Bon, je viens d’acheter deux billets pour Tindersticks! On m’a dit qu’il n’y aurait pas de premi�re partie mais qu’il y aurait un invit� surprise. J’ai devin�, et il para�t que j’ai devin� juste… On se demandait justement o� elle �tait pass�e celle-l� depuis son premier album qui avait connu un grand succ�s en 1997. �a promet!

My hands around your throat
If I kill you now
Well, they’ll never know.

Woa.

This new Tindersticks album is very good, and so are the varnish fumes. Can you smell them too? Trippy.

Maybe I should get out of the house and go buy tickets for the Tindersticks show at the Caf� Campus tomorrow night.

HIGHer power

I was having a good writing day yesterday when suddenly the house started shaking. It was as if God had finally decided to clean up this messy world, got his giant vacuum cleaner out and started with my place. I thought the wall behind my desk was about to fall down and my chair was vibrating (I have to admit this part was kind of fun). So I walked over the terrace to my next door neighbor’s place and saw that she was having her floors re-sanded. I sat back at my desk and continued working for an hour or so and then I just had to give up, went out of the house and got a pedicure. There’s nothing more reassuring than sitting on a chair that looks like some kind of a throne and having someone fuss over your feet after you’ve been afraid that God was about to suck your little person up to hell. ‘Cause you know, I don’t think he likes freelance writers very much.

Today the sanding noises are down, but now the workers are varnishing the floors. The fumes are slowly creeping into my apartment, making me oh, just so slightly light headed. So if some strange stuff starts appearing on this blog today, you’ll know why it’s there.

Survival of the smartest

BlindEye made an interesting social observation on his blog:

“When in a restaurant, I now take a quick look around to see who has their back to the wall. Invariably, it’s the women who have their back to the wall. I have no idea why this is. According to one theory, most humans prefer to eat with their back to the wall because they are vulnerable to attack when they are eating. With your back to the wall, no one can sneak up on you.”

I have another theory. Women have figured out that if their back is to the wall, then their date is facing the wall. That means the boy doesn’t get to check out the waitresses and all the other hot chicks in the place. There’s nothing worse and more insulting than talking to a man who has a bad case of the wandering eye.

Evolution, dear. It’s all about evolution. And survival of the smartest.

Ex-cruciating

My dislike of talking about ex-lovers with Chloe was perhaps part of the same phenomenon of wanting things to last for ever. These ex-lovers were reminders that situations I had at one point thought to be permanent had proved not to be so, and that my relationship with Chloe might undergo a similar fate. […]

The tragedy of love is that it does not escape the temporal dimensions. When one is with a current lover, there is a particular cruelty in the thought of one’s indifference towards past loves. There is something appalling in the idea that the person for whom you would sacrifice anything for today might in a few months cause you to cross the road to avoid them. I realized that if my love for Chloe constituted the essence of my self at that moment, then the definitive end of my love for her would mean nothing less than the death of a part of me.

From Essays in love, by Alain de Botton.

You are not alone in my shoes

I realized after I posted the previous story (see below) that a lot of other bloggers have linked to this article in the last few days. I hate when that happens. I feel like a person who points at her new shoes saying “Look at my cool shoes!” and then turns around and sees 10 other people on the street wearing the same pair, only better worn in.

Could it be that a lot of bloggers are actually freelance writers, or hoping-to-be freelance writers? I’ve always thought so. Who else would want to spend that much time writing for free?

Martine’s routine

I wake every morning at 7am. I make coffee and sit down with my boyfriend for a proper breakfast of yogurt and granola and fruit.

For the next nine hours, anything is possible.

From The Key to a Successful Freelance Career: A Diary, by Sarah Hepola. (linked via This Boy is Toast)

I recognized myself a lot in this funny article about the life of a freelance writer (except maybe for the fact that the television is not a temptation for me during the day, and I have only had one daytime glass of wine so far. So far…). I also do the same as this writer when my beau comes back “home” from work: I talk his ears off because he is often the only person I have talked to for a whole day. It lasts 10 minutes and then it’s his turn and then we both crash on the couch, dizzy with words and company. A few minutes later we talk about dinner, and we often end up eating out, because, well, by then, it’s kind of late and I haven’t been out all day. It’s fun! You should all try it!

La vie priv�e de Madame M.

Intuition ou coup de chance; la semaine derni�re j�ai d�couvert un couple parmi les carnets que je lis. Un des deux carnets de ce couple est �crit de mani�re anonyme de sorte que son auteur peut se permettre de parler de choses tr�s personnelles sans s�exposer et sans affecter l�autre blogueur.

J�ai beaucoup song� � cet anonymat cette semaine et je me suis surprise � envier ce statut. Je suis lue par des gens qui me connaissent ou qui ont appris � me conna�tre en me lisant. Vous savez donc o� je vis, ce que je fais dans la vie et qui je fr�quente. Ces limites ne sont pas tr�s graves puisque je n�ai jamais vraiment voulu faire de ce carnet un v�ritable journal intime et je ne ressens pas le besoin de partager toutes les facettes de ma vie. Je me sens tout de m�me limit�e dans mes propos. J�aimerais par exemple pouvoir vous parler davantage de ce sc�nario de film sur lequel je travaille, des points de vue qui divergeront sans doute � la premi�re lecture et des discussions, s�rement pas faciles pour moi, qui s�ensuivront. Mais comment pourrais-je �tre compl�tement honn�te (et donc int�ressante) si je sais que les gens avec qui je travaille peuvent avoir vent de mes commentaires et que �a puisse me nuire, professionnellement?

M�me chose pour le couple ou pour l�amiti�. Je pourrais bien parler de sujets intimes mais comme le tout n�est pas anonyme, tous se retrouvent impliqu�s autour de moi et du coup, par respect et par pudeur, je choisis de limiter mes propos. Encore une fois ce n�est pas bien grave : le Web n�a pas n�cessairement besoin d�un journal intime de plus et d�un point de vue cr�atif, j�aime bien prendre un peu de distance par rapport � ces exp�riences et en faire des textes th�matiques ou humoristiques plut�t qu�intimes. Du particulier vers l�universel : c�est une style qui m�a toujours plu.

Il me prend tout de m�me parfois des envies de pseudonyme, des d�sirs d�anonymat o� ma plume pourrait se faire plus libertine et mes commentaires plus acerbes. Un d�sir du masque sans la mascarade sociale, pour le jeu, le plaisir d��tre autre sans le poids du regard des autres. Il se pourrait donc un jour que vous tombiez sur un carnet anonyme et que ce soit mes doigts � moi qui aient c�d� � la tentation et qui s�amusent comme des petits fous � gambader sur le clavier…

De la beaut� du paysage urbain

Les voisins de B. en remettent. Apr�s s’�tre tous follement reproduits (et continuant d’ailleurs � le faire), voil� que c’est la voisine d’en bas qui m’offre un spectacle que je n’avais pas vu depuis les ann�es 70: Au moment o� je vous �cris, la voisine est install�e dehors, dans son jardin urbain, et elle inspecte les cheveux de son fils au peigne fin. � toutes les 10 secondes, elle trouve un pou, le tue entre ses doigts et le jette par terre. Le petit gar�on tient � peine en place et essaye de se calmer en serrant bien fort ses genoux contre sa poitrine (la sienne, pas celle de sa m�re, bien que maintenant, plus rien ne m’�tonnerait).

Question: Des poux, est-ce que �a grimpe les �tages?

L’amour � boire

D’abord y’avait Karl dont les mots m’avaient beaucoup touch�e cette semaine, puis Steph qui �tait l� pour lui et qui venait de s’acheter une toute nouvelle cam�ra avec laquelle elle allait continuer � faire ses merveilleuses images. Et puis la cam�ra est disparue, vol�e en quelques heures, et puis le h�ros amoureux s’est point� et puis il est question de duct tape et l� tout le monde pleure, moi y compris. Well, something like that.

Vous trouvez pas qu’il pleut d�j� assez comme �a? :-)