October 17, 2006
a not especially food-related ramble (sorry)
- Okay, some food
Unfortunately, most places in Paris are closed on Sundays. Otherwise the windows of the boulangerie/patisserie Adelyn and I passed on Sunday would have been full of baked goods high on the "likely to make you salivate" scale and we would've marred the glass by pressing our faces up to them. Even though bakeries in Paris are so commonplace that the words BOULANGERIE or PATISSERIE—usually in a huge-ass typeface—are usually more noticeable than name of the bakery, each one has it's own style. Since I'm obviously not going to fulfil my goal of learning French to any competent degree, I may as well make a new goal of documenting as many bakeries as possible. For no real reason.
Yup. I'm a useful member of the human race.
The rest of my entry will be interesting to very few people. Although I love writing about food, it's possible to not feel like talking about what I eat all the time. And even though I'm abusing the purpose of this blog by not focusing on food, it is my blog, my bandwidth and HEY I CAN WRITE ABOUT PENGUIN ARMIES IF I WANT!!!
It will be...random. Not so food related. Somewhat personal, but not so much that I'll feel embarrased. Self-deprecating. Commentable-less. It might be funny if I'm feeling comedic. If you want to read about what I ate yesterday, check out my latest post on Parisist. Otherwise, beware of random non-food-porn-ridden rambles.
- Don't worry, it's just a dream
On Sunday Adelyn and I saw The Science of Sleep in a surprisingly small (but comfortable) theater in Montparnasse. It was pretty much my "must see" movie of the year since Michel Gondry is the only director that makes my brain go, "Wee!", when I hear his name (as opposed to the blank stare than any other name would elicit). Yes, my brain speaks. In exclamations. I think it's a sign of cranial damage or a loose chromosome.
- Nope, not a dream
I didn't read any reviews before I went since they tend to influence my easily malleable mind when I'd rather make up my own decisions, but a friend had told me that the movie was sad. And I guess it was sad, but not as sad as I thought it would be. I left the theater feeling somewhat happy...with a dash of nausea due to the hand held camera movements and my inability to feel balanced when faced with that kind of motion. (My organs were basically in a state of low grade fever for the duration of the movie.)
Why did I like it so much? Aside from the whimsical storytelling blah blah whatnot (as though Michel Gondry can do it any other way)? The story at its most basic was boy meets girl, boy likes girl, boy is kind of insane so it's no wonder girl does not like boy as much as boy would like. Stephane (boy) is drawn to Stephanie (...girl) because she's different. Creative. (And pretty because she is Charlotte Gainsbourg.) And so is Stephane (also pretty because he is Gael García Bernal), but he also has a few loose screws (actually, a large bucket of them), is very immature, has little self-esteem and mixes his dreams with reality.
- Yes, back to the dream
I felt a lot like Stephane, but less insane, creative and emotive. Otherwise I think I may be just as immature, needy, and self-doubting. Hopefully I don't show it as much (except for the self-doubting). One of my favorite parts was near the end during an argument when Stephanie asked him what he wanted from her and he replied, "I want you to touch my hair," or something to that effect. It made my heart drop. Why did I like this part? ...Eh. I don't feel like explaining it.
There was another part that resonated with me and made me think of something important as far as how I feel in relationships with friends. In one of Stephane's dreams he complained about how he thought Stephanie was lonely and needed him, thus why he tried to become friends with her (or something like that; my memory isn't great). When he felt like she didn't really need him, he took that as rejection/betrayal.
I have the same view. Kind of. Despite that I have few friends, the give and take of a friendship is a major source of internal turmoil for me. If you turned me inside out during one of these sessions of paranoia and stress, besides that it'd be really messy my brain would probably be frothy and smoky and other things that wouldn't be optimal while baking a cake. When I feel like I need more from a friendship than the other person is willing to give, all I can do is convince myself to chill the fuck out. Which doesn't always happen. Sometimes I just sit around and feel like crap. Actually, that happens a lot.
What is my point? I...don't know. My problem (um, one of many) is that I want to not rely on other people, but sometimes I do rely too much on others to make me feel better (not that they'd even know I'm depressed in the first place). When I get to that point where I feel like I'm going over the 50% line of neediness, I feel like the best thing to do is distance myself from the other person. Take a step back. Chillax. "Robyn, stop bothering other people. You're being creepy. Kinda." I rarely know when it's okay to start a friendship, thus most of my friendships are started by the other person.
...But then sometimes I can't tell what other people think about me, even if there isn't much reason for me to doubt the friendship. It makes me feel paranoid. I may not feel comfortable, but I try to act like I am. I think it works. Sometimes. Maybe.
God, I don't know what I'm talking about. Seriously lost my train of thought.
[pokes brain]
While trying to figure out why I had so many good friendships at TAS in 6th and 7th grade, one major characteristic that my friends and I had stood out: playfulness. Sillyness. Things along those lines. Uninhibition (er, that doesn't sound like a real word), not in the sense of "Ohh I'm gonna drink myself silly and act like an ass," but...not being closed off to other people. It's not like I don't have that with friends I made since then, but for the most part it's never been on the same level. I happened to be in the right place at the right time. If I had gone to school in NJ during those years, I don't think I would've made the same kinds of friends.
Our silliness probably made us look more immature than we really were (actually, I was really immature), but it came naturally to all of us. It doesn't come naturally anymore. I don't know what changed since then (beaten down by the cold, hard suburbs of New Jersey?) aside from getting older, but I have that same, slightly surpressed need as I did in middle school. I'm more reserved now unless I feel especially comfortable around someone else or sense that they have the rare silly side that lies just beneath my skin, but I would rather keep locked up as to not scare other people.
Aside from some friends from TAS (yes, those friends last a long time!), I only have a friend or two who I can act really silly around. The sign for me is when I can have a conversation with a friend that has absolutely no point. Maybe you're talking in sound effects. Maybe you're communicating by giving each other funny looks. Maybe you're having a conversation through nudges in varying degrees of intensity. Maybe you constantly pat each other in the head in an odd form of affection, made funnier because one head (mine) is slightly deformed. It's not deep. It's probably stupid.
But that's how I am. I would much rather talk about a magical world of penguin overlords with a army of laser-eyed squirrels that ride in floating marshmallows than world news, politics, or anything representative of culture. I'm not kidding. Maybe. Understandably, most people wouldn't have any interest in being that goddamn...weird. The inside of my brain may resemble the opening of a Flaming Lips concert.
- A happy moment
Actually, comparing the inside of my brain to the Flaming Lips would be giving it too much credit. Maybe if the balls moved in a more lethargic manner, but were still random...
It's probably not a good thing that I've told you (whoever may still be reading this entry) about what goes on in my brain. You can't start acting silly around me just because I've told you to, and just because a person is silly doesn't mean I would like them, especially if they are indeed like Stephane and COMPLETELY INSANE. You just have to be that way...to a comfortable degree that doesn't freak me out. (But to clarify, I have yet to encounter anyone who was too silly; no one is silly enough.) How many people are like that? Why are they like that? Why am I like that? SQUIRRELS WITH LASER EYYEES!!!?!?
Good god, I have homework to do. Sometimes I can't believe I'm in college. Was the admissions officer sick that day? It was especially weird when I read my description in "Blogger provides witty food tips", a feature my school's newspaper about...er, me (?!), as "Steinhardt senior Robyn Lee." Senior. Me. Old. Graduate. Soon. No direction. Crap.
But back to the article! I'm very flattered and thankfuly that anyone would bother to write an article about this blog. It's funny because hardly anyone at NYU (who wasn't already my friend) reads my blog, as far as I know. When Michelle asked me for some NYU contacts of people who read my blog I came up short, hence the semi-random looking quote from Martin Morten (it's too bad the article failed to mention our trip to the Bahamas and that I denied Morten his right to have contact with our daughter...oops, I've said too much). Thank you, Patty and Bryan, for the NYU support and generous quotes! And thanks, Rose, for being my food blogger support. (NOW GO UPDATE YOUR BLOG, WOMAN!)
I should clear up a few things in the article that may be there because of misunderstandings or because I gave faulty information. It is unlikely that my website has helped thousands of New Yorkers. Maybe I've helped a thousand people...around the whole world. And I'll ignore the hit counter thing for now since that data is easily miscontrued (not that I lied per se; it just depends and I don't know what people want exactly when they ask for my stats). I wouldn't say that I eat out at least twice a day, but it wouldn't be a rare occurence. I wish I had included that a major plus for being in Paris as opposed to NYC is that there are SO MANY BAKERIES HERE, HOLY CRAPTASTICAH. [shakes with the glee of carb overload]
Okay, I'm done. In an interview Michel said, "People like to hear about personal stuff. They can relate to you better when you expose some things." I think in my case maybe you can disrelate better. Eh.
This entry wasn't directed to anyone in particular, so no one should feel paranoid about it. Even though that's something I would probably do.
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Whoa, just got this totally awesome comment of fun-ness. Seriously, there is probably something wrong with everything. Chemicals aren't just in food, but in the air, the water, our clothes, our methods of transportation, our toiletries, everything we touch, etc. You can look at everything as being deadly or you can think, "Well, I'm still alive. It's kinda dandy."
Dandy.
Posted by roboppy at 5:27 PM
: This is the 
