NUMBER EIGHT: Very Old Villages, Hilarity Ensues

At the beginning of sophomore year, Jessica and I debated the origins of Michael Brinkman's ostensibly silent persona. Jessica believed that Brinkman was constantly thinking wild, crazy thoughts and that he was really smart, while I maintained that nothing went on behind those guarded eyes. As first semester became second semester and second semester became late second semester, I found that Jessica was right-or at least, she was closer to the truth than I had been. Being silent leaves a lot of time for daydreaming...not that I, too, don't always daydream and think about stuff, but in France I find that I live more in my little imagination than on the actual French Riveria.

In about twenty years, an intimate group including Wimbo, Brett Dennen, and not M.I.A. (too loud, too drunk, too not classy-she holds down the fort back at home while we're gone) will pack barely anything and move to a tiny cottage in Haut Canges or St Paul (I have a house selected in each village, I haven't decided on which one we will actually live in just yet). Our days will include, but will not be limited to: playing music on the porch in small performances for the many tourists and passerbys to enjoy, drinking wine, being obnoxiously artsy, smoking cigarettes and mota, taking pictures, putting on little plays like a sixties mime troupe, and occasionally promenading around in full sixteenth-century garb. 

These towns are crazy. They have not changed in the hundreds and hundreds, possibly thousands, of years that they have existed. St Paul is like a fortress, a little castle on the mountains with breathtaking views of the valley and the mountains and the little beige houses below. The streets are narrow and cobbled with stones from the beach, arranged by some guy hundreds of years ago in the shape of little suns. The little suns on the ground are put in places so that they are hit by a circle of sunlight at different times of the day. The streets are filled with cafés and art shops crowded with the products of the inhabitants of the place, forty-somethings with tiny children that paint fantastic little murals on their tiny mail slots, have doors and windows in colors you can't even find in the US, and have little gardens, front doors covered in ivy, tiny garages where horses used to be kept. There are fountains (only they don't look like the fountains you're thinking of, mind you) that run fresh water, and have been doing just that for so long that those very vessels probably carried the Bubonic Plague. 

I wasn't completely silent all day; I made my first legitimately funny French joke! Laura, Victoria and I were eating lunch in Cagnes and Victoria and Laura were mooning over this guy. When Laura is happy, she does what is known as "faire le pigeon," which means that for some fucking reason, she purrs when she's happy. I cannot make this shit up. She was pigeoning-I guess that would be the verb in English-and I said, "Est-ce que tu le fais au lit?" I'll leave that up to you guys to translate, but it's funny. 

And speaking of jokes, Victoria's mom just asked if she could go in my bedroom, and from the living room, I said "I'm naked" but she went in anyway. She wanted to tell me a joke. The conversation went as follows:

ALEX in a strong french accent: I have a joke. 

ELISSA: Yes

ALEX: What is the difference between a stewardess and a chicken?

ELISSA: The chicken is smarter.

ALEX: No.  What is this part of the brain called? Here? 

            She points to her forehead.

ELISSA: Pituitary gland.

ALEX: No, no, noo-ron? Noo-rons?

ELISSA: Neuron, neuron.

ALEX: Yes, nerrons. She has one more nerron, the one that prevent her from shitting everywhere.