transitions.

crazy how vital the state of the bathroom is to me concerning final living-arrangement decisions. i seriously would have moved all the way to the city just for this shower. seriously.

and it/s not even that it/s that incredible of a shower. besides the fact that it actually has hot water (and at times, scalding hot), i think it is mostly because in this case it is exactly that: a shower. the salle de bain at the house i rented a room in in vichy was not. it was a salle de bain. a room with a bathtub.

which normally i don/t mind. i like baths. i would even go as far as to say that i often LOVE baths. HOWEVER, this particular bathtub confused the hell out of me.

first of all, it was purple. which did not at all match the rest of the bathroom decor. second of all, it was situated next to one of those give-yourself-an-enema things. a bidet. according to wikipedia, a bidet is: a low-mounted plumbing fixture or type of sink intended for washing the genitalia and the anus. Originally a French word, in English bidet is pronounced /bɪˈdeɪ/ (US) or /ˈbiːdeɪ/ (UK). oh joy. do i really need my genitalia &/or anus washed that thoroughly? is bathing/showering just not enough? to some, apparently not. just seeing one of those things makes my ass pucker up like a shriveled california raisin. or, shit. i don/t even know. i get intimidated just being in the room with one. i have no idea how it works & i/m not exactly running door-to-door to find out. it just doesn/t really create a peaceful atmosphere for me, one in which taking a bath would be a calming experience. instead, every time i try to lay back & relax, forget about everything, the damn bidet takes over thoughts, making its purple presence known over in the corner.

bidet aside, the main reason this "bathtub" confused me, however, is that there was a showerhead attached. a hose with a showerhead. a nice one, too. good water pressure and all. the problem, though, is that there was no shower curtain. nor was there a shower door. nor was there anything to suggest that this showerhead should actually be used for taking showers. the cord was too short to reach higher than chest-height when standing, which also added to the mystery of it all. it was this teasing, taunting, evil shower head. and every time i got in that goddamn freezing purple tub, i always convinced myself that i had just miscalculated, that of course the showerhead reached long enough to actually wet my hair while standing, and that this time, for once, i would be able to take a real shower.

but sadly, no. i was defeated.

i dreaded bathing. not that french people do it that often. not that I do it that often back home. but seriously, i dreaded getting out of bed in the morning because i knew it meant sitting on freezing cold porcelain, leaning awkwardly until i could wet as much of my hair as possible, and trying desperately to ignore the damn bidet camped out in the corner.



i have solved my problem, however. no more evil-showerhead-bathtub. no more absolutely-nothing-to-do-ever anymore, either. no no no. the old-people-everywhere has been switched for young-people-everywhere, the small-town-france with the country in the backyard has been switched for small-city-france situated in the backyard of the mountains, with the country next door. i still work in the smallest town ever. i just live in a slightly bigger city. with room enough for more than just a bed. with an actual apartment i can call mine. with an address that is my own. with a kitchen & bathroom and living room that are my own. with no host "parents" sitting around doing nothing all day. no no no. with people my age. and things to do. and i get to take the train to work every morning. and i get to wake up next to someone i love every morning. someone who loves me.

and for all that you know how much i/m paying??? 200 euros less than i was for a tiny excuse for a room in a house that wasn/t mine.

i really appreciate everything jacques & danielle did for me, i truly do. but i can only sit around holed up in my room playing on the internet & watching episodes of 24 obsessively for so long. i needed space. my own space. space to breathe.



so yes. there you have it. i have moved to the city. moving in with rémy. going to start the new year in a new place.

please direct your post from hereon out to:
mlle chelsea elizabeth
11 petite rue du belloy
63000 clermont-ferrand france

i/d rather not.

so today on my way to work, i/m not sure why, i started thinking about worms. i was walking along, looking at the post-rain ground & thinking to myself "i haven/t seen a single worm since being in france...i wonder if they exist here?" which then became quite a silly question, but how should i know? they/ve never heard of chipmunks or cranberries, either, so it seemed like a valid thing to want to know.

"jeez, i can/t even remember the last time i saw a worm," i thought. "total lie. you remember. freshman year on the way to/from omega, that cement walkway up the hill. after a fresh rain it would be swarming with worms, half-dead, struggling to be somewhere other than the pavement." i would always try to move them from the sidewalk to the dirt, even the dead half-squashed ones. it was so so sad to see them squirming there, totally defenseless.


funny thing, life. i saw two worms after that, one on my way to work, one on my way home. both incredibly tiny. both incredibly dried out (despite the layer of wet on the ground). and both incredibly dead. after wanting so badly to see a worm, to pick it up & feel it wriggle between my fingers, to leave traces of slime & dirt deep under my nails, after seeing the two dead ones, i quickly changed my mind. i/d rather not have seen those two dried up corpses. i/d rather have gone on longing.