Month: May 2010

On the dot


Pois

“In fact, Caro, I wanted to ask you a question. Were you curvy before?”, I was asked yesterday by a person have been working with on a project (the next step of that important thing I couldn’t talk about and which I still can’t talk about but in short, it’s progressing).

Next to us, my friend Lud, who also doesn’t know me for a while but long enough to know that indeed before – and this in a close past – I wasn’t really slim, said, amused: “Feels good, doesn’t it?”

Well…yes, I’m not going to tell bullshit, eh. Perturbing too. Because let me be clear, I’m still curvy. In my head, first of all. On the scale too, much less than before, right, but for any Dukon, I still have a dozen of ‘extra’ kilos.

But flagrantly, for this person – who immediately became my best friend for life -, I can simply be categorized as ordinary, neither slim nor fat, in any case not enough to justify the title of my blog (it’s the former that triggered her question).

Why do I tell you this, apart from the fact that I need to boast? Because it made me aware that sometimes, you need truth to come from the outside. From someone who hasn’t been involved, who would see you for first time without any influence from memories from BEFORE. Because I’m still sincerely convinced I’m curvy despite the proof of my new size 10, I’m also fairly certain that my kin still see me as curvy too. Just like they are for me how they are right now but also how I’ve perceived them since I know them.

Ok, I’m losing you now, sorry, I’ve had some Jean-Claude Van Damme for breakfast and I can’t digest it.

No seriously, actually, I don’t really have a message to convey, other than yes, in six months, I’ve changed. My outward covering has changed. And as doctor Z often suggested, it didn’t revolutionize my life. I’m not happier or less happy, not more or less loved.

Then I won’t lie to myself, I do not want to gain those kilos again. Why, if I’m not happier? For all reasons listed here. And also because, before, I would never have bought a strapless dress with big white dots. This might be a wrong reason. Especially as the Churros, when he saw it, didn’t find anything to say other than: “yes, it’s nice, but why do you wear it with a t-shirt?”

Which I wouldn’t necessarily have taken badly if I indeed had decided to wear a t-shirt. Except, as it happens, the dress is made like that, like trompe l’oeil basically.

Come back on the second round darling for your blow job.

But let’s come back to our subject.

I also know very well that my terror of gaining weight again is in itself a threat to put on weight again. That said, casually, I have the impression that I play it less by ear, that I have a simpler relationship with food, the heat has been taken out, let’s say.

I still find myself sometimes, on very tiring days, engulfing the content of my plate as if a starving armada was about to steal it from me. When I realize that I have barely tasted what I’ve just eaten and that my meal is closer to filling up than savouring, I manage on the other hand to slow down the process better than before. And if I can’t, I simply tell myself that I’ll wait for a real hunger before eating again.

Regularly, I do something I was forbidding myself from doing before: buy a great cake, custard tart or mille-feuille, my two personal hits. On that day, a Wednesday usually, I eat almost nothing for lunch to really enjoy my sin.

I still eat my pain au chocolat on my way to work, I still munch two pieces of Milka after each meal. And, incredible fact, I always have a slab of the said chocolate in my desk, a slab that will last in average ten days, even more. Never until now, have I fallen for it and killed it in three minutes.

There you go, it was a totally disjointed article, written because I haven’t seen Zermati for more than one month. A cancelled appointment, a few leave days, and, I don’t know, the need to call back is not strong enough. Probably the temptation of having a break, to see what’s going to happen if I go on as a lonesome cowboy, a bit of laziness, a spectacular come back as well of my indecisive side.

I’ll keep you posted for sure of the course of the events.

Edit: In case the Betty Boop dress inspires others, it comes from Naf-Naf.

But where is the computer ?

So, where were we? I realised my laptop wasn’t in my hand luggage. But like not there at all. All this while stewards were busy doing their useless safety demo as if it will be useful to know where the emergency exit is or how to use a life jacket in case of crash.

Let’s go back to the unfolding of this crazy departure…

7h56: Sorry miss, can I just check my bag, just two seconds 1, thank’s.  There we gooooo, I open my luggage, slip my hand inside and notice that…

7h57: that I want my mummy.

7h58: And my daddy too.

7h59: But mainly I want my laptop. That most certainly is somewhere, but not in my luggage. Nor in my pocket. Neither in my hand bag. Neither in my bra. And the plane takes off in three minutes.

8h01: This is a nightmare, I’m going to wake up, there’s no question, I KNOW I took back that fucking laptop after customs check. After putting my shoes back. And getting my hand bag. As well as my cell phone. And my transparent toilet bag. And… Fuck, and nothing, I forgot all about the laptop, now I remember.

8h02: I don’t care I’ll tell my boss, it was stolen from me in the street and that’s it. No witness, foreign country, language barrier, he will understand.

Or not.

Moreover, it’s the second time in three years that I deplore the loss of a work laptop. The first was REALLY stolen from me but you know how fast a reputation is created.

8h03: Furthermore, my husband will soon be unemployed.

8h04: All those notes taken during the conference are in that vermin of a laptop. Or how to come back without your equipment and no material for a potential article.

Either I find a way to go fetch it or a whole family will discover insecurity.

8h05: I put my nicest smile on my face (= right now the worst grin ever) and explain with a stodgy gibberish (stress doesn’t have a positive effect on the so-called “Read, spoken, written English” you find on my resume) that it is a life or death situation and I MUST go back to the customs check point where I forgot, triple jerk that I am, my laptop.

8h06: the steward warns me that the check point is very very very far from gate E72 (I KNEW this lack of number 3 was a bad sign) and he can’t guaranty the plane will still be there when I come back.

8h07: Challenge accepted. I will get my fucking bastard of computer 1 back AND manage to catch the plane, what a fucker motheeeeeer 1.

Damn it.

8h08: Just like in a movie, I rush out of the plane and start running like hell. Ok from the outside it most probably is a slow motion movie. But I am running. Which didn’t happen since 1987 more or less.

8h09: I realise during this frantic race that a) Madrid’s airport is as spread as Oregon, b) I’m not 100% sure I know where the check-point is, c) I left the plane without my ID, credit cards, phone  BUT with my Carte Vitale. Best case scenario, if I find my laptop, I have twelve minute left on the battery (the cable is in my luggage, that won’t get me too far, why didn’t I forget the cable, instead on the laptop, a mystery of human brain) to send out an international call for help. And then I will need to find a psychiatrist who accepts the Carte Vitale.

8h10: I might spend the rest of my life in the international area of Madrid’s airport. I could become a sort of wild beast, we’ll do reports on that weird woman who holds on to an old laptop without power cable and lives in a trolley.

8h11: I’m half way through and, a priori, only one tenth of my lungs is still working. My tights are at the level of my knees and one of my breasts seems to want to arrive to the check point before me.

8h12: Do we know when the end is near? Cause now I have a sort of intuition that my life is going to pass before my eyes.

8h13: Against all odds, I reach the check-point. In a last rattle, I mumble that I’m here to fetch my computer forgotten a few minutes ago 1. A guy from customs confirms that they’ve got one but he needs to fetch the key of the cupboard where they’ve put it. There he goes, whistling.

Easy Peasy.

 “I AM IN A HURRRRRRRY!!!!!!” 1 I shout, staking all, aware that it will either wake him up or convince him I am dangerously mad and thus good for slammer.

8h14: Apparently he chooses option one. He shows me the laptop which is indeed mine. At the same time, there are no other laptops in the cupboard. It confirms that I’m the kind of drag that doesn’t proliferate everywhere. Reassuring for the rest of humankind. Not for me.

8h15: I’m about to start running again – even if right now I’d like to really be in a movie so that we go directly to the following scene where I’m all sweaty, in the plane I managed to catch, next to Georges Clooney who would be in transit between Spain and France and who would fall in love with me and the sweat drops that would drip on my breast because of the chase in the airport. Instead, speedy customs man is blocking my way telling me I need to open and start the laptop and then type my password to make sure its mine.

8h16: What do you get in Spain for murder? No but do I look clever enough to have plotted the whole thing, like I’m going to pretend to run like hell across the airport, bet that a silly goose has forgotten her laptop and pretend it’s mine? No but I mean, WHO COULD HAVE SUCH AN IDEA?

Clearly, it must have already happened, given that the guy is hard-nosed. “You have to write your password” 1.

8h17: I might as well do so, as calmly as possible (=moaning like a three years old and shaking so bad I make a mistake twice). The laptop takes three days to start, I shit on Bill Gate’s face and send him the finger, I’m doomed anyway.

8h18: The laptop has started, happy end, I feel like french kissing the customs guy, but he, who clearly wants me too, yells “Ok GO ! RUN RUN RUN, your plane is leaving!” 1

8h19: Off I go with an extra three kilos, long live IT stock from 1998.

8h20: While I’m trying to move forward with more of a crawling than a run, I get one of those thoughts I have a knack for. Maybe all this is a sign. And I’m rushing to my coffin. Even though in the sky, my guardian angel is desperately waving with his small arms to explain that I shouldn’t board that plane which is more moth-eaten than my brain. It is, if all this is true, the irrefutable proof that I inherited the dumbest guardian angel ever. Because there are other options than almost wearing myself out on a moving walkway at dawn.

8h21: If I go back in this Boeing, I might waste my only chance to be on front page for escaping Air Europa’s most deadly crash. I can picture the titles “She missed the plane because of a laptop forgotten at customs’ check point (what a jerk) and avoid an awful death” and just below “Sometimes intelligence doesn’t pay, that’s the proof”

8h22: Don’t care, between spending the rest of my life in a trolley being the butt of everyone’s jokes or exploding above the Basque country, my choice is made. ETA here I come.

8h23: I propel myself into the plane, out of breath like a tuberculous eighty years old suffering from syphilis, crying emotionally.

8h24: Hardly have I done two steps in the plane, when in the movie with Georges, I would be swamped with applauses and passengers would even carry me from arm to arm with Gloria Gaynor’s screams in the background, instead, 300 pairs of eye looking daggers. I know now what it’s like to be the object of group hatred.

I feel an incredible solidarity with Raymond Domenech.

8h26: I sit down, fasten my seat belt quietly. The plane is about to rush forward on the runway. And, incredible: I’m not scared. Not at all. I simply don’t have the strength.

Edit: Check out the awesome drawing from Penelope on a relatively close subject, it could have perfectly illustrated today’s article if I had been of the kind who doesn’t care for copyrights. She is so talented!

 


 [1] TN: In English in the original text

Unidentified Flying Objects

IMG_3884
So yesterday, I took a plane, very early, to come back from Madrid. The kind of plane for which you have to wake up before 6h, even if everyone always says it’s useless to arrive too early at the airport, it happens that my small issue with this kind of flying objects make my life slightly complicated on the day I take it. Ok, good for the madhouse. Or worse, to testify in one of those tabloid talk shows.

Come on, wanna read about it?

4h39: Wake up with a start. Where’s my phone, it’s almost time to wake up and if I don’t find it I’ll miss my plane.

4h41: Phone found. Fuck, only one hour’s sleep left, I have to hurry. Except I don’t know how to hurry to fall asleep. That is a real issue.

5h12: Although the interest of not falling back to sleep is that there are almost no risks not to hear my alarm. QED. I’m brilliant.

5h24: Is it worth going back to sleep, that is the question

5h34: Now it’s obvious it’s not worth it. I’ll stay in bed anyway until the alarm goes off.

5h45: I confirm it wasn’t worth it, I was in a better shape ten minutes ago and now I feel like it’s 23h55 and the night is in front of me.

5h55: Where’s my e-ticket? I lost my e-ticket. It’s bad, shit, where is that damn e-ticket? Elements are against me, it’s a bad sign, fuck, it’s a VERY bad sign. Or maybe it’s just a little help from destiny. For me not to take flight A4566 which is going to crash down above Basque Country. Without me as I won’t find my e-ticket in time.

5h56: In my left hand. It’s in my left hand. Let’s forget about that Basque Country thing, we’re most certainly not even going to fly over it. Ok, I’m operational. I put right away this damn ticket in the inside pocket of my bag, together with my pass…

Fuck, that jerk’s not here.

5h57: There. It’s there, in the bottom of my bag. I leave it, at least I’ll remember it’s there.

6h01: I’ll have a quick shower and then put my clothes on and check the room to be sure I’m not forgetting anything. Especially my charger, I’ve already forgotten three in hotel rooms. Thanks to me, there’s a blackberry chargers black market. I’m obviously pushing the market to bankrupt.

6h03: Charger is indeed in my suitcase. I take it out and leave it in evidence in order not to forget it.

6h15: A shower and off I go

6h17: What’s this G-string? I didn’t pack a G-string, am I dreaming or what?

6h16: My fault, it’s my bra. And my panties… My panties are with my passport and that is extremely weird.

6h18: Cool I have ten minute left for a last check and then I close the door. And then I take a taxi. And then I board the plane.

6h21: Except if the volcanic eruption has started again.

6h22: That damn volcano.

6h23: It could have had a bit more stamina. Just to make sure I wouldn’t have to go through any plane ordeal anymore. After all, there are great reports one can make in Paris’ suburbs. And it would be good for planet protection too.

6h24: It makes me sick when I think of it. We had a dreamed of occasion to stop, once and for all, all those CO2 emissions and bang, that moron with an unpronounceable name doesn’t hold the distance. Lousy volcano.

6h25: Where’s my passport?

6h26: in the bottom of my bag, perfect, even though I’m wondering how it got there. On the other hand, my phone, no idea. That’s bad.

6h27: On the side table.

6h28: I recap: passport, ok, credit card, ok, e-ticket…ok, phone, ok. Vamos

6h29: Charger. I got it covered. I thought of the charger before being in front of the gate. That’s a sign. And not good one in my mind. I’ll take the risk anyway. As soon as I find the key. That is in the door. That’s fine, I close the door and call the elevator.

6h30: My laptop. It stayed on the bed. It’s not that important anyway, is it?

6h31: Hola quetal signor, aeroporto por favor, terminal due… dos.

7h00: Flight for Paris, Gate E72. All is fine up to now, these numbers speak to me, no 3, it’s a sign.

7h02: My passport. Shit, my passport. It stayed in the bathroom, for sure.

7h03: Hola signora, ouno momento por favor, I have lost my pass… ah, no, it’s here, my god, thanks.[1]

7h05: La signora doesn’t seem to be willing to share a beer with me. Neither a moment of true friendship.

7h07: So: my shoes are in a crate, my toilet bag in another, my laptop in a third one. My hand luggage here, my hand bag, everything is there. Off they go, everybody gets scanned and it’s done and dusted.

7h08: Huh, what? Passport? Fuck but I JUST showed it to you signorita, enough now no?

7h10: No, not enough, even in Spanish I get it.

7h12: Alright, alright, don’t call the border police right now, calm down, my passport, if it didn’t walk back to the hotel with its tiny legs, should be…

7h13: In my right hand.

7h14: I’m not crazy you know.

7h16: I put my shoes back on, put my passport away, my boarding pass here, my credit card in my pocket to buy cigarettes. I put on my coat, fetch my toilet bag and close my suitcase.

7h18: My suitcase that is …

7h19: My suitcase that is …

7h20: MY SUITCASE THAT IS …

7h21: On the belt.

7h22: A suitcase is totally stupid. Couldn’t it wave or something?

7h23: Next time I take NOTHING with me, I’ll use paper panties and keep the same pair of jeans. And I’ll sew my fucking passport inside my coat, so that it stops hiding in the bathroom.

7h32: Anyway, I don’t mean to brag, but except a slight anxiety to lose my stuff, which is extremely common and totally legitimate, I’m rather zen. Hardly did I make sure I avoided white lines on the floor.

7h34: But it doesn’t count since it is well know that it really jinx people who are about to take a plane.

7h35: For example, the fool in the front, she’s a goner, for sure, she k.e.e.p.s walking on the line.

7h36: Fuck, she sits in front of gate E72. MY GATE. We’re on the same flight.

7h38: Because of that selfish woman, who has no sense of responsibilities, we’re all going to die. Even though I’ve been STRUGGLING since this morning to avoid all white lines.

7h41: I’m exhausted.

7h42: My passport. Shit, my passport.

7h43: “Passengers for Paris-Orly, please, passengers for Paris-Orly” 1

7h45: La signorita doesn’t give a damn for my credit card. Nor for my Carte Vitale [2]. Even less for my Pass Navigo [3].

7h46: HERE IT IS!!! I could cry. That bastard was in the inside pocket of my bag. As if it was the right time to hide. “Inanimate objects do you have a soul? ” was asking that visionary, well drop it, I have the answer.

7h49: All is fine. Except for that white line question but I KNOW it’s stupid. I KNOW it, the doctor told me so, it’s my mind playing tricks on me. Otherwise, honestly, I’m proud of myself. My heart beats normally, I’m not sweating nor do I have obsessive thoughts – my pass…shut up – and we’re taking off in less than fifteen minutes.

7h50: I think it’s what we call growing up.

7h51: Or getting old. But in a nice way.

7h52: Not sure there’s a nice way of getting old though.

7h53: If I were the woman from before, the one who rolled into a ball right after entering the plane or who put the crew’s body language under a microscope, I would yield to the little pervert voice whispering in my head that I’m not sure I put my laptop back in my suitcase after customs check.

7h54: When you must be really half-witted to do such a thing. Losing your passport is alright, but for that you’re good to “see someone” for the next ten years.

7h55: Right, I KNOW it’s another manifestation from my subconscious that wants to stop me from taking this plane. But it’s harmless to double-check all is in order in my suitcase which I just stored in the overhead compartment. I barely looked for my passport since this morning, we’re not going to nitpick for such a small thing, especially if it’s the key to peace of mind.

7h56: Sorry miss, can I just check my bag, just two seconds 1, thanks.  There we gooooo, I open my luggage, slip my hand inside and notice that…

7h57: that I want my mummy.

7h58: And my daddy too.

7h59: But mainly I want my laptop. That most certainly is somewhere, but not in my luggage. Nor in my pocket. Neither in my hand bag. Neither in my bra. And the plane takes off in three minutes.

To be continued…

 


[1] TN: in English in the original text.

[2] TN: The Carte Vitale is the health insurance card of the national health care system in France

[3] TN: Pass Navigo is a means of payment for public transportation in Paris region