding the inevitable conjugation errors.
Je m'ennui. Je me déshabille devant l'écran de mon ordinateur, tout en pleurant comme un petit singe. Hier. Chez mon comptable, on se fait sauvagement l’amour parterre sur le Wall Street Journal. L'amour n'est qu'une transaction économique ordinaire, n'est pas? L'amour n'est qu'une performance comme les autres. Je suis triste et seule. Et toute nue.
Trans.: I am bored. I take off my clothes in front of the computer screen, crying like a small monkey. Yesterday. At the office of my accountant, we savagely make love on the Wall Street Journal on the floor. Love is but an simple economic transaction, is it not? Love is but a performance like any other. I am sad, and alone. And totally naked.
Ooooooh, yeah. Prix Goncourt, here I come.
- From the French Culinary Institute, description of "Essentials of Fine Cooking" class.
One of the perks of my job is that they'll pay for "professional development" classes. I just have to convince them that Advanced Wine Tasting or the Pastry Cycle at the FCI will somehow further my career in school fundraising. My employers are French, so they at least waited a full 30 seconds before saying "no."
Lately, I've become somewhat obsessed with the idea of Self Improvement. I'm not sure what it is, but I suspect it has something to do with the fact that, for exactly one year, I have simultaneously had a job, an apartment, and a relationship. All three. At the same time.
Back in the day, I was lucky to have one - occasionally two - of the above at any given time. Of course, its a cliche that New Yorkers are always searching for at least one of these. But until recently, this had always been the case for me ever since I moved to this city on January 1, 1998.
Amazingly, looking for a job, an apartment and a relationship are remarkably similar processes. A job interview is often compared to a first date, only without booze or the possiblity of sex (depending on your line of work, I suppose). And looking for an apartment in New York is simultaneously like dating and job hunting. You have to fill out forms and show credentials, like an interview. You risk emotional heartbreak when you realize that the gorgeous apartment/guy you have a wicked crush on is dating/being leased to another woman.
There's also a lot of false advertizing involved in the hunt for employment/housing/lovers. Ads for apartments always have more square footage and "exposures" (New York for "windows") than they really have, in the way that people on online dating sites purport to be taller, younger and much less desperate than they really are. And the job ads always make it sound like the position will specifically not involve changing the toner in the color printer, although this seems to be the central focus of virtually every job in New York.
Even now, I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night thinking I'm late to a job interview, or with some confusion as to whose bed I've woken up in. Or, worse yet, I dream that I've showed up late to an open house for a rent stabilized 2BD HWF w/NE XVR.
"So, what do you, like, do with your time," asked one of my still-single friends, "you know, now that you don't date anymore?"
"Oh, you know..." I couldn't come up with an immediate answer. I felt a sudden urge to take up knitting.
It may come as a shock to those of you who read my three-page reports on the ethos of Transformers, but, my friends, I think I have a bit too much free time.
Maybe it’s the back-to-school season, but every year around Labor Day, the desire to bite off more than I can chew rears its ugly head. As a kid, this was the time of year that I insisted on signing up for ballet, soccer and art classes, in addition to (obligatory) violin lessons. A month later, it would occur to me that it is much more enjoyable to go home after school and watch cartoons than to be involved in activities that required talent, exercise, or - worse yet - both.
By November of each year, violin was the only extracurricular activity I couldn’t avoid by faking a sprained ankle. It’s not that I particularly liked playing the violin, but my mom would cry whenever I suggested it wasn’t “for me” - a fact that was abundantly obvious to anyone who heard me play. Neighborhood dogs howled in unison to my consistently sharp E-flats. Much like Britney Spears’ mom, mine remained committed to the noble illusion that sheer tenacity can make up for a complete and utter lack of musical talent.
My mother, who as you might recall is a founding member of a cello trio known as “The Yo-Yo Moms,” remained committed to the belief that I would follow in her musical footsteps, and that I was destined to become a Great Violinist. Which is kind of like the Bush administration insisting that the war in Iraq is going really, really well.
Later, in college, every August I would sign up for 6 classes in totally random subjects, like “Feminist Nihilism and the Victorian Novel” or Yoruba Language & Literature. Then, invariably, the day after the deadline for course refunds, I’d drop at least two classes because they were “too early in the morning” (3:00 PM).
So I've decided to take some classes. The only one I've signed up for so far is Creative Writing in French, which work will pay for. It was the result of an elaborate fantasy involving winning the Prix Goncourt, which is the French equivalent of the National Book Award. Not that I've ever written a book in French. Or English, for that matter.
But, really - how hard could it be? Most contemporary French novels - like French movies - are rather short, and feature lots of of gratuitous sex and existential pondering and bourgeois ennui. The whole "developping a storyline" and "conflict and resolution," and other things that might require discipline are considered small-minded American/capitalist constructions. So I came up with the idea to write an entire novel in the present tense, hence avoiding the inevitable conjugation errors.
Je m'ennui. Je me déshabille devant l'écran de mon ordinateur, tout en pleurant comme un petit singe. Hier. Chez mon comptable, on se fait sauvagement l’amour parterre sur le Wall Street Journal. L'amour n'est qu'une transaction économique ordinaire, n'est pas? L'amour n'est qu'une performance comme les autres. Je suis triste et seule. Et toute nue.
Trans.: I am bored. I take off my clothes in front of the computer screen, crying like a small monkey. Yesterday. At the office of my accountant, we savagely make love on the Wall Street Journal on the floor. Love is but an simple economic transaction, is it not? Love is but a performance like any other. I am sad, and alone. And totally naked.
Ooooooh, yeah. Prix Goncourt, here I come.
posted by Marguerite at 5:44 PM
2 Comments:
Oh, thank you for making me laugh my socks off. I needed it today.
I admit that the only French novels I've read (translated, of course) are the naughty ones (you know which ones I mean). So, I found your paragraph to be fraught -- simply fraught -- with artistic significance. And little to no flogging or branding. What the hell is up with that??
That's awesome. If you do write a french novel you will have to send me the translated version. Because I don't know French and I don't feel like learning it.
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