De Ce Monde Secret de l’ Amelie Americaine

I plead “the fifth” on this one. I’m not saying this is true and I’m not saying it isn’t true.

1) You won’t brush your teeth because it will wash away the taste of coffee off of your tongue and replace it with pasty baking soda. You don’t care if other people stand ten feet away. Java will always be your friend.

2) You buy coffee instead of food. When your body begins to shake from low blood sugar, you simply hold on to your desk, pour yourself another cup and push your tolerance to a whole, new level.

3) You go to one of the foreign meccas of coffee and return to the States unable to enter a Starbucks because their latte now tastes like weak, milky filth. You’re now a true connoisseur. Norm may of had his stool at Cheers, but the barista behind the counter definitely “knows your name.”

4) You calculate the amount of time it will take for you to get ready for work, not by how long it will take you to shower and dress yourself, but by how much time you’ll have to brew your first cup, sit down, and drink it. When you do get in the shower, (ten minutes before you have to leave), you take your coffee cup into the shower with you.

5) You become aware that you now own every type coffee maker ever invented. Some women buy $800 shoes and purses, and don’t pay their rent. You bought the latest Italian espresso maker in the sexy polished steel.

6) Your dentist doesn’t understand why you come into his office every six months with four new cavities. You don’t smoke or eat sweets. You justify this by saying that coffee is your only vice. Your dentist decides that he can count on you to pay his kid’s way through Stanford.

7) You know that you should give it up or cut back, but you fear that you won’t have the glowing, witty personality you exude when you’re on caffeine. In fact you don’t have any personality unless you take that first sip in the morning. You fear that your genuine grumpiness will get you fired or estrange you from loved ones.

You mistake coffee for sex because it’s the most stimulation you’ve gotten in a long time. Let’s face it you’re not getting any, you barely shower, your breath sinks, and when you smile your teeth are yellow.

9) The floor of your car is littered with so many empty paper coffee cups you can’t see it. Your friend sits in the passenger seat and asks you if you’ve ever thought about entering a 12-step program for caffeine addiction. You promptly deny that you have a problem.

10) But…you tally up the amount of money you spend every month on your habit and secretly make a promise to have more self control. That is, until you wake up the next morning and admit you can’t tolerate this world unless smells of java.

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Bette Davis once said that she never regretted any professional enemy that she made. She was an American Actress in the very competitive, caddy and exclusive world of movie making. These were not the ordinary and petty rivalries brought about by too much partying, fame and ego massage. These were calculated chess matches between icons that stood like towers and needed no introduction. Everyone in the room knew who they were when they arrived. They presented themselves with a class and dignity that I believe certain young actresses of today could benefit from.

In other words a rivalry was not something to be taken lightly. I can respect that kind of regard for your enemy. Emotions and words should not escalate unless it serves a more calculated purpose. To respond in an emotional way to a quick jab or insult means giving your opponent the upper hand and losing respect.

I’ve applied this wisdom to many different situations that I’ve been in with a wide variety of personalities both on the job and in my personal life. I thank my father’s third wife for being the master of the underhanded, highly dishonest, one, two verbal sting. And somewhere between plotting my revenge and total forgiveness, is an expansive grey area, where the nuance and truth of the situation lies. This why only time will tell if a sour interaction was a genuine misunderstanding or indicative of deeper disrespect.

In my professional life, this has been a career saver as huge egos and unrealistic expectations collide and the fiery debris falls down to those who support them. This is where you will find me, in the trenches below, putting fires out in my department, and accepting responsibility that isn’t always mine to accept, while also trying to go about my life’s work of making some kind of career for myself.

For some time I had been asking myself if there was a reason for all of this nonsense. I hadn’t been “kicked out to the curb” yet, but each new show brought it’s own unique set of challenges and indignities, and I wondered if I was losing ground like you lose the sand underneath your feet by an outgoing tide. You know the waters are pulling you out to sea, but you stand firmly as the swift current carves whatever sand it can take from underneath your feet. Before you know it, you have to balance yourself precariously until the the next wave brings in more.
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This is rather humorous take on life and culture shock in the South of France. I would encourage you (especially if you’re French) to go to An American in France’s website and say hello.

The number of French Flags on my StatCounter indicates that about half of my own readers live in France. In the coming weeks I’ll start to write some posts en français and I’m counting on you to give me tips on how I can improve my language skills. Tomorrow night I’ll begin weekly lessons at the Alliance Francais in New York. In true francophile dork-dom, I already purchase my textbook “Grammaire du Français” and completed the first 3 lessons. If you are French, please comment on posts in French, so that I have to communicate with you in your native tongue. Merci beaucoup! Wish me luck!

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My role has always been the one of the “The Confidant”. The quiet person who usually keeps her mouth shut and her eyes open. I feed on their trust, and let them ply my ears with their war stories, personal vendettas, and juicy bits of news, until my mind swells from the pressure of keeping too many secrets and I want to go hide so I can safely deflate my own unspent feelings. I’m a passive participator, taking in, but rarely putting it out there, unless I know it is safe.

Oh, I could write stories, as tall as a skyscrapers, but they wouldn’t be fairy tales or like the latest hollywood thriller whose plot turns on a dime, and leaves the viewer wanting more. They’d read like an item off of “Page Six”, and I doubt anyone I care about would appreciate their confidant publishing unpolished pearls from their lives on the web.

I could try to weave a half true tale that still communicates the feeling and virtue of all these stories, but how do I begin? How can I describe the many nearly invisible layers of sticky cob webs that require a further explanation in these limiting terms. Some bit of missing information would be an injustice to the main character. Undoubtedly leaving most readers confused.

My silence is my guard against ruin. I stand behind a piece of glass, a ticking clock watching the drama roll out in front of me. I do nothing, avoid controversy. This is my gate, keeping me safe within the carefully drawn lines of my own borders. They’re not my problems, yet they seem to go on…and I’m a little tired. It’s the same story told in different ways, with similar characters. There’s no escape, no concise clean ending, that sums up the experience of life. This is why I love movies. I know the reason for every twist and I can “ah ha, that makes sense!”

I wonder if in some small way I need gossip to tell my story? Who am I if I am not the confidant. And so I ask myself, “Do I own them or do they own me”?

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