Lost in translation.

Can you really say anything about a nationality, in this modern, globalized age? Everyone watches American movies and listens to American music, we all eat watered-down Chinese food, are familiar with various Japanese anime, retain traces of French and German from our high school courses, have private obsessions with the KGB or the Bay of Pigs or some other historical niche. So how am I really American? What little tics distinguish me?

F. and I end up spending a lot of time discussing culture--French and American, up against each other. He's fiercely proud of la France and grumpily critical of American culture, making for lots of long conversational deconstruction, in which I attempt to explain why we do this-or-that, frequently when I'm not even sure myself. Why are we so fat, why, why? He's deeply perturbed, as most intelligent people are, by the average amount of television-watching. I give him what I think is the answer--well, you see, people work so hard here, spend so much soul-crushing time at work, that they're just too tired when they get home and there's not often a lot to do in small towns so they just collapse in front of the television, eat their dinner, and get up and do it again the next day. And then on the weekends they have a little time and money so they buy cheap plastic shit.

But then he looks so depressed and the question morphs into how? How? How can people live like that? Why don't they just KILL themselves? Which is so dramatic (and, as I think in my head, French) I have to laugh.

Then he tells a story of quintessential American culture. He takes the stairs to the third floor while a colleague takes the elevator--he arrives a few minutes later and the colleague notes, "You're making me look lazy!" This he laughs off but privately takes as a deep and meaningful example of the American mentality. The colleague doesn't make himself look lazy, he is only lazy in the context of F.

Of course, F. doesn't constantly walk around bemoaning the state of American culture, or he wouldn't be terribly fun to be around. And he's happy to try new things and accept the things he likes. Like Johnny Cash. And s'mores. But if the topic of culture comes up and I ask, he's happy to share his opinion, which is often touched with despondency.

Last night it was the French and the Germans, and we pseudo-playfully traded barbs on both sides. I asked what the French thought of the Germans. The Germans are bureaucratic and narrow-minded, he explained, while the French are resourceful. The French are stuck-up, I pointed out. He thought about this for a moment, and then agreed. The rest of the night, after making a statement, I qualified it with, but then again, I'm narrow-minded.

It was an odd conversation, not particularly bitter but leaving both of us feeling a little off. Today he sent an apology for his remarks, saying he was feeling sad, tired, and missing home.

It had seemed fun to compare culture before, but now it seems a bit tired. It seems we're all equally products of our own culture and the ones we seek out for ourselves--I am American but academic, nerdy, a rural-to-urban transplant, a hundred nuanced things. He is modern, and so he's the same.

Though I love his distinguishing flourishes. His complete security in his masculinity, without the need for a box of testosterone-fueled cultural supports. His unshakable sense of responsibility.

Still, he's not French and I'm not American, we're individuals, he's a guy and I'm a girl, he makes sound effects and I pull lint off his shirts.

We'll let it rest for a while.

springtime sickness

Ugh.

Monday afternoon I caught something. I felt it settling down in me at work, where I suddenly got very tired, very achy, very hot. I pressed through my intern meeting and my Global Warming lab, went for hot & spicy Korean soup with A., and finally got home around 8, where I fell into a sleep until getting a message from F. who wanted to come over for "tea & cuddling", which is one of the few activities we have time for during the week (barf if you want, I won't hold it against you). My desire to see him trumped my desire to sleep, but I did finally go to bed around 11. I woke up the next morning still tired, my throat raw and swollen, coughing, difficult to swallow, but mostly just in pain. It feels like the same epically shitty throat stuff I had during mono. And remember how I hated the mono? God, I hated the mono.

Technically it's Thursday (5am and I'm on my third lozenge) and I'm still dealing with this, having missed classes and work since Tuesday. Two days of sleep and finishing my book, of Facebook and Hulu, of lozenges and hot tea. People have stayed away and that's probably better, as I'm probably contagious and smelly. Definitely unwashed.

I think I've really put in my time with sickness. For a while, every day after mono I was sending out vibes of gratitude that I was healthy again, letting the universe know I was thankful. But then I stopped. Maybe that's why I got sick again? Is Karma putting me in my place?

A little bit harsh, Karma.

the fern unfurls.

In the past month, I have gone to Arizona, turned in my BA, gotten a haircut, gotten A's in all my classes, made a fire, and started dating someone. Happy springtime.

Did you see how I threw that in there--"started dating someone"--as if it weren't totally antithetical to how my life works and earth-shatteringly different and unlikely with my luck? As if I have ever really, consistently been dating one person? As if it weren't so strange as to be almost experimental?

I suppose it is. Experimental, that is. It is new (a few weeks old, now), fragile. He has relationship anxieties, I have relationship anxieties. We don't launch into long, emotional praises and reassurances. But we want to be kissing each other. So here we are, slowly navigating the dating terrain (and such new terrain!) while looking out for sharks and wildebeest. (Imagine us in khaki adventuring outfits, please. I am.)

Here's what I will tell you about him: He rarely drinks alcohol or coffee, but he has a kitchen drawer devoted to cocoa. His head is framed in cherubic brown curls. He is French. He is a teaching assistant in my Global Warming course, but he is not my TA (except he actually is, de facto-style). He is 6'2". He is in a play, is over half-way through "War and Peace", writes fiction. His bedroom is spotless and the shirt he sleeps in is under his pillow. He laughs at my French pronunciation, when I get brave enough to do it. He freely criticizes American food, and then shamelessly pulls out a box of Cookie Crisp to feed me with in the morning. He smiles frequently. He is frustrating. He is cute.

We will call him F.

F. and I are dealing with what I have termed a low-maintenance relationship. We date only each other but we do not monopolize each other's lives. We see each other when possible but we do not have talks about The Future. We are trying to do that thing where we enjoy each other's company without owning each other. It is low-pressure and frighteningly natural for me, the perpetually-single. I am not in love with him. But I like him a lot.

Of course, exploring the terrain of a relationship is new for me in almost every way. Lately I've been noticing that my own identity starts to grow fuzzy when I'm with him--it's as though it becomes ungraspable--what is it? What do I care about? What do I do? I have enough trouble with this when alone, but F. is the unshakable, regimented soldier of science. He's in the lab in the morning and at night, has a fangirl-like devotion to his elusive and brilliant advisor. He's building up material for a paper. His spare time schedule is filled out like he's at summer camp--three hours of rehearsal here, dancing on Friday nights, squash on X days, a day or two set aside for writing, and me after his activities, to drink tea with, to kiss. He approaches life like he knows exactly what he's going to do with it.

I'm glad of it, but it makes me wonder what I'm doing in comparison. He writes more than I do, and he's the geophysicist (geochemist, actually, I think) to my pseudo-journalist. My future feels a little like the valley below a cliff, and I'm teetering on the edge. I have a thousand interests and nothing is screaming for my attention. My goals involve what I'm making for dinner tomorrow night. I fear being herded into a secretarial position, pushing papers around a desk, getting put in the place of someone who doesn't know what they want.

F. is low-pressure, is fun, is warm and affectionate. But involvement with him is making me believe I better figure out what I want--and fast.