we live in switzerland!

Our apartment is cute, made cuter by scrubbing, airing out, and adding our own. The neighborhood is laid out like a tree branch, with one big street and lots of alleys and side roads winding up and down the hills, even under buildings. Last night we found a pizza place and a store that sells baskets, honey, and beans, just steps from the library where we've been meeting to walk home at night.

The library is where I am now and where I'm planning to go most days. It's a medium-sized library two and a half flights up, inside a big building, Palais de Rumine. The first time I came, I missed the library and ended up in an atrium full of Museum of Natural History-style taxidermied mammals and birds. There's also a cafe in here, with the most affordable sandwiches in Lausanne.

The reading room at the library has long blond wood tables (no veneer here) with individual reading lamps and laptop plugs. It's perfectly quiet. In the past nearly two years, it's been hard for me to write. Sometimes it has felt like I've forgotten how I ever got words onto the page, turned pages into a cohesive something. I have felt stuck, unable to make anything. But I've also felt trapped by the obligations that my writing has produced in my life: papers, screenplays, reports, treatments, stories, instructional resources... more and more, the obligations began to overwhelm me, and I wished for the freedom of pre-graduate school life. Had the last few years of my life been a mistake? I thought, if I could only have a semester free of work, free of new obligations, I could catch up, I could finish. But I also thought that I was kidding myself: that something deeper was wrong.

Well, maybe it was, maybe it is: I looked at the wikipedia page for "Writer's Block"; a neurologist thinks she's found a brain-related explanation. All kinds of things can make the creative mind falter and struggle. But this is about more than creativity, it's about catching up, getting organized, getting free: working. And even when I can't find anything else to inspire me, I am inspired by a desire for my friends and loved ones to see me productive, thriving; not failed, not lazy. Working.

So, I sit here at a desk on the mezzanine of the reading room at the library and I type. It's mostly fits and starts, with some bursts of inspiration. Doing silly things like writing emails or posting to my tumblr sometimes helps if I'm feeling stuck. I don't know if I believe the neurologist, but still, it reminds me of what people say about re-learning to walk or talk after a brain trauma, at least metaphorically: your neural pathways adapt, networks shift, and (hopefully) some day your limbs or words are your own again. Until then, I'll keep working through the fits and starts and see what I can make happen.

que onda lausanne

Switzerland is the Orinda of Europe. Orinda is a town I used to pass on the BART the autumn that I lived in Walnut Creek. It has a movie theater marquis that looks beautiful from the train, and people say it's one of the most desirable places to live in northern California. I often thought about what it would be like to live there, although I never actually got off the train to look around.

Here, people are really friendly at the bank, and at the supermarket everyone calls you "madame" and tells you to have a good weekend in French that's as sing-songy as my elementary school French teacher's.

Lausanne, the city I'm going to live in, is pristine and boring-looking, with a mixture of nineteenth-century apartment buildings that have big windows (kind of Paris style, but frillier) and 1970s Euro apartment blocks.

We're going to be living in a Euro apartment block, but for right now we're staying in a town about 20 minutes from Lausanne on the train, with an American expatriate who got laid off from her finance job in Geneva that she moved here for from Paris last year. She sits on her patio and smokes and talks to her other expatriate friends back in Paris on the phone. I've been cooking a lot, missing home a little, swimming in the lake, and trying to avoid spending any money whatsoever.

It's hard to remember what the new apartment looks like, because we only saw it quickly last Thursday, after a week of apartment-related rejections and immediately after seeing a share occupied by a Polish science graduate student, a ferret and a cat, and by the time we got to this place (our place) I think we both felt too desperate to judge the tile floors and peach-colored wardrobe too harshly. When the woman told us she was offering it to us, I didn't believe it would really work out. I still don't completely believe it, but something clicked for me when we went back to the building on Saturday and accidentally met the super, and he knew about us: the young American couple.

On the streets of Lausanne ladies wear bright colored jogging suits and sit at outdoor cafes with purebred dogs and shopping bags. The public art features giant squirrels, swirls, dream-catchers, and "murals" made out of different kinds of plants.

But on our street there's an Asian grocery store that sells jars of pickled shrimp and giant spiky fruits, and a Salvation Army. Down the street you can buy young coconuts for only 3.50, which would be a good price anywhere. I think this apartment, whatever it actually looks like, is going to be a nice place to sit and write, listen to neighbors talking, and drink coffee while it gets cold outside.

Come visit!

Beerito Nights

I'm moving to Switzerland tomorrow! This may come as a surprise to some regular readers of zoelikespets, but some of you already know.

Tonight, I had my annual check-up and now I'm drinking iced coffee and listening to David Byrne, packing up some boxes of my mom's old clothes and my old clothes that a Japanese woman I found on the free-cycling message board is coming to pick up.

Last week, the reason I am moving to Switzerland came to visit me in New York. He learned about Brooklyn, saw how crazy my family is, and helped me eat enough Mexican food to last us a year.

Last month (August!) I went to Florida to staycation with the family of the reason I'm moving to Switzerland and got tan enough to last me a year, then went to Louisiana and got mosquito bitten enough to last me a year. It goes without saying that I met some real great people, fell in love with some dogs and some places, and also that now I talk like a southerner (a fact that was confirmed by Mara last week).

This summer I taught some kids who I thought would be less bratty than other kids I've taught, because they were "underprepared," but who turned out to already be prepared (personality-wise, at least) to attend one of our nation's elite institutions. I also took NJ Transit a bunch of times, which led to me setting a record re: getting depressed on/about public transportation, and made me disillusioned about WaWa too.

Tomorrow I will wake up, get a leg wax, buy a camera, eat lunch with my dad, take yoga, maybe say goodbye to some neighborhood friends, go to the airport, and get on a plane!

I hope they have kombucha and watermelons in Switzerland!

Seven weeks of river walkways

In other news, I still haven't seen that Harry Potter movie, or Star Trek, or the Woody Allen movie with Larry David! I'm annoyed by everyone who tells me the Woody Allen movie is terrible when I tell them I want to see it. To me, that's like if you were eating Cheetos and you offered me some, and I said "ugh, Cheetos are gross." Or if you offered me a sip of your Coke, and I told you that it contains high fructose corn syrup.

Um, another thing that annoys me are those blogs about misspelled signs. "Panini's" is not funny. It's nice that you're good at noticing spelling/punctuation errors, but taking pictures of them and then writing captions like "oh, you have panini's? Do you also have salad's and soup's?" makes you sound like a proofreader who just got laid off from their job and is angry with the world. The only part of it that is funny to me is that the people who made those signs probably don't care about spelling as much as the spelling bloggers do, and would probably actually think it was weird or even funny that someone else was making it into a big deal. In your FACE, spelling bloggers.

Seven weeks of reading papers, seven weeks of feeling guilty

This summer I have a job that is lucky but at the same time boring and annoying. I guess that's how it's been with all my summer jobs, but this time there are no friends to bet on horses/sing karaoke/eat tapas with... just co-workers who gather once a week, when we're all in town at once, to eat nachos and drink pinot noir and complain about students.

The job is in New Jersey, and at first I was planning to stay there for the whole summer, but after one weekend in an empty dorm building, having ghost-y nightmares and irritable days (possibly fueled in part by the new antihistamine I was taking), I realized I couldn't handle a summer of silent contemplation in the Garden State and became a weekend commuter, staying with my dad or friends and toting my laundry around to wash for free in the basement of the dorm, right next to the university's radio station.

I thought it would be relaxing not to have to worry about having an apartment, but it's annoying. I feel like I'm forgetting something, and I kind of feel like I've already forgotten something. My stuff is stored in four places, so I'll probably never know for sure. When I left for Paris, I was in a hurry. Last week I looked for my mom's wedding ring and couldn't find it, but I didn't really get too worried. I'm sure it's in some other jewelry box inside some other carton in some other closet. I found my French press instead, and made some coffee.

I'm staying at my dad's this weekend and I've been cleaning out the kitchen. High up on a stepstool-accessible shelf is cookware that my mom packed up in plastic bags, to keep away the greasy kitchen dust, and labeled: juicer, ice cream maker, ceramic dishes, birthday napkins, espresso machine. I think she always imagined that someday she'd have a kitchen big enough. Now, my juicer is up there next to hers, unbagged, gathering dust and I'm using a vegetable brush to scrub the smudged fingerprints my dad never notices off glasses and plates, scrape the tea stains off spoons and mugs.

The disappointing unremarkable-ness of this summer is a letdown. I was hoping it would be something that it's not -- I was hoping I'd get swept up. I keep hoping for something really fulfilling, maybe even amazing, but I keep ending up on the train, by myself.

If there's such a thing, I'm an expectation addict. I love to dream about the future -- it makes me feel creative and focused. I like to believe that someday I will have a big enough kitchen, or even if I don't, that someday after that, I will. I like to think that everyone will get along in the future -- not, like, worldwide, just the ones that are around me. I've been trying to live in the moment, on the couch, out of a suitcase, not knowing where I'll be in one month or six months or a year, but I don't think like it. It scares me. It bores me. Spontaneity is rad, but is it really spontaneous if it doesn't interrupt some plan that you thought you had?

On Wednesday I bought a plane ticket, out of New York. The idea is, I'll be gone for the year. The idea wasn't mine, but the plan is mine now. My plan is, I go away to Europe for a year, and when I come back, maybe I won't come back to New York at all. Maybe I'll go to Los Angeles, or New Orleans, or some pond upstate. Maybe I've got it even more than that all figured out already, but I'm just not going to tell you. It's all gonna go down the way I figured it out, or maybe something else will happen. I will try to keep you posted.

Arts In Review

You know that Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon Levitt movie that's all about how their characters' relationship doesn't work out? (In case you haven't heard of it, that's not a spoiler, that really is, supposedly, what the movie is all about.) Well, I just don't understand why anyone would waste Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon Levitt on a movie about BREAKING UP.

It is almost as bad as how that movie "Pumpkin" used every single Belle and Sebastian song from "If You're Feeling Sinister," and now every time I hear those songs in other movies I think of special needs athletes.

I heard this song was about art

The year was 1999.

Fringe, cowboy hats, and bedazzled clothing were making heads turn.

Bill Clinton was getting good press despite his recent impeachment hearing.

The Yankees swept their second World Series in a row.

Hilary Swank was in the prime of her career.

People really liked "American Beauty."

The music world seemed lost (well, except for that one Smog album). But then, as 1999 drew to a close, America witnessed a musical event that held all the promise of the new millenium:



Now, I am not trying to dispute the fact that Christopher Cross is an amazing musician, or that he has a voice of gold. But please, just watch this and try to tell me that the cover is not a worthy tribute to the original. First of all, look at J.C. Chasez jamming with C.C. at 2:00... you know he is a fan. Second, the Jesus poses. Third, how awesome were the late 90s? The Billboard Awards had so much money that they could just fly everyone over the audience... twice.

This one goes out to the haters, and the lovers. You know who you are. And so does J.C.

Hi.

I'm back from France! But I am living in New Jersey, working. It is picturesque, like what David Byrne warns against in many Talking Heads songs, but I miss Paris and, yes, Parisians. Even fake Parisians.

Cannes, canettes

I got to Cannes on Monday and had to walk uphill for like a million years to the cruddy vacation rental where we're being put up.

I forgot an important dress in Paris, my camera broke, I fell down and gave myself a burn-unit on my ankle and a goose-egg on my elbow, my sunglasses suspiciously disappeared during a fancy luncheon, my internship moved offices without telling me, and I still think French people are ehh. But then last night, I was running errands for my (found) internship, and outside the Palais des Festivals I saw dozens of excited people in eveningwear holding up signs saying "just one invitation please for Up."

We went to the late show, I snuck my camera in to take pictures of us in 3-d glasses and fancy dresses, and I cried during almost the whole movie, because it had Ed Asner and balloons and dogs and birds and a fat little Asian kid.

Now I'm sitting in a beach-view suite filled with tacky glass and red metal furniture, looking at pictures of puppies snuggling with a squirrel and trying to decide what to have for lunch for the next month.

This came from another part of the world.

It is made out of particles from Africa, Europe, and America!

I am excited because I am going to Paris in one week! Look for me in business class, wearing a onesie.

You might have heard that I like pets

There is a bunny in Alabama looking for a home for Easter. Also, a Blue Heeler.

Elsewhere, some kids were recently late to their babysitter, an angry lady threw a bunch of stuff around, and some puppies are missing!

But if you were worried about what the world is coming to, don't be, because this Australian Cattle Dog swam five miles through shark infested waters, survived on an island called Saint Bees (who is Saint Bees??) for months by eating wild goats, and then got rescued and went back to normal!





Okay, seriously, who is Saint Bees???

Popover and kefir sales are down...

Last night Whole Foods celebrated Earth Hour by turning off "non-essential" lights in the store. I was there on the scene at the Union Square Whole Foods, where the Earth Hour Promise was translated as killing the lights in the bagel/scone case, the refrigerated dairy case, the leafy green vegetable wall. Not dimmed were the lights in the frozen food case, over the salad bar, and... everywhere else.

In other "green news," the new issue of Metropolitan Home is about eco-friendly construction and renovation. The highlights for me: lots of cedar-slat screens, a modernist organic community garden in Napa, cargotecture (container architecture) and some meatball recipes.

In me news, you might already know that I just got back from Morocco, but you might not know that I am addicted to the paddle ball game that came with my phone. I started playing it on the airplane home, and now, I play it on the subway to avoid thinking about the messed up train schedules and annoying commuters.

Your mission (or, ARG)

From: xxxxx

Date: February 24, 2009 2:35:39 PM EST

To: Zoe

Subject: Documentary Film Project Opportunity

Emmy Award Winning Creator of Word World on PBS Kids Seeks Documentary Team to Record the Creation of a New, Innovative, Tween Property:

The creator and CEO of Emmy Award winning Preschool series Word World, which airs on PBS Kids, is ramping up to launch a new, technology-based tween entertainment property. It's partially funded by the Department of Education, and teaches literacy through an entirely new genre: experiential fiction, or "x-fi": an interactive story format that offers new, more meaningful ways for fans to interact with media. The property simultaneously features animated TV storytelling, webisodes, mobile applications, gaming and content, graphic novels, online gaming experiences which influence the outcome of the overall "mission", collector cards, a peer-to-peer social network that includes blogging, emails, and texting, and offline components including real world challenges, meetings and prizes to be sent directly to kid participants.

The development team of this property is comprised of best in class creators: an Emmy award winning TV producer, an MIT expert in gaming, an urban fashion and lifestyle mogul,a creator of Spawn and Batman, and an inventor of the Alternate Reality Game (or ARG) movement -- the creator of the first well known ARG called "The Beast".

We are looking for a student or group of students with a strong interest and some background in documentary. If interested, please contact xxxxx at xxxxx@blablabla.com with a resume, a brief essay explaining why you would like to be involved in the project, and preferred method of contact. If you meet the qualifications, you will be contacted for an interview.

No Fat, No Sugar, No T.I.

The organic pastry flour was sold out at Whole Foods, so instead of baking I made a mix !

I'm Not Your Neighbor (Questionable and Cutesy Mix '09)
Barstool Blues - Neil Young
Sugar on My Tongue - Talking Heads
Tourist in Your Town - The Pink Mountaintops
Just Us - Cam'ron
Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window - Bob Dylan
Wig Wam Bam - The Sweet
The World's a Mess, it's in My Kiss - X
Lover Lover Lover - Leonard Cohen
Steal Away - Mary J. Blige
Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes - Paul Simon
Shake Some Action - The Flamin' Groovies
Is it Really So Strange - The Smiths
Hounds of Love - Kate Bush
Oh Yoko - John Lennon
Papa Was a Rodeo - The Magnetic Fields
Here Comes the Sun - Nina Simone
4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy) - Bruce Springsteen


Happy Valentines Day to you!

I'm at the airport and I just went to the saddest Jamba Juice ever: that song 'Heartbeats' by the Knife was playing... Over and over. At first I was psyched, but then the reality of the situation became clear. Now I never want to hear that song again.

I'm going to Mexico, p.s.

There are lots of children, foreigners, and old people on this flight, and one of the stewardesses is very high strung. But who cares, because in 6 hours I'll be eating mangoes and sitting in a palapa wearing a sun dress.

Omg, I think possibly all the children on this plane are one family.

Anyways, so long, suckas!

What excites the French?

I have so many questions about this, but I don't know where to start.

Do you remember how you felt when you learned how the eyeball works, visited the Sagrada Familia, got to the end of "Planet of the Apes," or found out how much people care about purses? You know, like, "I thought I understood this world, but now, looking at this unfinished cathedral that's still being built, I realize that it is vast and mysterious, and I will never really understand it." That's how I feel when I watch this video.

Where's Jill Zarin?

"In our Western tradition, the exemplary case of a traumatic Real is the Jewish Law. In the Jewish tradition, the divine Mosaic Law is experienced as something externally imposed, contingent, and traumatic--in short, as an impossible/real Thing that "makes the law." What is arguably the ultimate scene of religious-ideological interpellation--the pronouncement of the Decalogue on Mount Sinai--is the very opposite of something that emerges "organically" as the outcome of the path of self-knowing and self-realization. The Judeo-Christian tradition is thus to be strictly opposed to the New Age gnostic problematic of self-realization or self-fulfillment: when the Old Testament enjoins you to love and respect your neighbor, this does not refer to your imaginary semblable/double, but to the neighbor qua traumatic Thing."
-Slavoj Zizek




Highlight for me: the Lubavichers chanting "What do we want? Moshiach!" and then realizing it would be totally controversial to say "When do we want it? Now!"

From Alternet.

Your cultural liaison

Watching "Notorious" was kind of like watching the new 90210: the whole thing is awesome, but the most exciting parts are when someone I know is mentioned by name (David Silver, Clive Davis) or shows up on-screen, wearing a nametag (Kimberly Jones!) from their job in a department store.

Okay, maybe the new 90210 isn't "awesome." But aren't you a little worried about Adrianna?

I was annoyed when I got home because my downstairs neighbors were having a party, and I am so sleepy that I even thought about going downstairs in my pajamas and asking them to keep it down, even though I'm opposed to that on principle. But they totally killed it themselves about 10 minutes ago with some acoustic guitar harmonies. Wait, now someone is on their balcony talking about Marc Ruffalo. God bless America!

Cute and wonderful

Well, I'm back! It's weird. It's 2009. So far, so good.

One of my resolutions was to wake up by 8:00 AM even if I didn't have to leave the house. That's working out for me, but so far I don't really know what to do with myself when I wake up. I guess I'll figure that out next week.

Another resolution was to be kinder to myself. Sometimes, that means being unkinder to others. With this in mind, I would like to discuss some of the things that annoyed me most in 2008:

• People who do not appreciate mysteries. I mean, maybe there is a wikipedia explanation for how the animals got to Prince Edward Island or what happens to "plastic" cups and forks made of corn and potato, but I don't need to know it. It is a mystery (to me), something to be meditated upon (by me) through the ages (of 2008). Respect is due.
• People who do not appreciate "Drops of Jupiter" by Train as a karaoke song. If your initials are D.C., I guess you get a free pass on this one.
• People who do not push the yellow tape on the bus door, causing the bus doors to slam shut in the face of the person behind you. Are you retarded?
• People who wear their backpacks on public transportation instead of putting them on the floor so there is more room for their fellow commuters. This annoys me so much that I have learned to say "please take your backpack off and rest it on the floor" in both French and Spanish. Unfortunately I think it is mostly Germans and Northern Europeans who do this.
• The g.d.m.f. 1 train.
  
• Tokion magazine and the Creativity Now conference, and especially the special Creativity Now issue of Tokion that I accidentally read at the Palais de Tokyo. All the writing in there, it's like the "House of Style" (Cindy Crawford years) of art/fashion magazines.
• Timid drivers who edge into my lane on the Williamsburg Bridge because they are... what? Afraid they'll run into a post and knock the bridge down?
• People who "donate their status" on facebook to a particular political argument about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, as if it's another presidential election with two (or three) clear-cut "sides," rather than the complex human rights and ethics issue that it actually is.
  
• Self-absorbed PhD students that I have to deal with every day. There, I said it. Thank goodness I have Tuesdays off this semester.

Ugh, I'm kind of over complaining about stuff now. So over it. Next time I'm stuck on the 1 train at 96th Street for 15 minutes, I'm not even going to notice.

Pamplemousse au lieu de citron

I have met the best ever Frenches and I will be sorry to leave! When I get home I promise to do an update with real photos, but in the meantime I will tell you what the French have made me less embarrassed to love:

les sandwiches
How I Met Your Mother
pudding
dogs
celery root
Aunt Becky from Sept a la Maison (Full House!!!)
Entourage, esp. Ari Gold (even though it is no use trying to explain to the French who Rahm Emmanuel is)
'Hos in Different Area-codes,' which plays constantly
Rem
Fanta

102, it's all true!

I can't believe my 100th blog post was a Square One video, and I didn't even notice!! That's so 2008. In 2009 I'm going to try to pay more attention to these things.

Breaking with tradition, I had a really fun New Year's Eve, which included a party on a roof right next to the Eiffel Tower and an open bar including champagne and guava juice. Despite all the challenges I face or feel like I face, I am so lucky and grateful for the life I have, and it's this kind of night that reminds me.

I have been thinking about my mom a lot recently, especially because it's the holidays, especially since I've been staying in a place that is so rich with memories and feelings of her. It's been a year now since I last heard her voice -- since anyone last heard her voice -- and almost a year since she passed away. It is a loss that I don't think I will ever come to terms with, but every day that passes in reflection I feel a little bit more capable of living the rest of my life, and I think that's something.

My mom used to talk to me about a healing meditation where you imagine a river circulating through your body, washing away toxins and bringing new health. I think grief can be like that if you let it stagnate, so maybe by letting myself really feel it, I'm bringing myself closer to renewal, or at least practicing a little preventative medicine.

When my mom was in the hospital I stayed at my parents' place. Their DVD player was broken and so my dad and I watched a few movies in my (old) bedroom, on the computer, including "Me and You and Everyone We Know," which my mom had liked and my dad had never seen. I'm sure everyone has seen this movie 50 times, but I love this opening, which popped into my head when I was walking down the street a couple days ago:



"it's life, and it's happening, it's really, really, happening."

2009 is fine!

That's my cousin and his daughter. As you can see, he's dedicated to the routine but she's all about the solo. Her ronde de jambe is pretty good, but her fouetté needs work... acceptable for a four-year-old!

EDIT Delia says: "i think she actually combines ballet, irish step, and indian at least... in that one move."