you can't fathom my love, dude

Subject:	seriously. +"an underwear dreamcatcher"
Time:	4:05 pm.

I wrote this all two nights ago and already it seems out of date. The next big thing, that I somehow forgot to mention below is that I'm going to France in a few days! I'll fly into Paris on Wednesday the 14th, with a little layover in Madrid. Then I'll figure out how to take a train to Lille, where Meredith and Megan will meet me! I am so freakin' excited I feel like I may vom when it actually happens. Or cry? Or some version of "the happy/sad sweat-and-cry" I demonstrated at the Rocket Star once (this one won't have any sad though)? I have no idea what will happen as far as my bodily reaction to extreme happiness goes.

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I’m consistently conflicted here about my lifestyle and expenditures. I have more money than many Moroccans. My apartment is comfortable and I indulge myself with the same things I do at home: picky groceries, nice meals out, clothing, and little new things at every turn (notebooks, make-up, magazines). I don’t think I’m getting away with anything here and living imperialist-lavishly in a developing country. Except, maybe, for having a stupid-expensive lunch at the Hilton once. I’m making more money than I ever have before and spending, for most things, about what I would in the U.S. Except, I could live much more cheaply here and most people do, and continuing to think in dollars is unwise. On the other hand, in support of my oh-so-icy ways, my semi-spendy lifestyle supports local economies. And I try not to be an asshole about my privileges or flaunt them. But, instinct tells me that I am doing something wrong; I got embarrassed today walking home with my upscale shopping bag, having bought a sweater from a shop on the rallee bazef (really expensive) side of town. I felt ashamed having bought something frivolous that cost as much as someone’s daily wage, even though it was only twenty bucks for me.

Following up on questions in my last post about why Moroccans are “association-crazy,” I half-figured it out and it’s so embarrassingly obvious: they have to declare their affiliations because they don’t have the right to freedom of assembly. A few students in our to-be-official Moroccan-American Student Association (MASA) mentioned that if we don’t get governmental clearance soon they “could get in trouble.”

Another kind of rights that don’t exist in the same way as they do chez nous are intellectual property rights. Pirated CDs and DVDs are widely, cheaply available. Copy shops reproduce and spiral-bind entire books without any problem. Being able to have cheaper copies of books is great for students and scholars who can’t buy them new, especially considering that libraries aren’t always good resources (Many are poorly stocked, organized and managed). However, illegally produced media means that local musicians, filmmakers and writers cannot depend on the sales of their work to bring them much income.

--------this line separates serious from not, though you know it’s all the same dogg--------

My hair is boy-short again. This hot French woman cut it. I sat in the chair thinking of how to describe how she looked, and it is “hot.” She had dark hair with bangs, a sharp nose, slim black clothing and a steady gaze. Plus, I like that she told me my accent in French didn’t sound American. “Si!,” I insisted, and she said it wasn’t one you would immediately recognize as American.

Like with Wolof in Senegal, whenever I try to speak straight French here it comes out full of Moroccan Arabic eyah’s (yes’s) and wahha’s (okay’s).

“Tu ne crois pas que tu es belle” (You don’t believe that you are beautiful). The aforementioned Moroccan said this to me last week and it has rung in my head since then. It rattles. When he said it I protested, stammering. He repeated it and told me it was la dernière fois he would say it. The point for him was to tell me I am belle, but it backfired and made me self-conscious about whether I look self-conscious. And, P.S. on the geek tip, isn’t/why isn’t that bad grammar? A verb following croire que takes the subjunctive, n’est-ce pas?

The sweater I bought, the one I felt guilty about, is not like anything I thought I would wear, but I like it. It’s a dusky purple with a herringbone texture on the front panel and a huge cowl neck that swims around my throat.

One song I play in my head to help me front city-tough is DMX’s “Get it on the Floor.” I also think, “You go extreme when you get with me / do you know what I mean?” from Peaches’, “Bag It.”

I like the Common line, “I went from bashful to asshole to international.” From “Nag Champa (Afrodisiac for the World).” It’s how I’ve gone, too, yk (right)?

On my way to the salon I had a conversation with a cab driver that was so good it made me giggly with joyfulness at the cool random encounter. We just talked about literature and language and whether there’s such thing as an ex-colony, or if they’re all still (neo)colonies. He voted no, there’s no such thing, and I did not decide. I floated my way into the salon and had to hold my happy laughter upon getting my head massaged and then wrapped in a special head-shaped towel. Thank the Lord that today was not a quietly miserable “Pray for me Grandma” day (Heavyweights quote what!).

My friend Alex remarked that my circular, hanging laundry rack plus underpantalones (fake Spanish) looks like “an underwear dreamcatcher.”

My sister Erica called me last night to ask me if I like birds. It has something to do with a present she’s getting me. I said plainly, “Yes. I do. (pause) Do you?” and we laughed.

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