as promised ...

me and allison and mme dard
leaving paris
(day of my haircut)

le puy en velay
start of the pilgrimage
(home of albert, coolest bus driver of all time)

that is my favorite "prettiest little village in all of France"
st. cirq la popie

a shot of the genie pants, as requested
(and a choice view of the infamous etap hotel)

this cutie was next to me on the train from paris to toulouse

the cloisters at musee des augustins

and more to come!
(probably tomorrow night
when my computer isn't about to die
and after I watch hp6 for the second time)

a kid again

one of these days, you will actually get to see the pictures I have promised you, but as it is ... still without internet. that may be fixed in the next couple days, but I promise nothing, so that I won't keep breaking promises.

a week ago was the 14th of july - bastille day here in france, kind of like the 4th of july. and me benjamin and anna went to carcassonne for the fireworks. like many old old old cities in france, there's old carcassonne and new carcassonne, the modern little city with the old city, including chapel, castle, battlements and ramparts etc. about a km away. we tried to get train tickets but the last train was all full up, but florence, wonder woman, found a charter bus going specially for the fireworks that would take us back the same night. we had considered taking florence's tent and making a night of it, but the campgrounds were all full too. so we took the charter bus (that was, coincidentally, completely full of old people. it felt like I was still at work) and wandered around the bazillion tourist shops in the old city and then ate a long meal. turns out anna speaks and understands english, too, so we got to all speak english together, which was fun. we got along really well and had a good time. there was a slight fiasco of the restaurant not accepting our cheques déjeuner (they're invalid on holidays, which we of course were unaware of) anna was put out, but I told her not to complain, they forgot to charge for a & b's beers, after all.

then we elbowed our way through thousands of people to an excellent view of the old city from the bridge and waited for 45 minutes under thunder and lightning for the storm to break or hold and the fireworks to start. if it'd just been any old fireworks, I wouldn't have made the trek out to carcassonne just to see the old city - I've seen quite a few old french cities already - but the fireworks at carcassonne are the best fireworks in all of france, better even than paris. and they did not disappoint. fireworks have always been cool, but it's been a few years since they've really fascinated me. this was incredible - I felt like a little kid again. I was completely breathless, so excited, so in awe. it was a wonderful feeling. they were beautiful fireworks. and for once, I put my camera in my bag and left it there. I have no pictures of those fireworks because they almost never turn out and for once in my life, I was going to live in the moment, so help me. it was a great moment. if you can call a half hour a moment.

I went to see the latest harry potter movie on opening day last wednesday. a kid named simon (chinese studying at a french university in an english program, so he speaks english not french) from church called me up to hang out and he got the tickets online. lucky too cause they were pretty much sold out. hmm I'll need to see it a second time in order to really pass judgment, but I didn't like it much. I liked parts and disliked others. I'd almost forgotten how sad the ending is. but book six is my favorite (though I could probably say that for four or five of them) and this movie just wasn't up to par for my favorite. dan did a pretty good job this time, though his reaction to dumbledore's death was not as moving as other deaths he's encountered in past films. and of course, the most moving scene to me, snape and harry's confrontation at the end, was completely anticlimactic and nowhere near as good as it plays out in my head ... but that's hollywood for you. alan rickman is amazing, but his snape is laconic and cold without the deeper layer of heartbreak and anguish. snape's heartlessness is a cover for the fact that he actually does have a heart, but rickman's snape is just a character.

I started a new journal exactly one year from the start of my last journal. I had never filled a journal so fast before. I guess I've never had more to express before. that could be good and bad.

nightmare I guess

sitting and waiting for trains to come at the top of a tall building.
miss lisa and someone who was supposed to be miss dina but had a weird name.
she commented on my weight gain, especially in my face.
I made kryn laugh so hard and we were laughing together, he laughed so hard he was crying, but there was someone sitting between us and I faked the length of my laugh to match his.
skinny little girls doing playground karate-looking stuff.

suddenly it's a race against time, against the bad guys.
the elevator opens and it's florence but she's on the bad guys' side and I'm screaming at her " I can't believe you! my children work with you." then I am florence and I've switched sides.
keep barely escaping in the elevator as people chase me down.
finally a french-looking soldier/combat police officer is in a position to survey me as I zip along a zipline up and down staircases. on my way back down, he shoots me in the arm -- there are little blood spirals sprayed on my sleeve and then I was scared and told him I would cooperate if he didn't shoot me again.
so I come down and he pulls this tubing & stuff out of his bag and now he's wearing a doctor's coat and I'm scared of what he's going to do -- he's going to put the tubing in me.
and I say to him "have you actually seen this movie? do they show what you're going to do to me, cause I don't want to see it" but he just smiles and keeps walking and I'm scared out of my mind that my mind would dream me into this situation.
but when he goes into some operating/scanning room, I walk right past to a door open to outside and he doesn't notice yet and when I'm outside I step over a soldier's body and I know there's a battle going on and I feel saved.

I think I was supposed to blow up the building.

some random dreams

dream:
something involving exploitation of women and hatred of men.
caroyn's dog arnold was humongous and looked different and growled at me.

dream:
I had lice. it was disgusting. they were glow-y cornflower blue.

dream:
elizabeth bennet and me, michael cera possibly, Hurlbut & co., construction zone later looked like a war wone. family friends tying modern ties into a cravat. elizabeth wore a pink dress and white stockings, but her feet were kind of flabby and it was weird.

dream:
katelyn anders and other old-school people.
a turkish prince who refused to be tempted by the bad lady.
balloons were the method of temptation.
sailing away.

dream:
kryn was at my apartment and I was like what are you doing here? as there was nothing particularly special about that weekend and he said he's flying back every week to see me.

on death & dying

today, I cannot walk in the streets. today, I am incapable of manoeuvering the dodge. I don't know why.

I found my favorite part of toulouse. it's at the end of rue alsace-lorraine where it becomes rue languedoc, so there's still enough good shops to make it interesting but not busy shopper crazy like closer to capitole. it's near the musée des augustins and place esquirol, a very pleasant little corner, and also near the jardin des plantes. all the adjoining little side streets are cute and artisanal and personalized instead of run-down and sketch. everything feels fresh and pleasant and discoverable instead of typical city grunge. I found the coolest little boutique that I must go back to where I will surely spend too much. I held off on 2 things I wanted (be proud) but got a pencil case for myself and many postcards, all of them unique and pretty much the coolest postcards I've ever seen, except maybe the ones I got in montmartre for kryn that I still haven't sent. 20 euros later, the shop was closing and I was a happy camper.

it seems more and more to me, being around old people all the time and their slow disintegration, that the body betrays us. and not just in old age. there are so many 30 year olds getting cancer. I see 90 year olds in relative good health and 60 year olds who can longer move enough to leave the house and 50 year olds who die out of nowhere, from a heart attack, or fast-moving cancer, or a tumor they didn't know they had. I'm only 20, so I guess I can't really know, but it feels like it didn't use to be like this. we got sick and we died, at all ages, but from the outside enemy, the infiltrating bacteria or some airborn virus. now, the body has revolted and started self-destructing from the inside-out, for some faster or earlier than others. I feel born into a world built on a food system and a way of life apart from the earth and our origins over which I have no control. I don't know what toxins are inside of me, no one does, cause we don't know what, in all of the billions of changes we've made to ourselves and our earth, is causing the internal revolt. it's both out of my hands and inside of them and I feel like death could strike us any day and we're lucky beyond imagining to wake up in the morning, to open our eyes and see beauty, and breathe in the words of the ones we love.

we're dying imperceptibly on our feet.

the weekend

I bought the cheapest cell phone I could find, a little black brick for 19€ and since receiving calls is free for me, I had my mom call me and we talked for 2 and a half hours. hahah yeah, free for me, not for her, but it was so wonderful to talk to her. I was talking a mile a minute and we still talked for that long and we could have talked for hours more, I'm sure.

the 4th of july, I celebrated by being more social than usual. I went to the ward activity in the morning - it was a ward breakfast (ward breakfast mon oeil, there were maybe 20 people there) and then we watched the movie Saints and Soldiers in french. I hadn't ever seen it, just the opening scene one time when mom and dad were starting it and I was going out. my impression of that scene, my memory, compared with how it really was, is astoundingly different. that screaming soldier was only screaming for about 3 seconds in the real thing, but for me in my head I thought it was like 5 minutes ... it was a really good movie, though the attempts to capture french culture were a little contrived. afterwards, I had a long conversation with laure and then I was invited to lunch with laure and kathy and kathy's husband and kids (they're like celesta's family frenchified). the kids ate macdo and we had pizza - it was an epic french meal ...

I got out my sketchbook for the first time in awhile and could hardly believe what the result was. it expressed a huge amount of misandry and anger. I guess it shows how strongly I feel about my male/female interactions here. it's really hard being a young single woman with a large chest. not only am I constantly having to avoid creepers and come-ons, it's just the constant attention that gets to me. I feel out of control of my own body because people are enjoying it without my permission and it makes me feel completely objectified. this isn't saying that all french men are like this, they don't just fill that stereotype, but in general, the cultural approach to sex and bodies is more open and public, so it's more acceptable to act like that, I guess. I have to say, I'm so excited to be going back to a place where I don't have to be afraid of or angry at men all of the time.

so ... yup, hard as it is to believe, I miss provo. I never really thought I'd be able to honestly say that, but I do. it's familiar and clean and not a city and people who I miss and love are in provo. it's really strange, but I think provo has become my home -- I miss my family a ton, but the place I miss is provo, not virginia. maybe because france is so much like virginia in temperature and greenery etc. that I'm drawn more towards the environmental aspects that are lacking here. I don't know. needless to say, I am learning so many things about myself here in france.

I'm starting to visit my round of 25-ish old people for the second time and starting to have real friendships with some of them and it makes me happy. I'm going to visit suzanne benezech for the 2nd time this afternoon and I can't wait because the woman seriously loves me to death. I think she would adopt me if she could. and her great-grandson of 5 years old thinks I'm pretty :) that's my in, weasling my way into the hearts of young frenchmen. I've got little wilson on my side, what else do I need?

harry potter movie posters are starting to go up around the city and I watched the trailer for the first time today and I forgot how incredible the 6th book is ... I'm getting so excited!!!

starstruck lovers

here we are, dear
won't you take my hand?
it's not far from here
just at the top of the hill

yes, I know the sunset's already done
it's pretty, but not what I had in mind
tonight, I want to show you a different kind
of beauty, a quieter light than the sun,
even a bedding down one.

I'd love to just stand here at the top
with you, hand in hand, for the next hour,
and the wind sweeping us into our
contented infinity

but that's not why I brought you here.

now lie down next to me, no don't let go,
just look up. do you see it? let me show
you. he's always there, I promise.
well, he promised me. Orion, that is,
a steadfast friend

and the seven sisters, half here
half there twinklers that flicker
in and out of your focal point.
you have to be careful, if
they know you're watching they'll try
to trick wink you out of your mind.

I bet you thought that was it,
this nightlight showcase of old friends,
but the faintest light was your surprise tonight,
the heartshine in my eyes that you
may not have even seen.

sometimes it's easy to miss.