Thursday, July 9, 2009

07.09.2009 -- Envie

J'ai tellement envie de parler avec quelqu'un en Francais. Il me gene extremement que parler en Francais avec les Anglophones n'est pas bien accepte ici. Il me gene aussi que je ne connais pas de femmes qui habitent assez pres de moi qui aiment aussi le Francais et qui veulent parler avec moi dans cette langue. De plus, je n'ai personne avec qui je peux parler en Wolof. Le telephone est terrible quand on na pas parle une langue depuis dix ans.

Comment est-ce que je suis devenu fache??? Je me trouve tellement FACHE!

Je me sens que mon Francais et mon Wolof sont en train de disparaitre. J'hesite a ecrire en Francais aussi, mais.... Si je fais de douzains d'erreurs, ca va. Je le fait pour essayer a conserver une langue aimee.

(Et oui, je ne dors pas.)

Sunday, July 5, 2009

07.05.2009 -- One Day Before I Turn!

Last night at a party, I heard the following: "Yeah, he is really picky. He dumped his last girlfriend because he didn't like her ANKLES." Apparently, this unfortunate girl was deemed to have ankles thick enough to predispose her to obesity in later life. That's what Mr. Picky thought.

It immediately made me think of all-things-short-of-perfect of Mr. Picky's body. Especially the things that he can't help: like being bald.

I wonder how he would feel if someone dumped him because of his follicular shortcomings. My best guess? I think he would denounce them playfully. I do think he would understand. I think he's at least that insightful...not to condemn other people for "quirks" that he has himself.

Second, I thought of what he could be missing out on. I thought of how much people change over time and how some of my favorite people in the world are metaphorically "thick ankled." I felt bad for the guy. Clearly, he has "issues." I would also bet that he is aware on some level that he has issues.

Last of all, it occurred to me that he didn't love her. The ankle thing may have scared him or whatever, but he didn't love her if her ankles could send her over the edge. That made me sad. I happen to think that life is mostly about sharing. In my experience, the uncertainty and difficulty of relationships is more than made up for by the depth and richness that the relationships bring.

***

News is:

I got trampoline for my birthday! Hooray!

Have I already written that Gabe has 6 teeth and is "cruising?" He's a beginning cruiser, but a cruiser nevertheless.

Have I already written that Lucy has a habit of sitting in her car seat with her legs crossed and that she's completed her first "guppy-level" swim lessons? Have I written that she is going to gymnastic lessons now and loves it?

Brian is getting up at 6:00am lately to go mountain biking with his buddies. After biking, he goes to work. After work, he clocks in at his other job as a residential landscaper. His compensation package is not great money-wise, but he gets appreciation in spades from his main client: me.

He has accomplished a lot in our yard with the 10 tons of stone that used to be on the street in front of our house. He's also worked magic with the yards and yards and yards of tubing that was in our garage. We now have a functional drip irrigation system in the front yard!

Whenever I think of our yard and how much "we" have left to do, I think, "Ndank, ndank mooy jap gogo chi nyaaye." Loosely translated, this means: "Slowly, carefully one catches the monkey in the bush."