This girl

This girl, her voice is hot. Usually, what I call a hot voice for a girl, is when it's not clear. I like girls who talk in a naturally low, hoarse voice. Not too hoarse. Not man hoarse. But like the day after they spent the whole night screaming at a concert. Low as in "not loud."

But this girl, she has a hot voice that is crystal clear and young and innocent. Though it's not in a language I understand well, I recognized immediately what she was reading. A passage from a book by Palahniuk. The passage is about how the pleasure we experience when we have sex, it's nothing more than a release of endorphin. Hermaphroditism comes to mind.

This girl, reading this passage, it's like she's singing. Her voice joyously going up and down, following the curves of words and sentence I can't understand. She pronounces each word neatly, and it's almost as if you can feel her tongue and lips caressing them. She speaks effortlessly and you just wish she would never stop reading.

This girl, she gets me hard just when I see she's online and we start chatting. Whatever we're talking about, my pants is like a miniature of Pinder's big top.

It seems impossible to match this innocent, childish voice with the thing she writes sometimes in her messages. It's not the kind of thing I even want to think about on a lonely night. That's the kind of chain of thoughts that leads you directly shivering under a cold shower.

I never experience anything like that we anybody before. I mean, online. This wave of lust crushing on me just when she says hi. It's like being in your room with a friendly ex- on a hot summer day, with nothing to do and you know what's going to happen and you enjoy every minute before it really starts. When you know she knows it too but you keep playing the social game just a little more. Postponing. Until the moment you drop the social game and nothing matters anymore but the pleasure. What you give. What you take.

And the endorphin you produce. Everybody's little monkey.

Red night on the Hudson

39th st. — June 2005

yeah, no laundry after all...

I should go to the laundry. No, there's no emergency. What I meant is, it's one in the morning and I don't feel like doing anything. So I probably should go to the laundry. Except I won't of course.

These past weeks have been busy. It feels good to be working on several projects at the same time again, even if they are just temporary.

So this company producing documentaries went to Europe to take the temperature regarding anti-American feelings over there. They went to France too. They even spent a full day at Canal Plus with Les Guignols de l'Info. From the writing to the late afternoon rehearsal and finally the show live, they've seen it all.

If you know at least the minimum about France, then you know what this show is and why I was so excited when they took me and Sara to transcribe what all those French people are saying on the tapes before they have it translated.

I've been doing that during daytime in the past week. And at night, I was working on translating another documentary (for another prod. company) awfully written and full of mistakes. To crown it all it was on the history of the Catholic popes. Really, the style was like sheer Christian propaganda. And working at the restaurant on weekends, of course. It sounds like I must be making a lot of dough. Actually, I don't. Restaurant pays a little but it's only weekends. The other jobs, I do them because I prefer that to waitering, even if it pays less.

The other documentary, the one on Les Guignols, their office is in Times Square. Since they are behind of schedule, I often stay late at night, when everybody's gone. The office is in an old building. A kind of loft on the 20 something floor. If it was only depending on me, I would only work in offices at night. When everybody's gone and the phones are silent and the city sparkles below.

The other night, I had a life-is-good flash. They haven't been that much of them these past months because life has rather showed be what a filthy bitch she can be too. That night, after everybody left, I turned off the lights I didn't need and took a Lexomil. By the time I felt the familiar warmth runs through my body the night was slowly coming and the sky was only beautiful layers of red and pink and blue and violet. But sitting there alone in that office overlooking the glittering city, the cool air coming in from the open windows and bringing along the roar of the city -- the fire trucks sirens and the pointless honking and the echoes of announcements in nearby Port Authority -- being paid by the hour to watch the only French show worth watching and laughing my ass off, for a little while everything was fine and nothing mattered.

Nothing is real, everything is permitted.

6 a.m.

After I came back from work, worked all night on a translation to meet the deadline.

missed encouter

Really too busy to update this thing.

Today, I had a big surprise, though. My brother's girlfriend was supposed to arrive tomorrow, but when I came back home tonight after work, she was waiting for me.

The thing is, last year, when she came to visit, we were supposed to meet at Port Authority but we didn't have the time to agree on any specific meeting spot beforehand so it took me two hours to find her.

This time I fucked up. I somehow got all the dates wrong and there was not a hint of a doubt in my mind that she was coming the next day.

Last time, the Port Authority time, after we laughed a lot and were happy to see each other again, I had told her that by coming to New York she was entering my jurisdiction, that she was my little brother's girlfriend and thus I was responsible for anything that could happen to her and that I would die from exhaustion before I stopped looking for her.

So, of course, today, she waited for me for FOUR HOURS at Newark, having the staff there calling my name over the speakers, because she was so sure that I was looking for her.

I'm not too proud of me on that one. But still, I didn't know her flight number or even what company she was flying on. So even if I had known that I was wrong with the date, there was really little I could have done to find her in Newark.

Chemical cushion

Leen and I are in a cab in Lower East Side, riding north to Grand Central. I'm here to help her carry her bags. For a girl who's going to spend a couple of weeks in Australia, I have to grant her that she knows the meaning of "traveling light."

In the cab, she gives me 6 tiny, pentagon-shaped pills of Adavan. I say, Thank you. I say, I'll pay you back with Lexomil when my brother's girlfriend bring them to me next week.

I feel bad, stealing her candies. But I need them. This is no recreational use. I haven't used any in 2 years, and I have had a lot of shit to deal with in two years. And the way things are looking up, there's plenty more shit where that come from.

She say, Don't worry.

She tells me that Adavan was for anxiety disorder, but had the great advantage over Xanax of not having annoying sexual side-effect. She was right.

But maybe it's the heat. I have the feeling that people all around are horny. I don't understand how it is possible that the New York era was colonized BEFORE the invention of Air conditioner. It makes no sense. How could people liver here in the 17th and 18th century with all their stupid fluffy clothes, when I'm dripping sweat only wearing my underwear.

No AC at home, and the fan died on me about a week ago. I used to have an AC but I gave it to a pregnant friend of mine last winter when she moved out. Every year it's the same. I think I'm immune to NY humid and heavy and hot and windless summers, until the said summer arrives and leaves me suffocating, sweating and barely able to function.

And the loser is...

...me.

It's been a week now since I was told they hired someone else.

Otherwise, right now I would be a literary agent. I wouldn't have to worry about visas anymore, I wouldn't have to worry about the rent anymore, I wouldn't have to worry about being able to see my grandparents again, I wouldn't have to worry about keeping this crappy computer I'm using now...

Fuck. That job was for me really. But some assholes in Paris (the company's HQ are in Paris, it's a French agency) didn't want to sponsor a Frenchman for a visa, even though they wanted to NY office to hire a Frenchman. Try to understand... So the NY office hired an American. And I'm fucked. Because this was the best opportunity ever. I'm not going to see anything like that coming again anytime soon. I could pay for the legal fees (so that they didn't have to worry about spending money to hire me) because the company was French. American companies have to pay big legal fees to hire me and they have to pay a lawyer too. I knew the people working there. It was a wonderful working environment. It was a job I'd loved to do. I was really qualified.

I have to turn the page. Forget. It's hard though. I haven't even told my lawyer yet. I haven't emailed back the NY office to tell them that I understand. Show them I can take it deep in the ass and still smile like a bride. I've been waiting all April and May, holding my breath, crossing everything I could think of and physically cross.

So, back to hustling...

B&N

It's when the guy says on the microphone that the store will close in 30 minutes that I realize I've been in Barnes and Noble for about 3 hours.

It's been 3 hours and I've checked all the fiction shelves and the philosophy shelves and the history shelves and the "Who knew?" shelves and I just couldn't decide on what to buy. I was looking forward to that moment, though. But after the first 1/2 hour, no book seemed interesting enough. Because lately I had seen plenty of coincidences regarding Ayn Rand's books, I thought I'd try one. But after reading a couple of pages, I realized I really didn't want to read a book like that. I felt more like reading again Camus's Stranger but I didn't have the heart to read a translation.

At some point, I decided to return to the beginning of the alphabet of the fiction shelves when I overheard the end of a conversation between a black woman and a B & N employee.

"Where can I find Oprah's edition of the Faulkner book?

-- "First floor."

The black woman was on the fat side, in her mid 40s, dressed in pink and wearing mules (for me, mules rank only second behind flip-flops as a sure sign of the decay of the civilized world.) I stood next to her for a few minutes while she was checking the other books on "Oprah's bookclub" (or whatever they call it.) It really burnt my tongue to ask her. And then, I decided not to and she left shortly after. But then I turned toward the young black employee and she seemed smart and sympathetic so I asked her: "Hi, excuse me but I'm just curious. I heard this lady's request and I was wondering what's the difference between Oprah's edition of Faulkner and the standard edition? Because, I saw that you had Faulkner's books over there, so I don't understand why..."

She rolls her eyes and smiles and she says: "It's because Oprah has this bookclub where she tells people which books are good, which books to read and one day an author (I think she said Franzen or Foer) refused to be recommended by her so she was pissed and decided to only recommend books by dead authors from then on. And Faulkner is dead so she recommends it. But it's the same edition except that there's her name on the cover as well. It just appeals to a certain middle class... I told her we had Faulkner's books here but she only wants Oprah's edition. I can't tell you why. They are the same."

So later that day, I checked on the Net which of Faulkner's books Oprah thought people should read. And here we go: As I Lay Dying, Light in August and The Sound and the Fury. The latter is one of my favorites books, all categories. Of course, Absolom! is not in Oprah's list and it's no surprise. As for As I Lay Dying, it's one of Faulkner's easiest book so I'm not surprised. But I'd give a lot (well, if I had a lot, that is...) to see the face of that woman or any Oprah's fan trying to read The Sound and the Fury. I think that the opening pages of that book are amongst the most beautiful pages written by an American author. I have two copies of this book in France and none here, so from time to time I pick it up the shelve in a public library or a bookstore and read them.

Finally went home with a copy of Will Christopher Baer's book. For some reason, I can only read hardboiled fiction or minimalist writing these days.

Also these days, I have this urge to write, but I can't.

Downtown Express

I'm in the 4 or 5 downtown express train and I just can't focus anymore on the book I'm reading. It's around 3 in the morning and the train is almost empty and I'm slightly drunk. Just a little bit, really. Mostly, I'm worried.I have to constantly read again whole paragraphs and pages to remind me of who's who and what's going on. So I give up and turn around on the empty plastic bench so that I can lean my shoulder against the train's window. I stretch my arm on the plastic edge and put my mouth on my arm so I can rest my head and watch what's going on in the dark tunnels of New York's dirty belly. We're just a couple of minutes away from Brooklyn Bridge station when a local 6 train pulls up alongside us and the two trains ride together. For some reason the local is catching up on us and behind the glass there are those unknown people living their life in the neon lights of their car. Because of the mellow movement of the train (the trains on the 6 line are kinda new) and the darkness of the tunnel they seem to float in their bubble of bright light. Two different universes exactly the same.

And then the two trains rides along at the same speed and I realize that there's a girl sitting in the other train and we are exactly face to face, riding at the same speed and staring at each other. And it makes me want to smile and I see that the girl is trying hard not to smile too. And she is so cute, trying not to smile but not really succeeding. Then my train slows down and she disappears. 30 seconds later my train is catching up with hers again and here she is again and either her train is slowing down or mine is still accelerating but this time there'll be no face to face so I sit up and give her a 32-tooth smile and wiggle my fingers to say goodbye and this time she has a wild smile.

I couldn't describe her. Brown or dark hair attached. Mid-20s. And she was cute but not (or not only) because of her physical appearance but because she was one of those people whose inner beauty somehow shows to the outside world. Radiates.

*

* *

The train stopped shortly after at Brooklyn Bridge and I had to transfer to the J train. I didn't look for her as I exited the 6 train. I didn't hurry, but I didn't stop on the platform to check if it was her stop too. The reason is that this has been a shitty week if there ever was one. Nothing good happened (well, except Chuck Palahniuk's reading) and hopes were killed. I had truly enjoyed this little moment of complicity with that stranger, this was probably reciprocal, so why take the risk to ruin it?

When the J arrived, I sat down and opened my book again and found that the passage I was reading just before I started looking out the window in the 6 train was about marriage.

I sort of believe in the magic of the written word (which doesn't mean I believe in horoscopes) and then I had to admit that maybe I should have looked for her on the platform after all.

This girl was alive and it felt good.

you know that feeling

like you want to write real bad but whatever comes out just plain sucks so when the little box on the screen asks you whether you're sure you want to leave that unsaved page you just say "fuck yeah" and click OK and there's no more bad writing