phonophage

Without the Internet in my apartment, my life is only mediated a medium amount, but I make do with metalanguage. A viellard sold me a weathered one-euro copy of Ulysse for fitty cent, because "vous êtes jeune." I watch Le Mépris most nights.

Last weekend Jennie, Jen, Alexandre and I made vegetarian meals à la provençale, tanned on the terrasse, and (almost) went to a beautiful island. Jen and I struggled nightly with the clic-clac:

Me: Clic!
Jen: Clac?
Me: Did it clic?
Jen: Yeah but…how do we make it clac?
Alexandre: Mais putain, hit recline!

I told my kids my “un œuf” joke, once they unscrambled the French and the English they seemed to get it. Then they offered me one of their own; unfortunately, l’anglais a effacé l’anglais:

Man arab meets woman english, he dit, he says, You want do party with me tonight? She says, Never! He says, I cannot do never, but never et demi?

Eventually I got the pun on “never”/“neuf heures,” but...it was too late. Soon after this a friendly feud broke out between two boys who usually agree on everything (“We have already fuck,” “Sometimes we like films pornos,” etc):

Subira: I am African!
Mel: I am Asian!
Subira: I am African!
Mel: …

…I think that was it. My girls meanwhile were doodling, giggling, as I approached covered their paper but begged me, “S’il te plait, dessine-nous un sexe, on n’en a jamais vu!” I drew them one…it was beautiful, perfect color.

You can never go home again, but Romain has gone to Rome again (so homonym), meaning I will never see him again until he joins Facebook. On the way to our romaintic farewell dinner which we let Marwan come to, he remarked how there was no one around at night in Marseille, and feeling this was a good time to parody/perpetuate racism, I dutifully and ominously replied, “Sauf les Arabes!” Romain loved this, and, feigning fear, warned, “Y a des Mabouds partout!”, which Marwan (not Arab) loved too.