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needles needling needlessly with little thread... or much of anything else...

(foolish dribbles to be written at uncertain times, on an irregular basis, from uncertain sections of the ever expending universe, and from whatever dimension I-We-Us-Them might find ourselves/ myself in …)

Saturday, March 11, 2006

SPARKLING MELISSA 


We were walking down the street. We’d been in this café on the corner of the rues Bichat and La Grange aux Belles, across the street from the Hospital St. Louis. It was getting cold outside. We were walking to one of my favorite bars a small distance away, where the boss knows me, even after all this time. That place is up rue Belleville, past all the Chinese restaurants, not far from the park, on a small street away from the mayhem. We’d left the last place because the band playing was bad, and anyway, we weren’t there to listen to bad music or even to good music, but to talk to each other, to have drinks and so forth. We were five, but mostly I’m going to talk about Melissa.

We were talking a mixture of French and English. Melissa has an Australian accent in both French and English. She laughed a lot when she talked. When she first walked into the first bar to meet up with us, she realized she would have to talk French a lot, and she got a heat flash. So she took most of her clothes off, then finally she cooled down a little bit, so she put her sweater back on. It’s close to freezing outside, and it’s been drizzling on and off the last few days.

“I’m obsessed with my dad,” she said several times in the evening.
“Yeah?”
“That’s why I think I want to go back to Australia.”
“When you going back?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I won’t go back at all, I don’t know. It depends if they let me take my cat. If they don’t let my cat go with me, I’m not going anywhere.”
“Do you miss Australia?”
“It’s my family mostly, that’s pulling me. Mainly my dad. I’ve been away four years, now. With the bird-flue, and all, you probably can’t travel with animals, anyway. Did you hear of those cats dying?”
“Yeah, they were stuck on an island. All they had to eat were some wild swans and some ducks, or what have you. They didn’t cook them. That’s the first thing you should always do these days is to cook your poultry all the way before you eat it. Not really an option for the kitties, I guess. So they caught the damn disease and they died.”
“So they’re not barring cats from crossing the borders or anything like that?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Because I love my kitty cat, and if he can’t leave Paris, then I’m never leaving Paris. Never!”
“You got to get him a passport.”
“Are you kidding, he’s all ready got one, he’s got more papers than I do.”

“Does your father know you’re obsessed with him?”
“I think he does. No, I know he does. It’s the way he’s been acting, you know. I went back to Australia for my brother’s wedding, and it’s the way he acted. I know he knows.”
“Aren’t you a little old for this kind of thing?”
“I know.”
“This is the kind of thing you go through when you’re like thirteen or something. You know, the daughter falling in love with the father.”
“It’s my boyfriend that’s the problem, he’s not fatherly enough. I need some sort of father figure in my life. He never makes any decisions. I’m always the one deciding what we’re going to do, where we’re going to go eat, if we should go out, what movie we’ll go see, you know. That sort of thing.”
“How did you meet him?”
“On friendster.com.”
“Really! I’ve never met anybody through electronic means. I’ve got a webpage and all that, with myspace.com, but I’ve yet to meet anybody through there.”
“You’ve got something against meeting somebody like that?”
“No, no I don’t, I just don’t see myself meeting anybody in that manner.”
“You’re against it or something?”
“Not at all, I mean, I wouldn’t mind, it’s just that it hasn’t happened, that’s all.”
“You don’t want to.”
“I’m telling you, I don’t care. Matter fact, I think it would be kind of cool, but I just haven’t gone out of my way or done anything in that direction.”
“So you’re okay with it?”
“Of course.”

I’m doing Melissa a disfavor here, because she’s a funny girl, and I’m not translating her speech properly.

“How tall are you?” I asked.
“Five five.”
“…”
“Is that okay?”
“Sure, why wouldn’t it be?”

She’s a real cutie. She’s a non-stop flirt. Her eyes are constantly laughing. Her whole presence gives sparkle to a room, which is perfect, because she basically only drinks champagne wherever she can, except in small bars where she prefers a kir or two or three ... Sometimes, she likes to get on the train, and go directly to Champagne where she spends the weekend drinking champagne. As you’ll see, champagne is the way to her heart, not coffee, and definitely don’t mention coffee machines to her.

She was talking about this guy Nikos who’s been trying to go out with her. This guy is old enough to be her father.

“I don’t know how he thought that I was interested in him. I never gave him an once of hope, or so I thought. Because you know, I’m a flirt. I’m a real big flirt, but I know when I’m being a flirt, and I can turn it on and off just like that. I can do that. I’m good that way.”

We were in my favorite bar by then. It’d been a while. It was funny. We’d left this other place because the music was so loud we couldn’t speak. When we entered the Pataquès, it was the exact opposite. They were holding some kind of conference, and every time we tried to speak, some old guy kept telling us SHUSSSSSS. We were laughing about it. It’s one of the reasons I like this place, there’s always some sort of weird thing happening. This is a real small place. Twenty thirty people and it’s packed. There was ten people sitting in a semi circle on the other end of the bar, listening to some guy—a lawyer type—with a pony tale, and a tripod with paper and a large marker. You know the type, a rich yuppy who’s seen the light and is now trying to share his knowledge with the rest of the world. It’s usually something to do with the Far East, his good karma, and so forth. He didn’t disappoint. Of all things, the conference was on Feng Choui. The guy kept talking about how you couldn’t put the head of your bed underneath a window, or your oven facing a certain way, or whatever, we weren’t listening. We kept making cackle noises, trying not to crack up too badly, with the neighbor guy giving us nasty looks every other seconds. You see, in Paris, everybody lives on top of each other. There’s no room here. People, especially in the neighborhood of the bar in question, are for the most part poor, or not very rich, working class, immigrants, and more often than not, live in tiny places. And the whole idea of Fen Choui is a ridiculous one when you’re a family of three living in a 40 square meters apartment on the fifth floor, or a single person living in 15 square meters on the seventh floor with a tiny window you have to stand on a chair and pull yourself up to see out of. I used to live in such a place on rue Malebranche not far from the park de Luxembourg. It was cramped to say the least, but it was a step up from where I’d just moved from. That place was 9 meters square, had no hot water, no shower, and no W.C. The studio on rue Malebranch had hot water at least, but still I had to piss in the urinal in the hallway, and I took showers at the hotel where I worked as a night receptionist.

SHUSSSSSS!!!! Said the old guy.

The boss, a real friendly guy, kept telling us that it was almost over.

“It’s just about over, maybe another five minutes, or so.”

He said this a few times. It was definitely longer than five minutes. Anne-Marie, Claire, Myself, Melissa, and François—I didn’t put myself last because that’s the order in which we were seated—were stuck in the corner at the front of the bar on three chairs. That’s two chairs less than people, in case you can’t count. Melissa was seating with one cheek on François’ chair, and the other on the chair were I was trying to keep my fat ass as small as possible—no small feat—because Claire was also seating on my left on the same chair. The only reason she wasn’t falling off the edge was because she was in the corner against a furnace, one that wasn’t turned on because it was there only for decoration.

The yuppy with the pony tale loved to hear himself talk. People from the group would get up from the semi circle, would step up front to the guy’s large paper on the tripod, and draw a schematic of how their apartment were laid out. Then the rich yuppy would explain how their whole apartment was completely wrong, and so forth, and then the person in question would like a school kid who just wrote the wrong answer on the blackboard and was corrected in front of everybody in a humiliating way—these people were grown adults mostly in their forties and fifties even older—would go back to their seat with their tale between their legs. I think the rich yuppy was getting off on it. Not only was he showing everybody how enlightened he was, but also, he was making them feel stupid on top of it all. I can picture him going home and masturbating on his balcony from his large ten room Feng Choui friendly apartment overlooking the canal St. Martin. He’s probably into minimalist style, and his walls are painted white with nothing on them except maybe for a Samurai sword hanging over his chimney.

(I keep getting off my main subject—in this case the troubles of the beautiful Melissa—but I need to say this right now: I’m in this café at this instant while writing this entry, and I just ordered some food. Un tartar de saumon with a green salad and a ¼ de vin blanc. It’s so good! Oh yeah, I almost forgot. I’m seating inside the café where I met Melissa for the first time. They’ve always been friendly here. It’s just a few minutes from place de la Bastille, but without everything else that comes with the Bastille crowd. The barman is a bit loud, telling anybody that wants to hear about this drunk asshole he had to throw out of the bar last night. At first he was getting on my nerves, but now he’s started to grow on me. People are like that sometimes. And by the way, I asked Melissa if I could write about her and publish it here on my blog, before doing so. She said, “Sure, make me famous!”)

“He kept telling me he wanted to meet me to discuss writing, and such, so I’d meet him for a coffee,” Melissa was talking about this fellow much older than her whom we both know, “but it always ended up with him asking me to come over to his place. I can be dumb, but I’m not that dumb!”
“He’s always had a thing for you, I could tell.”
“What are you talking about? I’ve never given him any signs that I was interested in him.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“Anyway, I was being nice and all, and one day, he basically invited himself to my place.”
“He invited himself over? Just like that?”
“Yeah, he called me and said, ‘can I come over for lunch or diner?’ and I didn’t know what to say.”
“Why didn’t you just say no?”
“I don’t know. I … I felt guilty or something, you know, like I owed him something? That’s stupid, I know … or maybe, I don’t know. I-I just didn’t want to be mean to him because I kind of feel sorry for him a little bit.”
“That’s not good.”
“And so I told him, okay, come on over for lunch. I thought he would understand that, you know lunch isn’t diner, it’s lunch, and I told him, ‘sure, come on over for lunch, this way I can take a break from work, we can eat a quick lunch, and then you can go,’ I said all that. Isn’t that clear enough? Quick lunch, A break from Work, and then YOU CAN GO! I don’t know how clearer I could have been.”
“…”
“So he came over and we had a little salad or something, and then I asked him if he wanted some coffee. He said sure, he would. So I was trying to make some coffee. I’m no good at such things. I never get it right. Either I put too much coffee or not enough, or I forget to plug the machine in the wall, or I pour too much water in there. So there I was at the machine, being frustrated with it, trembling a little, from the frustration, NOT from being nervous … that’s the way I am, it didn’t have anything to do with him, and everything to do with the coffee machine! And then you won’t believe what he did!”
“What?”
“He came behind me, and I thought he was coming to help me out a little. So I said, ‘you know how to do this?’ and he said ‘let me show you,’ and then instead of helping me out with the coffee he grabbed me and tried to kiss me. I wasn’t even prepared for anything of the sort. I kept pushing him away saying ‘no, no, I don’t want to,’ but he thought I was being coy. You know, that I was saying ‘No’ but that I really meant ‘Yes.’ That wasn’t the case at all. And he kept trying to kiss me, and I kept pushing him away. Finally, and it seemed like forever, he stopped, went back to the couch, and sat down. He was looking the other way, and I concentrated real hard on the coffee machine. And then, you know what happened?”
“What?”
“Nothing, that’s what happened. We sat down and had coffee. Can you believe it? We just sat there, and for a moment we didn’t say anything. We were being civilized again. I told him that I didn’t understand, that I hadn’t thought that I had given him any sign whatsoever that I might be interested in him in that manner. He didn’t answer me. I told him I had boys over for a drink and food at my place all the time, but that didn’t mean anything. He just kept drinking his coffee. Then he started talking about his short story again as if nothing had happened. I couldn’t believe it. You know, I’ve had guys try to kiss me before when I didn’t want them to, and that’s fine, but you know what?”
“What?”
“They always apologize afterwards, and they say that they’re sorry, and that they thought that I wanted to, that they hadn’t realized that I didn’t want to, and that they feel real bad about it, and all that. That’s fine, you know. A guy has a right to want to kiss me, but if he tries and that I don’t want to, then he should at least say something. Not Nikos. Didn’t even say anything. Nothing. Nada. Then he started talking about something totally unrelated. Can you believe it? As if nothing had happened, that’s what really upset me.”
“What happened next?”
“I said I had to get back to work, and he left, and he didn’t call me back for a long time. I think he felt totally humiliated. Three months later, he left a message on my machine asking me if I wanted to meet up for a coffee so we could talk about short stories or something … still, as if nothing had happened!”
“And?”
“I didn’t call him back.”
“You got to admit that it took some balls, you know.”
“I know, but he could have apologized afterwards. Or at least have the decency to look a tad bit ashamed or embarrassed!”
“Yeah … probably would have been a good idea.”

She was drinking a kir and I was drinking a beer, and she was laughing while she told me the story. Then we went back to her dad.

“What am I going to do? I’m really obsessed with my dad.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. But I do know I need a father figure, somebody to be strict with me and tell me what to do every once in a while. You know what?”
“What?”
“I was so horrible to my boyfriend when we went to Australia for my brother’s wedding.’
“He went with you?”
“Yeah, that was our first trip together, and I was horrible to him, because I don’t know. I just treated him horrible. I kept ordering him about, and he kept doing what I was ordering him to do. I was totally inconsiderate, but you know, I wanted him to tell me what to do a little bit, to stand up to me and to my father. But he wouldn’t, he just put up with me, kept being this really nice guy, and me, I kept badgering him, and now I feel really bad about it, because …”
“Do you love him?”
“…”
“…”
“Yes … sure … Yes, I do … he’s a great guy, and I’m so happy to be with him.”
“Has he mentioned anything about the trip?”
“No, he’s so good about it. He’s such a great guy! He’s been lovely about everything, as if I’d been a perfect little girl to him all this time. I’m so lucky, you know. It’s because of my dad, though, you know that. That’s why I was being so mean to my boyfriend, because I was jealous for my dad, because my dad wasn’t jealous over him, so I had to do the jealousy thing instead of my dad.”
“That’s a bit confusing.”
“I know. I’m confused myself. My ex-boyfriend was such a jerk. We went to London once, and all he did was order me around, wouldn’t let me do a single thing. Everything I wanted to do he just ignored me and made me do what he wanted to do!”
“Well, Melissa, you realize you’re contradicting yourself a tad bit.”
“Well, I want a father figure some of the time but I don’t want to be with a total jerk off, there’s got to be a median somewhere.”
“Who made the first move?”
“What?”
“With your current boy?”
“He did.”
“Who asked who out?”
“He did.”
“Who kissed who first?”
“He did.”
“Well, you see, he does take the initiative some of the time.”
“But he’s so nice to me all of the time. Can’t he be strict with me every once in a while? I mean, I’m not into S&M or anything, but you know, there’s a limit to everything.”
“How did he make his first move?”
“Well, we were friends for a long time, you know, and I never thought about him in that way, and I never figured that he thought about me in that way either.”
“I guess you were wrong.”
“I don’t know, I don’t think he thought about me in that way right at first. We were friends first.”
“I think he thought about you in that way the whole time, he just didn’t know how to go about it.”
“Anyway, he came to my apartment with a bottle of champagne.”
“That’s it.”
“Well … I’m not going to give you all the details.”
“Can I come over for a bottle of champagne?”

She just laughed at my suggestion.

“All right, how about I come over for coffee?”

She just laughed some more.

“let’s have another drink, then.”
“Okay.”

(Actually, she told that story early on in the evening, and it became a running joke throughout the evening, I kept asking her if I could come over and help her out with the coffee.)
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